Let's have a real Talk about Game Reviews as they are and/or as they should/could be

[dyelawn91]

Digital foundry focuses on just one aspect of a game.

I get that you don't care, but it also cannot be ignored that this is a serious issue.

Not everyone goes to DF. Not everyone would even understand why their game is stuttering, in most cases the first thing that would come to the uninitiated mind is that there is something wrong with their console.

But if on IGN, Gamespot, Skill Up, or whatever the reviewers talked about these things, then people will know about them. Even if its buggy and the devs said, will be fixed in the day one patch, the reviewers should still be able t talk about the bugs they encountered with the disclaimer that they are promised to be fixed. Because when they don't do that, then it's like they are lying.

again, pls, just look at Cyberpunk.

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The majority of critics are likely unequiped to talk about the technical aspects of a game in any meaningful way. They might not even notice performance issues that would ruin the experience for you or others.

It's a personal thing, but a lot of people around here talk about how the performance of SMT V ruined the experience for them. For me, other than a couple of points where I thought "wow the game is really lagging" whatever performance issues it has don't bother me. If I was reviewing the game, I probably wouldn't mention the frame rate or the image quality because I don't notice those things and I don't care.

 

[Acetown]

100% objective measurement of value will show that day-1 price is the worst possible option to enjoy game, and practically one should never pay for a game when there are free options available.

My scoring system was from 1 to 5 stars, and basically 1. avoid, 2. not recommended, 3. it's fine, 4. recommended, and 5. highly recommended.

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This is pretty much where I'm at.
I think scores are great, you're not always going to want to sit down and read a page long review just to get an opinion on whether a game is good or not.
The problem is that the scales tend to be needlessly broad. How do you even quantify what it means for a game to be rated 76/100 as opposed to 77?
You see all these people on message boards arguing over how game X has X issue, therefore the score should be docked by X number of points or whatever. What does any of this even mean? It's just turned into an abstract number for fanboys to go to war over, and this of course leads to the problem of score inflation. It's a load of nonsense basically.
A decent scale strives to be as straightforward and grounded in reality as possible. Technically you as the reader can tell what "score" a review has even when there is none attached.

 

[aevanhoe]

Reviews are not a buyer's guide.

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I disagree.... I mean, if not, what are they? I'm talking about professional reviews. Do you read reviews because you actually care if these specific people enjoy specific things? Why would you care if, for example, Easy Allies had fun or not - I assume you would watch their review to determine if you yourself would have fun. You read them so you can make an informed decision whether to spend your money.

I mean, most reviewers even say this - some have like "buy/don't buy" ratings, there are reviews that have "before you buy" in the name, and most reviewers see themselves as people who inform you before you spend your money. They are pretty much "a buyer's guide" - whether you personally consider them to be guides or not.

 

[SCUMMbag]

My problem with reviews is that they are done by a very homogeneous group, tbh. We need more diversity in the press

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The gaming audience basically attempts to eviscerate any reviewer who deviates from the mean when it comes to high profile first party releases. There's plenty of fantastic of video game critique out there but to do it in a mainstream context is basically putting a crosshair on your back for the internet hate-mobs. Even moreso if you are a minority.

 

[Pop-O-Matic]

I grew up with X-Play, AVGN, Nostalgia Critic, etc, so as far as I'm concerned reviews should be a vector for D-tier sketch comedy first and genuine, intelligently formed critique about 17th.

 

[Necromanti]

In practice, I don't think my review would be useful to anyone in this case. Unless you know you have a taste similar to mine - which you can't know.

Also, it would be unfair to the developers. I know this is not something people are concerned about, but this is their creation, something they worked on - imagine getting low scores (which influence bonuses, employment opportunities, etc) because the reviewer "dislikes racing games".

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I'm assuming here that it's not your first review so people have some way to get a sense of what you like. So you can't say that it wouldn't be useful to anyone, either.

