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Is There Something Wrong with Video Game Reviews?
unclethursday writes "GamesAreFun.com has a new editorial about what the Editor in Chief feels is wrong with video game reviews, GamesAreFun's included. The editorial touches on the importance of scores to people, the importance of getting the first review out there, the problem with trying to review online parts of a game before the game is released into the wild, reviewing games in a series, the expectations from reviews about overly hyped games, and review length."
There is also the problem of reviewers depending on the money of the companies they review for income...
That is a biggie, IMHO.
The biggest problem with these reviews is that the screen snapshots they choose are just too boring. They'll snap a picture of the female heroine blasting some tank or ghoul away instead of bending over or reaching way up over her head to grab something hanging from the ceiling. So then I have to be stuck with trying to imagine what it will look like if I buy the game, manage to put the character in that pose, and pause the action. Maybe there is horrible pixelation that will completely ruin what I'm trying to enjoy! How would I know?
Anyone remember when the EBGames magazine reviewed Ninja Gaiden months before it came out? When the game REALLY was released, they had an apology and a new review of the game in it's finished state, which mostly consisted of a comparison between the finished game and the build they produced their original review from. WTF?
Dear diary: Today I stuffed some dolls full of dead rats I put in the blender.
There is not a proper focus on multiplayer gaming in ANY of the review sites. I *only* play multiplayer games (with a few exceptions).
There are some issues that simply are not touched. In Burnout2, my wife & I could race against each other using 2 forcefeedback steering wheels. In Burnout3, the same 2 wheels don't work -- only 1 is recognized.
But no reviewer out there even mentions using two wheels at once. They only care about the single-player experience.
Also: Online games. There are games that are 4player locally, and you can play online. But can 4 local players play online? No. You can play online only 1 at a time. So my choice is: Play with wife, or a complete stranger. BUT I WANT TO PLAY WITH MY WIFE *AND* A FEW COMPLETE STRANGERS (like we do when we play Quake3 online--I also wish I didn't have to purchase 2 copies of the game to do that.)
Some sites will say "1-16 players". But that is the online count. It doesn't answer the question of "Will my wife be able to join in?"
Magazines don't mention it. Gamefaqs only gives a # of players that MIGHT be online or MIGHT be in-person.
Also, gamefaqs does not have select-by-controller. For instance, i'd like to see all the Eye Toy games, or all the steering-wheel games, or all the headset games in a category. I'd also like "4 player games" to be a category.
Does anyone have ANY suggestions on a site that might give my wife and I the type of reviews *WE* want???????
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
- First impressions - After an hour or two with the game, putting down just what things are like early on, and useful for comparison when I'm finished with a game.
- Updated impressions - After several days with a game, revising anything from the first impressions, and starting to really get into the things that are working and the things that aren't.
- Review/Final impressions - If I finish a game, I write a review that summarizes all previous writings and gives a plain English summary of my opinion. No score is assigned, since that seems pointless to me.
To really see how I feel about a game, you'll generally want to read all the parts, and I've tried to keep them as brief as I can. I try not a give laundry lists of features, but instead focus on the experience of playing, story, and quality of the gameplay (e.g. is it fun driving game, does this particular fps work with a console controller, is that puzzle game addictive, etc.) I will also knock a game for crappy production values, load times, and other annoyances that we shouldn't have to deal with anymore.On the other hand, if I decide a game's not worth finishing, I just put up some final impressions and a summary of why the game wasn't worth my time to finish.
The real down side is that I often won't finish writing about a game until several weeks after it's been released, if not months later. They're not always timely, that's for sure.
If a real publication did something like this, I'd be impressed and more likely to read it regularly.
Here's an example with Ace Combat 04: First impressions, Updated impressions, and Final review. The game is old (it was an early PS2 title), the total process took from 10 March to 6 May 2004.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Is this much different than what happens with any media? Look at news corporations...I will assume that at one time they actually understood their job to be informing the public, being a trusted figure, etc. Now look at Rather; rushing to break a story that wasn't properly vetted in order to be the first, and only, person out there with "the scoop".
