On Videogame Reviews

[eldargal]

I just read this, On Videogame Reviews (http://tevisthompson.com/on-videogame-reviews/), very thought provoking. I don't agree with everything he says and I find his characterisation of Tomb Raider and Lara Croft borderline offensive* but he does raise some excellent points about videogames and reviews in general.


1. Game of the Year

BioShock Infinite is the worst game of the year.
It’s an unjustified shooter without a single new idea. It’s a self-gratifying spectacle that confuses cunning with depth. It’s a craven, heartless game of false moral equivalencies that uses the suffering of oppressed people as window dressing, as theme, while it explores its own cold metaphysical conceits.
For its lack of humanity, for its fake guilt, for its flat boring gameplay, for its 100 million dollar cost, for its cleverness, for its cowardice, BioShock Infinite is not just the worst game of the year. It’s the worst game I’ve played this generation.
His opinion on Bioshock certainly grabs attention, I've not played it so I can't comment. But he goes on to say:

I don’t expect every reviewer to give BioShock Infinite a 2 out of 10, as I would. But I expect to see more dissent than that offered by excellent outliers like Game Critics or Quarter to Three or Action Button. I expect to see more actual criticism in the videogame review community. I expect to not have perspectives like mine looked upon as trolling.
Reviews are not about finding agreement. They are not based on commonly held values. As if anyone is sure just what makes a videogame great. It’s all contested ground. It’s our values as gamers that are exactly at stake in reviews. We shouldn’t be asking whether BioShock Infinite deserves a 9 or a 10. We should be asking whether it deserves a 2 or a 10. That’s a real debate

I recommend reading the whole thing and having a think about it even if you disagree with his opinions on games because I think he addresses a core problem with the video gaming industry and the support structure around it (media and fanbases). Specifically a considerable lack of maturity and self criticism, particularly worrisome in what is the fastest growing entertainment industry at present.


*He basically sneers at Lara for being a feminist icon (which she is) and asks 'are our standards for women characters really this low?' while ignoring the fact that Lara is one of the first female video game leads, in her new incarnation she is written by a woman, is not sexualised even with the reviewers peculiar focus on the 'sideboob camera' which I can't say I even noticed and he is both strong and vulnerable. She isn't just an action hero with breasts. So he doesn't understand what makes Lara special to so many women and why to some extent we can even overlook the ridiculous sexualisation of her previous incarnations. It just seems like he is saying 'she sucks and feminists are silly for liking her'.

[Psychosplodge]

I'm too lazy to read all that this morning.
But after scanning it, he's not far off with bioshock. The first was interesting setting, but the gameplay imo was shoddy at best. The sequels are overwhelmingly meh even if the newest is very pretty.


On game reviews in general, I find scores are artificially inflated. Look at the annual reskin of COD or Battlefield. They barely play any different but still get 8 or 9 out of 10. It's almost as if reviewers are scared of going less than a 7. 5 should be the mark of an average game. yet when was the last time you saw an average game get a 5?

[eldargal]

I don't blame you, I read it last night and just posted it this morning.:p I recommend reading it though, like I said I disagree on quite a few points but he also makes some very good points.

[Wolfshade]

Then again, few first-person shooters are. Once I admit this ‘bias’ – that I think the FPS is one of the most limited, least interesting genres – I’ve marked myself as someone unqualified to give a fair review.
This I approve of, but then I like grand strategy and rpgs.
I love the ability not to just have to play as a platformer, I like being able to chose what my character is and how it fits into the ingame world, invariably, on first play through it is a goody-two-shoes then on subsequent replays becomes more *ahem* self indulgent.

[YorkNecromancer]

I read this last night. Great article.

I played Bioshock Infinite and loved it, but his criticisms here are absolutely on the money, especially his discussion of the presentation of the Vox Populi, and the fact that Elizabeth has absolutely no agency of any kind. His discussions of the intellectual laziness of "I have no political position" are spot on as well.

He's right that the only people who can afford "no political position" are the ones for whom the system is currently perfectly set up.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

I read this the other day, thought it was basically on the money.

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

I was thinking of getting into reviewing...

[Wolfshade]

I was thinking of getting into reviewing...

Do it, start a blog :)

[Psychosplodge]

Or a Youtube Vlog, probably easier to monetise

[Wolfshade]

Or both.

