Despite what I actually do for a living I still feel uncomfortable calling myself a writer. Writers are amazingly talented people that can create worlds on a page, or change the way people think. I just put words in an acceptable order to describe things. Usually it's reviews. I love writing reviews; dissecting why things work and championing the highs or discussing the lows. I take pleasure from trying to get across a point, moulding language to deliver opinion and experience. I'm not saying I'm good. I just like doing it.
Which is why I hate stuff like this, “Perhaps Resident Evils 5's most remarkable achievement is how it deftly straddles the line between the franchises sometimes endearing, sometimes frustrating, legacy gameplay mechanics while incorporating more contemporary action adventure elements like enhanced interaction and exploration of environments and a decidedly more shooter-like control scheme.” It's a quote from a review of Resident Evil 5 that appears on Metacritic. I can almost smell the sense of satisfaction the writer got from penning that. How clever they must of felt when they said... the thing... about the... stuff. The problem I have with that sort of writing is that it tells me nothing about the game. Having played it I can tell you it's mainly about shooting angry men in the face. I think that's what the bit about 'legacy gameplay mechanics' might be about.
It seems to be a real games journalism thing. I don't think I've ever seen a film, book or music review like that. Generally they seem content to explain what the experience is like and whether it's recommend or not. When it comes to video games, however, it's all about the big words and twisty sentences, delivered by people content to revel in the belief that their every word is a gift. I've worked for two people who's catchphrase was “tell me about the fucking game” whenever they encountered stuff like this. Usually screamed through strained vocal chords while veins popped on their foreheads. The paper it was written on crushed in a balled fist and shaken to emphasise each word. I think it's because games are still a relatively new medium. It subconsciously drives people reporting on them to try and sound all grown up and intellectual to compensate for the suspicion that no one takes them seriously. What they really want to say is, “man did you see that head come apart?”
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If it's any consolation, book reviews *are* full of this sort of bullshit. It's partly overcompensating and a desperate shove to sound like a Real Writer, and partly hapless lack of writing skills. (Legacy gameplay mechanics? One of those three words is definitely unnecessary, and I'm not wholly sure what any of them refer to.) I guess games have the additional problem that a lot of what goes on in them is non-verbal and so hard to describe, leaving loads of extra space to fill with horrible prose.
ReplyDeleteWhat infuriates me more is people who try and write intelligently who aren't capable of it. "shooter-like control scheme?" Please.
ReplyDeleteDr. Johnson: "Whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out." And he invented words.
ReplyDeleteThe review you quoted celebrates a game that barely avoids pissing you off while doing the same thing RE4 did, with the shooty shooty. And the same old put-a-ruby-in-a-crest/crank. WAS THERE A CHAINSAW GUY AGAIN? That's the question, really.
Still though, I think you can safely call yourself a writer. What with the writing words for a living, etc.