lacktheknack said:
Milanezi said:
Anyway, very weak review, you can't blame GTA for having "scumbag criminals" as main characters anymore than you can blame Superman for being almost unstoppable. It's one thing to rage about the "scumbags" being "scumbags" due to POOR writing, it's another thing to complain, well that they look like cruel egotistical criminals...
Lowering the score because you don't like the subject matter is entirely valid.
No it's not, it's subjective, subjectivism has no place in reviews. Imagine when you were back in college, your teacher couldn't give you a zero because "Well, you did give the right answer. But I hate the color BLUE, and sadly you wrote with a blue pen, so here, you get half the score." That's why I say he CAN judge by "the characters are too cruel and that does not fit the reality around them because of this and that", he CAN'T go with a hollow "I don't like bad guys so I'll punish the game".
If you don't like the subject matter and you don't have the balance to keep yourself "cold to the game", as in, forget everything and focus on objective terms, you can't review. If you hate this sort of violence in games don't review a game that has this sort of thing as part of its focus, the same goes to someone who's an extreme Halo addict making a review of Halo, the guy might ignore major problems just to give it a great review. When Baldur's Gate got that make-over for iPad, I remember here on The Escapist a reviewer who was truly honest: the guy stated he would NOT review the game, because he was such a fan of the original that his emotions might make him over critical in a negative or positive way.
I didn't get the sense that GTA V's reviewer despised the violence of the game, nor am I complaining about the game not getting 5/5. For all I know, the "missing stars" might be for an objective reason. Be that as it may, it is stupid to criticize a game founded on violence because it is "too violent"...