Who Do You Trust?

[stompy]

See, I stopped listening to reviewers a long time ago. I just watch gameplay videos and read about what the game is about. If it looks appealing, I'll investigate it, and form my own opinion about it. Everyone has different tastes, and reviewers are human.

 

[Susan Arendt]

I've found game reviews to be generally untrustworthy. They've done a very poor job of warning me off of buying absolute crap (like Arx Fatalis, which got a 73.5% on Gamerankings despite being one of the greatest concentrations of bad game design ever to be placed on a DVD), and I've found that I can't really trust them about games that they're raving about.

My own instincts on what looks good/bad have been far more accurate, and if that's not enough there are demos.

Your own instincts on what looks good/bad are naturally going to be more accurate--for you. What many people don't care to accept is that just because they like (or hate) a game, that doesn't necessarily mean the game is good (or bad).

I, for example, really enjoyed Arx Fatalis, but that doesn't mean the game isn't flawed, or that it doesn't have aspects that might drive other people batty. We all have our own dealbreakers when it comes to games -- things that you consider bad game design might not bother me at all. You might not even be right in thinking that they're bad game design, they might just push your personal buttons. Then again, you might actually be spot on...it's all very, very subjective.

Reviews are guidelines, not gospel. A review cannot possibly be all things to all people, because people have so many different gaming personalities.

 

[Lt. Sera]

Game reviews are fine. You can use them as a tool to help you decide whether a game will be worth buying, but you'll have to read a collection of reviews and pay attention to the text, rather then the rating (really, no game is worth a 10/10, there are always flaws).

Take a few game reviews, get your own opinion through previews/demo's couple those with your own standards of liking and economic worth et voila, a healthy basis to decide whether a game is worth it's price. If it's not, but still looks like fun, buy it a month or 2 later, when price has dropped.

Blindly trusting anything (and from one source, in this case a review) is always a bad call.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

Your own instincts on what looks good/bad are naturally going to be more accurate--for you. What many people don't care to accept is that just because they like (or hate) a game, that doesn't necessarily mean the game is good (or bad).

If uninformed guesses are better than reviews, the reviews are somewhat pointless, no? Of course, that attitude is one of the endemic problems with reviewers. Instead of trying to give an in-depth evaluation of different aspects of the game so that a reader might gleam some flake of insight into whether they'd enjoy the game or not, the author just talks about what's important to him and fails to address major, glaring flaws. There are reviewers who wouldn't bother telling you that a game will set your house on fire because they like the menu system enough to recommend the game. When a game reviewer gives a blanket recommendation to a game like MGS4 that has a very pronounced selective appeal, then he has gone significantly below the level of "guideline".

And Arx Fatalis goes beyond being "flawed". It's unimaginative, uninspired, has terrible production values, has terrible dialog and voice acting, has a terrible habit of sending you back and forth across it's boring, featureless world constantly in lieu of actual gameplay, and hell, even managed to screw up the audio effect for the character's foot steps, making him sound like some kind of lurching gimp. That's not something most games could even dream of actually doing badly. Of course, you'd never know this from the reviews, because that would have involved some kind of actual professionalism. The gamespot review even contains the incredibly egregious lie that "Arx Fatalis isn't exactly a linear, straightforward game.", when the entire thing is characterized by having virtually nothing in the way of sidequests or sandbox content.

 

[Asehujiko]

technically awesome game like Crysis

Crysis is very far from technicaly awesome. Other games with merely 5% less poly's on screen run atleast 25% better. EA skipped optimalisation completely and blamed the results on people's systems.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

technically awesome game like Crysis

Crysis is very far from technicaly awesome. Other games with merely 5% less poly's on screen run atleast 25% better. EA skipped optimalisation completely and blamed the results on people's systems.

Graphics are far more complex than just how many polys you have on your screen; the Crysis engine has been used to create photorealistic images, which, even as a tech demo, is impressive.

