What do we want from game reviews?

[London Geezer]

There is no problem whatsoever with reviews. All legitimate reviews are absolutely valid.

The problem is in who reads the reviews.

 

[3dilettante]

The problem is they are representing a magazine, if you have a blog or youtube reviewer you like fine, but a magazine should be different.

I am not sure why this would be an expectation. Reviewer bias and editorial slant are not electronic inventions. Some of the most notable reviewers for other media like movies had or have a print presence.
Games are intangible things whose "utility", if an entertainment luxury with no real productive value can have much of it, is measured in emotional reactions or in terms of how they can displace our attention from reality.

If there's respect towards the objectivity in a print medium, it's usually for coverage in less frivolous things that require investigative effort or analysis. The entertainment sections are along for the ride.
The decline of the catch-all venues is lowering the average size to be closer to the local or specialized publications, which frequently have a much more pronounced slant since they won't get money appealing to broader audiences they cannot realistically encompass.

 

[chris1515]

See? Easiness is subjective! Chris1515 finding it too easy doesn't mean it is inherently too easy - it's just too easy for him. And a review written by chris1515 giving the game 6/10 saying the game is too easy wouldn't be valid for ToTTenTranz who'd say it was 8/10 even if not too taxing, and goonergaz would say chris1515 was posting click-bait because the game's too hard as it is.

Reviews are inherently subjective. Unless scientific methods are used to generate a mean score based on significant population samples, they always will be. eg. A single reviewer can only express how they found the difficulty. A review that gets 100 people of different gaming backgrounds to play the game and feed back can present an objective average difficulty rating. Well that's basically what aggregate scores do! Read a lot of reviews, you get a lot of different impressions. If 20% say the game's too easy, 60% say it's fine, and 20% say it's too hard, you'll get an idea of where perhaps you fit into that spectrum.

And reviews of reviews are equally subjective. The perfect review for you will be a crap review for someone else.

The solution is easy - Diversity, where people are free to find and choose the material that suits them best and let others find and enjoy different material. No need to force anyone to conform to an ideal.

Spoiler

(and curiously, a philosophy that solves a lot of violence and bloodshed with people having strong views shitting all over history with their attempts to make the world 'perfect')

I disagree I just ask more level of difficulty for different player. It can be done in every game... You can satisfy everyone. Easy mode normal mode, hard mode and nightmare mode.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You're not arguing about reviews there, but game design.

 

[chris1515]

You're not arguing about reviews there, but game design.

Yes but I think it is important to talk about this in review. I can understand Bloodborne is not for everyone for exemple
For me it will be a 95+ for sure but it will be too difficult for many people.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes but I think it is important to talk about this in review.

Which they do. If the reviewer finds the game challenging enough, you can't complain that they aren't punishing games for not being hard enough!

 

[goonergaz]

Ha, you beat me to it. The Elite review was issue 1 of Zzap!64 which was only played by one reviewer, Bob Wade. Most Crash and ZZap!64 reviews were played by two ore more of the reviewers with the editor compositing their views into a single reviews, for example here is the review for Paradroid from issue 7 where Julian Rignall, Gary Liddon and Gary Penn all played it. Not perfect but the more perspectives you add, and the reviewers often did have differing views of games, the more you mitigate any heavy bias - positive or negative.

yeah, it was the first review I found - it was just a playful dig at 'console wars' from my playground

 

[Metal_Spirit]

That's just stupid though because you average out the diversity.

Marmite review
Reviewer one : Love it! 10/10
Reviewer two: Hate it! 0/10
Reviewer three : Great! 10/10
Reviewer four : Worst 'food' ever! 0/10

Average score from Food Weekly - 50%

Tells you nothing about whether you personally would like it or not. Whereas the source scores, 100%, 100%, 0%, 0%, shows you'll either love it or hate it. If you want an average, you have to provide the range too. And TBH few ordinary Joes probably appreciate how to apply and interpret such info.

