Saturday, January 5, 2008
Thoughts on Abstinence 1
Golly, do I want to play video games. Any time I want to do anything else, I think "Well, I'll just go for a quick game first... wait, no."
Friday, January 4, 2008
Thoughts On Vice
The weird thing about the Vice Magazine game review gig is that it was offered to me just as Tycho and Gabe were examining the problems inherent in the conventional review format, and just before the whole Jeff Gerstmann thing (which went down as I was writing the first batch of reviews; and which I probably wouldn't even have noticed if I hadn't started reading up on prominent game blogs following the job offer). This was also shortly after the debut of Zero Punctuation, which... let us say raised the bar somewhat.
Vice Magazine game reviews are, of necessity, short, because Vice isn't dedicated to gaming . I was also given much leeway in what the reviews would contain. Now, I hate redundancy—the idea of writing abridged summaries of what other websites could offer never appealed to me. What I didn't want to do was write the sort of reviews readers could get elsewhere.
I knew this would attract negative comments from the folks who are angry at Gerstmann for giving Twilight Princess an 8.9. I understand the impulse to decry an 8.9 score on a Zelda game. If you're a Zelda fan, you want other people to play Zelda games, too, because they're awesome. If someone unjustly lowballs the score of a Zelda game, that's dangerous. It might trick a few readers into not playing that Zelda game, which would be a tragedy! What fans of Zelda games, who want other people to play the same games they enjoy, want to see is this: A lot of reviews that all say the same thing, so no counterargument has any weight. They want their own opinions validated (arguably a selfish desire) and they want others to have no fear of trying the things they, themselves, enjoy (selfish or selfless depending on how you look at it). I once felt the same way about low scores on Legacy of Kain games.
As it happens, I loved Wind Waker and hate Twilight Princess, but the article that explains why is bought and paid for by Vice, so you'll have to talk to them if you want to hear it. The unfortunate side-effect of work-for-hire is that I don't own my ideas.
So the philosophy behind my Vice reviews is this: I will try to say the sort of things that other game journalists aren't saying, or, at least, say it in a way other game journalists aren't saying it, not because I'm laying out the raw truth everyone else is too afraid to speak or some bullshit, but because, well, I don't need to say what everyone else is saying. They're saying it for me. So if my Vice reviews look a bit odd, if maybe my viewpoint seems skewed, if I skip over obvious points to dwell on trivialities and specifics, now you know why. I'm not claiming my writing so far has achieved the goals I've set for it, but I know what those goals are.
(Now you know why this blog has the title it does.)
The other philosophy behind my Vice reviews is that espoused by Penny Arcade: My views aren't special, and I'm just sharing my own impressions. My comments are not definitive, and it'd be folly to act as if they were. I lay no claim to authority on these matters.
Obviously this is entirely tempered by the desires of my editor. Them what cuts the checks get input on the tone. No one has asked me to change anything yet, though.
Vice Magazine game reviews are, of necessity, short, because Vice isn't dedicated to gaming . I was also given much leeway in what the reviews would contain. Now, I hate redundancy—the idea of writing abridged summaries of what other websites could offer never appealed to me. What I didn't want to do was write the sort of reviews readers could get elsewhere.
I knew this would attract negative comments from the folks who are angry at Gerstmann for giving Twilight Princess an 8.9. I understand the impulse to decry an 8.9 score on a Zelda game. If you're a Zelda fan, you want other people to play Zelda games, too, because they're awesome. If someone unjustly lowballs the score of a Zelda game, that's dangerous. It might trick a few readers into not playing that Zelda game, which would be a tragedy! What fans of Zelda games, who want other people to play the same games they enjoy, want to see is this: A lot of reviews that all say the same thing, so no counterargument has any weight. They want their own opinions validated (arguably a selfish desire) and they want others to have no fear of trying the things they, themselves, enjoy (selfish or selfless depending on how you look at it). I once felt the same way about low scores on Legacy of Kain games.
As it happens, I loved Wind Waker and hate Twilight Princess, but the article that explains why is bought and paid for by Vice, so you'll have to talk to them if you want to hear it. The unfortunate side-effect of work-for-hire is that I don't own my ideas.
So the philosophy behind my Vice reviews is this: I will try to say the sort of things that other game journalists aren't saying, or, at least, say it in a way other game journalists aren't saying it, not because I'm laying out the raw truth everyone else is too afraid to speak or some bullshit, but because, well, I don't need to say what everyone else is saying. They're saying it for me. So if my Vice reviews look a bit odd, if maybe my viewpoint seems skewed, if I skip over obvious points to dwell on trivialities and specifics, now you know why. I'm not claiming my writing so far has achieved the goals I've set for it, but I know what those goals are.
(Now you know why this blog has the title it does.)
The other philosophy behind my Vice reviews is that espoused by Penny Arcade: My views aren't special, and I'm just sharing my own impressions. My comments are not definitive, and it'd be folly to act as if they were. I lay no claim to authority on these matters.
Obviously this is entirely tempered by the desires of my editor. Them what cuts the checks get input on the tone. No one has asked me to change anything yet, though.
Temporarily Setting the Activity Aside
I've decided to answer Leigh Alexander's request that others join her in abstaining in games for a week. I won't be playing video games until January 11th. I'll be talking about them and thinking about them and reorganizing them on my shelves, though.
First post!11one!
Hi.
I'm Stephen Lea Sheppard, I review video games for Vice Magazine and their website Viceland, I write freelance for tabletop RPGs, I moderate on the RPGnet forums and I played Harris on Freaks and Geeks and Dudley in The Royal Tenenbaums. I also drove an airport cart in a Mario Kart: Double Dash commercial once. You will note that my credentials for writing about video games are rubbish. That's okay.
This is my blog for talking about video games in all the ways I don't have space to do at Vice, because in my efforts to see how other game reviewers do things, I've discovered a few of them keep blogs like this. It's different from my other blog, Output, in that it's about games in specific. Hopefully this won't be a mere exercise in cargo cultism.
That should probably cover the introduction.
I'm Stephen Lea Sheppard, I review video games for Vice Magazine and their website Viceland, I write freelance for tabletop RPGs, I moderate on the RPGnet forums and I played Harris on Freaks and Geeks and Dudley in The Royal Tenenbaums. I also drove an airport cart in a Mario Kart: Double Dash commercial once. You will note that my credentials for writing about video games are rubbish. That's okay.
This is my blog for talking about video games in all the ways I don't have space to do at Vice, because in my efforts to see how other game reviewers do things, I've discovered a few of them keep blogs like this. It's different from my other blog, Output, in that it's about games in specific. Hopefully this won't be a mere exercise in cargo cultism.
That should probably cover the introduction.
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