I like a few reviewers at IGN and 1UP/EGM, but I wouldn't say there's any one site or magazine I trust completely. Lately I've found myself going more on what the forumers say around the net (mostly here though), and watching videos of games and stuff.
You guys are my source. I read etoychest, gameinformer occasionally (they sometimes annoy me), 1up, and I'll occasionally go to metacritic. In the end I like to hear what you guys have to say, this forum is like the ultimate review: you answer specific questions, no on here is afraid to say something sucks ass even if it's some hugely anticipated game, and occasionally there's a game that gets "eh" reviews that you guys convince me rocks hardcore and you're usually right.
The reviews I hate the most are IGN. Those guys always find someone of pissing me off with some stupid reason for knocking a score down.
Yeah I just go every where now for my reviews. But I agree with the OP that when I first read Play I thought it was pretty awesome and original but then realized anything that has a sexy female or anime or an ounce of difference from the norm becomes their game of the millenia.
For the most part I usually rent a game before I buy it (unless i know it is gonna be a AAA Title then I just go ahead and buy it.) I usually like EGM's reviews. That is a fairly good magazine in my opinion.
I find games I'm looking forward to, read the previews and decide for myself. I often find myself agreeing with the pros and cons in a review of whatever game I am playing, but I don't really read them that often anymore. I'll rent things that look questionable or get low scores across the board.
I read one games magazine, and that is GamesTM. Their tastes are usually in sync with mine, which is what matters most.
The one source I also hold in high regard is G&T but not for the same reasons all the other posters mention; your tastes are usually NOT mine. So whenever you guys hype some bizarre Japanese RPG strategy or whatever else is your flavour of the month I know not to bother. I am not one for obscure indie games either, being more of a God of War/Oblivion/HL2/Burnout type of gamer. I have tried your games G&T, believe me, and I tried to like them. I wanted to like them but come on... God Hand?? GOD HAND?? Biggest piece of shit of what is now the last gen.
I usually take a quick peek at gamerankings. If everyone agrees it's good I'll get it; if not, I'll read reviews to see why. And then if it's on Steam I give it +10 points and call it a day.
And I'm still mad at gamespot a little for harshing Half-Life 2 but usually the reviews there are pretty close.
RandomEngy on
Profile -> Signature Settings -> Hide signatures always. Then you don't have to read this worthless text anymore.
Basically the rule is the review will be brutally honest unless the game was featured on the cover. Then you take it with a grain of salt.
That might seem like a reason to distrust them but I understand how the business works. If they make a deal with iD to put Doom IV on the cover and make it a world premier review and then pan the game it's simply bad business. iD would never give them an exclusive review again as well as supplying promotional materials to them. Now they run advertisements for almost every PC Gaming company out there but when somebody pays for the front cover and you don't deliver you're setting yourself up to go under.
Once you know this though it's not a big deal. Also the games that are on the cover usually fall into that "Pretty much guaranteed to be good" category (e.g. Half Life 2).
Otherwise I depend on word of mouth (i.e. these forums) for all my console gaming reviews.
Gamerankings for actual ratings, peers and G&T for synopsis and personal opinions. A bevy of podcasts and media sources round out the rest for more overarching reviews, including etoychest, famitsu, edge, and the 1up show.
I'm in Ireland, and I read GamesTM and EDGE. Both run on the scores out of 10, 5 is average model. Their reviewers are anonymous so they can be brutally honest when they need to. Reviews are written with adults in mind but without any bullshit involving kiddy games. If its a good game, its a good game. If I don't agree with their score, I'll still be able to clearly understand why they like it more/less than I do. I get a good sense of what I will enjoy from their reviews whether they were fans of the game or not.
THey are also failry consistent with each other, so I feel very confident about listening to them
Raybies666 on
Beat me on Wii U: Raybies
Beat me on 360: Raybies666
the reviews i check out are ign, gamespot, egm, and gamerankings.com. i think most reviews will have at least some people that agree, and obviously there will be people that think differently, thus gamerankings.com
has anyone watched tommy tallarico and that other stooge on judgement day on g4. worst reviews ever.
God Hand?? GOD HAND?? Biggest piece of shit of what is now the last gen.
