Reviewers jumping on the hype train

[Evilsausage]

There are quite alot of games out there that has been bad but for some reason gotten away with good or even great rating from reviewers.

How? Are they getting payed of by developers or are they just afraid of giving low rating to hyped product which could enrage fans.

Or have they based their experiance on far too few hours of gameplay.
Look at Diablo 3 it had pretty good reception from all reviewers but the game was far from great.
Just compare the metacritic ratings, reviewers give it 88% while fans gave it 39%.

Thats a massive differance, the fans actually played it longer and realized how much it lacked real content.
Same goes for Mists of Pandaria, hated by WoW fans but got good reviews even though it major lackluster.

Warlords of Draenor got praised as the best Wow expansion by many reviewers. Even though it really offered nothing new, dumbed down things even more and it lacks end game content.
User reviews on Metacritic is 6,1 and i can almost bet money it will go down another 10% when people are without content(which wont take long).

Reviewers seem to be clueless about certain things and fail to see how the game will work later on. I think these reviwers should have more knowledge then this.

 

[WhiteWolfe]

My biggest problem with user reviews are the sample they come from. People who really hate a game are more likely to chuck the controller at the window, scream at their cat/dog/spouse/fern, and then rage on the internet about it, while the people who love it continue to play it and may or may not rave about it online. Then the people who were just kind of okay about it are kind of a toss up. I don't actually have any statistics on this (my argument is invalid I guess) but that's what I gather from user scores.

Reviewers, however, are suppose to talk about things like art, gameplay, experience, etc. and try to give a fair overview of how they thing the game does. Reviewers who like rpgs are (should, at least) more likely to review an RPG so they will probably give a higher rating. The point of content, how long the game will last, should probably not come into play with the reviewer. People are going to play games until they use up the content and everyone plays at varying rates so how do you convert this into a number system?

At the end of the day though, who cares about actual numbers. Reviews should be informative and then give some sort of opinion, followed by "if you like these things then it has it, and if you don't like these things it has those as well". Then people can form their OWN opinion on whether or not they think they will like it, as opposed to "8 or higher, must buy because it's definitely good". There are probably tons of survival horror games with high ratings but I don't like survival horror so putting "8.5 Metacritic" review score on the box is as good as putting "Contains 100% of the daily value of Why do I care?" on the box.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Reviews are educated opinions and, as with most opinions, they tend to vary from person to person. Also, in the case of reviews, there is no way for a reviewer to review a game on or even before release and yet somehow know what sort of content is coming weeks, months or years down the line. Expecting that is expecting the impossible.

As far as user reviews go, frankly I put very little faith in them. Far too many user reviews are more blatantly fueled by bias and agenda than probably any professional review I've ever seen.

The reality is that any review is only as trustworthy as the opinion of the reviewer, professional or otherwise, matches you own. If you find a reviewer you tend to see eye to eye with then maybe you can feel safe trusting what they say, otherwise it's better to do your own research and ultimately make up your own mind.

Capcha: voight kampf
Haha, I see what you did there.

 

[DementedSheep]

Bit of everything? but mostly I think it's just a legitimate difference of opinion and user reviews not being reliable either.

Judging it off a few hours sometimes happens. They aren't likely to have seen all the content because they don?t have time to be completionist, especially not if you?re talking something like an MMO expansion so yes if there are late game issues or people think there are too many pointless samey side quest they might not pick that up.

In the case of Diablo 3, many of the issues were caused by server overload at the start. The reviewers get the games before they come out so they didn't have that issue nor would they know it would be an issue. Do you honestly think the game itself is worth a score of 39? There were also many people giving it 0 or 1 because they didn't like the existence of the shop or that it was always online.

Stuff like that isn't uncommon and many users seem to vote in extremes. People who can be bothered reviewing it tend to either love it or hate it (more likely hate). They will give a very low score if a game didn't live up to their expectations even if it was a decent game or if it has one issue. I've seen someone give a game a 1 because it gets boring after 50 hours. If it takes 50 hours to get boring that isn't that bad. Some give a high score because they really liked the one aspect of the game that they care about and don?t care about the other issues or because they are trying to make the average higher. User reviews being different doesn't mean there is a problem with the reviewers.

 

[Evilsausage]

I understand how you think, yes many haters make reviews just for the sake of complaining. But overall it seems more accurate then the "professional" reviews.
Path of exile which actually got overall slightly lower ratings by reviewers but has a much higher metacritic score from fans.


