Is It Bad if You Can't Tell What's Happening On-Screen?

Yatzhee "Ben" Croshaw has reviewed Diablo III, and one of his interesting criticisms (interesting because he's the only one who's made this particular one) is that the game has bad clusterfucks. By bad "clusterfucks" he means that the screen often gets so full of spells and monsters and shit that the player can't comprehend what exactly's going on. And by that definition I mean that I actually don't know what he means. He's used clusterfuck as a criticism in at least two reviews, and against the earlier game it makes sense, but against Diablo not so much.

The earlier game is Super Smash Bros. Brawl. There are so many particle effects on screen that you can't always know where your character is, and this is bad because not knowing where your character is tends to lead to death (in the game).

In Diablo III you always know where your character is. You always know because your character is at the center of the screen. So he's not complaining about this. (Although Diablo III does have the stupid fear spell, which takes away your control of your character, which is as bad as not knowing where your character is).

Perhaps what the Yatzhee means is it is hard to keep track of the enemies. There are so many things moving quickly onscreen that the player experiences information overload.

But...maybe it's not that. Because you can turn enemy health bars on, which makes tracking them easy.

MAYBE he means that it's hard to keep track of powerful monsters when they're surrounded by weaker ones. Yes. This must be it. And although the game wraps a colorful shroud around the powerful monsters, it is true that--the game wraps a colorful shroud around the powerful monsters....

OKAY! I think I got it! What he means is, so much is happening on screen, that it's difficult to tell exactly what is where and which of them you need to do whatever to. This is true.

But I kind of like that. It gives the non-hardcore mode a sense of chaos, and the hardcore mode a sense of "play cautious or die." IF this is the clusterfuck he's not liking, then I'd like to tell him, "This is actually a fun thing." Although I won't because I'm not a stupid, boring loser.

Or maybe I am because I'm reviewing a reviewers review.

What I've learned from this is that, when I criticize something, I need to make sure my audience understands why I don't like something.