New Games Journalism and Old Games Journalism

Two Blog posts in one day again - yep, you can tell that I'm taking today to get my work done and catch-up can't you...

Anyway, this post as the title suggests is about new and old games journalism. But what is games journalism and how can there be new and old versions of it without a present journalism (yes, I know Present Games Journalism would sound stupid but I'm making a point here...), well to answer that lets break down the title into 2 sections, new and old.

New Games Journalism
What is new games journalism? It is games journalism, which can be anything from a review of a game to talking about its development, written in the style of what is know as 'New Journalism' - see it all makes sense. New journalism was a writing style that developed in the 1960s-1970s where the writer of the article is writing more about there personal experience with what they are writing about rather than the the thing they are supposed to be writing about - for example, if they were supposed to be writing an article about a football match rather than writing about the game and how it was played by the players they would write about what they felt watching it.

In my opinion, new journalism seems a bit stupid - I can understand writing about how you feel watching or playing something but for its purpose, which like traditional journalism is to inform people about something, it seems really annoying. Anyway off my hatred of new journalism, lets get back to new GAMES journalism.

As a part of this exercise I am going to blog about 2 NGJ articles that I have read, one called 'Bow Racist-word-that-begins-with-the-letter-n' by Ian Shanahan and another called 'Dreaming in an empty room (a defence of Metal Gear Solid 2)' by Tim Rogers. Basically I'm going to be putting my thought about them and how effective the articles are.

The first article, Bow N***er, talks about the writers experience playing Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast on-line and how people can be disrespectful and talks about it brewing into a battle between good and evil. The article is written in the style as if the writer is his character in the game and such is the style of new journalism, trying to get the reader to connect with how he is playing the game.

The second article, Dreaming in an empty room, talks about the writers experience playing Metal Gear Solid 2 and defending it from the criticism it gained from being different to the first game. This article isn't written in quite such a NGJ way but as it talks about the writers experience playing the game it is still considered such. The article tries to get the reader the understand the writers way of thinking about the game - the best way to describe how it's written is to say that it is as if two friends with different view points are discussing their opnion on the game and the article is about one of their view points.

The two articles are very different as I said, one is very informal and somewhat aggressive, talking from the character in-games' point of view, making the article almost seem like it could be a diary extract of the person in-game talking about their last epic battle, the other is more formal and simply written as means of a discussion about a game but from their point of view of playing it. Ultimately though, they both portray the opinions of the writer and expect the reader to perceive and get a view of the game based on this.

In my opinion NGJ is not very effective, I'm sure that it can be to some people, I can see how they might be able to read the article better and understand it more if it talks about the experience you get from the game rather than how you play it and how it was made, but I just don't get it at all. I can't get anything from reading the articles that are written this way, I like to know how the game plays, I like to know its combat mechanics, the visual style, how long the game takes to play, if there is a slow build-up of tutorials and so on - I don't care how some guy I've never met feels when he nearly lose when fighting someone on-line; tell it to someone who cares.


Old Games Journalism
Old games journalism is something that I like - traditional writings about a game, almost like reviews written in classic magazines that I used to buy such as the Official Playstation magazine. They can still be informal but they cover aspects of the game and talk about that rather than what the reader experienced playing it - yes at times they may voice their opinion but it's different from NGJ.

Anyway, in this case the two articles I am looking at are as follows:- a Half-Life 2 review by Kristan Reed and a Gran Turismo 4 review by Nik Dunn. Both are just standard reviews written as if you would find them in a magazine or elsewhere.

The first article is instantly recognisable as an article written in OGJ style, it talks about the visuals of the game and how the game was developed and evolved over time, it then moves on to talk about the player and their interaction with the game world around them, moving then onto the story and style of gameplay and then onto in-game combat and so on. This is what one would expect from OGJ - it doesn't talk about them playing it and if it does it is in context or to back-up a point they have made about the game to better help them explain it. It is still written informally, not exactly in a silly way but rather in a way that simply makes it easier to read - it still covers all the points and goes into detail about them. All-in-all it is a very detailed review of the game and gives the reader a clear overview of what does and doesn't work about the game in terms of its mechanics, aesthetics and otherwise.

The second article is very similar to the first but actually has something that to me makes it better - it has a seperate section of the article for the writer to discuss his personal thoughts  and experiences playing the game. This shows it is not NGJ but still acknowledges that opinions can be an influence on decisions made by the reader about the game they are looking at. The article talks very much about what is in the game, such as how many cars and tracks there are, what game modes there are and the interface between the player and the game itself. Again ,this article is what one would expect from OGJ.

As should be clear, I find OGJ articles to be every effective about what they do - they clearly tell the reader what  is in the game and what is good and bad about these different aspects. They cover everything one would consider about a game - the look, the gameplay, player interaction, different features, etc.

Final Opinion
After what can be considered a long rant against NGJ and for OGJ I will now sum them up - I can see a point for both of them, I really do but not in the right medium. OGJ is really the best way for someone to find out about a game and influence whether they think they may like it or not. NGJ is more about looking for reassurance in my opinion, if I had looked at a game review and thought 'that game looks good' and then happened upon a NGJ article I could use that to see whether the game is gripping and how it draws you in - I couldn't solely base my opinion on the game on it.

So there we have it, you now know what New Games Journalism is and what Old Games Journalism is and what my thoughts on both of them are. So 'til next time - that's all folks!