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Games Entertainment

Why Videogame Reviews End Up Being So Controversial 81

Posted by simoniker from the what-i-think dept.
Thanks to GamerDad for its editorial discussing why videogame reviews are sometimes controversial, and "why fanboys have such a hard time understanding that reviews are just opinions." The author explains: "I think it's simply a product of the games being essentially mechanical constructs... The mechanics of a game are often reviewed with their own numerical scores that then produce the overall total score." He goes on: "So many folks believe the pieces that create the game, because of the technology used (good or bad), define how good it can or can't be", before concluding: "Five stars out of five doesn't mean that's the greatest game and no game could be better. It does mean that it's one of the very best your money can buy in the opinion of the writer of the review."
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Why Videogame Reviews End Up Being So Controversial More

Why Videogame Reviews End Up Being So Controversial

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  • opinions that look like facts. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slothman32 ( 629113 ) <pjohnjackson@gmail. c o m> on Sunday August 08, 2004 @08:03PM (#9916344) Homepage Journal
    The problem with reviews isn't that they are opinions but that they seem to be facts. Many reviewers and critics make it look like a movie or game or book really is bad rather than they just think it's bad. I personally don't look at reviews because the opinions are so ubiquitous that I the "facts" become meaning less. If I like it I like it. What others think is irrelevant.
    • Many reviewers and critics make it look like a movie or game or book really is bad rather than they just think it's bad.

      To the reviewer, the movie/book/game/etc is 'really' bad, because thats what they think, that's what their experience is. Reviewers shouldn't have to state that the review is their opinion, that should go without saying.

      As the GamerDad article points out, you should read some reviews by a person to get a feel for what they like. To get 'accurate' reviews {accurate for you}, find som
      • As the GamerDad article points out, you should read some reviews by a person to get a feel for what they like. To get 'accurate' reviews {accurate for you}, find someone who has similar opinions to you.

        Actually, the most important thing to figure out is just what the person's taste is. The most accurate guage for judging whether we will like a movie or not is one of my wife's co-workers. If he likes a movie, we will dislike it. If he hates it, we will love it. Over about 25 films, this metric is perfect s

  • Controversial? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Muerto ( 656791 ) <{david} {at} {vitanza.net}> on Sunday August 08, 2004 @08:04PM (#9916346)
    I wouldn't use the word "Controversial" for a video game review. That is too strong. I would say that people get upset when they read a good review of a game only to get it home and see it's filled with bugs and not very good gameplay wise.. .. you begin to wonder if these people are really in the field to do reviews or to get kudos and free games... oh an money.

    • Re:Controversial? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Ayaress ( 662020 ) on Sunday August 08, 2004 @08:17PM (#9916412) Journal
      you begin to wonder if these people are really in the field to do reviews or to get kudos and free games

      And then Driv3r comes by and proves that they're in it for money.

      Seriously, if it weren't for so many blatant whorejob reviews like that, I would gladly excuse a few innaccurate reviews.

      Then there are other reviews (good or bad) that are entirely based on the first hour of gameplay. With many games running 50 hours and more, that's like watching the first three minutes of the Matrix and saying how it's all about some guy sleeping in front of a computer in a dirty apartment drooling on his keyboard.

      • Re:Controversial? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Alkaiser ( 114022 )
        Sometimes I can excuse that, so long as the reviewer doesn't try and say that the game dialogue is crappy and the character development is lame.

        I mean, it's not like there are a ton of games out there, where you start into the game for the first 1-2 hours, and then all of a sudden, 15 hours into the game, the AI suddenly becomes intelligent, the ganeplay becomes intuitive, and the camera stops going for messed up camera angles that block your view.

        It's very easy to project what a game is like 2-3 hours in

    • Re:Controversial? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by startled ( 144833 )
      Agreed. I don't think "controversial" applies when someone gets pissed that their pick for Best Game Evar only got a 90%. (That's not an exaggeration-- I know reviewers who've caught shit from PR departments for giving something a lowly 9/10.) "Inflated" is the word I'd use for game reviews.

