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What Makes a Game Review a Game Review?
An anonymous reader writes "Kotaku asks Do Game Reviews Have to Be Puerile? in a short editorial about the state of game reviews. The article points to a recent story in The New Gamer about Silent Hill 4 as an "experiential piece of writing about the emotions and thoughts that swirl through a gamer's head as they play a game over time" The Kotaku article ends on this note: 'The problem with many reviews is that both their writers and readers expect a formula. They don't want to be challenged, instead, they want to have the ideas swirling in the writer's head synthesized and explained. But critical thought, in its truest form, should be something that inspires others to think critically, not just accept what has been handed to them.' What are your thoughts on game reviews? Do they need to have scores and a summary of what's good or bad about the game to be counted? Is experiential commentary more or less useful than a breakdown of the game's design?"
I guess the gaming industry is maturing if it is starting to have critiques of critics.
Just like the rest of the entertainment industry.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Any review of any service or product is simply someone's opinion, regardless of their writing style, whether it be detailing certain aspects of the product in detail, or having rather abstract ideas based on one's own gamimg experience. I feel it important to find reviewers that you can often agree with, and that you can trust to be impartial. So, I think that a game review is a game review if you think it is, and if you are more informed after reading it.
I'm not stressed. I'm just terribly, terribly alert.
An example would be my WWE Day of Reckoning review. Typed out it was about 7 pages, but most of it goes into the controls, and create-a-wrestler modes, and touches on how the story works without giving it away. Or my Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords review, also long.
Then there's some games that I can get the whole point accross in a fairly concise review, like my Midway Arcade Treasures 2 review.
I prefer to let the readers know as much as possible without any spoilers. I realize some of my reviews may be long winded, but that's just me and my writing style. Some people like the reviews, some don't. And that's how it always will be as well.
When I read a game review, I want to be told information that will either push or pull me away from buying (or playing) that game. If it so happens that they can accomplish this while giving me some kind of stream-of-consciousness tour of their mind, then more power to them.
What works for me is this: tell me what games the reviewer tends to like, and let the reviewer tell me what he likes about the game.
I'll take it from there.
What are your thoughts on game reviews?
If I already own the game, then I can play it and draw my own experiences from it. No need for the review, obviously.
If I don't own the game, I need to understand why I should or should not buy/obtain it. Whether the reasons for this involve gameplay, graphics or some random gamer's personal experiences is largely irrelevant, as long as the reasons are clearly stated. Both can be good or bad.
Good:
Bad:
they can be anyway the writer wants. it might make for shitty entertainment to read though.
frankly, i think more of the reviews should get to the point like my favourite review of all time that was on a finnish magazine.. "p*sk* commando klooni" - directly translated: "sh*tt* commando clone.". and that was the whole review, total classic.
you could write reviews like that and be daaaamn accurate of 50% of games coming out.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Trip Hawkins answer ;)
I don't have time to read a 27 page review of Zoo Tycoon 8. Or hear some fanboy explain why Doom 3 was or was not everything he hoped it could be.
Ironic since I'm posting on Slashdot that I would whine about time.
Anyway, I just read a few sites, figure out who I agree with most of the time, and read them - looking for scores and *brief* summary's. If I want to read the review, then I will, most of the time I have a passing interest in a game and want to know if it's thought to be "good" or "bad" by people that I agree with.
If we look at movies, there's a pretty substantial difference between Entertainment Weekly and Film Comment. I suspect that the vast majority of moviegoers, even the avid fans, have nothing but disdain for critical/scholerly review. I expect nothing less from Gamers. Nothing more complicated than scale of 1-10, please.
That's not a knock, it just reflects their objectives.
I mean, I don't give a shit about sculpture. Constantine Brancusi? I give him a 9.4
Why does Zonk love kotaku?
worst...site...ever...
Personally I tend to stop at Gamespot for the large part of my initial game reviews, not because I like their editors (I think they generally fall somewhere between mediocre and stink) but because they have lots of easy to access screenshots and movies, and quite frankly - their video reviews are pretty decent. They also have reader reviews, forums and other informational bits all nicely tied up so I can explore as much or as little as I want.
.
