Dan Amrich
Los Angeles, CA
Male, 41
I started reviewing videogames professionally in 1993, when Genesis and SNES roamed the earth. Over the next 15 years I worked for magazines and websites like GamePro, GamesRadar, Official Xbox Magazine, and World Of Warcraft Official Magazine, while freelancing for Wired, PC Gamer, and many others. In an attempt to guide the next generation of reviewers, I wrote and published Critical Path: How to Review Videogames For A Living in February. Ask away!
Well, let's differentiate between "journalism" and "reviews." I don't think a review should ever be a casual, on-the-surface look at a game. I think you need to go deep, but it's about what you are analyzing -- the artistic elements or the value proposition. Other forms of criticism are the same way -- some folks write and read movie reviews as artistic commentary on the work, other people just want to know if it's worth their time and money this weekend. It's very difficult to say one approach is better than the other, because both have merit and value -- but neither is a surface scan. Both require deep thought and careful creative analysis to be worth anything. For the larger realm of "journalism," some of my favorite pieces (that I've read and that I've written) have been personality focused. I had a fantastic conversation with Cliff Bleszinski between Gears 2 and 3 where we talked not about either game so much as his place in the industry, and his accidental role as one of the five or six game designers people could actually name. Feature-length pieces that show you insight into a developer or what makes them tick, or offer a look at a trend that affects gaming as a whole...I think those are valuable too. But again, they don't strike me as casual or on the surface just because they are less product-focused. So I guess the takeaway is never do casual on-the-surface looks at games and call it a form of journalism. :)
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I played one of those -- it was called There. I was disappointed that there was not much to do. I could race buggies with my friends and hang out in social circles, but...otherwise, not enough structure to feel like I had a reason to return. I've spent serious time with City of Heroes, WoW, and SWTOR, and I liked all of them for different reasons -- but I don't think removing the level structure would have made them better. I guess the real answer to your question is "show me the design document or give me a demo." :)
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I think the earlier answer about Combat Cars being one of the worst games I ever reviewed counts here -- a top-down 16-bit racer with no minimap. No prediction of where the turns are coming, so it was just one wall after another. You were expected to learn the tracks by trial and error and then memorize them. Fail.
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I believe there are certain elements that all gamers feel are valuable, so I draw on them: an engaging story, a sense of progression and advancement, an abundance of experiences that elicit interesting emotional responses. Pretty graphics, cool music -- they're part of the mix, but they're not as important as what the game does to you or for you. All gamers do not hold all those elements as equally important, nor do all games do not try to incorporate all those elements -- no big story to Tetris, for instance. So while a lot of games have similar goals or components and a lot of gamers expect similar things when they play a game, I've never found a way to truly approach it scientifically, with empirical accuracy. You are evaluating both art and science -- storytelling and emotional resonance, plus technical aptitude -- so you can't use only one or the other to build an opinion. I have worked from templates in the past that leaned heavily toward to the science side -- more like checklists. Rate the graphics; rate the sound; rate the controls. The trick became how to express those elements in a description of the overall experience -- to drop in phrases about those specific things in the discussion of what the game offers as a whole, which strikes me as a more artistic endeavor. Reviewing is analytical writing, but if it feels analytical when you read it, you are doing the audience a disservice. They don't want scientific data so much as personal insight into how that game might make them feel if and when they choose to play it, or even buy it. And if you are dealing with feelings, I think the whole thing leans more toward art. Value is tricky, because some people want X amount of hours of gameplay for Y dollars. Other people don't care about the length of an experience, but how it affects them. I'm one of those people who loved Portal from the first day I sat down to review it. I knew going in it was going to be a 3 to 4 hour experience. Didn't bother me at all -- the quality of those three hours was so amazing and surprising and joyful to me that I still smile every time I think about the game. Whereas I've played 15-hour games where I was begging the thing to end already. Yet some people felt Portal was too short to be worth their money (even though watching a non-interactive theatrical movie for roughly the same money is a shorter experience!). There is an inherent money-is-time value for them, and if the campaign of a $60 single-player game isn't at least 10 hours, they feel ripped off. Sometimes 10 isn't even enough. And if they can burn through a $60 game in 6 hours? It often does not matter how good those six hours are; they walk away angry. The value is not there. But it might have been for me. So I can't quantitatively evaluate the overall value of a game for someone who has different values. I can absolutely say "this is what I found valuable, based on this criteria," and then they can determine if that matches what is valuable to them as well. That's how a review is supposed to work -- here's my opinion, and how I came to it; use it as you form your own.
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Stand-Up Comedian
Did your career blow up after you performed on the Tonight Show / Conan?
Wills and Estates Lawyer
Can I leave everything to my pets?
Court Reporter
If your special keyboard lets you type 200+ words per minute, why doesn't everyone use them?
I don't know the current statistics on the percentage of female game players. I'm a reviewer, not a statistician. :) And I think we've both seen games that are marketed directly to female players, so it seems pretty clear that publishers do.
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You know those were created by the guy who also created the first Easter egg in games, right? Warren Robinett, creator of the Atari 2600 classic Adventure, where he snuck his name in as a credit in a secret room. Awesome.
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Not really. Publishers love those kinds of quotes from the media, and they want to use them whenever they can. Everybody wants to be Game of the Year according to someone, and really, the only consensus is when multiple independent editorial outlets all come to the same conclusion -- which happens some years and doesn't other years. Every year at the E3 Expo, the Game Critics Awards offers its best of show stuff, and that is a panel of judges from dozens of the top editorial outlets -- but that group of judges does not reconvene at the end of the year when the games are actually finished.
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