ear-cutting brilliant

This, my friends, is one of the most brilliant mix of art and gaming I saw. Honestly, more of that inter-art mixing should be done.

Critic vs. review

From Destructoid:

"However, I'd suggest that all contributors to the specialist games media should err on the side of criticism - they are, after all, writing for gamers, not casual onlookers who happened to have glanced a game review while looking through a newspaper."

I totally agree on that point. The issue here is that most gamers don't make the difference between a review and a critic. A review is simply pointing out the pros and the cons of a game in order to give an idea if I should or not buy the game. A critic may give a quick overview of those points but will rather look at the themes of the game's story, the different gameplay methods used and if it's relevant to the media as an whole, especially to such a young media as gaming. Games like Mirror's Edge needs reviews and critics to look at both side of the issue. One to look at "if gamers are gonna like it" and the other to look if it will leave a mark in the history of the medium which will interest more the academics than the gamers.

It's also a matter of where you're looking. If I want a deep critic of a game, I'll go to the escapist, not Destructoid.

Also @ Cyberxion
"Why does Wario get slammed almost entirely for its lack of innovation, whereas a game like Megaman 9 gets a pass? "

It's because Wario as the pretencion of being a new game but does little to actually do anything new. From a reviewers standpoint, it may not be a bad thing ; don't fix what isn't broken, but from a critic point of view that game isn't really relevant. Megaman 9 on the other was made to be some kind of window to an older era. It gives a glimpse to younger gamer of how it was back in the days. It's like making a movie in black and white in 2008. The style (and gameplay in the case of a game) is the same but they rely on modern technology. You may argue that gameplay evolved since then and you are right but gameplay is also a very important aspect of the medium and had to be the same for the main goal of the game from a critic standpoint "opening a window to the early NES era" to succeed.

Beating the game

I found myself reading a few posts on the Fallout 3 gamefaqs board(that place is pretty horrible) and I was shocked when I discovered a trend in the messages. Everyone seems hell-bent on finding ways to do every quests in the game and not interfere with others in order to get everything in some kind of first round. They ask "did I just fucked up that quest", "will it affect this other quest", "how can I do both and get all rewards", "is it a bug?", etc, etc... . It is as they forgot that, like in real life, some choices needs to be made and opportunities are going to be missed.

But beyond the thematic of the game, I fear that these "over acheiving gamers" are just missing the fun of the game. Instead of enjoying the story the game provides or the stories the players can make for themsleves, they just go from quest to quest, get as much rewards they can, skip unuseful texts, complete the game, get the acheivments if they play on XBox 360 and get to the next. I sadly feels it is more of a symptom of consumerism than anything. I'm not saying they are not having fun. They probably are having fun getting 100% game completion. My problem is that I feel they are missing on other levels of the video games. They miss on the narrative level because for them "story gets in the way of gaming". For them, it's only a game that needs to be beaten, consummed, before getting to the next and repeat the cycle.

Richard Bartle distinguished four types of gamers : killers, acheivers, socializers and explorers. Of course, Bartle was seeing this through the lens of virtual world making the socializer and the killer types a little useless when talking about single player games. Sadly, there's no definitive list of gamer types and it's something I'm sure future gaming theoretician are going to explore. But for now, we see there's a clear opposition between acheivers and explorers. The first wants to get everything out of the game and collect every rewards the game can give, and the second wants to see every little details of the game world and immerse himslef in the fictional universe the game provides.

In the end, it seems like the best thing a game can do if it's goal is to get the widest range of gamer type as possible is to give something interresting to do and choices to make them that will please the most type possible. Games like Fallout 3 and Oblivion did just that. they gave something for both acheivers and explorers. It's important to remember that there is no "better" type of gamers. Altough I might feel like acheivers are missing on the narrative of the game, they can play however they want. I feel like this because I am not an acheiver like them. I am an explorer. In those type of games, I prefer to take my time, get myself involve in the story and universe provided to me, explore large worlds, even if it means I am missing some quests and not getting every rewards I could get. The important is to enjoy a game, no matter what you enjoy in it.