I think that statement nearly gave me a mild stroke when I read it
Anywhooo, I think the reason a lot of people here 'hype up' 'weird', 'quirky' and 'underrated' games is because we all love games here, and a lot of us are sick of the same FPS or RPG that comes out every other week. We crave things that are different, fresh and are just plain fun so when something like Pheonix Wright or God Hand comes along, something completley different from today's batch of 'me too' games, we are instantly interested and already like the game, just because it is TRYING to do something different. Well, that's true for me anyway and I'm sure it is for a lot of other people here. We crave games that are off the wall and uniqe, I personally don't read gaming magazines, I simply grab one, flick through in 20 seconds and then see if anything catches my eye. The last full preview of a game I read was when I was flciking through and Xbox magazine and noticed the new Def Jam game. I'd heard about the techniqe of using your enviroment to attack each other by playing music and, even though I'm not really into ganagsta' rap or that sort of thing, I was interested enough to read it.
Basically nowadays I only really take notice of games that catch my attention, I don't go into a store thinking 'Right, I need a good action game with a robust conbat system and online play', I'll just wander around and occasionally think 'What the hell is this?' pick it up, read the back of the case and since most stores around here have a 10 day return poilcy, I can easily buy it and trade it in for the full price if I don't like it.
I'm in Ireland, and I read GamesTM and EDGE. Both run on the scores out of 10, 5 is average model. Their reviewers are anonymous so they can be brutally honest when they need to. Reviews are written with adults in mind but without any bullshit involving kiddy games. If its a good game, its a good game. If I don't agree with their score, I'll still be able to clearly understand why they like it more/less than I do. I get a good sense of what I will enjoy from their reviews whether they were fans of the game or not.
THey are also failry consistent with each other, so I feel very confident about listening to them
I completely agree - I get both of these, and also use G&T to give me a heads-up on any games before their Euro release.
Whilst I like EDGE, by the time they review something my interest will have long since passed. Honestly in that respect print magazines are a bit dead to me. I'm another metacritic fan, with splashes from this forum. But my purchase of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was based entirely on the GfW podcast.
God Hand?? GOD HAND?? Biggest piece of shit of what is now the last gen.
I think that statement nearly gave me a mild stroke when I read it
Anywhooo, I think the reason a lot of people here 'hype up' 'weird', 'quirky' and 'underrated' games is because we all love games here, and a lot of us are sick of the same FPS or RPG that comes out every other week. We crave things that are different, fresh and are just plain fun so when something like Pheonix Wright or God Hand comes along, something completley different from today's batch of 'me too' games, we are instantly interested and already like the game, just because it is TRYING to do something different. Well, that's true for me anyway and I'm sure it is for a lot of other people here. We crave games that are off the wall and uniqe, I personally don't read gaming magazines, I simply grab one, flick through in 20 seconds and then see if anything catches my eye. The last full preview of a game I read was when I was flciking through and Xbox magazine and noticed the new Def Jam game. I'd heard about the techniqe of using your enviroment to attack each other by playing music and, even though I'm not really into ganagsta' rap or that sort of thing, I was interested enough to read it.
Basically nowadays I only really take notice of games that catch my attention, I don't go into a store thinking 'Right, I need a good action game with a robust conbat system and online play', I'll just wander around and occasionally think 'What the hell is this?' pick it up, read the back of the case and since most stores around here have a 10 day return poilcy, I can easily buy it and trade it in for the full price if I don't like it.
Yes the people here really go for the obscure, off-beat games. I really don't. I also don't consider myself a hardcore gamer. I game for relaxation mostly, and I like my games to be polished, well presented and generally of a high standard of quality. I too dislike 'me too' games or generic crap but since I do not have much time to devote to gaming I tend to go with what I can trust will be a good experience. Hence my mentioning HL2, Oblivion, God Of War etc. Accessible gaming. My next 'project' will be FFXII, which will see me through the rest of this year I suppose.
But I don't slag your games G&T, I have tried them. They simply aren't for me.
I take the developer, media released and word of mouth far more seriously than game reviews. An example I could easily bring up would be Killzone: Liberation. The developer history was kind of shoddy (nice ideas but poor execution), the media released looked awesome and the word of mouth was great, but then 1UP gave it 4/10. Despite some reservations I bought the game and freaking loved it. Having said that though, I still really like a lot of the stuff 1UP do (when their site is working that is).
The only magazine I pay any attention to is Edge and even then I don't pay much attention to the reviews.
Btw, it annoys me when people bash a website/magazine because of a review score. It's called an opinion you retards. Someone didn't like the latest Zelda, why don't you go cry to your mum about it? Personally I like that game journalists seem to have grown some balls lately. It's certainly an improvement over when they constantly sucked off publishers while asking them about how awesome their awesome game is.
I don't really trust any single source. I generally find that I agree with Eurogamer most of the time, but I've really disagreed with some of their reviews.
I think Gamerankings is a decent resource. I'll read through a few reviews and get a sense of the pros and cons of a game.
