Support NeoGAF

[Jake Tower]

I've often thought about starting a review site in which I and others just review games after we've had our fill of them. Others can submit reviews, but the game has to be at least a month old. We'd have no early access, no preview discs, just honest reviews unaffected by reliance for hits and hype.

I've always found 'post-mortem' critiques of games much more useful as criticism than traditional release day reviews, which are really just marketing/PR blurbs for both the game and the publication.

 

[Jedi2016]

Gaming journalist are part of the gaming industry, not the gaming audience.

This.

They're not trying to inform.. they're trying to advertise. That's why even the most broken piece of shit game will still receive a score of what they call "average".

I don't use reviews as an indicator of whether to buy a game. I'm either going to buy it day one regardless, or I'm going to wait and hear what actual players, here and elsewhere, think about it. I watch GT reviews more for the visuals and general impressions than anything else.

 

[MC Safety]

Shawn Elliott stated that he had seen reviews that had copied 600+ words directly from the 'review guide.'

I don't doubt it.

I've also seen perfectly well-written and critical reviews pulled for critiques that were, ah, not.

 

[PrinceOfApathy]

This may be a bit off topic for this thread, but I don't really understand the perspective on Skyrim some people have. If you've played a game for dozens of hours (or over 100!) and enjoyed it a lot, how does it matter what happens afterwards? I got burnt out on Skyrim at the 95 hour mark or so and haven't touched it since. I'll probably go back with a ton of mods later this year and finish it. But even if for some reason I don't, giving me that large amount of great entertainment puts it among the top tier of games I've played over the past few years.

The amount of time you have spent with a game is absolutely meaningless! Time spent is time spent, its speaks nothing about gameplay mechanics, design, structure. You can spend 8 hrs with ICO, or 10 hrs on Rayman 2, or 15 hrs on Majoras Mask and you can spend 103 hrs with Skyrim, and you can see which game has the better design and structure within its goal of what the individual title chose to accomplish. If you are using the time spent with a game and your enjoyment as a bar for the true quality of a game when reviewing a title, you are exactly like the "journalists" who can't take a step back and be analytical with the games weaknesses. That mindset is what has caused the entire process to cancerous.

 

[Jake Tower]

Why would he reveal that without naming names? He'll be -25 on trust, but +200 on integrity and respect from the people who care for his work

The same reason the GFW crew didn't name names when relating nightmares dealing with PR folks; a mixture of 'professional courtesy' and not wanting to make their criticism personal.

 

[Clear]

If a review is factually wrong, how exactly is that a matter of taste?

By definition, a review cannot be factually wrong. It can contain factual inaccuracies which should impact its overall credibility, but a review is not a statement of fact- its an opinion.

 

[The_Hitcher89]

The same reason the GFW crew didn't name names when relating nightmares dealing with PR folks; a mixture of 'professional courtesy' and not wanting to make their criticism personal.

It'll never be eradicated until someone in the industry has the balls to name names

 

[The Anti-Monitor]

Personally, I find shameful how no review mentioned the amount of lies BioWare told about ME3.

I'd say we're lucky reviews aren't taken seriously anymore, but then the Uncharted 3 fiasco happens.

 

[Ventilaator]

By definition, a review cannot be factually wrong. It can contain factual inaccuracies which should impact its overall credibility, but a review is not a statement of fact- its an opinion.

Your avatar reminds me. Before I got Nier I read a review that said it has no originality whatsoever. And then Nier just happened to be the most unique and original experience I've had all generation.

FUCK ALL REVIEWS.

I'd say we're lucky reviews aren't taken seriously anymore, but then the Uncharted 3 fiasco happens.

What I hate the most is when people skewer a reviewer for a non-9.0 review before release, and then they actually get the game, hate it, and then hate reviews for overrating the games that should have received much lower scores. My policy on a hypothetical actuallyusefulreviews.com would be immediately permabanning people who whine about the reviews and suggest it's trolling for clicks.

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

Before- 90-93
Now- 60

Skyrim is my personal embarrassment. I fully admit I fell to the hype of a new ES and willfully ignored many of its faults until the hype wore off and my eyes saw just how poor it is. GOTY voting was over when I hit that point though.

co-signed.

 

[Jake Tower]

It'll never be eradicated until someone in the industry has the balls to name names

Yup; this is where *real* games journalism comes into the picture. Forget Lester Bangs; we need a John Stossel of video games.

 

[PopcornMegaphone]

I actually completely disagree with what you are saying. I think the mistake that you are making is confusing public perception with the vocal minority of the internet, they are not the same.