    • Re:Controversial? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday August 09, 2004 @06:43AM (#9918747) Homepage Journal
      and that's been the case for almost 10 years in the pc game scene.

      you just can't trust high profile reviews, not one way or another. often they preview beta quality products and review them as if they were good quality - and then the game maker doesn't improve anything before the release too.

      read warez forums.. they have the authentic play-test posts pretty early.

  • Anyone who has ever played Rescue Raiders on the Apple II can tell you it is one of the greatest games of all time. The graphics were very plain. But it was all about the game play. god I swish prorammers would get with it. to many sheep programming the next shooter upper. PUT SOME STRATEGY BACK IN THE GAMES
    • Strategy is that thing that I use when I decide if I want the gun that shoots lasers or the one that shoots rockets, right?
    • Wow, I really loved playing that. Kept me busy for God knows how long back in gradeschool. Sure, the graphics were unamazing. (In fact, took me quite a while to figure out what everything was, without a manual) But you're correct about the strategy involved. The games market puts far too much emphasis on the graphics. This is as much the gamers' fault as anyone elses...I was drooling at early 3D accellerated games like the rest of us.

      It should be noted that this emphasis on visuals also detracts f

  • Welcome to life (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Sunday August 08, 2004 @08:18PM (#9916418) Journal
    We live in an era where an opinion is taken as fact by most people (Hello TV). They cannot get that it doesn't matter who is right but that the truth is expressed by someone.

    If I go into a shop and ask ten random people something like "Do you like apples?". 5 out of them should in theory say no, 5 should say yes. It won't work like that but it's the basic idea.

    Everyone has different tastes (I dont like rap,it out sells everything right now. I can ignore it and shrug), we just have to accept and find a tolerance level for something we dislike.

    There will always be "trolls" who just flame for the fun of it, s well as fanboys who would say Myst had the best gameplay ever. This is how life is, as long as no one becomes a zealot then there isn't a problem.

    People need to accept that the Earth doesn't revolve around a carbon based life form with the same name as them. If we accept opinions from other people and tolerate things we don't like which they made do then the world runs fine. If we don't... well lets just say lawyers enjoy this sort of world and look where they are now..

    • Re:Welcome to life (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Otter ( 3800 ) on Sunday August 08, 2004 @09:47PM (#9916926) Journal
      If I go into a shop and ask ten random people something like "Do you like apples?". 5 out of them should in theory say no, 5 should say yes. It won't work like that but it's the basic idea.

      Not to quibble with your larger point but -- that is completely untrue. The fact that there are two outcomes tells you nothing about the relative likelihood of the outcomes.

      • Actually, yes it does in that case. In a two choice question, theorically the numbers should float around 50% simply due to lack of alternative answers. Its the same things with politics. Theorically, in the US two-party system, the electorial votes should float around 50/50 like we saw in the election of 2000 when Florida became the make-or-break decision. (And we all know how that turned out.)
        • No! That is absolutely not true.
        • "Is two plus two equal to four?"

          Answer #1 - Yes
          Answer #2 - No

          My guess is that the answer to that question, with two possible outcomes, will not float around 50%, regardless of the number of people you ask.

          In a random situation (say, flipping a coin) with two possible outcomes, yes, the result floats around 50%...but the examples listed so far are not random.

          T.
          • You make a faulty point here, in that the example relates to opinion-based questions, not fact-based questions. Opinions tend to be fairly random. I have a friend who actually thought that 'White Chicks' was a good movie. Thank god he knows that 2+2=4.
            • OK, the grandparent's example maybe wasn't so great - but just because something is a yes/no question and is a matter of opinion, there is NO REASON to expect the answers to be near 50/50.

              The best way to show this is with an example, like... give me a minute...

              OK, say you take a random sample of people and ask them if they enjoy going to the dentist. It's totally a matter of opinion - there are some people out there who just loove going to the dentist. Most people hate it. It would not be 50/50.

