The current state of game review publications...

Streeteh

Streeteh

Streeteh

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Over the past few months i have become extremely concerned about the reliability of 'professional' reviews on both the internet and in magazines. It seems these days all of the 'big' games get rave reviews and high scores to back them up but many end up being a disappointment and leave me incredibly frustrated at the fact i had fallen for the hype.

With game publishers becoming more concerned about piracy and the second hand games market i have begun to believe that their new tactic has become to pay off review publications to improve their reviews. After all, the more hyped up a game is before release, the more people must have it, which leads to early pre-orders and therefore a large number of 'first-hand' sales. More and more these days you see entire review websites becoming giant advert banners for the latest and 'greatest' games and, low and behold, they typically turn out to be the games that receive the best reviews. To add to all of that, i'm sure we all remember the Kane & Lynch gamespot incident.

Some examples of games with incredibly high review scores but a mediocre reception from the public for me would be:

FarCry 2 - Metacritic score: 88
Possibly the most 'love it or hate it' game of 2008, however from what i can tell the majority of people fall into the latter category. This game fell 3% short of the legendary Half-Life in PC gamer yet i'm sure many will agree it really isn't that close in terms of quality.

Grand Theft Auto: IV - Metacritic Score: 98
Simply scrolling down the list of reviews on metacritic shows how incredibly well this game fared in reviews, perfect score after perfect score. I know many on here, including myself, were disappointed. This is an above average game don't get me wrong but there are better games out there including its predecessors. I think most will agree it didn't deserve the scores it received.

Spore - Metacritic Score: 84
This for me, is the big daddy of artificial hype receiving 91% in PC Gamer magazine. The game started out as an incredible concept but gradually fell into the dank dark depths of simplicity. Many in the PC gaming section defended this title from the huge number of people criticizing it, but that lasted all of a fortnight. I imagine you'll struggle to find many people left here, or anywhere for that matter, that still play this game.

Now, i'm first to admit my opinion of the above titles influences my view on their review scores to no end, but i know i'm not alone in my stance. With the Christmas boom coming fast, i find myself incredibly concerned. Will all these huge games currently receiving incredible review scores actually be that good or will many be a disappointment once again? I for one will be holding off, waiting to see what you, the real reviewers, have to say about the majority of the big titles this Christmas; I don't want to fork out £35 for another GTAIV.
 
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I try to read as few reviews as possible, and always ignore scores. I tend to buy games based on wether or not I think I'll enjoy them, not wether or not someone else has.

I find most scores are plucked out of someones anus most of the time to be honest.

If you rate games out of 10, does that mean all the games that scored a 8 will give you the same same enjoyment as every other 8 scoring game out there? Don't think so. :p

Scores stay with a game over time as well which doesn't really work, If you review a game from last year now, you'd probably say the same things about it, but I don't think you'd give it the same score.
 
to be honest, it's getting to the stage now that I only care about the views of certain OCUK'rs I trust. If they recommend a game I will definately think about picking it up

Sometimes if I don't know much about the game (e.g Fable 2) I'll have a poke about on youtube or a review site, but I don't trust them at all. That said, reviewing anything is subjective on the person doing the reviewing. This shows through in nearly every PES v FIFA review depending on who the reviewer loves more
 
I usually find IGN are pretty reliable for reviews, plus they have separate UK, US and Australian reviews of each game, so you can compare the 3 and get an idea of what they think. To be honest most of my game purchases are based on a combination of game reviews, demos, and to some extent word of mouth.

I used to use both IGN and Gamespot because they both had excellent coverage and were often spot-on in reviews, but recently I think Gamespot has really gone downhill. IGN already has reviews of Guitar Hero World Tour and Fallout 3 up, whereas Gamespot has neither!
 
As most people will say go with if you think you will enjoy or not feeling. I just avoid reviews theres no point to them.

Demos are another good way, if they are avaliable. Id rather buy the odd duff game by my own choice than buy these highly hyped overrated games and then be really dissapointed when it doesnt live up to expectations
 
Adsta said:
Id rather buy the odd duff game by my own choice than buy these highly hyped overrated games and then be really dissapointed when it doesnt live up to expectations
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Exactly what I was trying to say. :)

I've deffinately bought my fair share of naff games, but I also feel like I've bought some crackers that I've not seen many people get into.
 