If a game gets a lot of 70% ratings because it has "great graphics, but repetitive gameplay", I'll stay clear. But if it gets 70% for "lacking polish, but with an innovative game hidden underneath", I'll probably buy it.
I used to trust a few British gaming magazines, but then I had some bad experiences. I bought Battlecruiser 3000AD based upon a glowing review in one... luckily the store let me return it. Another time, the same magazine reviewed Warcraft II and under-rated the game massively. When I eventually bought the game and compared it to the review, I couldn't believe the reviewer was playing the same game. They got so many facts wrong, it was like they reviewed it without having played it.
So, I've built up a resistance to trusting any single review. Luckily, with the Internet, it's much easier to get multiple opinions now.
I don't really trust any single source. I generally find that I agree with Eurogamer most of the time, but I've really disagreed with some of their reviews.
It depends on who's reviewing, but I generally like their way of writing. Pretty entertaining in the morning, especially when reading the comments section.
God Hand?? GOD HAND?? Biggest piece of shit of what is now the last gen.
I think that statement nearly gave me a mild stroke when I read it
Anywhooo, I think the reason a lot of people here 'hype up' 'weird', 'quirky' and 'underrated' games is because we all love games here, and a lot of us are sick of the same FPS or RPG that comes out every other week. We crave things that are different, fresh and are just plain fun so when something like Pheonix Wright or God Hand comes along, something completley different from today's batch of 'me too' games, we are instantly interested and already like the game, just because it is TRYING to do something different. Well, that's true for me anyway and I'm sure it is for a lot of other people here. We crave games that are off the wall and uniqe, I personally don't read gaming magazines, I simply grab one, flick through in 20 seconds and then see if anything catches my eye. The last full preview of a game I read was when I was flciking through and Xbox magazine and noticed the new Def Jam game. I'd heard about the techniqe of using your enviroment to attack each other by playing music and, even though I'm not really into ganagsta' rap or that sort of thing, I was interested enough to read it.
Basically nowadays I only really take notice of games that catch my attention, I don't go into a store thinking 'Right, I need a good action game with a robust conbat system and online play', I'll just wander around and occasionally think 'What the hell is this?' pick it up, read the back of the case and since most stores around here have a 10 day return poilcy, I can easily buy it and trade it in for the full price if I don't like it.
Yes the people here really go for the obscure, off-beat games. I really don't. I also don't consider myself a hardcore gamer. I game for relaxation mostly, and I like my games to be polished, well presented and generally of a high standard of quality. I too dislike 'me too' games or generic crap but since I do not have much time to devote to gaming I tend to go with what I can trust will be a good experience. Hence my mentioning HL2, Oblivion, God Of War etc. Accessible gaming. My next 'project' will be FFXII, which will see me through the rest of this year I suppose.
But I don't slag your games G&T, I have tried them. They simply aren't for me.
EDIT: Except for God Hand, I mean, PLEASE!
If you know what you like and read the forum's impressions of God Hand, you have nobody to blame but yourself for picking it up and hating it anyway. The topic was fairly insistent that the game was maddeningly difficult, features tank controls, and really only appeals to the hardcore beat-em-up fan.
I'm sorry you wasted your money, but you can't really blame a bunch of people that gave you every bit of information you should have needed to know "this game isn't for me."
I tend to use Edge and gamerankings. I don't like a lot of the big review sites (like IGN, Gamespot, etc.) because the criteria by which they judge games don't match my own. IGN and Eurogamer especially tend to give me "Man, what?" moments. The impression that I usually get is that the reviewer has spent the minimum amount of time possible playing the game.
My experience with Edge is that they can be pretty harsh, but it's usually justified. I don't pay a lot of attention to the score out of ten, reading the text of the review is usually enough to get the gist of how the game plays. I've also never run into an incidence of an Edge reviewer "not getting it," which seems to be more common in online reviews.
I tend to use Edge and gamerankings. I don't like a lot of the big review sites (like IGN, Gamespot, etc.) because the criteria by which they judge games don't match my own. IGN and Eurogamer especially tend to give me "Man, what?" moments. The impression that I usually get is that the reviewer has spent the minimum amount of time possible playing the game.
Eurogamer shares several contributors with Edge, including: Kieron Gillen, Jim Rossignol, Simon Parkin and David McCarthy.
I agree that some of the reviews at Eurogamer are dubious, but I generally find them to be better than any other site. Still, there's no way I would trust a single source, so I generally use Gamerankings to look at multiple reviews.
