GoldbergBlog

Understanding Criticism, Part 1

Everyone’s a critic. The less well-known follow-up to that famous line is that “not everyone knows what they’re doing.”

I’ve been reviewing films since high school. And by reviewing, I don’t mean I saw movies and then told my friends what I thought about it afterwards. I mean I took the time to think about the film, write a review for the school paper, and make a coherent argument. Someone, please give me a medal.

It seems easy enough but there’s an aspect to all criticism that creates a load of controversy: the grading scale. I don’t know how teachers and professors and health inspectors get away with it, but when you’re an entertainment critic, you better keep every damn rating you’ve ever made on file because if someone realizes that you gave one item a higher number or letter, then your arbitrary system will go to hell.

Enter Destructoid’s Reverend Anthony (his parents must be a little disappointed that he decided to review videogames rather than enter the clergy). He recently started a series of articles explaining why videogame reviews “suck”. While I highly suggest you read his article, his main point is that numbers must correspond to actual value. 10 should be Perfection, 5 is Average, and 1 should be The End of All Life As We Know It. While this is sensible, it simply doesn’t hold water. No game can ever be “perfect”. Nothing can be “perfect”. By being “perfect”, something would be completely undone by being an abnormality and thus defeat its own perfection. That’s why I don’t equate “10″ as perfect but rather “classic”. A movie or game or whatever I believe will stand the test of time, at least with me. I also have 10+ but that’s only for classics I believe will stand the test of time and if you disagree I’ll grind your bones to make my bread (which is how Thomas’ makes their delicious English Muffins: human bones).

The numbers and letters are really quite insufferable if you’re a critic but you take them as a necessary evil. You know that many will not have time to read your argument but they want an idea of value and they want it quick. It almost makes a critic want to slap on false numbers to baffle and confuse the reader; to have them read the article to understand the bizarre rating, state your real opinion, and then end the review with “Gotcha!” Or instead of some numerical, quantative-system, start using random objects. For instance, I’ve been playing Rogue Galaxy lately and I give it a rating of Toaster. What the fuck am I talking about? Read on!

Numerical ratings should be after the fact. While after watching a film my mind my zap to a number on a 1-10 scale, after re-reading my reviews, I always try to make sure that the number is justified by the words. But the numbers are really just a quick fix and far too arbitrary to have any real value.

While I agree with Anthony that the skewed scale of reviewing games needs an overhaul, I also think that we can’t be held to some rigid and arbitrary standard where numbers have an inherent meaning beyond themselves. We don’t need to standardize the grading system. We just need to make better arguments and make sure that our shorthand conveys the same.

[Note: This is the first personally penned article I've ever submitted to Digg. I'm sure it will have a total of 1 digg (my own) and should it have the great misfortune of reaching the mainpage, the commentators will tear me a new one by saying that the design of my blog and my writing gave them rectal cancer despite my repeated warnings that this site should not be inserted in the anus].

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