You aren't obligated to like every piece of media you engage with. If you do decide to critique something (which I'm assuming you decided to do for a reason), you can at least be respectful and justify your point of view. You're not there just do provide PR or marketing for a game (ideally...). Besides, scores work in aggregate, so assuming you're just one small reviewer, what difference would it make? The kind of reviews you're talking about would already exist elsewhere.

If anything, you're likely to get harassed and mobbed if your review isn't in line with preconceptions and expectations of gamers. Which sucks.

 

[Alienous]

The objective element of reviews doesn't matter much. You don't experience a game as a list of features.

You play a game and you feel some way about it. Maybe the sequel to a game is 'better' if you list of the features, but it didn't give you the same feeling the last one did. Maybe the technical issues should disqualify this game from being a 10/10, but you couldn't stop yourself from smiling while playing it.

You aggregate these subjective opinions and you get something more insightful than any painstakingly objective review. You don't experience games with a checklist beside you, and a review that does so doesn't tell you anything useful.

 

[Stop It]

I disagree.... I mean, if not, what are they? I'm talking about professional reviews. Do you read reviews because you actually care if these specific people enjoy specific things? Why would you care if, for example, Easy Allies had fun or not - I assume you would watch their review to determine if you yourself would have fun. You read them so you can make an informed decision whether to spend your money.

I mean, most reviewers even say this - some have like "buy/don't buy" ratings, there are reviews that have "before you buy" in the name, and most reviewers see themselves as people who inform you before you spend your money. They are pretty much "a buyer's guide" - whether you personally consider them to be guides or not.

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Yes, because there's no objective metrics that a game will be judged on so what someone felt playing it is the only thing that can be conveyed.

Saying something is worth buying does not make it a buyer's guide.

These are not washing machines with A/B comparisons and universal metrics that have a consistent input and output. The person between the screen and chair is vitally important to a review because of this.

If you purely want to see what a game is like, go load Twitch. You don't need someone to tell you what a game is objectively when there's gameplay as is right there accessible to you. Reviews are meant to convey experiences.

 

[Messofanego]

I don't get why game reviews have to be structured like this. Imagine if movies and music were reviewed using a "Objective-Subjective-Objective" format. Games are still a relatively new form of art, and I think with the way outlets have been changing the way they critique games, we're slowly moving away from this outmoded way of analyzing their quality.

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It's a holdover from videogames being critiqued like they were technical toys so the focus back then was if it worked or not mainly, rather than critique it like an art form. Some folks can't let go of that "objective" mindset.

 

[aevanhoe]

Yes, because there's no objective metrics that a game will be judged on so what someone felt playing it is the only thing that can be conveyed.

Saying something is worth buying does not make it a buyer's guide.

These are not washing machines with A/B comparisons and universal metrics that have a consistent input and output. The person between the screen and chair is vitally important to a review because of this.

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I get what you're saying, but in practice, objective or not, they serve exactly as buyer's guides for games. So reviewers should at least try to be as objective as they can. At least, that's how I see it.

 

[Sande]

That's not how I look at subjectivity and objectivity in reviews. For me a subjective review answers "how much did I like this game and why" and an objective review (while still always being highly subjective) answers "how well this game executes what it set out to do and why (imo)". Either approach is perfectly valid and in reality pretty much all reviews land somewhere in between.

 

[Easy_G]

Are you basically describing the old style game pro reviews? Searching for them actually digs up an old Era thread.

For the record, I much prefer a fully subjective review with at most a yes/no recommendation at the end. I think scoring games like this cheapens them and misses the bigger picture.

How do you like your review scores?