I don't trust Gamerankings, since their average rating always seems janked and fucked up. I use Metacritic as a rough guide and go through some of the highest and lowest scoring reviews, trying to find similar complaints and compliments. Fucked up controls are a pet peeve of mine, and some reviewers will factor it in strongly with their review while others will only complain about it in passing. If I see consistent complaints about this factor, I'll know to steer clear ... or at least relegate it to a rental.
Of course, forum recommendations are always cool. I'll see a title come up repeatedly in threads regarding particular game types or console-specific recommendations and decide to take a closer look. A good example is Zone of the Enders 2. I've heard it name-dropped repeatedly, checked out the sites, balanced the consistent complaints (wonky camera, a bit short) with the compliments (gorgeous, balls-out action) and decided to make the purchase. I was very happy with my purchase.
That's pretty much the way I buy all my games, with general hype occasionally replacing tried-and-true recommendations (GTA:VC, GoW, etc.).
When I think I wanna get a game, I go to metacritic or gamerankings and check out the consensus...then I come here and read what some of you foo's have to say very rarely has this forum guided me wrong...that's how I got Katamari, and Ikaruga, and Gladius, and Beyond Good and Evil, and Gitaroo Man,and ZX, and EBA...and some other crap.
Yeah, I don't think I could ever trust a review by Fart of War.
Terrorbyte on
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GoslingLooking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, ProbablyWatertown, WIRegistered Userregular
edited March 2007
It's page 3 and I'm the first guy to bring up X-Play. I believe in all the time of watching, since 2003, I've been steered wrong once, and that was Viewtiful Joe (but then didn't ALL the reviewers get that one wrong?) They don't review it until they've either beaten it or have logged a whole bunch of hours. It's a staff-wide score, meaning you dilute any biases. And the score is out of 5, which pretty much cuts out all the numerical BS: Great, good, okay, bad, horrible. (And you go to gamerankings, you see that they're one of the tougher reviewers out there, so a 4 or 5 means something.)
Gosling on
I have a new soccer blog The Minnow Tank. Reading it psychically kicks Sepp Blatter in the bean bag.
Gamespot has a bad habit of being absolutely fucking retarded 40% of the time. But, they generally make up in depth and detail what they lack in consistency.
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The reviews I hate the most are IGN. Those guys always find someone of pissing me off with some stupid reason for knocking a score down.
"FROTHING DEMAND"
Gamespy's good too.
Gamespot is way too fucking harsh.
The one source I also hold in high regard is G&T but not for the same reasons all the other posters mention; your tastes are usually NOT mine. So whenever you guys hype some bizarre Japanese RPG strategy or whatever else is your flavour of the month I know not to bother. I am not one for obscure indie games either, being more of a God of War/Oblivion/HL2/Burnout type of gamer. I have tried your games G&T, believe me, and I tried to like them. I wanted to like them but come on... God Hand?? GOD HAND?? Biggest piece of shit of what is now the last gen.
And I'm still mad at gamespot a little for harshing Half-Life 2 but usually the reviews there are pretty close.
Basically the rule is the review will be brutally honest unless the game was featured on the cover. Then you take it with a grain of salt.
That might seem like a reason to distrust them but I understand how the business works. If they make a deal with iD to put Doom IV on the cover and make it a world premier review and then pan the game it's simply bad business. iD would never give them an exclusive review again as well as supplying promotional materials to them. Now they run advertisements for almost every PC Gaming company out there but when somebody pays for the front cover and you don't deliver you're setting yourself up to go under.
Once you know this though it's not a big deal. Also the games that are on the cover usually fall into that "Pretty much guaranteed to be good" category (e.g. Half Life 2).
Otherwise I depend on word of mouth (i.e. these forums) for all my console gaming reviews.
THey are also failry consistent with each other, so I feel very confident about listening to them
Beat me on 360: Raybies666
I remember when I had time to be good at games.
has anyone watched tommy tallarico and that other stooge on judgement day on g4. worst reviews ever.
I think that statement nearly gave me a mild stroke when I read it
Anywhooo, I think the reason a lot of people here 'hype up' 'weird', 'quirky' and 'underrated' games is because we all love games here, and a lot of us are sick of the same FPS or RPG that comes out every other week. We crave things that are different, fresh and are just plain fun so when something like Pheonix Wright or God Hand comes along, something completley different from today's batch of 'me too' games, we are instantly interested and already like the game, just because it is TRYING to do something different. Well, that's true for me anyway and I'm sure it is for a lot of other people here. We crave games that are off the wall and uniqe, I personally don't read gaming magazines, I simply grab one, flick through in 20 seconds and then see if anything catches my eye. The last full preview of a game I read was when I was flciking through and Xbox magazine and noticed the new Def Jam game. I'd heard about the techniqe of using your enviroment to attack each other by playing music and, even though I'm not really into ganagsta' rap or that sort of thing, I was interested enough to read it.
