The truth behind the words in constantine's "The 'Truth' behind words in RPG Codex's #1 Review for PoE "

[Amentep]

1) Do did you after my elaboration of what I meant by being surprised by one's own conclusion, understand and agree that this can happen?

 

2) There's subjective, and then there's subjective. Clearly the person is reviewing from his/her own experience. But, he/she is appealing to a common standard somewhere, if not an objective criterion, then a generally accepted criterion. If I as a reviewer don't like female characters because I had a dominant mother growing up, I will either actively try to disregard this bias, or highlight to the reader the fact that this probably is going to affect my review. If you think it's more linguistically appropriate to call this something else than honesty, be my guest. However, it is a benchmark of a good review that the reviewer tries to be objective (appeal to a common standard and be free of bias).

 

3) I can see how a reliably biased reviewer can be useful, in the same manner as a reliable liar can be (always trust the opposite of what he says). But that's a huge stretch to call this a quality, and in most cases, the bias isn't accross the board reliable. It's going to be there in some cases, and in others not. 

 

4) What would an uninlightened oppinion be? It would be someone who has no clue about his/her owen biases, and who has no clue about the common standard he/she is appealing to. If I were to review BG1 today, without having played any contemporary game, I might call the graphics "awesome", And if if I hated Trent Oster with a passion because of his political views, I might crap all over it calling it the worst game I've ever played. Both cases would be examples of uninlightened oppinion. And the better the review, the more enlightened the reviewer.

 

1) I think it is possible to be able to recognize that something is of good quality without necessarily being something that appeals to you; I wouldn't have called it "surprised" exactly, but I affirm it happens.  For example I don't like a lot of crime stories, but I can recognize when I see a good one even though it's going to have a tough time actually appealing to me.  Partially this is due to the fact that you can recognize the merit of the individual part (story structure, dialogue, character, game systems, etc) even if the total isn't personally appealing to ones personal taste.

 

2 & 3) I think bias recognition is going to be something that you recognize over time with a reviewer.  First review from Darth Roxxor I have no clue what his biases are, so its harder to be able to relate what he might feel to how I might feel.  Which is why the review is so ultimately irrelevant to my perspective of things - I just don't have enough context to make a decision as to whether the review is...well anything.

 

4) I'm not sure I'd call either example unenlightened.  The first is merely one from a very different context from mine - but certainly I don't think a review has to be from someone who understand the complete context of the game industry to be able to make a valid observation; the second is a poor one because it reviews something other than the game (ie Oster's opinions).

[LadyCrimson]

Apologies for any inconvenience...but I think at this point it may be best to have a fresh/neutral part 2 of this topic.