Alright, hopefully this will be my last blog about game journalism itself for a little while, but something I've seen from a few game critics, and journalists lately has really annoyed me.
It's tradition for journalists covering almost every medium of entertainment to make some sort of 'Best of' lists at the end of the year. And that's totally reasonable. I think it's great that outstanding art, and entertainment gets real recognition, because we tend to downplay their importance in our day-to-day lives (although that's a topic for another blog). However, game journalists in particular seem to be unable to wait until the year actually ends to begin the annual 'Best of' festivities.
G4, and Gamesradar, among other sources, have already compiled lists of the best games of 2010 so far. These lists are truly useless for two reasons. The first is that they detract from the reviews written for each of these games. Instead of encouraging gamers to read through the critics' presumably well thought out reviews, these lists give them simple, easy-to-access, yet entirely incomplete arguments for a given game's quality. Secondly, they take away from what makes those end of the year awards so special. Because of these mid-year awards, we already pretty much know about half the games that will be on these websites' end of the year 'Best of' shortlists. As I mentioned before, I think recognizing the best pieces of art or entertainment in a given year is important, the competitive aspect of the end-of-the-year awards is also quite important, because when you look at that Game of the Year shortlist on your favorite gaming website, you really get the sense that those games are the best of the best.
This year has been a great one for video games, and it looks as if it will continue to be great, but a year in the world of video games isn't a long enough time to warrant both a year-end and mid-year award "ceremony". Hell, last year when I usually write up my list of my top 10 games of the year, I couldn't even think of ten that truly deserved it, so how upwards of twenty games released in the space of 12 months could be considered to be a part of that top-tier of quality titles is beyond me. Just wait until the end of the year, it's not that much further.