Reviewers will never win

Grumblings have been rife on the internet recently (What’s new?) about reviews and reviewers in the video game industry. Where has the unrest come from?

The trend seems to be that fans will not let their favourite franchise be tarnished in any way by reviewers on websites and printed press. A prime example is the low review scores of Resident Evil 6 on Metacritic which had fans up in arms and crying foul from reviewers judging the game too harshly, they seem to forget that this is an aggregation of all review scores and some will be higher than others.

[legendof117]

I just think this article is pointless...

For example... I love Halo.

Even if the next game sucked... I would still love it like it was the best game ever.

Its just fanboyism.

[knowyourstuff]

I know right, although if your expectations are high enough and they don't deliver, it may be a bigger blow to your faith in a particular franchise.

Sometimes it's just that particular universe that people just love and can't get enough of, even if the game technically isn't that great. This is where the impass exists between reviewers and fanboys. What reviewers need to understand is that they need to leave their personal tastes at the door and talk objectively. No one cares if you like racing games or not - if it's a good racing game don't crap all over it because it's out of your familiar comfort zone. Reviewers don't do this, which is why no one trusts them, and the backlash is indeed deserved.

[admiralvic]

Decent point, but I disagree with a lot of it. I think a LOT of people forget that reviewers go into every game with an objective. By this I don't mean personality, but how they want to go about the review. Lets look at Biohazard 6.

If you look at it from a "how it works" mindset, it should score pretty high.
If you look at it from a "fans point of view" mindset, it will score low because it's not the game you use to love.
If you look at it from a "*@$! Capcom" mindset, you really have no creditability and thus don't matter.

In the end, people will disagree with any opinion they don't agree with, which is perfectly fine. However, I think some people should reveal how much time they had with the content. All of the high scores with Borderlands 2's DLC made me think a lot of reviewers didn't get very far and just reviewed it after 10 minutes. A lot of people forget that just 1 problem is enough to ruin the game or content. I doubt anyone would say Master Gee in that DLC didn't make them enjoy it less and I'm sure the ending to inFAMOUS sold them on the game. In the end, I always tell people to find reviewers they agree with and stick to their work.

[bubblebeam]

True.

On Good Game, they admitted before reviewing the game that they hadn't even beaten it yet. I thought that would automatically disqualify your review.

For instance, ME3. It was a superb game ruined by a very bad ending. If reviewers played the whole game I'm sure it would get lower reviews.

It shows that anyone can review a game, it isn't very professional at all. If you haven't beaten the game, how do you know that it won't get super boring by the end? Or alternatively have a super awesome ending like AC2??

Reviewers have one of the easiest jobs in the world. It's like being paid to scratch your own A$$.

[legionsoup]

Reviews SHOULDN'T be an opinion. They should review what works and what doesn't. Things can be judges objectively (such as frame rate, UI choices, control sensitivity, and so on).

If someone is in a bad mood when they review a game, it can skew the score. The opposite is also true, and it's not right.

I'm also a huge believer that $$ has a lot to do with it (advertising on a site, for example).

[admiralvic]

You can't review something and leave your opinion out. No matter what game you play, there will always be things that affect your review even when listing "facts".

For something to be a fact, it would need to be universally true. Most things are opinions based off facts, so I thought Orgarhythm was too complex to be fun. Others might actually like it. In either case, how you simply explain something shows a lean.

Everything you listed (except frame rate) can be wildly different based off the users skill, history and outlook. To give you an idea, I found Catherine to be an easy game (got the platinum 5 days after release), others stated it to be harder than Demon Souls. I am good at puzzles, so my wording of the experience will be nicer than the guy who didn't get it. So like I mentioned above, saying something simple like "you got to think fast" vs "you're given a short amount of time to figure it out" shows opinion and ultimately proves my point.

[legendof117]

I totally agree with you saying you can't review something an leave an opinion out..

That is the undeniably truth.

I dislike Final Fantasy, and even Zelda.

They could make mind blowing games in those franchises but I wouldn't ever pick them up.

[Wigriff]

Totally objective reviews are hard to accomplish, and regardless of how fair and balanced you try and be, someone is always going to be unhappy. It's just important to remember that a review is one person's perspective, and reviews should be a guideline, but not the standard, by which one buys games.

Most ratings systems are fundamentally broken anyway. People tend to view 5's or other mid-line scores as a "bad" score, instead of what it should be – middle-of-the-road or mediocre. I think the letter grade rankings work much better, because most people associate a 'C' with being 'average.' It's a shame that so much emphasis is placed on metacritic ratings, even determining bonuses and pay for developers. It's just an incredibly flawed system.

Finally: I think that it would be better for reviewers to be familiar with, or even a fan of, the genre of game they are reviewing. I don't watch sports, nor do I know much about sports, so I wouldn't really have any business reviewing a Madden title. I also don't know much about the higher mechanics of fighting games, or what desirable attributes of fighting games are, so I would just rather leave that alone. By that same token, I see people all the time reviewing, say, JRPGs, and it seems like they went into the review already deciding that they wouldn't like the title, because they don't generally like or play JRPGs. That's rather unfair, in my opinion.