The Fundamentals of Adventure Game Reviewing 101
The Fundamentals of Adventure Game Reviewing 101
Good morning, class.
Recently there was quite a stir on the Just Adventure message board when one of our new staff members boldly went where no reviewer had gone before and admitted that she had written a review of Full Throttle before finishing the game. Readers were aghast, some of the JA staff were spastic (to put it mildly) at the reader’s response, the future of the civilized world hung in the balance. How could this be; how could a fair review be written if every infinitesimal detail of the game had not been succored and savored like a succulent T-bone steak? Should a good game reviewer absolutely, irrevocably finish the game before submitting his or her review? Or is this another urban myth that has been blown out of proportion? After all, a game review is nothing more and nothing less than one person’s opinion. But can an objective opinion be formed by viewing an incomplete commodity? That, boys and girls, is our subject matter for today’s class. So get out your notebooks and your pens and prepare for some intensive note-taking. As always, no one will be admitted to class once the late bell has rung.
Every major university offers classes in film history, chronology of literature, short-story writing, film reviewing, etc. As far as I know, not one university offers a course in “The History and Evolution of the Computer Adventure Game.” Nor does anyone offer a class called “How to Be an Adventure Game Reviewer.” It is a self-taught skill honed by years of actually playing the games. You must posses excellent writing skills and a love for the genre and be able to conjure up the cumulative knowledge you have acquired from years of staying up late trying to solve one more puzzle. The only reference materials at your disposal are the games themselves and any information you can glean from company web sites and PC-related magazines. In other words, there is no “How To” book that explains how to differentiate a full motion video game from a 3D game from an animated 2D game. Think I am oversimplifying? Go ask your mother to look at a sample of each game then ask her which is which. Or look it up in your Funk and Wagnall. Or better yet, how about that computer book detailing the evolution of the computer game, oops, there hasn’t been one written yet. Actually, as the years go by the games do get easier to review as there is now a body of work on which to base the review. I wonder what the review of the first Zork game was like, “The plot is about an enchanted white house in the middle of the woods. These silly games will never catch on with the public.” I need to hunt down some of my dog-eared issues of Questbusters to see what Shay Addams had to say about these early, groundbreaking classics. Well, class, I think I have made my point regarding game history, but what about that million-dollar question: should the reviewer finish the game before writing the review?
The average movie lasts about two hours. The average book is about 400 pages. If we read at a rate of 40 pages per hour then it would take about 10 hours, on the average, to read a book. The average adventure game is meant to be finished in between 30 and 50 hours. Let me reiterate this point. You would have to watch about 25 movies or read five books in the same amount of time it takes to complete an adventure game. Many experienced players can complete a difficult game like Cydonia or Morpheus in about 25 hours. That is still a lot of time to devote to one project. When you have finished a book, you have read every word in that novel. When you watch a movie, you have seen every shot and heard every line of dialogue in that movie. Sure, there may be some deep, hidden themes or some subtle inferences you did not catch, but you have seen the entire movie. When you have finished an adventure game, you have not played the entire game. There may be multiple endings, there may be rooms you did not enter since they were not necessary to finish the game, there may be lines of dialogue you did not choose during a conversation. Is there anyone out there who can honestly say that they hear every line of dialogue and see every ending possible in every game they play? If so, you are a scary individual and I want you to stay away from my family. Even if you have done all this, then what about Easter eggs? Were there any hidden scenes or pranks put in the game by the developers that might have influenced your final opinion of the game? With the exception of early classics like Pac Man and Pong, I cannot think of very many games in which I have seen every board, every pixel, every 3D-accelerated scene.
Has anyone ever complained that a review was incomplete because the reviewer did not finish that game of Doom or Quake or Motoracer? Has anyone ever finished any of these games? There is, you do realize, a concluding scene to these games. Quick, how many out there ever know how Doom ends? Hardly anyone. These games though are not made to be finished. They are made to be replayed over and over and over again. Adventure games and role-playing games are made to be played to a satisfactory conclusion. But how many out there even remember the finish from any adventure game? Not many. I have literally played hundreds of adventure games and could probably count on one hand the endings I remember, and even those are vague. The level of writing for computer games has not yet reached the level where we have had a memorable finale on the grand order of a Citizen Kane or a Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yes, a good twist to an ending can influence your overall opinion of a movie or a book, but we have yet to attain that pinnacle in the gaming world. I have yet in 18 years of gaming played a game where my entire perspective of the game was changed by the conclusion. Usually, the review is mentally written before I have even reached the halfway point of the game. But what if you insist on finishing the game before you write a review? What if you are stuck on a puzzle for days and there is no hope in sight and you want the review to be finished before the next millennium? Yes, Mr. White, your hand is raised. A walkthrough, you say? Well, let’s see what the rest of the class thinks about this new iron in the fire.
I used to be dead-set against walkthroughs. Come fire and brimstone, I would not use a walkthrough. Maybe it was a guy thing, sort of like not asking for directions even when we have been hopelessly lost for days. I have more unfinished games here then you would believe. A funny thing happened, though: I thought it would be fair to my readers if I finished the game, and the only way that was possible was to resort to the last resort, a walkthrough. But is it really fair if I “cheat?” Am I still being objective about the difficulty level of the game? Well, I think that I have played enough games in my lifetime that I can effectively gauge the difficulty level of a particular puzzle. I try to not use the walkthrough until it is absolutely necessary, but I no longer hesitate when I am stuck on a puzzle as I want to finish the game so I can do the review. As I said in my review on Cydonia, “If you were to put a thousand monkeys with a thousand computers all playing a copy of Cydonia in one room … well, suffice it to say that the majority of the monkeys would be playing Monkey Island 4 before I would complete Cydonia.” I may not be the brightest bulb in the room, but I know when I am stumped.
In conclusion, class, what are the rules for writing a review on an adventure game? The rule is there are no rules. You try to be fair and ethical. You let your readers know if you have used a walkthrough or if you have only played 75 percent of the game. You let the reader know if you have played a finished version of the game or a beta version. Does it really matter if you have finished the game? Sometimes. But more often than not, no. Your readers will let you know if they think your review has been unjustly influenced or if you have skimped over sections of the game. Hell, if you guys would attack [Jenny Guenther] you’ll attack anybody! Well class, I see that we are out of time for today. Mr. Dickens, I need to see you after class so that we can discuss your attitude. As for the rest of you, class is dismissed.