Do you like 100 point scale? 10/10? 5 stars? 10 clown noses out of cheese? A smiley face? A reccomended or not reccomended? No score? I personally think that if you are a professional and feel you a qualified to give your opinion about something you can score it on as high of a point...

www.resetera.com

 

[Hernan532]

Someone I follow (Alanah Pierce?) addressed this awhile ago: the short answer is that since you are playing prerelease code it's challenging to know what performance / stability issues to mention, esp if the company has told you that "oh that stuttering is fixed in the day 1 patch don't worry about it" (not saying From said this, but definitely devs do tell reviewers stuff like this)

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Yes, i'm dev and i totally agree with you there. But is something that needs a change at least. And as you said, a few reviewers were waiting for day 1 patch to make a proper review, that's good but i don't know where are this reviews or if they are in progress right now.
But the problem of not having the latest update is for the Studio or Company. So imo you review what you have , if a big company like FromSoftware can't release the day 1 patch 1 or 2 days before the release , probably it will not be fixed at launch

 

[Dyle]

People overcomplicate this stuff so much. Just don't take them as gospel and recognize them as the rushed and incomplete evaluations they inevitably will forever be. Stop trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole

 

[TechnicPuppet]

It's fine except the scores. They are a marketing tool and not working in the interests of consumers at all.

 

[Hernan532]

Are you basically describing the old style game pro reviews? Searching for them actually digs up an old Era thread.

For the record, I much prefer a fully subjective review with at most a yes/no recommendation at the end. I think scoring games like this cheapens them and misses the bigger picture.

How do you like your review scores?

Do you like 100 point scale? 10/10? 5 stars? 10 clown noses out of cheese? A smiley face? A reccomended or not reccomended? No score? I personally think that if you are a professional and feel you a qualified to give your opinion about something you can score it on as high of a point...

www.resetera.com

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The first thing that comes into my mind is that reviews are there to help people to choose wether or not to buy a game.
So when you have 97/100 on metacritic or opencritic and then mixed reviews on Steam it shows that you did an incomplete review of the game without at least saying the performance was bad. The same happened with Cyberpunk, but the difference is that Cyberpunk on PC ran well (i played it on PC). With Elden Ring almost everybody is having some kind of performance issues .

For instance, i tried to beat the Tree Sentinel underleveled and every try(and i mean a LOT haha) there were frame drops . Of course the game is great , without a doubt.
And i'm playing this with an Rtx 2080 on 1080p, 32gb ram and NVME hd

 

[Pirateluigi]

Objectivity has no place in a review discussion. If you care about stats like frame rate, resolution, game length, etc... there are places to find that information.

 

[Messofanego]

I disagree.... I mean, if not, what are they? I'm talking about professional reviews. Do you read reviews because you actually care if these specific people enjoy specific things? Why would you care if, for example, Easy Allies had fun or not - I assume you would watch their review to determine if you yourself would have fun. You read them so you can make an informed decision whether to spend your money.

I mean, most reviewers even say this - some have like "buy/don't buy" ratings, there are reviews that have "before you buy" in the name, and most reviewers see themselves as people who inform you before you spend your money. They are pretty much "a buyer's guide" - whether you personally consider them to be guides or not.

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Not all reviews are buyer's guides and that aspect is kind of outdated now compared to when reviews were only in magazines and purchasing power was much more limited. Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb and a few other critics talk about the buyer's guide aspect being outdated. Now you have so many stores, services, subscriptions, sales etc to buy games through. Now it's more common to see reviews as opinions of a critic and it's up to you on who you trust or to match with your opinions on games. Especially when reviews aren't only released at launch but can come out later, and can be more reflective after the launch window dies down. You seeing them as buyer's guides mainly is as valid as others seeing reviews as not just that.

 

[Pyro]

A review can be whatever the fuck it wants to be so I'm not voting for either. And there's nothing wrong with rating games on a scale because most people aren't freaks on Metacritic spamming negative user reviews.

The shorthand that a score provides for whether or not something is worth your time or money, especially when games demand so much of both compared to other mediums, is absolutely fine.

 

[astro]

So many people not reading the thread...

I think the first way, OP, as is. I did enjoy break downs, but I think they force a person to talk too much in blocks rather than cover the things they thought were moet important.

If a reviewer actually wants to break it down, though, that's fine too.

