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Post by JDarkside on Jun 8, 2016 6:46:21 GMT -5
A critic should be honest about their opinion, and they can use author intent as a way to understand what the art in question is supposed to be to help inform them what the final result is. After all, that is almost necessary to really get the most out of a bad but enjoyable piece of media and understand why it's engaging in such a bizarre way. There's more than post modernism and structuralism stances in criticism, there can be a balance between death of the author and taking author intent in consideration.
I leaned more towards the final result here over intent. I also don't think the game lakes gameplay, it doesn't need a lot to do what it ends up doing. More puzzles (there's one or two in there) would just distract from the mood the game built up and would make the narrative lose impact.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2016 10:41:02 GMT -5
I think it's absolutely nonsense for a critic to criticize the lack of gameplay. It's like a food critic going to an authentic thai-restaurant and complaining that the food is too spicy, or to go to a vegan place and complain that no meat is served. It just shows that the critic, as many parts of the public as well, don't get the genre and intent. If it is not for you, it's not for you, ok. But to critizice it for what it is, is like playing a racing game and complaining that all you do is drive in circles....or to play DOOM and complain about the violence... Then I think you take criticism too seriously. A critic is nothing more than an informed opinion. If a food critic eats Thai food and finds it too spicy, it is absolutely within his rights to mention that fact. He doesn't need to give a shit if Thai food is generally spicy to begin with. All he's there to do is give his opinion on his experience. If he ends up eating more Thai food over time and realizes later down the line that the spiciness wasn't a problem in his old review, he can (and should) revise it to reflect that fact. A critic's review is not meant to be THE FINAL WORD, with no room for disagreement or doubt. It's just one person's opinion.
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Post by vetus on Jun 8, 2016 15:22:35 GMT -5
www.hardcoregaming101.net/gonehome/gonehome.htmCausing a flurry of controversy when it was released in 2013, Gone Home is an emotionally impactful exploratory adventure game, one that kicked off the subgenre semi-derisively known as the "walking simulator". Some of the reasons it caused a controversy are: - For a game of that kind that anyone can finish in half hour or less with not any replay value, it was ridiculously expensive (20 dollars). And despite all these complains about its price, they're still selling it at same price when it was first released in 2013. - It's an overhyped and overrated game that media were giving it perfect scores and praising it as one of the best game of all times and yet most customers realized how bad/mediocre this game really is. Even the customers that enjoyed it agreed that 20 dollars were too much and that it deserved 7/10 or 8/10 score at best. www.metacritic.com/game/pc/gone-home
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Post by Maciej Miszczyk on Jun 8, 2016 16:44:30 GMT -5
the pricing in games like that is always a problem because despite short length, it has good production values for an indie game - especially the voice acting - so it probably wasn't cheap to make. on the other hand, it's also understandable that people don't want to spend 20$ on two hours of gameplay. higher budget indies are in a sort of no-win situation.
as for hype and reviews, while I don't have a problem with reviewers liking it, I do have a problem with pretending that it's some kind of revolution in either gameplay or themes or narrative style. it's all been done before, often better.
basically, it's a decent (but flawed) indie game that somehow managed to become both overrated and underrated at the same time.
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Post by GamerL on Jun 8, 2016 17:27:15 GMT -5
I think it's absolutely valid to criticize the lack of gameplay. A critic's job isn't to take the author's intent into consideration, but rather the end result. Xenogears was intended to be a massive story that spanned six games. It ended up a single, half-finished game. I think it's absolutely nonsense for a critic to criticize the lack of gameplay. It's like a food critic going to an authentic thai-restaurant and complaining that the food is too spicy, or to go to a vegan place and complain that no meat is served. It just shows that the critic, as many parts of the public as well, don't get the genre and intent. If it is not for you, it's not for you, ok. But to critizice it for what it is, is like playing a racing game and complaining that all you do is drive in circles....or to play DOOM and complain about the violence... As Jason X said a review is at the end of the day just the critic's opinion and people's tastes can be very diverse, some people don't care about story as much as they care about the actual gameplay and a game like Gone Home is all story. For me since I've always valued story I find the game worth playing, but I wouldn't fault anyone for feeling different. the pricing in games like that is always a problem because despite short length, it has good production values for an indie game - especially the voice acting - so it probably wasn't cheap to make. on the other hand, it's also understandable that people don't want to spend 20$ on two hours of gameplay. higher budget indies are in a sort of no-win situation. as for hype and reviews, while I don't have a problem with reviewers liking it, I do have a problem with pretending that it's some kind of revolution in either gameplay or themes or narrative style. it's all been done before, often better. basically, it's a decent (but flawed) indie game that somehow managed to become both overrated and underrated at the same time. 20$ is a little steep, but I was willing to pay simply for the fact that it was a more ambitious indie game and not the typical pixel art roguelike etc