Which makes sense D3 is generally considerd a dissapointment even IF it was fun at start. ARPGs are after all mainly about a long grind for gear.
MMOS Are even more about that and you even pay a monthly fee for it.
Ofc late game should be conciderd then.

Reviewers just tend to get blinded by a nice presentation, rate game on that even though they failed to grasp what makes a MMO or ARPG good.

 

[Fappy]

I'll never understand why people get so worked up about game reviews (not really referring to you, OP). Just shop around for reviewers and outlets that work for you and your tastes, and when you find one stick with them. I can't think of the last time my buying habits were affected by a review, professional or otherwise. Word-of-mouth will always be far more important to me.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Honestly, I trust paid reviewers more than I trust the fans. Fans are whiny little brats a lot of the time. "Oh, this game doesn't match my EXACT standards of perfection? It's complete and utter trash. Burn it with fire!"

That is not how a review works. A review works by taking a look at the bad and the good and then balancing the two. Fans often don't know how to see past the flaws of the game. A prime example is Mass Effect 3. Yeah, that ending is terrible for me and I hate it, but the the rest of the game was still enjoyable. But talk to a die hard fan and they'll tell you to stay the hell away from the entire thing because ten minutes just burns it.

Just because a game is lacking in one or two areas overall does not mean it deserves a one star rating, or a score of one, or the lowest possible mark, but fans feel that it does.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I understand how you think, yes many haters make reviews just for the sake of complaining. But overall it seems more accurate then the "professional" reviews.

The thing is, it seems more accurate to you because you agree with the user reviews and not with the professional reviews. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with disagreeing with (or agreeing with) professional reviews. Agree with the reviewers whose opinions match your own. But there is no such thing as a 100% accurate review because a review is just a hopefully educated opinion.

 

[Evilsausage]

I understand how you think, yes many haters make reviews just for the sake of complaining. But overall it seems more accurate then the "professional" reviews.

The thing is, it seems more accurate to you because you agree with the user reviews and not with the professional reviews. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with disagreeing with (or agreeing with) professional reviews. Agree with the reviewers whose opinions match your own. But there is no such thing as a 100% accurate review because a review is just a hopefully educated opinion.

Well I don't agree with all user meta scores. Like mass effect 3 for example.
However many seem far more fair. Take dragon age 2 which generally is considered a dissapointment yet it has 8.2 in meta rating, but 44% from the users.
But yes people should follow the reviewers they think knows what their doing. But I still think that there is some serious problems when so many reviewers oppinion is different from the peoples.
Even if Diablo 3 was judged on a few hours played it still deserves no way near 89% Since the story was at best mediocre and gameplay lacked any challange.

They should have an educated view on things, yet many are more easily hyped then 12 year olds.

 

[NPC009]

There are quite alot of games out there that has been bad but for some reason gotten away with good or even great rating from reviewers.

Define 'bad'. I mean, seriously. When I think 'bad', I think of some of the worst games I've ever played. Most reviews have been at it for some time. I've played some really bad games. Stuff like Superman 64, that Astroboy: The Movie: The Game thing on the DS and other games that were barely playable. From our frame of reference, those are games that deserve scores in the 1-3 region. It boggles the mind when someone calls the newest Call of Duty or whatever the worst thing ever.

How? Are they getting payed of by developers or are they just afraid of giving low rating to hyped product which could enrage fans.

No, we are not getting paid by the publisher or developer. Now, game publishers do play for many of the ads in magazines and on websites, but that has little do to with the reviewers. We are asked to review something, play the game, write the review and don't see it again until it's published. If our editor changed the score in a significant way without, you can be sure we will cause a shitstorm. Fortunately, most editors are gamers just like us and the amount they're paid, well, let's just say they can't be in it for the cash. If we want a shot at bigger numbers, it's better to go solo and do videoreviews and let's plays. That's were the real money seems to be nowadays, atleast, for the lucky/talented few.

Now, what does happen is that reviewers get excited about games. We don't live under rocks and even if we aren't on the look out for info, we'll probably still see some trailers, hear things from colleagues or read things on forums. Sometimes we see something that's so promising we get excited and well, you know that great feeling when you start up a game you've been looking forward to for ages and it more or less meets your high expectations? That's when glowing reviews happen. Of course we try to be as objective as possible, but we had a really enjoyable experience and we want to share that. Sometimes we don't quite agree with our own review in hindsight, but that's not something we can't prevent. We're people, not mathematical formulas designed to rate interactive digital entertainment.

Or have they based their experiance on far too few hours of gameplay.

