The Saga Continues

Fanta Dabo Co-Editor-in-Chief

Going three for three, American actor, director, and producer, Michael B. Jordan takes over the screens with a new Creed movie.

The newest addition to what is now a boxing trilogy is an audience favorite, with a rating of 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 96% audience score. The three movies are rooted in the Rocky series, a generational story line. In the Creed films, main character Adonis Creed, played by Jordan, takes viewers with him throughout his life story, beginning from childhood.

After strong showings and audience responses for 2015’s Creed and 2018’s Creed II, Creed III was a much-anticipated release. Creed III offers a different plot from ones before it, placing the viewers in Adonis’ teenage years. It centers on the relationship between old friends Adonis and Damian, who is played by Jonathan Majors, a new boxing rival. Damian is a constant reminder of Adonis’ fostercare past. He is out of prison after 18 long years with a burning urge to get back in the ring and take Creed’s title.

As one of many who have followed the journey of this captivating character, I think it is fair to say Creed III is one of the best movies of 2023 thus far. The film’s story provides fitting context as to why Adonis is who he is and the film’s fight scenes, which - according to Jordan - have a strong anime influence, made it hard to look away.

Critics on social media apps like Instagram and TikTok expressed that the movie should have been longer in duration, running just before the two hour mark, and had a greater build towards the match of Damian and Adonis.

There’s no doubt that there were adrenaline-pumping scenes in the film. In fact, the movie puts the audience through a roller coaster of emotions, balancing the highs with lows to keep viewers invested. Creed’s adoptive mother, Mary Anne, played by Phylicia Rashad, suffers with failing health and (spoiler alert) later dies of these complications. Adonis’ wife, Bianca Creed, played by Tessa Thompson, also experiences lows, struggling to make peace with her lost singing career and sudden doubts about their marriage transparency.

Directors Ryan Coogler and Jordan, have produced yet another exciting, entertaining, and emotionally-fluctuating film in Creed III, with a centering theme about regret and forgiveness.

Solid 9/10

The Curious Case of Criticizing and Reviewing Video Games

Harry Lin Staff Writer

There are two ways to review or criticize something. There is a practical way of measuring a thing’s quality and examining it as a work of art. This particular way is very simple; anyone can do it, use it, and see how well it achieves its intended purpose. Physical things like how sharp a knife is, how fast a car accelerates, and how well a pencil writes are all things that can be measured and easily quantified. The second way to review or criticize is much simpler and blunter as it focuses primarily on how something makes you feel. This form of review conveys how people view items like paintings, movies, and other art pieces. An emotional response review or critique simply considers a person’s feelings and interpretations. This is where the nuance of criticizing something shines the most.

When this thinking on review versus critique is applied to video games you need to use both methods as, unlike most things, there is both a functional aspect and an emotional aspect to video games. In a functional aspect, there are the mechanics of the game that you interact with through the use of things such as a keyboard, mouse, and a controller. These help you judge or evaluate the smoothness of how the game feels to control. If your controls function as they should and are generally intuitive to use, it’s good. Another area somewhat related to this way of critique is the graphics of a game, something that is a very specific part of an art style and, essentially, related to how many pixels there are.

Now onto the actual critiquing and away from areas that can be objectively identified. This is the part of the game that tries to make you feel something. This is conveyed through suggestion, gameplay, and story. The best way to show you this is to give a loose example. If the game is going for a power fantasy kind of feeling, the game should be fast paced, the story would imply that you’re very powerful, and that most enemies don’t pose much of a threat to you, the player. All of these aspects contribute to the intended feeling a game developer wants to instill in the player. In this kind of thinking, the game can be judged by the player in terms of how they felt when they played it and this critique will be completely based on who that person is and what they want out of a game, which is something more akin to judging a work.

Now you might’ve noticed a problem here in that you cannot objectively and subjectively judge something at the same time. So how is one to properly judge? I think the first thing to do is to rid yourself of systems like a 1 to 10 scale. These numbers are confusing and rather vague for all the numbers in the middle. What differentiates a 5 from a 6 in this context? Of what rubric are we giving or taking points away? Does that rubric average the practical and artistic aspects but those seemingly bad practical aspects add to the artistic?

A simple binary of “recommend” or “not recommend” has its problems too. It would split certain games and would make it very difficult to give a clear line as to where games rated this way are bad or good. The only true way to really criticize is just to say what the game does and doesn’t do well for you. So instead of being concerned about arbitrary scores and whether or not you’d recommend a game, you should instead focus on the overall experience that the game intended and how the game worked for you.