Silvanus said:
What? No you don't, if you haven't yet played the game.
In the case of Jim's reviews, yeah, you kind of can. Sure, if its a game series he loves like Dynasty Warriors, he's going to give a bunch of info. Take the Yooka Laylee review, and of course he's going to score it badly if he doesn't like 90s platformers. MAYBE if it the exact opposite of a 90s platformer, it might contain something interesting. If you know that you hate 90s platformers though, and you know Jim hates 90s platformers, and he's reviewing a 90s platformer... There's not a lot more to know. As shown by his review that contained little substance outside "90s platformers suck, this is one".
If you generally value the same things as him, and he plays a game before you can and tells you about his experience, that could quite clearly be useful in letting you know if you're going to enjoy it.
The problem is that quite often the news of these things is out there LOOONG before the review. Details of what the game is, whether it has microtransactions, and who its made by are out there long before Jim writes his reviews, and you better believe the reviews are rather predictable based on that information.
Were there new information in the reviews, sure, however there tends not to be, because a lot of reviewers, like Jim, aren't literate in games to a degree where they can write informative stuff.
Sure, if a game advertises itself as one thing, and is something else entirely - you'll learn something from a review like Jim's, but you'd learn that from Metacritic user reviews. Forgive me for expecting a little more from someone who tries to present themself as professional.
Nowhere does it claim objectivity.
You don't need to 'claim' objectivity to imply it. Wording such as "this is a game that assaults the psyche on all possible levels", "I don?t know why creating games that actually looked and felt like retro games was too big an ask for Playtonic, but it?s jarring (and creatively barren) to feature a bunch of ?arcade? games that look just like the regular game", "Many of the puzzles are tricky not because they?ve been designed to be, but because the game is so terrible at visual communication", and so on. Now, saying "It felt jarring to feature a bunch of arcade games - ect" would be fair enough - you've implied that its your experience. Saying it IS jarring and creatively barren implies objective fact, which his statements are not. The same goes for the language throughout the review. Its very much a "This IS bad" than "I didn't like it".
CaitSeith said:
Code of conduct? Where can I find that code of conduct? That's what I'm trying to find. You seem to insist being professional is to follow a code of conduct. But you haven't provided an official one (being that in several professions such codes are created by official organizations), and getting you to point me to anything close to it is like pulling teeth.
Don't ask me. In fact, it never specifies that there has to be a legal code of conduct made. Just that they follow conduct that would be expected of a professional. So what is that behaviour? Almost nowhere has that defined. Doesn't stop you from judging someone as professional or not.
You're arguing ridiculous levels of semantics that don't exactly apply, in an obtuse attempt to just dodge the point, because you don't really have any valid response. Rather than dodging around the argument, try and actually address it.
No, I wouldn't. Why? Because I didn't play the game before reading the review. And during his gameplay video of the demo, there was no indication that he was even disliking it. That's the funny thing about criticisms on Jim's review when it was written: pretty much no one had played the game at the time (the game wasn't even released), so all criticism was under the assumption that he doesn't even like the genre (which was hastily deduced only from the review itself).
During the gameplay demo the very things he complained about in the final game existed, just worse. He didn't complain then.
As fpr the assumption that he doesn't like the genre itself... It is outright stated in his review. If you want to ignore the man himself's own words, sure. Be my guest.
Maybe he is restating that opening line over and over so the reader doesn't confuse his opinion as objective facts? No other logical reason to hammering the equivalent of IMO in every paragraph.
Sure, were it to reinforce opinion, but it never is.
However, I powered through to at least see all the worlds on offer, a task rendered difficult only by the horrendous hub world design that makes the simple act of finding levels difficult due to obscure, sometimes bizarre placement.
Sounds like a fairly objective statement to me, but is complaining that the hub world is designed like a 90s platformer; with levels hidden and exploration required to find them.
Combat is brainless, consisting of tapping a single button while enemies walk thoughtlessly into your attacks.
Again, not much "My opinion", more "Objective fact, this is bad" when its literally just saying "This is a 90s platformer"
And on and on for every aspect of the game, rarely if ever saying "I enjoy it", more often saying "The game abuses the player and is bad because its a 90s platformer". No new information is given. It literally just repeats that its a 90s platformer over and over again, but with a negative connotation on it.
Much like he complains about having to trudge through the worlds, I had to trudge through his review as there was nothing relevant there beyond him repeating himself over and over. He criticises it, I think its fair for me to as well.
There's never an equivalent of IMO, he just hammers the fact that 90s platformers are terrible over and over, and words it as if all players should agree with him, that the player is assulted - not him, any player. Its trying to be objective and informative, but is so far from the mark that it becomes unbearably trite whining about not liking something.
The funny thing is that reviewing games that you know you're going to dislike is more objective than reviewing only games that you like. For example, lots of Breath of the Wild reviews were 9s and 10s with lots of praise and some nitpicks; but very few gave details about the negatives that lots of people found too bothersome to qualify as a mere nitpick (ex. framerate drops, limited initial inventory space, initial stamina restricting running, no weapon durability indicator other than critical state, etc).
Hardly. Jim's review is the farthest thing from objective I've seen in a long time, as are most reviews about products that the reviewer knows they're going to hate for relatively arbitrary reasons. Again, funnily enough, IGNs review was more objective than Jim's, and that's just sad.
Not harping on the points that you dislike more also doesn't make a review less objective. I will agree that more emphasis could have been put on the negatives in Zelda, but you know why it wasn't?
Not because it was reviewed well, and people liked it. Because reviewers went purely by their enjoyment of the game, rather than trying to have a review that was actually informative to people. Funnily enough, the exact thing I'm complaining about. It isn't just about negative reviews, but reviews in general, and those reviewers talking about how markers for weapon durability were needed and such wouldn't have at all made their review less helpful for anyone who likes Zelda - however it would have made it more helpful to you. Approach it from the angle of helping people, rather than venting your opinion, and we get better reviews. What I've been saying this whole time.