Sure you've been involved in ONE game review discourse in the last month, but what about a second game review discourse?

Cyberpunk has become my new benchmark game. It's not cheap, but I think you already have it?

The first time I played OWB, I was delirious with a fever from covid and getting hit with that first "L O B O T O M I T E" is a moment that's just seared into my brain forever lol

I played Half-Life 1 for the first time this year and it was so fun because I just kept thinking stuff like "Oh so the Dead Space people *definitely* played this game" lol

Yeah. Just...yeah.

I could see it in a similar vein to people's ideas about a woke Duke Nukem reboot where he was already a dumbass, just make him a women-respecting himbo dumbass

Yeah this was my main frustration. It's just pedestrian and to be frank, a lesser form of criticism, bordering on marketing rather than anything of actual meaning or worth

I just get so frustrated because as an instructor, trying to get people to think more deeply about the media they engage with has been my whole life for close to a decade, and seeing attempts to do that in games crit be met with "well this shouldn't be done like this" is pretty much my kryptonite

(Sorry for that last response, I let my frustration get the better of me)

Brother I have a master's in English literature and teach writing for a living, I know how complicated it is

I'm going to be as polite as possible here. I am a trans person and this is categorically untrue. Money that that game earned was used by Rowling to directly harm trans people in the UK. You cannot truthfully say that game's existence was a positive for transgender people, are you fucking kidding me

To be clear: I think both have their uses and should exist. It is the "one-or-the-other" approach that is being talked about in this thread (and more widely) that I take issue with. Games criticism should be allowed to grow beyond itself, and pushing back against that is detrimental

It's the age-old argument of: should a review simply be about "does game play good," or should the criticism be more holistic. To me, a more holistic approach to reviews is the mark of a mature writer, and one I care about infinitely more than a more myopic technical review

I've said it a couple times now but not in direct response to you, but if an outside factor (such as use of AI or a publisher's participation in a genocide) affects a writer's enjoyment and experience of a work related to that factor, I think it is absolutely a valid thing to include in a review

To imply that critics incorporate something from outside the work itself for no other reason than virtue signaling is a complete misunderstanding of criticism

If that outside context affected a reviewer's enjoyment/experience of a work, then I think it is absolutely acceptable for it to color the review.

Also (I know you didnt make this point), I find the idea of including outside context for nothing more than the sake of proving one's virtue insulting

I think it is the mark of a weak critic if they knowingly ignore outside context when critiquing something. Nothing exists on its own merits; everything exists within a context and omitting that is critical malpractice

I should say, "outside the work that are related to said work" but you know, character limits