              There are

        • Re:Welcome to life
          2 options you live for the next 5 seconds or you die.

          But there is a better than 50/50 chance that you will live.
          2 options does not mean 50/50 split.
        • Not true. The only reason this happens with politics is that the parties evolve over time in order to cling to about 50% of the voters. Maybe 50% of people like apples, I'm not sure. I'll bet if the question was, "do you like to watch movies?" then the results would be highly skewed.

        • "Do you like to have sex with people the same gender as yourself?"

          50/50? Not bloody likely.

        • In a two choice question, theorically the numbers should float around 50% simply due to lack of alternative answers.

          So, if I ask, "Do you enjoy getting kicked in the teetch while watching your children get chopped up with a rusty knife", theoretically, the numbers should float around 50%?

          I think you don't have a very good grip on what the word "theoretically" means.
    • We live in an era where an opinion is taken as fact by most people (Hello TV).

      I so deeply agree with you. Our current content-rating systems (review scores, whether someone is a spammer, how "good" a Slashdot post is) generally provide "absolute" metrics -- they rely on the false idea that a single measurement is appropriate to every person who will read that measurement. An adventure game player will have completely different tastes than a wargamer. There are a few stabs at providing personalized score
      • Seems I forgot to end my italics.

        We live in an era where an opinion is taken as fact by most people (Hello TV).

        I so deeply agree with you. Our current content-rating systems (review scores, whether someone is a spammer, how "good" a Slashdot post is) generally provide "absolute" metrics -- they rely on the false idea that a single measurement is appropriate to every person who will read that measurement. An adventure game player will have completely different tastes than a wargamer. There are a few stab
    • We live in an era where an opinion is taken as fact by most people (Hello TV).

      While TV is bad, (Especially the news channels) the internet is far worse. The amount of group think that goes on is insane. If you disagree with the group you are often branded as an "idiot", "N00b", "moron" etc. It's funny how politcal correctness has enveloped our culture yet no one has any respect for an opinion that isn't their own or doesn't mesh with their own ideas. Considering how many gamers are also online fre

  • Got your reason right here (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) * on Sunday August 08, 2004 @08:46PM (#9916609) Homepage Journal
    Video games are expensive. If I read a glowing review for a game, say Prince of Persia: Sands of Time or Doom 3, and I drop A$99.95 on it only to find that it sucks so bad it could pull the moon out of orbit (in my opinion) then I feel a lot more annoyed than if I'd only spent A$29.95 (the price of a new-release album). If I hadn't bought any of the games that I subsequently thought were crap, my bank account would be near a couple of thousand dollars healthier. I therefore think I've bought the right to bitch about crappy reviews.
    • $99.95? Played Final Fantasy XI, have we? ;)

      I feel the same about NWN Gold + HotU, but it only cost me $70 total. :(

      • Re:Got your reason right here (Score:4, Informative)

        by DLWormwood ( 154934 ) <wormwood@meCOMMA.com minus punct> on Monday August 09, 2004 @11:33AM (#9920466) Homepage
        $99.95? Played Final Fantasy XI, have we? ;)
        No, that's A$99.95... the dude's from Oz. [australia.com] Having a bad exchange rate to the American dollar, as well as being a island nation, tends to drive prices upwards.
        • There's no such thing as a bad exchange rate. It's extremely complex, but the actual exchange rate values we use are only interesting in how they change over time. If we decided to measure Canadian Dollars / US Pennies, would our dollar be better off?
          • There's no such thing as a bad exchange rate.

            I disagree; it's a matter of point of view. For example, as a USian, if I wanted to expatriate, I wouldn't be able to since my debt is in US Dollars. Very few countries in the world have a favorable exchange rate for me to pay off the debt by earning money overseas.

            A more down-to-earth example, I have anime as a major part of my DVD collection. Even assuming the actual media is burned and printed locally, if the Dollar becomes "weaker" against the Yen, the Ja

            • Even assuming the actual media is burned and printed locally, if the Dollar becomes "weaker" against the Yen, the Japanese rights holders will demand larger licensing fees to continue publication of a title on this side of the Pacific.