Yup.

 

[The_Hitcher89]

Yup; this is where *real* games journalism comes into the picture. Forget Lester Bangs; we need a John Stossel of video games.

 

[MC Safety]

Personally, I find shameful how no review mentioned the amount of lies BioWare told about ME3.

I'd say we're lucky reviews aren't taken seriously anymore, but then the Uncharted 3 fiasco happens.

I understand you're upset with Mass Effect and BioWare. But, honestly, game features are subject to constant revision and elimination. A developer has budgetary and time restrictions; it may be understaffed, or have problems allocating tools or manpower; and the hardware may not be able to support the sort of features the developers want.

In short, developers aren't lying when they speak of game features. They're giving you the ideal with the (unspoken) understanding that sometimes it's not possible to have trees that grow in real-time, etc.

Game development is an endless series of compromises.

 

[Ventilaator]

I understand you're upset with Mass Effect and BioWare. But, honestly, game features are subject to constant revision, elimination, and retooling. A developer has budgetary and time restrictions; it may be understaffed, or have problems allocating tools or manpower; and the hardware may not be able to support the sort of features the developers want.

In short, developers aren't lying when they speak of game features. They're giving you the ideal with the (unspoken) understanding that sometimes it's not possible to have trees that grow in real-time, etc.

So...apparently (correct me if I'm wrong) you can't actually get the best ending without multiplayer. That's not a pie in the sky unbelievable promise you have to struggle to fulfill, they were just straight up lieing to calm people down about the inclusion of multiplayer.

Once again, I don't know if you actually have to play multiplayer. This information is from something Patrick said on the Bombcast.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

This is why you don't read reviews, people.

You listen to podcasts and read NeoGAF. I almost never visit any gaming website (save for Giant Bomb to watch their video features), but I listen to five gaming podcasts each week religiously (Bombcast, Weekend Confirmed, GWJ, RebelFM, and the outlier CAGCast). That's where you tend to really get the unfilitered and honest opinions that aren't held back by embargoes or hedged with faint praise.

Also, never trust any review scale other than the 5-star scale!

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

Personally, I find shameful how no review mentioned the amount of lies BioWare told about ME3.

I'd say we're lucky reviews aren't taken seriously anymore, but then the Uncharted 3 fiasco happens.

I don't know about lying.

I don't think of Bioware as liars. I equate lying on the level you are suggesting as somewhat diabolical and Bioware isn't smart enough to be that diabolical.

No sir. Bioware is incompetent. They were flushed and eager to include all manner of things in ME 3. Then it was, "Oh...we have 18 to 24 months to make this game?"

With all that said, I cannot conceive the number of very, very high scoring reviews that mass Effect 3 played. These people are supposed to be professionals. I'd love to play the Mass Effect 3 they played because the one I played was a careless rush-job.

 

[Clear]

FUCK ALL REVIEWS.

I don't begrudge anyone their opinion, but the reality is that your statement isn't too far from my feelings on the subject.

What bothers me is the way that metacritic and its forerunners in the score aggregation field present a fraudulent impression of scientific objectivity. Assigning numeric values by category is such an imprecise measure it borders on meaningless, and besides there's frequently a serious disconnect between the text and the scoring.

So I guess, "Fuck all review scores", best describes my position.

 

[PrinceOfApathy]

These people are supposed to be professionals.

Are we even sure of this?

 

[Kurtofan]

Personally, I find shameful how no review mentioned the amount of lies BioWare told about ME3.

I'd say we're lucky reviews aren't taken seriously anymore, but then the Uncharted 3 fiasco happens.

Reviews should judge game content, not PR.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

What gets to me is how reviewers who do act critically when critiquing catch hell for it. Eurogamer and U3, Gerstmann for K&L, etc. It's almost better to not "rock the boat" if you catch my drift for everyone involved...

Also, much of the user reviews of large games are internet backdraft 0 Star bullshit reviews. Titles with far smaller userbases won't catch that kind of heat.

I also say that I wish reviewers were more ARTICULATE in their reveiews reguardless of quality or influence, that way, you can more easily see the horseshit or honesty and react accordingly.

Ignoring the high-pressure environment these reviewers work in, to deliver constructive criticism, one needs to understand game design properly (See: Old Man Murray). Very few, if any, in the press seem to have that insight.

It's not a selling point, sadly. Especially if it gets really technical or requires the reader to have had played a genre leader in gameplay or at least have read up on said game. Not happening.

