Adventure Forums - View Single Post - Which Review Do You Have the Most Beef With?

EasilyConfused · 03-03-2005, 11:53 AM

I really don't understand the purpose of this thread. It seems to me the thread could be about two things.

First of all, people could be simply be asking which games others liked more or less than AG's reviewers did. That's all well and good . . . but we talk about what games we like and dislike all the time, and it's clear there are a ton of games (er, actually, most of them really

) about which many of us disagree.

Second, the thread could be implying (as many people seem to be, constantly and erroneously) that there is some OBJECTIVE standard out there for evaluating games. There is no such thing. There are no objective standards in ANY kind of reviewing. There are degrees of objectivity. AG I think bends over backwards to eliminate bias, and the reviewers do their darndest to give an overall, comprehensive, complete and fair account of a game. That's why I think this is the best adventure site on the web and that's why I read these reviews. At the end of the day, though, a review is the (hopefully thoughtful, considered) opinion of one gamer who played it, and the reader should be aware of that. The scores are similarly limiting--there are only 11 potential grades, after all--if we're counting zero stars as a possibility.

As for whether game X "deserves" the same score as game Y--that question doesn't really make sense to me. Could you say whether Citizen Kane, The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, and Casablanca all "deserve" the same rating as films, even if they got the same number of stars at a film fan site or in a video guide? They appeal to different people with different tastes in different moods. I'm not saying you can't make any comparisons, but that these comparisons will necessarily be general trends that are matters of taste and opinion rather than anything clear-cut and inarguable.

So I don't have a beef with any review. All the reviews I've read seem fair and legitimate to me, even if I disagree with them. I think they've all been done in good faith, and I've never seen a single hatchet job on this site. I hope things stay that way.

03-03-2005, 11:53 AM	#42
EasilyConfused Curiouser and curiouser Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Cambridge, MA Posts: 803	I really don't understand the purpose of this thread. It seems to me the thread could be about two things. First of all, people could be simply be asking which games others liked more or less than AG's reviewers did. That's all well and good . . . but we talk about what games we like and dislike all the time, and it's clear there are a ton of games (er, actually, most of them really ) about which many of us disagree. Second, the thread could be implying (as many people seem to be, constantly and erroneously) that there is some OBJECTIVE standard out there for evaluating games. There is no such thing. There are no objective standards in ANY kind of reviewing. There are degrees of objectivity. AG I think bends over backwards to eliminate bias, and the reviewers do their darndest to give an overall, comprehensive, complete and fair account of a game. That's why I think this is the best adventure site on the web and that's why I read these reviews. At the end of the day, though, a review is the (hopefully thoughtful, considered) opinion of one gamer who played it, and the reader should be aware of that. The scores are similarly limiting--there are only 11 potential grades, after all--if we're counting zero stars as a possibility. As for whether game X "deserves" the same score as game Y--that question doesn't really make sense to me. Could you say whether Citizen Kane, The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, and Casablanca all "deserve" the same rating as films, even if they got the same number of stars at a film fan site or in a video guide? They appeal to different people with different tastes in different moods. I'm not saying you can't make any comparisons, but that these comparisons will necessarily be general trends that are matters of taste and opinion rather than anything clear-cut and inarguable. So I don't have a beef with any review. All the reviews I've read seem fair and legitimate to me, even if I disagree with them. I think they've all been done in good faith, and I've never seen a single hatchet job on this site. I hope things stay that way. Last edited by EasilyConfused; 03-03-2005 at 12:36 PM.