If critics did more championing and less obsessing over details

As noted below, Variety critic Leigh Alexander has an interesting post on her SexyVideogameLand blog that uses her uniquely positive review of "Silent Hill: Homecoming" as a jumping off point to rant (her word, not mine) about reviews in general. I wanted to comment on it, so first, here's the important part I'm responding to:

I feel that we -- both reviewers and audiences -- get so hung up on certain minor debates with important titles that we miss their accomplishments. Most of the discussion around Metal Gear Solid 4, for example, hinged on criticizing Hideo Kojima's aggrandizing, overburdened directorial style. And it's a fair criticism, but wouldn't it be also fair to note that the late-game "microwave hallway" scene and the visceral, psychological impact it evokes deserves to be one of the most memorable moments of the year, or that the all-female, emotionally traumatized Beauty & Beast unit is one of the most interesting slates of villains we've seen in the comparatively short history of our medium?

Stuff like that is all there in any game if you want to look -- and it saddens me when I see that what we most want to do is to nitpick, make self-referential comparisons, and grab quick and easy answers on whether something is "good" or "bad," or "better than" or "worse than" what we're used to. Especially when we were all too happy to criticize "what we're used to" in the days when it was still new.

Critics should be critical; I'm not suggesting people should stop raising complaints when something doesn't strike them right. But I definitely feel that we -- again, both reviewers and audiences -- have created a culture wherein we are deliberately searching for things to dislike, issues to take up arms over. And the discussion and debate that's taken place here at SVGL in the last week just about genre definitions and combat design mechanics demonstrates, I think, that there is not always a "right answer," there is not some universal standard-meter that starts at one hundred percent and just keeps dropping for every flaw we find.

Basically, I think Leigh is right. Game critics (broadly speaking) do attribute too much to minor details, especially ones that are already present in games they love, and fail to give credit to bigger picture advances in storytelling and gameplay.

On the other hand, this sentence strikes me as very wrong: "But I definitely feel that we -- again, both reviewers and audiences -- have created a culture wherein we are deliberately searching for things to dislike, issues to take up arms over." If this were true, one would expect videogame reviews to be consistently negative. And that's obviously not the case, right? On the contrary, I would argue that videogame reviews are by and large too positive. I didn't see many critics deliberately searching for things to dislike in "Grand Theft Auto IV" or "Halo 3" or "Mass Effect" or "Super Mario Galaxy" or "Super Smash Bros. Brawl." On the contrary, these AAA, heavily marketed franchises (mostly sequels) with gameplay very similar to what the hardcore audience has seen and loved before got overwhelmingly positive reviews. Sure, many admitted, the story in "Halo 3" was inpenetrable and the the combat in "Mass Effect" was wonky and "Brawl" is barely an advance over the last installment and has major problems with online play, but those were largely brushed aside as minor considerations.

What I think (and this is of course my interpretation; I'm not trying to put words in Leigh's mouth) is that in the case of games that are different in some way (like a new IP, or a sequel from a new developer as in the case of "Silent Hill: Homecoming"), a lot of videogame critics obsess about the small stuff because they don't like the big picture. Here's my best example: "The Simpsons Game." Yes, it had some camera problems and yes the gameplay wasn't too fresh. But it was a parody of videogame and gamer culture and it was (at least as far as most videogames go) flat out hilarious. The gameplay wasn't supposed to original since it was, of course, a satire. People were meant to buy that game to laugh, not to enjoy the innovative controls. And what happened? By and large, critics faulted the game heavily for its camera problems and unoriginal gameplay and didn't give much credit to the humor, the rare attempt to use a videogame to satirize other videogames, or the even rarer successful infusion of the spirit of a popular Hollywood property into its videogame adaptation.

Another example: "Grand Theft Auto IV." Don't get me wrong, I liked this game. And unlike "The Simpsons Game," my positive review was largely in line with most other critics' assessments. But consider what some people said about it. IGN called it an "Oscar-caliber drama." Game Informer wrote, "Grand Theft Auto IV doesn’t just raise the bar for the storied franchise; it completely changes the landscape of gaming. Once you play it, you won’t look at video games the same way again." I'm not saying these guys are wrong. But "GTA IV" had faults, many people now agree. The story gets more ridiculous as it goes on. There's a huge disconnect between the things you can make Nico do and the way he acts and is perceived in the story. If a new game, or a sequel to a less respected franchise, had the same faults and qualities as "GTA IV," do you think most critics would have gone as craz for it? I don't.

We rave about "Gears of War" (great game; love it; play it online all the time) even though it has major wall-sticking issues and come down hard on "Kane and Lynch," which has the same problem. Sure, "Gears" does many things better, but the latter pushes videogame into a darker world of moral consequences than anything else I've seen recently, particularly in its finale. Where's the credit for that?

Basically, I think another way of saying what Leigh's getting at is that many game critics, particularly those who write for avid fans, can obsess over controls or menu design problems in titles that are doing something innovative in tone or theme, but downplay the same types of faults in games that are essentially improvements on the ones they already love.

The result is that we don't value innovation or attempts to do something big and new, like make a funny game that's thematically consistent with an all-time great TV show or create psychological impact through artful storytelling integrated with gameplay, because we obsess on the mechanical problems or the length of the cutscenes. Not that those things don't matter. But they don't matter that much, especially for an artistically immature medium in desperate need of innovation and freshness.

If we re-arranged our priorities, I think we'd have more critics "championing" certain games or developers. In the end, that's what I'm calling for and I think that's what Leigh's implying. In the film world, there were critics who championed the then-radical filmmakers of the '70s who transformed the world of cinema. Wouldn't it be great if there were more videogame critics who championed certain titles or artists, while acknowledging their imperfections, the way Leigh does "Silent Hill: Homecoming" and Hideo Kojima?

Sure it happens, like with "Braid" or the original "Guitar Hero," but even then it's a bizarrely universal championing. Where are the wildly divergent opinons? The champions and haters hashing it out over a controversial developer's new work? The innovative games that get a bunch of 20's and a bunch of 90's on Metacritic?

Of course there will always be those who just want a rundown of gameplay elements and analyses of how good they are compared to what's come before. But it's also wonderful to see critics with completely different orientations as to what matters and what doesn't when reviewing a game. If in the process they pick some fights, get a lot of hate mail, or are even (gasp!) way off of the average Metacritic score, all the better, I say. The videogame audience is maturing, and the result is that there are gamers who want to be challenged by critics to think about what they're playing, or should be playing, in a new way. The more critics who are championing what's new, challenging what we think is good, and engaging with each other and the audiences, the better off the art form of videogames will be.

(PS I very much welcome discussion of this in the comments. But if you end up ranting about how much "Kane and Lynch" sucked or why "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" is pure perfection, you have missed the point and should read the post again instead of commenting.)