The problems with the supposedly "unbiased" review

[BloatedGuppy]

Let's say a new platformer came out: One critic, who adores racing games and plays lots of them, rates it a 2/5. Another critic, who doesn't really like racing games, he's only played 3 others, he rates it 5/5.

It doesn't matter what I think of racing games, I'm going to trust the person who rated it 2/5 more, and it will influence my decision on whether getting the game or not. Of course, this assumes both critics are up to the same quality standards in their writing.

Here's a more interesting dilemma for you...what if the fan of racers gives it 5/5, and the non-fan of racers gives it 1/5, and both raise salient points?

Fans can be just as problematic when it comes to giving quality feedback as haters. I dislike the term "fanboy" because it poisons the well, but there is little question that affection will color perception just as readily as dislike.

This is part of the reason why I actually LIKE review aggregate sites like Metacritic. I can sample a cross section of reviews from a variety of people to get a more coherent overall picture. To this extent, I'm very much in favor of a multitude of voices with varying perspectives, barring 1/10 score-bombs and 10/10 score-plumpers.

 

[MerlinCross]

This is part of the reason why I actually LIKE review aggregate sites like Metacritic. I can sample a cross section of reviews from a variety of people to get a more coherent overall picture. To this extent, I'm very much in favor of a multitude of voices with varying perspectives, barring 1/10 score-bombs and 10/10 score-plumpers.

This is something I could actually get behind. 2 reviews from 2 different people, maybe pulled randomly from the staff. This way we get 2 different views on the game, possibly good, bad, and any combination. Granted, most reviews tend to be written the week the game comes out unless they get a press copy, and even then timetables are a pain to deal with. So I'd like it, probably too much of a hassle to set up for the reviewers.

 

[Scootinfroodie]

I disagree. I apologize if you felt the tone was condescending. Tone is difficult to read. Go back and read some of your replies to Zachary whatsit. Do you think you strike a condescending tone? Yes, no? Do you think telling me I have "reading comprehension" problems indicates a calm and measured form of discussion? I've admitted I've been combative. It would be nice to hear a similar admission from you.

I extend the same invitation to you that you did to me. I wont deny being combative, but my goal in this is to call out what are necessarily bad faith arguments, whether or not they're ones you and Zachary meant to make. I don't feel that I shouldn't be when people's statements are dismissed out of hand as being conspiracy theories and attacks on liberalism

Please define "heavy use of shaming language" and provide quotes for substantiation, because I absolutely do not see that. I'd genuinely like to know what you are referring to.

I cannot believe this goes three pages. There is no such thing as an "unbiased" or objective review. The very concept of it is absurd

Implication of incredulity at people's interest in a subject

Notably, they seem particularly incensed at the idea of beliefs they do not share being espoused, or a game receiving a score they do not agree with.

Misappropriation of statements to imply suggestions of widespread censorship. Implication that it is a partisan issue

I have a hard time believing it too, but there you have it.

In response to

I have a hard time believing that "a lot" of people are dumb enough to believe that you can keep things "off teh interwebs"

Explicitly labeling people who want to discuss this issue as being dumb, further misappropriation

Well that is certainly your prerogative. People are often given to doubt the existence of inconvenient reality.

Purely exits for condescension

That said, some people have been pretty clear about their belief that 'biased reviews' should not exist, that journalists who engage in them should be fired, that "media corruption" equates to "having an ideology", etc, etc, etc.

Further misappropriation to the extent that a rather visible strawman has been created. Is there a purpose to this sentence other than to mock people who don't agree with you based on a separate context of the terms being used that you yourself choose to use?

Oh god, are they part of the social justice liberal media conspiracy too?

Implication that mentioning flaws in a website's management and/or stat tracking is akin to a conspiracy theory. Term already has negative connotations associated with 9-11 truthers, UFO chasers etc.
Reason given for comparison is

a sympathetic if not wholly involved stance in Gamergate

Implication is that anyone who has this stance believes in "the social justice liberal media conspiracy" which includes the names I mentioned.

Yep. That's "all I've done", and the entire summation of my argument can be boiled down to two statements. Good faith discussion. Really enjoying it.

Further misappropriation to bolster implied "bad faith" reasons for my having this discussion

Then you have a whole paragraph where you go on about Gamergate and my supposed position in it, and in doing so avoid giving a straight answer. You then suggest that a wider conversation on twitter is where I'll find these quotes, ignoring that this wasn't mentioned at any point prior, and that contextually accusations of calls for censorship were leveled at the people posting in this thread

This isn't getting into how these things affect the tone of what you say, and how other statements contribute to that overall feeling. These are simply statements that, on their own, serve no purpose other than to shame people and/or get angry

Gamer Gate has become a politicized discussion. I already apologized for this. I'm not entirely sure why you are piling on, unless you started replying without reading in full. I've done that many times myself.

I'm responding to individual things said. If you didn't keep mentioning these things, I'd have no reason to respond to them. Additionally, this is not a gamergate discussion

Perils of this short form quote discussion, but I'm not actually certain what "complaints" you're referring to. My initial foray into this thread was to rebut complaints, not issue complaints, save the one about outright removal of voices from the discussion.

You complain about what you see as an attempt at removing "liberals" from the media, when that hasn't actually been suggested. A separation between reviews/news and politics isn't removal of politics, because those ideological pieces can still exist as properly labeled editorials.

There's that absurdity again. You've been on this website for...90 posts now? 100? I've been here for years. I've been here through Fake Gamer Girls, through the rise of Anita Sarkeesian threads, through the explosion of the "SJW" bogeyman, and more. People can, and do, make those sort of assertions all the time. This is also a single five page thread on the issue. There have been a pair of 1,000 odd page threads replete with website black lists and calls for mailing campaigns to smother sponsor support for particular websites. Whether websites 'get their panties in a bunch' is not really related to my statement. My statement is that I don't feel I'm the arbiter of what should and shouldn't be allowed as criticism in gaming. Other people clearly feel differently. If I started a blacklist and attempted to smother a website off the internet because I disapproved of it, I'd be removing that voice for everyone, not just myself.

This isn't my first escapist account. My old one was attached to some pretty outdated stuff and rather than root through and try to reactivate old email accounts, I created a new one. I've been a lurker for years

Additionally, we're not talking about the entire history of this site, but rather this thread.

As for the points made, you can call the "SJW" thing a bogeyman, but Atheism+ actually did happen. There are people who are manipulative and who seek power under the guise of the benefit of the group. This isn't a new concept, but rather the newest iteration. People are accusing Miss Sarkeesian and a number of others of being part of this long-running trend in human behaviour. It's obviously not the most severe, but it *is* close enough to the ground that they can affect it in some way

As for blacklists and emailing sponsors, those are legitimate methods of consumer complaint. It is equally valid to complain about the removal of support and show solidarity with those whose actions are being protested. Additionally, getting rid of a website's funding doesn't equate to eliminating an entire voice. Instead, it's a way of reducing the volume of the megaphone they have. Games journalists were not mute prior to the formation of these sites, and other sites have sprung up to hire *more* writers to fill the gaps these sites have willingly left.

I'm not "putting you in a box". If I make 50 pro-Christian posts on a website, and you saw them, and supposed I was Christian (I'm not, just an example), it would be rather needlessly churlish of me to slap your face and accuse you of "putting me in a box". If I'm incorrect about your stance on a given issue just correct it and move on. I also have no idea what "sacred political cows" you are referring to, or insinuating I referred to.

