Criticising the critics

Reviewers mean critics and critics ultimately mean opinions or rather there opinion, I despise critics purely for this reason even there name annoys me 'critics' to criticise something sometimes constructively sometimes not.

But unlike film reviwers, arguably the most elitist bunch in a pot of snobbery - games reviews are something different. Unlike films, predefined linear experiences games are different, for the most part they share similair atributes with there filmic cousins there still tied together with an engrossing plot and mulidimensional charaecters but theres something thats different from film - gameplay.

What makes a decent game? Its not its storyline or the detailed back story of its charecters although this does sometimes help, its how well the little fat italian man jumps along your screen or that lest level boss - gameplay is what makes a decent game amazing, how do you review this, is there any formualic theory that reviwers follow?

For the most part there isnt, they simply review current games by way of comparison with whatever the current genre topper is, this is all well and good for generic shooter 4 or Sims expansion 4431 - 'Recruitment centre fun!' determining how many boxes it ticks to fill in with every other title on the market but if its a new game or one that dosen't neccesarly follow the norm, more often than not several things happen:

1. Graphics are scrutinised, Does the game feature visceral amounts of blood and gore? If yes, congratulations! Your instantly a mature game and any question of simplistic gameplay is washed aside in a flurry of headshots and apprecitative teenagers

2. If the game features somehow cartonny or stylised graphics, the gameplay is instatly a moot point regardless of depth of play, especially to GTA chasing 14 yr olds - Look at most peoples perception of Nintendo's games for example, although thankfully this is changing

3. Does the game feature insaney beautiful graphics but severly lacks in gameplay options? This will still garner an above reasonable score especially on a new or just released console as reviewers are washed into the hype of said machine offering better and faster everything over the competitions previous offerings - im betting quite a few of the ps3's release games are merely graphical updates of the last games for example.

4. If the game somehow differs from the norm, be it plot, charecters or any other detail, the game is criticised for being too weird, as if following the norm guarentee's a good game. One of many reasons why criminally underated games like Beyond good and evil and Farenheit were completely over looked on release

Certainly there are others who have a genuine insight and knowledge of games and can deliver it in a proffesional journalistic manner but any console specific magazine is generally absolute dross, targetting whatever target audience the consoles themselves target and delivering any platform bias news by way of low brow sexist comments, and idiotic jokes.