 

[Hawaiigm]

Unfortunately, Game companies will like you more if you give their games good reviews. Just how it is. The reason people like Yatzhee can get away with it is that their reviews are at least partly for entertainment purposes (also, I would hope, that the Escapist has enough integrity not to bend to that kind of pressure)

 

[slyder35]

Case in point: Clive Barker's Jericho - most critics hated it. Personally it was in the top 5 games I played last year - loved it.

The problem with PC gaming is that you cannot "try before you buy" so easily. Few stores rent PC games (well in Australia anyway), very console focussed. Also you cannot just trade in PC games (again, Aussie experience) and hence cut your losses if the game is baaad. Ebay is painful.

So for PC gamers we rely on reviews ALOT.

 

[MecaEcco]

How much of this stems from the fact that when game makers know they have a bad game they elect not to send out review copies- therefore forcing bad reviews to be written long after the game has come out and has already sold a number of copies to unsuspecting consumers.

 

[Lazzi]

i have a revolutionary idea. Trust no one well go with our intutions the word on the street if your really that concernd on wether a game is good wate a few months buy it cheap with the rep standsup. And If you like it but it has a bad rep well than you like it. Everey single review a realy jsut and opinion and opionions are abstract and amount to nothing.

 

[Knight Templar]

The reviewer's I trust are swiftly runing out, this site is on the list I'll add. Even if they review EVE, but that might be because I'll never buy it.

 

[AntiAntagonist]

Funny thing about reviews and gaming news: people let things slip all the time. If a writer/reviewer puts down enough information a gamer can usually make an informative guess at how well the developers pulled off what they intended to do. Sometimes enough information is given away that problems that weren't mentioned in the review are made apparent.

In reviews instead of a number or letter score for graphics and sound I'd like to see a short blurb on what design choices were made and how well the choices were pulled off.

Example (Team Fortress 2)-
Graphics: The rest of the Orange Box was filled with gritty violence and paranoid overtones. This game stands out an easy going, but fast paced experience. Every kill feels more like a well delivered punch line. Some may dislike the "toon" visuals, but this style wears less on the mind than realistic visuals which allow players to go for hours at a time.

Sound: The voice of each character is a pleasure to listen to. Each persona fits their role on the battlefield well. The game is filled with brilliant characterizations with incredible displays of cockiness from the Scout and manic abandon from the Heavy. Sound effects are very simple and make excellent cues in the middle of frenetic battles.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

I've always found that you CANNOT trust the number score, ALWAYS read the review first. Though most of the games I rely on reviews for, obscure JRPG's, don't have the advertising budget to lean on reviewers so these reviews are usually honest.

 

[Eminate]

I agree with most of what you say, Sean. In the end a review is just the reviewers opinion, but I sure would like some forewarning on games like Frontlines and Hellgate that were both released completely unfinished and therefore not worth the money we spend on them. This has become an unacceptable trend among publishers these days and I am absolutely sick of it. You here that publishers? Finish the damn game before you release it, I refuse to wait 6 months before you get your lazy arses around to adding joystick support!

 

[shMerker]

I agree with the sentiments of this article. I've long since stopped caring what review sites say about games, but I don't understand, or maybe just disagree with the conclusion. Cheerleaders? Entertainments? I suppose the polite thing to say is "if you like that sort of thing" but really I think this is exactly the sort of thing lots of people hate about gamers. We get so into being on the side of "what's best" that we get a surge of self-satisfaction whenever someone agrees with us. Do I really to say that finding a review entertaining because it agrees with you is probably not healthy?

And trusting no one? The whole reason people read reviews is so that they have an idea of what is worth their time and money and what isn't. Thousands of games get released every year. Even if I avoid the totally worthless ones that actually manage to get a sub 70% score from reviewer X that's still too many. Surely there's some way to skim the cream without having to taste all the crap that swims beneath.

On the other hand affirmation of our opinions comes not only from yes-men but also from kindred spirits, and reviewers aren't the only people we hear from who have opinions. And I think that's really the answer. Gaming is social. If you really want to find games you enjoy, find people you enjoy who also enjoy gaming. Message boards, LAN parties and conventions like PAX are also a great way to hook up with people and find out about stuff you might be missing out on. Basically the time you spend reading five reviews of each 60 dollar game that crosses your radar could instead be spent talking to someone you know about what looks interesting and what they've heard from their friends. If one of the people in your circle buys it he can make a recommendation to everyone else and even answer specific questions you might have. If you're really crazy about saving money you could start circulating copies of single player games that are worth playing but don't take much time to beat like Shadow of The Colossus or Super Mario Galaxy.

