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Editorials and Features

Beyond the Game, Or, The Hardest Review I've Ever Had to Write   Article by: MrCHUPON

Column: Beyond the Game, Or, The Hardest Review I've Ever Had to Write [Written 2006-11-14]

I've always been the little jerk in the back of the room, the troll on forums, to spew out "GAMEPLAY FIRST!" Gameplay and value; then comes the sound, then the graphics and story. Shadow of the Colossus has blown my process out of whack. I'm likely going to get hanged for my review of Shadow of the Colossus, possibly the most difficult review I have had to write - well - ever. It had taken me a week and a half since I beat the game to figure out the appropriate way to go about it. By the time I finished my first draft yesterday, I had a near-migraine. Reviews can be a tricky thing. There are all sorts of people who want to tell you how to write a review; what to put in it; how to evaluate whatever you're reviewing; what standards you "need" to use. There are too many ways to go about it. You can apply a set of rules and see whether the entity being reviewed stacks up. Or, you can follow your heart - your gut - and opine simply how it made you feel and on what level. You can waver (and by no means should this be taken as a negative slant), not offering a definitive evaluation by saying what's good for one may not be good for the other. Then there's the question of the subject matter. Movie reviews are almost certainly differently written from reviews on a piece of museum artwork, which are differently written from music reviews, consumer electronics reviews, and inevitably videogame reviews. You might be quick to ask why these are so different, but the obvious answer here is that entities of differing natures require different mindsets when being evaluated. This may be a very stupid example, and for that I apologize; it's the simplest one I can offer: would you chastise a music album for poor cinematography? Would you chastise Dvorak's Slavonic Dances (classical music - or more specifically, Romantic Period music) for not having tight lyrics? Would you chastise Borat for not having solid gameplay? "Duh," as it were. Of course, things get more complicated than that. The bottom line, though, is that all of these different things are used by its consumers for different purposes. Such is the quandary when we get to videogames. By and large, videogames today are increasingly an amalgamation of artistic direction; sound direction and musical scores; cinematography; story, dialogue and localization for foreigners; the pacing, intensity, and depth of the interaction between consumer and product; ergonomics and usability; I could go on. In most other mediums and products - music, art and architecture, MP3 players - a single or just a few of these traits stand out as perhaps the most important. Ergonomics and usability, along with technical features, could be considered as what drives an MP3 player - as a piece of consumer electronics that is fast becoming a commodity. Reviews reflect this as such. A pretty face is considered, but then a pretty MP3 player that's too big to fit in the pocket, with not many features, horrible sound quality and the inability to operate it without getting a hand cramp would still get a lackluster review. Film is perhaps the one exception aside from videogames, as it does incorporate both aural and visual elements as well as story. There's still that missing piece of user interaction and usability, however. This is why videogames are perhaps the toughest to write reviews for. No, not necessarily toughest to evaluate - at least on a, "Yes, I liked it," or "No, it's compost" level. Rather, it's on a "what actually makes this work" level. There are so many disparate elements that come together to form a unique product - one that is composed of artistic pieces but is consumed through active user interaction, as opposed to passive consumption. So how do we tell the person on the other side of the screen, at the other end of the table, above the printed page, why you should or should not play this game? Do we stress its beauty? Do we warn about its cumbersome mechanics? Do we encourage the experience for its extraneous value - the discussions you'll have outside of the game, the impact it has on you via the innovation it exudes - regardless of whether or not the core gameplay experience succeeds? This describes the dilemma I had when writing my Shadow of the Colossus review. You look back up top and ask, "Why would you get hanged?" You must not have read it. Several reasons exist. This review ended up being quite long - even one with the patience of a saint would have to get his rear-end pillow fluffed up. It's all over the place - there are too many things that were put into, and can be extracted from, this game (at least in my eyes) that I absolutely had to touch on... that I absolutely could not compromise by "cutting it short." What's worse, it may not help you make a purchase decision, which I feel is one of the mandatory goals of every review - at the end I consider it required reading, of sorts, regardless of whether or not you end up liking it. What kind of evaluation is that? Finally, those who love the game will chastise me for skewering it due to technical issues that, for me, simply bog it down. A 7.5 on Gamespot, a 3 