I enjoy shaking my cane at the young and ignorant as much as anyone, and I agree that: (1) most remakes are terrible; (2) there are many old games that remain the pinnacle of particular still-relevant techniques; and (3) most game reviewers are not comparable in experience, education, or intellect to most film or literary critics. But I still find myself somewhat in disagreement with the tenor of the piece, and with its particular examples.
First, if someone said, "Your children are being sent into a Vault and they can only bring 1,001 computer games with them," I am 100% certain I would not include King's Quest. If someone said, "And their job in the Vault would be to maintain a history of computer games," I'm still not sure I'd include King's Quest. It is certainly historically significant and a technical achievement, given the constraints they faced. But it's not a good game, and its only remaining significance is that it set up certain conventions still employed today. Moreover, as far as I can tell, the factual premise of your argument on this score is overstated [edited to make my own point less overstated]. Maybe your Google and mine work differently (I know they involve our past searches), but when I limited a Google search to no later than 2013 and search for "Roberta Williams" (I assume the "Willia
ns" typo was just in the article, not in your search), I get innumerable articles about her, calling her legendary, etc., etc. There are some other Roberta Williamses that come up, too, but I'm not sure that proves anything. It's true there aren't articles on IGN or whatever, but how many major film critics wrote articles about Charlie Chaplin in a given year in the past decade? What would be the reason for a non-specialist site to write a piece about Roberta Williams from 2000 to 2014? So, of course, the (many) articles about her
historic achievements appear on gaming history sites or adventure game sites, rather than sites devoted to addressing current games.
Second, I think you (significantly) overestimate the extent to which non-specialists are aware of classic works. I mean, how many pop-film critics do you think have actually seen City Lights? How many could name the writer on Metropolis? Or even, say, the writer of more recent, critically acclaimed Scent of a Woman? (Itself a remake of an Italian film, Scent of a Woman won the Oscar for Best Actor and received Oscar nominations for Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Adapted Screenplay; it also won Golden Globe Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Motion Picture – Drama. So much for remakes being scorned by critics. . . .) Movies are short and can be consumed with almost no engagement. To meaningfully interact with 1,001 computer games is practically the work of a lifetime; 1,001 films would be doable in a year. Yet, even still, I am skeptical that many major film commentators -- whether we're talking about IGN or Extra! or The New Republic -- have actually seen a third of the AFI super-duper-important movies. The kind of knowledge you expect of game critics is attainable, but not attained, in other fields of endeavor; it may not be practically attainable at all with computer games. Given that, it seems odd to single out
those critics for scorn.
Third, assuming this
link accurately reflects the 1,001 computer games, the list seems to run completely contrary to your point: it's chock full of old games, including really obscure ones, and also including lots of interactive fiction. The list proves not that the vastness of the authors' ignorance but the vastness of the body of games that plausibly could be put on such a list. (There is clearly an anti-Sierra bias, as only GK2 makes the list. But lots of other point-and-clicks do, including almost all of the Lucas Arts collection.) Obviously there's plenty of idiocy on the list too, but I don't think it proves your point: a list that includes Infocom, Revolution, and Lucas Arts games but not King's Quest shows not ignorance or presentist bias but hatred of Sierra's conventions.)
Fourth, I think you underestimate how hard it is to play older games, even if you remove technological impediments like OS compatability. That is especially true with respect to computer (rather than console) games. If nothing else, they assume fluency with a mode of interaction (a vast number of keyboard shortcuts) that is alien to anyone under the age of 30. There was a narrow swath of time when (1) people had personal computers and (2) those personal computers expected you to memorize keyboard shortcuts. I still remember the little keyboard overlays that were shipped for things like word processing software. For most people, a game like Descent: Freespace -- which I consider fantastic -- has inscrutable controls. And god forbid you expect them to have a joystick! In that way, I believe that remakes of games are (often) more analogous to the remaking of a foreign film (like Scent of a Woman) than they are like remaking a pop film (like Spider-Man). Much of what is being modified is the work's mechanical "accessibility."
Finally, I think the analogy is inapt because to the extent there is some body of older games analogous to movies such as City Lights, I disagree that King's Quest or Daggerfall or Arena would fall within that body. Wikipedia lists 601 films released the same year as City Lights. Those, presumably, are the 601 films notable enough to get a Wikipedia entry, so perhaps there are many more. How many of those would you expect a film reviewer to have seen? How many have you heard of? Looking just at the
list of American films, there's only one ("The Public Enemy") that I have any confidence I'd heard of before. Many others are based on books I've read, but I'm not sure I heard of the movie. And there are many more movies in 1930, 1929, etc., etc.
Wikipedia
lists 349 games for the year King's Quest I came out. The same year, the following other games were also released: Mario Bros.; Dragon's Lair; Lode Runner; M.U.L.E.; Nobunaga's Ambition; Planetfall (which made the 1,001 list); Spy Hunter; the Star Wars arcade game; and Ultima III. All of those, in my opinion, are either historically more important than KQI or better or both.
Wikipedia
lists 598 games as coming out the same year as Daggerfall. Many are more important and in my opinion better than Daggerfall. Even if you restrict it to RPGs, broadly defined, there's the first Diablo and the first Pokemon games. Of those, I'd take Daggerfall, but there's no question it's the least important of the bunch.
My point isn't that no one should bother with King's Quest or Daggerfall, only that it seems unreasonable to
expect people to be familiar with them. There are so many games (indeed, so many
good games), and they take so much time to fully enjoy, that "canonical games" and "games I played and enjoyed as a kid" bleed into each other.
None of this is to say that game reviewers are good at their craft, or have the experience and education necessary to give informed judgments. Only that I think you're maybe being a little too hard on them.
[Further Edit]
It hopfully goes without saying that people like you and the CRPG Addict are providing an invaluable service. I think it is important that some people study these things and publish their studies, and like most Codexers, I'm a direct beneficiary of your hard work and knowledge. It's just that I'm not sure everyone else should be expected to do the same thing.
