Last weekend, I went to my nearest theater to see "There Will Be Blood." I heard from many critics that it was an absolutely incredible movie, start to finish. It was nominated for several Academy Awards, and the raves about Daniel Day-Lewis' performance in the movie are everywhere movie critics can be found. So I figured it’d be worth my time, so I went out to see it on a date with my wife.
To put it bluntly, I thought it sucked so hard that I wish I never made that promise to my wife to not play DS in the movie theater under any circumstances. It was a flat story about a disgusting and venal man stayed a disgusting and venal man his whole life, and how great riches leave terrible people just as terrible in the same ways as they were before they started. There was an absence of character development – just terrible people reacting in predictable ways to various events. I feel like every single film critic is laughing behind my back because they got me to see such a lousy movie.
But on reflection, I don't think that's the case. Nor do I think it’s the case that the Hollywood establishment is trying to honor this movie with Academy Awards nominations (and potentially victories) because they want to see people go to lousy movies. No, I think it's something much more pitiable. Basically, I think they've been inured in their industry so long that they’ve simply forgotten what makes their craft good when it works.
I bring this up not because I want to moan ad nauseum about wanting my eight bucks back (though I do want that), but because I must conclude that it's probably true of me as well. I mean, I'm not lying when I say that I've played thousands of games. Tens of thousands, probably – after the first couple thousand, you start to lose count on how many you've played. Now, despite what certain critics might have you believe, this did not render me mentally retarded (unless they hand out bachelor's degrees to anyone these days at my alma mater), violent (clean record both juvie and adult, thank you), or even capable of operating a gun, let alone proficient with one. However, it did leave me with bad eyesight, possible aggravation of early-onset arthritis, and a radically different perspective on video gaming than most people I know.
There comes an eventual point when dealing with that much of a medium (in my case over 26 years of experience as of this date) in which you're so far into it, you pretty much can't see the forest for the trees. You start looking for something different in your games, because no matter how able a clone of Super Mario Bros. someone makes, after the first 300 they all start to seem the same, even if any one of them was fun on its own merits. And you start to look for strange or different games to just pass the time.
In some cases, these catch on. After all, it was the really hardcore at first that drove sales of games like Guitar Hero and Katamari Damacy, though both are now successful in their own right. But on the other hand, there are dozens of games that are critical darlings that are seemingly lost to time. Heck, these are games that even most other gamers know via reputation instead of having played them. I mean, as much as you hear folks rave about Rez, I know precious few who even have seen it, let alone own it. Beyond Good & Evil is probably the classic case of the critical darling that got no attention outside of the critics (also proof that critical reception does not equal great sales). While Disgaea and Valkyrie Profile both have dedicated fans, the number of people who played them is pretty much restricted to critics and hardcore gamers of their respective genres. And this is hardly new – witness the folks who wax nostalgic about River City Ransom, Ogre Battle, or EarthBound.
If you’ve read enough of my work, you'll know why I picked every single one of the games mentioned in the paragraph above. To be short, I love all of those games. With the exception of Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen, I own all of those (which included scouring used game shops for 4 years to get EarthBound and importing Rez from Japan since it stayed in production there). There are several more I could name that would also count – Virtual On, Ico, 7th Saga, the earlier Persona games... the list of critical darlings that were ignored by the gaming public at large is ridiculous.
Now, I'll grant that some of them are niche titles that are solid games that don’t have wide appeal – I know plenty who thought Ogre Battle was too convoluted to follow, but everyone who could follow it loved it. Others, however, are clearly instances of critics looking for something different, regardless of how much actual game is there (let's all be honest – there’s really not all that much to Rez, which is mostly known for excellent blending of sensory input and the now-infamous Trance Vibrator). It’s like we too often look for something different when we should be looking for something good.
I guess this ultimately comes down to two parts – when a critic raves about a game that gets less attention than usual, it's worth paying attention to why. Are they doing it because it's merely different, or is there actual meat there to chew on? That’s the real question with any positive review. And on the flip side, we reviewers have to keep in mind that just because something is different, it doesn’t automatically mean it is better. I don't want to see someone come at me because my recommendation led them to a terrible purchase, like how I feel with "There Will Be Blood." I'm not perfect, of course, but it's something we all have to keep in mind.
