Knowing your reviewer

[josemlopes]

Well, its another thread about reviews in general (not specific to games but mostly about games).

So first I'll just clear up that I am not making this because I disagree with a score or an opinion so lets get it starting.

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You all know that reviews are rather opinion based, they can try to be objective about certain things (if a game usually crashes and has bugs there is no opinion on that, its just bad) but in the end you can have a great technical game and still have people that dont like it (GTA IV, Crysis, etc...)

Thats fine, but so how can you follow reviews seriously if having a person give a 9/10 and another one give a 5/10 to a game is a completely expected thing to happen? How do you know wich one you will relate the best?

First of all, read the review and see if the good points are the things that you value in a game or dont care, the same for the bad points. If the review is good that will be clear for you and even in a 5/10 review you can see that you may actually value that game a lot more then the reviewer (I like humor in my games so even a bad score review of Matt Hazzard will still let me know that the game is at least good in that area, so I still might enjoy it).



Even then sometimes the review isnt all that clear on why a game as such score, especially if put side to side with a different game that follows the same issues.

Recently Jim Sterling reviewed both Dynasty Warriors 8 and Batman: Arkham Origins and here are the scores:

Dynasty Warriors 8 - 9/10
Batman: Arkham Origins - 3.5/10


The main complaint about B:AO was the fact that it was basicly the same as B:AC, yet Dynasty Warriors, a series that is infamous for barely changing (and if it is its in small details) got away with it, why was that? If you only ever read these two reviews you would think that Jim is incredibly hypocritical and in a way I guess he is (its his opinion and he can have whatever opinion he wants), but there is nothing wrong with that.

If you know Jim (as much as you can from his shows and other reviews, no stalking here), you will very quickly understand that he likes his games quirky (maybe not just his games btw), so his reviews are still incredibly valuable for someone that also likes quirky games (Deadly Premonition is a great recommendation for someone that shares his taste).

So for an average video game enthusiast his reviews can come somewhat incostitent in the same way that you can have a person review a COD game as the best thing ever and then shit all over Battlefield for the reasons that were praised in his COD review, yet his reviews are clear as water for whoever understands where he is coming from.

For another example there are also the Sonic: Lost World reviews where you have the Sonic fans loving it and the guys that never really cared much not giving a shit about it, now depending on what side you are you can easily understand how you will probably feel about the game.


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So there it is, I think my point is somewhat clear (I hope).

TLDR: To truly understand a review you have to understand if you can relate to the tastes of the reviewer first (something that isnt usually made clear at first in the reviews and ends up taking time to understand by having to read multiple reviews by the same person).


EDIT: Another point I forgot to mention

With this its normal for a person to have a favourite reviewer and think that his opinion is the right one (the same for the opposite with a reviewer that has shit taste and is completely wrong) since you share his tastes.

That reviewer will only be that much better for you and other people that share the same tastes though, for other people they may have a different favourite reviewer as their tastes are different then yours and the opinion of that reviewer may match their tastes better while your favourite reviewer doesnt.

So there, there is no holy grail of reviews, no website is the best and no reviewer is right.

Fun isnt it?

 

[Able Seacat]

Also just to add, I think reading a few reviews rather than just one is a good idea as you can see if the same issues crop up for different people.

 

[Caiphus]

I'm afraid you may have broken the matrix, OP.

But yes, I absolutely agree. This whole thing was painfully drawn out with the GTA V reviews on this website and on Gamespot. Which would have been useful reviews if misogyny or playing as an asshole were going to turn you off the game.

Instead of saying "Well, I don't give a dingy dang if there are misogynistic undertones or asshole protagonists so this review isn't for me. I play GTA games to be a dickhead anyway.", which is *perfectly reasonable* by the way, there were a lot of people saying "Fuck you, this opinion is wrong. I hate everyone. Let me act like a twelve year old."

Thankfully not on this site, but the Gamespot comments were just nuts.

So yes, not to be any more condescending than I already am, but it requires a bit of critical thinking, the ability to disagree with a reviewer without immediately hitting the 'act like a plonker in the comments section' button, and the patience to find reviewers/LPers who share the same sort of opinions that you do.

For me, it's Jim Sterling, Totalbiscuit and Kevin Van Ord from Gamespot, since you surely cared. But there you go.

 

[TKretts3]

I don't read or watch reviews, unless they're comedic ones (Zero Punctuation). When deciding whether or not I like a game, I'm the only person I trust. I check out a game (Watch trailers, read descriptions, watch gameplay, et cetera), and if it interest me, then I get it. If it doesn't, I don't. The way I figure out whether or not I like a game or not is only by playing it. I don't think I could ever trust another person, with differing tastes, styles, and interests, to tell me whether or not a game ill be good or not. It's worked out very well so far.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

So there, there is no holy grail of reviews, no website is the best and no reviewer is right.

This is why I actually LIKE review aggregate sites like Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes. The former can get a little wooly sometimes for gaming because of the oft-discussed conflict of interest issues with the gaming press, but for all other forms of media they tend to be pretty reliable. While it's very unlikely that you'll ever find your tastes in lockstep with any single critic, when a majority of critics hate or hail something, it's usually a sign that something is up. I've gone and seen movies sometimes based on a high tomato score alone, and I've never been disappointed. This happened most recently with Gravity, and it blew my mind. And while I would normally avoid 3D like the plague, more than one review tagged it as essential, so I gave it a go and I have to agree that they were correct.