Sports is the same...it used to be to entertain people and compete (what were salaries in the 20's and 30's?), now it's about how young you can get recruited by a team and how many ridiculous numbers of zero's are attached to your paycheck.
The only reviews that I'll trust come from amateurs...ie, other gamers. Just like most of the sports I enjoy are the amateurs, like college athletes. While they may have agendas, a whole lot of them play just for the fun of it, like me.
--trb
There is nothing mind boggling or new that he's stating here. In fact, most of what he's saying comes across far more as a whiner or an english prof. than an actual analysis of game reviewing.
/end rant
I've found multiple instances where it seems he's either contradicting himself or carrying on some strange arguement inside his own head and translating the results onto paper. He also makes some GRAND assumptions that gamers rely off of reviews to buy games even though they already know about the game itself. Personally, I don't rely on a goddamn thing other than my own opinion for the basis of my like/dislike of a game. The only reason these days to read a review is to find out more about specific features not found on the side of the box or areas of the game that play poorly or I dislike, NOT that the reviewer likes or dislikes...ME.
He also mentions that scores are a bad idea, but then goes back and says (in no certain terms) that we should all adopt a single system of rating, which is all fine and dandy but unfortunately, not realistic in the slightest, since some people want to split their games up like slices of pie (5 pieces) and others like pizza (10+ slices). Along with this he also mentions that for some reason, people seem to be CONFUSED about these different ratings (or at least he is). I could CARE LESS what numbering system people use, personally, I can count from 1 to 5 or 1 to 100 and I also know that 5 is a greater number than 1 and 100 is a greater number than 1. This to me, means that a higher score is better, despite minor differences, this is pretty clear, even between such devious numbers as 89 and 98 which seems to perplex him.
Despite all the stuff he's written, I believe he doesn't really take the gamer perspective into view at all. Which is that gamers KNOW what they like, reviews don't need to be scrutinized to the point of obscruity, because they may help or hinder, but only because they show DEFINITE SIGNS of what people ALREADY WANT. Let me show you an example...
World of Warcraft:
WoW did well, that's a no contest. Reviews were also good for WoW. Did this corelate?
WoW did not introduce anything extremely new or groundbreaking but followed the formulas of other RPGs and did everything RIGHT. Reviewers stated this, and that is pretty much all people need. If a reviewer stated horribly bad things about WoW, they'd probably be stating OPINION rather than fact, which is pretty much all reviewer readers look for. Therefore, if the viewer read a bad review, they could usually tell that the reviewer was using opinion and not fact.
In the end, reviews are simply not needed to undergo the reformat and scrutiny he desires because people simply DONT CARE how they're formated, as long as they get the facts across in a clear concise fashion. Possibly the only thing I would agree with, is that reviewers need to figure out a way to not rely on money from companies who make the same games they review, it obviously creates a flawed view on things.
Warning I did not RTFA.. I might later but honestly I stopped giving a crap about reviews years ago, same with movie reviews.
Games like movies are a matter of personal choice. God some of the movies and games I have loved the most have been slammed by reviews and won awards for being among the "worse".
Every reviewer will be biased based on their own preferences, tack on some nostalgia related to the old games they loved then given a rating based on what they like - not what I like. Worse than that is the problem (and I do believe it to be a problem) of reviewers catering to game companies to get favors like early review copies, and various free crap.
I rent games, read the manuals online and look at screenshots and make my own opinions.
I'd say that's one of the biggest reasons that Tycho and Gabe are so respected. I know that Tycho likes computer games of the strategy variety and Gabe prefers action packed consoles, and so when I read their opinion of a game, I take into account the reviewer and compare their personal likes to mine. Generally, I like games that Tycho recommends, and know that if Gabe really enjoys a game, it's probably not going to be my cup of tea.
The best thing that a review site can do is provide an easily accessible background on each of the reviewers, containing the genres they like and mention specific games which they have liked and disliked. Also, provide and easy way of identifying particular reviewers, such as the picture icons PA uses. Eventually, people will figure out what reviewers they agree with and trust.