Modern games are pricey though, I'm not forking out £40 for a game only to find out that it is rubbish. That's exactly what happened recently with Mercenaries 2, I ignored the poor reviews and decided that because I liked the previous game I would try it. Also, excellent games that don't get the coverage are usually discovered by word of mouth, such as Sins of a Solar Empire on PC. I'd rather buy all the big, hyped games because they are less likely to be disappointing, plus I tend to ignore the hype anyway.
 
nicktay2605 said:
Modern games are pricey though, I'm not forking out £40 for a game only to find out that it is rubbish. That's exactly what happened recently with Mercenaries 2, I ignored the poor reviews and decided that because I liked the previous game I would try it. Also, excellent games that don't get the coverage are usually discovered by word of mouth, such as Sins of a Solar Empire on PC. I'd rather buy all the big, hyped games because they are less likely to be disappointing, plus I tend to ignore the hype anyway.
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You still pay 40 quid for games!!!
 
If possible i prefer to play i demo if i can, so i can make my own mind up what i think of a game. The most recent of Games Being Too Human... this game got a right bashing in reviews, but i personally love the game :D
 
Well of course everything is subjective, I loved GTA4 for example, so would agree with the scores.

On the other hand I have noticed a trend where reviews are locked up in NDAs where only positive articles make their way out before release day. So before release everyone is loving the game and then suddenly when the game is released the scores for it suddenly drop as everyone else releases their scores.
 
GTA4 is the big, massive, gigantic white elephant in the room. It simply just does not deserve 98% average of all compiled reviews. Absolutely not. It is the most dubious score I have ever seen.

There is a blatant correlation between publishers and scores as well.
 
I tended to trust Eurogamer reviews but lately, even thye appear to be falling for the hype. If you read their Guitar Hero: World Tour review, they don't seem overly excited or impressed and then out fo nowhere, 9/10.

Persoanlly, I love Far Cry 2 but all of these reviews are subjective. Fable II got loads of rave reviews and from reading people post on forums, it seems rightly so but it's not my cup of tea so it must be difficult to review games whilst leaving out personal feelings.

I tend to go on the content of the review rather than the score.
 
Most reviewers nowadays are heavily corrupted.

They review games in an unfinished alpha state but forget to mention that in their review so then the unspecting gamer finds out the hard way about the technical issues like FPS drops + vysnc off + other bugs (PS3 XMB issues with GTA4 for instance causing hard lockups for many). Usually because the publisher has taken a large batch of journalists somewhere plush and paid for it all so human nature means they are not objective enough and forget to tell you what you need to know plus do not want the gravy train to end!

Most gamers know what they want and will get it regardless so only the non hardcore gamers tend to get shafted and for many ignorance is bliss as unless you pointed things out they would not be any the wiser anyway.

I think you can trust gamer reviews on sites like gamefaqs a lot more than reviewers so use them along with demos if your unsure that way you have less chance of wasting money on something which is poor.
 
Never trust any reviews... you have to wonder at some magazines when they do make a catastrophic blunder over a review (ie they say things that are blatantly untrue) classic example was PCGs review of The Witcher (my sub was subsequently cancelled 4 days after that review after i asked them to explain themselves and they were unable to)

Its only when you se a review which is of that kind of calibre of garbage that you realise that its all a bag of ball****

so dont trust any reviews at all.
 
Surfer said:
Never trust any reviews... you have to wonder at some magazines when they do make a catastrophic blunder over a review (ie they say things that are blatantly untrue) classic example was PCGs review of The Witcher (my sub was subsequently cancelled 4 days after that review after i asked them to explain themselves and they were unable to)
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Sorry I have no idea what you are trying to say there :p

How did you ask them to explain themselves ? what did you even ask ? what was you even asking them to explain ?

Im not sticking up for the witcher btw. Id just like to know what you are going on about :)
 
i totally laid into them on their forums (the staff sometimes appear on their own forums btw)

i basically slagged them off for a few weeks non-stop.. i like to think of it as a sortof "online protest demo". :D

anytime i pop back to PCG forums i always remind them of it....it shall not be forgotten....


edit: basically to cut a long story short - the review was criminal, shocking.. made it look like the reviewer had not played the game (or if they did was merely the tutorial level) and imo was an embarrassement for him and the mag.

Admittedly my behaviour was a little OTT - the pitchfork hasnt been out since :)
 
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