What does it mean when everything is great?
What’s happening when it’s no longer the exception for something to be regarded as exceptional?
The glowing reviews “Grand Theft Auto IV” received last week — all those perfect 10s — reminded me of just how many perfect scores and how much high praise I’ve seen and read lately. Last fall, the highly regarded Edge magazine in the U.K. ended years of stinginess and doled out three 10s in three months, to “Halo 3,” “The Orange Box” and “Super Mario Galaxy.”
Gametrailers just named last year as the best year in gaming’s history. Factor in “BioShock” and you’ll see over at Gamerankings.com that 4 of the 12 best reviewed games in that site’s history of aggregating reviews came out in the last 10 months.
Have game critics ever been so thoroughly satisfied?
Maybe we’re in the best era of video games. Maybe the hype is giving everyone sunstroke.
Perhaps, this time, things are different.
While many lamented that today’s era of gaming is one stagnated by sequels, it may in fact be an era that has been polished and buffed, built and re-built to something resembling… perfection?
No. Perfection is too strong a word.
What could be happening — and this is just a theory, of course — is that a new threshold has been reached. Our vocabularies and scoring systems are coming close to failing us. We’ve said “great” and “10″ so much lately, that it is hard to fully distinguish and to intelligibly recommend the work we’re playing. Can we say why this great gameplay is better than that great gameplay? If we can, well, are we? Are we being clear?
It seems to me that we who play and discuss games are often and extremely impressed, moreso than has been the case in the past.
Why?
It could be the increase in technical proficiency. The gap between what developers intend to orchestrate with their games and that which the player experiences is narrower than ever before. Would the essence of the failed Randian utopia in “BioShock” have been as convincing on an older platform? Would “Call of Duty 4 have packed the same punch?
Perhaps it is even the case that these new games will resist the technical obsolescence that has spoiled some old classics for modern fans, that we’re finally reaching an era of games during which it will be the norm for a great game to withstand the test of time like great movies and great books? (I’m recalling 1Up’s PC editor Jeff Green recently describing on the 1UpYours Podcast how archaic the often-hailed 1997 role-playing game “Fallout” now looks and how poorly the acclaimed 2000 PC game “Deus Ex” holds up. At least “Tetris” still holds up.)
Another reason for all the glowing greatness could be public relations. This feeling that we’re awash in good things may just be a product of hype, a sign that 2007 and 2008 are only superior than 1997 and 1998 in terms of how effectively the marketing machines have driven our thoughts.
Or, less cynically, I’ve been considering that a new plateau in game design expertise been achieved by a broad array of developers. It’s possible that the fundamental things that genre fans have been asking for have been achieved. The controls of “GTA” have been iterated on to the point that few people are cursing them anymore. The “Mario” universe has been rendered and re-rendered in all the dimensions in ways that seem to hit the spot perfectly for fans of that sort of thing. The war first-person-shooter has been nailed — repeatedly. Many known frontiers appear to have been conquered, goals have been met.
Surely gaming will get better. Games are an iterative medium. By and large, the new stuff is better-made than the old stuff. And, by and large, each year brings instant classics and instant lemons.
But I do wonder if something different is happening now, if a new status quo is being widely achieved.
What do you make of all these “great” games?
Do we need a new set of standards?
May 6th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Grand Theft Auto IV scored reviews, by and large, were pointless. There was so much hype, from the media and from readers, and the game offered everything the enthusiast press and the hardcore demand (especially in this era of Wii dominance) that perfect scores were to be expected as the norm.
The hype machine surely has more to do with the high scores than the end of the era of “technical obsolescence”. I promise you that in a few short years, all of the games of the year of today will be remembered fondly yet viewed as antiquities. I think the reviews are more passionate, but also more biased than ever. In the wake of all the “casual” business, it seems the hardcore and the specialized media need to fuel their enthusiasm at games they feel meet their desires, whether consciously or not. And they have a short memory; last quarter’s great successes are already dinosaurs.