That one Mass Edfext review comes o mind, where the dude didn't know you could assign skill points.

And that was Mass Effect, basically an action game with lots of dialogue that you can put down in ten hours your first go. Can you imagine the same guy trying to drool and nap his way through an Infinity Engine game with all those D&D 2.0 rules?

Putting the wrong reviewer on a genre they dont understand or worse hate (FIGHT AND HEAL NEVER FORGET) is something that still refuses to end.

GTA IV had divergence within the first day. The what is wrong with GTA IV thread was very large day 1. Generally though you are right and there is a long enough buffer zone where the public opinion of the game gradually falls and by the time it settles the review does not matter.

As an aside bioware must be putting on a show because after a few games in a row they should know that "the internet" is getting angrier with each release.

Bioware puts on a show as it creates an echo chamber where they come off as the "leader" of RPG development, spin criticism of design objectives via talking about the aspect that's being changed rather than the change itself, and shifting blame to fans/critics/etc rather than themselves (at least until that dont work any more).

PR is definately their most powerful tool this generation; as I said in the "What can SE do to save FF" thread, Bioware does this and avoids a ton of hell, whereas SE just goes "HD towns are tough" and is therefore at the mercy of unconditioned media and gamers. In fact most foreign, non-native English-speaking publishers seem have this problem unless they specifically worked on it.

That's about right. New Vegas wasn't significantly more buggy than either Fallout 3 or Skyrim, despite being much more complex and prone to scripting bugs to begin with. But Bethesda is a critic/fan darling, and Obsidian is still largely looked at as a pale imitation of a "real" AAA RPG studio.

Bethesda's wierd like that; I guess they just got lucky.

Going to the ME3 example, perhaps the case is that critics have been trained, in a sense, to simply not have the same knee-jerk reactions to specific aspects of games and look more at the big picture. That is, I would hope, a "professional" reviewer's responsibility.

Now, I haven't reached the ending yet -- I'm about to -- so I'm kind of halfway talking out of my ass. But at the same time, I acknowledge that the game I have spent 50 hours playing has been a good one. It's not mindblowing, and personally I would even now rate it below its current Metascore, but unquestionably it was a very good game... with some flaws.

I'd like to believe that even after completion, I will still be able to recognize that I enjoyed these 50 hours quite thoroughly, and there's not a shitty ending in the world that can take that away from me.

This is obviously just one example out of many, but that's my sentiment here.

Pffffffffft. Nope. They just have a completely different set of knee-jerk responces.

Games that only function once the player starts to learn how to play? Janky!

Games with a strong anime aesthetic? Unrealisitc!

Games deep on the abstract side of the sliding scale of combat? Archaic!

Bad ending? Dont mention anything cuz you probably didn't finish it!

 

[The Anti-Monitor]

I understand you're upset with Mass Effect and BioWare. But, honestly, game features are subject to constant revision and elimination. A developer has budgetary and time restrictions; it may be understaffed, or have problems allocating tools or manpower; and the hardware may not be able to support the sort of features the developers want.

In short, developers aren't lying when they speak of game features. They're giving you the ideal with the (unspoken) understanding that sometimes it's not possible to have trees that grow in real-time, etc.

Game development is an endless series of compromises.

"Ending won't be an A, B, C choice"
"You can get the same endings without multiplayer"
"We want your choices to be significant and make an impact on your ending"
"The Reapers can win"

Spoiler

There's no magical "Reaper switch off" button

There's shilling one's product, and then that.

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

"Ending won't be an A, B, C choice"
"You can get the same endings without multiplayer"
"We want your choices to be significant and make an impact on your ending"
"The Reapers can win"

Spoiler

There's no magical "Reaper switch off" button

There's shilling one's product, and then that.

I'll make it super simple for you.

Stop supporting Bioware.

Stop visiting sites with bullshit gaming media staff that write poor reviews.

That's it. That's the only thing that will make an impact and eventually, it will.

 

[MC Safety]

So...apparently (correct me if I'm wrong) you can't actually get the best ending without multiplayer. That's not a pie in the sky unbelievable promise you have to struggle to fulfill, they were just straight up lieing to calm people down about the inclusion of multiplayer.

Once again, I don't know if you actually have to play multiplayer. This information is from something Patrick said on the Bombcast.

Is there a best ending for Mass Effect 3?

Strictly speaking, BioWare wasn't lying on this one, either. I have a neat little Mass Effect application on my Ipad with a minigame allowing a player to boost his galactic readiness percentages. What you're referring to may have either been a misstatement on the part of the BioWare representative or else just a horrible design decision.