Can you point out where I made the equivalent of "50 pro-Christian posts"? The sacred cows comment refers to your statement about "who" I decided to confront

How are they "irrelevant" to the question of determining what should or shouldn't be allowed as criticism? I made the statement there are people who believe journalists should be fired for holding certain beliefs and allowing them to influence reviews. You have labelled that statement "absurd", and openly questioned whether anyone would ever do that. I'm becoming confused. Is this a miscommunication? And why does miscommunication keep coming up as a spelling error?

The topic at hand is about objectivity/avoidance of bias in reviews, not "should Leigh Alexander be canned?"
Additionally, holding beliefs is not the same thing as directly attacking people on social media and on the website that employs you, and espousing beliefs can be done in a professional manner. Additionally, some of the calls for people to be fired are tied to CoI's, not necessarily what they've written in itself.

Marxists? What?

There are people on several boards who self identify as actual honest-to-god Marxists.
That's pretty left wing if you ask me.
iirc a number of them were annoyed at the notion of people referring to "SJW's" as cultural marxists. A number of feminists are equally pissed about these people calling themselves feminists. There's a pretty broad spectrum of issues and ideologies at play, and it's really interesting watching non-hierarchical organization occur from an anti authoritarian perspective

I don't consider the political compass thing to be definitive evidence, but that exists, and a large number of left leaning/SJ-minded folks exist on the pro-GG side because they don't view "SJW's" as being honest actual contributors to social justice. There's definitely some brand promotion involved, but it's important to note that it's coming from a number of causes. The political right just seems to get the most attention for doing so (which, hilariously, boosts their reach)

Hey, good to know. I'm also Canadian.

It's relevant insofar as the dialogue around Gamer Gate, and this subsequent discussion of "objective reviews" (recently raised in that recent "girls of Gamer Gate" video), has been highly politicized for weeks now. If someone is coming at it from a political, entrenched perspective, it is going to hamper effective communication. However, as previously stated, I've already apologized for assuming a particular political affiliation for you.

The conversation isn't about Gamergate.
This conversation could, should, and arguably would, still exist if there wasn't a giant twitter war going on

As for the girls of gamergate video, I wish there were more people with interview/public speaking experience being interviewed. I understood where they were coming from and I admire their passion for the subject, but they were all over the place and many of their statements were explicitly heat-of-the-moment

Also note that reference to previous political attribution, as well as a few other arguments, are here for clarification. I respond chunk-by-chunk after reading through the whole post as it's far easier to organize and clarify, even if it does lead to some level of redundancy. Some questions utterly necessitate reference to prior posts

Yes they do. And in many cases the supposed "corruption" being discussed is that they are "SJW journos" pushing liberal agendas and using their websites as pulpits. I'm totally behind someone saying "I don't like this, I'll never visit again". I'm not behind "Let's cut off their sponsorships and kill their websites, these people should be fired".

Can you list a website where the only reason for cutting off ad revenue has been a "liberal agenda"? RPS, Gamasutra, Polygon and Kotaku were part of the "gamers are dead" fiasco, and Kotaku has had several reported instances of CoI's. I'm also fairly certain that advocating a "violent" cultural uprising against "hood men" is not a typical liberal thought process, and that's one of the big things Gamasutra's Editor at Large, Leigh Alexander, is being called out for.
It honestly feels like you're oversimplifying the matter. The small group of people who would like to see political opponents shamed and defeated have no power on their own. They cling to the larger movement to achieve their goals much like a number of people/groups did with OWS. The difference here is that they haven't been derailing the movement

In any case, this is getting drastically off-topic. I'd welcome a shift in venue (PMs or the GG megathread) if you'd like to continue discussing gamergate itself.

Whether they can or not is rather irrelevant. The crux of our disagreement is I said there are people who wanted that, and you disagreed and demanded attribution and direct quotes.

I disagree that the sentiment exists within the thread. I'd also suggest that an opinion existing somewhere on the internet doesn't necessarily make it prime discussion material. We needn't talk about the "Flat Earther dilemna"

I'm not sure where you read ad-hominem, but I'm also not sure where you read "shaming language". Did I call you names? Did I undercut you personally? Did I say you lacked reading comprehension, for example?

I didn't say the entirety of your argument was undercut by what appeared to be a lapse in reading comprehension, whereas your prior attempts to paint me politically and ascribe the title of "conspiracy theorist" have been used multiple times in these sorts of discussions to write someone off for their political affiliations. In fact, the attribution of the label of conspiracy theorist, when not appropriately explained, can absolutely be an example of ad hominem

There is a severe lack of trust stemming a presumption of back room deals leading to manipulated scores, yes. When people throw a fit over their favorite game getting a 3/5 instead of the 10/10 they insist it deserves, I don't read that as a lack of trust. I read it as a confirmation bias going unfulfilled.

It depends on the rationale. I don't see why I should trust people to suggest products to me if, say, they show that they absolutely do not understand a particular product. That line, however, is drawn on an individual level. On the other hand, should enough individuals have that issue, I see no problem with them complaining to the website.

Sure, and without any other context or data it's a completely disinteresting claim. They could be leaving for any of a vast myriad of reasons.

Until they state the reasons why they're leaving
I, for one, left because John Walker's endless, poorly researched tirades got on my nerves. This was exacerbated by other similarly poor articles and visible disdain for opposing viewpoints in the comments section. John Walker has every right to use his space as a soapbox and wail at his readership, but if that's all RPS will be, I won't exactly mourn its eventual passing

Similarly, the one-sided moderation of discussions on Gamasutra and the slow but steady promotion of clickbait blogposts convinced me to leave before things got any worse.

I play a lot of MMOs. MMOs often suffer player shed, often quite rapidly. When this happens, you will have a long line up of people telling you exactly why everyone is leaving, and the reason is always their individual pet hate. The reality is that the reasons are always multi-factoral, and no one outside the individuals themselves and possibly the people parsing their feedback have the foggiest notion what is going on. You know as well as I do that humans like to shape events they witness to fit a narrative they form in their heads, and it's often a narrative they prefer. In this case, the narrative is websites being punished for their transgressions.

Except the loss in readership I'm referring to has been an ongoing process. Kotaku visibly went from being just another gaming site to being regarded as a joke. RPS hasn't exactly avoided this same fate. Polygon, I feel, is the most likely to redeem itself of the 4 sites in question as it isn't dependent on clickbait, isn't there to purely be a soapbox, and also because Crecente is a boss

A question arises about which users, and why. I don't doubt they ARE losing users, they made some very polarizing arguments that made it abundantly clear that a certain stripe of user was no longer welcome. Total Biscuit, a supporter of Gamer Gate, has done the same thing...many times...rounding on his audience for their behavior, banning people for their comments, and eventually locking down discussion entirely outside of Reddit because he was "sick of idiots". He's lost viewers because of those actions.

Sure, and if he decides to stop putting effort into his image as someone trustworthy and turns on his audience completely, I wouldn't expect a lot of them to stay. There are definitely a lot of people who (rightfully so) do not like TB, but they don't appear to be numerous or organized enough to do anything about it.