The coolest part about all of this is that a company like Atari can't have enough money to pay off everyone in the world, so the opinions stay honest and everybody wins. Everybody who doesn't make terrible games for a living anyway.

 

[Asehujiko]

The coolest part about all of this is that a company like Atari can't have enough money to pay off everyone in the world, so the opinions stay honest and everybody wins. Everybody who doesn't make terrible games for a living anyway.

They don't need to have enough money to bribe everybody. They have enough money for a few big lawsuits and a couple of "you will be next" events to intimidate the majority into silence.

 

[shMerker]

You've totally misunderstood me. I'm talking about individuals. I'm talking about the guys you game with or the message board you hang out on. I'm saying that you know more about games than the people who gives scores to games for a living because you know what you like. Lawsuits won't affect them because it isn't their livelihood. Atari or Capcom or whoever isn't going to sue me for saying I don't like their game, I'm nobody.

Then again maybe this is just all too obvious. It seemed pretty obvious to me. I was only trying to offer a counterpoint to the "trust no one" statement that seemed to be presented in the original article. What I'm trying to say is that there are ways to target your game purchasing decisions to avoid over hyped crap and find the real gems that don't involve websites that give scores to games for the impression of objectivity and have more media devoted to ad space than actual content.

 

[MightyMouse]

I think the issue coincides with the basics of game design. A lot of games currently seem to be designed to have big opening weekends, like blockbuster movies, and just like with blockbuster movies this means that consumers make the decision to buy or not based on very little information. If a game is meant to be longer, or have a more lasting multiplayer aspect, then the emphasis on a huge launch is lessened because people will still buy it months later.

Not being able to trust pre-launch reviews stops being a problem if you just buy games a month or two after they've launched, and indeed a more mature approach to buying and playing games generally lessens the chances that you'll burn out and get sick of games. In the long run this approach to consumers would help the industry immeasurably, but every game seems so make-or-break these days that companies are disincetivised to act responsibly.

 

[shMerker]

Reminds me of a chart I saw of movies by ticket sales that showed that blockbusters like Transformers or Independence Day made most of their box office sales within the first weekend, whereas movies that won Academy Awards had modest opening weekends followed by several weeks or even months of sustained sales. I suspect that many "classic" games are the same way.

 

[Smokescreen]

The problem is this: the product that the review is, is offered to the readers, not to the gaming company.

Fucking with your consumers is a bad practice, and if there isn't a way to put a check on that then there is a serious, serious goddamn problem, not to mention a breach of trust between the readership and whomever is doing the talking (which includes The Escapist). Penny-Arcade is a solid example of this; they tell you what they like, what they don't like and although I know they are not game critics per se, they have credibility, and that's worth a hell of a lot more than you might think.

Finally, to this throwaway final line:
"These people are treasures to which you should hold dear, but in the end, only one person's opinion should really matter to you: your own."

I say: Fuck off, man. I am a busy person with a lot of things to do, and games take TIME and MONEY from me. I need to be able to trust the reviews I see, if for no other reason than if I pick out a 'substandard' game I know what I'm getting into. I don't expect reviewers to do anything more but tell me their point of view, but it needs to be a mostly honest one, or else I'm unable to make a choice I can be responsible for. If I'm being fed shitty information, and I buy a shitty game, then I'm not only angry at the company that produced it, but at the people who fed me shitty information to begin with.

Reviewers have a responsibility, like it or not and saying: Hey, you should only trust yourself, is a bullshit way of saying caveat emptor, bitches, and letting those reviewers off the hook for not doing their jobs.

I might disagree with your point of view, but if your job is to provide that point of view, I have a right to expect that you have done your job, or will soon be replaced with someone who will.