Now, that is something that can happen. It's very common a reviewer has to bingeplay to get a review out. We might rush through parts some players would rather spend more time on, or only give less popular modes a quick try before moving on.

I don't know if it's neccesarily a bad thing, though. If a game hasn't made a good impression within the first 10-15 hours, it's doubtful it will get any better at 20, 50 or even 100 hours in.

What matters more in cases like Diablo, Freedom Wars or other games that are essentialy the same thing over and over again: some gamers like these types of games other don't. So don't just check the score, read the actual review!

Look at Diablo 3 it had pretty good reception from all reviewers but the game was far from great.
Just compare the metacritic ratings, reviewers give it 88% while fans gave it 39%.

There are many gamers on Metacritic that excel at overreacting. They see handing out extremely low scores as some kind of justice. The developers, publishers or press did something bad and now they're going to set it straight with their voting power. Some go out of their way to downvote games from franchises they don't like just to piss of the gamers who do. Call of Duty versus Battlefield seems to be a thing.

My advice: don't look at the score, look for a few reader reviews that seem to be written by reasonable people and read those.

Reviewers seem to be clueless about certain things and fail to see how the game will work later on. I think these reviwers should have more knowledge then this.

Well then, build us some timemachines and we'll check up on games in the future.

Look, I know there are reviewers out there who seem rather clueless, but it's not like all people in our profession were mass produced in factories. We're individuals, just our readers. We do our best to convey our experiences with the game, but what you do with that information is up to you. My recommendation would be to try and find some critics with tastes similar to yours.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Holy cow. Okay, let's see here.

Yes, reviewers absolutely do seem to fall victim to the "hype train". Whether it's because they give a game insufficient play to have a review to market early due to consumer demand, or felt pressure to pump up a score because the publisher is one of their major advertisers, or because the game hit a sweet spot for a particular reviewer but not for the audience. Anything is possible. As we've learned, it's not really an ethical problem unless social justice is involved somehow though.

Look at Diablo 3 it had pretty good reception from all reviewers but the game was far from great.

Diablo 3 got pilloried by fans for always online requirements and Error 37. Very little of its days one Metacritic score bombing had anything to do with the actual game play. Now, years after release, that day one axe-grinding makes the user score even more hilariously invalid than it was at release. User scores, as usual, are completely fucking worthless. Anyone moaning about biased reviewers and then propping up user scores as some kind of panacea is out of their mind.

Same goes for Mists of Pandaria, hated by WoW fans but got good reviews even though it major lackluster.

"Hated by WoW fans". http://strawpoll.me/1091799/r

It was never the most popular expansion, and got a fair share of ridicule for its theme, but by the end the general consensus was that the expansion was reasonably well done, and introduced some much needed renovation to an aging game. That people continued playing it through a record one year content dearth and that it still dominated 50% or more of the North American MMORPG market demonstrated that WoW fans, by and large, endorsed it. Also, what does "major lackluster" mean?

Warlords of Draenor got praised as the best Wow expansion by many reviewers. Even though it really offered nothing new, dumbed down things even more and it lacks end game content.

How did it dumb things down? How does it lack end game content? You're aware WoD enjoyed the single largest uptick in WoW subs in history, right? And that it is near universally praised by the playerbase as the best expansion since WOTLK? Where are these opinions coming from?

User reviews on Metacritic is 6,1 and i can almost bet money it will go down another 10% when people are without content(which wont take long).

Yup. Score bombed for opening week login issues. Once again, user scores are 100% worthless.

Reviewers seem to be clueless about certain things and fail to see how the game will work later on. I think these reviwers should have more knowledge then this.

So score bombing games for launch week problems is salient and forward looking? Those reviews are super helpful AFTER launch week, aren't they?

Would seem to me you're one of many people who get extremely upset when reviews do not match your personal perception of reality. It's possible there's some kind of ethical crisis afoot. Should look into that.

 

[NPC009]

Reviews are always shitty in video games, since for some reason we got used to standards of 90+ for any game with any amount of hype, you actually get a better idea of a game's quality by just looking at the last digit as "out of 10". It's especially infuriating with jrpg that ALWAYS get lower scores than the hyped game of the month, unless it's a FF.

Look for the sites and mags with people who care. They're out there. I should know, because I'm one of them. Of course, it's not like editor-in-chiefs are going to hand out spreads to niche games like that, but I make damn sure to fully utilise the little space I do get!

