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Review Scores? What do you think?
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IMO demos are my personal favorite. A full release of the game, but with no online capabilities (if it has any) and only a small campaign of quest to accomplish that'll give you a good breadth of what's in store should you get the full retail copy.
WarCraft III did it well, Crysis did it well, and now The Force Unleashed is going to do it. Even better, TFE's demo will have an exclusive quest and storyline that play directly into the actual game.
Oh,well obviously a demo is the best thing you can have to judge a game,yeah.
But we were talking about reviews so I guess a demo doesn't really count.
In that case, i'm totally with you on video reviews. It gives a whole new layer of understanding that text reviews just don't. Plus, it's easier to tell if the reviewer is a complete tool and doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
Usually, I already know (based on previews, trailers, demos, etc.) whether or not I want to buy a game. A lot of the time I won't read reviews until after I've played the game so I won't spoil myself too much. However, if I see a game I'm looking forward to getting universally low scores, I'll definitely go check out a few reviews from sources I trust to see what's up.
And there's been more than one occasion when, while glancing over something, I've noticed that some game I've never heard of/knew very little about has been getting high scores, and it will encourage me to read some reviews to see if it's something I'd be interested in.
Yes, scores in themselves aren't worth much. They need context. I guess when you get down to it, I don't understand why people would want them done away with entirely - where's the harm in keeping them around for the people that DO like them? People who don't like them just won't pay attention to them, anyway.
I don't think they push games away from being an art form, either. Films and books are usually considered art forms and they certainly have reviews that contain scores.
You'll always get people who are going to get pissy over scores, but people like that are stupid and I have better things to do than worry about what stupid people are freaking out over.
I think they can actually help critics write better reviews, too. It can force them to think more analytically if they're trying to justify a score with their text.
Also, what Yahtzee does is actually interesting.
Also, reviewers can get snagged into the hype like some fanboy. We've all seen it.
And we also have the issue of some reviewers being 'influenced' by their company's marketing department..
And then we have reviewers who think that every game should be reviewed towards what they think of as the "everyman" rather than the audience the game is targetted to. Which can cause all kinds of problems.
Oh, and don't forget the reviewers that don't actually play the game before writing a review. That don't put much time into it. These reviewers end up making some of the dumbest mistakes. Or the reviewers that apparently miss some of the obvious features of a game. I remember when an IGN (iirc) reviewer marked down Metroid Prime Hunters because it only had one type of multiplayer mode. And then when people brought the major, obvious fact that there is a lot more to the game than what his review and score was based on, did he change his score? Nope. Decided that even though his original score was based heavily on the lack of a very important set of features, but those features were actually there, the score shouldn't change. Great. I've seen shit like this all the time from different places.
I'm bothered by review 'scores' simply because most people, honestly, boil down a game's success to a simple average number from Metacritic or Gamerankings. Instead of reading at least a couple of bodies of reviews.
Personally? I try to read as many actual reviews, what was said about a game, as I can. That way, I can find out if the reviewer actually knows what the fuck he's talking about. Many times they don't and so it affects the score.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Look at Metacritic - and then look at followon phenomena like developer bonuses based on Metacritic scores. Look a Famitsu giving high scores to games which are expected to sell well out of a strange concept of responsibility to the videogame industry. The problem isn't scores being given, the problem is how those scores are being interpreted and used.
Yep.
The easiest solution to avoid this is to remove scores altogether.
If people put all their faith in metacritic or "the guy from IGN," then I suppose people can go fuck themselves. Besides, I really can't see John Q Halo 2 filling his library with arthouse games just because no /10 reviews are available. I can see him buying some shiny but mediocre film-to-game adaption piece of garbage for for lack of them, though.
I guess my position is that they help more than they hurt.
The reviewer marked off points because it didn't provide "worlds to explore."
A puzzle game, really? Yes, this game sucks, all I do is solve creative puzzles using a unique liquid-metal mechanic. Shit. It's not Mass Effect, what a piece of crap. The next version of Tetris better have a sex scene between the L piece and the T-block.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
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That said, I do think that having some kind of scoring system is useful merely so people can have something to survey at a glance and see what a reviewer thinks of a game.
Personally, I tend to favor a three-tiered system that goes something like this:
Bad
Average
Good
That's all the review scoring I need.
