Giant Bomb |OT 25| Everyone Left Me Again
- Thread starter Death Metalist
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I've gotten to that age where I want to spend as little time tinkering with things as possible. Don't care where Windows puts it's files as long as the game installs and runs when I click the icon. If I really cared what metrics companies are getting about me through the software I use I wouldn't even be using Windows to begin with
That's wild to me.
Steam user reviews are nothing.
The ones that aren't shitty jokes are usually people brigading the score one way or the other. They are probably the last thing I would ever look at to decide if a game is good
In a day and age where the content and quality of a game after release can flip on an update-by-update basis, user reviews are significantly more useful than one-and-done professional reviews except in a relatively narrow window after release.
Even review bombs can be informative if you put the time into learning what the issue is. While it can often be done for petty or nonsensical reason, it's also helpful to know if an update has completely fucked up a game months/years after release.
Even review bombs can be informative if you put the time into learning what the issue is. While it can often be done for petty or nonsensical reason, it's also helpful to know if an update has completely fucked up a game months/years after release.
To me that describes Metacritic, but not Steam. I already explained it a little more a few posts down.
And yes, even brigading has its reasons and can be helpful information.
I think that user reviews on steam, individually, are pretty limiting, save for massively peer-thumb-up'd ones that give good descriptions about the game itself (i.e. aren't memes) - and usually, those tend to echo big reviews, unless you already know the reviewer aligns with your choice in what you find enjoyable about game genre(s) or systems.
It's a little better insofar as an aggregate review meta-scores about the game quality/bugs/what have you - it won't be able to necessarily tell you whether a game is specifically to your taste(s), but it can give you a good estimate on whether or not people find it fun.
Or, if it IS being review-bombed, you can usually find out the why, and whether that's a reason you'd personally be concerned about/with.
It's a little better insofar as an aggregate review meta-scores about the game quality/bugs/what have you - it won't be able to necessarily tell you whether a game is specifically to your taste(s), but it can give you a good estimate on whether or not people find it fun.
Or, if it IS being review-bombed, you can usually find out the why, and whether that's a reason you'd personally be concerned about/with.
I don't think they're perfect and I definitely wouldn't use it as the only source to decide whether or not to purchase something, but as a quick overview of the current state of any given game, I've found them to be very useful.
I don't think I've ever come across a game that had completely useless user reviews during my normal browsing, I only see those when a game is in the middle of a controversy of some sort and gets linked here.
I don't think I've ever come across a game that had completely useless user reviews during my normal browsing, I only see those when a game is in the middle of a controversy of some sort and gets linked here.
Man I could not disagree more. I use steam reviews all the time for user opinions. It's super easy to see if there's a majority positive/negative opinion about a game that is current (so if a game is a year or two old, it reflects the present on not just Week 1 after release), and why the opinion leans whichever way it does.
User reviews can be good but thats like looking for a needle in a landfill. User reviews are typically people saying something is the best thing they've ever played or complaining about the most minute details. I've seen constructive, well written reviews of course but man, can't imagine ever seriously banking on Steam reviews to guide my hand in any purchase decision.
??
Someone posts "I like steam reviews"
I go "huh I don't at all"
No one ever said you couldn't like them
It's fine if you don't want to use them, but I would suggest that you perhaps also try to think about them in the aggregate, not focusing so much on individual reviews. Individual reviews can be useful, but you need a strategy to filter out the garbage which you're clearly not interested in.
I find it very useful just to be able to compare 'all time' vs 'recent' reviews, as an aggregate, which Steam helpfully provides. This will positively correlate with post-release support. Time is hugely important since brigading/fanboyism die out (or lessen) over time, which allows the aggregate score to approach its 'true value'.
Individual recent reviews can be useful to get an idea of specific bugs or incompatabilities, or other technical issues that linger, some of which typical professional reviewers (Digital Foundry excepted) won't even go in to in the first place.
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First things I look at is this:
And this:
And then you scrolled past like three much more in-depth reviews for your screenshot for some reason.
