We promised you two guest pieces this weekend, so here you go. Our second offering comes from Foxhound.
Reviews are becoming somewhat of an annoyance, if not a sore subject for every man, woman and child at moment. What with high flyers being ridiculed for being compromised and low flowing articles being mocked and heckled with the COD Viral style remarks. You know the ones, it’s a remake, short campaign, rehashing of a game, 10/10 is a joke-style comments, these tend to be followed by a string of sour comments which inevitably end up with someone being advised that their family tree stems from a Nazi. The review is slowly becoming the ‘Poisoned Chalice’ of articles and in some cases (myself included), you find yourself bracing before you post any labour of love which ends in a score, grade or opinion.
From a personal perspective, I enjoy them and see them as an insight, albeit an insight from someone who is looking through their eyes, with their views, analyzing with their attitude, their tastes and ultimately it’s their experience. I have always thought of reviews in the same way I think of Marmite. I love the stuff, on toast and especially cheese on toast; it’s literally ‘awesomesauce’. My girlfriend loves it more than I do so the odd sprint to the kitchen occurs; followed by a duel at the toaster, butter knives at the ready. However, if I stuck someone in a room who had never tasted nor heard of Marmite before and presented them with it, for a non biased opinion, there is a good chance that they would give it 0/10, saying it was the ‘Sauce of Satan’ and has caused them to completely reconsider how important eating actually is. If I had absorbed this idea, as a hypothetical review and used it to lead my curiosity, I would never enjoy the hangover cure that is ‘Marmite on Something’.
I do think that sometimes the written word can be taken the wrong way due to the readers frame of mind at the time, the way they perceive the brand, their chosen allegiance, you get the picture. I think that it can be a difficult task trying to really portray exactly what you are thinking in a clear and concise manner. I mean I sometimes revisit articles and think ‘damn, I missed that off’ or ‘I wish I had really pushed on that point’.
Reviews in many ways, are seen as real disposable areas of media, which most people visit just to see the Grade. I have some friends who don’t even read the reviews. They just hit Metacritic, take the average and make their purchasing decision on whether the average is high enough. I must also add, their expectations are much higher than they used to be. A score around 7/8 would cause most of them to grimace and ponder over whether a title is worth a punt.
I think that we should appreciate the time, patience, ‘wordsmithery’ (excuse my alien talk) and efforts someone puts in when they look at a game objectively for us. I have always thought we should see reviews as a clump of guidance notes, nothing more, nothing less.
I say this, as when I look around on t’interweb, as well as the occasional sign of appreciation and nods of approval, I see rants, raves and in some cases abuse for someone giving us their thoughts and views. A much more constructive approach would be for all or us to relax a little; take some air in and remind ourselves why we are involved with the wonderful world of gaming in the first place. A review is simply a thought which someone has taken time to put to paper. Intentions and hopes are the foundation of any review but I think you can work out the truth from the fan boy rants, the work from the rubbish as we are all an inquisitive bunch.
As a closing thought, how do you absorb reviews? Do you duck and dive to avoid them until you have played your chosen adventure? Do you sit at your laptop, Credit Card at the ready, hitting PAGE DOWN, PAGE DOWN so you can eyeball that all important score before you hit the check out on your chosen website for gaming retail? It always interests me to see what readers visit a review for and what they take away from it.
What are your thoughts where reviews are concerned? Do they actually have an impact on your choice making?
ericzap
Awesome article. I usually only scan reviews for some mention of glitches or bugs. At the point where a game is getting reviewed, I’ve typically already decided I do/don’t want it.
That said, there are some real rotten reviews on teh interwebz. I trust TSA so I only really read reviews here.
BIGAL-1992
The main problem with reviews nowadays, is that if you give a game a high score, while that game in particular has been advertised on the site or is a game that’ll be a big seller in the stores, odds are someone will accuse you of being paid to give it a high score. Whenever I read a review, I usually take it with a pinch of salt. For instance, GTA4 was regarded as the best game some people ever played, but I’d disagree with this, as I thought it was GTA3 in HD and a physics engine added to it. At the end of the day, reviews are a person’s own thoughts on the game and sometimes it’s down to the reader on whether they want to buy the game or not.
Burgess_101
but Gta 3 in hd with a physics engine isnt bad is it ? if aint broke dont fix it as they say
BIGAL-1992
I didn’t have an interest in GTA at all, so to me, that’s what it looked like.
skibadee
you can not please everyone but the game was genius.
theberzerka
I was very interested in it but found it to have lost its ‘fun’ element. This all goes to prove this excellent articles hypothesis that we all have different opinions much like the wonderful reference to marmite (Which i love on toast with oodles of butter).
samiro05
It’s not so much the reviews that interest me, it’s the previews. Showing off what a game has to offer. When a review contains all the vital details that point out its successes and its failings then it is a good review and I will purchase the game according to how I like the successes and how much I want to do without the failings. The review scores at the end are nothing more than a number to me and a 10/10 game could, for me, has rarely captured my interest as much as the lower rated games. For instance Final Fantasy XIII was fantastic and I believe that the reviews showed this but the score was based on previous iterations of the series and how it compares to those. As an individual game it is brilliant, in my opinion. Mafia 2 is another game which got given a poor score but if you read the content of a review you see the sparkle that the game has and that’s the part of the review you look for, that sparkle that makes you want to buy it.
