I read White Noise about 3 or 4 years ago now. I did not like it. I couldn’t follow it’s plot (aahhh, I know naughty word) or it’s meaning (obscured by it’s own insistence to it paradoxically), but also it’s point. I couldn’t figure out why I had read the last 250 some odd pages. I had learned nothing, gained nothing, matured nothing, been exposed to nothing in a book as far as I could tell was about nothing. I don’t despise it’s existence, I despise the acclaim this Literary nothing has garnered. I have not read his Magnem Opus Underworld and given it’s length unless my local library has it on disc I wont. But I have read Mao II, which I liked. It wasn’t spectacular, but I’d still put it on the positive end of the scale.

I’ll skip the plot discussion for now and just say I know only one person who ever word hunted through reading a book (this does not count looking up the occasional word as that can sometimes unlock the whole meaning of a passage or obscure it) and that was a specific case: James Joyce’s Ulysses. I did not realize this was a thing, nor would I propagate it. Though neither was Meyer. His word choice talk was for the authors, not the audience.

No he did not lob the label “anti-American” at anyone in this book. He may not have even used the word pompous, though it was implied several places. In fact his entire book was devoid of capital P politics. And frankly unless the work addresses, devolves or is about politics the author’s shouldn’t contaminate the work. Whatever happened to “the author is dead” (one of the most misunderstood essays in literary criticism) with regards to the text. Regardless of what he says elsewhere, it’s what he says here that matters. As for disliking the prose that does not fit his world view, that’s all of us to one degree or another. He is a man with the right to his opinion. It doesn’t matter.

Now we get to have our plot discussion. Is plot the most important thing in a novel. Not necessarily, but I’d say in 8 times out of 10 (number pulled out of my ass) it is. Plot isn’t the end all be all of a story, but it is kind of important. Even trip fests like Mulholland Drive or The Crying of Lot 49 have plot. Plot is the structure upon which everything else is built in the reader’s mind. The creator might have characters or themes or just an image he wants to convey, but in the actual conveyance it has to be around plot. Walls and ceilings cannot stand without foundations and supports. I agree our culture is too focused on plot, because that is as far as our education goes as a culture. The NYT bestsellers list are full of books that are “page turners” built on “seeing what happens next” but good books too have a plot. But the debate about plot holes and plot mechanics is kind of important, because there is some problems if your book cannot stand up to that scrutiny. I don’t know what Foster calls story or plot, but I will put that book on the pile. I have my own theorizing about how “story” “plot” and a third term “narrative” all coalesce together with their different meanings. It may or may not see the light of day depending on how interesting it ultimately is.

Yeah, the plot of video games are nothing to write home about. Especially when their meaning is only tangentially related to them. People who hold them up have never been exposed to anything better or anything thought provoking before.

I know little about visual art criticism, so I showed a friend who studied it your comment. He rolled his eyes. Mentioned Rococo and handed me a book. From what I understood of his abbreviated explanation, “substance=style” is not true. Correlation does not mean causation. Innovative and interesting style in the visual arts tends to go along with thought, not always and that’s when you get empty prettiness. This is where the baroque movement came up. I’m late to this, but I figured it’s about time I get some visual arts learning into me if I’m going to continue with video games.

I’m not sure what part of my paraphrasing of Meyers’ book is “Internet forum thinking” so I’m going to assume you meant his other writings. It’s ironic, because the second part of his book is an extended response to the many criticism/attacks/and Internet forum like behavior he had to deal with from the literary community in their attempts to discredit him. Though given the caliber of pedigree this mudslinging came from I can only wish all Internet forum trolling went like that. (Also, I’m assuming you meant Meyers and not me when saying a person “hurts a culture that is already near visual and prosaic illiteracy.” It’s just that books aren’t a visual medium and video games are that I’m confused.)

Another big mistake that I see readers make (and I do not accuse you of doing this, but I’m talking more in general) is that when they read something like Pynchon or DeLillo, they read it for plot or try to look up every single word and reference as they go along. That’s incredibly distracting, and forgets that most novels should be read for impact–for feeling–and shatters the effect of constant reading. Just save the word-hunting for your reread or after you’re finished a section of the novel; in general, I would discourage treating a novel like a puzzle.

I’d also recommend you read up about Meyers, or check out his reviews and articles at The Atlantic; as you will find, he invests some very bad politics into everything he writes, and surprise-surprise, he always dislikes the prose of something that does not fit his world view. (Did he lobby the “anti-American” label at DeLlilo in A Reader’s Manifesto? He certainly does it elsewhere.)

Another big problem is how he values plot, plot, plot over “empty characterizing and philosophy” then holds up Faulkner, Melville, etc. as good examples of plot. Beyond that, everyone knows plot is literally the most mundane thing about a novel. E.M. Forster, in his 1927 Aspects of the Novel (another book you might find interesting, as it certainly has some interesting relations to games), splits it into two aspects, “story” and “plot.” The descriptors are not what you would think, and probably the reverse of what we would label them today: Forster weighs “story” as the most basic of a novel’s aspects, comparing it to the “tape-worm,” curling out of its host. A boring person asks “what will happen next?” he tells us, and that is never more relevant than in our Spark Notes society where people endlessly debate plot “holes,” plot mechanics, what I would do in my version. This is a society that considers talking about plots in video games as a good weight of their worth as art, and claims substance is separate from style (in the visual arts especially, substance=style).

