Game Reviews, when do they matter?

[Crunchy English]

Reviewing games by an inflexible system creates is the only way to compare games on equal terms. But what about when a game just doesn't fit that, big budget, mass appeal, mold?

I love Culdcept Saga. I'm willing to admit I'm in the minority there. But Culdcept Saga was a budget title from Bandai Namco with a very specific niche of gamers in mind. The Genre is so narrow I'm tempted to thread a needle with it. Board games, card games, and Xbox Live users? That's a pretty specific tribe of gamers.

Civ Rev, another game I enjoyed immensely did a better job of cracking the mainstream, but it's still pretty unique with a very stylized way of getting the job done.

No More Heroes was fantastic. It was also, by any reasonable standard, psychotic and, in certain sections, nigh-incomprehensible. It, on the other hand, did really well. Should I chock that up to violence and sex?

I understand that a general review system can review Bioshock, Soul Calibur 4, and Too Human all by the same standards and get it "close" to fair. Obviously opinion still weighs heavily but at least it's relatively accurate.

But with some games, budget titles with smaller demographics, I just can't see what good a Review does you. And it bothers me that Culdcept is getting 7's because of Graphics
seems unfair. Especially when it was a budget title to begin with.

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

Know your reviewers. If you understand the perspective of the game reviewer then it is much easier to actually listen to their review for helpful information rather than just knee jerk reacting to the score.

 

[Crunchy English]

Actually, I tend to use Gamerankings and Metacritics. Probably because I'm too busy (Read: Lazy) to bookmark all those review sites. But, in my defence, it's not like I just skimmed the numbers. I read all those reviews for Culdcept and most had at least a paragraph describing how lackluster the graphics were.

Very few said, "Graphics are unimportant to this particular game" or "Obviously graphics simply need to display the pertinent information."

And Civ Rev suffered the same fate on DS. Graphical shortcomings hurting a game that was easy enough on the eyes and about more than spectacle.

But I think my own ranting got off my original point, sorry.

I was asking, should Reviewers have more flexible criteria or are most people ok with the way things are?

 

[Jack_Burton]

The problems with scores, in reviews, is that most people tend to skip the text of the review and look at the score to decide whether the game is any good or not.

Obviously reviews are mainly the opinion of the reviewer, but it is also useful to know what technical issues there may be with the game in question.

I don't tend to rely purely on reviews. I find as much out about the game as possible, playing any demos where available and reading as many articles as I can find. I think it should also go without saying that you read more than one review in order to get more than one opinion.

 

[nmmoore13]

I barely even look at the review score. I read the content of the review. Maybe graphics drove a game down a lot in the ultimate score but if I dont care about graphics, I can still enjoy the game.

 

[LowLadyDeuce]

And Civ Rev suffered the same fate on DS. Graphical shortcomings hurting a game that was easy enough on the eyes and about more than spectacle.
But I think my own ranting got off my original point, sorry.
I was asking, should Reviewers have more flexible criteria or are most people ok with the way things are?

Civ Rev stole my life for a week. I want it back.
Not the week. I want Civ Rev.

In answer to your question; there is no correct answer. Flexible criteria can make for more informative articles, but then again, it also usually means a longer word count, or extended work hours, which can be a problem when you're jamming an article into an itty space, and your deadline is ticking closer. So far as the blogosphere is concerned, if you want flexible criteria, don't ask a journalist for it. He hasn't got the time-- he "doesn't get paid enough for this!"
Ask ObviouPseudonym23 (or some other faceless nob) for his opinion. Random blokes love to expound.

 

[khululy]

A lot of people tend to discard games with lower scores. If a game get's a 6.5 it doesn't need to be a bad game. It's just not the best around but it can still be entertaining.
I've played a lot of games that did not had 8's and 9's in their score.
I mean the RE4 port on the pc that everyone hates is not that bad once the game is patched. and it has better gamepad support than Gears of War.
Reviews are to me just guidelines to see what I can excpect from a game.

 

[Trace2010]

For the "now", my best game reviewer is my brother...if he comes up to me and says I have to play the game- I play the game. Game reviewers usually function as little more than extra advertising for a game nowadays. There is really no singular person or magazine on this planet that can dissuade me to play a game (sometimes I have rented games just to see if what they said was true- I have found some cataclysmic contradictions). If I want to play a game, I play the game. If I like it, I like it.

 

[yourkie1921]

I listen to the reviewer when their name is benjamin "yahtzee" croshaw. I use X-play as a way to announce gamess that are coming in the future. he told me to play no more heroes and I loved it. And I'm yet to play a game that he reviewed and disagree with him.

