Is IGN really ignorant?

[thememan]

I find the bigger problem being them giving perfect or near perfect scores to games that are clearly and fundamentally flawed, that one cannot even fathom having such a high score.

Oh good lord. They have their own opinion that you don't agree with, get over it. That is the problem with any reviewer, the readers may not agree with the opinion, please read that one word over and over again: OPINION, of the REVIEWER. Here let me review some games: Killzone is a generic shooter, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 was a great shooter, and I despise the warhammer games. Was it a good review? Hell no. Did you agree with it? Maybe, maybe not. Review is just a fancy word for opinion and people need to get the hell over it and stop bitching about, "Oh no! They liked/hated a game/movie/song/book that I hated/liked! Now to bash them for having an OPINION. Surely that sounds stupid to some of you right?

And this is why the industry as a whole cannot be taken seriously. A critical reviewer should not base his scoring or final review on merely his opinion alone. He needs to critically examine the product, and it is absolutely necessary to view the flaws involved. Whether or not a game is "fun" to the reviewer is absolutely meaningless. I absolutely love games that are frankly god-awful or mediocre at best (Quest 64, the original Fable, Conquest: Frontier Wars, etc). That does not make them good or great games.

The problem is that serious reviewers need to take off the rose-tinted glasses of their fanboyism and actually critically review the products. Which they do not. Certain aspect transcend "opinion", as a mediocre game is a mediocre game whether or not you enjoyed it. Certainly a degree of subjectivism will always be present, as it is impossible to completely remove one's personal tastes and opinions. However they are purely within the non-critical realm of review. This type of review is completely unprofessional. It is nothing more than being equal to any number of fan made youtube videos or reviews. And yet they claim to be professionals, selling a professional product. Quite frankly, if they want to be considered seriously they need to act as such. They are not supposed to be fans of a game, and their enjoyment of the game itself matters little to none. Rather it is expected and demanded of them to approach these products professionally and critically, something that they consistently show they cannot do.

 

[TehCookie]

I can't say IGN is worse than other sites but things like this piss me off:

Until Arc Rise Fantasia I've never played more than an hour of any Japanese RPG.

Then why is he reviewing a JRPG?

(full review)
http://wii.ign.com/articles/111/1112284p1.html

Probably because he just played one. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that you don't have to put thousands of hours into a genre to review a game you just played that's within that genre. All you have to do is...ya know...play the game.

OT: I really don't get why people ***** about reviews. The importance placed on the opinion of someone that isn't you is ridiculous. Since when does it matter what someone else thinks of something? Try it for yourself.

No but people have favorite genres and if they don't understand the genre they shouldn't review it.

Spoiler: I'm going to switch it up and talk about fighting games because I have this nifty pic that explains it.

I'm the guy on the right. I can play a fighting game and tell you the basics of what's going on but fans of the genre see it completely differently. I would like someone who has a little knowledge of the genre before they review it.

In he IGN review he said the bosses were tough but was that because he didn't know any tactics so the only thing he could do what grind? Or were the bosses badly designed?

 

[masher]

That's just it: they do sugarcoat reviews. It's less that they give certain games low reviews and more that they give certain games incredibly high reviews.

More than that, their articles and their speakers are, quite frankly, ignorant. A criticism of Skyrim was that there wasn't a multiplayer factor to the game. The Elder Scroll series never intended to have a multiplayer function.

 

[80Maxwell08]

Well IGN is owned by News Corporation whose founder is Rupert Murdock who got into controversy a while ago over another one of his news organizations hacking people's phones and there's all the cases of them just outright lying. A general rule of thumb is don't trust News Corporation period. Also the thing with Jessica Chobot is just shoving it in people's faces. They have someone working there who got a job offer from Bioware and all of a sudden they have a bunch of articles talking about how good ME3 is while Chobot complains about all the hate she gets. Also they don't once mention the conflict of interest there. Yep totally trustworthy.

 

[Sexy Devil]

I find Gamespot to be so much worse. Unless they're paid off they'll start crucifying the game for no good reason (see their reasons for hating on inFamous 2). And if they are paid off then you get a situation like with the Kane and Lynch reviewer.

Well IGN is owned by News Corporation whose founder is Rupert Murdock who got into controversy a while ago over another one of his news organizations hacking people's phones and there's all the cases of them just outright lying. A general rule of thumb is don't trust News Corporation period. Also the thing with Jessica Chobot is just shoving it in people's faces. They have someone working there who got a job offer from Bioware and all of a sudden they have a bunch of articles talking about how good ME3 is while Chobot complains about all the hate she gets. Also they don't once mention the conflict of interest there. Yep totally trustworthy.

It's interesting that everyone on the Normandy (even James) had a competent voice actor except her. Pretty clear that the purpose of Ms. Allers was a high review score.

 

[Pumpkin_Eater]

Since when has IGN gotten flak for rating games too low?

I think the gaming press in general is held in pretty low esteem, especially when it comes to reviews. While fanboyism does play a part, the fact that publishers get nearly all their revenue from the companies whose products they review warrants some suspicion about integrity. This video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwD2GgWKIrs&feature=relmfu] summarizes why more and more people distrust more and more review sites.