The bottom line in my opinion is that we really need both hand fed, just give me the stinking average rating of the game, and immersive, make you think and decide for yourself movies and demos
And for my soapbox speech, reviews very rarely mention the in game music (partly because it isn't part of games like it used to be). Sound effects generally get a mention, but music rarely. When a reviewer actually reviews the music, and heaven forbid actually takes it into account when giving their stamp of approval on the game - the nostalgia runs thick and rich. Lets not forget about all the elements of gameplay, not just story and graphics!
duhhhhh all of the above. don't try to make it one-size-sits-all.
when i want a politicized/family-oriented opinion of a game, i'll go to a massively-public site.
when i want a fighting-game enthusiast's opinion, i'll go to a fighting-game-fansite.
when i want a game designer's opinion of how good a game is, i'll go to a game design enthusiast's site.
when i want a lot of info quick i'll go to a site that aggregates from all of the above.
Fundamentally, it is impossible to communicate gameplay and aesthetics with a number. Even a very, very large number (and yes, even all the bits in the program itself; you are not a computer). If anything, ratings can only be misleading by giving you a false sense of familiarity.
I think, then, that the primary goal of the review should be to help synthesize some sense of the game in the mind of the reader. Out of what? Previous experiences, that's what. The review should relate the game to other games, popular and obscure, and note important developments and differences.
I don't think the review should emote about "how fun" or "how it felt" because that really doesn't tell the reader anything about what they'll get. There's no such thing a "pure fun" that I can just draw up in my mind. Now, playing 4-player Mario Tennis on the N64, that's something I could remember.
As far as getting rid of ratings goes, we have a statistics fetish these days. People would probably rather be misled and have meaningless statistics than have no statistics at all even though they were just misleading them.
And the inane emoting? Well, nobody said these review monkies were professionals. Some can do it, almost all of them can't.
I almost think that games companies would be better off letting people openly pirate their games than be at the mercy of review sites.
You really feel the game reading this one.
YOUR AVERAGE GAME REVIEW CREATION, APPLIED TO A KITTEN
Here kitty kitty. Get over here you little rat. Now get comfortable, I'm going to review you. This is your new cat, right Billy? Right. I'm going to review your cat, Billy, doesn't that sound like fun? Don't contradict me, Billy.
It's all very simple and for me, it's painless. What's your cat's name, Billy? Ashes? Ha ha, that's cute, because the kitty's grey. Yes, you're very creative, Billy. Now stop speaking.
I should probably open up with some grand statement about cats in general, or at least this particular type of cat. I know: "Remember those two stray cats that lived behind the drug store and made those diseased mewling noises? Well, now they've spawned some skeletal progeny and the McAllisters have taken one of them as their own. Does it live up to its dubious genetics? Read on to find out."
Oh, it's good already. I used big words. Now all that's left is to describe and assign number values to each portion of the cat. This will be fun, right Billy? Numbers can easily represent the value of a living thing, right Billy? Now hold down Ashes while I cut off things and quantify their worth.
Whoa, whoa, Billy. Now you're all down on the review process? Don't you understand? At the end I'm going to have one number that will sum up your cat's innate value! Keep in mind that it's not an average of the value of your cat's various parts, because for some reason, that would make less sense than the process does already! Stop crying, Billy, and bring me an axe.
At that point i'll inspect the screenshots closely, and if it looks like the game might be good, then i'll start to read the body of the review. However, I usually start reading from around 2-3 paragraphs before the end of a review. After all these years, I've noticed that just about every reviewer on Earth starts stating the problems/dislikes with the game around there.
This story sounds awfully similar to this one from almost exactly a month ago.
It looks like a Kotaku dupe was posted each time through by Slashdot. So, I guess Slashdot is duping Kotaku's dupes.
Crazy.
You probably shouldn't click this.
Good reviews have plenty of facts about the product that they're "detailing in detail". Example:
Fact: "Game stutters"
Opinion: "Stuttering makes game unplayable"
Check out mags like Consumer Reports for examples of just-the-facts type reviews.
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
As others have stated game reviews (and for that matter pretty much every other review) exists for one point: should I pay for foo? Reviews are not criticism, nor are they narratives, anecdotes, or literature. They are a form of journalism wherein the reviewer attempts to impart information of a semi-objective nature devoted to answering the stated question of whether you should or should not do something.
