Do Reviews Still Serve a Purpose?

Via Voodoo Extreme, a post on the Sony-sponsored ThreeSpeech blog asking if game reviews are a thing of the past. Post author 'Azz Hassan' opines that the proliferation of blogs and easy access to game trailers has made the 'biased views' of reviewers a thing of the past. Responding via the Ars Technica Opposable Thumbs blog, Frank Caron offers a rebuttal to the piece. 'The argument presented in the article seems to come with the very slant that it so viciously protests: one of a negative view towards a medium that the writer feels is inadequate. Yes, there is a ton of available media on the net that can help you get a look at a game as it develops, but the problem with videos and pictures is that often the intangible elements are impossible to understand simply from seeing the game in motion--only the written or verbal communication of a person can adequately capture these details.'

They do

[ShakaUVM]

Reviews let me know if a game totally sucks. Then I avoid it.

But positive reviews are no guarantee of a good game, as the glowing ratings for such moribund stinkers as FFVII and FFX can attest to.

useful

[minus_273]

Reviews for games are like movie reviews. If you can find a reviewer(s) who have generally similar tastes, you will be able to judge a game with a fair degree of accuracy before you buy it. In addition without those rewiews, mega hit new games like God of War probably wouldnt be so big. I suspect a significant degree of its popularity came from people going to review sites and seeing the good reviews.

On the other end of the spectrum, how many more Final Fantasy fans would have bought Dirge of Cerebus had the reiwes not told us it was junk?

There's an argument to be made...

[Pluvius]

But it's not the one that's presented. Thinking that reviews can be replaced by trailers is just silly. Trailers are nothing more than ads, and don't really tell you much about what's going on. Neither do demos; even if we assumed that every game has one, oftentimes a demo is much worse or much better than the game that it represents. As for blog opinions, those in themselves are basically reviews, though usually not very good ones unless you have a good idea of the taste of whoever's writing them.

What goes a long way towards making reviews pointless is GameFAQs. No, not the reviews on there; they often suck. I mean the FAQs themselves. A good FAQ will tell you most of what you want to know about the game in great detail in the first few sections, often without spoiling the plot in the process. The only problem is that FAQs require time to be written, time that simple reviews don't need.

Rob

Re:um

[Bios_Hakr]

Well, it depends. I really started noticing crap when I saw an IT something magazine on my boss' desk. I picked it up and looked at it. There was a "review" of some kit we had worked with in the past. The kit was crap but the review was glowing. I stopped reading IT mags after that.

Later, I was reading a RC modeling magazine. I love RC helis. They had a "review" of a a heli that I knew was okay, but not great. They were comparing it to helis that were capable of doing any maneuver that the pilot could throw at it. I stopped reading RC mags after that.

Video game mags are probably the worst. I read PC Gamer for the commentary and previews, but I only read the negative parts of the reviews.

When it comes to specialized gear like an RC heli or a new router, I rely on comments in online forums. I'll jump into IRC and ask people about the bad points of the gear. I'll call the company and speak with engineers or tech support; speaking with sales is a waste. If I have to deal with sales, I ask for written documentation of tests displaying any functionality he claims. If they can't produce a document showing increased throughput, I ignore that point.

When it comes to daily items, I check boards and really read the negative Amazon reviews. I'll google $item + shit or $item + "head to head". I'll check Consumer Reports or check BBB for the company name.

If I don't find a negative opinion about an item, then I can be pretty sure it's untested or the company censors opinions. Either way, it's not worth my money. I read the negative reviews carefully. If the negative is whining, I ignore it. If the negative is a valid complaint, then I call tech support and pretend I have the item and have that same problem. How they answer my questions will determine my purchase.

Finally, just asking questions of my peers can give a lot of insight. I have *very* close contact with peers that work for competitors. It's a fairly small community and we tend to stick together. We usually share knowledge about our mistakes. If someone mentions over a beer that they are thinking about buying Wizbang 2008, then the rest of the group spills every bad thing they have ever heard about it. If the guy comes out of the discussion by answering our points, then we all think about giving it a closer look.