BTW do you know what helps? Talk about a game on their forums. See if you can get a good discussion going. I've seen games like 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Atelier enter the spotlight because readers brought it to the mags attention. If all people talk about is the new Final Fantasy (and how it's going to suck balls) they will assume that is what people want to read about. Show them they're wrong.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

But yes people should follow the reviewers they think knows what their doing. But I still think that there is some serious problems when so many reviewers oppinion is different from the peoples.

Why would that be a "serious problem"?

What do you want from reviewers, exactly? What makes a "good review" to you?

Honest? Thorough? Well written? Insightful?

Or just properly reflective of whatever the populist sentiment happens to be?

Christ maybe I should be a reviewer. Just wait for the user score to come out and then copy it.

"Everyone seems to like this one, so I do too. 9/10!"

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

There are quite alot of games out there that has been bad but for some reason gotten away with good or even great rating from reviewers.

How? Are they getting payed of by developers or are they just afraid of giving low rating to hyped product which could enrage fans.

Warlords of Draenor...

Reviewers seem to be clueless about certain things and fail to see how the game will work later on. I think these reviwers should have more knowledge then this.

I believe reviewers try to objectively rate games instead of just telling you how much or how little they enjoyed the game and why. If a game mechanic is functional, then a game reviewer is fine with that mechanic even if they hated it. Game reviewers are basically one hive mind with everyone giving every game basically the same score with +/-0.5, there may be 50+ reviews of a game but it might as well just be one review.

Just look at FFXIII Metacritic reviews for proof that professional game reviewers are all basically one hive mind and you get almost the same exact opinion from every reviewer. There's only ONE negative review for FFXIII and, of course, it's from Jim Sterling. I'm not saying FFXIII is a bad or good game but it is definitely a love it or hate it type game and there's only one negative review, something is very wrong with that. Or read Greg Tito's review of GTAV, it's obvious that he didn't enjoy the game much but still gives it a 7/10 because he has to as there's nothing inherently wrong with the gameplay mechanics.

Just taking a peek at this Witcher thread on the Escapist [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.866889-What-do-you-have-against-The-Witcher-series], there seems to be many people who don't like the series for very valid reasons. Yeah, most user reviews are 10/10 or 1/10 so the user average score is garbage as well. However, if you do read through a thread like the Witcher thread, you see a lot of gamers had valid reasons for not liking the games. Yet there's no negative reviews for Witcher 2 on Metacritic. I read a bit of the thread because I'm thinking I might try Witcher 3 even though I haven't played the others, but I don't think that I will from reading through the negatives of series. Plus, I'm so tired of medieval fantasy games anyways that the game has to be really, really good for me to enjoy that setting.

In any other medium, it's EXTREMELY rare that something scores an average of 9/10 or higher across critics, yet it happens much more frequently in video games. Hell, it's a great feat to have 90% of critics just like a certain work. For example, Guardians of the Galaxy has a 90% fresh rating on RottenTomatoes but on overall score of just a 7.7/10. If Guardians was a game, it would be at like a 95/100 overall and the one 7/10 review would be getting hated on by gamers for being wrong and dismissed as just being there as click bait.

I'm in no way saying game reviewers are corrupt and being paid off; they may be but I really don't care. I do believe game reviewers have merged into one hive mind that I feel is mainly their own doing.

With regards to online multiplayer of any kind, you can't go by any game reviewer because they play for a few hours and give their thoughts. So if a multiplayer game is awesome at first but balance issues and such rear their heads once you know the ins and outs of the game, that won't show up in the review. Or if a game is a bit hard to get into at first, reviewers will say it sucks like say MoH Warfighter's MP, which is perhaps the best console FPS MP of last-gen.

 

[NPC009]

I believe reviewers try to objectively rate games instead of just telling you how much or how little they enjoyed the game and why. If a game mechanic is functional, then a game reviewer is fine with that mechanic even if they hated it. Game reviewers are basically one hive mind with everyone giving every game basically the same score with +/-0.5, there may be 50+ reviews of a game but it might as well just be one review.

I disagree. Explaining what we enjoyed or didn't and why is part of the job. If something functions on paper but we're not enjoying it, we should say that and explain why. Games are something you experience, not... I dunno what you do with games. Maybe time menu load times? Monitor frame rates? Anyway, most of us are pretty open-minded and most editors assign games to reviewers who have experience with the genre or series. They're unlikely to hook someone up with a game they already know they won't like.

Also, how the hell can we be hive minds when the good ones try to stay clear of reviews of the game they're reviewing until they've handed in their piece? Heck, more often than not there are barely any reviews to check anyway, since most of us get our review copies around the same time.

