Unfairly Biased or Individual Point of (Re)View

I will be the first person to admit this: I am an opinionated son of a gun. When it comes to things that really annoy me or really please me, I can't shut up about them (which is still why I quote The Warrior's Way line of, "Ninjas. Damn," because of its sheer stupidity and delivery). I have stated controversial opinions about games, politics, movies, even TV shows. Most of the time, I get the obvious look of, "Shut the hell up, you moron," while other times, I get actual debates over different opinions.

And, as strange as it sounds, I love hearing reasons as to why people like the games they do (we're sticking with games for this, but this applies to everything else from politics to religion, etc). I don't understand why people like Halo because I think the story (and the levels, and about everything else) are the same game after game with only graphical evolution. Why would I want to pay more of my hard-earned cash to play the same game, but with better graphics? I hated God of War III because of its ret-conning story and stupid, stupid writing (a robotic Pandora... in ancient Greece... really?). But, I understand how people would like the game for its game play, as well wanting to see how the trilogy ended. When I wrote that review, I was more pissed with the storyline and bugs than anything else, and I'm sure they patched it by now.

Judging how many games are terribly written or done (or are just remakes of the game before under the guise of "sequel"), critics begin to show their true colors. I will admit to being biased in a few reviews ("Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock" being the one that comes to mind), but that's from a gameplay standpoint. What I've been realizing lately is this horrifying fact: Mainstream reviewers are enforcing bad games being made by major developers, and punishing the good games, or games made by smaller developers.

Think about it: Critics praised every Halo game since the first for being intelligent and "one of the best shooters ever." What was so revolutionary about it? It was structured with missions, but every FPS was doing that at the time (save for Serious Sam). Was it the online multiplayer? Could be, by why are all the other Halo games praised heavily more for these slight improvements? Note: I'm not talking about "the Forge," which I have to admit, was a great idea in the first place. I'm also not a multiplayer gamer, either (though I was playing F.E.A.R. 2 and Uncharted 2 online this week... don't judge me!) Yet, gamers loved it as well, it just wasn't my taste.

Fast forward to now: Halo: Reach. It's the same damn game, only with a different team. Hell, one Halo game featured a human character (don't ask me which one, I stopped caring after Halo 3, but I'll get to that in a second), that didn't have a regenerating life bar.

A better example is the Call of Duty series. I never liked the Modern Warfare series, but I played Black Ops. I liked it, but it wasn't worthy of the praise it was getting. I asked people I work with, as well as Military personnel who have played it, and they came to the same conclusion. Yet, most reviewers praised it. Why? Especially after the fact that Medal of Honor, which was the same damn game as every other modern war shooter has been since CoD 4 was lambasted at worst, and considered barely above average at best. Speaking from experience (training as well as talking to soldiers who fought in actual combat), MoH captured the actual feeling of war without killing off every other main character like CoD seems to like to do. If our military fought like a CoD 4 character (non-SAS), our country would be fucked.

What's particularly interesting is what critics have to say about games from smaller developers. Splatterhouse has been praised by critics from Blistered Thumbs's (a new game review and news site) Micah C, to non-gaming media such as Fangoria and Dread Central. Yet, more mainstream reviewer gave the game low reviews siting "poor mechanics," "load times," and being "classless" blood and gore. Poor mechanics? I played the game in its entirety, and while it was hard, I didn't have any problems with the games mechanics. Long load times? I never had the issue, and neither did a lot of the "little media" reviewers. And if you were expecting a game called Splatterhouse to be high art, you shouldn't have reviewed the game.

What irked me was when Blitered Thumbs had a debate over this very game for the same reasons. One reviewer didn't like the game siting these reasons, as well as personal taste (which he made very clear), while the first reviewer out right told him that he never had any of those issues. Then you have The Escapist, who criticized every aspect of the game, and still gave it a three star rating after telling people how bad it was because of its many "problems." I'm sorry, but a 30 second loading screen is no where near as bad as, say, a two minute loading screen. You know, like the ones that appear in F.E.A.R. 2, or Killzone 2. I love both of these games, but I could make a pot of coffee by the time my level loaded in those, but not with Splatterhouse.

What it feels like to me is one of two possibilities: Critics are being paid to review "popular" games well and "minor" games badly, or critics don't know what a fun game is anymore, what with the formula shooters we have today. The only way innovation is seen as good is if the innovation is incredibly game changing (LittleBIGPlanet), and even then the game may fall on its face (like Heavy Rain somehow managed to do despite being an amazing experience). Speaking as a gamer, I review games mainly by how good the story is, but also if the game was fun. I don't expect every game to be a work of art, and it shouldn't be. Not every movie is a Citizen Kane or book a Great Expectations. When can critics return to actually loving games for what they're supposed to be: fun?