mainstream reviews are no longer reviews. they are promotion, pure & simple. &, for the most part, everything other than western triple-a titles are dissed in order to further the promotion of 'the chosen ones'
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Hmm, I wouldn't say that's entirely true; if it were, it might actually be easier to come to grips with the situation.
Not all non-critical titles get dissed by western reviewers. There's always a random game here or there that isn' a triple-a title that gets solid reviews across the board. Also, every so often a western triple-a game gets middling marks.
Based on what I know, a bigger part of the problem is that too many western game writers and reviewers are starry-eyed kids fresh out of college with a basic writing degree, who don't really have a lot of experience with gaming or a broad perspective. They don't understand how to perform critical analysis. Many think that just going on about their personal pet peeves is 'criticism'.
It is very true that the biggest triple A games receive contrived hype and reviews. This is often because publishers arrange the circumstances under which the game is reviewed to manipulate the reviewers.
Funny enough I think it's easiest to see what's wrong with western reviewers when looking at fighting game reviews. Plenty of hardcore FG players cite how mainstream reviews are useless. That may be so, but examine why they are useless. It's not
just that the average writer isn't a hardcore FG gearhead.
Rather, it's that said writers tend to live in a bubble surrounded only by other players in the business and their environment. This is crucial.
Using the fighting game example, here are two cases I've heard accounts of:
MVC3 received a poor review from one publication because the writer considered himself a FG expert since he could beat everyone in the office at Tekken. Nobody in the office could beat Sentinel when Sentinel just stood across the screen and shot a mouth beam over and over. (Sigh. Yes, really.) So they all concluded the game was horribly designed and a worthless fighting game.
In another case, SFxT received a bad review from a writer who, likewise, only every played games with or against people in the office and other writers in the industry, and considered himself a FG expert. Said writer's head editor gave him all the FGs because the editor told everyone "he is our pro FG player". Well, the "expert" FG player got offended at "nerd terminology" when someone used the term "whiff" to refer to a missed footsie poke. The 'expert' said that was a made up word that nobody anywhere had ever used. He should know, he was one of the best players in the FG community.
Before he reviewed SFxT, he concluded it was an "expansion pack" for SFIV, and that all the Tekken characters were useless because Ryu could just throw a fireball at them and keep them away.
Roll on snare drum.
In my experience this is the real problem with western gaming press and reviewers. It's full of a bunch of (relative) kids who don't have the experience they think they do, and an exaggerated sense of competency because they're 'professionals' after all. They must be if they're being paid to do it. Thus it's pretty random whether they'll give a certain game a competent review or not. And their naivete makes them vulnerable to the PR staff from big publishers.
It's tricky to deal with because it doesn't mean they're simply horrible players, or bad writers, and that they never understand a game. Some games get good reviews that do actually grasp what the game is on about and criticize it fairly. But it's just as likely that some random pet peeve or lack of understanding on the part of the writer will cause them to archly dismiss it without realizing they're being ignorant.
It all boils down to why I think scores should not exist. Scores invite the writer to try and quantify the entire game with a simple number. IMHO knowing that there's a number there invites overly reducing the experience. If there were no scores, then ideally writers might be forced to make their review useful by examining the game and justifying their opinion. Rather than "I couldn't beat these bandits at the start of the game, that's why I gave this shitty game a 4!"
