In defense of using game reviews as purchasing aids

[Johnny Novgorod]

The review is as good as the reviewer. I don't even think you need to agree with the reviewer so long as the argument is well built.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I only look at reviews now to get an idea on a game that I saw and went, "Huh, that looks interesting..." But for my main purchases, for the big games I'm getting? Nah. I'll read them to see what other people think and say--and see if they align with how I feel--but I don't let them change my mind on something.

Example: All the reviews for Star Wars Battlefront said that the game is lacking overall. It looks pretty, sounds great, and it good for a quick hour or two, but there's nothing much else to it. Don't buy this game unless you are HARDCORE Star Wars. Sounds like a good reason to stay away from the game, but I had already decided to get it, so while I agreed fully, I still got the game. Still have fun with it too.

Back in the old days, I used to watch X-Play for all my reviews. Yes, they were helpful in some purchases, but I watched their reviews because I found them hilarious too. They were good for a laugh, and they seemed well balanced. I miss reviews like that, that worked in jokes and humor, instead of the kind of bland stuff that we get now.

 

[Don Incognito]

Come on Escapsists, you are better than this.

I hate to be That Guy, but.......

citation needed.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Let's Plays can't replace reviews. I watch reviews all the time but I never put too much stock in any of them. I may watch 10 reviews about a game and then see most of the reviewers mention the same things (like this game has QTE's or this game has a troublesome camera).

Make no mistake, publishers aren't withholding review copies to benefit the consumer.

I have to mention something else too. Many game journalists made their field irrelevant. Remember when many of them seemingly collectively decided to call gamers misogynistic and all that stuff? They decided to follow Anita into a dark place? Many gamers turned away from them during all of that.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

This whole bethesda kerfuffle brought up an interesting notion. Gamers aren't dead but websites, ones like those that claimed it, might be.



Reviews for me are a way to see the game in motion in a way that offers more variety than a lets play segment or oftentimes an amusing activity as I like to laugh at things being wrong. What the reviewer is saying in the background is often factually wrong or irrelevant since I often have superior expertise than the average reviewer in the few genres that I spend all my time on. Reviews may have a use for the uber casual people but you know what, those people aren't gonna use a dedicated site like that enough to generate profits.


Reviews on youtube have a function but a review site is not sustainable. When a random youtube nobody with 400 views offers the same product as your "experts", you will end up experiencing difficulties. And oftentimes the youtube nobody will offer a superior product as nobodies tend to only make reviews about stuff they know their shit about and there's gonna be a few nobodies that will review each game sufficiently, and some games only they will touch. On the other hand, some "pros" can offer such reviews like the hilariously bad Doom one where the dude couldn't fire while moving.

And here we are, back to doom and bethesda. I don't know why they really did this but if you ask me which has garnered more good will over the years, bethesda or games journalists, I would like to think the answer is obvious.

 

[Kyrian007]

Reviews are still useful. As bad as the hype train and marketing and pre-order culture are... reviews are more important than ever actually. I love Bethesda games, but with this latest decision... it means I won't even consider a Bethesda purchase until some reviews (that didn't go out early) are in. Basically, one of my favorite publishers just lost my day one dollar. Doesn't mean I won't buy or play their games... but I wait until the reviews are in. Always have. And its kept me safe, I've never bought a game at full price that I didn't like. I don't think I've ever spent more than 5 dollars on a game it turns out I didn't like. And that's over 3 decades of gaming.

Or, I'll put it this way. I love the Alien franchise. And I never bought Colonial Marines. That's the power of waiting for the review.

 

[MrFalconfly]

Honestly, I feel traditional reviews have become completely and utterly obsolete.

What I'm looking for when deciding whether a game is worth my bucks, is generally if the "mechanics" are sound. That means I generally use Let's Plays, and analyzes like Total Biscuit's WTF is... series, because they allow me to determine if a game is completely broken before I actually commit money to it.

 

[NPC009]

Honestly, I feel traditional reviews have become completely and utterly obsolete.

What I'm looking for when deciding whether a game is worth my bucks, is generally if the "mechanics" are sound. That means I generally use Let's Plays, and analyzes like Total Biscuit's WTF is... series, because they allow me to determine if a game is completely broken before I actually commit money to it.

Many games are more than just mechanics, though. They tell a story, feature puzzles to solve, and more.

