David Jaffe Calls on Game Critics to Get Tougher

[Antari]

Ya its a fairly sad trend in the industry. The critics being happy with nearly anything and everything that comes out. One of the worst examples is Electronic Playground on TV here in Canada. It's so sad to hear in their voices they could barely even stand to play through 5 minutes of the game yet they are giving it an 8 or 9 out of 10. I wish critics would stand up and demand some level of quality out of the industry.

 

[GonzoGamer]

People make what sells and people buy what they enjoy. I see no problem in that.

Yea. Some really great games have come from milking franchises: gta San Andreas, Burnout Revenge, Katamari Forever. I don?t mind something unoriginal as long as it?s fun. But usually those games (like the ones listed) add new things on top of their previous iterations.
At the same time, I do feel that most critics massively overrate most every game. I don?t count on them to help me decide what games to buy but if I did, I would have a huge collection of crappy games.

 

[GideonB]

Not to mention that with the open nature of the internet, any review that is less than a 9/10 is an invitation for fans of the game to trash the critic. "How dare you have an opinion that differs from my own! This reviewer clearly should not be reviewing this game if he is incapable of seeing it for the shining beacon of innovation that it is, and their review will single handedly drag this game's average down on Metacritic and force the developer into receivership! I am never coming back to this site ever!"

Reviews should grow some balls. Reviewers that are adamant in their criticism are much more entertaining anyway. Why do you think Yahtzee is so successful? He outright insults his fans more than anything.

Oh I completely agree with you, I much prefer Yahtzee's harsh standards to the usual wishy-washy reviewing you get. But I don't believe that changing their standards would have any effect on the game industry, and the price Yahtzee pays for having his standards is having 600+ comments of hatred spewed at him for not liking The Witcher 2. Heck, with that game, I even saw people complaining on PC Gamer's website that they ONLY gave it 89.

Yeah, if reviewers don't get tougher, literally every game made for gamers, would be like you know, super super super popular.
I disagree with Yahtzee's review because I genuinely like The Witcher and it's sequel, but I'm not going to complain. There are games I love that others hate, and there are games I hate that others love (such as MW2, because the next time someone makes a cash-in sequel, it'll still be shit).

 

[koroem]

Because game reviews are paid for by publishers? You really expect them to bite the hand that feeds? Crappy gaming journalism has been happening for 15+ years now. Get used to it.

Remember when the Gamespot journalist Jeff Gerstmann got fired for bashing Kane & Lynch: Dead Men and Edios didn't like it?

 

[adamtm]

......
....
The only reviewer I really trust is Yahtzee, because his cynical style of review contains a lot of grains of truth behind the various metaphors, and his show is a COMEDY.

When an online review that makes comedy reviews outclasses almost every single reviewer in gaming today, you need to SERIOUSLY rethink your profession. Not everyone can objectively review a game. Maybe you should stick to just giving a quick synopsis without a score if you can't review games.

Also, Total Biscuit gave a fantastic analysis of Duke Nukem Forever, for instance. He pointed out that the two weapon restriction and regenerating health don't complement the fast paced action and care-free style of the game. This is the sort of objective analysis that needs to be done more.

I've given up on reviewers really. If the situation improves, then great. If it doesn't, I'm still not going to read your reviews.

(No offense to any reviewer, I'm sure you're all very nice people, but a great proportion of you do not know how to review games and do not know how to attach a score to them)

While i agree to 90% of what you said before that this bit i can not agree with.

While I enjoy Yahtzee and TB, they are not reviewers, they are first and foremost entertainers.

I've never seen Yahtzee review anything and TB's "WTF is..." series often goes past reviewing into personal opinion territory. Hell he specifically said that "WTF is..." is an first impressions series and NOT a review.

I don't know if you had the chance to watch his Dungeon Siege III review before it got taken down recently (because of drama) but he did a horrible job in it. He failed to read the tutorial pop-ups later claiming that the game "doesn't tell you anything", he started skipping the dialogue-choices selecting random answers because he "didnt care for the story in Hack and Slash games" even though the story choices actually have great impact on the gameplay later on, etc.

Please, just because someone is cynical and uses the word FUCK a lot doesn't mean hes a good reviewer or a better one because hes "tough" on the games, by that standard Angry Video-Game Nerd is the best reviewer ever...

You should discount all people that are trying to entertain with their reviews, yes you can throw Angry Joe, Spoony, and pretty much every "reviewer" on Blistered Thumbs out the window, together with Giant Bomb and ZAM.

Personally i didn't see ONE review done right EVER, there were reviews i agreed with yeah, but they still weren't any good.

Sadly there is no Roger Ebert in the gaming industry.