 

[Deleted member 22750]

Let's please stop press kits

Sorry if this is a controversial opinion. It's a simple statement. I know there are a ton of reviewers on this site who rely on free copies for reviews. I'm not saying free copies for review should stop. I'm saying free bling and press kits that can be sold for major money after has always been a problem.

I dunno if this topic is a direct result of elden ring or horizon but I'm sure someone is mad lol. I say the review system is ok. It could be better. But I'd advise people to stop looking at numbers and read the content in the review

Different strokes for different folks

 

[aevanhoe]

edit: double post

 

[aevanhoe]

Not all reviews are buyer's guides and that aspect is kind of outdated now compared to when reviews were only in magazines and purchasing power was much more limited. Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb and a few other critics talk about the buyer's guide aspect being outdated. Now you have so many stores, services, subscriptions, sales etc to buy games through. Now it's more common to see reviews as opinions of a critic and it's up to you on who you trust or to match with your opinions on games. Especially when reviews aren't only released at launch but can come out later, and can be more reflective after the launch window dies down. You seeing them as buyer's guides mainly is as valid as others seeing reviews as not just that.

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I agree, this is just my personal view - and other opinions are just as valid. Even though I get what you're saying, I still think - in practice - reviews dictate how well a game will sell. And when there's money involved, I do think that there should be at least some attempt at objectivity.

And also, let me just say - people do care about reviews. Era can talk about how they shouldn't, how it's silly, how we shouldn't have scores, etc. - but the truth is, it is important to customers, developers and publishers (for different reasons). And I just think reviewers should at least try to view games as products other people will spend money on, not just express their personal experiences (and, honestly, most do - most reviewers do try to be objective).

I dunno if this topic is a direct result of elden ring or horizon but I'm sure someone is mad lol. I say the review system is ok. It could be better. But I'd advise people to stop looking at numbers and read the content in the review

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I actually started avoiding reading most reviews for the games I want to play - because I'm scared of spoilers (even mild ones). I also avoid OTs here for the same reason. I read reviews after I played the game a while or finished it. Scores are often the only thing that can tell me if a game is worthy of buying.

 

[Yossarian]

I don't think it should be prescriptive.

How one writes reviews is - in some respects - a unique selling point for a publication, so the broader the range of approaches, from painstakingly objective to obtusely personal, the better. After that, it's down to the reader as to what they gravitate towards.

This is nice:

 

[Garulon]

Just hook the reviewer up to a variety of heart and brain monitoring devices and upload the data along with a video of them playing the game

 

[Farlander]

So I have a personal YouTube channel which I rebooted last year to do reviews based on my personal scoring system that is divided in categories.

Here's the thing, I hate scoring systems and hate categorization. But also, being a designer, I like sometimes taking things I hate and trying doing out of them things that I might like :D So I've spent 4 years doing different variations of what I call the 'Stasocritic' system (Stas is how my name is shortened), which in the end works like this, shortly speaking. It's a scoring system with a scale of 1-100, divided in 5 categories: Design, Context, Aesthetics, Cohesion and Emotions. Each category has 10 points, each point has an explicitly stated criteria of when it is assigned (But also relative enough so a game like Tetris wouldn't be punished for not having a story and a game like The Walking Dead wouldn't be punished for not having a lot of systems). So there's essentially 50 points each having its own criteria of placement. Also each category has a different weight - Design has a weight of 4, Emotions - 3, Cohesion - 2, and Context/Aesthetics both have a weight of 1 (weight is essentially the point multiplier).

There were a lot of iterations on this, but this has allowed me to create a scoring system where I can feel I can actually assign consistent scoring, and the categorization is encompassing enough that nothing is left out arbitrarily but also concrete enough that I can categorize my critique into particular clear topics.

So, yeah, after 4 years of working on that system during my free time I rebooted my channel to make videos based on it and it works out very nicely!

I still hate scoring systems though :D Most of them are too arbitrary and oversimplify discussion about a game, not to mention that a lot of games with a score lower than 7/70/3.5 (depending on scale) are devalued. So I think that mainstream outlets for the most part should just... not have them. Who has the time to spend 4 years on making sure that their scores are not arbitrary, huh? :D Better focus on the text itself without trying to put down a number to it that even the same person might use differently every time.