Rock Paper Shotgun was quite frank about acknowledging that their "We're going to talk about feminism in gaming whenever we want" policy was going to cost them viewers. They evidently were prepared to lose said viewers. I don't know if you remember the comments on those articles before they were locked down, but some of those viewers were probably happy losses. As a person who once visited their site more regularly, I wish they'd given as much attention to keeping quality content on the site as they have to their wearisome punditry, but if wishes were horses...

Honestly, after they clearly and distinctly goaded portions of their readership, I take whatever is said in the comments with a pretty hefty chunk of salt. It obviously doesn't justify what is said, but I at least know where it's coming from

How, exactly, do you determine a "shill"? God, I was in a thread just the other day where someone was stating that Gamer Gate had "already met all its victory conditions". It would be one of the multitude on Off-Topic. He also made some dire utterings about things becoming more violent, or something along those lines. Was that a joke? Was he a shill? How would you even know?

A common tactic on 4chan/8chan is to pretend to be on one side or the other of a particular issue, and use that to push a product or ideology. This happens less often on 8chan due to the fact that there are thread-specific ID strings but some people still don't understand this. If you frequent Anonymous Image Boards enough you start to be able to spot people who are insincere by the way they present their arguments. This isn't always a 100% accurate thing, but you can generally figure it out by attempting to calmly speak to them in a rational manner. They will generally change tactics on a dime, or attempt/spark a large freak-out
Basically posting while not attached to a username gives you a different perspective on how people present, respond to and share ideas.

1) A lot of advertisers just like to avoid controversy, period.

Yes, and what this shows is the reach of the controversy. Advertisers didn't back off due to Tropes Vs Women, after all.

2) I don't know Total Biscuit personally, I have no idea what his beliefs are or aren't.

He was a neutral up until about a week ago, when he decided he was pro-#gg

3) Christa Hoff Sommers is a member of a right wing political think tank (The American Enterprise Institute...and "right wing think tank" is their language, not mine). She rambled about "Hippy liberal art majors" among other naked pejoratives in her video on the subject (while affecting the most condescending sneer I've ever heard, I cannot imagine you would approve). I don't know her either, but I think there is sufficient evidence available to suggest we can be relatively assured of her political affiliation and views on the subject.

Poking fun at "hippies" != conspiracy theorist. AFAIK she's a registered democrat

4) I don't know who these other people are.

Erik Kain is a Forbes contributor http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/
Alexander Macris is Archon, who is the co-founder of this site http://www.escapistmagazine.com/profiles/view/Archon
Erik Kain is neutral but involved, and has expressed sympathy for gamers on the #GG side
Archon has posted in the #GG thread, wrote the new set of standards, made reading suggestions on the topic of Cultural Marxism, and discussed the meaning of the term gamer in the set of standards. I don't know that he's taken a definitive position (other than "I like having gamers as readers for the gaming focused section of a site I manage), but he has made a number of entertaining comments on the issue
Boogie2988 is a youtube personality with a fairly large following. You may know him as "Francis"

5) No Milo Yannopolous? No Adam Baldwin? They're part of the discussion too, and have been quite frank about their opinions on the subject.

They're not relevant to the point that I made (though I don't think Milo is a conspiracy theorist, just a bit melodramatic), which is that GG sympathy != belief in a conspiracy

6) As I've said many times before, Gamer Gate is diffuse and there is no singular collective belief. Radical right-wing politics is most certainly a voice in the discussion, however. One of my favorite quotes from this forum on the subject was "You brought your politics into it, so we brought ours". Tit for tat, eye for an eye. Summarizes the tone of the entire debate nicely. However I DIGRESS I know you don't want to discuss Gamer Gate. I just think it's disingenuous to pretend it isn't a huge part of why this thread exists, and isn't informing the discussion.

I never said there was a collective belief. There are definitely people who want to bring politics into this
And I never denied that people were utilizing Gamergate and the events surrounding it in this discussion, I've simply criticized it.

Unbiased how? Intel has a single motivation, which is profit. We can't know what Intel's reasoning was or wasn't without a statement from them. Did we get one?

http://newsroom.intel.com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2014/10/03/chip-shot-intel-issues-statement-on-gamasutra-advertising

Basically "We don't want to take sides, but we had a lot of complaints and so we decided the smart move was to remove ourselves entirely"

As for your response to Fishyash, I think the point ought to be expertise and not "being a fan"
While getting a "newbie" perspective is still important, as it stands the majority of prominent reviewers are perpetual "noobs".
I feel that this piece from gatheryourparty does a decent job describing this phenomenon
http://www.gatheryourparty.com/2014/07/16/tripping-on-air-why-game-journalists-cant-describe-games/

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It honestly feels like you're oversimplifying the matter.

It honestly feels like I'm trying to drive discussion back to my original post, and why I said what I did. You and I are spinning in circles arguing two points:

1) What definition of "objective" is being discussed.
2) Whether or not the events of Gamer Gate and what people have said and done in the throes of that debate have bearing on this discussion.

So, we can keep talking past one another, or we can try and settle the discussion down.

If you mean "BIAS" in the sense that someone is delivered a compromised review for undisclosed reasons, I absolutely agree that's BAD and should be condemned.

If you mean "BIAS" in the sense that the reviewer brings their beliefs and perspectives into the review, I absolutely assert that's FINE and should be accepted.

The question of whether or not it makes for GOOD JOURNALISM will depend on the writer in question. As an abstract idea, it's FINE.

On GAMER GATE.

I get the sense you want this to be a hermetic discussion about "biased reviews", completely free of the baggage of the wider discussion taking place around it. Although this isn't your thread, you've attempted to exert control at numerous steps over what the discussion is or isn't about. You appear to prefer an abstract discussion of bias in journalism, I am having an emotional discussion that is entirely informed by and a reaction to the debate consuming these forums for the last two months. Not on the same page. I'd gone through and responded to most if not all of the mega-reply before this, but I've snipped it all. This is what it boils down to.

I also expect we're on slightly different sides of an ideological divide, but that's just a suspicion, informed by the general tenor of the discussion.

PS - On "conspiracies". Would a website covertly manipulating traffic to puff up left wing websites and sink right wing websites not constitute a "conspiracy"? Because that sounds like the literal definition of a conspiracy to me.

PPS - On Hoff Sommers. Sneering at your opposite number in a debate and hand waving them as liberal arts hippies and sensitivity police is not "poking fun". It's the exact kind of condescending "bad faith" argument you're actively attacking. It's particularly embarrassing when it forms the crux of one's argument and one bills oneself as "factual".

In any case, this is getting drastically off-topic. I'd welcome a shift in venue (PMs or the GG megathread) if you'd like to continue discussing gamergate itself.

We should probably adjourn to PM's regardless, we are fucking up this thread properly. The length of the posts was getting comical.

As for your response to Fishyash, I think the point ought to be expertise and not "being a fan".

Yes and no. There is definitely room and an audience for "expert opinions" and deep analysis. But there are also people who play and enjoy games casually, and may prefer a more surface analysis. Reviews shouldn't necessarily be rated by the degree to which they appeal to grognards.

I feel that this piece from gatheryourparty does a decent job describing this phenomenon
http://www.gatheryourparty.com/2014/07/16/tripping-on-air-why-game-journalists-cant-describe-games/

Interesting article, but something really jumped out at me.

