Reviewers criticizing games for not being other games.

N

Namork

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 27, 2004
Messages
178
This is going to get pretty ranty, so be warned.

I had a roommate some time ago who wouldn't stop bitching and moaning about what a terrible action game Morrowind was. He hated it. No amount of me screaming "It's not an action game!" would get through his skull. You see, his favorite game was Halo. Sometimes I feel the same way when I read a lot of "professional" reviews. The Gamespy review of Prey on the PC complained that the AI wasn't tactical enough, and that the enemies got bigger and stonger instead of smarter. Well guess what, Prey was never supposed to be a tactical shooter! It's a straight up shooter, period. Valid complaints are that the genre is tired, or done better (Ala Painkiller), NOT that the game should be a different game entirely!

I guess I'm just getting tired of reviewers who don't review, and instead like to play pretend game designer. I remember the reviews of Computer Gaming World used to be stellar. They told me how the game played. They told me which gameplay elements worked, or didn't work. I can't recall a single time they penalized a game because it wasn't a different game. Hell, they even had a huge list of the past year or so's ratings, and they were remarkably consistant. But it seems like since any random guy who likes games can write reviews for a "professional" review site now, the quality has gone severely downhill. I swear the pull the numbers for the ratings out of thin air, and even within a single site, its all over the place depending on which reviewers turn it was.

*Sigh* Oh well. Good thing there are demos.
 
I really am not liking CGWs reviews now that they don't do the score system. Their reviews are now boiling down to:

"According to Gamepro's review, they gave it a 2.0, I fully agree. However PCGamer's 50% is a bit high since the graphics in Gravy Trader are mediocre at best. IGN's 1.0 in controls is right on the money"
 
Ashtaka said:
I really am not liking CGWs reviews now that they don't do the score system. Their reviews are now boiling down to:

"According to Gamepro's review, they gave it a 2.0, I fully agree. However PCGamer's 50% is a bit high since the graphics in Gravy Trader are mediocre at best. IGN's 1.0 in controls is right on the money"
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Ugh, are you serious? I haven't read CGW in almost 5 years. Thats terrible.
 
Namork said:
Ugh, are you serious? I haven't read CGW in almost 5 years. Thats terrible.
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Its slightly exaggerated of course, but I was flipping through my new CGW and the few reviews I read kept refering to other web site's reviews.
 
I for one cannot stand when anyone rates a fighting game. I cant stand the hype that soul calibur and dead or alive get.. both are truely newbified but sometimes get better ratings then the games that are really good like SF, tekken, and VF.

another thing I cant stand is how they go on about "background stories" in fighting games.. wtf.. I could careless about a detailed background story.
 
G4 couldnt rate a pc game anyway...the station should be called something else... they review only the bigger PC titles...

they also try to compare big PC titles to big console titles... as if people could compare the 2...
 
I hate how games journalism is so terrible. Most reviews are mostly ads with a few comments on whether or not the reviewer liked the game. Nobody goes into mechanics, talks about what works and what doesn't.

Not to yank my own chain, but the mini-reviews I occasionally throw out around here have more depth than most publications.
 
Thanks to internet and those fucking blogs, anyone can be a game critic/<insert journalist/writing-related thing here>, in addition to armchair engineers, military strategists, political commentators, etc.

If only they knew what the 1st Amendment would have created, they would have added a subclause:
Swift kick in the nuts for being a fucking moron.
-Sincerely, Thomas Jefferson & Co.

​
 
Namork said:
This is going to get pretty ranty, so be warned.

I had a roommate some time ago who wouldn't stop bitching and moaning about what a terrible action game Morrowind was. He hated it. No amount of me screaming "It's not an action game!" would get through his skull. You see, his favorite game was Halo. Sometimes I feel the same way when I read a lot of "professional" reviews. The Gamespy review of Prey on the PC complained that the AI wasn't tactical enough, and that the enemies got bigger and stonger instead of smarter. Well guess what, Prey was never supposed to be a tactical shooter! It's a straight up shooter, period. Valid complaints are that the genre is tired, or done better (Ala Painkiller), NOT that the game should be a different game entirely!