For instance, the mechanics behind most point & click adventures is pretty simple: you click on things to make it interact with other things. Seeing a developer screw that part up is a very rare occurance.

A short let's play might show (and spoil) a few puzzles, but a critic who has played the entire thing can give me a good idea of what the puzzles are like throughout the game. Do they get more difficult as the game progresses? Do they make sense? Do the puzzles involve a lot of backtracking and/or tedious steps? Is there are good variety of puzzles? How well do they tie into the story? 15 minutes of gameplay aren't going to answer those questions.

 

[MrFalconfly]

Many games are more than just mechanics, though. They tell a story, feature puzzles to solve, and more.

For instance, the mechanics behind most point & click adventures is pretty simple: you click on things to make it interact with other things. Seeing a developer screw that part up is a very rare occurance.

A short let's play might show (and spoil) a few puzzles, but a critic who has played the entire thing can give me a good idea of what the puzzles are like throughout the game. Do they get more difficult as the game progresses? Do they make sense? Do the puzzles involve a lot of backtracking and/or tedious steps? Is there are good variety of puzzles? How well do they tie into the story? 15 minutes of gameplay aren't going to answer those questions.

Which is exactly why I feel the way I do.

I want the reviews to stay on the mechanics because I don't want to be spoiled about the story.

As I see it, the reviewers job is to mainly inform the consumer, and to be the last line of defence against faulty products.

For example, given that you mentioned Point-n-Clicks, the story may have been very good, but if the game is so incredibly unstable that it crashes every 5 minutes, I won't buy it (sure, that may be a rare occurrence, but I still feel that is the singularly most important part of the games-review. Is it stable?).

And of cause 15 minutes won't answer all questions, however, I feel the true "deal-breaker" issues for me, usually manifest relatively early (whether they be lacking settings, stupid controls, stability, or in some cases peripheral support).

I find that "repetitive puzzles" can be alleviated by taking a break once in a while. Stupid game design, or controls that are set up by an imbecile are a lot harder to work around.

So yes, I do find that classic reviews, that tend to only analyse the story are obsolete.

 

[Dalisclock]

For example if you go through Valkyrie Profile on the PS1 and see it's just talking for the first hour, but afterwards it's one of the best JRPGs ever made. Or Spec Ops the Line, which at least for me worked well with it's message, and seeing a let's play you either spoil it or just see the average gameplay and won't get what the fuss is about. Though I can understand a combination of both reading a review and watching a let's play footage.

I was gonna make the same point. Some games are a slow boil. They take a while before they start getting interesting and even a small amount of gameplay doesn't help much.

Spec Ops the Line actually had a demo(remember those?) and when I played it, it felt very meh because it took two missions that weren't particularly interesting and just tossed them in together. It was the reviews that got my attention and led me to play it.

And some games start interesting and then get less interesting the longer they go. Bioshock has an amazing opening level, which then becomes less amazing for a while before it comes to the confrontation with Ryan. After that you might as well stop playing.

 

[NPC009]

Many games are more than just mechanics, though. They tell a story, feature puzzles to solve, and more.

For instance, the mechanics behind most point & click adventures is pretty simple: you click on things to make it interact with other things. Seeing a developer screw that part up is a very rare occurance.

A short let's play might show (and spoil) a few puzzles, but a critic who has played the entire thing can give me a good idea of what the puzzles are like throughout the game. Do they get more difficult as the game progresses? Do they make sense? Do the puzzles involve a lot of backtracking and/or tedious steps? Is there are good variety of puzzles? How well do they tie into the story? 15 minutes of gameplay aren't going to answer those questions.

Which is exactly why I feel the way I do.

I want the reviews to stay on the mechanics because I don't want to be spoiled about the story.

As I see it, the reviewers job is to mainly inform the consumer, and to be the last line of defence against faulty products.

Just because someone talks about the story doesn't mean the story is spoiled. Please tell me you're not one of those people who thinks a story is ruined just because you know something about it...

I mean, I get the appeal of going in blind. I do that all the time, but there are times when I want to be informed and for me, depending on the type of game, the story is a big part of the experience. It's part of what makes a game good or not.

And of course a reviewer should talk about the game mechanics, glitches, controls and so on, but that doesn't mean they can't talk about everything else. There's a lot more to games than moving your character from A to B!

 

[MrFalconfly]

Many games are more than just mechanics, though. They tell a story, feature puzzles to solve, and more.

