Reviews have become a big part of gaming as the media for games has grown. There are around 100 sites by now that do reviews, recommendations, and editorials for video games. Almost every one of these sites have comments that are mixed with fanboys, trolls, and the regular gamers talking about the game or the review, often bashing or defending something. This is where you get to witness the dramatic gasps over the decent 7/10 scores, the fanboys trying to start a duel (even on a 3rd party multi-platform game), and comments about how the review was the sole decision maker in a purchase. It's actually kind of funny how these reviews became a big deal. However, it's necessary, since we spend so much money towards these game, and must at all times have a referee pointing at the good ones and shunning the bad ones, right? Well... not really. In this post, I'm going to give my two cents on why reviews can't be considered the make/break decision, and other good topics concerning the way reviews work.
Well first off, if you're reading this blog you know I do reviews myself. So the idea that I'd demote the value of a game review would seem odd, or like blatant hypocrisy. Honestly that's not the case, as I enjoy making reviews and looking at them from that view point. But as a gamer, my review scores never suggest my actual value for them. If you asked me which shooter I prefered more, section 8: prejudice versus Call of duty modern warfare 2, I would likely hesitate and decide based on the mood I'm in. For a bunch of unlocking and level grinding with a good variety of modes and a better campaign, I'd pick MW2. For anything else, I'd choose Section 8. But my review scores would make it an obvious decision, right? MW2 got like an 8 or 9, while section 8 was held back in several categories, so it's obviously MW2. Nope. Section 8 fails a lot more on a review scale, but doesn't begin to phase on a common gamer scale. A real gamer measures his game by the entertainment value, and how you personally enjoyed it. I'd honestly laugh if you let your entertainment value diminish because the graphics could have been flashier, or because you thought the game's texture pop-ins were ruining your fun. Pop-ins, and flashy graphics cause a change in value when it comes to a review. They don't (or shouldn't) matter for a gamer's taste. Also (and I know this is going a bit off topic), take note you quick review defenders, this is why a review is not an "opinion". It is an evaluation of everything, including tech aspects and the fun factor (often based on the common preference instead of a quick opinion). If reviews were just opinion, you'd see games getting a lot more flat 0's, 5's, and 10's. I'd be giving killzone an instant 10, tell you how amazing it is in the tone of a young kid celebrating christmas, and then leave you with a "BUY IT IF YOU HAVE ANY TASTE!" recommendation. But no, there are tech aspects to go over, features to cover and rate, and you must cover the amount of effort put into every big detail of the game. It's not as simple as asking some random guy whether or not the game was fun.
Okay, back on subject: This is why looking at a 7, and scoffing at the game or review is a big internet wide mistake. The 7 could be brought on by a bad story, horrible glitches (that might have already gotten patched), or simply the reviewer dragging on about a small negative aspect too much, like a bad camera or how he didn't like where the sprint button was placed. You have to read it, the determin the value based on what you wanted from the game. If starhawk got a 7 because its story was trash, who the hell honestly cares? Anyone who was every hyped for starhawk for the right reasons knows that the story wasn't going to be good, and they'll shun the review that decided to chop off 3 points for the story. The sad thing is that there will always be that guy who sits there moaning "well I was going to buy this, but a 7 sucks so... bye". Not only is a 7 a good score, but it's missing the point of gaming if you just point at a 7 in shame all day. One of my favorite games on an entire genre got a 7 recently, and as I read the review I shrugged off everything negative because it just didn't matter, and the critic was making a big deal over nothing in some cases. The score doesn't make or break the game, and neither does the total review.
I guess it's a bit weird to talk about it this late into the post, but the question that inspired it was during an article about naughty bear 2. A comment said "Why would this game get a sequel, it got like all 3/10s! so stupid". Well I answered it pretty much with the above. But further more, I decided to talk about how the reviews these days are just out of touch with many gamers. It's like the silent majority rule. You can find a bunch of people commenting about how they agree with a review (without the game even being released yet), you can find a bunch of haters for a popular game, and you can also find a game with bad sales getting sky high reviews. The game that seems universally hated is getting a sequel because it actually has a fanbase that bought it, and enjoyed it. You can find nasty scores for popular games, but they are still popular games. And you can find good reviews for bad selling games, because it didn't do a good job appealing to the market. The answer to all of this lies in the fact that reviews aren't the same as the gamers. This case is even more obvious when we look at movie critics. Everybody loves a movie, each person likes it for their own reasons. Meanwhile the critics always look for the actor/actress's record instead of their character, they will always describe the action or suspense in 3 sentences or less no matter how much of the movie it makes up, and it will always spend portions trying to pit it up against another film for no reason at all. The only worthy thing in a review of a movie is the plot evaluation, and even that can fall short. You can't get the sense of action, humor, or emotion from a wall of text describing it to you. The case with gaming isn't exactly like this, but it is close. Naughty bear is getting a 2nd chance because it has an audience, just a rather quiet one that you wont find in reviews or followers of those reviews. Likewise people will raise pitchforks and torches up to some high reviews, because it can't cover the reasons why they hate it. You can continue to give god of war, call of duty, and mario their sky high scores, but there will be people out there sick of them with reasons beyond the critic's comprehension.
Again, I'm not saying reviews are useless, or bad. I'm just saying that they don't deserve the credit or high chair that they have been placed on, often with people thinking it decides a game's fate. The review can't measure the amount of fun that you'll probably have. They are there to classify your concerns on how good the graphics are, the recommended audience, and to tell you the length or if it was released unpolished. They will not tell what the best experience in the game was, they will give you the memories that playing the game could bring, they will not catch you off guard with a plot twist, and they can only describe the gameplay to you. These are things that you'll have to judge yourself, and you are completely missing out on these things if you only trust a review. Yes it can help you decide based on the length, or if you wanted to know the rules of a mode. But they cannot give you the experience. This is why I scoff at the bad reviews for Naughty bear, Turok evolution, Killzone 1, and the few bad reviews of starhawk. This is also why I also don't always agree with the super review scores that COD, or dragon age get. Ironically I would probably give them similar scores though, but that's because the review is different than the quick opinion. I can't take points off of COD for some of the small tweaks that I don't agree with, nor can I give Dragon age a bad score for it's terrible universe. I treat them as games that stand an equal chance for their genre and purpose, and take points off as I go through negative facts or gameplay mechanics that would generally be found as annoying or fun threatening. Opinions are given, but they are restricted to a certain level and get stated more off to the sides than to the score.
On a final note, I will say that I will make an adjustment to my style of review to sort of help the judgment. I will give off an extra score that is titled "Fun factor", and it will be a score that does NOT count as part of the overall view, and get the points based off of the experience and fun that I had instead of tech aspects and such getting in the way. So something like Dragon's dogma would get a 10 on the fun factor, but it would be kept seperate from the likely 7/10 score that it would probably receive. It may have a quick summary of how I reached that score. Like I said, it wont count with the total score and will be on its own. It's like a second voice that separates from the super analyses critic perspective that makes up the bulk of a review. It's still not something to weight on for your purchase, but it gives you an idea of how much fun you can have without considering the silly and insignificant stuff that a review has to cover.
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