Spoiler

Some academics have criticized this, claiming it is shallow, and we need more criticism of games and less mere reviews. These academics are correct, but more frequently than not what they mean by ?criticism? of the game isn?t discussion of how the mechanics operate to create a fun, interactive experience, but rather analysis of the cultural significance of the game, how interactive functions are used for a narrative resonance, or the message the game is supposed to convey. Yet the problem remains that when I read the typical game review, I have no ability to tell from their writing whether the game is good or not and I am forced to rely on my friends or longer segments of gameplay footage to help give me an idea how the game actually works, and feels to play.

No shit. That's not what reviews are for. "Good" is not an objective assessment, and cannot be determined by a metric. I see this crop up a lot. "XX game got 9/10...I played it, and it wasn't good. That was a terrible review!"

I do agree with this entirely though, and have said the same myself:

Spoiler

...critics and academics tend to fall back on elements of film or literature theory that have dissolved into the public consciousness, and vague opinions on whether the game feels nice or not. This is part of why there is a general trend of the gaming press highly praising works with large narrative content.

That said, I think games with strong narrative content merit praise. It's incumbent on readers to determine why the game is getting praised by reading the review (and for the reviewer to communicate that, obviously), so people don't buy "Gone Home" anticipating "Resident Evil".

Some of the best "reviews" I ever read were Kieron Gillen's Onionbog and Captain Smith series on RPS back in the day. They say absolutely sweet fuck all about mechanics or how the game "feels to play". They're just descriptive, and funny, and communicate the spirit of the game in question. At no point does Gillen weigh in with "THIS IS GOOD" or give it a numerical score.

 

[Fishyash]

Let's say a new platformer came out: One critic, who adores racing games and plays lots of them, rates it a 2/5. Another critic, who doesn't really like racing games, he's only played 3 others, he rates it 5/5.

It doesn't matter what I think of racing games, I'm going to trust the person who rated it 2/5 more, and it will influence my decision on whether getting the game or not. Of course, this assumes both critics are up to the same quality standards in their writing.

Here's a more interesting dilemma for you...what if the fan of racers gives it 5/5, and the non-fan of racers gives it 1/5, and both raise salient points?

Fans can be just as problematic when it comes to giving quality feedback as haters. I dislike the term "fanboy" because it poisons the well, but there is little question that affection will color perception just as readily as dislike.

This is part of the reason why I actually LIKE review aggregate sites like Metacritic. I can sample a cross section of reviews from a variety of people to get a more coherent overall picture. To this extent, I'm very much in favor of a multitude of voices with varying perspectives, barring 1/10 score-bombs and 10/10 score-plumpers.

In regards to your dilemma, again I would trust the fan's opinion more. Again, this is primarily because he's likely played more racing games, so he's likely going to express a more informed opinion. He has a wider basis of comparison, a higher understanding of the mechanics and is likely to show a higher level of appreciation for the game he's reviewing. Positive bias primarily indicates the level of passion and the likelyhood of experience.

If both critics raise good points in their reviews I will definitely put both reviews in account, but on a gut feeling I am going to support the fan's opinion more.

You're right, fans CAN be just as problematic and can give just as terrible feedback as a non-fan, but I feel it's less likely to happen if the critic is actually any good.

Review aggregate sites are quite nice, but I am not a big fan of the "average score". To me scores shouldn't represent an average of parts, but a final impression or summary of your thoughts. However, being able to look up several opinions at one place is fantastic, and reminds me of some of the older video game magazines where you would sometimes get to read several opinions from different writers about a game.

 

[Azure23]

Holy Fuckwit Batman!

You find a reviewer who examines things through a critical lense that's important to you and that you understand. End of story. That critical lenses can be anything, pure gameplay, ideological progressiveness, narrative strength, fucking anything. Christ is this really something we as a community are complaining about now? I mean for fucks sake there's a reason that sites reviewing movies from the perspective of a Christian pastor exist, where else are all the people who care about God's Not Dead gonna get their movie recommendations? It's the same for gaming, and you know what? If a reviewer says "I don't like this character because they seem sexist" that's not a bias on the reviewers part, it's their fucking review, that's them divulging part of their critical lense. It's honest, and it's their goddamn platform. I suppose you want to arbitrarily limit their vocabulary when discussing a game next? It's not "sexist" it's "badly written," is that it?

Look you GG'ers have some decent points, publishers and their hired gun publicity consultants can and have exercised an increasing unacceptable level of control over the wording and release of certain forms of media (mostly YouTube videos, shadiness of mordor anyone?), that's a legit gripe, get on that. This is just fucking whining. Find a reviewer whose critical lense is more in line with your consumer concerns, that is all.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Review aggregate sites are quite nice, but I am not a big fan of the "average score". To me scores shouldn't represent an average of parts, but a final impression or summary of your thoughts. However, being able to look up several opinions at one place is fantastic, and reminds me of some of the older video game magazines where you would sometimes get to read several opinions from different writers about a game.

Yeah...there's something I encounter called "Rotten Tomatoes" syndrome, where a well made but divisive film will end up in the 70's or even the 60's due to appealing strongly to a smaller audience, and middling populist fare that is hard to criticize but not particularly inspired can easily land in the 90's. It's part of the problem with "scoring" a fundamentally subjective experience.

 

[QuicklyAcross]

I keep seeing, and hearing, people talk about the call for unbiased reviews. But really, there can be no such thing from any human being that has ever played a game or has any opinions on anything. At least if you want an honest review.

Now, for sure, I don't think you have any business reviewing a game made by a friend or someone who you have certain financial ties to (such as where you stand to gain financially from the success of the game) or when you have worked on creating the game. That kind of bias through relationship is easy to identify, and avoid, and is generally considered as being corrupt - rather than just biased.

But let's get creative with an example of personal, rather than financial or relationship based, bias:

If I play a game where all the mechanics are excellent, production values are good, it's well optimized and the story holds up well, but I hate one aspect of the game so much it sours the whole experience (making me strongly dislike the game). How then should I then rate it?

Should I disregard my experience and judge the game wholly on its mechanics and execution, or should I take my experience into account and rate it based on how I experienced it - meaning based on my own values and enjoyment?

I think cases like these illustrate the problems with assigning a numbered score; as scores are problematic because it's often all people look at, rather than the actual review. Without scores the actual review does, in my opinion, carry more weight.

But as it is, ultimately, it's the number assigned at the end that carries actual weight.[footnote]I do not review games, but if I did I would not assign them scores. I'd possibly assign them arbitrary things like: "I give this game 4 penguins wearing funny hats, 25 sad seals and one seal whisperer - there to help cheer up the sad seals and teach them how to love again." or "One potted plant and a companion pillow with the print of your favorite banana, half peeled."[/footnote][footnote]Captcha: that will not work. Shut up captcha, I'll give whatever random nonsense that pop up in my head at the time as a hypothetical scores if I want to.[/footnote]

I can only speak for myself with my own interpretation means of the "unbiased" review. Bias is not the same as having subjective opinion or thoughts about something. Say for example that you dont like the taste of mustard but ketchup is alright, now if you would review a ketchup vs a mustard bottle we would already know that yes, to you in particular, mustard does not appeal. That has already been disclosed.
However, lets say that the company making that ketchup pays you a little bit or that you have ads on your review site for that brand, then it becomes a bias, then it becomes more than just a review or you giving your own personal opinion, because now money is involved. Doesnt always have to be money it can be any form of service for giving an upper hand to the ketchup in your ketchup vs mustard review for example, or just the ketchup on its own.