As we created this idea, 'Splogy and I will take a reasonable 20% each :)

[Psychosplodge]

Seems fair.

[eldargal]

If you do start reviewing games, don't give numerical scores, it just cheapens the whole thing. People need to actually learn to ****ing read and analyse reviews instead of just looking at the score and having hysterics if some reviewer has dared to give a game they like less than a 10. *glares at GTA fanbase*

[Psychosplodge]

GTA V is good, but it's not a ten.


Or just steal the old TGS podcast tagline, 10/10 game of the year - for everything :D

[Wolfshade]

I suppose quite a few people really look at game reviews to support their decision, so will only look at positive reviews of the games that they like, instead of something objective. Though objectivism in and of itself is very hard to judge as there is no universal scale of what makes a good game and what makes a poor one. Indeed, if it were so simple then design studios would only turn out gems.

[YorkNecromancer]

If you do start reviewing games, don't give numerical scores, it just cheapens the whole thing. People need to actually learn to ****ing read and analyse reviews instead of just looking at the score and having hysterics if some reviewer has dared to give a game they like less than a 10. *glares at GTA fanbase*

I believe Yahtzee said it best in his Mailbag Showdown:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/37-Mailbag-Showdown

"You want a number? Okay then, how about 'four', as in 'four-k you'?"


GTA V is good, but it's not a ten.

I've played every GTA game as much as I could stand. Which is usually about fifteen minutes until the horrible gameplay just makes me go GAAAAAAAHHHH!!! and then I have to put on some Hitman: Blood Money and remind myself what a truly interactive game world is like (Oh, and on a related note, seriously? **** you Hitman: Absolution. **** you and everything you did to The Greatest Game Series Of All Time).

As a white, straight, cis male power fantasy, GTA is pretty much an 8. As for a game I'd like to play?

*sucks teeth*

Well, see, I've got Borderlands 2 right here, GTA. Right. Here.

Sorry.

It's not you, it's me.

It's me.

[eldargal]

Hehe, I quite liked Absolution.:p Stripper nun assassins notwithstanding.

Every time I play Borderlands 2 it makes me want to play Fallout New Vegas then I go and play Fallout new Vegas and forget about Borderlands 2 for a couple of weeks.:(

[Psychosplodge]

I'm not sure how you get that when two leads have been black...
And Trevor in GTA V will literally screw anything...
You're almost sounding abit daily mail there York.
I'd go for a thoroughly above average seven, but then again I'm not scared using all the rating scale :D
As I said elsewhere it's a natural progression of the series but nothing groundbreaking.

Still not got round to Borderlands 2 is it much different from one?

[eldargal]

I've only watched GTAV and not played it myself but the word that kept springing to mind was 'blaxploitation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaxploitation)'.

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

I wouldn't really use a scoring system I don't think.
List the good and bad points and say whether or not I would recommend playing the game, also compare it to others.

[Nabterayl]

Too many simply absorb. They are depositories for input. They can hardly be expected to be critical of their own tastes, can they? Of course they can. It is not enough simply to be a "Cubs fan," although I confess I am one. It is necessary to feel the philosophy, the history, and even the poetry about the activity called "baseball." It is helpful to step outside a little, and see that sports teams are surrogates for our own desires to conquer, and expressions of our xenophobia. For some, they are even the best way ever invented to drink beer outdoors. If you are only a Cubs fan, you are a willing automaton in a business venture. Join me in being a Cubs fan, but know why you do it. What is my most fundamental reason? I am a fan because they are always the underdogs. That may be why I bought a Studebaker 30 years after the company went out of business.

But enough of baseball and cars. What about videogames? I believe a good critic is a teacher. He doesn't have the answers, but he can be an example of the process of finding your own answers. He can notice things, explain them, place them in any number of contexts, ponder why some "work" and others never could. He can urge you toward older videogames to expand your context for newer ones. He can examine how videogames touch upon individual lives, and can be healing, or damaging. He can defend them, and regard them as important in the face of those who are "just looking for a good time." He can argue that you will have a better time with a better videogame. We are all allotted an unknown but finite number of hours of consciousness. Maybe a critic can help you spend them more meaningfully.

That was written about movies, not videogames. But I think it's true of both. A videogame critic who doesn't have clear-cut personal preferences that he can defend not very useful as a critic, in my opinion.