It is possible to arrive at this point many ways, but if you remove that critical point (which does not always need to be stated explictly although it does help a bit) you have something else. My reminiscing about Castlevania doesn't tell someone whether they ought to buy it or not... it's something else entirely. In the specific case of the cited article it's more of... well... it's like a piece of short fiction based on the experience of playing the game. It's clearly based on the game, but it doesn't provide any information that would help me in regards to making a decision and thus, is not a review.
The major factor that seems to be lacking in a lot game reviews is honesty. Far too many of the commercial game reviews seem to be either written by the devlopers or their marketing cohorts. I know of one game who had to get an employee to put up their first fan site!
If there are problems in the game, I'd like to see them reported. I've yet to see anything like that in anyone's reviews, unless they are another end user who's not associated with the game or a web site who sells the game. None of the magazines or on line review sites give you this kind of information. Just to illustrate, I'll name some examples.
I've purchased several games only to be severely disappointed. I purchased Morrowind III Bethesda Softworks and it took me 3 months just to get to a point where I could create a character without the game causing me to get the BSOD thanks to an illegal call to my video driver. I was not alone in this problem. How hard it is to tell people that your game isn't compatible with the NVIDIA chipset? At the time the NVIDIA chipset was the hottest card around and in order to meet their sales projections, they kept mum.
I purchased Sacred by Ascaron Entertainment and it's so full of bugs as more annoying than fun to play. The on line forums are full of people who state that they have moved on to other games because of the bugs. Their patches only seem to make matters worse and many of the bugs only affect high level characters (over lvl 100).
Guild Wars is still in beta because of issues. Worlds of War Craft recent extended its "grace" period for paying customers because of it's problems. The whole Prince of Persia series has been problematic for me and I've never been able to get even their demos to work properly for me, so I've been spared shelling out $50 for something that didn't work.
Lest everyone think I only flame, I will list some of the positives. I've purchased I of the Dragon and it's been nearly flawless even though it's written by a small team who's relatively new to game development in Russia. It's also one of the more inventive games I've played in a while. Nothing like being able to eat your enemies! I also purchased Rise of Nations and it too has been nearly flawless even though its just a nicer version of AOE. I'm also a big fan of Neverwinter Nights and the Gothic series.
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
The problem with many Slashdot posts is that both their writers and readers expect a formula. They don't want to be challenged, instead, they want to have the ideas swirling in the writer's head synthesized and explained. But critical thought, in its truest form, should be something that inspires others to think critically, not just accept what has been handed to them.
Call me picky but sometimes I play a game only to find out it is missing a feature that totally ruins the game for me.
For Example: Some gameboy pinball games do not save high scores. Since there isn't much to see in a pinball game I play entirely to beat my previous high scores and I love it. Not saving the high scores makes the game virtually worthless to me and therefore is a show-stopper for me.
Reviewers need to point out anything that they could imagine could be a show-stopper. Sometimes I read reviews just to find them.
I think that most reviews require a bit of critical thinking, simply by virtue of the fact that it can be a challenge to seperate out the facts of the good and bad of the game from the fluff and padding that makes it way into reviews.
It seems to me like most review sites tend to have a good summary of the good and bad points of the game, and if it's worth a purchase or maybe a rental, but it's a bit of an exercise to get to it.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
There is nothing more to it, a review is something written to express an opinion, Dictionary .com says something else.
I'd like to see more reviewers make comments on the quality of the game levels themselves. This is something that is more important with first person shooters. Some games I've played (Jedi Academy, Serious Sam) have seriously fun gameplay but the levels sometimes are very bland. Both architecturally and in texturing. I figure thats a field that not many people take into account.
Obviously this becomes more difficult because of the extra detail the games offer means so much more effort needs to be put into the design of a map to make it up to par, but when someone makes levels which are truely breathtaking (American McGees Alice) then they should get big points for that.
i can't stand that stream-of-consciousness crap. some people have seen fit to call this style of writing "new games journalism". these "new games journalists" write as if they are trying to emancipate the world from the tyranny of old games journalism. their writing makes me nauseous.
i just want a clear, concise explanation of the strengths and weaknesses of a game. i don't want to read some lit major waxing philosophical about his gaming experiences -- describing some 30 second battle in everquest 2 as if the fate of the universe depended on it, for example.
gaming isn't about holding hands and tip-toeing through the tulips and sharing experiences together. it's about giving me my daily serotonin fix. that's it.
