The Jewphin Rants About… Homogenization
By: TheJewphinThink of yourself as just a bundle of chemicals. We are all just a bundle of chemicals. Personally, I’m forty percent Zinc. The crazy thing is that we are all different bundles of chemicals. Sure most of us have two eyes, one nose, three ears, a tail, and four to five other appendages, but our internal body chemistries are all different. Some of us are allergic to cats; others can’t eat gluten; some poor unfortunate souls are unable to process meat; and some people have to live in bubbles because just breathing the air might kill them (I saw this in a movie so it has to be true).Given how different we all are, it’s amazing how often we attempt to homogenize things that affect our body chemistries to cover everyone. I’m talking in terms of diet, exercise, supplements, medicine, all of these things where you will look online and find the one plan that’s supposed to work for everyone. Pharmaceuticals has it the worst because you end up with mass production of a mix of chemicals that will mostly work for most people instead of individualizing for all people. At least diet plans and workouts can be customized to the individual person.Yet even when we can customize to the individual (I swear I have a point, just bear with me), we all too often don’t (OH GOD THERE’S A BEAR WITH ME). You’ll see this time and again with fad diets and exercise routines. I don’t care how much you love CrossFit or whether the Paleo diet has been working well for you. {Not only do I not care, but I probably don’t want to talk to you about it for fear that an embolism will pop in my brain and I will drop dead. Right in mid backstroke.} The point is that you have the ability to talk to someone who can personalize your diet and exercise to your exact body chemistry, but you don’t.And this absence of personalization brings me back to the topic of game reviews. A one to ten scale for a game – while not perfect – is an ok indicator of whether the reviewer liked the game or not. But I don’t need to know whether the reviewer liked the game or not. I need to know about things specific to the goddamned game. Some sites attempt to create a review system that has multiple facets – a homogenization of what people are “looking for” in each game.But half the time these different one to ten scales are irrelevant or just obvious if you have a basic idea of the type of game you’re looking at. If a new Fire Emblem comes out, don’t show me a tab called “Replayability.” It’s a turn based RPG. It has almost no replayability! If a 2-D side scroller Dark Souls clone comes out, don’t show me a tab called “Graphics.” I am not playing this game for the damned graphics.And the biggest problem is that a macro level, my goal is to distinguish this one game from other games in the same class. If I am looking to pick up a turn based RPG, I am probably comparing it to other turn based RPG systems. That means I want to know how good the story is, how customizable the combat system is, what the difficulty curve is, and how well the game evolves over time. If I am playing a first person shooter, most of the above considerations are useless. Then I want to know about graphics, level design, weapon variability, firing satisfaction (I’m looking at you, Black), and enjoyability of multiplayer.Let’s really think about our game reviews, people. Those summary scores can be personalized to each game or even each type of game. People aren’t going into this review blind and if they are, they probably won’t read the summary stats until the end. Let’s pretend if someone is looking at your summary stats they have either seen a trailer for the game or read your overarching intro describing the type of game it is. Then give me some goddamned summary stats that actually matter so I can ignore them and instead buy the game because you gave it a perfect five out of seven.