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

The key is finding a reviewer who hates a specific series or genre, if they end up liking a game despite their preconceived notions then expect it to be insanely brilliant.

So, if Sessler ended up praising a JRPG or a Metal Gear game then you know it would be insanely good.

 

[vamp rocks]

i think a good reviewer is not biased and gives good reasons for, and against the game in question

 

[smokeraven]

I like to play the game first, generate my own opinion about it, then check the reviews, although i've been off on a couple games such as Arcana Heart, (reviews said good, I said bad), and Haze, (reviews said bad, I said good)

 

[yourkie1921]

So, if Sessler ended up praising a JRPG or a Metal Gear game then you know it would be insanely good.

I thought sessler loved metal gear.

 

[Digitalpotato]

You know gaming reviews are just advertisements and all the independent ones who try to poke fun at the games like say Yahtzee are just made for entertainment. (If I bought a game just because Yahtzee liked it then I would never enjoy a J-RPG, which I actually like to play)

I really noticed the pattern that
-The games made by Nintendo in Nintendo power very rarely get anything negative said about them.
-They've never gotten bad scores, have they?
-There's all sorts of hype and advertisement about Final Fantasy XII and it gets its own page in Game Informer...yet Tales of the Abyss received maybe one or two ads total and got half a page? How many ads of Tales of the Abyss actually DID make it out to the U.S? (Sadly this doesn't apply to you in PAL regions since Namco like most Japan-based developers hate Europe and Australia)
-Remember that controversy over Kane and Lynch being that they gave a lot of advertising?
-I'm not actually guessing this is true or not, but I HAVE heard conspiracy theories that big designers (and sometimes the publishers) pay reviewers a little extra money to say good things about their games, and it's not good ethics for Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft to be bad-talking their own products. (Someone said their product was "Crap" once, and he went bankrupt)
-Not a word is said about singleplayer in Halo 2 or 3 yet it's advertised as a single-player game.
-And there also exists that mentality that if the game isn't an 8 or higher, then it's not worth your time.

...you know that mentality is why some games like Persona 3, Shadow Hearts: Covenant or Ico vanish into the halls of obscurity. Because they're often ignored by the reviewers and never make "Greatest Hits" category (Which is based off of sales, not reception. Otherwise we'd actually be ABLE To find shadow Hearts: Covenant in stores. If you need proof, notice that Shadow the Hedgehog is in the greatest hits on PS2.). Sure you can play some really good games if you just get mainstream games but you're going to miss out on a LOT of games you'd find really really fun if you ignore everything that's only an average score of 7. (Since apparently seven is half of ten) Ape Escape 2 for example was given "average" ratings yet I invested even more hours into that game than I did playing Bioshock. I was told that Final Fantasy X was the best one since nine and the only reason I finished it was because I was told that Tidus was killed. Under any other circumstance I'd have dumped Final Fantasy X aside after the Chocobo Eater.

 

[meatloaf231]

Reviews are important when there is no demo of the game.

 

[lenneth]

If theres' a game i really want to play i look at reviews and if it only gets average scores i wait for the price to drop.

But that also leaves the problem of me getting a game because of good reviews and then being slightly let down by the game *couch**cough*crisis core

 

[Bardan Dalbhach]

I look at game reviews much the way I look a movie reviews, more to tell me what is good then what is bad. I find myself looking at reviews more to find games I might have overlooked then to decide if I should get a game or not. I also find reviews good when I am running short on cash and can't buy all the games I want.

In the past reviews have pushed me to some rather good games I would never have played otherwise.

 

[Are.Oh.Why]

Reviews only matter when you question your own judgment and taste, so you go by what someone else says. I read them, watch them and enjoy them simply because I (sometimes) like to see what other people think. I still choose to rate something by my own will......

 

[N-Sef]

Single reviews matter not, but taken as a whole and summurized on sites like Gamerankings, they give you a good idea of what to expect. Even so reviews themselves don't matter at all, it's up to the individual to found something appealing about the game and enjoy it on their own merits. I own several games that have been critically panned (Izuna: The Legend of the Unemployed Ninja, the original Gungrave game, Chaos Legion etc etc), but I found my own fun out of these games and I enjoy them for what they are. People these days are forgetting about having fun, and it's also important to note that what some people may find fun, others do not.

 

[LowLadyDeuce]

That also leaves the problem of me getting a game because of good reviews and then being slightly let down by the game *couch**cough*crisis core

I can relate to that, sure. It sure as heck wasn't FF7, that's for sure... just ridin' the bandwagon. So far as hack'n slashers go, it wasn't bad-- but I think they missed their thirsty-for-a-tale audience by hundreds of yards. The reviews were just... misleading.