One Hour Video Game Review?

[KissingSunlight]

Can playing a video game for an hour give a reviewer a fair representation of the game? This was inspired by a quote from a movie critic who said, "You can accurately judge whether or not you are going to like the movie from the first five minutes." (If anyone is curious, I'll do some research on the exact quote and who said it.) I think this is true for video games. You know after an hour if this is a game that you want to stick with or not. Would you read a review of a game if they only played it for an hour?

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

No. After 1 hour, if I had to decide to keep playing Oblivion at that point I would have chosen not to. That would have been a mistake.

I would also take issue with the original premise, that after 5 minutes you can tell if you'll like a movie or not. If that were true, basically every horror movie ever made would be reviewed as awful, because they all start off slow and ordinary so as to offer contrast to the fear. Hell, after 5 minutes, I might have passed on Die Hard. Die Hard!

 

[CritialGaming]

Can playing a video game for an hour give a reviewer a fair representation of the game? This was inspired by a quote from a movie critic who said, "You can accurately judge whether or not you are going to like the movie from the first five minutes." (If anyone is curious, I'll do some research on the exact quote and who said it.) I think this is true for video games. You know after an hour if this is a game that you want to stick with or not. Would you read a review of a game if they only played it for an hour?

I think that's a little unfair in terms of a video game. Mainly because most games don't even give you a fraction of the eventual mechanics of the game in the first hour. Hell, that would barely be enough time to get your first pokemon. You'd never have left the vault. Never do a single quest in the Witcher. Wouldn't become a Greyborne.

Video games are interactive, they are not like movies where the experience is universal and static. People experience and play all games differently, even if they all work towards the same goals. So what each player sees in the first hour is going to be different.

That early in the game, story would barely begin, you'd be missing mechanics, abilities. Hell in a Persona game you wouldnt even see combat in the first hour.

So no I don't think 1 hour is anywhere close to being fair for a review.

However it is fair to decide you aren't having fun and quit the game. That is fair. Your time is only yours and you have to decide how you spend it.

 

[DoPo]

A review after one hour is not going to be sufficiently in depth, however, in very many cases, one hour would be enough to give an informed opinion. Jim Sterling has an entire series on playing games for less than an hour [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlRceUcRZcK0zAt8sV33ZsMCVlOgWjVoy] - sort of an early impressions of games and a lot of the videos are up to 20 minutes long. In the majority of cases, there is really not much need for more than that. If you look through the user reviews in steam, often you can find a very helpful review from a user who has played no more than an hour.

Sure, not all games can be sufficiently summed up by the first hour, however, there are lots that can. Bad games, in particular, require very little time. Other games do require more investment but even then a lot of times you can determine whether you'd like to play more or not in an hour. Again, there are exceptions to even that - "slow burn" games that require even more time investment to truly be grasped, however, that's not actually that many of the games in total.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Seems accurate of a great deal many games but then there's the other great deal, made in Japan.

 

[CaitSeith]

It depends of the game. There is (or was) a line of thought among game designers that the first minutes of a game are the most important moment to impress the player (be it with graphics, intriguing plot and/or gameplay). Except for exceptional cases, one can get an idea of what to expect from an average or a bad game in that time.

 

[CaitSeith]

It depends of the game. There is (or was) a line of thought among game designers that the first minutes of a game are the most important moment to impress the player (be it with graphics, intriguing plot and/or gameplay). Except for exceptional cases, one can get an idea of what to expect from an average or a bad game in that time.

Which leads to devs blowing their load.... of funds on that hour and then having a mediocre game. I would give a game at least half of its average play time to get a decent review as games evolve during gameplay and introduce more play styles.

Also playing one hour of Nier Automata doesn't get you out of the tutorial and 5 hours won't have you see half of the gameplay mechanics.

Pretty much why I can't tell if it's still a thing. On the other hand, games that start too slow (like Monster Hunter 3) can bore players away before reaching the real content (even if the slow part is only the first 10% of the game).

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Considering how varied games are in general, I wouldn't be able to say one way or another if a one-hour review is possible. There are some games like Doom, Doom 2016, Star Wars: Dark Forces, GTAV, sports games, sims, fighters, arcade games in general etc...games that don't really change no matter how long you play them I mean. I would trust a 1-hour review of something like Injustice 2 or NBA Playgrounds about as much as a 20 - 30 hour review of those games. You're going to be doing the same thing in the first hour of Injustice 2 as you're going to be doing in the 30th after all.

 

[lacktheknack]

The problem is, it depends on the game.

Spending an hour with "Bejeweled" is more than adequate.

Spending an hour with "DOOM" is probably enough.

