I said this over in the GB thread, but it's actually very funny to me to see people react this way because the reason I even listened to the episode (I'm already kinda sick of hearing about God of War) was people praising its discussion of reviews elsewhere. And frankly, I ended up agreeing with them. And I hope (even if only because I put way more time into writing this than I thought and I don't want it dismissed out of regret for my time alone) addressing some stuff here doesn't come across as being the Waypoint Defense Force or like I think I'm better for following certain discussions happening elsewhere or something. It's just that there are some things here that I think are missing context, or misreading tone, or just mishearing things, but there also things being said that make me just feel like I literally listened to a different podcast than some of you.
the time thing is also why I'm not replying to the Zelda stuff specifically, because this took way more time to think about/type than I thought it would as is, as I wrote way more than I intended to, and I missed that point till I reloaded the page just now, apologies
Finally had to unsubscribe from Waypoint radio after that embarrassing God of War segment. The argument that a lot of reviewers were somehow "wrong" for liking the game without really forming a compelling argument as to why (all in the presence of Patrick who reviewed and loved it) was peak condescending-echo-chamber-Waypoint. The tenacity at which Austin went on that rant makes me believe he hasn't gotten over his anger issues yet. I've had my fill, I'm done.
Serious question: at what point did Austin go on a "rant"? He was frustrated at times, sure, but I can't point to a moment that I read as being even close to
anger. And then rather than being intense or tenacious, at the end he was
hesitant to say more such that
Patrick was the one driving the discussion. And he literally said, at length, at the point before Patrick starts pushing the issues with other reviews himself, that no one was wrong for liking or reviewing the game well besides? Like he literally said the following, not with any anger but with
hesitation or even
confusion while trying to work out his thoughts:
"I don't know, I don't know. I'm very… So that's like… If I can leave on one thing, and we can take a break, that's um… It's I'm still lingering with that question… of… kind of… the response to this being so overwhelmingly positive. I'm not, so, so
to be clear, I'm not taking anything away from any reviewer who loved this game. I'm not saying that they are wrong for loving this game,
at all. Like I genuinely understand why someone would love this game and why they would score it a 10, or say that it's like, whatever…. You know like we, I edited your, your, review Patrick. I obviously hadn't beaten the game yet… [Patrick/Danielle joke] Even though I had a different experience with it than you, I wouldn't say that it's not an honest response. But I do think that it's, it's a problem, for the industry, to, to have reviewers who unilaterally responded to something that I don't think… I don't know, maybe, maybe it's not a prob- I don't know. I'm struggling with this, because… I think it has so many…."
And then Patrick takes it from there. That wasn't anger, at all; that's just not what his tone was. In my opinion, to say his line of thought throughout the episode was due to anger issues is not only kinda legitimately insulting and dismissive, but also very confusing, personally. At no point did I feel like he was angry, or that he and Patrick were butting heads.
I've listened to the GoW segement now and what I will say is I think Austin holds games to a nearly impossible standard.
It does wear thin that he goes for the jugular on a game that from all impressions actually is trying to deal with its own past in an interesting way. I thought he got the Far Cry 5 stuff mostly right but this feels like it is far more on the Red Strings Club end of the spectrum.
The veiled suggestion that a lack of diversity in reviewers was fueling the good reviews of GoW is what really struck me. I can't get behind that sort of dismissal of an entire industry because their views don't reflect your own or their skin doesn't match your own.
The others don't pull Austin up enough when he goes on these sorts of rants and it really exasperates it as some meaningful discussion may help temper his opinions and not over-reach with what at times can feel like regularity.
From someone who played the first GoW even I can tell the Kratos in GoW 2018 is an absolutely radical departure. Before now he was little more than a caricature.
Austin is trying to say it doesn't go far enough but I'd agrue that trying this at all is remarkable in a big budget game. He seems very quick to penalise games for trying to be something more and not fully matching his own idea of what that 'more' should' be.
I'll have to play it to say if it's successful but it certainly gives the impression of a much more nuanced take of the character.
As someone who does not find the other GoW games very appealing, I'll totally admit that this new one looks actually somewhat interesting- it's something I can see myself playing closer to GOTY season, when it's on sale, and games I really care about and want to play ASAP aren't constantly coming out.
But I also don't think it's an impossible standard to expect more than what it seems to be. Patrick brings this up in his review, but the "dadification" of games has been a thing for a loooong while now.
