Writing Negative Reviews - An Exercise in Self-Loathing

[ninjaRiv]

I think discussing all its features, occasionally saying why it failed here, why it succeeded there, IS being constructive. I don't think anybody should pull the old Captain Hindsight and just say what they should have done. To use your example of Colonial Marines, a good review, I think, would tell someone how bad it is, be funny while doing so, and then explain what makes it bad. "It's terrible, don't buy it" isn't really a review, it's just an opinion. "It's terrible because the aliens are poorly animated, the character are boring, etc" That's informative and constructive.

But I think you've misunderstood my points. I didn't say they HAVE to be constructive, I just said I think it should be a main priority. If you're just gonna spend time telling people how the game could be better, you're just marketing. A review is opinionated but an informative review just has more substance. If I wanted to see insults, a forum would be better.

I think we're just having a miscommunication, ninja. You seem primarily concerned with objectivity and fairness, and I don't disagree with you on either point. To my understanding, constructive criticism implies an active effort on the part of the critic to improve what she or he is criticizing. Hence the "construct" part of the equation. They are helping to build it up, and make it better. And I'm not sure that's really in the purview of art or media critics. Important for interpersonal dispute, certainly, or if you were a beta tester. But if you're a third party giving an impression of a finished product? I think it's a little above and beyond.

You're right, I had my priorities wrong. Your audience is what's important. But I think you may be picturing me on the extreme side of constructive criticism. I'm pretty opinionated but I feel that any insult or criticism should be backed up with fact. But I also try not to forget that this may be read by people who will be making other games. I want good games in the world so I'd rather the creator learn from mistakes.

But I don't see constructive criticism as something you need to spend the whole review doing.I think your view is more like beta testers and marketing people, as you said. My view of it, based outside of a profession that requires it, is trying to keep a review full of information as well as jokes and insults is beneficial to a review.

 

[Bad Jim]

Well it sucks to be the guy that mortgaged his house to make an indie game, but your duty is to the consumer. Just remember that there are also people living a hand to mouth existence that might waste their gaming budget for the next six months on a shit game if you are not honest.

 

[Scrustle]

I guess it depends whether you wanted the game to be good or not. I'm not a professional games writer, nor have I ever been, but I've written a handful of reviews over the years. Some positive and some negative. To be honest, I've never felt bad about writing a negative one. I enjoyed tearing down a bad game.

But I've experienced many bad games that I wanted to be good. It's not fun talking about those. It's probably more depressing actually having to write a review, but there are certainly some games that make me feel down when I think about how bad they are, compared to how good I wanted them to be.

Perhaps you wanted to like the indie game for some reason. Maybe it wasn't just because you thought the game could have been better than it was, but because indie games are much more personal things than bigger budget games. When you criticise a big game, it's like you're giving the finger to a big, heartless corporation and every negative thing they stand for. And the problems with the game aren't really necessarily any one person's fault. But when you're negative to an indie game it can sometimes feel like you're shitting on the baby of the person who made it, which they just dedicated years of their life to, probably at great detriment to themselves. That can' be fun, but you can't just lie about it to avoid hurting their feelings.

 

[an annoyed writer]

I've felt bad for writing negative reviews, and I've felt good for writing negative reviews. It really depends on the game: when it is truly insultingly bad in a certain way, like Call of Juarez: the Cartel was, where it was factually a misrepresentation of an ongoing conflict that was shitty through and through, I feel no remorse, but if the thing I'm reviewing has a soul to it, if it actually feels like something that someone put a lot of hard work into, THEN I feel like shit for scoring it badly. I generally stay away from numerical scoring systems for this reason.

 

[Sassafrass]

I write reviews as a hobby so I may not be the intended audience for the question but I do post them here in the User Review section. And to be honest, I enjoy writing good or bad reviews, although I've only written one review where I badmouth a game and that was DNF.[footnote]Which in turn prompted me to get quite a few angry people on my case but hey ho, it got me some attention. [/footnote] I tend to normally give postive-ish reviews.

The only type of review I get no enjoyment from is when I review something that's middle of the road or "meh" as I describe it. Something like Halo 4, for example. Now it's not a bad game but it's not a brilliant game either. It was just such a..."meh" experience to me that when I wrote the review for it, it was more of a chore than something I really wanted to do.

 

[likalaruku]

I write product & indie game reviews, but I like to take a two-sized approach by starting with an introduction, then pointing out the pros, then going into the cons, & then recommending other stuff so it looks unbiased. If it's genuinely negative, i'll use sentences in the pros & a long string of keywords in the cons so they look about the same length.

 

[somonels]

Once you start badmouthing I know you don't have **** to say about the game and reading any further is like watching a toddler play with it's feces.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I've never had the curse of having to write a negative review thankfully but there was a game that was entirely meh. I was terrified of submitting it because A. The website knew I was a girl and B. It was a popular franchise.

