Honesty In Game Reviews: Is It Efficient?

Bitmob: A game reviewer ponders the ups and downs of being completely honest with your audience, and wonders 'Should you have to finish a game to review it?'

[reaper1050]

A reviewer should finish the game and relay what seetings were used. I don't want to pay 60 bucks for a game and find out that it rules for 50% and uscks for the last 50%.

[RockYou]

even for 70 hour RPGs? How do you beat an MMO?

[darthv72]

it just adds a bit more credibility to the review given if the person has beaten (or came really close) the game.

You wouldnt want to read a review of a movie if the reviewer only watched the first half hour or worse...just the trailer.

We all know that in the end however, reviews =/= opinions and those can differ with everyone.

I do like it if a reviewer tries not to give away so much of the plot of the game/movie within the review itself. That can be hard when you know they want to tell everyone that it was col mustard in the library with the lead pipe but they can't.

[allyc4t]

The reviewer should play the game to completion or state otherwise.

If the game is more focused on multiplayer, IE MW2, Reach, MAG, etc. The game shouldn't have a multiplayer review until the reviewer has had a chance to play with the actual community instead of other reviewers.

[admanb]

Yahtzee writes critiques, not reviews. The difference is not a question of quality or class, but one of goal.

The goal of a review is to help a reader decide whether or not he wants to buy/rent/borrow a game.

The goal of a critique is to ask in what areas did this fail, and why; and it what areas did it succeed, and why.

A review talks directly to consumers, whereas a critique talks to the realm of game development as a whole.

Now, whether or not any mainstream "reviewers" succeed as reviewers or whether Yahtzee succeeds as a critic is an entirely different question. But to analyze Yahtzee's efforts as you would analyze a review is a mistake.

[Unicron]

This is why I like Kotaku's review SYSTEM, if not always their reviews.

Likes
Dislikes
What was played

Perfect system. No stupid scores or guessing games. A review is an opinion, but I expect it to be at least ACCURATE. Efficient? Well then, its just an impression if the entire experience is incomplete, no?

[telekineticmantis]

These recent Gaming sites today are made up of a bunch of fanboy and nonprofessional journalists Kotaku and Gizmodo for example. Gaming journalism and game reviews were only respectable back in the days when it was just Gamespot and a few other sites.

[Paul_Gale]

If something gets a score then I think it should be played fully. Does this also mean only reviewing Super Street Fighter IV once you've beaten the game with all 35 players and completed each one's training levels on full? No, but rhe majority of what the game offers should be experienced by the reviewer to be fair. I also don't think that it should be necessary to get 100% of every single item in a game, in the case of Super Mario Galaxy 2 (don't have to have collected every green star, but should have gotten to that point prior to the review). It's not a clear cut line for all games. Would you require a reviewer to try out every car in Gran Turismo 5? No. Overall though, I personally just don't like it when a reviewer gets a 5 hour sample and then slaps on a score. When I write reviews, I want my audience to know that I've beaten it or if the game can't be "beaten", I put a lot into it.

[Sigh]

It's always inconsistent-- that I can tell you!

[rakunado]

The game needs to be played fully. If it isn't, the reviewer needs to be responsible and tell the readers how far they have gotten and the reason why.