out of 5 on Trigames - not enough. Those who hate the game won't understand, care, or even accept that there is engrossing value within - value that transcends the normal boundaries of a videogame. The game deserves a 5.0 on Gamespot, a 2 or even a 1 out of 5 on Trigames. How did I come to this point, this evaluation? Through all 20 of my gaming years - my all-time, peerless favorites of Final Fantasy VI, Metroid Prime, Mega Man 3 and Soul Calibur included - Shadow of the Colossus is the first game to have a profound impact on me that has nothing to do with me enjoying the videogame. Suffice it to say, on a sheer gameplay front, I think the game is decent - not great - but that's neither here nor there. Actually, it is here and it might just be there. Consider that I found the controls to be illogically cumbersome for the simplest tasks, such as grabbing onto a ledge. Knowing the minds behind this game and ICO, however, you might think of the symbolic reasoning behind this. Wander - our protagonist - is, by nature, undergoing an immensely taxing struggle. So, too, we should struggle. As Wander - with his flailing arms as he runs; clothing flapping in the wind - tirelessly navigates through cliffs and lakes and endures each of his trials, even with his body visibly shaken, so too should we feel exhausted. Parched, even. Is it practical? Not necessarily. The artistic symbolism between our struggle as a puppeteer and Wander's struggle as dictated by the game's plot gets in the way of our ability to use the damn Dual Shock. But it's fascinating to think about. So what is this? Good? Bad? N/A? Hell, what if all the games we've played and reviewed in recent years are simply "N/A"? I've always been the little jerk in the back of the room, the troll on forums, to spew out "GAMEPLAY FIRST!" Indeed, my personal mark of a good game - read that keyword again, folks: "game" - is the core mechanic of how you interact with the game, what you do in the game, how intuitive and ingenious the process is, and whether or not it all works in the end. Level design. Pacing. Enemy placement. Difficulty scaling. Your protagonist's abilities. Ease of execution. Then I pile on, in order from first to last, the game's level of polish and the lasting value beyond "It's so fun I want to replay it again!"; sound direction; then visuals and story. Here, obviously, my process has been blown out of whack. It's all a mishmash. I could have blasted the gameplay even more than I did, but I can't give enough credit to the developers for (a) the bold attempt to do what's been rarely done (a boss-only action game, in other words; by the way, check out Alien Soldier on your Japanese and European Mega Drives, or on GameTap - a great boss-only action title) and (b) the gluttonous level of satisfaction that the highs of the gameplay offers. I could have bombed the visuals even more for being so inconsistently choppy, with textures that pop in like Orville Redenbacher. But the still scenery, the artistic direction, the sheer connection to Agro that you feel simply because of his life-like animations, all deserve mention. The aesthetic presentation and the music, not to mention the wholly interpretive and intriguing plot - free for you to draw your own conclusions - leave this lasting impression past the end of the game, outside the confines of pressing buttons on a controller and using mental stimuli to advance. Let me compare it this way. I love the Matrix Trilogy of films. I do frankly believe that the second and third Matrix films were, from an admittedly snobby "academic" point of view (that is the "standards" of film-making as they like to call it), very flawed. Poorly paced, poorly acted, somewhat laughable dialogue, and for one character, dying words that went twenty words too many. Yet the lasting impression of the concept - the discussions I had with my friends; the mythos of the entire world that was created; the intrigue - had me watching it, talking about it, debating it again and again. Now, Shadow of the Colossus won't have me going back to play it again and again; but the point is I continue to experience it outside those gameplay confines. Because you actively interact personally with videogames, your experiences are that much more intimate to you - so whatever touching story elements, sweeping audio, or magnificent vistas reach out to you in a film, they are capable of digging even deeper into you with a game. (Provided, of course, that they are done well.) To quote my review directly, Shadow of the Colossus is a shining example of what the medium is capable of. Even if it's not entirely fun to play all the time. I hope that not all games strive to be "exactly" like this, because I want games that are fun to play. However, I hope that more games give a nod to Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc.'s Studio 1 team and try to give lasting impressions outside of their games that extend beyond, "Hey! Remember when we had to fight that ______? That was insane! God, I want to play it again." Perhaps it would make the reviewer's job tougher than it already is. I'm up for the challenge. (And maybe, just maybe, it would legitimize the "videogame" as more than just child's play, more than something that - according to those who know nothing - "does not convey ideas.")

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