I guess I'm just getting tired of reviewers who don't review, and instead like to play pretend game designer. I remember the reviews of Computer Gaming World used to be stellar. They told me how the game played. They told me which gameplay elements worked, or didn't work. I can't recall a single time they penalized a game because it wasn't a different game. Hell, they even had a huge list of the past year or so's ratings, and they were remarkably consistant. But it seems like since any random guy who likes games can write reviews for a "professional" review site now, the quality has gone severely downhill. I swear the pull the numbers for the ratings out of thin air, and even within a single site, its all over the place depending on which reviewers turn it was.

*Sigh* Oh well. Good thing there are demos.
Click to expand...

You have the nail on the head, and this is something i've been preaching for a year now. You just can't get a fair review from many of them these days, as they try to review the game for what they think it should be. These same people seem to enjoy dictating what a game should be, and not accepting it for what it really is. It's like trying to review GRAW and pitting against a run a gun FPS like Quake 4. Or worse yet, trying to review Prey as they would a tactical shooter as you stated. Many sites and mags i've trusted in the past, have completely lost my trust now. The same thing is happening in Automotive journalism as well, so I guess it's just human nature to see something from only their perspective. It's like the ones that gave RR6 a mediocre score, as some of those same journalists were evaluating RR6 as a different type of game than it really was.
 
Situations like this just scream for PC Accelerator to get back into publication. Their reviews were dead-on, funny, and fucking brutal to the games that deserved it.

One of the sadder days of my life, when I got that all black issue, with the words "it's gone" on the cover.
 
PNut12345 said:
Situations like this just scream for PC Accelerator to get back into publication. Their reviews were dead-on, funny, and fucking brutal to the games that deserved it.

One of the sadder days of my life, when I got that all black issue, with the words "it's gone" on the cover.
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Oh man, I loved that magazine. I loved how they couldn't get the big exclusives, so instead they'd have articles like "Drinking and Driving Games" where they all got wasted and tried to play Driver. I loved how their review of Tomb Raider 4 was the EXACT same one as Tomb Raider 3, except with red ink crossing out sections and updating them. I loved when one of the editors was locked in a room and forced to play Barbie games, and the review was like the journal of his descent into madness.

Ah good times.
 
Namork said:
I loved when one of the editors was locked in a room and forced to play Barbie games, and the review was like the journal of his descent into madness.

Ah good times.
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I still read that bit from time to time. It was, literally, one of the most hilarious things I had ever read in a magazine.

I never understood why it didn't sell as well. OK, yes, you have a bunch of horny males (with the token female) sitting around drinking, playing games, and posting pics of scantily clad females. What's not to like? Reviews were pretty darn good as well.

Ah well. As said above, one of the saddest moments in gaming history for me: "It's Over."
 
arkamw said:
I still read that bit from time to time. It was, literally, one of the most hilarious things I had ever read in a magazine.

I never understood why it didn't sell as well. OK, yes, you have a bunch of horny males (with the token female) sitting around drinking, playing games, and posting pics of scantily clad females. What's not to like? Reviews were pretty darn good as well.

Ah well. As said above, one of the saddest moments in gaming history for me: "It's Over."
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No kidding. Ask me to remember ANYTHING from ANY other magazine. No gaming publication to date has been as memorable as PCXL, or even memorable at all. I wonder if I can find my old copies.
 
Slartibartfast said:
I hate how games journalism is so terrible. Most reviews are mostly ads with a few comments on whether or not the reviewer liked the game. Nobody goes into mechanics, talks about what works and what doesn't...
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FACT! so evident with WOW and Guild wars IMHO. I heavily relied on reviews a few months ago when I wanted a "newer, long game" to waste time with that genre. all top reviews did not address issues I found immediately in them. especially the fighting dynamics
 
Well, you know what you are when you can't become a regular journalist?

A video game journalist. ;)
 
Another thing that shits me up the wall about online reviews: the tendency of some sites, when reviewing a console port, to do little more than "Find and Replace" "controller" with "keyboard and mouse" in the console review.
 
