Christian Donlan has reviewed FATALE for Eurogamer. And quite spectacularly so! Not because he enjoyed the piece, but because he relates very eloquently how hardcore gamers might approach it. Expressing the confusion and even anger they might feel as well as the doubts concerning the sincerity -or even sanity- of the creators. I found it most enlightening! And an amusing read to boot.
Tale of Tales’ latest is another GameFAQs disaster, in other words: what do I do? Where do I go? Why won’t the door open? How do I get my seven quid back? If Fatale had a hints hotline – and I really wish it did – I’m pretty certain players’ calls would be patched directly to Mark Lawson and Umberto Eco, dressed as mimes, answering all queries in Aramaic.
We’re just plain astounded that a project like FATALE can be reviewed on a mainstream games site nowadays. These are fascinating times, indeed!
Very funny. Picasso said that is good when they talk about you, even if they talk good…
Eurogamer is a site for hard-core gamers, so they review games for that audience. The reviewer makes some very good points where the design decisions in Fatale don’t match the design of mainstream games. You should be happy with that 7 and I think it’s a very good score for a game like Fatale (read their scoring policy). And now maybe some hardcore gamers who have never heart of Fatale will buy it…
well, putting a score over something like fatale while going through it with fps assumptions is definitely weird. But it could have been way worse and the last paragraph proved that the guy did get something out of it.
Maybe he loved it but couldn’t say it that plainly, because his audience would have flamed him to oblivion…
I thought it was a very fair review, given the context. And we’re actually immensely pleased that a straight-up art piece like FATALE can get a score of 7. Of course, scores are hilariously irrelevant for art. But I find it very exciting that art can be compared to entertainment now. We really consider this a step forward in our ambition to bring art to the people (rather than trying to lure them into the museum).
The problem is that Eurogamer dealt with Fatale in the exact same fashion that it deals with thousands of generic titles every year. A website that is unwilling to change its format when necessary – and such was the case – does speak volumes about the narrow-minded journalists that run it. The use of a score was only as hilarious as the approach to Fatale from a strict videogame player viewpoint. Albeit frustrating, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen this happen.
Art… what do they know about art? Weren’t they the ones to describe Zeno Clash as a daliesque first person title some months ago? – and I still laugh everytime I remember it.
Great publicity, of course. I hope it increases sales.
Hm, it’s a good question, though. Should a games site change its format so they can deal with something that is not a game? Or should we be happy that they want to deal with it at all?
Because even if Fatale is an art piece, I do think it is relevant to videogames. If only by adding to the diversity.
Obviously, the rigid format of videogame reviews is incapable of dealing with this diversity. Other examples of games that are treated unfairly are children’s games, e.g., or the Nintendo games for Wii and DS. By not adapting to the growing diversity, the games press will ultimately end up in a narrow niche. Maybe that’s appropriate. But then (now?) we need other channels that can deal with the wide field that games have or will become.
At this point, Eurogamer is catering to its audience. Its audience wants to know how good this or that product is as a game. Of course one could argue that journalists should try to educate their audience. And I feel that Mr Donlan tried to do that. In a language that may be alienating to art aficionado but that probably efficiently communicates to the gamer.