What id like to see from reviews is actually more in align with game ANALYSIS and not just subjectivism.
Example yet again:
This game features towers which shoot at your enemies until they die = Game Analysis
This games way of handling combat, especially the towers interaction with enemy units, is done poorly because of
how slow and little damage they do = Game Review

See the difference? If not then ill just have to explain further.
One just states the facts, objectively without adding any unnecessary subjective commentary.
The other presents an argument, and not the game.
The other presents the notion that YOU feel something or think something about this mechanic or part in the game that then tips the review in one way or the other.

I can yet again only speak for myself and my own country since the gaming journalism news we get in our magazines dont actually feature reviews, but instead feature mostly game analysis, yet theyre still called reviews, which i think is healthy since that is the way we should be approached the "unbiased review"

 

[Scootinfroodie]

Split the post in two. If that's an issue I can take this portion to PM's, however I felt that productive discussion was being had here

Yes and no. There is definitely room and an audience for "expert opinions" and deep analysis. But there are also people who play and enjoy games casually, and may prefer a more surface analysis. Reviews shouldn't necessarily be rated by the degree to which they appeal to grognards.

There's, once again, a middle ground here
A game like Godhand, Quake or (insert fighting game here), isn't going to be appropriately conveyed by surface level analysis by someone whose total sum of experience is playing sorta-similar games purely for review purposes. While it's important to note the learning curve (one that some would consider a barrier to entry) it does the audience no good to only hear of that, and to hear of it every time. The solution to this could be reviews by multiple individuals, a specific section of each review dedicated to one or the other, etc.
The problem is that there are very few expert opinions currently (MoreThanMashing on GyP is one of the few that I've found outside of fansites like Shoryuken and ESReality). As someone who has recently attempted to branch out into more skill/gameplay focused titles, it is immensely frustrating that most games analysis is the equivalent of asking a dude on the street what he thought of (insert movie here) when it comes to asking about the core feature of the medium.

No shit. That's not what reviews are for. "Good" is not an objective assessment, and cannot be determined by a metric. I see this crop up a lot. "XX game got 9/10...I played it, and it wasn't good. That was a terrible review!"

What's being said (or at least what I got out of it) is that the review isn't even touching on the subject matter that would inform them of the game's potential quality. If I wanna get a game like Mario, and the whole review centers around split screen, graphics, and an in depth analysis of the game from the perspective of a radical PETA member, I wont know if the game is actually worth *playing*
RPS continues to be an excellent example of this. If I didn't already have Skullgirls, I would not have known what to make of it after reading the review in question. If I hadn't seen the fact that the game was more than tutorials, boobs and short stories, I might think that was where the experience ended (outside of getting wrecked in MP of course).

That said, I think games with strong narrative content merit praise. It's incumbent on readers to determine why the game is getting praised by reading the review (and for the reviewer to communicate that, obviously), so people don't buy "Gone Home" anticipating "Resident Evil".

I think it may just be a case of different metrics for different styles of game or software creation. I've never seen Spec Ops the Line recommended for its gameplay, but if writers are going to go from a traditional perspective for both it and Vanquish, Vanquish will lose every time despite seeking an entirely different audience. The difficulty in determining where praise is/ought to be aimed is in the fact that at times, the actual central portion of the medium (gameplay) isn't really mentioned at all. That this is happening on major games media sites is of some concern to the consumer, as these are the most readily available sources they can use to inform themselves

Some of the best "reviews" I ever read were Kieron Gillen's Onionbog and Captain Smith series on RPS back in the day. They say absolutely sweet fuck all about mechanics or how the game "feels to play". They're just descriptive, and funny, and communicate the spirit of the game in question. At no point does Gillen weigh in with "THIS IS GOOD" or give it a numerical score.

You don't need to outright state "I think Game X is a quality game(tm)" or give it a numerical score. However, if a game's draw is its mechanics (Arena Shooters, Fighting games, Spectacle Fighters, Grand Strategy and Comp. RTS games etc.) and the entirety of a review (read: the piece designed to analyze a product to inform a potential consumer) ignores that portion, then it has failed in a sense. While I'm sure there are people out there who will only buy DMC games with the most sophisticated of stories, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's probably not the majority. If one wishes to write a Freudian analysis of Super Metroid (also known as "having a field day"), my suggestion would be to make that a separate piece than the actual review. It can exist on the exact same site, with the exact same viewpoint written by the exact same writer, but as an editorial and not as a promotion or condemnation of a title specifically aimed at informing potential consumers of their potential enjoyment.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Split the post in two. If that's an issue I can take this portion to PM's, however I felt that productive discussion was being had here

Nope, no problem. Will respond to PM half later.

There's, once again, a middle ground here

I'm not a fighting game fan. The closest comparative I have in terms of a systemically complex and mechanically deep experience is DOTA 2. My introduction to the game did not come through Purge's excellent "Welcome to DOTA, You Suck" guide, because it was loaded with impenetrable genre jargon and presented the game as a colossally intimidating undertaking. Rather, my introduction came through Total Biscuit's "Singe Draft Disaster" series. In which TB, with only a beginner's comprehension of the game play and mechanics, fumbled his way through a lot of low MMR games whilst playing badly and making mistakes. I could relate to that MUCH more easily. Many games later, I could read Purge's guide and be properly informed by it.

As you say, there is a middle ground, and the middle ground I occupy is that different people are going to come to reviews wanting different things.

What's being said (or at least what I got out of it) is that the review isn't even touching on the subject matter that would inform them of the game's potential quality. If I wanna get a game like Mario, and the whole review centers around split screen, graphics, and an in depth analysis of the game from the perspective of a radical PETA member, I wont know if the game is actually worth *playing*

You won't, no. But if there was, say, a statistically significant portion of the audience that WAS deeply invested in PETA's policies, that information would be rather germane to them, and that review might be all they needed. I have a friend with two young kids. Sometimes I've recommended animated films to him, and his first step is to check a review site that breaks down whether or not they're suitable for young kids. He trusts it. If the site suggests Spirited Away might frighten his daughter, he's not going to show it to her. To me, it's one of the best films ever made. To him, it's a complete non-starter, because we're both coming at it from completely different perspectives.

Naturally, if someone's perspective is completely radicalized and highly unique to them, they're going to struggle to find anyone who wants to read their input. That's on them, though. Particularly if they're trying to put food on the table with their writing.

I think it may just be a case of different metrics for different styles of game or software creation. I've never seen Spec Ops the Line recommended for its gameplay, but if writers are going to go from a traditional perspective for both it and Vanquish, Vanquish will lose every time despite seeking an entirely different audience. The difficulty in determining where praise is/ought to be aimed is in the fact that at times, the actual central portion of the medium (gameplay) isn't really mentioned at all. That this is happening on major games media sites is of some concern to the consumer, as these are the most readily available sources they can use to inform themselves.

What the central portion of the medium is will differ from person to person, will it not? Those seeking or primarily drawn to narrative experiences won't necessarily give a fig that the game play in To the Moon or The Walking Dead is poor to non-existent.

To pursue an example, I went back looking for a particular review on RPS, and lo and behold it was penned by the loathed John Walker. It is here:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/11/03/wot-i-think-to-the-moon/

This review doesn't devote even a single paragraph to hammering the game for its non-existent play mechanics. Based on this strong review, I bought the game, and it was one of if not my favorite gaming experience from that year, and a candidate for high placement among my favorite games of all time...a list stretching back thirty years. This review is exactly the kind of problem review you are identifying, and yet it was invaluable to me. And if I don't qualify as part of the core gamer demographic, I have no idea who does.