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Post by Scylla on Jun 8, 2016 18:04:17 GMT -5
I think it's absolutely nonsense for a critic to criticize the lack of gameplay. It's like a food critic going to an authentic thai-restaurant and complaining that the food is too spicy, or to go to a vegan place and complain that no meat is served. It just shows that the critic, as many parts of the public as well, don't get the genre and intent. If it is not for you, it's not for you, ok. But to critizice it for what it is, is like playing a racing game and complaining that all you do is drive in circles....or to play DOOM and complain about the violence... I agree. I'm not saying a professional critic or even a regular consumer isn't allowed to voice what they do and don't like, but expecting something to be something entirely different, that it was never intended to be, is misguided, illogical, and plain dumb, if you're trying to pass that off as some kind of credible argument. Sorry, but "not enough gameplay" is not a legitimate flaw when a game was never intended to be gameplay-heavy in the first place. It's like buying a broom and complaining that it's not a vacuum. Or like buying a turn-based RPG and complaining that it doesn't have real-time action. I think most gamers can understand how silly it is criticize an RPG for not being a platformer, but that logic seems to fly out the window when it comes to story-focused games. So many gamers seem so offended by the existence of story-focused games, ready to dismiss them all as bad games, or to deny that they're even games at all. Oh, believe me, there is a ton of derision out there for visual novels too. I've seen countless gamers angered every time one is even brought up, to the point that they'll jump in every time to trash them and "correct" anybody who dares to call them "games". We get it. You don't like the genre. It's okay. Practically no gamers like all game genres. In my case, sports games, first-person shooters, sandbox games, etc. aren't generally my cup of tea. But I appreciate that they exist and make other gamers happy. I don't feel threatened by their existence, and I'm not even going to begin to try to assess them as bad or good when they all have little appeal to me in the first place. People who think they have any kind of valuable outlook on something they dislike across the board need to get their egos in check. Nobody cares how boring you find a story-focused game because it has minimal gameplay. How about being smart and buying games in the genres that you DO like instead of fruitlessly hoping that that Thai food is magically going to transform into hamburgers?
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Post by JDarkside on Jun 8, 2016 18:07:03 GMT -5
I would argue trying things outside your comfort zone can be worth it from time to time.
I normally really dislike sandbox games too, but Bully is an all time fave. Every genre will eventually have something that will click with you.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2016 18:08:39 GMT -5
You're thinking of it entirely from your own viewpoint, though, which is where you're missing the mark. A critic isn't here to tell you your own point of view, he's here to tell you his point of view. In the opinion of some critics, the lack of any traditional gameplay in a walking simulator is a problem, and it's absolutely valid for them to mention that in case other people out there would also have a problem with it, thereby saving them time and money on buying it.
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Post by JDarkside on Jun 8, 2016 18:14:32 GMT -5
You're thinking of it entirely from your own viewpoint, though, which is where you're missing the mark. A critic isn't here to tell you your own point of view, he's here to tell you his point of view. In the opinion of some critics, the lack of any traditional gameplay in a walking simulator is a problem, and it's absolutely valid for them to mention that in case other people out there would also have a problem with it, thereby saving them time and money on buying it. Funny thing is that most critics for major sites and publishing groups already *do* that for games like Gone Home. It's the more introspective scene that doesn't, but the crowd complaining doesn't really pay much attention to them to begin with. I didn't really feel a need to do that here because this is more a history site than a product review site, I find. It's where people come to find out about obscure, weird, and fringe games from all around the ages. I also think we're doing a service of helping keep the memory of otherwise lost or forgotten games alive. Most articles here are aimed more at describing what the work is, or the writer's own read on what it is (I actually like that Killer7 article because of the interesting viewpoint). Recommendation is there but not as the primary purpose outside newer titles. I try to balance between that for newer titles myself.
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Post by Scylla on Jun 8, 2016 18:19:15 GMT -5
It's good to try things outside your comfort zone, but even if you like one exception, that isn't proof that everything else like it is objective crap and that you're remotely qualified to have any kind of informed opinion on the genre. Just because I like Neo Turf Masters doesn't mean I'm in any place to make worthwhile arguments on the quality or lack thereof of other sports games or suggest that every other sports games should be different so that they're just like Neo Turf Masters or some non-sports genre that I like.