Maybe reviewer likes genre x and thought game y was not good because of reason z. Assuming that the reviewer isn't full of shit, I'll be able to tell at this point whether I'd enjoy the game.
Also, I think the ideal review is to take 2 (or more) reviewers who have regular people names not unlike Tommy or Vic who like different styles of games then film a dialog between them discussing what it is they like and don't like about the game. Then at the end of the short discussion they could sum up all the good and bad things about the game. Bonus points if they're doing it on the run.
In my opinion, reviews only help more than they hurt if you read the actual text of the article, and that you also read a wide range of reviews to get more perspectives. Reading the text of the article lets you see the reasoning for why something is "good" or is "bad." You may totally disagree as to why some aspect is considered "bad." You may think that being tough as nails in Contra 4 is a good thing. Or that the save system in Dead Rising is a cool aspect. Or that you don't need "worlds to explore" in your puzzle games. You may disagree as to why the aspects in a game are "good' according to the review. Maybe you don't think the revival system in Bioshock is a good thing and would rather it be more challenging. Maybe you think the motion controls in Twilight Princess are lame. Reading the text of the review helps you determine whether or not the aspects of the game that are there are actually appealing to you, since they are not always objective (and usually aren't).
Reading multiple reviews helps you get more perspectives. Maybe one reviewer marked down a game, but in the review, didn't provide much info besides, "And then, the controls are bad. Because they are hard to control." That review may give more info on other aspects, but by reading more reviews, you might find out why "the controls" actually are bad, or are perhaps actually good, if another review explains them. Some reviews said that Resi4's controls are outdated. OK, thanks. But what does that mean? Oh it means the controls are the same as other RE games (tank) but the camera is over the shoulder, plus you can aim where you want to shoot, which basically makes something traditional to the series feel fresh and fun again. Also, reading more reviews allows you to see aspects of the game that other reviews didn't cover, or missed entirely. If I had only read the IGN article on Prime Hunters, I might think the multiplayer is limited. Having read more than one, I could see that there are in fact many mulitplayer options.
Reading reviews opens your eyes to why a game is said to be "good" or "bad." Reading many reviews helps explain things, detail more things, and show things that other reviews missed. You also get more opinions from more people that may agree or disagree and that will help you decide what's important to you.
The actual numbers presented by these reviews are practically worthless in most situations because you cannot discern the reasoning for the score by just knowing the number.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
I don't really care how they mark it. They don't need to prescribe anything to their readers. A simple three or four-star system would be ideal, in my opinion.
For what it's worth, I prefer a scale of 0 to 10. And for the love of God, stop mentioning production values. If a puzzle game is the bees knees, then give it a ten. Don't slack it off for being something your mum would like.
What do you do when it's not even a conscious decision on the part of the reviewer, though? I know I've certainly had cases of game-lock before.
They should just go scoreless.
I would like to see a site institute a review score based on the value of the game. For example, a review of something like Mario might result in a $50 score, but a game like NiGHTS might give a $30 score meaning the reviewer would consider buying it once it hits that price point.
If issues pop up like "The game gets a 7.5 because it rates 5/10 in sound" but I had no qualms with the sound, well then screw the review I still enjoy the game and in my opinion the review score means nothing.
Now, Review Scores don't mean anything because in my opinion the reviewer is trying to communicate how much the 'average gamer' will enjoy the game.
It seems to me that more and more reviews have clauses like "If you enjoy ______(eg: Killing the same type of monster for 2 hours), then the next paragraph criticizing it shouldn't bother you", however this 'negative' comment will impact the final score. But if you love killing those monsters, well the score shouldn't go down and by god it should be going up instead.
I find the same thing popping up with my friends when they hear reviews about movies, they tend to pick up on the 'bad' that the reviews mention, without experiencing it for themselves the first time.
In the same sense, seeing a 6/10 before trying a game may subject you to finding flaws instead of enjoying the game experience.
I agree with you, for the most part, in that I think to "know" a reviewer one must know the context of their reviews. This is gained through having played a few of their reviewed games and by checking out how other writers have judged them.