I'll never understand the "I IGNORE ALL REVIEWS" demographic. There's a world of difference between letting the opinions of others dictate your decisions and letting the opinions of others INFORM your decisions.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Dynasty Warriors 8 - 9/10
Batman: Arkham Origins - 3.5/10


The main complaint about B:AO was the fact that it was basicly the same as B:AC, yet Dynasty Warriors, a series that is infamous for barely changing (and if it is its in small details) got away with it, why was that? If you only ever read these two reviews you would think that Jim is incredibly hypocritical and in a way I guess he is (its his opinion and he can have whatever opinion he wants), but there is nothing wrong with that.

Well, to be fair to Jim, I don't think it was so much that Arkham Origins was the same as Arkham City to him so much that B:AO didn't have the same soul or refined mechanics of the first two games, and he really just pointed out the similarities to convey how lazily done the games were, which I'm assuming he doesn't find applicable to Dynasty Warriors 8 considering it still has the refinement and soul of the previous games, indicating some level of genuine effort on the part of the developers as opposed to just being a cash-in. That's what I got from his review of B:AO anyways (haven't read the Dynasty Warriors review as I'm not much into that series).

Anyways, otherwise, I do have to agree. I've always read reviews from multiple reviews constantly keeping in mind how I tend to view things differently than they do. It generally helps with finding out if you may enjoy a game regardless of whether or not the review likes it themselves.

 

[TehCookie]

That's the reason I hate reviews. No one has my taste. Though I dislike people reviewing on their taste, I want to know about the game, not what the person thinks of it. I will form my own opinion when I have enough info.

It also doesn't help that a lot of reviews I've read are written by morons who obviously didn't understand the game when they played it. I decided to look up a Catherine review and again the reviewer is an idiot, "...the game?s "morality scale" is mostly affected via simple two-choice questions ... but it?s strange that the plot (which features eight different endings) is determined by these questions rather than by in-game decisions Vincent makes." Your mortality scale influences what Vincent says/does! You may not have direct control over what he does, but his actions go along with what morality you chose. It also glosses over the gameplay and doesn't say any details on it. I like to know how it plays, like the shitty camera that doesn't let you see behind the wall and then reversing the controls when you're behind there is something that should be mentioned.

I've read reviews that hated games for being turn-based. I don't care if they like it or not, is it well done turn based gameplay or is it a mess of menus? I looked up 5 reviews for Disgaea D2 and only one mentioned the new Master-Apprentice system. I'd rather listen to what actual gamers have to say about it than some casual who doesn't understand it and just spews his opinion.

 

[thiosk]

Well, we don't listen to jim because he has a hard, tight grading scheme.
we listen to jim because he is fraught with emotion and lets his feelings dictate how angry he gets about something, and then that translates into dildos and blow up dolls.

So, who cares about jim's destructoid review scores? Its the rest of the review thats important, whether or not it tickles your buyer's stockholm syndrome or not is up to you.

 

[Ishal]

So there, there is no holy grail of reviews, no website is the best and no reviewer is right.

This is why I actually LIKE review aggregate sites like Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes. The former can get a little wooly sometimes for gaming because of the oft-discussed conflict of interest issues with the gaming press, but for all other forms of media they tend to be pretty reliable. While it's very unlikely that you'll ever find your tastes in lockstep with any single critic, when a majority of critics hate or hail something, it's usually a sign that something is up. I've gone and seen movies sometimes based on a high tomato score alone, and I've never been disappointed. This happened most recently with Gravity, and it blew my mind. And while I would normally avoid 3D like the plague, more than one review tagged it as essential, so I gave it a go and I have to agree that they were correct.

I'll never understand the "I IGNORE ALL REVIEWS" demographic. There's a world of difference between letting the opinions of others dictate your decisions and letting the opinions of others INFORM your decisions.

Most reviews seldom offer me any real substance, and their number scores might as well be meaningless. I never read review aggregate sites. It's all well and good to have Yahtzee do his thing and have Jim review games, but they both are limited. Yahtzee has a time limit and he can only touch upon things at surface level most of the time. Same with Jim, he can write a few paragraphs about something that ruined his experience but then he has to move on. I get more from youtubers or bloggers willing to write pages and talk for 30-45 minutes about things they don't like. I'd rather sit and listen to someone talk for a long time giving straight opinions with no number score than what we have now.

 

[Racecarlock]

All you gotta do is find a bunch of reviewers that you agree with. The best way is to read or listen to reviews of movies or games that you already have to see how many of their individual points match up with your own.

Or just see if they're funny. Luckily, yahtzee is funny and has lead me to at least three great games, so I can trust him.

 

[aozgolo]

I don't tend to trust "reviewers" in general, I find the best reviewers to be ones who lay down the basic concept of the gameplay/graphics/story all together and THEN provide their own objective opinion on how well it all works, I generally have a disdain for reviews that have the meat of what a game is buried under conjecture of how they felt about a game.

I like point-and-click adventure games, turn based RPGs & Strategy, Simulations, and rogue-likes, all of which are in some form a niche market that does not appeal to all gamers. I've met many a person who finds them totally boring or just not fun, which is fine, but some reviewers are paid to review games outside their genre preferences. Why would I trust a predominantly FPS player's review of a graphical point and click adventure? Likewise why would I listen to someone who's RPG experience is heavily games like Fallout, Mass Effect, and Skyrim's opinion of a classic turn-based system like Dragon Quest?

That being said, a good reviewer will be one who knows the audience of a specific genre and what those players generally look for. I've often bought games after reading bad reviews. I look for keywords almost like a google spider, I scan the article trying to pick out the few things of interest. I don't care if a reviewer gave a game I like a low score, it doesn't impact me at all. I will still enjoy the game, and will tell others who enjoy the genre about them.

So to me reviews are more like in-depth feature lists minus the developer bias, so I can get an idea of how well these features work. Then I make my own decision about whether or not to purchase the game myself.