You don't need to outright state "I think Game X is a quality game(tm)" or give it a numerical score. However, if a game's draw is its mechanics (Arena Shooters, Fighting games, Spectacle Fighters, Grand Strategy and Comp. RTS games etc.) and the entirety of a review (read: the piece designed to analyze a product to inform a potential consumer) ignores that portion, then it has failed in a sense.

I think you can certainly make a cogent argument that the review "missed the point", but there are likely audiences out there who would similarly miss the point. If Johnny GameReview docks 5 points off Titfighter 3 for overly judicious employment of jiggle physics, it's quite probably that there is a demographic out there who would share his distaste. Naturally, Johnny's opinion will not appeal to Titfighter 3's core audience, so they will likely dismiss his review as irrelevant. I intend no umbrage with "Titfighter 3", by the way, I'm just trying to paint a broad analogy.

While I'm sure there are people out there who will only buy DMC games with the most sophisticated of stories, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's probably not the majority. If one wishes to write a Freudian analysis of Super Metroid (also known as "having a field day"), my suggestion would be to make that a separate piece than the actual review. It can exist on the exact same site, with the exact same viewpoint written by the exact same writer, but as an editorial and not as a promotion or condemnation of a title specifically aimed at informing potential consumers of their potential enjoyment.

Sure. I'm all for allowing a maximum number of perspectives on an issue. However, if a writer on a website is the only one to cover a game, and that writer is incapable of separating his or her distaste for a game's aesthetic or expressed ideology from the soundness of its mechanics, then I anticipate their review will reflect that. And I think that's perfectly OK. If I, as a reader, find it starts compromising my ability to mine useful information from the reviews, I'll probably just gravitate to different writers. Notably, in my longer history of consuming game reviews, this has almost never happened.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

No such thing as unbiased. Just need to give those game reviews to the right people. For me, i hate dancing games so im biased though they could be awesome for those that love them. I think people need to do their research and buy the games they think they will enjoy instead of what a stranger thinks - take there opinion with a pinch of salt. Ive played games that reviewers hated and ive enjoyed them.

 

[BarkBarker]

If I was to review something, one score for personal experience, the other for mechanical success. The former is my joys and pains from the game, the latter is a judgement of the games efforts mechanically to succeed. This football manager game is not my thing I wasn't having fun a 5/10...but as a well designed machine there seems to be incredibly effort in crafting a system beginners can learn and experts can master with loads of small customizable extras and details, so mechanically it gets a 9/10. A game is both a machine and a experience, I can enjoy a buggy as fuck game just as much as I can dislike a well crafted experience because of personal shortcomings.

 

[Fishyash]

Yeah...there's something I encounter called "Rotten Tomatoes" syndrome, where a well made but divisive film will end up in the 70's or even the 60's due to appealing strongly to a smaller audience, and middling populist fare that is hard to criticize but not particularly inspired can easily land in the 90's. It's part of the problem with "scoring" a fundamentally subjective experience.

The situation you mentioned describes the problem with aggregate scores perfectly. A polarizing film with mostly high/low scores averaging out to a middle score is a problem. When you've got reviews stating heavy like and dislike for a film, when those two scores are averaged out it will reach a middle score, representing an entirely different opinion from either of those reviews.

I don't get the notion that scoring a subjective experience is problematic or difficult in any way, shape or form. In fact they're more useful than a summary due to how practical they are. The only problems that come with it are the misuse of it, like the aforementioned score averages, ridiculous metrics (rating anything by a higher scale than out of 5 is silly) and turning it into a math equation by scoring a game by individual aspects (graphics/sound/controls etc.) and making the final score an average out of those.

Think of it like this. You're having a conversation with someone, they bring up a game and ask you what you think of it as a whole (under the assumption you recently played the game). You are most likely able to come up with an answer on the spot. That answer can easily be represented with a number. Anybody can do this on the spot, so a critic should be able to do this with all the time he has spent writing the review. If anything, it should be easier, not harder.

 

[Netrigan]

Yeah...there's something I encounter called "Rotten Tomatoes" syndrome, where a well made but divisive film will end up in the 70's or even the 60's due to appealing strongly to a smaller audience, and middling populist fare that is hard to criticize but not particularly inspired can easily land in the 90's. It's part of the problem with "scoring" a fundamentally subjective experience.

The situation you mentioned describes the problem with aggregate scores perfectly. A polarizing film with mostly high/low scores averaging out to a middle score is a problem. When you've got reviews stating heavy like and dislike for a film, when those two scores are averaged out it will reach a middle score, representing an entirely different opinion from either of those reviews.

I don't get the notion that scoring a subjective experience is problematic or difficult in any way, shape or form. In fact they're more useful than a summary due to how practical they are. The only problems that come with it are the misuse of it, like the aforementioned score averages, ridiculous metrics (rating anything by a higher scale than out of 5 is silly) and turning it into a math equation by scoring a game by individual aspects (graphics/sound/controls etc.) and making the final score an average out of those.

Think of it like this. You're having a conversation with someone, they bring up a game and ask you what you think of it as a whole (under the assumption you recently played the game). You are most likely able to come up with an answer on the spot. That answer can easily be represented with a number. Anybody can do this on the spot, so a critic should be able to do this with all the time he has spent writing the review. If anything, it should be easier, not harder.

Quite a number of critics find the whole scoring system to be idiotic and only do it because it's demanded of them. Siskel & Ebert rather liked the Thumbs Up/Down, since it put more focus on what they said about the movie.... although they would occasionally qualify the final decision with "an enthusiastic thumb up" or a "thumb way down", when they particularly liked or disliked a film.

George Lucas probably said it best, movies are binary. You either like it or you don't. The specifics don't matter too much. A movie can have all the things you say you like... and you dislike it. Or a movie can be a cluster-fuck... and you do. If I described to you my experience with Transformers 2, you'd assume I didn't like it; but I loved it. Saw it two times in IMax. Everything is absolutely horrible about the movie except for it being totally awesome.

But the problem really is people pay too damn much attention to the average score on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. It's far more interesting to dig in and see which films/games people are passionate about. I don't care if 90% of the critics hated something if the other 10% absolutely loved it. If it sounds like something you'd enjoy, then go see it. Meanwhile, the latest action mediocrity might technically get a passing mark, but if virtually all the critics are lukewarm about it, it's probably something very skippable.

And Armond White has proven the Total Crank Review is an artform all its own. His stuff is just hilarious to read, despite making a mockery of "objective" reviews.

 

[QuintonMcLeod]

I think you and I agree a lot more than we may both think. What are your opinion's on Polygon's Bayonetta 2 review?

After having just read it, it's a review that covers a lot of the gameplay points, and misses others, given that its a WiiU game, I can understand why graphics weren't a major consideration, the bulk of the review seemed to swing from talking about gameplay to the problems the reviewer had with the sexualization. The review also doesn't talk about the story as much as I usually like in my reviews.

The sexualization complaints are ones I both agree with the author on some points and disagree on others, and I can understand why it would hurt his enjoyment of the game, the text praises much of the game whilst deriding the presentation of bayonetta herself, and that while he enjoyed the action, the propensity for the game to have heavily sexualized moments interspersed during the fights seriously impacted his enjoyment of the game.