For instance, the mechanics behind most point & click adventures is pretty simple: you click on things to make it interact with other things. Seeing a developer screw that part up is a very rare occurance.

A short let's play might show (and spoil) a few puzzles, but a critic who has played the entire thing can give me a good idea of what the puzzles are like throughout the game. Do they get more difficult as the game progresses? Do they make sense? Do the puzzles involve a lot of backtracking and/or tedious steps? Is there are good variety of puzzles? How well do they tie into the story? 15 minutes of gameplay aren't going to answer those questions.

Which is exactly why I feel the way I do.

I want the reviews to stay on the mechanics because I don't want to be spoiled about the story.

As I see it, the reviewers job is to mainly inform the consumer, and to be the last line of defence against faulty products.

Just because someone talks about the story doesn't mean the story is spoiled. Please tell me you're not one of those people who thinks a story is ruined just because you know something about it...

I mean, I get the appeal of going in blind. I do that all the time, but there are times when I want to be informed and for me, depending on the type of game, the story is a big part of the experience. It's part of what makes a game good or not.

And of course a reviewer should talk about the game mechanics, glitches, controls and so on, but that doesn't mean they can't talk about everything else. There's a lot more to games than moving your character from A to B!

No but it does mean that they're waffling on about something I find either irrelevant, or spending time "reviewing" something which is entirely subjective, with a risk of spoiling the story.

Very rarely have I actually found that I agree with any reviewer regarding a story (I actually think the Michael Bay Transformers movies are fun. Dumb sure, but still fun), so why should I use the reviews that 9.9 times out of 10, spend about 99% waffling on about story points, I know I'm not going to agree with(generally, I find that word of mouth is a lot more reliable to judge whether I'm going to like the story or not), when all I want is for the guy to check whether the game is an unplayable pile of garbage, or not.

As it stands, I still think they're obsolete, and I simply don't use them, because they don't provide any kind of useful data.

EDIT:
As for "There's a lot more to games than moving your character from A to B."

If the game is so broken that it can't manage that, then it doesn't matter what story it has, it's not going to win me over.

Let the reviewers take care of functionality testing, and let me decide whether the story is shit or not (luckily for many games, they don't stand or fall with the story. A game with a lackluster story can still be fun to play. A game with lackluster gameplay on the other hand).

 

[NPC009]

No but it does mean that they're waffling on about something I find either irrelevant, or spending time "reviewing" something which is entirely subjective, with a risk of spoiling the story.

Very rarely have I actually found that I agree with any reviewer regarding a story (I actually think the Michael Bay Transformers movies are fun. Dumb sure, but still fun), so why should I use the reviews that 9.9 times out of 10, spend about 99% waffling on about story points, I know I'm not going to agree with(generally, I find that word of mouth is a lot more reliable to judge whether I'm going to like the story or not), when all I want is for the guy to check whether the game is an unplayable pile of garbage, or not.

As it stands, I still think they're obsolete, and I simply don't use them, because they don't provide any kind of useful data.

All right, I guess this is something we'll never agree on, as we seem to value the story aspect of games differently.

Personally, I've got a good idea of what I like to get out of a story (for instance, I prefer psychological horror over jump scares, my sense humor tends to be on the dark side, and I don't mind a boy-meets-girl-then-saves-the-world adventure story as long as it doesn't take itself too seriously), and throughout the series I've found critics I know share my tastes. If they're not available, I'll just look for some other reviews. Good critics do explain why they think certain thinks, which is enough to for me to figure out if it's likely I'll agree with them or not.

 

[MrFalconfly]

No but it does mean that they're waffling on about something I find either irrelevant, or spending time "reviewing" something which is entirely subjective, with a risk of spoiling the story.

Very rarely have I actually found that I agree with any reviewer regarding a story (I actually think the Michael Bay Transformers movies are fun. Dumb sure, but still fun), so why should I use the reviews that 9.9 times out of 10, spend about 99% waffling on about story points, I know I'm not going to agree with(generally, I find that word of mouth is a lot more reliable to judge whether I'm going to like the story or not), when all I want is for the guy to check whether the game is an unplayable pile of garbage, or not.

As it stands, I still think they're obsolete, and I simply don't use them, because they don't provide any kind of useful data.

All right, I guess this is something we'll never agree on, as we seem to value the story aspect of games differently.