              What you are talking about is the change in the exchange rate between the Dollar and the Yen _over time_. I'm not suggesting that that change is meaningless, all I'm saying is that the instantaneous exchange rate is essentially arbitrary. If you chose to express the rat
              • My post was just a response to people who think games cost twice as much in Australia as in America because their dollar is worth less.

                The problem is that many retailers and resellers don't pin their prices to the current "official" exchange rate, but use an inflated number to cover uncertainty and risk. The UK is supposedly the country most worse off due to this phenomenon.

                For the record, A$99.95 becomes roughly $70.00US at recent exchange rates [x-rates.com], an equivalent to a 40% mark-up from $50 for a typical ga

        • Ah, didn't see anything in the post which suggested the country of origin. It's been so long since I bought music (since it's all crap, not because I download) that I didn't even blink at the $29.95 album price. Figured the RIAA was blaming P2P and price gouging again.

  • Objective vs. Subjective (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ajutla ( 720182 ) <ajutla at gmail dot com> on Sunday August 08, 2004 @09:04PM (#9916718) Homepage

    The problem with video game reviews, as I see it, is that they are subjective, by their very definition. There is no such thing as a definitively "good" game, nor is there any such thing as a definitively "bad" game. The same is true of movies, or books--when you read film reviews, you don't see a bunch of numerical scores ranking the film's "special effects" and "acting" and "sound technology" and the "tilt factor" on a (decimal) scale of one to ten. Instead, you just read some of the reviewer's genuine thoughts, and with those, you are free to determine whether or not you'd enjoy it. Game reviews, I think, need much the same thing. Far too many reviewers are focused on, "oh, this review must be under 1000 words," and "oh, I must split it up into sections for each component of the game," and "oh, I need to rate and rank everything and then use a calculator to get the result." No. Game reviews are subjective and should be treated as such.

    I think it is the job of the review-writer to just convey a feeling about the game...to get the reader into his headspace, to explain the game, circumstances surrounding the reviewer's involvement with the game, that sort of thing, no numbers involved. It should be an introspective, organic process. For example, as an experiment with this sort of thing, I wrote this [livejournal.com] a few days ago--it is, sort of, a review of Doom 3. It was an experimental thing--yeah, I rambled a lot, I talked about some aspects of the game I liked, some I didn't like, and about some things that had zero bearing on the gameplay. In the end, I revealed that I had mixed feelings about the game--I didn't really like it much, but it was all right, I supposed.

    Anyway, I took this review to the Doom 3 message board at GameFAQs, a web site which you will know, if you had been there, is absolutely frigging full of rabid fanboys. There are threads there with titles such as "I can't believe Gamespot gave Doom 3 only a 8.511111" and such. Anyway, yeah, I showed it to people there, and they enjoyed it--they said that my thoughts were, in general, interesting, and that they understood why I didn't like the game much. And these are rabid fanboys I'm talking about.

    I guess this means that people tend to get more worked up about numbers--rankings, ratings, all that sort of stuff. Reviewers and readers tend to concentrate on that--on the mechanics, on the cut-and-dried aspects of things--rather than on the subjective things; a review shouldn't be "Whether or not a game is good," but rather it should be "How this particular reviewer felt playing the game." I think that's more interesting all around.

  • Blame the reviewers. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Thedalek ( 473015 ) on Sunday August 08, 2004 @09:31PM (#9916863)
    Quite frequently, publications and/or shows get entirely the wrong person to review the game: Someone who is a button-mashing fighting game player is probably not going to appriciate the slower pace of a tactics-RPG. Similarly, the heavy-duty RTS fan probably won't find much to like in rhythm-based dance games.