And, again, game features are subject to revision and excision. It's very hard to speak about a game in development. If you open your mouth, you risk a misstatement or misinterpretation. And god forbid you have to cut something for whatever reason and the statement is out there, being pored over by game fans who do not wholly understand what can happen over a long development cycle.

Reviews should judge game content, not PR.

Yes.

 

[Derrick01]

Are we even sure of this?

Not really. Unless they went to journalism school or have some form of expertise in the industry, they're no better than most of us here. They were just lucky to be picked by their employers.

But I guess the difference is while they work where they are they're supposed to act professionally and most don't.

 

[Chairmanchuck]

I have a question.

What kind of education do most "Gaming-journalist" have?

 

[The Anti-Monitor]

I'll make it super simple for you.

Stop supporting Bioware.

Stop visiting sites with bullshit gaming media staff that write poor reviews.

That's it. That's the only thing that will make an impact and eventually, it will.

Haven't bought a BioWare game since Kotor. I played all their latest games via friends lending me them.

And it won't make an impact. Gamers suffer the beat wife's syndrome big time. They'll release an overpriced ending DLC, and everyone will take it and sing their praises. Then cry when it happens again.

 

[The_Hitcher89]

I have a question.

What kind of education do most "Gaming-journalist" have?

Business Studies

Haven't bought a BioWare game since Kotor. I played all their latest games via friends lending me them.

And it won't make an impact. Gamers suffer the beat wife's syndrome big time. They'll release an overpriced ending DLC, and everyone will take it and sing their praises. Then cry when it happens again.

It'll be a really sad indictment of gamers as an audience when Mass Effect fans pay for that DLC

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

Haven't bought a BioWare game since Kotor. I played all their latest games via friends lending me them.

And yet you keep playing them.

And it won't make an impact. Gamers suffer the beat wife's syndrome big time. They'll release an overpriced ending DLC, and everyone will take it and sing their praises. Then cry when it happens again.

So talk to your "beat wife syndrome" friend and tell him to wake the fuck up. You do understand that you're possibly reinforcing his poor purchasing decision by asking to play it yourself.

If you're that passionate about NOT supporting Bioware, don't you think that telling your friend, "No. I know how Bioware does things. I don't even need to play that.", is a much more effective message than refusing to buy a Bioware game but borrowing it from someone so you can play it?

Not supporting Bioware includes more than just NOT buying their games.

You have to...you know...NOT play the game as well?

 

[Margalis]

The bottom line is that people should be more accepting of that fact that what they hold to be true, usually isn't true for everyone.

These things are all matters of "taste" and subjective worth; there's no scientific component whatsoever.

This is true in theory but the reality is that most reviews aim for a sort of false objectivity and game reviews are far more homogenous than movie reviews with very little expression of personal taste.

In movies you have something like Tree of Life that some critics thought was great and some thought was a bore. In game reviews a boring game with high production value will still be universally praised.

 

[PopcornMegaphone]

Guys, reviews aren't journalism, they're opinion pieces. That's not to say those reviews shouldn't have integrity, but it's still a completely different standard and outlook.

 

[sankt-Antonio]

And it won't make an impact. Gamers suffer the beat wife's syndrome big time. They'll release an overpriced ending DLC, and everyone will take it and sing their praises. Then cry when it happens again.

I only bought the WipEout Fury DLC this entire gen., and I was a day 1 ps3 owner.
If only more gamers would be like me.

 

[MC Safety]

Guys, reviews aren't journalism, they're opinion pieces. That's not to say those reviews shouldn't have integrity, but it's still a completely different standard and outlook.

Commentary and criticism is very much a subset of the larger umbrella of journalism.

 

[The_Hitcher89]

I only bought the WipEout Fury DLC this entire gen., and I was a day 1 ps3 owner.
If only more gamers would be like me.

Some DLC is completely worth it and isn't dishonest, such as Fury. Undead Nightmare, that inFamous 2 DLC, map packs for example

 

[PrinceOfApathy]

Guys, reviews aren't journalism, they're opinion pieces. That's not to say those reviews shouldn't have integrity, but it's still a completely different standard and outlook.

I keep saying no they aren't!

Opinion - The character designs in Moon-Diver look amazing.

Opinion - The Skybox in Illium looks better than the Citadel.

Opinion - The music in Xenosaga is better than Final Fantasy XII

Analytical break down and fact; Does the fucking combat work!? If so how, what are the errors in the combat engine, what flaws stop said games combat engine from reaching better heights.