 

[Plinglebob]

The man definitely has a point, but I think the problem runs deeper then that in the fact that there arn't really any sort of guidelines/boundries yet in place within the community review of what is consided a "Good Game". In film (at least with the more long running/professional publications/reviews) it is rare you'll see a score varyby more then 1 out of 5 either way (i.e 1 pubcation gives it 3 stars and most others will also give it 3 with a few 4 or 2's). This is because films can easily be broken down and judged on specific catagories:

Narrative
Acting
Directing
Cinematography
Personal Opinion

The problem with game reviews is that they are based too much on the personal opinion of the writer with other factors being lower down the list, where as in Film ersonal opinion is the last thing to be considered.

 

[Astalano]

......
....
The only reviewer I really trust is Yahtzee, because his cynical style of review contains a lot of grains of truth behind the various metaphors, and his show is a COMEDY.

When an online review that makes comedy reviews outclasses almost every single reviewer in gaming today, you need to SERIOUSLY rethink your profession. Not everyone can objectively review a game. Maybe you should stick to just giving a quick synopsis without a score if you can't review games.

Also, Total Biscuit gave a fantastic analysis of Duke Nukem Forever, for instance. He pointed out that the two weapon restriction and regenerating health don't complement the fast paced action and care-free style of the game. This is the sort of objective analysis that needs to be done more.

I've given up on reviewers really. If the situation improves, then great. If it doesn't, I'm still not going to read your reviews.

(No offense to any reviewer, I'm sure you're all very nice people, but a great proportion of you do not know how to review games and do not know how to attach a score to them)

While i agree to 90% of what you said before that this bit i can not agree with.

While I enjoy Yahtzee and TB, they are not reviewers, they are first and foremost entertainers.

I've never seen Yahtzee review anything and TB's "WTF is..." series often goes past reviewing into personal opinion territory. Hell he specifically said that "WTF is..." is an first impressions series and NOT a review.

I don't know if you had the chance to watch his Dungeon Siege III review before it got taken down recently (because of drama) but he did a horrible job in it. He failed to read the tutorial pop-ups later claiming that the game "doesn't tell you anything", he started skipping the dialogue-choices selecting random answers because he "didnt care for the story in Hack and Slash games" even though the story choices actually have great impact on the gameplay later on, etc.

Please, just because someone is cynical and uses the word FUCK a lot doesn't mean hes a good reviewer or a better one because hes "tough" on the games, by that standard Angry Video-Game Nerd is the best reviewer ever...

You should discount all people that are trying to entertain with their reviews, yes you can throw Angry Joe, Spoony, and pretty much every "reviewer" on Blistered Thumbs out the window, together with Giant Bomb and ZAM.

Personally i didn't see ONE review done right EVER, there were reviews i agreed with yeah, but they still weren't any good.

Sadly there is no Roger Ebert in the gaming industry.

No one is perfect, it's just that TB and Yahtzee tend to have the most bits I agree with and can respect.

 

[KO4U]

And I will refer you, Logon Westbrook, to the recent close of Kaos Studios even though their game (Homefront) sold well, they were met with middling reviews which sent THQ investors into a riot.

 

[mogamer]

There are guys who are tough on games. After a while, they aren't sent review copies.

 

[blackdwarf]

no shit, but so long they are making money with the games that aren't innovative, they will make them. and some 'proffesinal' journalists who are complaining, really don't have meaning to them.

 

[mjc0961]

this coming from a guy who's making a sequel to a game he did ten years ago. Whatever Jaffe

And if you were paying attention to the new Twisted Metal, you'd know that he's not just doing the same thing as all the old Twisted Metals and is adding all kinds of interesting new features into the game.

You can still try new things in an existing franchise. Trying new things doesn't have to mean "new IP or GTFO."

 

[Rayansaki]

this coming from a guy who's making a sequel to a game he did ten years ago. Whatever Jaffe

Of a genre that hasn't gotten a significant game since aforementioned 10 year old game.

I guess it's more important to make new FPS IP's or something.

 

[Kahunaburger]

You should discount all people that are trying to entertain with their reviews,

snip

Sadly there is no Roger Ebert in the gaming industry.

Well, Roger Ebert's pretty entertaining - people read his column and watch his show because they want to, not because he's any more or less trustworthy than any other reviewer out there.

I've seen some reviewers in games I think are criticizing to a higher standard than usual - Yahtzee is actually pretty good most of the time, and Abbie Heppe had some good ones. In fact, she was raged at pretty hard by fanboys for being a critic (versus a reviewer) when discussing Other M.

 

[Alphakirby]

Also : Has the God of War series made huge strides through it's sequels? At all? Or has it just been pretty much the same, but scaled up a bit.

Jaffe was just on the first one.

and it was AMAZING. The other artistic directors are just.... kinda..... stupid.
OT: No one takes ZP seriously?

I think Jaffe meant critics in general,one brutally honest critic isn't going to help with a million bribed critics praising shit.

