Grand Theft Alfreido

My mate Al recently commented on Grand Theft Auto 4’s squeaky clean rap sheet so far from those funny little nerds that call themselves game reviewers. I thought I would throw down the gauntlet just like him and give my two cents on how I find this to be a bad precedent.

Simply put, 10/10, by sheer mathematical definition represents perfection. Or 5/5. Or 100%. They all mean the same thing. By giving any game, not just Grand Theft Auto 4, a top score means the reviewer has implied that the game cannot be topped. Never mind the long-winded descriptions that most gaming publications give about how 5 stars or 10/10 mean near perfection or completely awesome, if the game was near perfection they wouldn’t give it a 10/10 or 100 points, they would give it something lower. The simple fact is, next month, or maybe 5 years now, there will eventually be a game which will top Grand Theft Auto 4 (probably Grand Theft Auto 5). But wait? They can’t represent that numerically, they already gave Grand Theft Auto 4 a perfect score. Ratings are just a silly way of giving a superficial comparison between games, so people who are too lazy to see the context of the review can compare scores of games and make purchases based on this arbitrary numbers.

I believe that we should be getting rid of ratings/scores altogether. A complex review of every facet of a game simply cannot be represented by a numerical value, you really need to read the full context of the review to get the best idea of what the game does and doesn’t do right. Grand Theft Auto 4 certainly can be improved - for one thing, the cops are way too easy to dodge. The graphics, the pop-in, the music selection, they can all be improved. And what would happen if Rockstar happened to re-release Grand Theft Auto 4 tomorrow and it was much better than the first iteration? Reviewers have already given it 10, they can’t mark it up to 11 even though the game has improved more than when they gave it a 10.

And before anyone points it out, yes, my review of Condemned 2 came with its own bunch of ratings. But you know what? With my new found love for rating-less reviews, I removed the ratings from the review, so now you have to read the whole review to get what I’m getting at. And it will be the same for all future reviews.

I’m a big fan and avid reader of GamePolitics, a site dedicated to reporting the stories of when gaming and politics collide. Dennis McCauley, the main man behind the politically-charged gaming blog is to be commended for not only reporting all sides of the political spectrum when it comes to gaming, but also providing his own insight into some glaring personalities that partake in that political spectrum. The site frequently features personalities like Jack Thompson, Hilary Clinton and South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson. What’s the similarity of these personalities? Well… they are not big fans of adult-oriented games.

It is a well-known fact that the average age of the video-gamer is rising, in a recent study it was in the late 20s. However, to many people in the 40+ age bracket, video games are still foreign to them. And it just so happens that the majority of the people in power are in that bracket, the people who make the rules, the people who run countries, the people who manipulate media. Thus, the younger generation is never going to get the justice they deserve when it comes to videogame legislation whilst the older generation still lives.

Take, for example, South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson, a man who has publicly stated he does not play video-games. Yet he is in the position where he can deny everyone else in Australia the opportunity to introduce an R18+ classification for video-games, on the age-old and, frankly, quite weak excuse that children could obtain and play the games. He, of course, misses the irony that regulating an R18+ classification would effectively KEEP children from playing those games

How about Jack Thompson, the self-proclaimed ‘worst nightmare’ for gamers out there. Jack Thompson is a Miami lawyer who has, time and time again, legislatively attacked supporters and developers of adult-oriented games. He has frequently traded blows with Rockstar Games, the developers of the popular video-game series of Grand Theft Auto, this blog’s namesake, claiming them to be murder simulators. He has also used terrible tragedies to push his agenda, such as the Columbine and Virginia Tech massacres. I don’t know how Jack Thompson has come to the conclusion that video-games make people go loopy, he only has to interview my group of friends to find that we are hardly violent and we play many violent games. In fact, the person who is most violent out of this circle of friends is, in actuality, not much of a gamer.

It is unfortunate to us that we may have to wait many years until the older generation get old and die, in order for more informed people of the video-gamer generation to get into the position where they can actually do something about our sad state of affairs. I only hope I live to see the day that we finally get our beloved R18+ classification for games.

Welcome to my second blog, the blog dedicated to all things gaming. I decided to seperate the gaming thoughts and place them in here as opposed to my other blog because I have long been a gamer and I have got a lot of things to discuss about games. So better than to flood my other blog with gaming posts, stopping people from viewing my informative (read: opinionated) posts, I would just plonk the gaming posts in here.

The other reason is because I have a project coming up with a couple of mates of mine which will be using our gaming blogs to better inform people of the way of gaming in Australia, so stay tuned for that.

Interesting times ahead.