    Useful game reviews come from people who have similar tastes to your own. Case in point: Tommy Tallarico. Tommy is not mainstream, nor are his tastes. When he reviews games on G4TechTV's show Judgement Day [g4techtv.com], it's clear that he was put there simply to provide a dissenting view. Have him play even the most revolutionary turn-based strategy game, and he'll insult it in the most vile manner he can think of. Thing is, there's a certain segment of the population that has similar tastes, and they will find his reviews useful.

    Another issue may be that some mediocre games get cast as "inexcusably awful" or "mind-bogglingly terrible" simply because it's easy for reviewers to get carried away insulting a game. "I'd rather rub my eyeballs with 80-grit sandpaper," is more interesting to read than "It wasn't awful, but there are no remarkable qualities to this game. It really isn't worth the money."
    • I disagree, to a small degree.

      Movie reviewers review movies all the time that aren't the "types of movies they like". Some reviewers dislike heavy drama, or foreign film, or whatever. But they watch them, and they are somehow able to write a review that is at least somewhat objective. Once in a while maybe they'll be way off, but most of the time they get close. They can look at something and say "I may not like this type of movie a lot, but I know good when I see it."

      I think if you hire the right p

    • Quite frequently, publications and/or shows get entirely the wrong person to review the game: Someone who is a button-mashing fighting game player is probably not going to appriciate the slower pace of a tactics-RPG. Similarly, the heavy-duty RTS fan probably won't find much to like in rhythm-based dance games.

      That totally misses out on the crossover audience though. For example, I play fighting games (No, I don't mash either and plenty of tournament matchs are pretty slow paced and involve more strat

  • The reason (Score:4, Funny)

    by Have Blue ( 616 ) on Sunday August 08, 2004 @09:32PM (#9916866) Homepage
    The reason video game reviews draw so much "controversy" is that all of the controversy is generated by a small minority of extremely vocal idiot fanboys. Their allegiance to their chosen game is without question, and any reported flaws in the game are either problems with the reviewer's hardware, much less important than the reviewer claimed they were (therefore the game deserves a higher score), and anyone who could possibly hate this game must be a moron anyway because it is obviously perfect. Throw in the fact that there is essentially no penalty for being wrong, being incredibly stubborn, or endlessly prolonging an argument on the Internet, and you have communities which erupt at anything short of glowing praise.

  • Because that's the definition? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Deraj DeZine ( 726641 ) on Sunday August 08, 2004 @10:26PM (#9917113)
    why fanboys have such a hard time understanding that reviews are just opinions
    Isn't part of the definition of a fanboy someone that considers the reputation of the game to be intertwined with their own self worth? The reason is in the definition.

  • I mainly read reviews just to see if the (Score:3, Funny)

    by The Analog Kid ( 565327 ) on Sunday August 08, 2004 @10:31PM (#9917145)
    game is a buggy piece of shit, and I read a lot to make sure it just isn't the reviewer's machine. I started doing this after ST: Armada, anyone ever play it? I sure did and 5 minutes later it would crash to the desktop. Other than that I could care less what the guy/gal has to say.

    • game is a buggy piece of shit, and I read a lot to make sure it just isn't the reviewer's machine. I started doing this after ST: Armada, anyone ever play it?

      I did, and only came up with three problems:

      1. Sound distortions - which can be worked around by setting sound acceleration to Basic (mentioned on support site.)
      2. Lockups in some cutscenes under Windows XP after installing drivers/updates/software. No fix yet, but I've sighted similar things on other games as well.
      3. Misc Alt-Tab issues that were

  • Classic example of reviewing gone wrong (Censored) (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Polarism ( 736984 ) on Sunday August 08, 2004 @11:01PM (#9917314)
    FPS reviewer reviewing RPG: "Dude this bleeping game is boring as bleep, I have to keep killing the same bleeping bleep over and over again to level up."
    RPG reviewer reviewing FPS: "Dude this bleeping game is boring as bleep, I have to keep killing the same bleeping bleep over and over again to advance through the game."
    Captain Obvious: "Dudes, wtf? You're doing the same bleeping thing."
  • ... i don't care if reviews work as opinion columns or as facts statement; i want them honest. Which sadly, is no longer the case for the majority of online/magazine reviews (Driv3r, anyone?). When games that are shit have 7 out of 10 reviews raving about them, well, don't be surprised if people find them "controversial". People are not that dumb.

