bibblles said:
Just like the poll asks.
Now since yahtzee is such a celebrity here, I feel the need to call him out on this. After yet another review where he openly admits to not having finished the game in question, I for one think he's becoming more and more full of shit. Don't get me wrong, I don't sympathize with the games over the reviewer and I definitely am not going to go blow a bunch of money on some game I don't care about to prove him wrong. But should people in such a position be obligated to at the very least finish the game before calling it one of Satan's balls.
The question I have for this is, would you have to eat an entire meal to know it isn't for you, or watch the entirety of a boring movie for you to say it was good or bad or stop halfway into a boring book and realise you have complete it before you can sum up a good critisism?
I think that all depends on what exactly the thing in question consists of, you don't have to complete a game entirely to know if you love it or hate it, yeah, it might pick up at the end, but whats the point playing if you've gotten through 50% of it and its been boring so far, does the end really justify the tedious experience playing through it to get there?
Take Lair in its original form for example, would you need to play to the end to realise the controls sucked? Or play all 100% of the missions to realise its repetitive? Or See all of the levels to realise the graphics weren't particularly outstanding?
I agree that in some cases one would have to wait until the end to sum up a decent review especially where in certain cases things are unlocked that make the game go from bad to awesome, but unless that's the case (which isn't for most bad games) you shouldn't need to play, eat, watch, read, try something to know you don't like it.
Saying that, Yahtzee picks on things that everyone will notice so that his reviews don't always sound like a personal vendetta and the odd things he in particular didn't like, simply because for everyone one of us that likes something, there is someone who hates it, after all, he IS supposed to be a negative critic, he can't go praising things otherwise he'd be boring. But he does know when and where to praise a game.
Another question for you, even if you do get through 100% of it, do you feel you have the right to review or critisize something that someone else may love?