Addendum: I’m anticipating at least one shithead rolling downhill to ask me if I think that games media/journalism/criticism is above critique or something. The answer is no, but I can say with some certainty that the review in question doesn’t meet the standard for good-faith media criticism. You need to be able to show that you’re not just here to shit on other writers in order for your critiques to be effective. Or, at the very least, you need to be able to present good arguments as to why you’re being an asshole unprompted.
A bad review of a “bad” review of Scorn. This unsolicited review-of-a-review breaks the original piece down paragraph-by-paragraph and does a CinemaSins-style analysis on a random critic’s work. And for what?
This is a paragraph-by-paragraph critique of an article behind a (free) subscriber gate. You could subscribe to this weird-ass project to read their review side-by-side this one, but you could also make far better use of your time. As for me, my pettiness is all-consuming.
This unsigned article takes apart a random Eurogamer reviewer’s words on the game Scorn with the ostensible aim of offering editorial guidance, but honestly, it comes across as being snarky for snark’s sake more than anything else. The writer starts with the title – “Scorn review – beautifully grotesque puzzle-horror that doesn’t quite congeal” – by saying they find it both “simple and to the point” and containing their “most hated combination of space-wasting vomit words.” This waffling back and forth between damning with faint praise and outright excoriation is going to be a common thread throughout this review. For clarity’s sake I am going to use the same structure the review itself takes.
“Opener – ‘In Scorn, a game of wonderfully horrible atmosphere…’”
Here The Guild gets stuck on “wonderfully horrible.” “Does this word pairing mean the atmosphere is both horrible and wonderful? Did the reviewer delight in the horror atmosphere? I don’t know, and the reviewer didn’t bother to tell me.” The problem here is apparently that Eurogamer is not sufficiently clueing The Guild into their interiority, despite Eurogamer’s explicit statement that Scorn is “a game of wonderfully horrible atmosphere.” If I had no visual or experiential context for Scorn otherwise, I might find this irritating too, but luckily we live in a world where we can just, like, look at a picture of Scorn gameplay and go “wow, that’s both beautiful and horrifying” ourselves.
“Opening paragraph – ‘There is no birth without sex, no life without birth…’”
Eurogamer is very clearly spelling out the metaphor that shows up throughout the game, but The Guild is baffled by the “roundabout” way Eurogamer does so. This is… the opening paragraph, but The Guild expects to learn something about the game from the jump, and is frustrated that Eurogamer isn’t giving them what they want. “I don’t know a single thing about the game beyond ‘puzzle-horror,’ but I’ll be patient.” How saintly of them. I want to point out that even though they’re being – and will continue to be – willfully obtuse, they admit that they are in fact gleaning information from Eurogamer’s writing, despite their insistence to the contrary.
“Paragraph 2 – ‘For such a taciturn…’”
Taciturn means “reserved or uncommunicative,” in case you were having trouble, The Guild. I’m only happy to help. I admittedly have little patience for bad-faith herbs who pretend slightly flowery games crit language is as incomprehensible or “cringe” as a Derrida tract, but in the “interest” of “writing growth” I just want to let you know: it’s okay to use big words. Also, we’re back to contradictions: The Guild acknowledges that Eurogamer has told them explicit details about the game – it doesn’t have text prompts or dialogue, and we have to figure out our own way around (btw, that’s what “organically” means here, champ) – and then demands to “know what the game is like” in the next paragraph.
“Paragraph 3 – ‘Perhaps unsurprisingly…’”
The Guild is so mad that Eurogamer hasn’t given them an antiseptic bullet-pointed list of the game’s mechanics by graf three. They are mad they have to wade through language that isn’t strictly clinical and utilitarian. They talk about how they’d be looking for a trailer that shows them what’s going on in the game, “so I can have some idea of what’s happening, as this review isn’t supplying it.” This is the second sentence of Eurogamer’s review: “Our protagonist – a half-dead husk of a humanoid roaming around a (mostly) deserted alien world – endlessly thrusts their weapon into mysterious holes and sinks their fingers into fleshy control panels.” I don’t know, man! That sounds like pretty clear game mechanics description to me! Scorn is just that weird!!!!