    What i do when i want good online reviews (for games, music, hardware or whatever) is go for the ones with the lower scores. At least most reviews that dislik
  • All this really comes down to the fact that game reviews and reviewers have not reached the level of "professionalism" that you would see in a movie, theater, or food review.

    First of all, we have to note that video game reviews are not nearly as "technical" or "critical" as, say, movie or food reviews. Every movie reviewer has his or her specific biases, true, but you can also be well assured that most top critics (say, the Eberts of the world) are indeed watching the movie they are reviewing, take notes

    • Movie reviewers appear to operate on the principle that if a movie is popular, it is also automatically crap, whereas if it is "arty" (i.e. boring and nobody except a self-selected elite would watch it) it gets an excellent rating. I read a popular paper, yet I do not find myself agreeing with the movie reviews very often. And visitor numbers appear to agree with me.

      As for bad writing, I haven't seen any of that recently, but maybe that is because I'm reading a quality publication for my games reviews (Ed

      • Movie reviewers appear to operate on the principle that if a movie is popular, it is also automatically crap, whereas if it is "arty" (i.e. boring and nobody except a self-selected elite would watch it) it gets an excellent rating.

        To be fair, what usually happens is that the reviewer have seen *so* many movies, that the ones that just follow a formula are dead boring to them, unless they are absolutely exceptional. The artsy ones often have something unusual about them that at least keeps the reviewer int

        • I completely agree. I also suspect it's the reason that people watch fewer and fewer adrenaline-fest action movies as they get older. It's not a function of being older, per-se, but is due to the fact that, after a while, you've seen pretty much all there is, and you start cycling through watching the same movies with barely different settings, character names, and special effects.

          "Arty" films tend to be "films doing something new". For younger viewers, this newness doesn't appeal (after all, pretty muc
        • To be fair, what usually happens is that the reviewer have seen *so* many movies, that the ones that just follow a formula are dead boring to them, unless they are absolutely exceptional.
          My heart bleeds for them. Getting paid to watch films all day, that's not a life, it's an existence.

  • Resolution of scores (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Monday August 09, 2004 @02:26AM (#9918105) Journal
    I've always thought that game reviewers have a far too ambitious resolution on their scores, given the subjective nature of such scores. What person A likes "84%", person B may easily like "75%".

    I could see someone maybe rating games from "1" to "5", without fractional breakdown. It's certainly possible to rate different factors -- graphics, fun, replayability, sound, and so forth (though the idea of "averaging" them to come up with an overall score is broken and pointless -- for example, strategy games generally don't put much emphasis on graphics, and adventure games not much on replayability). However, the idea of rating things based on a 1 to 10, 1 to 20, or even 1 to 100 scale is far too ambitious for any reviewer to effectively handle. Generally, if you start needing that kind of resolution, you should be asking yourself whether, perhaps, your scores might just be inflated and the distribution tilted heavily towards the top.
    • I have some old C64 games magazines whose reviews consisted on only, well, a review of the game in matter, but *no* score. At most, they would do top 20 at the end of the year, of the games they liked most, and why. Reviews were also quite detailed, IIRC. You also got the demo tape, which was cool ;)

      I agree with you, the "74.2%"-kind scores are insane. I honestly can't see how you could balance that.
  • There are occasions where a reviewer reads off features from the box (or publisher propaganda, take your pick) and puts it into the review, saying x game supports such and such feature (e.g. GBA multiplayer link) but when unsuspecting sucker (me) opens the box and plays the game, finds no such feature in the game at all! WTF, do you imbeciles actually test a feature during the course of a review before you state that it has it?

    I have no idea how often this happens but it sure has pissed me off before. It su

  • Wrong. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Wanj00n ( 738361 )
    Folks, anyone who tries to insist that opinions are 'just' opinions and that arguing about them is a mistake is just plain wrong, and you should run as fast and as far away from them as you can.

