Also, since Croal was so kind as to link to my thinking, it’s only fair if I direct you to his latest Big Idea column, one I eagerly awaited since he’s recently been on vacation. He cites three writers arguing that the gaming press can be too tough on control issues and mechanics in exciting an innovative new games. By comparison film reviewers were more forgiving and often championed weird new styles that often sacrificed technical proficiency.
First off, since I rather liked the demo, I should throw in his critique of Mirror’s Edge. It’s fairly widely repeated. I think I’ll still get it, but buyer beware.
From where we sit, the core mechanics of Mirror's Edge--the locomotion, or movement, of the main character--are exceedingly well implemented. The same is true for the twinning of the player and the camera. The shooting mechanics, however, are shockingly mediocre for a studio whose history and expertise lie in first-person shooters. As for the hand-to-hand combat, it's certainly well-animated and pleasing to the eye. Yet it's also both perfunctory and unforgiving, which means that it's somewhat satisfying when you get it right and thoroughly irritating when you get it wrong.
His larger point is that while innovation should be rewarded in reviews, it already is, and the concentration on mechanics is completely fair. “We see games with our hands. In other words, not only do mechanics matter .. but mechanics are also improvable.”
I do think graphics classically are given too much emphasis, often to the detriment of the rest of the game. But I agree that mechanics are different. They are the core of the game. Admittedly, I do think some independent film styles screwed with the fundamentals of film, but also film is a much more mature medium. When bad mechanics happen people often don’t seem to realize the rules they’re breaking.
Also, bizarrely, from what I’ve read in Mirror’s Edge the mechanics sometimes undermine the innovation:
As Penny Arcade's Tycho put it, "The main problem is that I love what they've done with the art and with the style of play, but when they start hounding me with these snipers and S.W.A.T. motherf---ers it quickly becomes a game I don't want. I guess the idea is to make it more exciting, but I was already having fun."
In this case, the criticism should help future innovators who need to stand up to people demanding traditional elements. From what I’ve heard, Assassin’s Creed had the exact same problem with lots of combat at the end implemented via an inferior combat system. Heck, again chiding the genuine masterpiece Beyond Good and Evil, why the heck was there no stealth options for the final boss fight? Thief pulled it off.
Anyhow, one other thought for any Mirror’s Edge sequels. Everyone seems to agree that the game gets more fun on repeated play-throughs, the real problem is the trial and error while needing to move fast at the start. This seems like a great reason to implement a more open world design that makes repeated use of some settings, letting you learn them and then go through them again under harsher circumstances. Ideally later on there wouldn’t just be cops to get in your way, but level design training wheels removed. That said, I don’t think Faith picks up new moves throughout the game, so it’s harder to make repeated features of the same area interesting.
I think I disagree with the both of you, on the overall. I think it's because Croal and you, oddly enough, are being a bit weird about the difference between criticism and the '4 stars or die' stupidity that dominates the current media atmosphere, and their inability to adjust to it, or to engage with it, or to understand that criticism doesn't mean panning a game in the numbers. That said, it doesn't look as if this is getting ridiculously panned, but... I'm going to argue against the arguments a bit, because they're bugging me. Longwidness ho.
Almost every review says that, for example, the core of the idea, the feel of parkour, is abso-fucking-lutely amazing. In that sense, the core innovative component was an absolute success, and it is something people should absolutely experience, or so the critics seem to want to imply (or outright state.) And then Croal argues that that's not enough, and beating it down into the point where it shouldn't be bought would be absolutely justified (whether that's happening or not.) One fairly understandable misstep on several possible issues, and then the innovation goes away for the same reason that people say they can't play these long games and pay $60 bucks: because it's all an investment and if you aren't playing, they won't be paying to make you play. Nobody argued you can't criticize them, and we all know that, but that's what one component of the arguing against this PoV was, and it was suitably defensive.
It isn't as if we don't have history on this. There are many games which are singled out as 'innovative' in the past (10+ years ago?) but were extremely to ridiculously imperfect. But some people found them fun, stepped past their imperfections, used them to inspire greater stuff in the future. Would it not be beneficial to future criticism, future game development, if we were capable of making that clear? If we could, say, effectively criticize games for more than where the controller meets the hands so that those criticisms would be useful to the designers that critical commentary is supposed to aid without hamstringing them financially? We're all cognitive misers, after all. Why make it so that it takes lots of effort to understand what you're saying?
But no, the argument's been relegated to the 'What dumb people! How dare they not understand that games are about the playing, and be all 'academic' and 'college' and such!' box. Look at the argument from the other side. People complain about how nobody's being 'good innovative' AND set the bar for 'good innovative' as 'better than most games out there on base, and then having to do something completely new and succeed with it in any way' (inconsistently, at that, which I'll get to in a moment.) Look at how people go, 'Oh, well, Valve did it in one case.' 'Oh, well, Blizzard did it in that case.' Must one be an exceptional-on-all-fronts game designer to be ALLOWED to innovate without being massively penalized, and have people be steered away from your game by your ever-so-objective-and-benevolent criticism? By that standard, no wonder people don't innovate. It would almost never pay except for those great gods of gaming that never do anything wrong.
There's definitely some issues to deal with in the world of soundbyte games journalism on this, of course, but Croal doesn't seem to engage with that to me. If you're going to engage with this imperfect system, before it's changed, you're going to need to put in some extra effort to reward the people you think need to be rewarded for what they've done, while making the aspects they need to do better also clear.
Here's a great example. Metal Gear Solid is chock full of stupid repetitive death in situations where stupid repetitive death doesn't make any damn sense at all, and goes against the entire character concept and setting, over and over and OVER and over and over and OVER for anyone who would normally play the game. If you've played the game, you've heard the death screams of your own character and codec a thousand times. And I LIKE MGS. But what's the difference between MGS and Mirror's Edge in execution perfection? I am not sure anyone could objectively say, but one of them was so fucking awesome despite MYRIAD gameplay flaws, and reloads, and destroying the idea of this 'super stealthy guy who just happens to set off alerts everywhere and get gunned down and killed or fall off edges randomly' and the other was just not fucking good enough, even though they both built on similar things, similar ideas of executing perfection, but Mirror's Edge just took the HARDER route with less compromises and did it BETTER as far as I can tell from every critic, but still, boo to Mirror's Edge, worse reviews, etc, etc. (The two games are very similar and I think people should think about that.) It is worth thinking about how un-objective such things actually are, and how giving one the great rating and one the lousy rating shapes the future of the game.
Lemme leave you with a final note on what the grading system and the lack of consideration of this nature of reviews causes. Here is the 1up summary, based on the words, the A- grade given, and the context in which it's given (IE: Other games, Fallout 3 having a A). 'Must play game. Worse than Fallout 3, another innovative but BUGGY, etc. imperfect game. 'Is that the message people wanted to send? I don't think it is. But there you go. One kind of innovation rewarded, the other punished, even though both are supremely imperfect.
(Or, alternately, not that I think he should, 'Why isn't N'Gai Croal complaining about how much of a pass Fallout 3 got despite being a buggy game? Doesn't that go against exactly what he's arguing should happen? Why only defend the most critical reviews?' The answer is 'It's the topic of the day'. But one wonders.)
-Mecha
Posted by: Mecha | November 26, 2008 at 12:06 AM