Roughly a week ago the reboot of a series which is practically gaming royalty was released, Doom. With it came a hurried rush for outlets to create information, analysis and gameplay of it, due to the fact that no pre-release copies were handed to press. Most of it was run off the mill, what you’d expect, at least outside of IGN calling it derivative of the series it belongs to, which is about as confusing as you can get.
That isn’t the subject of this piece however. Polygon released a gameplay video called ‘DOOM GAMEPLAY – The First Thirty Minutes‘ in which what could only be described as non-stop hilarity was present. Quite possibly the most incompetent gameplay ever put out, let alone by a professional gaming outlet under its own brand. Many laughs were had by the community in general, marveling over just how bad one could be at a first person shooter.
On the 18th of May, John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun wrote an editorial titled ‘An End To “GIT GUD” – You Don’t Need To Be “Good” At Games To Enjoy Them‘ in which he yelled down essentially the entire industry outside of journalists, who for the most part predictably fell behind the notions within. The premise put forth was that incompetence in how one plays a game was not an end-all for reviewing the product, bringing up an example of comparing his own Homefront progress to a peer of his. The concept that the only metric that shines bright is enjoyment.
There are many reasons I am in disagreement with this piece. Even if the conclusion were to sit at “you don’t need to excel to record and release gameplay” I would still disagree. Speaking of one’s experience when playing a game does not require absolute understanding, no. What does require it, however, is proper analysis to the degree of breaking down mechanical fluency, fairness/unfairness in design and creating gameplay footage representative of what the developers have put together. You might recognize these aspects, they are what is expected in a professional review from the consumer market at large.
Much to the chagrin of the general gaming press, being able to write pretty words does not clad a piece in iron from criticism of its contents, nor its analysis.
How They Flow: Reviewing A Portion Of A Product
To start with, let us examine two fairly prominent archetypes in this type of discussion.
PlatinumGames: Character action games with an extreme focus on mechanical synergy and a natural difficulty curve that never flattens out. Nearly every game released by the studio has at least one or two reviews out in the mainstream press declaring them ‘incomprehensible’, ‘too hard’ and ‘unfair’. The pocket of fans that have followed the main studios of character action through the genre’s lifetime, myself included, can clearly observe what has happened to reach conclusions such as these.
Most of the time these are not games that are one-and-done in regards to playthroughs. Quite often there are multiple post-New Game difficulty modes in which things become even more intense, continuing the difficulty curve directly from the end of a fresh start completion. Even still, many play them once and somehow still come to the end result of considering them too difficult. This presents a huge problem in terms of analysis of what the product has to offer to fans of that market. It stops proper reviewing of the product as a whole.
Playing them once and considering your experience complete is not even the least of the problems. As mentioned, synergy is a huge part of PlatinumGames’ library. You encounter consistent concepts, such as that of Dodge Offset, the borderline art of dodging mid combo and being able to continue the combo from the step you were at before dodging, if your timing is good. This IS something that is explained to you in nearly every game it is present if you dig into the mechanical information menus or the instruction booklet (which I all but believe the press have forgotten exists), but criticism has still been levied at them for not shoving such an intuitive mechanic MORE in your face as you play the game.
Some would even argue that if you ‘Git Gud’ enough at using the mechanic, you become untouchable. Is that plausible for anyone outside of the top echelon of players? No, of course it isn’t. Why is that? It’s because the mechanic is taken absolutely into account when designing encounters, attack damage and enemy patterns, and it shows. If you refuse to practice and become efficient at the use of it, you will fall behind and you will rightfully be punished for throwing such a useful tool to the wind.
Another is the typical plethora of weapons at your disposal. It varies from title to title, but there are always the staple of three weapons. First is your standard starting weapon, which is fast at attacking but has relatively low damage, especially as you progress further. Second is your combo layering weapon, typically being able to stack huge amounts of hits and rack up combo numbers faster than anything else in the game, but is held back by practically negligible damage. Finally, your killer card, the painfully slow weapon that does an absolute truckload of damage.
Would you consider someone’s analysis of such a game’s combat to be proper, to be definitive, if they were not using everything at their disposal, learning when to use which tool in which situations? I wouldn’t. I imagine most of the PG fan base would not either. You can’t simply retire to the idea of using a single aspect of a combat system and then consider your thoughts to be comprehensive on the matter.
Stack even just these two things on top of one another, the refusal to use Dodge Offset to its potential and limited use of alternate weapons. You might start to understand why people could come out the other end feeling overwhelmed by the difficulty curve that left them behind with their negligence of mechanics.
That is not the game’s fault however, that is a choice foolishly made by the player in their pursuit of keeping a simple play style. They refused to ‘Git Gud’.