The Guild also complains that a sentence in this paragraph contains more than one idea at a time, “forcing the reader to reboot their brain midway through just to process what’s being said.” I mean, nobody can hold you liable for how your brain works, but it seems silly to me that you’re making it Eurogamer’s problem that a reviewer would dare to put two ideas in the same sentence. Props for “antimetabole,” though.
“Paragraph 4 – ‘And it’s dark…’”
The Guild is just barely holding back a temper tantrum at this point. “I wanted to scream ‘YES I KNOW GET ON WITH IT!’” If you find yourself responding to a video game review in this fashion, please go outside.
Once again, the criticism is that Eurogamer is not including enough game detail in the review. And once again, this criticism is contradicted by The Guild’s own statements. “We know this game has puzzles, there’s some exploration, there are tight corridors, and plenty of gore.” From the Eurogamer review, we also learn that the game takes on the grotesque phallocentric aesthetic of H.R. Giger and features twisted examples of the circle of life-as-a-production process all over the place. “Before you’re out of the opening hour, you will have pried a deformed form from a rotting egg and ripped an organic weapon from its umbilical holster moments before you’re soaked in a thick, milky substance so overwhelming, it knocks you out,” Eurogamer writes. These are literal things the main character of Scorn is doing, not just metaphor.
Paragraph 5 – ‘That’s not to say…’”
Eurogamer’s fifth paragraph is admittedly a bit muddled. I do agree with The Guild’s criticisms here, that the argumentation goes back and forth between admitting and denying Scorn’s genre. However, I would say that a good-faith read of the original text would clearly show that Eurogamer is trying to distinguish between modern horror games and psychological or – dare I say it – atmospheric horror games, and wants to place Scorn firmly in the latter category.
“Paragraph 6 – ‘If you’ve seen or played…’”
The Guild may have missed that there was a demo for Scorn. I don’t know if it’s Eurogamer’s responsibility to remind The Guild of this fact, but that does cast The Guild’s criticism here – that Eurogamer is saying “If you’ve played this game, you know what it’s like. If you haven’t, I’m not going to tell you” – in a different light. I don’t know the embargo details for Scorn, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the stipulations was “don’t include in-progress puzzle examples.” Unfortunately, that denies The Guild’s desire for “ANYTHING OF SUBSTANCE” in this space.
“Paragraph 7 – ‘Some will be…’”
See above.
“Sentence – ‘Alas, if only…’”
If only there were six preceding paragraphs which talk about how Scorn makes things less than clear!
“Paragraph 8 – ‘There’s no manual save…’”
Wait, you’re mad that Eurogamer is talking about specific mechanics now? After spending so many words etching your frustration at the lack of detail onto the page? The Guild, baby, come on now.
“Paragraph 9 – ‘To go along with…’”
The problem with a paragraph-by-paragraph review of a video game review is that you find yourself getting upset at not being provided details until, a paragraph later, you are provided with those details. Good job!
“Paragraph 10 – ‘I’m raising this…’”
I’m genuinely baffled by The Guild’s criticism here. Eurogamer explicitly describes their experience with the combat. Does The Guild… not want Eurogamer to do that? “The previous paragraph was the perfect lead-in to giving an overview of combat in this game. Something broad and simple would have done the trick — ‘Combat in Scorn is a fast-paced affair where you pick up guns and tear through clips in seconds, all while absorbing countless alien spike bullets.’ But no, instead we jump into an 80 word run-on mega-sentence that smashes three ideas together: controller woes, grenade launcher problems, and poor headshot detection.” Like, all this suggests to me is that you don’t like the exact method in which Eurogamer… does exactly what you want them to do. This is a description of combat, the way the reviewer experienced it.
Sentence – “A review isn’t the place to use my imagination — it’s a place to get information. So far I have almost none.”
bruh. I don’t— What? LMAO.