Mattie Brice's piece that he quotes is about The Last of Us and BioShock Infinite; it has been 5 entire years since those games came out. A sad tale of bitter/angry single fatherhood is not new. It's literally not remarkable; we've been down this road before, fairly often even, in AAA games. That's not to reduce this game just to that; I'm sure it tells that story well enough, and with a lot of craft to it going by the little details they mention in this podcast alone - that's why I'm even interested. But I think it's fair to judge such a big budget game for not aiming beyond that at this point; in relistening to quote for this post, they get at this with their discussion of "prestige for games" (though it ends a little abruptly). And specifically, it's hardly unfair at all to say "if you're going to seriously take the steps to reckon with the series historically focusing on needless violence, why can't you also reckon with how badly it treated women?" I feel like that's not this extra step that it's being unfairly penalized for missing, that's something that should have been part of the game's concept from the start. It shows a selective ignorance in what they saw the need to account for in their reinvention of the series and its lead. And the podcast accounts for the fact that, obviously, money also enters in this because of course it's harder to sell both to your bosses and your audience that this game should star Kratos's kid instead of him, so Kratos is the star even if that makes its points less effective or unique, but that doesn't mean you can't do
something to address all that.
And thing about the lack of diversity in reviews is… that's literally a thing, though? On a very simple level, as they discuss and Patrick's review discusses, we're indeed talking about a game about fatherhood made by fathers (or to be more accurate, made up by a likely fairly diverse team with fathers in lead/senior positions), and that's not nothing. That's where that selective ignorance I mentioned comes from. And that extends to the reviewers for large sites, who are obviously not entirely older white cishet men, but you can't say that's not the majority. And sure, more people who don't fit that reviewing the game wouldn't necessarily talk about those pacing issues that Austin is a little confused about only him feeling (even ignoring their discussion of how the review process always being a slog can affect that). But more diversity could easily lead to better discussions of things like its handling of women- that piece by Mattie Brice (who is herself a trans woman of color) doesn't just discuss the "dadification" of The Last of Us but also how how it uses rape imagery, for example. And, frankly, it would even also easily lead to more interesting discussions of how the game handles fatherhood - not only is that going to differ culturally, but how society perceives you and your father (or you and your child) is also going to differ, and there's a lot to dig into there. And that's just what I've come up with offhand.
That being said, that was all a bit of a tangent, because the important context that I feel is being missed beyond that is that
those young diverse critics exist. They're out there, hustling. I had been wondering how well this context would be handled on the podcast beforehand, since I thought it might be a connection that's not clear to the casual listener, but Austin actually very specifically brings up that they (the podcast hosts) are vaguely in a community/circle of younger, up and coming critics. These people who are their peers but some who also freelance for them or are just friends as well, many of whom are not white cishet men, and as Austin says early on there are definitely people in that group who have been critical of how the game has been reviewed. Not just that it's been reviewed well, but also what the writing about it has been like; these comments exist, and I've seen at least some of them personally just due to following such critics on Twitter. He also brings this group of people up again much later on as well, discussing a review being mocked a bit for how it discussed the axe coming back to them and how he actually thought that was a good point to include, etc. Similarly he talks about how he edits reviews, and teasing out details the writer clearly cares about that could stand to be more of a focus even if it means cutting some things that every other review is going to include anyway, which lines up with some of that criticism. Anything he's saying is in the context of these critics existing and making these similar arguments about the reviews, and he frames it as such. (As a sidenote - Danielle also sorta gets at this context, because the Polygon "sexism sidebar" that somehow does not impact the actual review has been infamous for
years among some critics
. Also, in typing this I did not think through that I was writing a sidenote about sidebars, but hey, I'm keeping it.)
Now, you can totally argue that these people and what specifically they've been saying could have been more clear - whether that was not wanting to put them under a microscope they didn't ask for, just not wanting to try to say who said what offhand, or some other purposeful decision I do not have the answer to - but they are out there. In fact some of these people are freelancers who
crowdfunded paying for copies of the game so they could write about it. I didn't know about this part until when I went to grab the link as part of providing context in general, but you can see that Austin gave a sizable donation to it. He was not talking about this theoretically; those critics exist and are out there freelancing and could not afford to write about this game without support. So hopefully we will very soon have a decent bit more writing about the game - I've seen people I follow who got copies as a result of this preloading it tonight - that comes from a more diverse crowd of critics with things to say.
Yeah, I had this same thought while listening. The critical consensus for BotW was even more effusive than God of War. I can understand Austin's broader frustrations with the diversity of game reviewers, but singling out God of War felt a little weird. (And to his credit, Austin did seem to be aware that he was having trouble properly articulating this point.) I did roll my eyes a bit when Patrick gave his "this review was a moment in time, maybe I won't like this game soon" spiel since that seemed to 100% be a response to Austin's criticisms.
Just to address this last bit quickly- I can't argue that that thing specifically wasn't a little bit of a capitulation, but Patrick did mention from the early in the podcast (about 10 minutes in) that part of the problem with writing for reviews for him is that he knows his final thoughts are definitely going to be impacted by others criticizing the game in ways he didn't expect. And he does give an example of a moment that Austin's alluding to that he would likely discuss with him and come away thinking much more critically of. So definitely a response, but not really out of line with what he was establishing about how he approaches games earlier in the podcast.