Well, if you find a game capable of 10 and 0, maybe 50 is the right score. Reviews are for the masses not for someone in particular. But you would have to justify your 10 and 0 in the review parameters.

 

[Metal_Spirit]

I spit on your Crash and present you with ZZap64!!

Not even kidding. Because this format war is part of the problem. Some reviewers are biased.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well, if you find a game capable of 10 and 0, maybe 50 is the right score.

Right score for what? What is the purpose of the score? Reviews are there to tell you if you should invest in game, or as a bit of light reading. How would 5/10 for Marmite facilitate purchasing decisions? 0/10 and 10/10 scores would mean, "Try it as you might love it," where 5/10 means more, "don't bother, it's not all that," which isn't at all accurate.

That's the fundamental shortcoming of aggregate reviews IMO. A 7/10 game can be a 'love it, 10/10' for some folk who might instead buy a 9/10 game (because the number's bigger and its more popular) that they won't enjoy as much.

 

[Cjail]

Whether I will enjoy a game or not it's something I alone can tell so I prefer to look at a gamepaly/preview video, decide if I like what I see rather than read a review and trust somebody's else opinion.
Anyone else is with me?

.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Whether I will enjoy the game or not it's something I alone can tell so I prefer to look at a gamepaly/preview video, decide if I like what I see rather than read a review and trust somebody's else opinion. Anyone else is with me?

More than anything else I also find myself drifting towards gameplay video these days.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Whether I will enjoy a game or not it's something I alone can tell...

Of course, unless someone knows you well and can make a recommendation.

so I prefer to look at a gamepaly/preview video, decide if I like what I see rather than read a review and trust somebody's else opinion.

A decent review can convey what it's like to play a game, and avoiding spoilers too. What if the early video looks good but the game really starts to grind part-way through? That's more readily conveyed in a review. Written descriptions and videos offer different insights. A truly informed opinion would take them all on board, although there are obviously time and sanity constraints.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

A decent review can convey what it's like to play a game, and avoiding spoilers too.

Few reviews cover what the fundamental gameplay is like moment-to-moment. Read any GTA V review and you'll have no idea of how you character moves and interacts in the world but watch a video and you get a feel for for pace of the character in the world, against enemies and so on.

 

[Arwin]

No denying that videos and streaming are winning that battle. As for aggregate review scores, it helps that you can see how many positive and how many negative at a glance. Standard deviation graphs cold be even more effective.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Few reviews cover what the fundamental gameplay is like moment-to-moment.

They don't have to. "Snappy", "responsive", "weightyness", "sluggish", etc. give a good idea for how that review perceived the game. And that can be coupled with things like "presence", "immersion", "satisfying", "strangely lacking", or whatever.

And, as I say, you don't (or shouldn't) rely on just one type of source. They each have their pros and cons, and none is perfect, certainly not for everyone. If you're considering buying a cake, you can look at the recipe and decide if you think you'd like it, and/or ask people's opinions if they like the cake, and/or watch a video of the cake and someone munching down showing what it's like to eat. Each provides a different POV to gauge whether you yourself should invest in this particular baked good.

I doubt anyone watching a video of LBP would have realised the controls were so sluggish, and instead would have thought the player just isn't very good. I know I did!

 

[Deleted member 11852]

They don't have to. "Snappy", "responsive", "weightyness", "sluggish", etc. give a good idea for how that review perceived the game. And that can be coupled with things like "presence", "immersion", "satisfying", "strangely lacking", or whatever.

Uh no, I'm talking about what it's like to play GTA V. I.e, move you character around, interact with the environment, use vehicles etc. The core game play. Game reviews almost never explain the core gameplay or if they do it's via references which may be no use. A good example is every review I read of Shadow of Mordor described the combat as being similar to Arkham games. Great, right? No, I've still never played an Arkham Batman game. But 20 seconds of watching somebody slice through orcs in a video tells me what the combat is like: positioning and countering attacks are key, enemies can be many, different types of enemies will attack and be vulnerable in different ways.