Basically nowadays I only really take notice of games that catch my attention, I don't go into a store thinking 'Right, I need a good action game with a robust conbat system and online play', I'll just wander around and occasionally think 'What the hell is this?' pick it up, read the back of the case and since most stores around here have a 10 day return poilcy, I can easily buy it and trade it in for the full price if I don't like it.
Eurogamer is probably the best website.
I also look through Edge and Games TM from time to time.
Really? I haven't picked up a PC mag in eons, but I might have to now
I completely agree - I get both of these, and also use G&T to give me a heads-up on any games before their Euro release.
Yes the people here really go for the obscure, off-beat games. I really don't. I also don't consider myself a hardcore gamer. I game for relaxation mostly, and I like my games to be polished, well presented and generally of a high standard of quality. I too dislike 'me too' games or generic crap but since I do not have much time to devote to gaming I tend to go with what I can trust will be a good experience. Hence my mentioning HL2, Oblivion, God Of War etc. Accessible gaming. My next 'project' will be FFXII, which will see me through the rest of this year I suppose.
But I don't slag your games G&T, I have tried them. They simply aren't for me.
EDIT: Except for God Hand, I mean, PLEASE!
The only magazine I pay any attention to is Edge and even then I don't pay much attention to the reviews.
Btw, it annoys me when people bash a website/magazine because of a review score. It's called an opinion you retards. Someone didn't like the latest Zelda, why don't you go cry to your mum about it? Personally I like that game journalists seem to have grown some balls lately. It's certainly an improvement over when they constantly sucked off publishers while asking them about how awesome their awesome game is.
I think Gamerankings is a decent resource. I'll read through a few reviews and get a sense of the pros and cons of a game.
If a game gets a lot of 70% ratings because it has "great graphics, but repetitive gameplay", I'll stay clear. But if it gets 70% for "lacking polish, but with an innovative game hidden underneath", I'll probably buy it.
I used to trust a few British gaming magazines, but then I had some bad experiences. I bought Battlecruiser 3000AD based upon a glowing review in one... luckily the store let me return it. Another time, the same magazine reviewed Warcraft II and under-rated the game massively. When I eventually bought the game and compared it to the review, I couldn't believe the reviewer was playing the same game. They got so many facts wrong, it was like they reviewed it without having played it.
So, I've built up a resistance to trusting any single review. Luckily, with the Internet, it's much easier to get multiple opinions now.
Pokémon HGSS: 1205 1613 4041
If you know what you like and read the forum's impressions of God Hand, you have nobody to blame but yourself for picking it up and hating it anyway. The topic was fairly insistent that the game was maddeningly difficult, features tank controls, and really only appeals to the hardcore beat-em-up fan.
I'm sorry you wasted your money, but you can't really blame a bunch of people that gave you every bit of information you should have needed to know "this game isn't for me."
My experience with Edge is that they can be pretty harsh, but it's usually justified. I don't pay a lot of attention to the score out of ten, reading the text of the review is usually enough to get the gist of how the game plays. I've also never run into an incidence of an Edge reviewer "not getting it," which seems to be more common in online reviews.
Eurogamer shares several contributors with Edge, including: Kieron Gillen, Jim Rossignol, Simon Parkin and David McCarthy.
I agree that some of the reviews at Eurogamer are dubious, but I generally find them to be better than any other site. Still, there's no way I would trust a single source, so I generally use Gamerankings to look at multiple reviews.
Of course, forum recommendations are always cool. I'll see a title come up repeatedly in threads regarding particular game types or console-specific recommendations and decide to take a closer look. A good example is Zone of the Enders 2. I've heard it name-dropped repeatedly, checked out the sites, balanced the consistent complaints (wonky camera, a bit short) with the compliments (gorgeous, balls-out action) and decided to make the purchase. I was very happy with my purchase.
That's pretty much the way I buy all my games, with general hype occasionally replacing tried-and-true recommendations (GTA:VC, GoW, etc.).
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Yeah, I don't think I could ever trust a review by Fart of War.
Also, I just surf here and find the games that have threads with like 80-90 pages. You generally cant go wrong with those.
I have 549 Rock Band Drum and 305 Pro Drum FC's
REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS REFS
Gamerankings mobile is particularly awesome for when I'm in the store and need to assess how kick ass a potential impulse buy is.