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n the last 20-something years of writing about

games, I’ve apparently gained something of

a reputation. I am, I’m frequently informed, a

“harsh reviewer”. I “bash games”. I interpret

it somewhat differently I take the radical approach to

games criticism of telling the truth.

The reality is, over my career, I’ve given colossally

more positive reviews than negative. I’ve celebrated

wonderful games to audiences that otherwise might

never have heard of them. I’ve championed greatness,

revered strangeness, and argued for the positive

aspects of mediocrity. And alongside that, I’ve pointed

out when something’s a big steaming pile of crap.

I want to be clear – this can be a horrible industry to

write in of late. 'issent against the collectively agreed

political opinions of any of a number of well-organised

groups of bullies and trolls, and your life can be made

hellish. Not knowing which opinions those will be until

it’s too late is causing a lot of critics to write in fear of

accidentally triggering a backlash. I get that. I’ve been

on the receiving end of it. 0ultiple times. It sucks.

It’s also not what we’re talking about here.

I’m here to argue that people need to toughen

up their reviews. To stop pulling punches. To stop

hedging bets. And I mean this in a more specific way

than the usual, “We need to use the bottom half of the

out-of- scale.ȋ Because here’s a thing it’s really not

worth getting worked up about those only marking

from five to ten, or  to . If a game’s getting a five,

it’s already half as bad as it’s good, and pretty hard to

recommend. 6cores below  are Must more firmly

underlined appeals for someone to not buy it.

Bet-hedging and punch-pulling have been a part

of games criticism for decades, in a way that Must

isn’t apparent in other fields like film, theatre, and

I

T9 reviewing. 6ure, there are bad examples in all, but

as a rule, in most other media you’ll see excoriating

reviews of dreadful movies, brutal take-downs of

horribly written novels, and goodness me, don’t even

look toward the flying viscera in the world of theatre

reviews. We need us some of this in gaming!

All too many reviews of the largest, biggest-budget

games, from the giant publishers, seem to go out of

their way to avoid reviewing games as a piece of art,

instead resorting to sTuiggly ways out, like perceiving

them as a technical accomplishment. We can find all

sorts of reasons loudly given for this, from the most

insidious and vanishingly unlikely) suggestions of

corruption, to declarations also not that realistic) of

sheer incompetence. But I believe the number one

cause of this phenomenon, most especially when

reviewing big-name games in isolation ahead of their

review embargo, is a fear of not matching the others,

of sticking out as the one negative review.

It’s a sort of pre-emptive mimesis. An assumption

that because this is the latest game in that most

popular of series, that everyone’s going to be loving it.

6o even if the critic didn’t, they must be wrong, so

they’ll skew their review toward the assumed norm.

3op in those concerns somewhere in the text, but bulk

it up with comments on the excellent graphicsability,

and give it a safe , or an inoffensive .

No This has to stop -ust say what you think

And honestly, that the billion-dollar company could

spend hundreds of millions making it look this good

is great, but that’s of side importance. Tell your

truth, critics 'on’t worry about what others think.

Because if we start getting some proper criticism of

the biggest games, maybe we’ll have some tiny hope of

them reacting to it, and improving.

JOHN WALKER

John Walker is a

lovely man who

has some opinions.

H e ’s been expressing

them about

games for the last

20-something years.

23

Why video game

critics need to stop

pulling punches