The podcast at the end features the reviewer talking about how he really liked the mechanics, but that there was a subjective component that seriously caused him issues, and he justifies his views fairly well even if I disagree with the degree with which they may impact. He also talks about how a couple of other negatives for the game were not mentioned for space reasons and how the scoring system works.

The score seems unusually low, but that's not so much Bayonetta specifically as it seems to be an issue with polygon in general, or at least a few reviewers on it. Polygon is sort of the anti-IGN, where IGN takes flak for criticizing a game heavily in the written review but still giving it an 8.5-9.5. Polygon seems to have a lot of reviews that heavily praise a game whilst only listing a few negatives, or negatives that don't seem like a big deal, and then sticking it with a 7-8 range score. Even games that don't list ideological complaints will often get very low end scores of 7-8.5 on Polygon, so that seems more like just how their scoring rubric breaks down. As a side note, the person who writes the text of the review isn't the sole arbiter of the score review, Polygon uses some kind of weird median score system amongst multiple staff members.

Overall, it's not my cup of tea, but I can easily see how such a review would be useful to some people, especially if taken in consideration with a range of other reviews and viewpoints on the game, from the other people giving it a 7-8 to the people giving it perfect scores.

I have to disagree with you. Saying Bayonetta 2 is over sexualized and then doxing it is the same as saying GTA is too violent and doxing that. If the series is known to be sexual (as Bayonetta 1 clearly shows), why punish the sequel for incorporating a tone the original already has? This is exactly what happens in this Polygon review. Saying a character is too sexy and then calling the game "bad" because of it is disingenuous to the gamers who really only want to know if the game is good or not.

I think you are missing several things, firstly, he never calls the game bad, not even enough to warrant putting it in quotes, he only mentions that the sexualization detracted from his enjoyment, he goes out of his way to remark that this is an entirely subjective point, and includes the caveat that it hurt his personal enjoyment, as he explains in the post review podcast, it is like when people docked points from Ninja Gaiden for being too difficult, as you say, difficulty was the point of ninja gaiden, but plenty of mainstream sites docked the game points for being frustrating or too difficult.

Much like some people thought NG was too difficult, the reviewer here thought the game was too sexualized and that the sexualization hurt the game rather than helped it, saying "that's the point of the game", does not make it immune from criticism, you can still launch a critique of why GTA's over the top violence may detract from the game, or why sexualization does not work as well as the gamemakers intended. It is perfectly valid to criticize a game that does something intentionally if you still think the game isn't doing it well, or you think that the intention is wrong and subtracts from the other elements, in this case, that would be the reviewer's opinion of the quality of the combat system. That does not mean that such criticism is always right, but the intention of a game does not suddenly make it immune from being disliked either.

Finally, Polygon doesn't just dock points due to a single reviewer, as I said in my previous post, the score system that Polygon uses is a consensus between multiple staff on the sight, and it is also not supposed to be a determination of how good or bad a game is, they say multiple times that the score is a recommendation for how much the staff think the game is worth picking up, and a 7.5 is still a recommendation according to their review scale. Now, you can think that points system is silly, and I would agree, Polygon seems to have a lot of odd quirks to its points scale and how the final point score is determined, which would explain why a their reviews end up being controversial from time to time.

No, I believe you're actually missing the point entirely.

1) He has reviewed older games which had just as much or even more sexuality than what Bayonetta 2 is presenting, however, he mentions nothing about it in those games. Up comes along Bayonetta 2, and all of a sudden, it's an issue.

2) He's still pushing his own ideology upon the game in question, and he is "docking" points because of it. If he had played the game and completely skipped the cutscenes, would the game score this low? Of course not, because what he's reviewing is no longer the game, but rather, the sexuality surrounding the game.

You cannot put opinions down to statistics. You want to know why he reviewed games with sexualization but didn't bring it up then? Because clearly he didn't get bothered by it then. There are some things that are ok in some games or just work that don't in other games. You can just sit down and go "If there is a 15% increase in boob shots then your opinion must change accordingly". Human beings are not robots.

I've yet to have someone explain to me why this is such a horrible thing. Reviewers tend to bring their "personal ideology" in when it comes to reviewing games. Namely on what they think is a good game. Technically every reviewer who praised Bayonetta is pushing their personaly ideology because according to their ideology, Bayonetta is a good character. But people don't complain about THAT do they? He doesn't like it...and? You've got countless other reviewers singing Bayonetta's praises, why is one reviewer giving it a not even that negative review such a big deal. Because he didn't like Bayonetta's design? Well if the developers wanted him to not have the cutscenes as part of the experience, they shouldn't have put cutscenes in.

1) No one is arguing this.

EDIT: Let me elucidate on this a bit further.
You claimed the reviewer couldn't be bothered with sexualization until now. I suppose I subconsciously ignored this statement from you because it makes the least amount of logical sense. If a reviewer is to review something, he has to be consistent. If you review one thing by a set of standards, then it's only fair to review another thing by those same set of standards. You can't just switch up standards because you can't be bothered by them.


2) I'm explaining to you why this is a horrible thing. This is about integrity, and it seems to fly right by you. Other reviewers aren't reviewing the game and deducting points because they don't like Bayonetta as a character.

 

[QuintonMcLeod]

I think you and I agree a lot more than we may both think. What are your opinion's on Polygon's Bayonetta 2 review?

After having just read it, it's a review that covers a lot of the gameplay points, and misses others, given that its a WiiU game, I can understand why graphics weren't a major consideration, the bulk of the review seemed to swing from talking about gameplay to the problems the reviewer had with the sexualization. The review also doesn't talk about the story as much as I usually like in my reviews.

The sexualization complaints are ones I both agree with the author on some points and disagree on others, and I can understand why it would hurt his enjoyment of the game, the text praises much of the game whilst deriding the presentation of bayonetta herself, and that while he enjoyed the action, the propensity for the game to have heavily sexualized moments interspersed during the fights seriously impacted his enjoyment of the game.

The podcast at the end features the reviewer talking about how he really liked the mechanics, but that there was a subjective component that seriously caused him issues, and he justifies his views fairly well even if I disagree with the degree with which they may impact. He also talks about how a couple of other negatives for the game were not mentioned for space reasons and how the scoring system works.

The score seems unusually low, but that's not so much Bayonetta specifically as it seems to be an issue with polygon in general, or at least a few reviewers on it. Polygon is sort of the anti-IGN, where IGN takes flak for criticizing a game heavily in the written review but still giving it an 8.5-9.5. Polygon seems to have a lot of reviews that heavily praise a game whilst only listing a few negatives, or negatives that don't seem like a big deal, and then sticking it with a 7-8 range score. Even games that don't list ideological complaints will often get very low end scores of 7-8.5 on Polygon, so that seems more like just how their scoring rubric breaks down. As a side note, the person who writes the text of the review isn't the sole arbiter of the score review, Polygon uses some kind of weird median score system amongst multiple staff members.

Overall, it's not my cup of tea, but I can easily see how such a review would be useful to some people, especially if taken in consideration with a range of other reviews and viewpoints on the game, from the other people giving it a 7-8 to the people giving it perfect scores.