 

[Servbot24]

I want completely subjective reviews.

 

[Messofanego]

I don't think it should be prescriptive.

How one writes reviews is - in some respects - a unique selling point for a publication, so the broader the arrange of approaches, from painfully objective to obtusely subjective, the better. After that, it's down to the reader as to what they gravitate towards.

This is nice:

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Yeah this is a great video by Jacob Geller.

 

[Torpedo Vegas]

I'm good with a couple trailers and a few brief game play videos that don't have someone talking over them. I've always found reviews unnecessary in my buying process.

 

[Mathieran]

I like eurogamer's scale. I would have several sections: summary of game, performance, visuals, story, controls/game feel, and a final verdict (essential, recommended, some sort of fans of the genre recommendation if can't fully recommend, and not recommended).

 

[Stop It]

The last thing I will say about people asking for "complete coverage" reviews based on a prescriptive list. You're talking from a place of privilege.

Think of people with the following:
Hearing loss
Vision impairments
Physical Disabilities
Mental disabilities and impairments.

All of these things require a totally different approach to a review which would mean either writing a review several times per perspective, or shoehorning elements into a review that the writer doesn't understand enough to address.

Specialised reviews which serve the community with different accessibility needs exist and are a specialisation. For a reason and trying to make something for everyone while excluding these considerations would be discrimination. However the very existence of this also shows how the "objective" side of a review is not objective at all and is based exclusively on individual needs.

When anyone ever asks for a review that is covering everything relevant, they mean to them and them alone. This means that each review cannot possibly objectively serve everyone without being absurd in length.

This isn't practical. Reviews should be a spectrum of approaches.

 

[Yossarian]

Yeah this is a great video by Jacob Geller.

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I don't think he's missed yet.

Reviews should be a spectrum of approaches.

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Precisely. Then you go to the site or publication that speaks most to you.

 

[Ckoerner]

Reviews are fine as is, it's the community that makes them a problem for whatever reason (we all know the reason).

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.

 

[Messofanego]

I don't think he's missed yet.

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I still need to see his more non-gaming videos, like I really enjoyed the Jewish Golem one and the cave one.

 

[Yossarian]

I still need to see his more non-gaming videos, like I really enjoyed the Jewish Golem one and the cave one.

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The golem one was really interesting. There's one about a Simpson's intro that was really good too.

 

[nihilence]

I wish they could be simply about how fun or frustrating, talk about systems, technology and such and be general?

Having arbitrary 91 vs a 92 etc doesn't help. A higher level overview of the experience is more beneficial imo.

 

[DNAbro]

An objective review is a fact sheet about the game that cannot be given a score.

I want to know how the reviewer felt, what the liked and disliked, what the feel of it for them was.

 

[MazeHaze]

All I'm saying is IGN gave Layers of Fear 2 a 9/10 and Alien Isolation a 5/10. It's all just made up bullshit

 

[mute]

I want the reviewer to give the same amount of weight to the different aspects of the game as I would. To be as close to a stand in for myself as possible.

That will never happen, so I just ignore reviews for the most part.

I agree with getting rid of numbers and the whole meta/open critic system though.

 

[MorshuTheTrader]

I don't even read reviews, but I do use the Open Critic scores. I actually built a web scraper to grab every game on Open Critic with at least a 70 with 40 reviews and spit it out into a spreadsheet for me. If a game is not on that list, I won't play it. I don't have enough time to play everything anyway, so this at least weeds out the games I'd likely be wasting time/money on.

 

[scare_crow]

There's not such thing as an objective review.

 

[Lobster Roll]

I'm not reading all of that, OP. What I will read, however, is a review. I will also watch a Twitch stream or two. I will also ingest impressions from people who got the game early. People write up a review for a game, give it a score, and then justify that score based on how they feel about it. It's their opinion about the game. Trying to put reviews into a specific box is the exact opposite approach the industry needs to take.

