Film critic Roger Moore is a presumptuous, ignorant and sad individual. In his review of the Max Payne movie, a film which supposedly bears little relevance to the game it shares a name with, Moore has taken a rather pathetic excuse to slam videogames, haughtily claiming that they are “emotionally inferior” to movies.
The height of his arrogance comes when he claims that nobody ever cried over the death of a videogame character. So he’s either a moron or a liar, then:
But as good as a couple of its action beats are, Max still suffers from the heartlessness that makes games emotionally inferior to movies. Nobody ever shed a tear over a video-game character’s death.
I’m not sure what it is about film critics that make them so willfully ignorant about the achievements games have made in terms of storytelling, but they seem to actively revel in their own self-imposed stupidity. Perhaps they’re jealous that games earn more money and are becoming more culturally relevant than the medium they chose to spend their life discussing?
But in any case, Moore is pathetically wrong. Several games in the Final Fantasy and the Metal Gear Solid series have seen me shed a tear, and I know my colleagues can say the same of other titles. Despite what this wretchedly presumptuous individual claims (and really, how dare he have the gall to speak for everyone?) not every game is heartless and vapid. You could say the same of most movies — no film has ever made me personally cry, unless it was a typically bad Hollywood adaptation of something superior that I love.
Roger Moore clearly has zero knowledge about videogames, and he should keep his mouth shut on the subject because he only serves to betray his own blinkered and rather dismal view on popular culture. I don’t even think we should be too mad at this clearly bitter and deluded hack. We should probably feel sorry for a man who can’t allow himself to understand some of the amazing experiences games can now offer.
[Thanks, Eryc]
