Dear Gamers, sometimes I just want fries.

I know that fries aren’t the best food on the planet. Especially greasy McDonald’s fries.

There are plenty of healthier choices – of course, that’s obvious. Less oily fats, more protein and micronutrients – all the good dietary considerations.

And I know, McDonald’s is not the best place to eat in town. It will never compare to a Michelin 5-star restaurant, let alone any number of the local mom and pop joints serving up homemade specialties with love.

But sometimes, I just want a good ole side of Micky D’s fries.

I don’t even need the ketchup or the special BBQ sauces that they probably charge for by the packet nowadays. They’re just that good on their own – a semi-soggy, severely salty perfection of confection.

Okay that’s maybe taking it too far. Just a bit.

On any given day, I’m more than happy to have a conversation with you about how you can still have fries, but even better.

You can argue the merits of a well-seasoned steak fry or the perfect curly fry or the often criminally underrated waffle fry.

You can even talk about how you can have your fries and eat them too on the health-is-wealth front – potatoes are a great starch with a high satiety rating, and relatively low calorie even when compared to other starches like rice. And at home, you can control how much oil you use, and even air fry them for that extra health-conscious move.

(You can even make them with less salt… but that’s a you choice and not a me one…)

Then that’s without even getting into condiments or different ways to serve ‘em. Spicy chili fries. Cheesy fries. Garlic fries. Full-on taco fries with ground beef, salsa and onions.

And yet, sometimes, you just want the nostalgia. The familiarity. The comfort and convenience. Of classic McDonald’s fries.

Now, you will never catch me telling you that McDonald’s fries are an objectively better choice than a perfectly cooked Sirloin steak or a lovingly made lasagna (my very Sicilian grandmother would quite possibly disown me if I did).

And while I know having some chicken with fresh tomatoes and zucchini out of the garden is the wiser choice 99 times out of 100, sometimes it’s okay to just live a little and pass the damn fries.

Once in a while, even fast food in moderation is okay. You gotta live; embrace the small joys in life.

Especially if you can acknowledge that it’s fast food and on most days, you could make better choices.

And on those other days, we could talk about how to make a healthier meal plan. We could even talk about how McDonald’s isn’t a good business from how it treats its employees to what it puts in its food.

But if we’ve come to this rational agreement – that I understand that fries aren’t always the best choice for me and I shouldn’t make a daily habit out of ignoring what could be better about them or the place that I got them from – then I have a question for you.

Would you ever come up to me, smile on my face and fries in my hand, and knock those greasy golden spuds into the dirt?

Would you step on them and look me in the eye and say, “You should’ve stayed home and eaten avocado toast instead” - ???

If you’ve gotten this far, I really hope the answer to that isn’t “yes” – at least not with a straight face…

And I think you’ve probably gotten my point already without me needing to put it in so many words. In fact, if you’re a regular reader of Dear Gamers, you’ll know that just last week I wrote a letter to this very community about how to critique the classics – the things we love dearly, and yet can still acknowledge their potential faults or opportunities to improve.

To quote – well, me – there are multiple hats you can wear as a gamer or just a person who likes anything in life (even fries). In that article, I said:

“Just because you love a thing, doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t critique it.

And just because you critique a thing, doesn’t mean you can’t or don’t love it.”

But something else I’ll add now is that there’s a constructive way to give criticism. You can look at a thing, and see how it does or doesn’t satisfy a need or meet a standard. Then you can take it a step further and offer insights into how that thing maybe could have achieved its purpose better. You can use a productive tone and have thoughtful conversations that help push the medium you’re examining forward.

What you DON’T have to do though is rain on someone’s parade by telling them how a thing they love actually sucks. You don’t have to take their fries, dump them in the parking lot, run them over with your car, and then speed away while flipping them the bird.

That would just be insane. And it would help no one.

(Except maybe me because it would make GREAT clickbait for this article…)

At the risk of dragging out this metaphor any longer than I have already, I’ll just conclude by saying this:

At least in some capacity, I’m a reviewer. It’s my (not)job (as an unpaid, hobbyist games journo) to critique things.

And in that post from last week, I even said that critical analysis is my love language. My inner nerd LOVES to overthink and obsess and yap about how the things I love work, how they sometimes don’t work, and what they could do to be even better.

Case in point, my letter about critiquing the classics focused on Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles – an SRPG I absolutely love from my favorite franchise of all time. And if you want more proof, our most-viewed article this year was my accessibility review for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 in which I point out all the ways my own GOTY could be more accessible. And then last year, I even took one of my favorite new JRPGs in Metaphor Refantazio and wrote in-depth about 5 things it could have done better.

So I’m not saying don’t critique the McDonald’s fries.

And I’m not saying we should police what people say online. Freedom of speech is a freedom I hold dear – and one that can’t be universally taken for granted.

But that freedom means you have a choice of what to say and how to say it. Be insightful. Offer your criticisms. Aim to do so in a way that could potentially help someone see something new and spark new ideas that go on to make the next thing even better.

But be kind to each other. Whether it’s the person working the counter under those golden arches or taking the fries to go with their Big Mac and Coke, we’re all just people doing our best to get through the day.

Some days, we’re down to dig into the nitty gritty of figuring out how to make the fries even better. Cook them even healthier. Serve them even faster. Or even swap them out entirely for a bigger, better dish.

And then some days, we just want the damn fries.

I hope you got something from this quick letter of mine, and next time I promise I’ll get back to my regularly scheduled content of writing about actual video games or whatever it is you usually come here for.

Sincerely,

Michaela