This raises the question of how very few “genuine classics” there really are in video games. Those games that can stay frozen in time and technical spec, and still provide as much enjoyment today as they did on day one. Tetris, as you mentionned, is one of them. But I’m sure we would have a lot of trouble reaching a consensus on 3D games. That PS3 tech demo has demonstrated that even the almighty Final Fantasy VII would be better off remade to today’s specifications than played as is in most gamers’ whishes. Are games getting better, or do we call perfection and throw it away too quickly?
May 6th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Why is it a problem for there to be four or five great games a year?
Most film critics seen ten or twelve five star movies a year, and that’s if they’re awfully stingy.
If Mario Galaxy makes you love it enough that you overlook how awful the underwater controls and camera are, why not give it the rating your gut tells you?
No other field of criticism is so uptight about handing out their highest scores.
May 6th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
@zerozaki:
That’ a great point. Perhaps the “problem” isn’t that there are so many 10s but that there have been so few. I wonder if its anxiety over the technical obsolescence issue that scares review scorers off from giving perfect grades.
May 6th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
@Francois
You’re right that it’s tough to identify the timeless classics of gaming, particularly in the 3D era. One of the complications is accessibility of controls. If the camera system in “Mario 64″ makes the game unplayable for some people can it not be considered a classic?
One of the challenges for game designers is that while they have been trying to create wonderful concertos, hardware makers keep re-making and improving the violin and gamers have had to learn how to play each new violin.
Great music can be timeless in part because all you need to do to appreciate a lot of it is to sit still and listen, something we all knew how to do from a young age. To consume and appreciate a great game first requires the skill to even experience it.
To use another metaphor, a great game is like a great play in Latin. The content may be amazing, but unless you first speak the language, you have no hope of assessing it. Kind of a tough problem to get around, no? You think you know Latin today? Well in one more generation of hardware we’ll all be playing games in Greek. The generation after that will be Swahili. Etc. Literacy is tough to maintain in a medium like this.
So far, I think, only the best 2D games exhibit a simplicity of control that makes them so broadly accessible that they have a chance of holding up or even being comprehensible decades later.
The 3D stuff is all to complicated.
Maybe the FPS is a stable enough genre in terms of controls. Maybe we’ll see classics withstand history’s remorseless march there.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
I really believe that perfect scores should be reserved for games that we believe will stand the test of time. Just meeting expectations is the hallmark of mediocrity. There has to be an intangible factor that will pull players into a game no matter how dated the technology.
@zerozaki:
It is a problem because perfect scores happening so frequently dilute their significance. Any industry that relies on reviews knows that perfect scores are supposed to be rare. Ethical issues aside, Famitsu has the sense not to dole out perfect scores left and right. Great games don’t need perfect scores to make them worthwhile purchases.
The recent trend in reviews is not a good sign. Too many reviewers have become mired in their traditional thinking. They are too easily impressed by cosmetic improvements. For example, is the inclusion of better blood physics really an impressive improvement the overall experience in Ninja Gaiden 2?
May 6th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
@Stephen
Indeed, each generation’s vagaries can’t help but get in the way of long-standing appeal for video games. In many ways, video games come out with an expiration date, either dictated by the market or technology.
The thing about first-person shooters, though, is that it’s much more likely that the genre itself, rather than any one specific title, will go down in the annals of history. Because the genre is so stable, as you mention, every game basically features the same design and competes on the ancillary stuff, the graphics and the bells and whistles, which are bound to get better as technology evolves, leaving past titles hopelessly in the dust.
As for 2D versus 3D, there’s also a sheer simplicity and elegance to 2D graphics in that they don’t rely as much on verisimilitude as 3D. It’s like the fact that they are readily perceived as artificial helps them age slower. It’s also true in animation film; Snow White doesn’t quite feel as old as, say, Toy Story, even though it’s much, much older.
The unfortunate conclusion, then, is that those issues; skill prerequisite, control specificities and technological dependence only help reassert the notion of the video game as a toy. Unfortunate, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but in that the industry’s elite is trying hard to prove that this is exactly what the video game is not.
May 7th, 2008 at 1:13 am
@velos: I disagree - I think only the game industry is putting their highest scores on a pedestal. The game industry and possibly figure skating.