Rant time
Here The Guild infantilizes Eurogamer, which is totally cool and in-good-faith. “This paragraph has three sentences, switches topics eight times, and still somehow doesn’t say much about the game. It reads like an exhausted five year old telling mom about all the things they saw on the playground.” Like, fuck off bud, you were complaining about big words and sentences having more than one idea in them not ten fucking paragraphs ago.
“Paragraph 11 – ‘Even running away…’”
I tire of this man and his shitty CinemaSins takes.
“Paragraph 12 – ‘I want to love Scorn…’”
Oh hey, The Guild finds it in their heart to say something constructive about the writing. It’s only taken them 12 paragraphs! “I’m excited we’re finally rewarded for this slog. This really should have been the intro paragraph. It tells me a bit about the game from a zoomed-out perspective and it covers both the highs and the lows of the entire experience.”
“Paragraph 13 – ‘I suspect Scorn…”
“I would really have loved concrete examples of anything except the atmosphere, though — how is the storytelling ‘light-touch?’ How is the world building nice? Why are the hands-off puzzles so ‘confident?’ I don’t know, and again, the reviewer didn’t really tell me.” The Guild! Don’t lie! They did tell you! Eurogamer did in fact tell you! You just rejected that information as not being wholly utilitarian! You bounced off the writing, but it did do its job!
“How is the storytelling ‘light-touch?’” – “For such a taciturn game – Scorn has no text prompts, no dialogue, and no map; you move through its world by organic exploration, hope, luck, and nothing more – this circle-of-life stuff is surprisingly in your face.”
“How is the world building nice?” – “There are holes and tubes and thrusting pistons – enough to make Freud blush – all openly inspired by the nightmare dreamscapes of the grimly delightful H.R. Giger and Zdzislaw Beksiński.”
“Why are the hands-off puzzles so ‘confident?’” – “Yes, these puzzles are deliberately opaque. No, you will not get a hint. Yes, you will be frustrated but yes, you will solve it in the end. Honestly. I solved them in my own time and I am firmly of the belief that if I – the Most Average of All the Average Gamers – can, so can you.”
Asked and answered! Reading is fundamental!
“Conclusion”
“This review reads like a rough draft written seconds after completing the game. It’s scattered and borders on nonsensical at times, it omits crucial information, and it justifies opinions based on small personal experiences rather than baked-in gameplay flaws. Add in the frequent mega-sentences and cringeworthy adverb-adjective pairings and you have the perfect recipe for a review that sucks.”
I can practically hear Adam Sessler’s voice from beyond the aether: “I give this review a three… out of five.” But anyway, I’m sitting at the end of this meta-review wondering what I’m supposed to do with the subjective gripes of some random guy with a newsletter. This is not a thorough editorial scouring, but the kind of complaining you might hear from a message board denizen. There are valid criticisms here, but they are scarce. This could have been a subtweet. It didn’t have to be a whole blog post.
There’s a section titled “what you can learn from this review” immediately following this mess of a subscribers-only post. Aside from the first tip, and based on my experience writing actual reviews that have been published outside of my own blog, I can’t really recommend any of the tips to you. Reviews are by their nature subjective, and they are constrained by the conditions the reviewer is subjected to.
I don’t have any special insight into the Eurogamer reviews process, but I do know that I’ve gotten through maybe two revision rounds, tops, at any of the outlets I’ve contributed to before they had to post the piece. Maybe this particular review could have used one more round of editing; I won’t argue that point. But it is worth mentioning that Eurogamer posted the review when the embargo lifted. There may not have been tens or hundreds of extra hours available to the freelancer who wrote the review to get those extra revisions in. They may have been limited by the embargo itself – a challenge not even acknowledged once by this purported purveyor of pro games media tips. The Guild, I’m sorry, but this is just embarrassing and mean-spirited.
Maybe keep the next “This Review Sucks” installment in the drafts, permanently.