I always thought "puerile" meant childish or juvenile. It seems the dictionary thinks the same thing, so I wonder: What exactly is childish about a review that covers the graphics, sound, control, gameplay, and difficulty of a game and tells you how it measures up? Yes, "new games journalism" can provide an interesting story to read (this Doom 3 review or IGN's Seaman review, for example), but what if I just want to know about the game itself? Maybe it's just me, but personally it's concievable that the reason the current review formula exists is because it works.
"I don't think you need to blatantly summarize your opinion in a pre-chewed paragraph of "this is good and that is bad" to make what you've written, analysis. Reading Turner's story about the emotions the game inspired is more than enough to give me a taste of the game and certainly a idea of what the writer thought of it."
The whole point of reading a review is to determine whether we will like a game or not if we buy it. Turner's review was useless in that regard, as it gave little basis for comparison with other games except on an emotional basis.
Even film has avoided these useless "narrative" reviews in lieu of more objective criteria - and there is much less to objectively criticise in films than there is in games. I imagine that vast majority of gamers do not want to consult the Delphic oracle regarding decisions involving $50.
Certainly, game reviews have problems - there's obviously pressure on reviewers to not give bad reviews or risk losing the steady supply of free games from the game maker, and there have been instances of reviewers being outright bribed not to give games shitty reviews. But I doubt many were complaining that existing game reviews were far too terse and lucid for the teenager's refined literary tastes.
...makes a game review a Game Review.
I write game reviews, and, since I don't have money coming out of my ears, demo reviews, for FragFiles.org (guess our web address. I dare you). I believe the most important thing in a review is to give the reader as much relevant information about the game as they need to decide whether or not to play it. The idea is that once you read the review, you will know if the game matches your idea of something fun. Reviews should also be entertaining to read, since I know I myself read reviews of games I already own or would never buy.
Against stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain.
Consumer Reports actually has a lot of (sometimes unstated) opinion and assumptions in the target market for the products they review. I find I almost never agree with their reviews on tech gadgets, while I often do on cars.
...then it is completely useless to me. I don't care about a reviewer's opinion simply because it is not my own, and therefore not relevant to my choice of video games. Even a reviewer who appears to share many of my tastes regarding video games cannot be fully trusted.
When I read a review, I look for information: What is the game about? What genre is it? What control system and/or interface does it use? If it's a PC game, what are its specs? Anything outside of that type of information basically gets ignored.
Rob
Consumer reports' reviews are largely written by non-experts. This can lead to misinformed critisism and misleading conclusions.
I would guess that the overwhelming majority of slashdot readers would disgree with Consumer Reports on the subject of personal computers, and with good reason. The couple mechanic-types I know think their car reviews are a laugh-a-minute riot. Same thing with photographers and reviews of cameras.
Basically any time I've talked to a subject matter expert about something I saw in a Consumer Reports evaluation, I've been intelligently persuaded that the review couldn't find his ass with both hands, a map and a GPS.
So I stopped reading consumer reports. Fact on its own is not as useful to me as fact with context and expertise.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
"They don't want to be challenged, instead, they want to have the ideas swirling in the writer's head synthesized and explained."
Which is nonsense, and only speaks to the author's lack of writing ability. The way I read it is "I can't concretely explain my opinions, so rather than improve my writing skills, I'll blame the reader for not understanding my oh-so-deep and complex ramblings."
At the core of a good writer is the ability to take those "swirling ideas", and write them down in a manner that most people can easily understand. A product review isn't, and shouldn't be, abstract art - it should clearly and concisely explain the pros and cons of the product in question.
I'll typically look at reviews for games I already have, and see which reviewers tend to look for the same things in a game.
:)
When I lived on the east coast, one of the few stations we received (rural, no cable) had a movie reviewer named Tom New who I trusted implicitly, because I never found myself in disagreement with any movie I watched. If he said it wasn't worth paying for in a theatre, I'd catch it on TV eventually, and lo and behold he'd be right. His opinions obviously wouldn't be useful to everyone but they suited me just fine.
It doesn't hurt to find reviewers who aren't getting free copies of games from companies as well. The Shacknew review system comes in handy, although sometimes you'd be hard pressed to make sense of what the person was trying to say
3 Words:
Tycho and Gabe
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its