A lot of gamers seem to approach reviews like they’re a science or something; I just saw someone claim they won’t buy a game that rates less than 8.7. I think it sort of misses the point of reviews; they’re an opinion. Opinions are based partly on what your gut says, and partly on what your mind says; the two fight it out, and which ever wins determines the final score. Worrying about fans being angry because you’ve scored a game too low or too high is a good way to destroy the relevancy of it. In some ways, having too many numbers is to blame; having a four or five star system, like movie reviews do, allows you to hand out perfect scores to things you like best, without worrying about the things you like best out of the things you like best, or worrying about how history will mock you. History won’t really care. The games will be reassessed if they become available again, anyway.
Besides, four or five perfect scores a year can hardly be described as a staggering number. Especially if only one or two of them is in a genre you’d actually like. I mean, Destructoid gave Ikaruga a perfect score, but I’m still not going to buy it because I can’t stand shmups, the impossible things. So that score utterly fails to dilute the field. On the other hand, the perfect scores for Okami got me through an extremely frustrating section early on, and allowed me to really enjoy the game. If people had been less nakedly enthusiastic about it, I might have missed out on something I really enjoyed. Even though that frustrating section would keep me from giving it a perfect score myself.
Reviews are subjective, and the text of the review is supposed to provide the context for the score, allowing you to decide if it is an opinion you agree with or not. They aren’t an objective statement of fact that we can all agree on, and shouldn’t be.
May 7th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
@Totilo: Do you happen to remember which podcast those conversations were in. I can certainly by that Fallout looks archaic although I’d still stand by it. I’m more skeptical that Deus Ex hasn’t withstood the test of time, but I’m curious about the counter argument.
However, the descriptive text didn’t mention the comparisons, I’m guessing the Fallout one might have been in the podcast with Fallout 3 news.
May 7th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Well, the way I see it, there’s only one way to fix this….make all the game scoring scales go up to 11! =)
On a serious note though, I think only time will tell us what’s going on here. Zerozaki Ishiki made a good point about the movie critics doling out 5 star rankings quite frequently. Look at how many nominees there are for “Best Picture” each year…even though there’s only one winner, there’s usually at least a handful in the running for it.
So, are we getting all these 10’s because the overall quality is approaching something like movies? By that I mean that we have our bombs, our blockbusters that are ultimately mediocre, our small independent masterpieces and our big dramas. So are we just seeing a level of polish and storytelling sophistication which makes 10’s more achievable?
Could it even be a problem with how we look at the 10? When Ebert gives a movie a thumbs up or a 5 star rating, he’s not saying “This movie is PERFECT”, he’s just saying that it’s really enjoyable and brings something unique to the table. Perhaps it was the hesitancy to dole out the 10’s before that elevated them to this “perfect” status when they really shouldn’t be?
As I said, I think only time is going to be able to really show us what’s really going on. The meaning and usage of the 10 is changing, both reviewers and players, and we need to give it time to see what it turns into.
May 7th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I think part of the problem is that a lot of game sites have these ridiculously detailed scoring systems that make it so most scores are essentially meaningless. What exactly is the difference between a game scoring 89% and one scoring 87%? Or one scoring 73% and 75%? It doesn’t help either that the majority of the sites that use a ten point scale really only use a 7-10 point scale — what’s the point?
And often I’ll read the text of a review, and wonder how on earth they arrived at the number they did, because the review is either really critical with a high number attached, or else faults are glossed over but the game ends up with a mediocre score. I wish more game reviewers would switch to a five star system (with no half points!), or else a thumbs up thumbs down system, so that the focus can be on the actual criticism going on versus the number at the bottom of the page.
You’ll never get good game criticism until the actual numbers become secondary. Otherwise we’ll continue to see huge forum threads about how game x scored a tenth of a point lower than game y, and thus game x must clearly be worse than game y. The review culture in the gaming industry needs to be less about creating hype and disappointments, and more about engaging in actual discourse about the games that are coming out.
May 7th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
@Powell:
“You’ll never get good game criticism until the actual numbers become secondary. Otherwise we’ll continue to see huge forum threads about how game x scored a tenth of a point lower than game y, and thus game x must clearly be worse than game y.”