Should I buy La Mulana 1 + 2 on sale? I like platformers, I theoretically like how esoteric those games are, but is it one of those "you had to be there" type games where trying to solve the puzzles now without either resorting to a walkthrough or having a community trying to solve them alongside you makes it less interesting?
First things I look at is this:
And this:
And then you scrolled past like three much more in-depth reviews for your screenshot for some reason.
I admitted I cherry picked and there were some good examples. I said as much in other post that there were people who seemed to be trying to be good reviewers. That doesn't make the garbage not also exist.
All that shows is that people broadly like something. It is completely useless at telling me if I will like something.
I never tried that hard to get into them, but I found the first one at least practically impossible without some sort of guide
And then that kind of misses the point of the game
Also the news about Days Gone just keeps getting better. All these people coming out of the woodworks saying they loved the first game and how dare Sony not make a sequel.. then one of the devs says hey buy the game new if you want to support devs and all of a sudden everyone is calling that an entitled viewpoint because sure they LOVE Days Gone, but they're not gonna actually pay retail for it.
Just saying that I find opinions from individuals so much more important than aggregate opinions. A rotten tomatoes score? Who cares?
I can listen to Jeff or Patrick talk about a game and regardless if they like it or dislike it have a good idea how I might like it.
Hell I can read a Blitzpressions or a post from someone on here and go "that sounds cool"
Steam reviews seem helpful for knowing if a game is fundamentally broken I will concede that.
Buying everyone a copy of this very positively reviewed game for old times sake. :)
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right it's usually not the reviews themselves that are helpful but, like, the shape of the aggregate reviews
also user reviews tend to be written by crazy people who have the time to go super into a game which can be good and bad, but at least fulfils a need that generally professional reviews don't always get to. also they don't have word limits so you can find some real dumb shit that would never survive a proper edit pass
Ah thanks for the heads up
I dropped their podcast after McNamara left, wasn't really feeling the new crew, but I'll give them another shot.
Jeff playing the bangers.
Having a child completely wrecked my Spotify
They need to invite Greg to do another 24 hour stream when Elder Scrolls 6 comes out.
I can understand how a person not good at parsing data would not like user reviews. Just because it is easy for me to disregard dumb/meme reviews doesn't mean that everyone can. Even with that, just being able to track trends at large makes mass user reviews more valuable to me than not.
The Millie scenes are painful, but cut all those out and you have the exact amount dumb enjoyment
Nah he's not wrong. The problem is that indie games have spent the last ten years or so doing a lot of the narrative exploratory work required to really build out a toolkit for the medium while the big budget space spent its time trying to chase Hollywood style storytelling and turned out, for the most part, inferior copies.
We're about two decades behind where we could be. I expect we'll start consistently seeing more high quality stories from big budget games in the next decade, but I think its totally fair to say that most stories are currently graded on a curve. It really is a craft thing as much as its a writing thing, a lot of games, for all that they want to mimic big budget stories, don't actually have a good grasp of visual storytelling. Or like...camera motion styles lol
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User reviews, Metacritic, it's all bad. The only opinion I trust is that of Mr. Bradley Shoemaker
Every time I don't stick to lurking, I always get into trouble.
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I watched it today too and that was my same thought. Those Millie scenes were just bad and unnecessary (felt like they signed her to a multi movie contract and had to pigeonhole her in somewhere) but the rest was just dumb lazy Sunday afternoon action movie (in a good way).
Remember those folks that would just post those giant checklist reviews in steam?
Always hoped they'd add "reviewers tilt" at some point.
I dunno. User reviews are generally one of those weird internet microcosm nightmare zones that I only look at when I want to despair about humanity for a bit. I'm fine with them not being there.
Always hoped they'd add "reviewers tilt" at some point.
I dunno. User reviews are generally one of those weird internet microcosm nightmare zones that I only look at when I want to despair about humanity for a bit. I'm fine with them not being there.