I doubt anyone watching a video of LBP would have realised the controls were so sluggish, and instead would have thought the player just isn't very good. I know I did!

I think it's quite clear how 'floaty' (to use the popular description) LBP is compared to something like Mario. The clue is the lack of control in mid-air and watching somebody run and change direction, you'll see inertia is in full effect. Just watch somebody play LBP for a few minutes and you know it's not going to be a precision control platformer like Mario.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Uh no, I'm talking about what it's like to play GTA V. I.e, move you character around, interact with the environment, use vehicles etc. The core game play. Game reviews almost never explain the core gameplay or if they do it's via references which may be no use. A good example is every review I read of Shadow of Mordor described the combat as being similar to Arkham games. Great, right? No, I've still never played an Arkham Batman game. But 20 seconds of watching somebody slice through orcs in a video tells me what the combat is like: positioning and countering attacks are key, enemies can be many, different types of enemies will attack and be vulnerable in different ways.

Um, I don't understand your point. That's one of the advantages of video over print for people looking for objective details.

I think it's quite clear how 'floaty' (to use the popular description) LBP is compared to something like Mario. The clue is the lack of control in mid-air and watching somebody run and change direction, you'll see inertia is in full effect. Just watch somebody play LBP for a few minutes and you know it's not going to be a precision control platformer like Mario.

But you don't feel it watching a video. The movement is floaty, but you don't know the inertia unless you're the one with the input and you're feeling the movement based on your commands. Watching LBP, or KZ3, or LAIR, you can't have any sense of weight. That's something feedback from people provides. And that sort of opinion helps understand if the developers successfully pulled off a sense of weight, or if they missed that very small target and achieved laggy and unresponsive instead, where a video just shows the movement and not whether you'll find it frustrating or not.

 

[Metal_Spirit]

Right score for what? What is the purpose of the score? Reviews are there to tell you if you should invest in game, or as a bit of light reading. How would 5/10 for Marmite facilitate purchasing decisions? 0/10 and 10/10 scores would mean, "Try it as you might love it," where 5/10 means more, "don't bother, it's not all that," which isn't at all accurate.

Well...what can I say... You are correct!

But how do you rate a love and hate game?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Um, I don't understand your point. That's one of the advantages of video over print for people looking for objective details.

Above you said "What if the early video looks good but the game really starts to grind part-way through? That's more readily conveyed in a review" which I took as you preferring a written review over a video. I think they both have a place but for me videos work better to get an appreciation of how a game plays moment-to-moment. Of course whether something becomes a grind is supremely subjective which is part of the failure of written reviews that folks are highlighting.

But you don't feel it watching a video. The movement is floaty, but you don't know the inertia unless you're the one with the input and you're feeling the movement based on your commands. Watching LBP, or KZ3, or LAIR, you can't have any sense of weight.

I agree you can't fully feel how a game plays, the only way is to play it feel the handling, lag and the nuances of the controls. But if you watch LBP being played it's evident from watching the way the character moves that the controls aren't going to be Mario-like. Great big arc jumps, low gravity, no instant-direction turns, the slow reactions of the physics: all of these are evident from watching a video so you can take away that this isn't going to have (or require) tight controls like an old school platformer.

It genuinely surprised me that others were so surprised when they tried it. Things like this are quite evident to me and why I really do like watching some non-spoiler video of games in play.

When I watching Assassin's Creed Unity on PlayStation Live, having last played Black Flag it was clear to me that Arno in Unity was more agile and reactive than Kenway in Black Flag. How? I've played Black Flag to death and while Kenway moves ok, he doesn't react to quick changes in direction well, try that and he's liable to stall or stop completely. Now watching Unity you can see Arno weaving precisely through the crowds without this problem.

There's a lot you can take from videos if you're looking for it, anthropologists discern much from observation rather than participation. And because reviews talk so little about the moment-to-moment gameplay these days, I've got used to paying attention to videos. It's not a substitute for playing a game, but it's also much better than a written review for me.