That’s an excellent point actually. I remember when Halo 2 and GTA:SA came out a few years ago…there were some GIANT flame wars about which was the “better” game. In particular I remember a couple reviews, I believe from GameSpot, that were being tossed around which had a half point difference between them, with GTA:SA being the “better” one.
The way they were scored was that they would assign scores for different categories, and then average them into a total score for the whole game. When you actually look at how they were rated though, they had the *exact* same average score, but for some reason GTA:SA got rounded up.
So here people were getting all in a tizzy over this tiny difference that could’ve just been bad math, or reviewer bias, or something else entirely… The fact is, both scores were great, they were *technically* the same average, and both of the reviews were glowing and talked about what great games they were….but because of the difference in the final number, this was lost on most people.
May 7th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
@Greg Sanders
Sorry, I don’t remember the episodes. It could have been GFW radio and it wasn’t an in-depth discussion. Would have been from the past month.
@Everyone
Interesting that I posed the possibility that the quality of games might be increasing across the board and that this run of “BioShock” to “GTA IV” is a sign of collective design break throughs.
No one’s really buying that, huh?
May 7th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
I’m definitely buying that. I think there’s a language being developed about what makes a game fun–there are new books on game design being published all the time–and about a more iterative and flexible game design approach that didn’t necessarily happen or exist before.
Now that it seems we’re really understanding what makes a good game, I’d like to see some (more) variety in plots and settings… especially settings. Let’s see some interesting worlds, rather than War-Torn Future #567. The Final Fantasy games really nail setting and convey the unique worlds very well.
In addition to control, another thing about older 2D vs 3D games is that sprites tend to age better than old 3D models. Link’s Awakening on the GameBoy is still cute, and Odin Sphere will still be beautiful 5 or 10 years from now, which isn’t something you can say about many older 3D games. (Though, this probably has to do a lot with art style. Okami and Wind Waker may still look impressive or at least pleasing in the future in a way that Ocarina of Time doesn’t today.)
May 7th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
I don’t buy into breakthroughs. I’d say it’s more about refinement. The titles you mentionned; Super Mario Galaxy, Grand Theft Auto IV, BioShock, Halo 3 and the Orange Box, are all built upon and refine solid design foundations that have existed for at least a decade. It’s especially true of the first-person shooters, for which the template is pretty much static now. Building a first-person shooter nowadays isn’t about designing the rules and conventions of the shooter, it’s about coming up with everything else: the characters, the world, the cinematic sequences… Evidently, last year’s “perfect” games struck a balance between familiar designs and cinematic flair that hardcore gamers demand.
Eleniel’s comments about plots and settings remind me of the recent fan video for a Legend of Zelda game set in a futuristic universe. It created quite a buzz and a lot of gamers believe that a futuristic setting would overhaul the Legend of Zelda, even though in the end, it would still be the same Zelda design with a new coat of paint. But it seems that’s what the people want, and what developers are probably getting better at providing.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
@Totilo
Better design is definitely a part of it, perhaps a significant part. Look at the pacing and structure of COD4 or Halo 3 versus earlier games in the series. Look at the writing in BioShock and GTA4. Look at the level design in Super Mario Galaxy or the structure of Burnout Paradise. These titles are made by seasoned designers who are studying their past work and that of others and using it to make their games better.
Personally I’m split on the usefulness of the 10-point rating system. Most of the time I think a 5-star scale or letter-grade system would suffice. As others have already pointed out, who can reasonably say what separates an 8.9 game from a 9.1 game? I think part of the success of a 5-star system for movies is that a top rating gives the highest accolade while allowing for some imperfections. After all, who can say that a perfect movie has ever been made? But who would argue that such different films as Star Wars and No Country For Old Men aren’t both 5-star films?
On the other hand, the 10-point scale is at least a first crack at that specialized critical language sought by N’Gai and others. Especially when it’s broken down into graphics, gameplay, sound, etc. I’m not saying it’s ideal or perfect, but at least it’s defensible because it gives you a reasonable metrics by which to compare different games. But look what happens when you rate movies on a 10-point scale. Check out IMDb’s top movies section. What makes Pulp Fiction an 8.9 and Star Wars an 8.8? Was Pulp Fiction’s cinematography 1/10 of a point better or something?