[chicop76]

I played bl2 and one and would say 2 is more balanced and better. The siren in the first one if built right was really ridiculous, while the new one is good for solos and ok against multiple opponents. The sniper once the hawk was maxed out was overpowered, but the sniper in the second game is much toned down and is a mix of lillth. The beserk is not as bad since long as you was in combat it was impossible to get killed, and the turret guy can no longer be a healer wwhich was rather good.

All I all I think 2 is more balanced and have unique characters.

I thinm both is ok and I rather want to play mind craft these days.

[Wildeybeast]

Still not got round to Borderlands 2 is it much different from one?

I played all of BL but never really fell in love with it. I only played BL2 because my friends insisted on it being our Friday night co-op game. I loved every single minute of it. I can't pin point exactly what makes it so much better (though less brown and Tiny Tina go a long way) but it is awesome. 2 is better than 1 in every way. Some of the DLC is a bit lame, but the awesomeness of the D&D DLC more than makes up for the others. I think there is a GOTY edition available so I'd pick that up if I were you.

[Chronowraith]

In some ways, I understand the criticism leveld at Bioshock Infinite. The game is hardly revolutionary in terms of story or gameplay and I agree entirely that Elizabeth is a rather vapid device rather than a character in her own right. To me it hearkened back to Ico on PS2 with Yorda. No personality or character, just a device which was frustrating. All that aside though, I don't agree with him that the game deserves a low rating. It may not have been as revolutionary as the game designers try to make you believe, but it is a fun romp with an, at times, compelling story.

I agree with EG wholeheartedly about Tomb Raider though. Not only is that game a shining example of a non-sexualized heroine but the game itself is bloody brilliant from gameplay to story and even interesting timesinks. The only downside is the incredibly weak multiplayer but then... who the hell buys Tomb Raider for multiplayer anyway? It's easily the best game I've played in 2013 beating out some of my favorite franchises like Total War, Europa Universalis, and a couple others.

As for GTA... if you like a serious gangster and thug game... it's great. Personally, I think teh game takes itself too seriously which is why I generally enjoy Saints Row games far more. They have all the appeal of GTA games with a really amusing, if sometimes childish, sense of humor.

I use to write reviews for GameFAQs back in the. Ultimately, it took too much time and, because of my reluctance to review a game I didn't play to completion, by the time my reviews came out they were largely irrelevant. That being said a blog approach might actually be a nice way of approaching a review as you can give impressions at regular intervals as you play through the game and discover new content.

The part that has always killed me about numbered reviews (either scales or percentages) is they don't relate it back to any sort of standard. Sure the game got 5/10 but what exactly does it mean. By normal standards that means it's average but by academic grading that's pretty wretched. Also having a standard that rates it's scores ranging from "MUST BUY!" to "Wouldn't load on my computer if it was given to me for free" doesn't take into any bias the reader/reviewer might have towards that genre, the developer, graphics versus gameplay, etc.

[Chronowraith]

I played all of BL but never really fell in love with it. I only played BL2 because my friends insisted on it being our Friday night co-op game. I loved every single minute of it. I can't pin point exactly what makes it so much better (though less brown and Tiny Tina go a long way) but it is awesome. 2 is better than 1 in every way. Some of the DLC is a bit lame, but the awesomeness of the D&D DLC more than makes up for the others. I think there is a GOTY edition available so I'd pick that up if I were you.

Agreed. I don't know what is different about the gameplay... but the whole game seems far more solid. I think, for me at least, this is due to not coming off as quite as much of a Fallout ripoff combined with some slight gameplay tweaks and a little more coherent storyline from the beginning.

[Nabterayl]

The part that has always killed me about numbered reviews (either scales or percentages) is they don't relate it back to any sort of standard.
I agree that it's ridiculous that videogame reviews range from 1-10, where 5 is "the worst game ever made," 7 is "terrible," 8 is "average," and 9 is "pretty good." But I do think that numeric scales can be useful, as an adjunct to a thoughtful text review. The key, I think, is for a critic to acknowledge that they're (i) personal to that critic and (ii) relative to other games in the same genre, rather than other games as a whole. The point of a review is for me to be able to predict my experience of a product based on the critic's experience. The more I know about that critic's "biases," the more likely I am to be able to do that, and the more useful the review becomes. Numerical scores can help to express that. Again, to quote Ebert:


When you ask a friend if Hellboy is any good, you're not asking if it's any good compared to Mystic River, you're asking if it's any good compared to The Punisher. And my answer would be, on a scale of one to four, if Superman is four, then Hellboy is three and The Punisher is two. In the same way, if American Beauty gets four stars, then The United States of Leland clocks in at about two.

