When a game isn’t your cup of tea
Sometimes a game just isn't your "cup of tea."
A few days ago the subject of a Fallen Earth review came up over “Clan Chat” (In Fallen Earth a clan is the same thing as a guild) about a lack luster review that was plagued by being greatly mundane and perhaps even possessing a degree of mendacity. Upon reading the review it struck me as being uncharacteristic for the site that carried it. Now mind you, I too have had to eat a portion or two of crow in my time and I have made it a point to apologize in person and on the air to the devs I have wronged. The most recent dev on that list is Bill Roper, but you will hear more of that on Show number 50. As the review appears to have been removed from the web site (at least it no longer comes up on my browser) I will save the author the embarrassment of naming him. I will point out, however, that after lambasting the game and regaling his readers with how blasé he seemed to find it, he finished the review with the following:
“Yet despite its glaring errors, Fallen Earth remains oddly compelling.”
The irony, of course, is that the statement refutes the balance of the review almost as if the author said, “But on second thought I think I’m full of dingo dung – ignore me.”
In show number 49 (which is nearly through the editing process) one of the subjects that reared its head in conversation was the matter of how (or even if) judgment should be passed on a game. I say the subject “reared” for the brave manner in which Tipa (who returns as a guest next week) introduced it…listen to the show when it comes out and you will hear what I mean.
Sadder still are those reviewers who forget that by proffering a negative review they are, ostensibly, affecting the jobs of the people who made the game in the first place (no small matter in these economic times). Even worse are those times I find myself reading through a review so stale it belongs in a box of year old saltine crackers. After all, if a reviewer is going to blindly cast caution to the wind, completely forgetting that a keen sense of quality, carefully honed by a decade or so of mind numbing bouts of drunkenness and endless “jiggly” movies might not…just MIGHT NOT…reflect the tastes of videogames of the remainder of humanity they should at least do it with a modicum of style. My grandfather called such a use of rapier like wit as “telling someone to go to hell and making them like it.”
If, however, a reviewer is willing to allow that merely because they enjoy their tea made with a crap infusion, there are others of us that prefer our tea made a bit differently – or even (perish the thought) prefer coffee, perhaps reviews would approach a degree of objectivity. There is (or course) a tale told by American poet John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) that exemplifies how games are often seen by reviewers:
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
” ‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!