 

[Ravenwraith]

The only people I see doing all this fretting over reviewers are the people who have their minds made up by trailers anyway. For the more casual consumer that just wants to know if a game is worth their money they still largely serve their purpose.

Most of them don't have the same tastes as me and thus don't really do anything for me, but I have my circle of reviewers I stick with so it hardly matters now.

 

[Glio]

The gaming audience basically attempts to eviscerate any reviewer who deviates from the mean when it comes to high profile first party releases. There's plenty of fantastic of video game critique out there but to do it in a mainstream context is basically putting a crosshair on your back for the internet hate-mobs. Even moreso if you are a minority.

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I know, I know, but sometimes I would like to read opinion that are not from a middle aged white man that is also a core gamer.

 

[Pirateluigi]

I don't even read reviews, but I do use the Open Critic scores. I actually built a web scraper to grab every game on Open Critic with at least a 70 with 40 reviews and spit it out into a spreadsheet for me. If a game is not on that list, I won't play it. I don't have enough time to play everything anyway, so this at least weeds out the games I'd likely be wasting time/money on.

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Why 40? You would miss out on so many amazing games that are less well known. Just looking at a few of my favorite games in the last decade and they all have an 80+ score but around 20-25 reviews.

Like, I already think only playing games based on an arbitrary score limit is silly, but you are even further limiting yourself from experiencing true gems.

 

[werezompire]

Review scores shouldn't matter to anyone other than the publisher & the developer.

 

[Jencks]

As I said above, I see the reviewer position as a job and as providing a service. I expect them to try and be objective as much as they can, so that I can be informed about the product. Of course, they should put their personal spin on everything, I'm not talking about absolute objectivity - that is impossible and boring and not useful.

I mean, what good would my "Forza Horizon 5 is a 4/10 game because I don't like racers" review be for anyone? What would you gain from that as a customer? Why would you care if I like racers or not - you want to know if you should spend money on a game or not.

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People probably wouldn't gain much from it. Which is why the readers have to choose what they want to take away from it, based on the reviewers argument. A site could technically do this and I agree it would be pretty stupid, but it wouldn't be invalid or anything.

 

[Noog]

This + a pros and cons table would be more than enough imo.

I like how Eurogamer handles reviews.

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I personally love pro and con lists, but they need to go in detail, or else we get another "too much water" situation which required IGN to change their entire review system

 

[MorshuTheTrader]

Why 40? You would miss out on so many amazing games that are less well known. Just looking at a few of my favorite games in the last decade and they all have an 80+ score but around 20-25 reviews.

Like, I already think only playing games based on an arbitrary score limit is silly, but you are even further limiting yourself from experiencing true gems.

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I chose that number because I figure lesser known game scores are going to be swayed more by people are who are really into a particular niche. Am I missing out on some games I would really like? Probably, but I can't play every game. No matter what, I'm going to have to pick and choose what I spend my time on and could potentially miss out on something. But doing it this way, I almost never find that I've wasted my time on a game that I didn't like.

 

[ventuno]

I prefer the first method you described. A review is never truly objective even if it focuses on technical aspects the way you seen to be striving towards. Plus, your views on what makes a review useful or not are... subjective.

My other big concern with the second method is how it would limit what people discuss as they approach games.

The gaming community is generally very hostile towards any discussion on a game that doesn't focus on topics it views as "useful", such as acknowledgement of crunch culture, ignorant views impacting depictions in games, success in implementing accessibility... The list goes on. These are beneficial and important aspects to discuss... and a stricter review format would ultimately serve to push those conversations out of reviews altogether.

There are different aspects that shape each player's experience. There are people who need to know about whether or not the game is accessible. There are people who want a heads-up on bigoted views presented in the game or need to understand why these issues are worthy of discussion. There is some perspective the community at large never would have gained or concerns some players never would have been aware of had reviewers not been free to approach them. This matters just as much as technical aspects.