I trust reviewers about as far as I can throw them, including the ones here after the overwhelmingly positive review ME 3 got. Demos, and to a lesser extent gameplay footage and word of mouth (you can spot industry smurfs with a bit of practice). Come to gaming sites if you want news or webcomics, but never buy a game because it got good reviews and never preorder because that robs you of user reviews (not to mention the fact that games depreciate faster than any other consumer good).

 

[ResonanceSD]

They're a bunch of sub-par writers who try to get traffic by stirring up bull shit.

Pretty much this. Their review for "I Am Alive" had me wondering if they had a monkey trying out the game.

They're a bunch of sub-par writers who try to get traffic by stirring up bull shit.

This.

They're probably absolutely eating up the traffic that their website has been getting ever since Jessica what's-her-face showed up in Mass Effect Three in all her PSP licking glory. Who cares if it's bad for them? Ad revenue is Ad revenue.

Did you both miss the Dragon Age 2 review on this website? The pinnacle of RPG gaming?


It's not only IGN that gives out inflated review scores to mediocre-at-best stocking fillers.

 

[LobsterFeng]

Hmm, this is hard for me because I don't like IGN, but I also hate the idiots that fire out the generic insults on every review they post. It's even worse when the reviewer is a girl, and there's nothing but "kitchen" jokes in the comments.

I very rarely agree with IGN reviews, but I still watch the video reviews on Youtube because I think they do a good job at giving you an idea on how the game works. And every once in a while you'll get a pretty decent review. Like take this one for example:

 

[sketch_zeppelin]

I think Jim Sterling did a video about somthing similar here on the escapist.

as for my thoughts? you match your critic to your tastes. I find my opion of games matches up well with game informer and x play. my movie tastes seem very similar to Movie bob, though i should note that i don't always share his tastes in humor so when he reviews a comedy i take it with a grain of salt.

If you don't agree with a critic then stop reading them. If they are atually out of touch and no one agrees with them and ignores them then they will either change they're tactics or dissapear. raging aginst them though tends to just draw attention there way.

I have no thoughts on IGN one way or the other. They don't seem to share the same tastes in video games as i do so i don't read them.

 

[redisforever]

I Am Alive's on PS3.

Derp, I didn't know that. I thought it was an exclusive as part of that "House Party" thing.

Well, it was a 360 exclusive, for about two weeks, as far as I can tell. Maybe Ubisoft thought they could make more money if it was on the PS3 as well. This means that they would have had to port it to PS3 earlier, and planned this out, or if they just did it in two weeks.

 

[Robert Ewing]

I find it hilarious that people lash out at scores that not only IGN give, but also metacritic, gamespot, what have you. As if they're angry at a group of professional game journalists opinions. As if they feel the entitlement to be able to give oneself galactic supremacy over game ratings. They take it out on IGN, for not sharing their opinion, and then rally to the games defence, without realizing why the bad score was even given. As if the score that random body gave the game would in anyway effect the way one would play the game.

Lol. is all I have to say to this.

 

[Waaghpowa]

What's the name of that douche bag that had this whole thing about gamer entitlement regarding ME3 but also did a whole thing about how fans are in the right for wanting sucker punch to change Cole from Infamous 2 back to what he originally looked like?

Because shit like him.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Did you both miss the Dragon Age 2 review on this website? The pinnacle of RPG gaming?


It's not only IGN that gives out inflated review scores to mediocre-at-best stocking fillers.

You mean that game that, despite being the pinnacle of RPG's, had it's expansion canned?

 

[ElPatron]

you said in your post "it's the gaming equivalent to a description of eating a thick grey paste with no taste and give it a 10/10 at the end" which I misinterpreted to mean you were describing MW3 not the review

I was using an expression Jim Sterling used. He once said that reviewers shouldn't be automatons writing the same grey slur and giving the same scores.

A while later Jim Trolling wrote a generic review for MW3 and gave it 9,5/10 like everyone else on the internet.

if he was just the a tiny bit more positive, i would agree with him all the time.

I agree with him all the time. Why? Games are not perfect, and even the games we love have quirks that we constantly complain all the time. Games don't need "positive" reviews. That's what everyone does.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Did you both miss the Dragon Age 2 review on this website? The pinnacle of RPG gaming?


It's not only IGN that gives out inflated review scores to mediocre-at-best stocking fillers.

You mean that game that, despite being the pinnacle of RPG's, had it's expansion canned?

The very same! It also got the shit ripped out of it by user reviews, which led to much metacritic mirth.

 

[Saviordd1]

They're a bunch of sub-par writers who try to get traffic by stirring up bull shit.

This

Plus they tend to operate on the 60-100 scale instead of the 0-100 scale.

Also, they were clearly in EA's pocket for ME3.

That said they do have some good reviewers and some of their stuff I genuinely enjoy such as "____ In 5 minutes (Sort of)" and their Mass Effect April fools joke thing was awesome.