Analytical break down and fact; Outside of the God damned combat are there alternative means to engage the player! NO. Why? Yes. Why? Explain.

Reviews have never been opinionated, its only when entitled brat journalists who don't have a clue about the subject matter they are writing on, did they scream this opinion ignorance, it is their shield to hide there shoddy workmanship, lack of intelligence and understanding.

 

[Pandaman]

90+ then, 79 now.

feels like a 78 to me.

 

[ScOULaris]

Film critics come from a background of study and formal analysis.

Game critics come from a background of "I played a shitload of Earthworm Jim when I was a kid"

Yeah, this really is all it boils down to. It's a sad state of affairs, as I think that the medium would benefit immensely from more legitimate criticism and evaluation. I am doubtful that this trend will reverse course any time even remotely soon, however.

 

[MC Safety]

Yeah, this really is all it boils down to. It's a sad state of affairs, as I think that the medium would benefit immensely from more legitimate criticism and evaluation. I am doubtful that this trend will reverse course any time even remotely soon, however.

Except what he said is not true.

 

[PrinceOfApathy]

Except what he said is not true.

So if it isn't blissful ignorance of I played tons of games as a kid and landed this; or is it that they are actually educated but perpetuate willful malice?

I don't even know which is worse.

 

[1-D_FTW]

I made a some what similar thread last year(you're much nicer than me though ), used LA Noire and MGS4 as examples of reviewers overreacting, overhyping and ultimately ignoring every single flaw those two games had, using their own quotes. My choice of words for the my thread title was not the best though.

Most game reviewers are not critics. They care little about actually crafting a critical analysis of whatever it is they're reviewing. They probably don't even know how. I don't know about you but there's not a single guy in this industry whose reviews I honestly trust and follow.

Sean Elliot was a terrific reviewer and came at it from a critical POV. But then again, he was the exception to the rule and there's a reason he got hired as a level designer at Irrational.

But as a rule, yeah, reviews are worthless these days (aside from indie reviews that get niche games on the map). The internet collective does a much better job of exposing the plus/minuses of a game.

Ironically enough, the publishers have won. They've destroyed the review system. For me, however, that means I'm much less inclined to buy anything day one and will wait for an opinion to form. And if I don't buy day one, it means I'll usually have the willpower to hold out for a rock bottom sale.

 

[Kunan]

The thing that upsets me about this the most is that I literally cannot listen to a few of my favorite podcasts anymore, because all I can hear is the contempt they have for me and the knowledge that they're just indoctrinating masses of people with their piss poor logic that has no grounded base in anything whatsoever. It's truly disgusting just how awful they portray their listeners/readers.

Also, it's incredibly difficult to take any of their opinions seriously anymore. I too have noticed what the OP said, ESPECIALLY with Batman. That game was heralded as the second coming of christ, but now is consistently brought up as a game that took a number of wrong turns, assumes too much of the player by giving little to no guidance whatsoever, etc.

I've only heard maybe 5 people say they don't like to eat feces.

I guess they are just a vocal minority, and most people love eating feces.

Logic!

Perfect.

 

[Haunted]

I was expecting more metacritic professional score and user review score screenshots in here.

 

[The Anti-Monitor]

I was expecting more metacritic professional score and user review score screenshots in here.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/mass-effect-3
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/grand-theft-auto-iv
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dragon-age-ii

?

 

[ClosingADoor]

I have a question.

What kind of education do most "Gaming-journalist" have?

As in every field, it varies a lot I think. I know a lot of journalism students who are writing for gamesites. A lot of websites also just don't make that much money, so they can't really hire people and work with volunteers.

The thing that upsets me about this the most is that I literally cannot listen to a few of my favorite podcasts anymore, because all I can hear is the contempt they have for me and the knowledge that they're just indoctrinating masses of people with their piss poor logic that has no grounded base in anything whatsoever. It's truly disgusting just how awful they portray their listeners/readers.

Yeah, some of the gaming press as their website grows get this idea they are somehow better then their audience. For some reason they then try to distance themselves from that audience or something, which is really strange, since they are the people who listen to/read/watch your content.

Game magazine editors frequently receive "review guides" with copies of reviewable software. Some of these guides are innocuous. Others are pages long and attempt to write the review for the critic.

Review guides are really strange to me. I mean, the consumer doesn't get a guide with the game the explains everything. Why would the reviewer. He needs to have the same experience as that consumer, so he can give his opinion about it. The worst is when PR of a publisher calls and complains you didn't follow the guide or aren't mentioning all the bullet points in the guide.

