On August 20 2013 01:24 Plansix wrote: Also, Metacritic is shit and their user reviews are shit. People actively review bomb that site and small groups of people make large numbers of acocunts just to bring down the score. Users scores are worthless and you are better off just asking a friend if they liked the game.
I personally find the user scores to be decent if you're looking up some niche games that get ignored by the masses and shat on by the critics that don't personally enjoy the genre.
Do indeed stay the fuck away when it comes to AAA western games though.
But yeah I make my purchases based on what I hear from friends if they got the game and by watching gameplay footage, doesn't matter to me whether it gets a 6 or 10 from IGN.
Yeah, I don't use scores that often, unless something gets all 9s or higher, and then I feel I need to a least look at it. But they are a good metric for games you don't know about or have not looked into. I didn't know a lot about the Metro games and the reviews that were out ther were helpful for me to get an idea of what they were about.
On August 20 2013 01:40 StarStruck wrote: I haven't touched a video game magazine in years. I think I was about twelve when I made this realization. They're like picture books for little kids.
I use Giant Bomb, TB and a couple of other people on the internet to get my information about games and if they are good. In the era of Youtube and twitch, you pretty much can figure out if a game is good for you on your own.
This so much. It's just far better to be able to watch gameplay and listen to someone discuss what they do and don't like about a game while they play it.
I think one of the large problems is the expectations of gamers today versus the amount of investment they are willing to divy up to the dev.'s of said game. With games increasingly expected to have better engines, mechanics, and graphics (all of which cost LOTS of money) -- it is not surprising to me to see consumer backlash because the consumer perspective is not appropriate to the game that was developed. With the invention of digital distribution, the publishers are probably seeing a mixture of increased/decreased returns on investment based on the distribution system they care to utilize and contract with--thus investment may be slowing. Add on to that the indie game boom, and the economics of the industry are quickly becoming more diversified resulting in lower investments for some firms with expectations of increased quality and speed of release. In short, its a giant CF. So just keep supporting!
Making educated purchases to support those companies you wish to support the most is ideal. The reviews are worthwhile taken in context of the source of the review and compared against other reviews. Or you can just be like me and just buy the dang game, play it, and shelve it if I don't want to play it again anytime soon (2nd hand shops are ripoffs to sell games back to anyway :D).
I thought it was fairly common knowledge by "hardcore gamers" that the media/review side of gaming had been bought out years ago. This is been revealed several times over the past decade or so, usually by people leaving the industry. Sometimes game companies outright buy favorable reviews. Other times, they give reviewers rewards or other incentives for favorable reviews, or minimum scores.
I haven't taken an actual score from a major media outlet (IGN, etc.) seriously in years. It also bothers me that the writers, who basically make a living writing and playing video games, more often than not seem to be actually terrible at video games. I don't expect them to be pro players, but seriously, have you ever watched some of these guys actually play games? Most of them are god awful, and it really shifts their bias towards more "casual" games, or away from harder games.
On August 20 2013 07:28 HardlyNever wrote: I thought it was fairly common knowledge by "hardcore gamers" that the media/review side of gaming had been bought out years ago. This is been revealed several times over the past decade or so, usually by people leaving the industry. Sometimes game companies outright buy favorable reviews. Other times, they give reviewers rewards or other incentives for favorable reviews, or minimum scores.
I haven't taken an actual score from a major media outlet (IGN, etc.) seriously in years. It also bothers me that the writers, who basically make a living writing and playing video games, more often than not seem to be actually terrible at video games. I don't expect them to be pro players, but seriously, have you ever watched some of these guys actually play games? Most of them are god awful, and it really shifts their bias towards more "casual" games, or away from harder games.
Being good at games does not mean you will be a good reporter or writer. Further more, it does not mean you will be good in an office setting or can meet deadlines. The people at Giant Bomb are the best at reviewing games objectively and provide very good reviews. They are not great at every game they play, but that isn't really a requirement.
Skill at games does not really equal skill at anything else taken on its own. It will not make your a good reviewer.