But when you do try things outside of your comfort zone, you have to accept the risk and the high likelihood that you won't like a game if it's in a genre that generally isn't for you. Just because I may give a sports game a shot, it doesn't make it reasonable for me to be angry if I don't care for it and complain that the game should've been in a different genre.
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Post by Scylla on Jun 8, 2016 18:33:35 GMT -5
You're thinking of it entirely from your own viewpoint, though, which is where you're missing the mark. A critic isn't here to tell you your own point of view, he's here to tell you his point of view. In the opinion of some critics, the lack of any traditional gameplay in a walking simulator is a problem, and it's absolutely valid for them to mention that in case other people out there would also have a problem with it, thereby saving them time and money on buying it. I am a professional critic (among all the other sorts of freelance work I do). I've even reviewed visual novels on multiple occasions. I see absolutely zero value in assuming the audience is so stupid that they need an explanation of the genre or a warning to stay away from the game based on its presence in the genre. Should every sports review contain an explanation of the rules of the sport, for the people who don't know the rules of baseball/basketball/football/etc.? Should an RPG review warn the readers that the gameplay involves fighting monsters until their hit points deplete and that if what they want is first-person shooting then should play something else? C'mon. If a reader can't even be assed to know what an established genre is about, then they can only blame themselves for buying something they're totally ignorant about. "Walking simulators" by definition have minimal gameplay. Stating the genre is "warning" enough. The rest of the review should be devoted to saying if it's a GOOD walking simulator or not. You're reviewing the individual game, not the genre.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2016 19:04:21 GMT -5
I don't know if I can talk reasonably about this with you, since you seem to have gone from 1 to 11 over a relatively non-volatile topic. No need for this thread to get locked, I've said my piece.
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Post by JDarkside on Jun 8, 2016 19:32:03 GMT -5
Okay, going back on the topic of the game, there's a really interesting reading I've heard about the father. His uncle was abusive. His constant obsession with the JFK plot seems based on some trauma, as a letter says as much. He also wrote out essays on his childhood after he started drinking and did product reviews. If you search around, you find out that the uncle left everything to the main character's dad, and he sent a letter about some sort of transgression to the dad's mother. The wooden horse hidden away in a room with an nonworking light, deep in the basement, suggests that toy was there to draw a child there, and it seems that the dad was that child. The uncle abused him, and his breakdown when he moved into this house that belonged to the uncle drove him into a spiral.
Thankfully, he doesn't continue the cycle of abuse, and it seems he's away during the game with his wife getting marriage counseling. Even when dealing with a rebellious daughter, he does try to understand (though he doesn't succeed there, sadly). Ultimately, he survived and is becoming a writer once again on his own accord, making a new story that breaks away from the past.
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Post by risingpheonix on Jun 8, 2016 19:34:26 GMT -5
New here but felt compelled to reply "Gone Home" really wasn't exactly the first "Walking Simulator" - at least if definition of the genre is a game that puts telling a story way over gameplay (to a point of almost excluding it entirely) Freebird technically beat it to the punch with the rather haunting To The Moon - which doesn't have any real traditional gameplay element outside being made in RPG Maker and looking like your standard 16-bit game. It was released 1 November 2011 - 2 years before Gone Home. Still gets pretty good reviews from people who stumble upon it too. Though like Gone Home, the lack of player engagement at times does wear a little. The plot also struggles a little to juggle everything towards the end, still made me tear up though. That's before you even consider the old PC "edutainment market" where quite a lot of titles were "interactive books" mostly based on linear "pages" but later titles did have point and click type engines where rather than puzzles, exploration rewarded you with a funny little scene or a mini-game. Gone Home isn't that original or interesting outside of the fact that the developers knew the right people to get promoted. Even if you consider the story twist unique. Titles already exist with LGBT characters (Fear Effect 2, Mass Effect, Fable Series ect.) Heck The Orion Conspiracy did the same twist in 1995! and it also sucked seeing as it's been granted a Kusoge page. So what did it really do that was so radical and unique?
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Post by JDarkside on Jun 8, 2016 20:03:25 GMT -5
...I never said it was the first of anything. I just said it was one of the games that really coined the concept of a "walking simulator" among the gaming public at large.
And seriously, something can be special and unique without having to be first. Gone Home's structure makes great use of its item examination mechanic in ways I haven't really seen from a game before, tossing out a focus on puzzles for telling a story with just everyday items and giving pointless trinkets greater meaning through a subtle narrative. The game is set up in such a way that you find most things in a particular, and it prevents the trap of being too on-rails by mixing together multiple storylines. Not many games before it did anything quite like that, or kept it so simple and focused.
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