The problem isn't whether numbers are assigned or not, the problem is whether they're contextualized within the critic's personal biases. If you say, "Hellboy gets three out of four stars," that doesn't tell me anything. If you say, "Hellboy gets three stars assuming Superman gets four and The Punisher gets two," now you're starting to tell me something. Similarly, just telling me Bioshock Infinite gets 9.5 out of 10 doesn't actually tell me anything. But if you say, "Infinite gets 9.5 out of 10, assuming Half-Life 2 is a 10 and Republic Commando is a 7," you just told me a lot. And the more you tell me about why you think those three data points get those three numbers, the more you tell me.

So ... I guess I agree, the numbers do have to relate to something, and I have to know what that something is. But the something doesn't have to be "objective."

[DarkLink]

Plus, originality is only one of many factors. Even if you're on the fifth sequel to a good game with relatively few gameplay updates, that doesn't stop the gameplay from being objectively good. Sure, maybe some people have gotten tired of that gameplay, so they should realize that and move on to something else. But for people who still enjoy the gameplay, or for people new to the series, it's still a good game.

[eldargal]

It's interesting that DarkLink raises the issue of gameplay being objectively good, as I wonder if there is such a thing and if there is how does the passage of time impact it. I was just reading some reviews of Batman Arkham Origins and they all say much the same thing, it's basically the same as Arkham City but with no further development and it comes off as stale and unoriginal, if still good, as a result. The issue to my mind is that the gameplay in Arkham city wasn't the same as that in Asylum, the core mechanics were the same but it was refined and expanded upon. If a subsequent sequel doesn't do that, isn't staying in place just as bad as going backwards in a medium evolving as fast as videogaming?

[Kirsten]

But after scanning it, he's not far off with bioshock. The first was interesting setting, but the gameplay imo was shoddy at best. The sequels are overwhelmingly meh even if the newest is very pretty.


On game reviews in general, I find scores are artificially inflated. Look at the annual reskin of COD or Battlefield. They barely play any different but still get 8 or 9 out of 10. It's almost as if reviewers are scared of going less than a 7. 5 should be the mark of an average game. yet when was the last time you saw an average game get a 5?

I found Bioshock Infinite pretty dull personally. I enjoyed the first five minutes of the original game, the set up, the initial arrival in rapture, but I found it almost immediately lost any flavour. I have had customers tell me it is very scary, I don't remotely find that. I also agree with you about the gameplay, really nothing special. Infinite was alright but really nothing special, it amazes me that it gets such rave reviews. But then the big review sites are too reliant on the publishers to be able to bad mouth them, IGN went through a stage of being paid to give games big scores some years ago. Metal Gear Solid 4 got a 10 despite having some massive problems, not least of which was a total lack of consistency with its' own background material.

I would agree on CoD as well, I didn't even finish Blops 2, it was nothing but a series of gimmicks. I would disagree about Battlefield though, they aren't annual and the Bad Company games were quite different to the likes of CoD, and even to each other.

The original Borderlands had quite a dramatic change in tone mid way through development, so maybe 2 feels so much better because they knew from the start what they were aiming for?

I played Batman Origins for a few hours last night and am really enjoying. 'more of the same' can get stale, but I don't think Origins is there yet, a fourth game and it probably would be. It isn't actually an origins story, which some reviewers have criticised, but Batman's set up has been done so many times before I think it is a good thing personally. You get a young batman who makes mistakes and learns, he has the skills and the tech, just not the experience. I think it could have been elaborated on more than it has been, it is a bit of a passing comment at the moment, but still nice to see.

[chicop76]

It's interesting that DarkLink raises the issue of gameplay being objectively good, as I wonder if there is such a thing and if there is how does the passage of time impact it. I was just reading some reviews of Batman Arkham Origins and they all say much the same thing, it's basically the same as Arkham City but with no further development and it comes off as stale and unoriginal, if still good, as a result. The issue to my mind is that the gameplay in Arkham city wasn't the same as that in Asylum, the core mechanics were the same but it was refined and expanded upon. If a subsequent sequel doesn't do that, isn't staying in place just as bad as going backwards in a medium evolving as fast as videogaming?