Spending an hour with "The Fool's Errand" is not enough.

Spending an hour with "Shenzhen I/O" is definitely not enough.

And you can't tell which game needs how much time until you're playing it. That said, if it takes more than an hour to reach "the good stuff", it better have a dang good reason.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I guess you can find out that you hate a game in an hour but if your job is to review it then unless the game is one where you can have a full experience within the hour (a card game or something) then you really should experience the game in the same way that your average reader would and average readers tend to only buy games they at least HOPE to finish.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

As many have already said, it depends on the game. Call of Duty games? Yep. Heck, if you're a god, you could probably beat the game in an hour.
The original Mass Effect? Ugh, the opening of that game was terribly paced, especially for people like me who do everything. If I had based my decision off of even the first two hours of that game, I would have bailed on it, but it stands as one of my favorite games from the last generation now.

 

[Elijin]

I like the idea of 1 hour gut reaction reviews if its paired with a more in depth review later. See how those initial thoughts panned out, what changed with more information, what rang true.

I mean I'm sure we've all had moments of "this balance seems problematic" which make us eat our words once we have a deeper understanding. Or thinking a puzzle or mechanic is fun, but hating it by the third time once novelty passed. Would be interesting to see a snapshot of that process. Assuming people were honest and not attempting to hedge their bets to try come across as super on point.

 

[Ryallen]

Like everyone else has said, an hour is not nearly enough for most games to be adequately judged. Hell, for certain games, beating the game isn't enough. Any game by Yoko Taro, for instance, requires more than one playthrough to be considered a complete experience, and most reviewers aren't gonna give any game that kind of time.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Considering how varied games are in general, I wouldn't be able to say one way or another if a one-hour review is possible. There are some games like Doom, Doom 2016, Star Wars: Dark Forces, GTAV, sports games, sims, fighters, arcade games in general etc...games that don't really change no matter how long you play them I mean. I would trust a 1-hour review of something like Injustice 2 or NBA Playgrounds about as much as a 20 - 30 hour review of those games. You're going to be doing the same thing in the first hour of Injustice 2 as you're going to be doing in the 30th after all.

After playing Injustice 2 for one hour you probably wouldn't even have time to go through half the character roster, much less decide whether the game has decent balance, which basically makes or breaks a fighting game.

An hour into GTAV you haven't even unlocked all three of the playable characters. Hell, I think at that point you've only played as Franklin.

An hour into Doom 2016 you have basically no abilities and only like 2 of the guns.

 

[TrulyBritish]

No, not as a general rule and I disagree with the whole "film in 5 minutes" thing as well. In certain situations 1 hours will be enough.
If it's a terrible game or an asset flip, more than enough.
A shorter game like Portal? More than enough.
Games where the mechanics don't really change as you go along like fighting games, it's enough.
But how are you supposed to gauge an RPG by only it's first hour?
Or a horror game which will likely have a slower start?
How accurate a review of Specs Ops: The Line would it be if the reviewer only got so far as just entering Dubai?

 

[maninahat]

For a lot of games it is enough to get an impression, though not necessarily a comprehensive perspective. A smartly designed game will give you enough to want to keep playing for more than an hour, and if a bad one isn't keeping you invested, then it probably isn't going to get much better. People give Fallout 3 as an example where you don't get to see the real draw of the game until after the first hour or so of vault bullshit. The thing is, that vault bullshit wasn't bad on the first play-through. It was fun enough to figure out this world and establish a story, and it only becomes tedious on replaying through it all. There is enough there to keep you playing until the big glorious open world comes along.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

I think it's easier to identify a game you won't like within an hour than a game you will, if the personal bugbear elements pop out like a sore thumb from your nostril and into your eyeball while refusing to go away.

Kingdom hearts 2 had a slow burn but it kept adding little carrots on sticks that kept me playing and i found my self enjoying the experience after a while.
Whereas FFXIII started with pointless bullshit, then proceeded to continue the pointless bullshit while giving you nothing to do but stare at the shiny moving things as it quietly masturbates to itself in a pretty dress, rambling incoherently.

 

[sageoftruth]

The problem is, it depends on the game.

Spending an hour with "Bejeweled" is more than adequate.

Spending an hour with "DOOM" is probably enough.

Spending an hour with "The Fool's Errand" is not enough.

Spending an hour with "Shenzhen I/O" is definitely not enough.

And you can't tell which game needs how much time until you're playing it. That said, if it takes more than an hour to reach "the good stuff", it better have a dang good reason.

This pretty much. If I started reviewing Persona 4 after just an hour of gameplay, I'd have written it off as an overly cryptic visual novel that didn't let you make any meaningful choices.