Max Vs. The Internet

Good article, it touched on the points I was becoming angry with when perusing reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

That said, while I do think it is silly to compare a movie to a videogame simply based on digital effects and technological wizardry. I think it is also foolish to compare a videogame to a feature film just because it contains a story and it animates.

I think that a major step in stopping these meaningless comparisons will be when we in as videogame creators stop comparing ourselves to film as though it were something that we shouild aspire to.

Okay, my comment isn't directly related, but your post made me think about how critics review movies. So many critics seem to rate a movie solely on whether it's Oscar-worthy high art. I have yet to see 300, but I would say that if the movie sets out to do what the filmmakers intended and people enjoy watching it, then that should be enough to call it a success.

i saw 300 and enjoyed it very much.
what i saw in it - and i might be alone in this, i grant you - was not so much that film and game had intersected technically, but that 300 was saying something about the sort of tribal subcultures that are being organized kind of invisibly as the result of social games like Gor, etc. i cannot tell you how many people in-game have told me: "300 *is* Gor."

As Variety's videogame reporter and the editor of our nascent video games review section (and frequent game critic myself), I'll take just a little umbrage to your "bwuuuuuuh." Though it's so understandable based on the paper's history that I can't be offended or shocked. Nonetheless, we are doing alot more in videogames than people think. Check out variety.com/vidgames. There's tons of news and if you scroll down you can see all our reviews. And I swear there's even more coming, in print and especially online. I should also add "thanks" for the nice link.