This reminds me of Halo Reach and Halo 1-4. I like Reach and the remake of one, and don't like 3 at all. The main issue I have with the series is the need to chage the buttons. When I go back and forth I have problems with trying to melee attack. Even worst if I swith back and forth crom borderlands.

If it worked don't fix it. In mean in Halo 3 I don't even bother picking up weapons since it is different than from the rest. I think the add ons is cool, but changing mechanics is frustrating to veteran players who still play the other Halo games.

[DarkLink]

They do gave some button mapping options, I believe. Anyways, Halo is one of the big reasons I mentioned it. The gameplay might not change all that much game to game, but for me it's good enough in the first place that I don't really care, it's still pretty fun.

[Learn2Eel]

As for GTA... if you like a serious gangster and thug game... it's great. Personally, I think teh game takes itself too seriously which is why I generally enjoy Saints Row games far more. They have all the appeal of GTA games with a really amusing, if sometimes childish, sense of humor.

The GTA games are parodies of American society, the ones that think it is serious fail to realize that the games are based around both honest and satirical depictions of life in the USA. Just read the Gamespot review that derided GTA5 for being "sexist" due to stuff like radio ads in the game advertising "using women as urinals". Clearly something that ridiculous is obviously supposed to be satirical and probably even a poke at the overtly sexist depiction of women in advertising and the like, but a minority of players thought that the game was being deadly serious. The difference between GTA and Saints Row is that the latter is far more obvious and over the top with its satire, while the former grounds it in a world that seems chillingly realistic - chilling in the sense that the themes explored sadly do reflect the bad stuff that goes on in the world.

As to the article, I personally thought Bioshock Infinite was a brilliant game and well worthy of the rave reviews. However, having a divergent opinion shouldn't lead to people labeling a reviewer a "troll" or any of the other various expletives and insults commonly used to deride them. The problem is that the internet is dominated with whiny individuals who can't accept the fact that others won't necessarily share their opinions.

[eldargal]

The problem with GTA is that it says its a parody but it does nothing to actually parody the misogyny it depicts. It just depicts it. At no point is it ever undermined by actually illustrating how stupid and unhealthy it is. It's just there. They could have used to a female character to show how the misogyny is ridiculous but that 'wasn't the story they wanted to tell' so as far as I'm concerned they do not get the benefit of the doubt here. In contrast not only is Saints Row IV genuinely over the top it's depiction of women is still less problematic than GTA as not only can you play an incredibly bad arse female character (unlike GTA) you also have a lot of very bad arse female supporting characters (unlike GTA where there is Nags and Sluts). GTA isn't a parody, it just claims to be to excuse it's absolutely lazy use of misogyny against women as a cheap background filler.

[Learn2Eel]

The problem with GTA is that it says its a parody but it does nothing to actually parody the misogyny it depicts. It just depicts it. At no point is it ever undermined by actually illustrating how stupid and unhealthy it is. It's just there. They could have used to a female character to show how the misogyny is ridiculous but that 'wasn't the story they wanted to tell' so as far as I'm concerned they do not get the benefit of the doubt here. In contrast not only is Saints Row IV genuinely over the top it's depiction of women is still less problematic than GTA as not only can you play an incredibly bad arse female character (unlike GTA) you also have a lot of very bad arse female supporting characters (unlike GTA where there is Nags and Sluts). GTA isn't a parody, it just claims to be to excuse it's absolutely lazy use of misogyny against women as a cheap background filler.

I'm not a fan of the way it depicts women either, I was just using that part as an example.

The GTA games are very much parodies, just the darker and grittier kind. Taking anything in those games seriously is a mistake. Not only are they making light of everything that is wrong with society, but they use the messed up criminal underground as the setting. You only have to drive around the most "realistic" of the bunch - GTAIV - for an hour doing random stuff and you will see why this is the case; just listening to the radio stations alone will tell you that they are, similar to South Park, just making fun of darn near everything.