If I was just scanning pages of reviews I would just look at the score and any games I was interested in I would read up on why it got that score and any games I wasn’t interested in which scored highly I would do the same and read why it got that sort of score.
At the end of the day it’s what you decide you want to spend your money on and if that’s based on the opinions of someone else then so be it. If a title comes out that gets a score of 10 but you have no idea why and the review content doesn’t clue you in then I don’t see why anyone would buy it. Try the game via demoes, read about the game via previews and reviews, buy the game via your interest in it, not other peoples’.
Sympozium
I don’t know everytime a game gets a 10 I get overwhelmed with negative energy… unless it was a RPG I seem to like the worst reviewed games more than Uncharted, God of War and the Random Rockstar Sandbox… (Sonic 08 I kid you not I liked it)
I’d play Armoured Core and Dragonball over hype anyday! but that’s just PS3… its simply PSP > PS3..so yeah f**k reviews they’re corrupt this gen.
Shakugan
“so yeah f**k reviews they’re corrupt this gen.” SO AGREED!
bunimomike
What are you two on about?
1. Explain the corruption
2. Have you thought that some of the highest scoring games are simply not for you? It doesn’t mean they’re terrible.
Voganlight
I don’t button many games a year so I usually just read reviews out of interest, since it could be a title i’ll buy one day… or not. For example, while I’m certainly not going to buy Fallout: New Vegas, I’m still interested in whether it turned out well.
Voganlight
Wow two mistakes in one comment.
Button should be buy (auto-correct)
And can a mod delete the other comment?
mcduff1979
i generally read the review on TSA and research the game my self rather than read reviews, as generally most reviewers have prejudice and preference on many games that i simply dont like
billsmugs
If I’m looking into buying a game, I tend to visit Metacritic and then either discard the game in question if it has a really low score or scroll through, opening up reviews from sites I trust (eg TSA Gamespot, Eurogamer etc). I always read the full review if I’m seriously considering a purchase.
If I’m not interested particularly in a game that gets a review on TSA, I tend to pop in, check the score, then read the Pros and Cons. If I get interested enough by this, obviously I’ll read the full review.
Darth Newdar
I’ve never bought a game mainly based on its reviews. On the other hand, I do look at Metacritic, and read reviews from TSA, Eurogamer, IGN and so forth. I use those reviews as a base – not the most important thing, which is whether I personally would be interested in this game.
Peco
I cross reference TSA and Gamecentral. If those two agree then it HAS to be good! Excellent article, I enjoyed reading it.
SpikeyMikey23
gc still going?
Peco
Still going strong! Part of the Metro site these days. I’ve always liked their reviews ‘coz they’re so harsh, hardly anything gets above a 7.
theberzerka
I used to do that to up until GC slated a game for what seemed to be like fun. I can’t remember what game it was but i do know they compared it to another game which had no relevance. This annoyed me so much i stopped using their site.
SpikeyMikey23
If i really like the look of a game, ill buy it, whatever (unless it has proper piss poor scores) the only reviews/oppinions i tend to use are psm3, tsa, m2g and the tsa community.
Unfortunalty for me lol, COD, GT, FF are ips that i will buy, regardless. I just will. the same with battlefield bad company.
Some games i then get carried away with hype. I bought GTA4 because I liked the 3 ps2 games and the original gta. I hate GTA 4, it does nothing for me, it really bores me. This is why I had no intention of buying red dead. But the torr, crawf and countless others that contributed to the ‘red dead redemtion’ thread built that game up so much, that it was impossible for me not to buy it lol….. and i like it a whole lot more that gta4 (its just finding time to play it)
I didnt end up buying medal of honor, but I will, im just waiting for a drop in price, 2 reasons: Blackops is out soon and MOH multiplayer wont get the time it deserves from me, and there was no real hype surrounding this game (not that i saw anyway). Another possible reason is price, but if i wanted it that much, i would have found the money.
Juelz345
I just got MoH and i’d say that waiting on price drop is a good idea. I thoroughly enjoyed the campaign, but have yet to play an enjoyable round of Multilayer. And it’s not that I suck at, I’m usually in the top 3 for my team, it just feels like 80% of the people pick the sniper class and due to horrible map design, can practically sit in their spawn and snipe the opposing team at their spawn. This is all based on Team death match tho, not sure what the other modes/maps are like. Bring on COD: BO!