Re:They do

[Jim Hall]

Reviews let me know if a game totally sucks. Then I avoid it.

Except in the case of Jaws Unleashed [gamespot.com] for PS2. In that case, I read the reviews, then immediately ran out to buy a copy. Sometimes, you just have to re-set the metric on "bad". I mean, when someone says "this game sucks" you need to have a metric of how badly the game sucked. Did it suck "Jaws" bad, or "Mark Eko's Getting Up" bad?

And yes, "Jaws" was probably the worst game I've ever played. SPOILER: The best part in the game happens very early on: you are trapped in a tank in a lab, and the only door is controlled by card-key. So you need to get a card-key to open it and make good your escape. But you are the shark so it's not like you have hands. You need to grab a scientist with a key-card, but not eat him, wave his body in front of the card-reader, and the door will open.

Re:um

[Das Modell]

I know one instance were user reviews turned out to be spot on while professional reviewers were, frankly, full of shit and probably on the publisher's payroll. I am referring, of course, to Neverwinter Nights 2. It has a Metacritic rating of 82, while the user reviews were almost entirely negative. The official forums had two sticky threads, one for negative reviews and one for positive reviews. The negative thread was restarted about four times before the first positive one was even full (the threads were replaced with new ones after a certain amount of pages). The forums were overflowing with complaints. I ended up buying the game anyway, againts my better judgement.

They have value

[dreemernj]

But they are less or more valuable depending on the person or on what they are about.

I find reviews of RPGs and action games helpful, especially when the reviewer knows their stuff pretty well and starts drawing comparisons with other games, because chances are I'll know at least a few of the other games the reviewer refers to.

But then for something like a fighting game, unless the reviewer is a dedicated fighting game player, I don't find the reviews useful because I know fighting games well and I know specifically what I like about fighting games. The review still has value to the person that just casually plays fighters just like RPG reviews have value for me as a casual RPG player.

Ramblings about Reviewing Enjoyment

[Bobfrankly1]

Reviews are still a useful tool in considering a purchase, but they should not be the end all decision maker. But what one has to remember is that these guys are reviewing what can be compared to art in some ways. Everybody has different taste, gets different levels of enjoyment from different games. Flame wars often occur over a preference of games, and this often demonstrates the difference of tastes (and lack of spelling) that exists in the gaming realm.

Reviews are very useful for determining frustrating issues, such as sloppy controls, lousy camera angles, and bad story translations and speeling. The best reviews are able to draw similarites to other existing games, thus relating the content or style of a game while not confusing the reader with his or her personal taste. I'm rather stingy with my money, but some reviews (mostly at ign.com) have turned me on to games I might otherwise have never known, but throughly enjoyed (Altier Iris series for example).

PC Games you can often easily demo, but not so frequently with many console games. Thus console game reviews are more useful then PC Games reviews.

-Never trust a skinny cook

Re:um

[Das Modell]

What pushed you to buy it against your judgement?

Well, when the game was in development it looked really promising. I wasn't into NWN1 because its singleplayer was so lacking, but NWN2 seemed like it was putting more emphasis on the singleplayer campaign. I was also in desperate need of a good RPG. I guess I just wanted to really believe that the game wasn't as bad as the user reviews claimed.

The more hyped a game is, the more disappointed I am in it.

Re:um

[Dutch Gun]

I'm convinced the in-and-out quick process of professional reviewers is why Oblivion scored so high. After my first 10-15 hours of gameplay, my reactions were the same - almost all positive. Unfortunately, after that, the serious game-balance issues caused by the auto-scaling made me lose interest. It's particularly tragic becase, other than that game-breaker, Oblivion is nearly everything I'd want to see in a computer RPG.

I've always thought that the logical way to use reviews is to find a reviewer that tends to match your general tastes, and weight his/her reviews accordingly. I've always wished that review sites grouped reviews by reviewer, so we could choose who we want to listen to and who we want to ignore. The idea of an "unbiased" review is a fallicy. Everyone brings their own preferences and biases, and I wish gaming sites would actually exploit this fact rather than try to surpress it.