I can't tell you how many times it's happened. I read a dozen reviews online to hear that a game is great (baldur's gate for mac was a classic example), so I buy said game, and WHAM severe bug. Every time you try to rest (in certain circumstances, which occur about half the time) the game just crashes completely. This now fundamentally changes the nature of the game. Rather than trying to fight bad guys, your primary mission is to find a way to rest without crashing the game, the actual plot of the game becomes secondary to working around the bugs in the game.
Once the game has been out for a little while, this is all over the bulletin boards, nearly everybody (or maybe actually everybody) has this bug, so..... How did the reviewer not know? Did he even play the game? Did he think that a single bug that crashed the game 5 times an hour was insignificant? What exactly is going on here?
For reviewers, first and foremost, actual obvious bugs should be the first thing to look for. If you play the game for a whole day and it ever crashes, that should go in the very first sentence of the review. In addition, include a full list of the bugs you saw, and any game with more than a few obscure bugs (or god forbid a single crasher or severe bug) should get the thumbs down automatically.
I can't stand the reviewers ignoring obvious deficiencies and claiming "this game played like a dream......" when it is a scientific fact that they couldn't have played more than 10 minutes without having a complete crash.
Does anybody remember this one? THis is what made me lose faith in all video game magazines. I haven't bought one since. Gamepro swore up and down that the Genesis version of SFII was better than its SNES counterpart in almost every way. It simply wasn't true. I owned both systems. I bought the SNES version when it first came out. I decided to rent the Genesis version since I hear it was so cool. I'm really glad I only rented it. It was pretty bad stacked up to the SNES version. Not only that, but it seems like the things Gamepro touted about the Genesis version were the worst parts (ex. sound, which was downright pathetic compared to its counterpart). I'm sure there have been earlier examples of misleading reviews but this is the one that made me put down the magazines.
What gets me is that most game reviews read more like an infomercial than an actual review. There are usually too many references to how much ass something kicks or how completely cool some stupid eye-candy effect is compared to some other game's stupid eye-candy effect.
Hype and anticipation should have no part in a game review. It doesn't matter if the game has been anticipated for years or it is an unknown that just came to market, it should be reviewed equally.
It seems that there are no real metrics for doing a game review that can be accepted. After all, shouldn't the results be reproducable? How do you review things like playability or replayability? What if the game doesn't deliver everything that was promised at release time? What if the game won't run on half of the gaming hardware out there? What if a game doesn't run quite as fast as a competitor on the same hardware but is much more creative and inventive?
We once ran a set of experiments where we compared subjective taste tests against the physical properties of apples. At first, the tester were told to jot down any number of single words like "crisp" or "sour", as they ate the apple. We started to see some interesting clustering around some of the words.
Well, some people don't like qualitative data, so they switch the experiment to a score. Now testers were told to give the "sourness" a numerical value.
All of a sudden, we had white noise. Data became highly correllated with previous apples, and the clustering disappeared. Why? No standards. People could only measure one apple relative to another.
Similarly, when you're playing a game, you don't have any basis for thinking "Whoah, dude, this is gameplay 4 out of 5!" Except in relation to some previous 3 out of 5 game, itself arbitrarily scored that just happened to be in your mind when you were fabricating the new scores out of pure nothingness.
Play Command HQ online
I don't purchase games based on the major website reviews or reviews from any magzine publications. I use www.gamefaqs.com. Nearly every game on that site has a review section where members submit reviews.
A week or two after a game's release, I can get a pretty good distribution of reviews on a 10-point scale. If 90% of the reviewers give the game an 8, 9, or 10, I can usually assume the game is quality.
However, such high scores can be a result of fanboy-ism...which is why I don't read more than two 10/10 reviews. I usually read, a 9/10, a few 7/10 or 8/10 and a few If I deem a game worthy of my consideration, I'll visit sources to obtain a free trial and I'll buy the game if it's good.
Have you actually looked at the explanation of GI's review section? They specifically state that 7 is their "average" score, on a scale from 1 to 10. Whether or not this is sensible is debatable, but the fact that that is the way they do it doesn't change.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?