Thankfully I didn't get much flak for it.

Lucky escape.

On the flip side It's a really good feeling when you write a nice review and the dev says thankyou and takes some of your comments on board

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

On the flip side It's a really good feeling when you write a nice review and the dev says thankyou and takes some of your comments on board

That happened to me! It really was nice.

I didn't even want to show the negative review to the dev. Even though they were the ones who would have gotten the most use out of it.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

On the flip side It's a really good feeling when you write a nice review and the dev says thankyou and takes some of your comments on board

That happened to me! It really was nice.

I didn't even want to show the negative review to the dev. Even though they were the ones who would have gotten the most use out of it.

Yeah it's not nice to criticize someones hard work, so I try to be as constructive as possible and try and keep in mind what the game is going for.

You can tell when someone's made an effort and when they haven't.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

I'm usually very blunt when it comes to negative reviews on anything. But I try to find at least ONE thing positive I can say about the game as well.


Criticism is important, it can lead to understanding.

 

[Something Amyss]

I write reviews on Amazon and for my own blog on occasion. While I write freelance for newspapers in the region, there's no market for games reviews.

I guess the basis is this: If I wanted it enough to buy it, I don't want it to be bad. There's always going to be some reticence. If it's legit criticism, and I'd like to think all my criticism is (though it probably isn't), there shouldn't be negative feelings.

At the same time, I don't feel any particular joy.

...Most of the time.

 

[Mikeyfell]

So, as part of my contractual obligations writing for a website (I shan't list it here cos I'm not in the mood for self-advertising), I had to write a review of a game. In the end, the review was supremely negative - I scored it a 4.5 out of 10, I verbally assaulted the game calling it a "failure" and a "joke" and blah blah blah.

...and it felt really, really bad.

I was always under the impression that negative reviews were something that writers liked to write. The idea that you can beat on something for a few paragraphs, with a degree of righteous indignation. But... yeah, no, it kind of hurt me to write it. As I re-read what I'd written, I felt bad. And I realized this is exactly what people like Jim Sterling must go through when they score a game low. It's not a fun experience at all! It's just depressing.

Feels bad, guys. Have you guys written reviews for websites? Did you manage to grasp any enjoyment from badmouthing a game, or was it all just saddening?

Edit: it was an indie game, by the way. I wonder if writing poorly of AAA games is easier because you can spread the hate over a whole team of people, instead of just one guy who poured all his life into a work that ended up not very good. I think I'd still be depressed. Writing reviews and also getting to know the people who make games isn't a very good combination, really.

Really? wow. I feel much worse after writing good reviews because upon reading them I see every synonym for "good" glaring at me with evil glowing red eyes and I realize that I'm not actually good at writing reviews.

Negative reviews are easy,
If something stuck out as "bad" you remember it, and most of all you remember why it stuck out.
You'll have loads of detailed stories about shitty level design, story butt-fuck-o-rama, dumb AI, broken combat zones and the like.

Good design has no extruding elements and everything just blends together well.
That's the curse of good design, you don't notice it. You just come out of the play session feeling better.

As of late If I run into a game I do like my reviews could be boiled down to "You know all those things I complain about in my other reviews... This game doesn't do any of them. play it!"
And that makes me feel terrible.

Writing positive reviews is a skill, a valuable skill (I mean writing good reviews while staying on topic)
My review of Mass Effect 3 was nearly 10,000 words and I never got off topic once
My review of Lollipop Chainsaw was a long winded rant about how overactive sex appeal doesn't make a game bad by default, Where I spent equal amounts of time talking about Bayonetta and Catherine.

So yeah, If you're having trouble with bad reviews, you shouldn't worry.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

For me it depends on how I word it. If I construct it in a manner that presents my criticism in a constructive manner then no I don't feel bad about it. On the other hand if I slam the game/whatever I'm reviewing and present my review in the most assholeish way possible then yeah I kinda feel bad about it afterwards.

 

[knight steel]

You know 4.5 out of 10 really isn't that bad as people think it is-I mean 5 is average so your score is only slightly below average it could be much worse >_<

 

[knight steel]

You know 4.5 out of 10 really isn't that bad as people think it is-I mean 5 is average so your score is only slightly below average it could be much worse >_<

Oh my god, someone else who gets how a scoring system works... Tell me, are there any other survivors from the master race of people who can understand how metric scoring works?

I thought i was the only survivor... If i see one more review of a game or a book on amazon where the author essentially calls a game crap & then gives it 4 stars, i may be forced to kill someone.

Yes a fellow understander I had given up all hope of meeting another like myself ^_^!
And you think people who complain about 4 stars are bad you have seen nothing yet there are people out there who think that a game that gets "only" a 6-7 out of 10 must mean that it's "crap" and not worth getting O_e