I guess we differ on two points:
1) I think I can make good use of a number score from a trusted reviewer. To me, these scores provide another kind of context; reviews can be nebulous or compulsively specific, but I find number scores almost always make it easier to tell how much they enjoyed the game itself. Plus, sometimes I just don't want to know everything about a game. This may be a more personal thing, but when I see something made by people I trust and think I want to play it, illuminating every corner of the gameplay and mechanics can be almost as bad as plot spoilers.
2) Call me a cynic, but I think a good portion of the people that "read" game reviews wouldn't if number scores were removed. Game forums like to take the stance that everyone at major review sites are retarded, but the fact is that most of them know at least something about video games. If they save thousands of people sixty bucks with a 5/10, I think they're doing their job. If and when they do choke on an artistic diamond in the rough, the people that actually play those games - you and I - will be the ones reading enough to see through their bullshit anyways.
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It's not an attention span thing, it's just that I have a lot of other better things I could be doing with my time. I like reading the body of the review when I'm on the fence about a game, or when I want to know more about a game I'm about to buy. I don't want to read it if there's no chance that the game is going to be worth buying. This is where scores come into play.
Scores give a good baseline way of determining whether it's even worth my time to read the review.
But again, when you get so specific, I don't think it's that valuable. I don't really think there's much of value to say with a score beyond "This game sucks", "this game is okay", and "this game is good". Maybe you could tack a final category for "This game is amazing, do not miss it", but my point remains. You don't really need more than 3-4 scoring increments to effectively accomplish the purpose of a scoring system.
Beyond that in specificity, it just becomes a bunch of journalistic wankery. I don't need a magazine's help to determine whether X game is 1% better than Y game. I can come to my own opinion on that, if I even care enough to think about it, thank you very much.
But generally speaking, I don't find scores useful. Many times I'll read a review, see the score, and feel like they're describing a different score. Naturally, that's because my wants, needs and expectations differ from the reviewer's, or what I'll tolerate and what I won't differs, and so on.
That's why I like to read reviews instead of glance at scores, and it's why I have no use for reviews that are little more than a feature list. Fuck your feature list, dude. That doesn't help me. Tell me about the game; how it plays; how it feels; what I'll experience; where it succeeds; where it fails. I don't need to know what double tapping the B button does, Mr. Gamespot Reviewer.
Also, those quotes in Lewie's first post? They make me sad. Those are people who have just given up, caved in, and are making excuses.
1 = Average
10 = Banging hot
Because there's no point rating anything below average. Frees up lots of numbers for greater shades and nuances.
This is probably true for the audience of the majority of magazines. Some games magazines aren't even worth reading the reviews, because they've clearly been written on the assumption that no one reads them anyway and are utter drivel. As far as I'm concerned, they can keep judging games by whatever arbitrary means they like, because I don't buy their damn rags anyway.
Is that really MY style? I had no idea.
In other news, I'm surrently penning reviews for a print magazine, and all reviews have to be 500 words or less. So yea, it's a great excercise in getting to the point.
Yes.
It's like they don't realise that by tailoring their reviews for people just wanting to play listwars instead of bucking the trend and trying something different they are contributing to the problem(s) as much as their audience is.
Who cares what stupid people do? If people want to be dumb and only look at the scores, let them. I just don't see what harm it's really going to do. People do the same exact thing with scores for film reviews.
-Two thumbs down, don't bother with it. Complete waste of your time.
-One thumb down, it has some serious flaws, possibly game breaking, but it's playable.
-One thumb up, worth checking out, maybe a rent before you buy.
-Two thumbs up, definitely worth a purchase. Very enjoyable.
Sure, it's basically on a scale of 0-3, but it's kept simple. The very beginning of a review would have the score, and then the reader could choose to read it or not. Also, the tl;dr version of the review should also be right at the beginning.
I think the main problem is that some reviewers feel they need to type two or three pages of nonsense if the game has gained even the slightest interest from gamers. Seriously, keep it short and sweet.
It's simplistic, and I can "improve" such a system pretty quickly, but in doing so it eventually devolves into the 6 out of 10 paradigm we have right now.
Control: 333
Setting: 99
Graphics: 10010
Story: 1143
Lag: 935
Character Design: 5643
Fun: 633
Red: 64
Green: 69
Blue: 234
Music: 664
Style: 99784
And so on. For about 9 pages.
Production Values: 14