Yahtzee is an example of how to be a critic CORRECTLY. Jaffe wouldn't mention specific critics anyway if it was to the game critic community as a whole.

 

[adamtm]

You should discount all people that are trying to entertain with their reviews,

snip

Sadly there is no Roger Ebert in the gaming industry.

Well, Roger Ebert's pretty entertaining - people read his column and watch his show because they want to, not because he's any more or less trustworthy than any other reviewer out there.

I've seen some reviewers in games I think are criticizing to a higher standard than usual - Yahtzee is actually pretty good most of the time, and Abbie Heppe had some good ones. In fact, she was raged at pretty hard by fanboys for being a critic (versus a reviewer) when discussing Other M.

You need to agree that Ebert is a notch above Angry Joe that reviewed Dragon Age 2 and his closing words in the review were (paraphrasing):

"yes the game has problems, mostly in art-design, story-telling, lacking customizability and exploration, but hell its Bioware and Dragon Age! 9/10!"

I still want to know why anyone would consider Yahtzee a reviewer or critic, can you link me to an actual review you find was well done?

 

[Kahunaburger]

You should discount all people that are trying to entertain with their reviews,

snip

Sadly there is no Roger Ebert in the gaming industry.

Well, Roger Ebert's pretty entertaining - people read his column and watch his show because they want to, not because he's any more or less trustworthy than any other reviewer out there.

I've seen some reviewers in games I think are criticizing to a higher standard than usual - Yahtzee is actually pretty good most of the time, and Abbie Heppe had some good ones. In fact, she was raged at pretty hard by fanboys for being a critic (versus a reviewer) when discussing Other M.

You need to agree that Ebert is a notch above Angry Joe that reviewed Dragon Age 2 and his closing words in the review were (paraphrasing):

"yes the game has problems, mostly in art-design, story-telling, lacking customizability and exploration, but hell its Bioware and Dragon Age! 9/10!"

I still want to know why anyone would consider Yahtzee a reviewer or critic, can you link me to an actual review you find was well done?

Notice how I didn't cite Angry Joe there. For Yahtzee "reviews" (vs. him just riffing, which he seems to do more often these days) I seem to recall Bioshock, Arkham Asylum, and Minecraft being pretty good. Any review where he talks about what he likes and doesn't get distracted by nitpicks is usually better. And Extra Punctuation is occasionally pretty good for criticism of a particular aspect of a game.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

He is absolutely correct and I'm only commenting here to polish the knob of a person who extolls the value of innovation.

<_< But...What if they were a woman?

Then what would you do?

 

[adamtm]

You should discount all people that are trying to entertain with their reviews,

snip

Sadly there is no Roger Ebert in the gaming industry.

Well, Roger Ebert's pretty entertaining - people read his column and watch his show because they want to, not because he's any more or less trustworthy than any other reviewer out there.

I've seen some reviewers in games I think are criticizing to a higher standard than usual - Yahtzee is actually pretty good most of the time, and Abbie Heppe had some good ones. In fact, she was raged at pretty hard by fanboys for being a critic (versus a reviewer) when discussing Other M.

You need to agree that Ebert is a notch above Angry Joe that reviewed Dragon Age 2 and his closing words in the review were (paraphrasing):

"yes the game has problems, mostly in art-design, story-telling, lacking customizability and exploration, but hell its Bioware and Dragon Age! 9/10!"

I still want to know why anyone would consider Yahtzee a reviewer or critic, can you link me to an actual review you find was well done?

Notice how I didn't cite Angry Joe there. For Yahtzee "reviews" (vs. him just riffing, which he seems to do more often these days) I seem to recall Bioshock, Arkham Asylum, and Minecraft being pretty good. Any review where he talks about what he likes and doesn't get distracted by nitpicks is usually better. And Extra Punctuation is occasionally pretty good for criticism of a particular aspect of a game.

How does this make a good reviewer/critic if he gets distracted by nitpicks? Where is the analysis?
EP is a column about just everything that comes to his mind, he now did E3, yay?

If i would have to define what level i expect from a review id say: Extra Credits just for a specific game instead of concepts.

EC conveys a great deal of analysis in their videos, if that were applied to a specific game (they brushed this when they discussed God Of War for example), it would be perfect.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Dafid Jaffe Calls of Games Critics to Get Tougher

Some typos in the title, there.

OT: I think that people who actually pay attention to game critics are more likely to notice lack of innovation on their own.

In american english that sentence was already grammatically correct, stop trying to be a wise-ass.

On topic: Jaffe gives critics more credit than they deserve. Any time a critic rightfully states in a review that a popular game franchise isn't doing enough to innovate and distinguish itself they always get bashed by angry fans screaming about how change ruins a franchise, and how all the review is biased since other reviews had higher scores. Truthfully game critics are barely even relevant now considering every game coming out is just a sequel or a remake, so everyone already knows exactly what they're getting into from the get-go.