Reviewers being good - depends on the audience, if they are making a review that noobs will read (watch), it makes sense to describe what a noob will feel like when he plays it. In the '9x I think the paper magazines were actually pretty important and their opinions had some weight, today it's really hard to find quality journalism since most of the sites exist just so ads can appear somewhere. Some youtube reviewers are decent. Also, the numbers usually aren't the most important thing in a (good) review.
if we were to pretend for a moment that video game reviewers as a whole are not shills, id say that being good at video games ranks pretty low as far as criteria. a love for video games is more important than being 'good' at them, however it is you define that.
You just can't trust that professional reviewers are working for the benefit of the consumers. They don't care what they think about a game. If they want to continue getting paid to review games, then of course they would rate them positively or relatively positively. What incentive would there be for giving a deserving game a bad score? Maybe they might become a little more credible, but I think they'd care more about money than being credible.
User reviews tend to be pretty bad as well. The "score" is so far inflated or deflated by users voting 1s or 10s for games they either really liked, or really hated. This does not balance out and give a "true" average of how games likely actually play like. What I do recommend though is reading through user reviews and seeing what common complaints are about the game. Sometimes you'll find a good detailed review that focuses on a lot of criticisms and positives that a game has. Those are the reviews I feel that have the potential to be pretty credible.
I've always thought of video game reviews from big sites (aka the 'critics') to be fluff for people who already want to buy the game and just want to read stuff about it to enhance their excitement over it. That was what I used them for when I was younger, and I don't look at them at all anymore.
I think they're misrepresented as reviewers and critics. The score number is just a number. Gamers love numbers. Big numbers oooo. You were already gonna buy Mario or Zelda before you saw 9.4/10 or whatever, but now you're pumped to play it even if it's the worst one in the series.
An actual service that aggregates professional game reviews doesn't exist yet, and that might just be because legitimate critics don't exist. But even if they did, you still might find yourself disagreeing with a lot of them, because there ends up with critics a few schools of thoughts by which they try to create the criteria for which they are to judge by. And it might not be criteria that reflects your interests (such as a AAA game's cutting edge textures and graphics).
There are definitely a lot of amateur reviewers tho, who don't do it as their main thing and don't make money for it. Just a person whose videos you like on youtube who randomly decided to do a review. They're pretty honest and some even try to be fair / go into the frame of mind of someone who might not like a game they like. And of course there's plenty of amateur reviews which just don't give you any idea what to expect, but hopefully those aren't done by a person you like.
It's a lot of brand value. Both in what you decide to buy (hey I liked other games of this series / this developer), and in what gets rated highly on websites. You might see a disparity in your screen shots, but a lot of people can't get enough of those AAA generic shooters, and they might not be the ones who vote on gaming websites. That 80/100 might not be as disingenuous as you think. 1.6 and 3.3 sound like they got hit with some forums that all decided to vote 1 or something. A score that low should mean the game is buggy and unplayable, or just has no content or something like that. A person who sees that score thinks twice about the purchase, but then sees the critic's review and probably puts two and two together about angry nerds. AAA shooters definitely get a lot of hate from a pretty small demographic.
Some people like playing the same game over and over. Some people like reading the same story over and over (Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie... very formulaic). If a critic rates those very popular things highly, but you chastise the game for being uninventive and uninteresting, perhaps you just need to look for critics who judge by the same criteria you do.
On August 20 2013 08:55 Epishade wrote: You just can't trust that professional reviewers are working for the benefit of the consumers. They don't care what they think about a game. If they want to continue getting paid to review games, then of course they would rate them positively or relatively positively. What incentive would there be for giving a deserving game a bad score? Maybe they might become a little more credible, but I think they'd care more about money than being credible.
User reviews tend to be pretty bad as well. The "score" is so far inflated or deflated by users voting 1s or 10s for games they either really liked, or really hated. This does not balance out and give a "true" average of how games likely actually play like. What I do recommend though is reading through user reviews and seeing what common complaints are about the game. Sometimes you'll find a good detailed review that focuses on a lot of criticisms and positives that a game has. Those are the reviews I feel that have the potential to be pretty credible.