Or maybe we're connected on a different level. Like telepathy? Oh, that would be neat! I've always want to be a super hero!

Just taking a peek at this Witcher thread on the Escapist [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.866889-What-do-you-have-against-The-Witcher-series], there seems to be many people who don't like the series for very valid reasons. Yeah, most user reviews are 10/10 or 1/10 so the user average score is garbage as well. However, if you do read through a thread like the Witcher thread, you see a lot of gamers had valid reasons for not liking the games. Yet there's no negative reviews for Witcher 2 on Metacritic. I read a bit of the thread because I'm thinking I might try Witcher 3 even though I haven't played the others, but I don't think that I will from reading through the negatives of series. Plus, I'm so tired of medieval fantasy games anyways that the game has to be really, really good for me to enjoy that setting.

Just because a game got mostly good reviews doesn't mean everyone will (or should) like it. Read the reviews and think about how you feel about the things the reviewer said. Like, did he praise the openess of the world? (making blind guesses here; I have zero experience with The Witcher series) If you know you prefer linear games, you know you'll probably won't like that aspect. Be a smart reader, don't just thoughtlessly consume a review, think about what the reviewer is saying means to you.

Edit: want an example from me, one of those hiveminded reviewers? GTA games get excellent reviews and millions of players adore the series. I don't give a shit and don't play them if I don't have too. It's just not my kind of game. Other people can marry the game for all I care, but I feel in no way obligated to like it. Neither do I feel insulted by the fact that other people do like the series. Knowing your own likes and dislikes is an awesome thing. You should try is sometime

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Review score inflation is a thing with video games. It is pretty ingrained in gaming culture at this point. That will account for most of the cases where the professional score differs from the user score.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Diablo 3 got pilloried by fans for always online requirements and Error 37. Very little of its days one Metacritic score bombing had anything to do with the actual game play. Now, years after release, that day one axe-grinding makes the user score even more hilariously invalid than it was at release. User scores, as usual, are completely fucking worthless. Anyone moaning about biased reviewers and then propping up user scores as some kind of panacea is out of their mind.

Yes, the user average score is not something to go by at all due to all the 1/10 and 10/10 reviews. The fact is game reviewers rarely list lots of valid issues gamers do have with a game. Yeah, many Diablo 3 user reviews are just invalid bomb reviewers but you can't ignore the valid issue many gamers do have with the game. Diablo 3 had several valid issues not listed in "professional" game reviews. And the fact that a single-player game is even allowed to have multiplayer lag is complete bullshit.

There's plenty of valid criticisms of Diablo 3 here in this Escapist thread [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.380871-Blizzard-Admits-Diablo-III-End-Game-Failure]

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Diablo 3 had several valid issues not listed in "professional" game reviews. And the fact that a single-player game is even allowed to have multiplayer lag is complete bullshit.

Define a "valid" issue so objective that it absolutely MUST be in a review of the game, or that review is rendered unprofessional. Because game criticism, short of "it doesn't work", tends to be of the highly subjective variety.

As to it being a single player game...it wasn't. It was an always online lobby game that could be played alone or with friends, much like Guild Wars was. You can argue whether or not this was necessary or whether or not a single player mode would've been a desirable addition, but the Diablo 3 that was released to market was not an offline title, and thus was subject to lag. Developers are not required to stay faithful to previous iterations of their IP. And as Diablo 3 is one of the fastest/highest selling games in history despite said always online requirement, I'd say Blizzard had a pretty good handle on the market for their game.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

just like movies, "professional" reviewers don't seem to line up with my tastes very often, and if they do, they miss entirely what I like about the game or glaring flaws that I found handicapped it greatly from being a great game and instead being a "good" game.

reason why I tend to pay attention to user reviews more is because they generally have a vastly varied hardware setup compared to a few major reviewers, so I'm going to be getting the scoop on how well a game does/doesn't run (I never seem to have problems, but there are plenty of games where people do. It's nice to know when and where bugs happen if I'm going to get a game.)

Also extending on that, user reviews tend to have time to beat the whole game, while alot of reviewers can only put in 10-20 hours (time constraints and it's not necessary for their job.) and check out all the details the game has to offer, which a pro reviewer could miss and could affect how I might (not) like a game.

obviously user reviews are plagued by review bombs and "if I don't like this, then no one else should either!" scores/reviews (I don't pay attention to scores that much.) but I feel like they are more open/honest than pro's are sometimes, since they typically have a boss and such, while users can say whatever the hell they want.