Evolving technology does complicate things. Would Halo 3 be as highly rated if it sported Halo 1 graphics? Improved visual fidelity is a near-universal expectation among gamers. While it’s too much of a stretch to say that therefore there is no such thing as timeless games, it does make classic games stand apart. No one thinks “Huckleberry Finn” is a better read if it’s printed on high quality paper and bound in leather. No one (I’m assuming) thinks “Citizen Kane” would be a better movie if it was reshot in hi-def and Technicolor.
A big element of what makes a game a classic is the experience you had playing it at the time. I have very little interest in going back and playing through GTA3 or the original Halo, but I have no doubt that they are classics. However, almost any discussion of classic games is going to bring up specific instances of what you did. You talk about the time you got the high score on Asteroids, the frisson you got when you rammed an old lady on the sidewalk for the first time or the relief/ecstasy you felt when you took down a Brute with your pistol just as your armor was gone and he was charging you…
In that way, classic games see more like favorite places you visited or vacations you took. It speaks to the experiential nature of games versus movies.
May 7th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
If you don’t think great great great games, especially FPSs, age badly, try playing Goldeneye 007 on the N64 today. Ugh (the multiplayer is still fun, though). Somehow Wolfenstein 3D and Doom I/II have avoided this.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
@Francois
You’re right, refinement is probably more what’s happening rather than breakthrough.
I think there’s nothing wrong for games to innovate with story and setting rather than focusing everything on gameplay. I’m not saying we don’t need ANY more innovation WRT gameplay, but I think story has a lot of catching up to do.
It’s like with GTA IV, and how this living city inspired by NYC was built, and it felt like a real city (except when the AI malfunctions). But, like someone said on a podcast I was listening to (I think it was Giant Bomb), “dude, reality is boring.” I want to see someone take this technology and create a unique world not modeled after the real one. (And not a War-Torn Future, either, sorry, I just have a grudge against it. Overdone!)
It’s about creativity in all aspects of game design, rather than just mechanics and technology.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:37 am
I think the problem with all these perfect scores can be illustrated by looking at reviews for GTA IV versus GTA: San Andreas. While aggregate review sites do give GTA IV a somewhat higher score overall, San Andreas also has a crazy number of perfect scores. Yet, SA is easily inferior to IV, which added moral complexity, created a more compelling story, toned down the cartoony stereotypes and vastly improved on the often poor mission design that marred all the previous GTA games.
So unless we take Doctor Proctus’ tongue-in-cheek advice to raise the maximum score to 11, we have reached a situation where as games get better, scores have to be static.
Video game entertainment is still immature, and the industry simply is not putting out that many games for the ages. Movies like The Third Man or Rashomon or Schindler’s List deserve perfect scores, because they are examples of what film can be. But I don’t believe we really know what video games can be yet. We have seen flashes of potential here and there, but many game critics insist on holding video games to a lower standard than other mediums. Sure, GTA IV is a brilliant game, but it’s still rather cliched. You can make a good argument that it deserves those perfect scores, but only if you accept that GTA V, VI or VII will not be as much an improvement over IV as IV is over GTA III.
In other words, these perfect scores are only applicable if you accept that video games have plateaued. But I believe, in the words of Al Jolson in the first film talkie The Jazz Singer, a wildly popular and critically acclaimed movie that has not stood well the test of time, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.” (Actually it might have been “you ain’t heard nothing yet,” but give me some slack.
May 8th, 2008 at 1:55 am
@Totilo & Scott - seasoned designers combined with better tech and improved software. We’re not entering an era of the mature. Game designers are no longer youngsters, sitting around their rooms in underwear or cubicles surrounded by figurines and coloured posters. They’re having children, growing up and are nearing 10 years experience, or more, within the games industry - http://seven-degrees-of-freedom.blogspot.com/2008/03/breeding-edge.html.
