[REVIEW] Medieval Kingdom Wars -- A Less Generic World Than Expected
If you were wondering how Medieval Kingdom Wars really was or wondered if game sites publish cutting reviews anymore, wonder no more! My review of MKW is up.
https://www.strategygamer.com/reviews/medieval-kingdom-wars/
Look, I know that games journalism doesn't have a lot of respect these days. And there are really good reasons for that. The issue of ethics is always in question because the stakes are so low violating such codes doesn't matter much. We are in an industry where in order to do our job a lot of us get free product, and that drives a lot of questions. A lot of game journalists really don't like games wargaming – or they like it too much, so much that they can't be critical of themselves, the genre, the medium, or their chosen special Holy Grail.
Believe me, I know. Games journalism is driven, in a lot of ways, by being part of a fandom with the occasional grafted on tumor of outside tissue. On really good days, the energy and difference of that outside tissue generates friction and heat that makes everything better. And sometimes it just spreads toxins. (More often the first that the latter, if were being completely truthful.)
One thing that drives a lot of questions about reviews, in particular, is the rating system. For publications that give "out of 10" ratings, the number of sevens and eights is all out of proportion to what you would expect to see. You start to doubt whether those are really earned places because you've played games that the reviewer has played and know it doesn't belong in the top third of games in the market, games that have been released this month, or even games that the reviewer has seen in their publishing life. You start wondering why you don't see more negative reviews more recognition that a lot of games are just not for the reviewer.
Part of that is self-selection bias. Publications don't want to publish articles about games that don't have an audience already or don't look like they're going to have a ready built audience waiting for them, or won't be interesting enough to have a lot of clicks. That's a mistake, in my opinion, but that's the common thinking.
Publishers don't want to give games for review to writers who they know are not really interested in the genre or the style of the game. This is a lot better thinking that it looks at first glance because an absence of interest generally goes along with an absence of knowledge, and a good review pulls on knowledge of the rest of the genre or style that the game inhabits.
So games get handed to writers who are inclined to be appreciative of them, and those games tend to be at least AA if not AAA titles. If you want to see relatively unknown indie games, you have to go to a specialist.
(Nook is one of my go-tos for that, even when I disagree with his tastes or scream, "Just look at the bloody screen!" at him.)
Which brings us around to my article on MKW.
I don't think I've seen an article as critical of a game as that in quite a while, if the game actually ran and was marginally in the writer's wheelhouse. And I wrote this article! It's brutal!
But it was necessary.
I am not comfortable being the "7 of 10" guy in the field. I would rather give you my honest opinion, and I would like that opinion to be useful to you either because you agree with my stated preferences and inclinations or because you know that you are 180° out of phase with me. A reviewer who is consistently wrong about what you will like is still useful; it's the consistency that's important.
It's also the consistency that an increasing number of people who normally engage with games journalism are trusting ever less. They don't trust games journalists to be consistent in their writing. And they're right to.
Games journalism needs to be held up to the same critical mirror that we are supposed to be employing when we look at games for review. Is it fit for task? Does it deliver a consistent experience? Is it making use of everything that it might?
I want to be better, not just hand myself last week or last month or last year, but better than my competitors in the field. I can judge myself, and I can do so harshly, but I do a better job when you, as a reader, tell me what you observe, feel, and ultimately credit about my writing.
So tell me what you think.
Just no "7 out of 10s." Anything but that.