Why do we look at reviews after playing the game?

"Imagine the following scenario:

Your friend approaches you with a clothing catalog. As he/she sets it down on a table in front of you, they flip through the pages until they come to the coats section. They point to a particular coat and ask, “What do you think of this one? Should I buy it?”

You stare at it for a while, not really sure if you like it. “I’m not sure,” you say. “Personally, I just don’t think the style and color really suits you. And I don’t really think it’s worth the price-”

Before you can finish, they slam the book shut and yell at you. “How dare you say that! The coat looks and feels great ever since I’ve been wearing it a few days ago, and it was worth every penny! I’m never going to you for advice again.” With that, they storm off.

Would that not be utterly ridiculous to behold? And yet, in the world of video game reviews, this happens all the time..." (Michael Urban, Velocity Gamer)

[Dark_Overlord]

Easy answer

To see what others thought about the game :)

[Linsolv]

You're right. Answer is easy. But headline is misleading as usual (thanks N4G!); real question the article is addressing is "Why do people get so butthurt in reviews of games they already have played?"

We've all seen that guy who went saw a negative review of Call of Duty and flew off the handle "FUCK YOU I PLAYED THIS IS WAS THE BEST GAME THE NARRATIVE IS TOTALLY COMPLETE AND FULFILLING DICK CHEESE REVIEWER!"

That's a fairer question, why is it that people go out specifically spoiling for a fight after playing games?

And that's what the article is actually addressing.

[zerocrossing]

Some people seem to get pretty attached to games and get really offended when they see anything negative written or spoken about one they like.

It's pretty petty if you ask me, if you like a game it shouldn't matter that other gamers may not, we're all going to enjoy different things after all.

It's even worse this past gen with so many people with a fanboy mentality acting as if it all makes any bit of difference in the end.

[th3n00bg4m3r]

True, but just look at this review.

[admiralvic]

A lot of times people feel like the reviewer is wrong, so they feel a need to address it. This isn't too surprising since you never know how much of the game the review is based off of. Typically people would assume "The end", but it's not always that easy.

Take The Cave, which released earlier this week. The Cave features 7 characters with their own unique puzzles and a few puzzles you have to do. The problem is that the game changes rapidly the more you play it.

Cycle 1 - Fun game with some craft puzzles.
Cycle 2 - Sucks redoing those fixed sections, but the new puzzles are awesome!
Cycle 3 - Lots of redoing, but at least it's over with.

Considering the requirement for the good ending can be missed, the reviewer might think cycle 3 is the end and might say the endings are all "bad" (because they got all the bad endings) or they might say the game starts to drag towards the end. To TRUELY 100% the game, you have to beat every character twice, which results in a MINIMAL of 5 endings to "see it all". At this point you will have done every characters puzzle at least once and the fixed ones five times... if you play the game this much, then it's quite likely you're sick of the puzzles and the review gets a FAR lower score.

Not every reviewer will play the game that much, just like not every commentator will play the game that much. This simple change can cause a difference of opinion and people might defend a game they don't know enough about or trash a game they know a LOT more about.

This is typically what happens, though its common for people to think the game deserves more because they're not looking at the whole package. If we were to take PlayStation All-Stars and base the score off Story, Modes, Presentation, Online and Gameplay evenly, then it would probably average 5 - 7 / 10, since some aspects are lacking. The opposite happened for Declassified, since reviewers accounted for the poor SP, where as commentors praised it for the strong MP. In the end we all just want to "accurately" inform others about the game, so it will probably never get any better or even change.

[TitanUp]

the headline came from source site which you have to use in order for a story to get approved.

[yeahokchief]

To try and estimate how much a publisher paid for a favorable review.

Haven't read a review in a long time. I preordered and paid for all of my 2013 games back in 2012. Reviews don't often dissuade most gamers as we have seen with the past 2 Resident Evil games.

But when I see something like Game Informer giving RAGE a 9.something and Dark Souls an 8.something... well you gotta draw the line somewhere. The point of having one game .25 or .50 lower than the other? To slap their joke of a monthly award onto the review which i'm assuming costs extra.

They all do it. What you think a Nintendo magazine is going to give that new Nintendo game a 3/5? yeah. right. It's all about who pays their checks at the end of the day. Money buys everything.

Now while I don't hold anything against padding review scores positively. I do hold it against them when they collude to shit on developers who actually did an EXCELLENT job making a game to do so.

Hey maybe they actually do love shitty games and like to be critical of good ones. But in that case they have very poor judgement and a lack of standards.

Eitherway I don't read reviews anymore.

1. They're only going to piss me off.

2. They're going to ruin the fun of going into it fresh.

For you to actually get a good grasp on the quality of the game and whether or not it suits your tastes, you're going to have to spoil a good chunk of it for yourself. I don't think that's worth the few measly dollars it costs to just buy the game.

With the coming of the digital age and advance demos, reviewers are becoming obsolete.

[WolfLeBlack]

Exactly. I read reviews of games I've already played simply to read other peoples points of view, making me think about the game in different ways.

[Mounce]

100%.

Exactly what I was going to type.

[Freddy_Millz1]

To see how ppl whine about the littlest thing.

[kevnb]

When I can't play the game(at work or something) I like hearing about how awesome it is, then if the reviewer doesn't agree I get annoyed. Or if I don't like a game I might watch a review to see if I'm missing something.

[zerocrossing]

I like to see what other people thought about a game I played, and Im certainly not going to loose it if some people like or dislike a game that I don't.

[Funky_Homosapien]

This is rarely ever happens because reviews are released before the actual game come out.

[pr0digyZA]

I believe it's mainly to see what other people thought of a game, and what experience they had compared to oneself. A bit like psychology 101 you like to reaffirm your own belief in why you thought of something a certain way.

[sdozzo]

You want to assure yourself.

[Hufandpuf]

I compare my thoughts to the review. Then play the game again and see if those reviews hold up. That's how I analyze good reviews from bad ones.

[mananimal]

WE don't.

[black911]

Just To prove why we dont them serious. So we looks afterwards.