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Charles Herold, who reviews videogames for the New York Times, is one of the best game critics around. Kotaku's Mark Wilson recently complained that "The fundamental problem with game reviews is that they're analyzing products, not pieces of art. Or more clearly stated, art reviews decide if something is worth your time; game reviews decide is something is worth your money." Charles — whom I've met several times through our mutual friend, Francis — is the exception who proves that rule. You'll rarely hear him talk about frame rates and playing time. Plus he has impeccable judgment (he's the guy who told me that Half-Life 2 was way better than Halo 2) and puts actual attention into his prose. His mildly comic reviews are a pleasure to read, even if you have no intention of ever playing the games he's writing about.

So after reading his review of the new Sam & Max today, I was curious to get his thoughts on our recent discussion about censoring profanity. In the review, Charles describes one character as "a profane young rat named Tiny Tim who alters the lad’s famous blessing with an expletive."

Surely, as a critic who takes his work seriously, Charles would prefer readers to know if the actual line is "Goddamn us, every one" or "God bless us, cocksuckers."

Turns out, the story behind this particular elision is even funnier than most. Here's what Charles told me:

The actual quote wasn't bad at all, actually, because all the profanity was bleeped out in the game itself, leading to long sentences of nothing but beeps, which was very funny. [All Things Considered recently had a piece on this comic trope — dr] So when I wrote the line originally it was "God *bleeping* bless us, every one." I don't know why they changed it. Perhaps they assumed the "*bleeping*" was mine, rather than the game's.

With the Times, the problem is less a matter of not being able to swear than to not be able to be at the least inappropriate. For example, when I reviewed Max Payne I wanted to use one of my all-time favorite game quotes - "Life is a hooker and I'm all out of cash." But even though I put that in my original review I knew it would never get in the Times and actually included my second and third choice (they choose the third, which was ''I was already so far past the point of no return I couldn't even remember what it had looked like when I had passed it.'')

I must admit I envy writers who can say anything they want to. But my philosophy is, I make a living playing video games, so if I have to deal with a few limitations it's well worth it.

Posted by Daniel Radosh

11:16 AM