I still think there are some good reviewers, I really like Tom Chick. Especially since he was one of the few critics to call HotS out on it's terrible campaign and give CoH 2 a 1/5... I thought CoH 2 was pretty bad XD.
On August 20 2013 08:55 Epishade wrote: You just can't trust that professional reviewers are working for the benefit of the consumers. They don't care what they think about a game. If they want to continue getting paid to review games, then of course they would rate them positively or relatively positively. What incentive would there be for giving a deserving game a bad score? Maybe they might become a little more credible, but I think they'd care more about money than being credible.
User reviews tend to be pretty bad as well. The "score" is so far inflated or deflated by users voting 1s or 10s for games they either really liked, or really hated. This does not balance out and give a "true" average of how games likely actually play like. What I do recommend though is reading through user reviews and seeing what common complaints are about the game. Sometimes you'll find a good detailed review that focuses on a lot of criticisms and positives that a game has. Those are the reviews I feel that have the potential to be pretty credible.
I still think there are some good reviewers, I really like Tom Chick. Especially since he was one of the few critics to call HotS out on it's terrible campaign and give CoH 2 a 1/5... I thought CoH 2 was pretty bad XD.
I would not give company of Heroes 2 a 1 out of 5, but I would give it a 2 or 3. They phoned that one in and it was pretty by the numbers. There wasn’t anything new or interesting in the game. I really get the feeling they put their B-team on that game and are doubling down on the real deal, Dawn of War 3.
I don’t like reviewers that give games a 1 based that are clearly functional games. A middle of the road game is a 2 or 3. Giving a game a 1 for shock value is the sign of a bad review in my book.
On August 20 2013 07:28 HardlyNever wrote: I thought it was fairly common knowledge by "hardcore gamers" that the media/review side of gaming had been bought out years ago. This is been revealed several times over the past decade or so, usually by people leaving the industry. Sometimes game companies outright buy favorable reviews. Other times, they give reviewers rewards or other incentives for favorable reviews, or minimum scores.
I haven't taken an actual score from a major media outlet (IGN, etc.) seriously in years. It also bothers me that the writers, who basically make a living writing and playing video games, more often than not seem to be actually terrible at video games. I don't expect them to be pro players, but seriously, have you ever watched some of these guys actually play games? Most of them are god awful, and it really shifts their bias towards more "casual" games, or away from harder games.
Being good at games does not mean you will be a good reporter or writer. Further more, it does not mean you will be good in an office setting or can meet deadlines. The people at Giant Bomb are the best at reviewing games objectively and provide very good reviews. They are not great at every game they play, but that isn't really a requirement.
Skill at games does not really equal skill at anything else taken on its own. It will not make your a good reviewer.
I'm not saying being good at video games makes you good at anything else. What I'm saying is, if your are bad at video games, I don't really care about your (the reviewer's) opinion on a game. I imagine most reviewers would make a decision about the multiplayer in sc2 within about an hour of playing, good or bad. An hour of playing sc2 multiplayer doesn't tell you shit about what it is really about. Sure, you can relate basic concepts (it is these 3 races against each other, you get resources and make units), but that is such a dumbed-down appraisal of the game. That is the kind of crap I often see from "professional" reviewers. Then I watch them play games (either on stream or recorded) and it turns out they are actually terrible.
It is like if your grandparents played a game and reviewed it. Would you care (it is an extreme example, but you get the point)? No, because they don't play games like you do at all. They don't understand games the way you do at all. What baffles me is most of these reviewers are around my age, ostensibly play tons of video games, and are usually just god-awful. I'm not really sure what to make of that, but I don't really care about their opinion on video games, regardless of how well they write or meet deadlines.
On August 20 2013 07:28 HardlyNever wrote: I thought it was fairly common knowledge by "hardcore gamers" that the media/review side of gaming had been bought out years ago. This is been revealed several times over the past decade or so, usually by people leaving the industry. Sometimes game companies outright buy favorable reviews. Other times, they give reviewers rewards or other incentives for favorable reviews, or minimum scores.
