Quote:
Originally Posted by smascrns
...The critics of Lev claim that one can only analyse the game from an historical perspective, by looking at it as it was then. Lev says no, one can look at an old game from the eyes of today. Distording his view in order to accomodate the view of his critics does no service to the interchange.
|
You're being inconsistent now, Sergio.
If film critics can see the charm and brilliance of the original King Kong without being distracted by the lack of CGI and color, then they *can* make allowances for history. You told me they *should not* do this for AD&D because it was a game and not a work of art.
Now you are saying that they *cannot* do this for AD&D for some mysterious reason that eludes everybody else.
You can't have it both ways. I much prefer Lev's explanations of what he is trying to do and his own comments about AD&D to your defense of them.
In any case it is not a black and white thing. Reviewing a product with recognition of the historical context it occupies is not the same thing as pretending the next 30 years never happened. And reviewing a product for a contemporary audience is not the same thing as pretending that it was published yesterday.
You might not be capable of doing that, but I think Lev could manage it - he can certainly write well enough. However, I'm beginning to realise that the main problem with reviewing the AD&D books is doing them singly instead of looking at the system as a whole and how it divides between the three core books, the settings, the modules and supplements. What you end up with is, I think, rather more than something that's only appropriate for a "single unit wargame".
I thought Lev's review of Dragonquest was much better and I wonder whether that was partly because the whole system was before him and he could balance one part against another to take a more rounded view.