99% of all game reviews suck. Picking out this one small aspect of why they suck is like taking a look at a turd and complaining about how its color clashes with wallpaper.
 
qbert3 said:
I for one cannot stand when anyone rates a fighting game. I cant stand the hype that soul calibur and dead or alive get.. both are truely newbified but sometimes get better ratings then the games that are really good like SF, tekken, and VF.

another thing I cant stand is how they go on about "background stories" in fighting games.. wtf.. I could careless about a detailed background story.
Click to expand...

qft.... i love fighting games, but the popular ones are always noobified
 
movax said:
Thanks to internet and those fucking blogs, anyone can be a game critic/<insert journalist/writing-related thing here>, in addition to armchair engineers, military strategists, political commentators, etc.

If only they knew what the 1st Amendment would have created, they would have added a subclause:
Swift kick in the nuts for being a fucking moron.
-Sincerely, Thomas Jefferson & Co.

​
Click to expand...

It's a good thing that the first amendment is only on the federal level, state/local gov's can still not allow free speech IIRC
 
retardedchicken said:
It's a good thing that the first amendment is only on the federal level, state/local gov's can still not allow free speech IIRC
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Uh... NO.

No. No. No.

No state law can violate the U.S. constitution. It's the, uh, constitution. You know.

Now, free speech can be interpreted differently, but if it was found that a state law violated the first amendment, it would be nullified by our "buds" on the supreme court.
 
I see your point but why does games like Prey have to have stupid AI. Even straight forward fps games benefit from great AI like F.E.A.R. I mean apart from admire the surroundings it´s the combat that is essential especially in straight forward fps games...

Only fps games I really find lacking AI is an strength is Serious Sam :D
 
The AI in prey seemed to be about on par with Quake 4, so I don't know what their thing is, I liked both very much. Prey is new and different though, it gave me motion sickness! (haven't had a good case of that since Descent 3)

Gamespot trashed it, called it unoriginal, not creative. I don't understand this, its one of the most creative games to come out in a while. F.E.A.R. got great reviews, and I thought that was pretty unoriginal and WAY too short.

Right now, I either get a demo or buy anything that looks interesting, after F.E.A.R. (rave reviews on a less than $50 and no more than 8 hour game?! that all looks the same?!) I don't trust reviewers.
 
I loved how some of these same reviewers never said a word about the fact that you face the same two damn enemies the entire game in Fear, but trashes Prey for having fewer enemies than they would have liked.
 
Enemies are a bit more different then in Prey. So far I have only encountered two types really.
As for length Prey isn´t longer then F.E.A.R from what I have heard.

But I think Prey is so new and innovative that game reviewers feel they have to tell people it´s not that new and innovative...

I think Prey 2 will be getting better reviews as is often the case with sequels it seems. Quake IV wouldn´t have gotten so high reviews if it wasn´t because of the previous Quake titles because I don´t understand that game so extremely booring and uninteresting.
 
the reason most online game sites' reviews suck is because they fail to actually play the entire game... which is why developers HATE game reviewers...
 
When did this annoying trend of regarding video game reviews as journalists begin?
 
PNut12345 said:
Situations like this just scream for PC Accelerator to get back into publication. Their reviews were dead-on, funny, and fucking brutal to the games that deserved it.

One of the sadder days of my life, when I got that all black issue, with the words "it's gone" on the cover.
Click to expand...

Was this the crew that used to make Ultra Game Players (Frank O'conner?)? If so this magazine was awsome and I have almost the entire run at my mom's house still. This and Next Gen were my two favorite magazines and are very missed.

There are two main reasons why game reviews suck:
1. Reviewers are afraid of getting blacklisted by publishers/devs so they give out glowing previews/reviews. Publishers will "forget" to send out review copies and devs will ignore requests for interviews/media if they feel the reviewer will give anything but the desired opinion. Look at what happened to PCXL.

2. Many publishers butter up reviewers with all sort of swag. The magazine Tips&Tricks used (I haven't read it in a while, maybe they still have it) to have a section showing all the cool stuff devs and publishers would send them. We are talking leather bomber jackets, custom posters and artwork, replica weapons and armor, figurines, cigars and booze, free vacations, ect. So yeah, they are being bribed.

Personally I just look at the scores from several different sites and read the chatter on the message boards. This is usually enough for me to make a choice.
 
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