Git Gud By Design
The Souls Series: There is a very good reason why Souls YouTubers take a large, possibly even a majority of the coverage away from traditional press. Games that are designed in such a meticulous fashion require purpose-made scrutiny. There is also a very good reason why ‘Git Gud’ is incredibly prominent within the fan base, and it isn’t due to the perceived elitism that a profligately defensive press member would blame.
If anything, Git Gud is practically etched into the coding of each and every Souls title. The game itself will put a wall in front of you if you are reckless, if you rush, if you get impatient. If you ask someone “how do I beat this Souls boss?” I am sorry, but the sole answer will be Git Gud. It is the natural method by design.
This brings up the many different styles of combat within Souls. Playing as a mage gives you an incredibly different (and in my opinion simpler) experience when it comes to dealing with both large enemies and mobs. At the same time, the world design might restrict you in some places, where it would be easier to brandish a melee weapon.
Many people have and will continue to enjoy Souls games without learning the ins and outs and nuances of the mechanics within, but it must be kept in mind that if you are swinging a two handed sword into the side of a corridor and fat rolling away from a mob and die, people will laugh at you. Is it a cruel internal need to put down people who don’t sink as many hours into it? No, it is rightfully enjoying the spectacle of someone who has made zero effort to adapt to their environment.
Here we usually encounter the core problem of the ‘you don’t need to be good to review’ argument, being a player blaming a game for their own failures. I couldn’t count on 50 hands the amount of times I’ve seen people run headlong into their own death in a Souls game, then react by calling the game ‘stupid’ or ‘unfair’. The person that does that, if a reviewer themselves, would state that their time with the game was not fun, as expected, but without mentioning their own reluctance to adapt. Whenever such a notion comes up, it is usually accompanied by a smug silence on detail. How could I, the great reviewer, ever not be good enough? Clearly it is a problem with the game’s design. It is too complicated. It doesn’t hold my hand enough.
Gameplay: Subtly Reinforcing Bias
There is one thing I am always reminded of in regards to representative gameplay. Years ago, IGN reviewed one ‘Sonic Unleashed’, an enjoyable albeit fairly flawed game. The review was filled with reinforcement of the concept that the game was unfair and moved too fast, it gave the players no chance to react properly. In text, this comes off as a huge denouncement of the game, you wouldn’t know exactly where their problems lie. You would assume that the reviewer was doing everything they could to adapt.
However, if you were to hop onto the video version of the same review, you would encounter a multi-minute montage of the player jumping into pits, running into walls and pressing incorrect buttons. Changes the perception of the reviewers thoughts quite a bit doesn’t it? It’s a clear cut case of incompetence getting in the way of proper analysis. While the overall reception to the game industry wide was what I would honestly say it deserved, individual cases like this highlight huge issues that lie in someone deciding to make judgements on gameplay, when they themselves don’t even understand how said gameplay operates.
While not tied to a review, this same thing applies to Polygon’s footage of Doom. Most were thankfully able to easily notice how bad the player was from the first control, in which they aim roughly 4 feet to the side of the enemy right in front of them, before strafing sideways to make it actually line up. What of the few who could have took the player as earnest and capable? Would they assume the game has massive input lag? Would they assume that the encounters were unfairly stacked against the player, for the sake of artificial difficulty?
It might seem hard to believe, but many out there would perceive it as such, especially considering the game was a reboot of a 20 year old title. Someone who hasn’t played video games in a decade might stumble onto that footage, fondly remembering how much they enjoyed the original, proceeding to judge the game unfairly based on the staff’s failures. They couldn’t even get direct confirmation the player was in fact playing badly, as Polygon were quick to shut ratings off and close the entire comment section.
I understand it is out of genuine embarrassment for the guy or girl behind the video, merely protecting their own staff, I have no issue with that, but in doing so they have shut off the public’s ability to yell “hey, this is actually really not what the game is like when you play it”. It’s a disservice to their own fans, anyone looking into Doom and the developers of the game themselves.
The Art of Covering One’s Own Ass
Unsurprisingly, when Walker’s piece came out, you had a plethora of already-established reviewers loudly agreeing, some even coming to the conclusion that writing itself is all that is required to review games, while literally everybody else turned to laugh at the piece and throw ‘Git Gud’ all over social media.
Evidently that is true to a degree, these people are members of the press after all. However, what has become incredibly visible in the past few days is that if there is a divide between the skill and comprehension of two reviewers, people will automatically believe the word of the person who understands the game better, not the better writer.
Wrap your idea of “it was fun or not fun” in all the pretty penmanship you want. This will likely satisfy people to some degree. The reality though is that when someone comes along with clearer thoughts on the mechanics and design of a game, it will wipe away such simple metrics, and if you are carried with it due to leaning on such an idea, it is entirely your fault and something that you should have seen coming.
Glitching Is Art 
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