Needless to say, Meyers sort of Internet forum thinking is not just wrong-headed, but extremely dangerous both to criticism and Literature itself. It’s good to see you got something out of Meyers that is useful for game criticism, but I cannot condone someone who actually hurts a culture that is already near visual and prosaic illiteracy.

Sometimes I regret using the L/N terminology, since it carries so much baggage in the field. Artistic merit is a good substitute for Narratology, but I wouldn’t want to reduce Ludology to mere programming competence. Ludology can encompass that if it impacts the game design and playing experience, but Ludology consists of much more.

One, this is a scoring system target directly to geeks, it alienates the mainstream from understanding at a glance what it is. They see a 10 and they will think ‘great, this game must be amazing’ when really it’s slightly below average. Even among geeks and video game enthusiasts, it speaks to a small segment that knows about DnD ability generation and more-so has to understand the finer points of the math.

Second, it doesn’t alleviate the problems of disproportionate scoring. What is to stop a site from sliding results of the scoring up. Just because there is math behind the system doesn’t mean people will follow it. The 1-10 scoring system has math behind what is average and it is blatantly disregarded. The change in scoring methodology changes nothing and puts a new suit on the same problem.

On your dual scoring system however, it’s a nice idea, but again it’s your execution. You divide the scores into narrative elements and ludic elements. this is a big enough problem in critical circles that we don’t need reviewers throwing their support behind arcane thinking. You are doing the same thing as the reviewers above by assign a different score to a different elements of the product. Graphics, sounds, story, gameplay etc. Many mainstream sites are abandoning this way of criticizing games. You do address there are two fundamental parts to a game and its rating both these parts under the same heading that is a big cause why scores skew to one side of the scale. Games that work functionally as a piece of programing and nothing else tend to get 6s at minimum. Yes that the program should assemble its algorithms correctly is important, but games are also artistic expression and we are so far beyond ‘if it works it’s good model of programing.’ Even word processors have to do more than function to get good reviews. If your dual scoring system was instead ‘artistic merit’ on one side and ‘does it function’ on the other I might agree. It would also clear up Fallout: New Vegas, which by many accounts has brilliant artistic aspirations, but it still fails under the crushing amount of functional bugs. Then I could accept it getting a 9 if it was offset by a very visible 1 explaining it doesn’t work half the time.

Several years ago I proposed a dual metric based on the theories of Ludology and Narratology. My implementation used scores for each metric ranging from 3 to 18, like ability scores in dungeons and dragons. I was ridiculed by Penny Arcade

Anyway, if interested you can read about it here:

http://taipeigamer.blogspot.com/2008/06/ln-implementation-details.html

However it can be useful to have greater precision when quantifying how good a game is, to distinguish between for example an outstanding game and a game that outstanding except for a couple small details but still deserves recognition for being outstanding. Based on this it seems that a scoring system that marks 20 as an average game and then scales linearly up to 100 would be the best system.

I haven’t read Ars Technica reviews, since they don’t use scores I figure the vast majority of gamers don’t either. For some reason if it doesn’t have a score it isn’t a legitimate review so runs the logic in their heads. I’ll take your word that they are well written and on topic.

Another interesting point that a friend brought to my attentions is how he reads reviews. He likes Game Trailers and I couldn’t understand why, especially after he told me what they were like. They weren’t reviews so much as bullet points of features. He doesn’t want an opinion, he wants to know whats in the game and he’ll decide for himself. Then I asked why not go to wikipedia, to which he responded he would, but he’s already on Game Trailers watching videos so it’s easier to watch their reviews or overviews. Overview is what they are and a much better term. The thing is I’ve never seen him complain, really complain about anything he’s played so I’m not entire sure what his measure of anything is. I think it might be, if it runs I’m fine with it, which seems to be what most reviewers judge by whether they do reviews or “overviews” and that doesn’t work for the majority of people.

They recognize what the important parts of a review are and serve those essentials skillfully and succinctly. The distinction between a review and critique is lost on many game reviewers, leading to their hodgepodges of superfluous and vague writing and my constant cravings for substance. I hope Arstechnica never goes the way of the Escapist and caves in to numeric scores and the maleficent hydra that is Metacritic.

@Niero Thanks for stopping by, have no clue how you found it unless you search for that graph every week or so. I have no idea about your sites reviews in particular other than the 10 out of 10 you gave Deadly Premonition. So at least you don’t hate everyone equally.

@nordicninja I saw your comment after I woke up. It came in while I was in the middle of issuing said patch. Finished two hours later. I caught everything I could and made some of the language clearer in places. As for Manifesto compliant…

I think I need to say to all readers who come and read this afterwords. I will not be stalking review sites or hunting anyone down for anything. I am not an enforcer, just a disappointed writer.

Seriously though, great job Eric. I will make certain that any of my future reviews will be Manifesto compliant.

Christian: “There needs to be a full on cultural shooting war within games to eliminate and shame bad game reviewers into assisted suicides if at all possible.” This had me in stitches. Thank you.