[Review Manifesto] Cruel's Intentions

A few years ago, while discussing video games, the following question came to my mind:

"What's the difference between a good game I dislike, and a bad game I like?"

Soon thereafter, I found out that this question applies not only to video games, but also to movies, books, TV shows, music, you name it. This made finding an answer even more important, completely subjective though it would be.

Then in Spring of 2007, during a Therapy? concert, the answer hit me: it's the intentions behind the game, movie, concert, what have you. You see, Therapy? weren't on a particularly good night that time, most of their songs didn't really resemble their studio album counterparts, and their sound was pretty mediocre. But they had loads of energy and enthusiasm, so even if their performance wasn't the best, I found myself having fun. Their performance was lacking, but their intentions were not. So I was a satisfied customer that night.

Therefore, since that day, the creator's assumed (as you can never know 100% unless explicitly told so) intentions with their finished product is perhaps the single most important thing for me, when evaluating something. Moreover, I feel that examining the intentions behind something is a good way of doing away with the level of sheer negativity that is so prevalent over the Internet nowadays, i.e "Everything sucks".

Naturally, even with the best intentions in the world, you may have a mediocre end product. This is why my reviews on this blog will be divided into three parts:

What It Does Right - What is it about the item in review that makes it work, what makes it stand above its competition?

Things about it that aren't that hot - Nothing's ever perfect, so what are its flaws?

Things That Make No Sense - " Why am I not allowed to change my character in Virtua Fighter 5's Arcade Mode after losing a match and continuing?", " Why did the writers of Heroes think that regurgitating the same plots and villains was a good idea?" and other things I just don't get.

Personally, I'm not very fond of scores in reviews, even if it's the first thing everybody (myself included) reads in one. Regardless, scores usually retract from the text itself, and are ultimately rather arbitrary, especially given how many different scales there are out there. 3 out of 5 stars doesn't really equal 60%, for example.

Consequently, instead of adding an arbitrary number at the end of my reviews, I will be instead adding my personal evaluation of what I perceived to be the creators' intentions with their product. To make matters simpler, this evaluation will belong in one of the following categories, in order of declining quality:

The Genuine Article: A creator's lovechild, the result of the finest of intentions and the highest of production values. Examples include:

Iron Man: As fine a popcorn a film as you can get, Iron Man combines incredible visual effects and breath-taking action with genuine characters you can relate to, and a plot that's not full of holes!

Portal: While some would argue that visually it is a very simplistic game, that would be missing the point. Portal is a very stylized game that manages to do a lot with so little, visually. Moreover, its gameplay is polished to perfection, it offers an antagonist that will definitely be quoted for years to come and also has a very deep storyline, told in surprisingly subtle ways.

Almost, But No Cigar: Something that would have ended in the above category, if not for a few frustrating issues, even if it begun with the best of intentions. Examples include:

Dreamfall: One of the finest storylines in a game, ever, with some of the best characters around, it genuinely tried to break from the conventions of the point & click adventure, and reinvent a genre. Also one of my favorite games. However, it's hard to overlook the clunky combat and stealth segments, as well as the oversimplified gameplay with trivial environment interactivity.

Heroes, Season One (excluding the god-awful finale): The first season of Heroes almost succeeded in doing what it promised: Present a story about people with superpowers in the real world, trying to live their every day lives while coming to terms with what they're capable of. Sadly, the fact that it was originally planned for only 12 episodes meant that Heroes suffered from pacing issues in the second half of the season, as well as mediocre action scenes due to its low budget.

Paving the Road to Hell: With the best of intentions. The creator of this product meant well, but the end result is closer to a disappointment than a success. Even so, it can still prove to be an enjoyable experience. A couple of examples:

Daredevil (the movie): At times a genuine try at portraying a more realistic type of superhero, with an actual story at that, it falls victim to the usual Hollywood conventions and Affleck's limited acting skills. I still liked the movie, to the bafflement of many of my friends.

World of Warcraft - The Burning Crusade: Blizzard's attempt to do away with the limited quests, huge dungeons and grind-happy nature of vanilla WoW, ultimately fails due to a variety of reasons. Due to the lack of a real storyline behind the journey to Outlands, quests feel unconnected to the world, the shorter dungeons often feel superficial, and the Endgame is even more of a grind than before.

Bad, and Loving it: While hardly top-notch by most standards, a product that falls in this category is fully aware of its quality (or lack thereof) and instead builds on this. Often a loving homage to its influences.

Kung Fu Hustle: A homage to wire-fu (modern wuxia) movies, exaggerated to the point of being cartoony, and totally hillarious.

The Powerthirst videos: Visual gags and puns so bad, they'll make you literally laugh out loud.

Obnoxiously pretentious: While there's nothing pattently wrong with being pretentious per se, when something gets stuck up its own ass, then there is a problem indeed. More often than not, something obnoxiously pretentious will take itself far too seriously. There can still be redeeming features in them, though they're usually overshadowed by liquid pretentiousness. Illustrious examples include:

Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy: With a storyline that degenerates from engaging to utter nonsense a few hours in, and gameplay that takes us back into Track n' Field button mashing, this game would like to think it revolutionized storytelling in video games through interactive cut-scenes. What it instead did was give people a legitimate reason for hating Quick Time Events.

Ang Lee's Hulk: It valiantly tried to re-invent the comic book movie through the use of multiple panels, remeniscent of a comic book page. Mutated pink chihuahuas and the main antagonist's transformation into a giant electromagnetic id, however, meant that the movie felt like pretentious shit.

Superfluous Monkey: Something that shamelessly copies from a variety of sources (or in extreme situations, copies an existing product completely) and has the audacity to believe that it actually surpasses them in quality. Sadly, what usually happens is that it completely fails to understand what made the originals so appealing in the first place. Eeeeeeeexamples:

Too Human: It combines Devil May Cry inspired, action-oriented combat, Diablo-style dungeon crawls and loot-based gameplay, World of Warcraft-y talent trees and storytelling reminiscent of BioWare's RPG's. And Too Human manages to botch up the majority of them.

CSI Miami: While it was created by the same people behind the original CSI: Las Vegas, in an effort to prevent other channels from making their own CSI clones, it had none of the wit and gritty charm that the original had. Amusingly enough, most the inevitable CSI clones are much better than Miami.

Cynical Cash-In: What the name (oh so) subtly implies. The lowest of the low, a product completely neglected by its creator, existing only to make loads of cash with the target demographic. More often than not, a cynical cash-in is of the lowest overall quality. Examples are numerous, but two that stand out are:

Dead or Alive Xtreme 2: Doing away with the original game's attempt at being a decent beach volley simulation, DOAX2 instead is a collection of mind-numbingly boring minigames, which only exist as an excuse for dressing the female protagonists in outfits worthy of softcore porn movies. The game's cynicism extends to the fact that its graphics (by far the high point of the original, and understandably its main appeal) are nothing special.

Spider-Man 3: A ridiculous plot, with some genuinely embarrassing moments, a retarded love triangle, a random collection of Spidey villains and visual effects straight from 2002. A kick in the nuts for all fans of the first two Spider-Man films.