    The subjective/objective distinction is one of the most thoroughly abused in both philosophy and everyday life. Heidegger understood this, and developed a phenomenology that avoided the distinction altogether. Much of the debate in moral philosophy is simply the result of getting snagged on just this inability t

  • Journalism 101 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 8tim8 ( 623968 )
    All the ideas posted above are good (raving fanboys, opinions presented as fact) but there's also another reason: controversy = page hits. If you're a site that can afford to trash a game (i.e. you're not in the publisher's pocket) the best way to get page hits is by slagging a popular (or well-remembered) game. We just saw it here on Slashdot a couple of days ago with the article about Dragon's Lair.

    Sometimes, it's all about the advertising.
  • Anyone remember the Game Fan jap bastards incident [ev1.net]? Game reviews were more interesting back when game magazines were hiring teenagers off the street and had poor editorial oversight.
  • The GamerDad writer should stop thinking about his reviews in the same manner as a print reviewer. Web reviews are fundamentally different from print precisely because they are on the web. Rather than a statement of opinion they are the first salvo of a discussion. The web makes it easy to reply and for the subsequent replies to carry the same weight as the original review. These people aren't so much "fanbois" as they are users doing what comes natural.

    Further, reviewers of any subject who use the we

    • You seem to have a very naive and distorted view of the way most websites present themselves. Be careful not to get victimized repeatedly in the next two hours or so. Oh, by the way, nothing will make your penis get bigger, no matter what your e-mail tells you.
    • Um...would you be surprised to learn that the author and many of the folks who write for GamerDad (as well as many other high profile sites like Gamespot, etc.) also write for the print magazines, newspapers and more?
      • It wouldn't surprise me.

        I'm sure they're lovely people but the editorial overlooks a fundamental aspect of publishing on the web - the ease of publication. The only cost to a reader in stating their opinion -and stating in vehemently - is time. You can't publish a review on the web, include a ' comments' field or a link to the site's forums and then act surprised when people use them. Reviews are controversial simply because the controversy is free. Add some sort of barrier or formality to the reply

  • I think the REAL controversy has less to do with fanboys whining because their game got a non-perfect rating, and more to do with reviewers who have an "incentive" to rate games higher than the game deserves.

    This is why when I look for reviews, I make sure I read as many low score reviews as possible to see both sides, and hopefully demo the game before I decide to buy. And by demo of course I mean download.

  • I think one of the reasons fanboys view these reviews as some sort of mathematical construct is that they very often use them in that way to strengthen whatever IGN Board argument they're trying to make at that time.

    Want to prove that GameCube exclusives are better than Xbox exclusives? I'll go to MetaCritic and show that the top 20 Nintendo exclusives scored better than the top 20 Xbox exlusives. Want to prove that Sega is a better publisher than EA? Why, I'll just go to GameRankings and show the average
  • im confused. are game reviews the reviewers opinion, or should he/she be critically commenting on the gameplay elements present and how the game achieved what it set out to do? what i mean is that if it was going to be a semi-tactical shooter, and the AI was crappy (a complaint occasionally leveled at far cry), or if it was supposed to be a multi-pathed game that ended up being overly linear with your decisions doing little to affect the game (deus ex 2), then you can be critical of the fact that it didnt s
  • hey all there is a game review site out there now that reviews games without rankings, in fact its all about the reviewers Opinion and about the kinds of games that the reviewer likes to play. check it out at www.gamersinfo.net ?:>
    • Some sites believe in subjectivity - that the review SHOULD be about the player's experience and more importantly who the player IS. We try.... http://www.gamersinfo.net/aboutUs.php Not just a plug, but so the cynics know there are other ways of thinking.
  • Game reviews are not always subjective. A review could point out bugs in the game, describe the style of play, or explain the controls. Such things are facts and not subject to interpretation, and can very well influence somebody's decision to purchase.

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