Personally, I've got a good idea of what I like to get out of a story (for instance, I prefer psychological horror over jump scares, my sense humor tends to be on the dark side, and I don't mind a boy-meets-girl-then-saves-the-world adventure story as long as it doesn't take itself too seriously), and throughout the series I've found critics I know share my tastes. If they're not available, I'll just look for some other reviews. Good critics do explain why they think certain thinks, which is enough to for me to figure out if it's likely I'll agree with them or not.

Well, I freely admit that it's maybe me who's the oddball.

There's actually quite a few games with "great stories" that I haven't gotten into, mainly because I thought the gameplay was shite (not even objectively shit. I just didn't like that particular style of gameplay).

Dragon Age for example (my sister loves those games, and I just find them boring, because I think the controls disconnect me too much from the characters), or World of Warcraft (I really bloody hate RNG based gameplay), or Final Fantasy, or indeed most turn-based games.

Maybe it's because of the games I grew up with. I was born in '92 and my first games were Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped, and Spyro the Dragon. Mainly 3D platformers where you almost developed a "telepathic" link with the character.

 

[Smooth Operator]

95% of "reviews" really are useless because the reviewer isn't actually aware what he was suppose to be doing, most of the time you get some snappy sales pitch of the game because that is what most people do and that is what they think is how to do it.
Very very rarely do you come across someone that has a genuine clue as to the information that should be provided, someone who understands they aren't doing it for themselves but the buyer who wants a good insight.

So I do understand why people avoid reviews, especially people who only want a new fancy product to consume without complications.

 

[BrawlMan]

Well, I freely admit that it's maybe me who's the oddball.

There's actually quite a few games with "great stories" that I haven't gotten into, mainly because I thought the gameplay was shite (not even objectively shit. I just didn't like that particular style of gameplay).

Dragon Age for example (my sister loves those games, and I just find them boring, because I think the controls disconnect me too much from the characters), or World of Warcraft (I really bloody hate RNG based gameplay), or Final Fantasy, or indeed most turn-based games.

Maybe it's because of the games I grew up with. I was born in '92 and my first games were Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped, and Spyro the Dragon. Mainly 3D platformers where you almost developed a "telepathic" link with the character.

Nothing wrong with that. The only RPGs I play are of the JARPG variety, and even then there's not that many. I played some Final Fantasy or Pokemon here and there, but most RPGS in general I don't care for. Plus I lost interest in those titles I just mentioned years ago. I was born in '89 and didn't know what an RPG was until Final Fantasy VII. Before that point, the games I always played were Beat'em ups, 2D/3D platformers, Racing, and many other genres.

Like movie reviews,most game reviews are shit anyway; especially from the "professional" critics.

 

[NPC009]

Well, I freely admit that it's maybe me who's the oddball.

There's actually quite a few games with "great stories" that I haven't gotten into, mainly because I thought the gameplay was shite (not even objectively shit. I just didn't like that particular style of gameplay).

Dragon Age for example (my sister loves those games, and I just find them boring, because I think the controls disconnect me too much from the characters), or World of Warcraft (I really bloody hate RNG based gameplay), or Final Fantasy, or indeed most turn-based games.

Maybe it's because of the games I grew up with. I was born in '92 and my first games were Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped, and Spyro the Dragon. Mainly 3D platformers where you almost developed a "telepathic" link with the character.

I think that might explain a lot. My early gaming days were filled with adventure games and RPGs. The stories weren't just a bit of background info to make the game world vaguely more interesting, something you could easily miss if you skipped the opening or didn't read they manual, they're part of the package. As simplistic as some of those early games were, they did leave me with a lot of admiration for people who tell stories and build worlds. To me, interactive stories are a big part of what makes videogames an interesting and unique medium.

And sure, of course I'll playing something that doesn't really have a story if it's really fun. Super Mario World was one of my favourite games back when I was young. I still think Tetris is amazing (but Lumines is nice, too). However, as long as the gameplay or stability isn't too distractingly bad, I'm willing to play nearly anything with a compelling story. I'm terrible at shooters and don't particularly enjoy them, but I had to find out what Spec Ops: The Line is all about. No regrets there.

 

[Fallow]

Why would anyone intentionally purchase aids?

 

[NPC009]

Why would anyone intentionally purchase aids?

Munchausen (by proxy)?