In addition, the hardware we’re working on is providing leaped improvements of not only graphical fidelity but also providing more complex physics and sound (though not yet the AI).
And I believe you’re absolutely correct regarding the pushy new PR programs too (though, you should include in that the serious hype that gaming websites and blogs are managing to push for a variety of games).
However, I don’t believe that GTA IV and Mario Galaxy and Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 are all worthy of 10 / 10 ratings (if you believe in ratings, which I don’t) at all because they all have their own issues.
GTA IVs AI and framerate craps out every few seconds
Mario Galaxy was, despite all it’s various innovations, essentially an assortment of mini-games that repeat
Call of Duty 4 didn’t have the best AI and rather annoying enemy spawn points
Halo 3 was simply Halo 2.5 and succeeded purely through marketing hype
I believe 10s are being rewarded for minor improvements across a range of areas and as they represent the “best” of what we have now, as marketed, they’re perceived as the new benchmark.
Then there’s the timing of reviews too, in this new Internet age. Reviews on websites such as 1up.com, Gamespot, Eurogamer etc. will capture the hype of the moment. Play the game, write and post a review. Sometimes that process might take less than a week. Back in the magazine age, reviewers had a little more time, even if only a few days longer, to reflect on the games they’ve just played before writing and posting a review.
On the day I first played GTA IV, I’d have given it a 10 straight away. But given two weeks reflection, I’d consider the game to be a 9/10 because it still suffers major faults.
Take for instance the problems getting the PS3 online, game freezes for the 360 version, poor framerate, clipping and virtual AI death at regular intervals. It’s marred by minor problems that people are willing to overlook because it’s the best we have now.
Halo 3, given two weeks past release and once the single player game was over and done, is the same damn shooter it was back when Halo 1 was first release, except it’s prettier. Forge is the games only real innovation, new idea, boundary push. Is it a 10? Heck no. It’s a rehash.
I think most of it, throwing aside the maturing of the industry, is the huge marketing machine behind every new AAA game before release. Isn’t that true? New games such as Halo 3 are considered AAA before they’ve even hit shelves. How does that happen?!
May 8th, 2008 at 10:35 am
“and that this run of “BioShock” to “GTA IV” is a sign of collective design break throughs. No one’s really buying that, huh?”
@ Totilo
I wouldn’t say break throughs for all of them. Portal, Team Fortress, and Mario Galaxy feature designs that are worth the 10’s. Initially, it may be hard to understand why BioShock or GTAIV aren’t as good as Mario Galaxy. It’s only when we examine each critically acclaimed game individually brings things into proper focus. This is something that doesn’t happen in reviews, and sadly, it happens in few other places.
Reviewers seem to score games off of a tangled collection of feelings, desires, and emotions. The more cinematic and action packed a game is, the more its like a movie, and the more many reviewers can relate to the game and/or write about them. It’s a problem that’s rooted in our lack of language, maturity, and eduction about videogames.
@ Purvis
“Mario Galaxy was, despite all it’s various innovations, essentially an assortment of mini-games that repeat”
It’s important not to fault a game for its good game design. I assume by assortment of mini-games you mean game play mechanics. And I also assume that when you say they repeat, they’re actually being retooled to challenge the player in new ways throughout the game. That’s classic game design 101. Most developers still haven’t reached such a level.
May 8th, 2008 at 11:07 am
“It’s possible that the fundamental things that genre fans have been asking for have been achieved.”
Bingo.
May 10th, 2008 at 2:38 am
Jeff Green is an idiot, so I take anything he says with a grain of salt.
At any rate, yes Halo is incredibly overrated, but the love for Bioshock is warranted, and yes GTA 4, and Mario Galaxy are excellent games as well, and received the appropriate ratings, so? I don’t get the negativity behind good game reviews. I understand what people are saying when they say that giving out too many perfect scores dilutes the significance but if there are a lot of excellent games being released why not give them excellent scores? If all of the games were getting perfect scores I could see the pessimism but that’s not happening. I can see myself playing and enjoying Bioshock ten years from now, just like I still love Deus Ex so imho deserves the perfect and near perfect scores.