I haven't taken an actual score from a major media outlet (IGN, etc.) seriously in years. It also bothers me that the writers, who basically make a living writing and playing video games, more often than not seem to be actually terrible at video games. I don't expect them to be pro players, but seriously, have you ever watched some of these guys actually play games? Most of them are god awful, and it really shifts their bias towards more "casual" games, or away from harder games.
Being good at games does not mean you will be a good reporter or writer. Further more, it does not mean you will be good in an office setting or can meet deadlines. The people at Giant Bomb are the best at reviewing games objectively and provide very good reviews. They are not great at every game they play, but that isn't really a requirement.
Skill at games does not really equal skill at anything else taken on its own. It will not make your a good reviewer.
I'm not saying being good at video games makes you good at anything else. What I'm saying is, if your are bad at video games, I don't really care about your (the reviewer's) opinion on a game. I imagine most reviewers would make a decision about the multiplayer in sc2 within about an hour of playing, good or bad. An hour of playing sc2 multiplayer doesn't tell you shit about what it is really about. Sure, you can relate basic concepts (it is these 3 races against each other, you get resources and make units), but that is such a dumbed-down appraisal of the game. That is the kind of crap I often see from "professional" reviewers. Then I watch them play games (either on stream or recorded) and it turns out they are actually terrible.
It is like if your grandparents played a game and reviewed it. Would you care (it is an extreme example, but you get the point)? No, because they don't play games like you do at all. They don't understand games the way you do at all. What baffles me is most of these reviewers are around my age, ostensibly play tons of video games, and are usually just god-awful. I'm not really sure what to make of that, but I don't really care about their opinion on video games, regardless of how well they write or meet deadlines.
You are expecting to much from reviews and reviewers. Your skill level and interest in games seems to vastly outstrip that of the general person playing games. You have to look at what a review is and its purpose. It is, by nature, a short hand for someone to make an informed decision on if they should buy a game and if they will enjoy it. It is meant for people who have dug into the game or do not have a lot of information on how it players. Also, it is meant for the general game player, not the hard core. SC2 was not reviewed based solely on its multiplayer and neither was Modern warfare.
Also, you should give video game reviewers a break when it comes to being “good at a games”. The guys at Giant Bomb have said over and over that they simply do not have time to get good at games any more. Even FPS games outpace them because they have to review so many games and cannot dump the time into the game to get really good at it. The same thing goes for the rest of life. Having a house and girlfriend have made me very bad at SC2 and “not embarrassing” at Dota 2. My friend who has a one year old son can’t even play multiplayer games any more because he just don’t have the time to even get good to play with us.
I'm not really "expecting" anything from reviewers. I'm possibly suggesting, at the most, that it would be nice to see reviewers that were actually decent at the games they play. But really, I'm not even saying that.
What I am saying is that I find (personally) the entire crop of "professional" reviewers useless when it comes to informing me about whether or not I'd like a game, in large part because they are generally terrible at video games. All I've said from the start is that most "hardcore" gamers (and I use the term loosely here) have known that the mainstream reviewers cater to the "casual" crowd, and their opinion is pretty useless when it comes to whether or not someone who puts time into video games will actually enjoy it. Given that this is a site dedicated to playing 1-2 games at the absolute top level, I'm guessing that would have some relevance here. I understand why the "mainstream" reviewers target the "casual" audience; it is a much larger share of the market and commands a lot more money than "hardcore gamers." It also means (to me at least), their reviews are generally worthless.
I don't even know if I should consider myself a "hardcore gamer." I work 9 hours a day, and have a life beyond video games on the weekends. What I do know, is that I'm not nearly as bad at games as people who, ostensibly, play video games most of their day and then write about it. That is disappointing to me, but not much I can do about it.
All I've said from the start is that "mainstream" or "professional" reviewers opinions are largely irrelevant to people who try to get good at specific games. Whether or not it "should" be that way, or it is "acceptable" that it is that way is largely irrelevant. It just is that way, so... I said it.
EPT