I have to disagree with you. Saying Bayonetta 2 is over sexualized and then doxing it is the same as saying GTA is too violent and doxing that. If the series is known to be sexual (as Bayonetta 1 clearly shows), why punish the sequel for incorporating a tone the original already has? This is exactly what happens in this Polygon review. Saying a character is too sexy and then calling the game "bad" because of it is disingenuous to the gamers who really only want to know if the game is good or not.

I think you are missing several things, firstly, he never calls the game bad, not even enough to warrant putting it in quotes, he only mentions that the sexualization detracted from his enjoyment, he goes out of his way to remark that this is an entirely subjective point, and includes the caveat that it hurt his personal enjoyment, as he explains in the post review podcast, it is like when people docked points from Ninja Gaiden for being too difficult, as you say, difficulty was the point of ninja gaiden, but plenty of mainstream sites docked the game points for being frustrating or too difficult.

Much like some people thought NG was too difficult, the reviewer here thought the game was too sexualized and that the sexualization hurt the game rather than helped it, saying "that's the point of the game", does not make it immune from criticism, you can still launch a critique of why GTA's over the top violence may detract from the game, or why sexualization does not work as well as the gamemakers intended. It is perfectly valid to criticize a game that does something intentionally if you still think the game isn't doing it well, or you think that the intention is wrong and subtracts from the other elements, in this case, that would be the reviewer's opinion of the quality of the combat system. That does not mean that such criticism is always right, but the intention of a game does not suddenly make it immune from being disliked either.

Finally, Polygon doesn't just dock points due to a single reviewer, as I said in my previous post, the score system that Polygon uses is a consensus between multiple staff on the sight, and it is also not supposed to be a determination of how good or bad a game is, they say multiple times that the score is a recommendation for how much the staff think the game is worth picking up, and a 7.5 is still a recommendation according to their review scale. Now, you can think that points system is silly, and I would agree, Polygon seems to have a lot of odd quirks to its points scale and how the final point score is determined, which would explain why a their reviews end up being controversial from time to time.

No, I believe you're actually missing the point entirely.

1) He has reviewed older games which had just as much or even more sexuality than what Bayonetta 2 is presenting, however, he mentions nothing about it in those games. Up comes along Bayonetta 2, and all of a sudden, it's an issue.

2) He's still pushing his own ideology upon the game in question, and he is "docking" points because of it. If he had played the game and completely skipped the cutscenes, would the game score this low? Of course not, because what he's reviewing is no longer the game, but rather, the sexuality surrounding the game.

You cannot put opinions down to statistics. You want to know why he reviewed games with sexualization but didn't bring it up then? Because clearly he didn't get bothered by it then. There are some things that are ok in some games or just work that don't in other games. You can just sit down and go "If there is a 15% increase in boob shots then your opinion must change accordingly". Human beings are not robots.

I've yet to have someone explain to me why this is such a horrible thing. Reviewers tend to bring their "personal ideology" in when it comes to reviewing games. Namely on what they think is a good game. Technically every reviewer who praised Bayonetta is pushing their personaly ideology because according to their ideology, Bayonetta is a good character. But people don't complain about THAT do they? He doesn't like it...and? You've got countless other reviewers singing Bayonetta's praises, why is one reviewer giving it a not even that negative review such a big deal. Because he didn't like Bayonetta's design? Well if the developers wanted him to not have the cutscenes as part of the experience, they shouldn't have put cutscenes in.

Read the Polygon review. He complains about the cutscenes more than anything else in the game.

 

[QuintonMcLeod]

2) I'm explaining to you why this is a horrible thing. This is about integrity, and it seems to fly right by you. Other reviewers aren't reviewing the game and deducting points because they don't like Bayonetta as a character.

... So? Other reviewers don't have that as a focus. Read those reviews. Problem solved.

** shrugs **

Who knows? I'm just speaking in general terms. The reviews I've read so far didn't seem to focus on Bayonetta as a character, nor did it seem they based their reviews from Bayonetta as an individual.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip
[/b]

Games don't exist in a vacuum. Everyone has things that will bug them in some cases and not in others. For example, the sexualization of women in Metro Last Light bugged the shit out of me. But it didn't bother me at all in Kill La Kill even though it was even more present there. Because Kill La Kill handled it better. People aren't either "I never mind sexualization" or "I always hate it"

Do you know why they didn't deduct points for not liking Bayonetta? Because they actually liked her. The other reviewer didn't. Really when you get down to it, whether you admit it or not, you're advocating for reviewers to alter their reviews to match what other reviewers are saying.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Read the Polygon review. He complains about the cutscenes more than anything else in the game.
[/quote]

And? No really, he complained about it a lot and? He still gave the game a good score, he still thought it was good. If he complained about the cut scenes more than anything else, that means it was the biggest problem that he had. And cuts scenes tend to play a big part in a story heavy game, which Bayonetta are. So they're an important part of the game.

So...what's the big deal?

 

[QuintonMcLeod]

No, I believe you're actually missing the point entirely.

1) He has reviewed older games which had just as much or even more sexuality than what Bayonetta 2 is presenting, however, he mentions nothing about it in those games. Up comes along Bayonetta 2, and all of a sudden, it's an issue.

2) He's still pushing his own ideology upon the game in question, and he is "docking" points because of it. If he had played the game and completely skipped the cutscenes, would the game score this low? Of course not, because what he's reviewing is no longer the game, but rather, the sexuality surrounding the game.

1. you are going to have to provide context here, I do not know what other games he has reviewed with "more" sexualization than Bayonetta 2, which is a loaded and subjective statement on your part as I'm not sure I can honestly think of many games that are more sexualized than Bayonetta. Other than porn games, I would put Bayonetta's sexualization above pretty much every game out there, even games like DOA extreme beach volleyball and fighting games like Soul Caliber don't feature actual stripping and poll dancing throughout the games from the main character, so what you see as more sexualized games being overlooked, the reviewer may see as cases of less sexualized games that don't detract as much from his experience.

2. the sexuality is a much greater part of the game than the cutscenes, have you played Bayonetta? It is irrevocably linked to the gameplay, attack moves, enemies, story, cutscenes, and character designs, it is impossible to skip the cutscenes and still avoid the sexualization, so yes, he likely would have been just as hard on the game if he had skipped them.

Not that this point makes any sense anyway, if you have to skip a segment of the game in order to enjoy it more, that doesn't mean you are inserting ideology into it, if I skip the cutscenes in FF XIII that eliminates most of my problems with the games story, but if I were reviewing it, it would still be valid for me to critique the story because it is a part of the game, having to excise a portion of the game to improve your opinion on it is not a strike against the reviewer, and it doesn't mean he is pushing his ideology upon the game.

1) No need to provide context. You can just type his name in Google and get all the context you need. As far as games and sexualization is concerned, you are conveniently neglecting a great number of games. Dragon's Crown ring any bells?

2) I've owned Bayonetta on the PS3 (and beaten it). I've also played the Bayonetta 2 demo on the Wii U and currently plan to buy the full game this week. However, if you read his review, a great majority of his complaints stem from the cutscenes.

You brought up Bayonetta 1, which is good, because it proves my point further. If you are playing a sequel to a game that clearly had sexualization present, why would you suddenly have more of an issue with it's sequel? This is where consistency comes into play. I'm not saying Bayonetta isn't sexualized. It most certainly is! However, to suddenly have an issue with it in a sequel and not with its original is simply disingenuous.