[eldargal]

Oh I'm not taking them seriously, I know they aren't meant to be serious but the issue with them is all they do is depict a misogynist culture they do not parody or satirise it as they claim. So while the game is not meant to be serious the way they propagate misogyny is because by making the game so misogynist and then failing to undermine and actually satirise it they simply perpetuate it. They may not intend to, but that is beside the point.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Eldargal's right, GTA fails pretty badly at being satire. Making fun of things isn't in itself satire. Satire is Gulliver's Travels. Satire needs to have a point, it needs to have an edge, there needs to be something more to it than the joke.

The depiction of transsexuals in GTA V isn't satirical, it's closer to a hate-crime. Ha ha ha look at these butch men in women's clothes, aren't they ridiculous. Top satire. Way to boldly pick on a widely-discriminated-against group. How brave.


They may not intend to, but that is beside the point.

I rather think that is the point precisely, as it happens, because it shows they haven't actually thought about it.

[Chronowraith]

I would also add to the above comments that if you have to play the game for an hour or two to figure out it is satire then, at very best, it's a poor satire. There is subtlety and there is absence.

[Learn2Eel]

Fair enough, I haven't played 5 yet so I can't comment enough on that one.

[scadugenga]

That was written about movies, not videogames. But I think it's true of both. A videogame critic who doesn't have clear-cut personal preferences that he can defend not very useful as a critic, in my opinion.

Ah, Ebert. RIP.

Which is kinda funny--since Ebert, particularly at the end, was all about reviewing something within its own context.

It's pointless to compare Hellboy and The Merchant of Venice, for example, as they are completely different genres.

In order to evaluation, critique, etc, you have to take the subject, and hold it up to the standards of excellence for that specific subset it belongs to.

That being said, Ebert had some of the best movie review slams ever.


“Battlefield Earth is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It’s not merely bad; it’s unpleasant in a hostile way.”

“The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.”

“I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.”

Though, I think my favorite is from a nameless IMDB user who had this to say about Chairman of the Board:

"I have spent the better part of my life a happy-go-lucky atheist, endlessly circling an epistemological cul-de-sac, foolishly content in the delusion that naught but unremarkable randomness and the caprice of evolution govern our planet and our lives.

I write this now as a careworn and grudging theist, cursed with the metaphysical certainty that God exists and that there must indeed be a reckoning. Only a literal hell can restore to the universe a sense of order and return to our souls - souls thirsting for justice for humanity, for cable subscribers everywhere, and not least of all for Courtney Thorne-Smith - a small measure of peace.

Indeed, Mr. Top's crushingly unfunny "film" is a long, jagged scar across our collective unconscious. It is your hopes and dreams replaced by a dying, weeping child crushed and all at once bereft of breath in your unconsoling - and inconsolable - embrace. It is blood in your stool on the eve of your wedding day. It is an unaccounted-for prosthetic eyeball swimming languidly in your vegetable pad thai. It is happiness itself blotted forever from the cosmos.

Not only are there no - no - laughs in this movie, this film will steal laughs from the rest of your life. It represents a debt that can't be repaid - not now, not here, not in Superman's Bizarro World, not in a far, future galaxy run by countless trillions of nanorobots singularly programmed to wipe away forever the stain of this film, a film that is now irretrievably etched in thousands of banshee-screaming layers of space-time.

What's done is done. Though every cell of your body may cry out in anguish and every ribbon of DNA struggle mightily against an unslakeable urge to rip itself asunder, there can be no peace - not for you, not for your children, not for your children's children. Satan, to put it all too bluntly, has won. The collective efforts of millions of preachers, doctors, philanthropists, inventors, kings, queens, philosophers and humble servants of God throughout history are but piffle and dreck."

More video game reviews should be written like these.

[eldargal]

I rather think that is the point precisely, as it happens, because it shows they haven't actually thought about it.

Well that's what I meant, they may not have intended to be offensive and perpetuate horrible stereotypes by failing to undermine them within their own game but they did. Largely because, as you say, they probably never thought about them and this really highlights the impact of privileged. To the largely white and male dev team of GTAV the kind of misogyny they depict is some kind of abstract thing. They hear about it, they put it in the game but it's not real. But to many, many women it is real so seeing it transplanted into the game with no attempt to show what is wrong with that culture is extremely problematic.

It doesn't make GTAV a bad game, but it makes it a game that portrayed women very badly and that is a problem. Pointing that out in a review is not in any way a bad thing.