I have, as is my habit, left this far too late as usual, and I have been unable to come up with a decent topic to write about, so as normal for situations like this, I am just going to start typing and see where things go from there.
I say that; I've written and deleted some paragraphs several times prior to typing this one. The reason is that this evening I've been engaging with a creative work that a number of people I know have been hyping up for a while and… I'm just sort of not feeling it. I could go into depth about why, but honestly I just don't think I want to; I don't want to upset anyone, and I know how I feel when people make negative remarks about something that is important to me. So I think this might just be something that I shake my head, decide it wasn't for me, and set aside quietly without making a big deal about.
As I say this, I'm conscious of someone I saw on Bluesky earlier saying that people shouldn't be afraid to say negative things, because we "need critics". This person's justification for saying such things was that he was one of the few people who gave Death Stranding 2: On the Beach a negative review, whereas it has been garnering near-universal praise otherwise.
I'm not sure I agree with that. Criticism can be helpful, yes, but it can — and often is — hurtful, particularly in games media, where a lot of writers simply don't have a background in an academic approach to criticism and analysis. We've all had a good giggle at a terrible game getting an absolute panning from a reviewer, I'm sure, but as the years have gone by, I've started to find this less and less amusing. All too often I've seen a game that has worthwhile things to talk about boiled down to "hurr bad game funny", and all that does is drive the people who did enjoy that game into their own little bunkers, unable to have a meaningful discussion about it with others because "Metacritic says it's bad".
Hell, I've encountered this numerous times with people I know personally. On multiple occasions I have made a personal recommendation of something that I have enjoyed, bearing in mind the tastes of the person in question, only to be hit back with "well, but this review on [website] said it's not very good". At that point, the conversation was over. Joe Random writing a review on the Internet carried greater weight for this person than a recommendation from someone with whom they had an actual, personal connection.
Honestly, this kind of blows, and it's a big part of why if I find myself not liking something, I just don't really want to talk about it much. The most recent game for which this happened to me was Blue Prince; a critical darling by all accounts, and one which I did manage to successfully recommend to some "real" friends, but also a game that the more I tried to engage with, the more I became frustrated with. I penned one piece on the subject over on MoeGamer when I was still trying to make my mind up 100%, and left it at that. I'm glad others enjoyed Blue Prince, though, and I wasn't about to shit all over their enjoyment of it by charging in and saying how much I didn't like it.
So yeah. The thing I've been engaging with this evening I'm not going to name, and I'm not going to say any more about for the moment. I'm going to give it a bit more of a chance and then come to my own private conclusions. If those conclusions skew negative, I'll probably never speak of it again, but there's always the chance I'll learn to love it. Stranger things have happened.
Now, I'm off to bed. I was going to try and get an early night this evening after accidentally staying up until 1.30am playing Xenoblade Chronicles X last night, but I think I've missed the boat on "early". I can still settle for "timely" if I act now, though, so I bid you all good night!
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
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