 

[Haunted]

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/mass-effect-3
http://www.metacritic.com/game/plays...-theft-auto-iv
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dragon-age-ii

?

Yeah, exactly.


Man, how did Dragon Age II get an 80+ aggregate? smh

 

[Durante]

You can spend 8 hrs with ICO, or 10 hrs on Rayman 2, or 15 hrs on Majoras Mask and you can spend 103 hrs with Skyrim, and you can see which game has the better design and structure within its goal of what the individual title chose to accomplish. If you are using the time spent with a game and your enjoyment as a bar for the true quality of a game when reviewing a title, you are exactly like the "journalists" who can't take a step back and be analytical with the games weaknesses. That mindset is what has caused the entire process to cancerous.

I thought the whole point of games (with very few exceptions) was to be enjoyable. And thus, if a game succeeds (or fails) at that goal, it succeeds (or fails) as a game. I'm not "defending" reviewers, and certainly not shitty practices like review guides, free swag and only playing a few hours of a game, but I don't think a review should (or can) be an objective analysis of a game.

Film and book reviews manage to be subjective while not succumbing to many of the problems game reviews suffer from. The problem lies with the incestuous relationship between the games media and publishers, not the general concept of a reviewer offering his opinion.

 

[Zia]

Commentary and criticism is very much a subset of the larger umbrella of journalism.

Not necessarily. I don't think Jonathan Rosenbaum would ever claim to be a journalist. Rather, I think the lack of enthusiast or specialist outlets for proper video games criticism can be attributed to the connectedness of criticism and Journalism (and PR, if you want to go there).

Which... is what the medium, and its participants, deserve at this point in time. So much unconstructive anger, however it is a community insular, immature and culturally unaware, allergic to academic insight with no interest in by-lines. Not sure how the constant banging of one's head against an invisible ceiling is going to "fix" anything.

 

[EternalGamer]

If all movie reviews were comprised of stuff from Empire and Entertainment Weekly, then I would imagine movie reviews in general would be a lot like game reviews. The problem with game reviews is that they are all from outlets which depend heavily on both fan support and industry support to keep going since they exclusively cover just games. It's an interest group problem.

The most respected movie critics tend to write for newspapers. Newspapers don't give a crap about the movie industry at large, and are not beholden to them or to the support of movie fans to keep their business running. A reviewer can say Transformers 3 is total crap and give it 1 star and it would mean nothing to the newspaper.

That's the difference.

Totally agree. It is ashamed that this medium came along after the decline of print journalism and it's standards. It could have inspired and challenged game makers to aim higher.

 

[MC Safety]

So if it isn't blissful ignorance of I played tons of games as a kid and landed this; or is it that they are actually educated but perpetuate willful malice?

I don't even know which is worse.

It is actually that few critics are formally trained in criticism or theory regarding the subject they cover. Oftentimes the job of movie/art/theater/book/food/music critic is given to one person at a publication, and as a thank-you for extended service.

Game reviewers are often hardcore fans with little to no critical thinking or writing skills, but this is becoming the exception and not the rule. Competition for each open position writing about games is fierce, and the yahoos are being pushed aside in favor of more skilled candidates.

 

[ScOULaris]

I thought the whole point of games (with very few exceptions) was to be enjoyable. And thus, if a game succeeds (or fails) at that goal, it succeeds (or fails) as a game. I'm not "defending" reviewers, and certainly not shitty practices like review guides, free swag and only playing a few hours of a game, but I don't think a review should (or can) be an objective analysis of a game.

Film and book reviews manage to be subjective while not succumbing to many of the problems game reviews suffer from. The problem lies with the incestuous relationship between the games media and publishers, not the general concept of a reviewer offering his opinion.

Well, there's no such thing as objectivity when it comes to reviewing a piece of entertainment. There can be balanced criticism, however, where the reviewer is able to step back and see room for improvement even in a release that they really enjoyed.

The whole point of games is generally to entertain you, which is also the case for books, music, movies... etc. The difference between those established mediums and gaming is that all of those are subject to varied, balanced criticism whereas big-budget games almost seem to buy their high scores through sheer marketing power. It's almost as if AAA games are destined to score above 90% on Metacritic regardless of what faults they might have.

Basically what I am trying to say is this: not every game that you had fun with deserves a 9-10 on the scoring scale. At that point, you're not reviewing a game... you're just giving it a marketing boost.