No doubt. Enjoy your video games the way you want to enjoy them. I picked up RDR2 again recently, got to the point where you’re supposed to break Micah out of prison, and I’m just like, fuck that guy. I’m going hunting and playing dress-up.
Not to mention the subjectivity of what “7” means. I’ve tallied enough judges ratings to know that some people treat 5 as average, some people treat 8 as OK, and some treat anything below 7 as failing.
Also love this post, but I can’t help noting the irony of a thread begging people to ‘sell’ a product on a platform that famously opposes advertising. In fact, thinking about it, there are a lot of “what are you playing now,” “what should I play next,” “what’s your favorite…” threads on most of the gaming c/'s I’ve seen. Like, in the absence of advertising, people are just begging to be told what’s new, exciting, and available, as though it’s more meaningful coming from a pseudonymous internet stranger than a declared corporate minion. Real opinions or astroturf? Who’s to say.
“Awesome story” is always going to imply “for its medium.” You’d never compare the story in “The Strawberry Roan” to “The Telltale Heart,” or Telltale to “David Copperfield.” There’s a story painted on the Sistine Chapel, but it’s character development is abominable compared with “Pride and Prejudice.”
You can’t tell a story in a game without the player’s participation. If the game has a plot, the writers have to force the player into actions that advance the plot. If the game has character development, the character may have to make choices the player wouldn’t. OP’s right that games do have more tendency to rely on ex machina solutions, or have narrative/character inconsistencies. I mean, how many times will you gleefully murder legions of minions, only to have an agonizing dialog over whether to spare their super-villain overlord? But people like the mechanic of going full murder hobo, and you’ve got to balance fun mechanics with philosophical interludes. Or vice versa.
The alternative is a completely freeform simulation, where every NPC has some scripted responses to every possible player action. That’s two complete stories based on whether the player chooses not/to murder his boss’s boss, another where he agrees to, but then betrays his boss instead… And what if he overthrows the assassin lord after/before he meets the mages’ guild? That kind of ‘choices matter’ game has been a dream as long as RPGs have been around, and you just can’t do it. It’s what sets tabletop RPGs apart from computers.
I think it comes down to whether a game’s mechanics are satisfying and whether the game is open enough to continue. Sandbox games like Stardew or NMS you can fire up, tend your machines or crops for an hour or so, and stop, like watching a rerun of your favorite show. Skyrim isn’t technically a sandbox, but similar, you can jump in, run a couple dungeons or repeating quests, and it’s just nice. No new controls or mechanics to learn, no wishing I had better gear. Like noodle soup on a cold day.
Skyrim’s been out for 12 years. 250 hours isn’t even a half hour a week. Not even 2 hours a month. Stardew Valley is 7 years old. 250 hours is barely 45 minutes a week. It really doesn’t take that much to rack up some serious hours.
It sounds like his teacher thinks games should be evaluated for their development of tension and consistent messaging. It sounds like they would penalize a game for having a story with twists and surprises, because those either break messaging consistency or deflate tension. And, of course, quicksaves are evil.
I can kind of see where they’re coming from, but it feels like a very academic, navel-gazing place, akin to pretentious art critics talking about color, composition, and allusion to past masters, or a film critic talking about Dutch angles and long takes. Things that may contribute to the artistic quality and even the enjoyment of a piece, but are not components that us rubes actively look for. The fact they try to lump BG3, soccer, and chess all together under one system of evaluation tells me that they’re going to use some really bizarre criteria.