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Old 03-15-2008, 12:27 PM   #21
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You know what you like, if the info suggest it contains elements that attract you then the negative review is likely wrong.
...for you. I think the main point is that reviews are just people's opinions, though they're supposed to be less biased, though we all know that it's impossible to not let a little bias in. But ultimately, there can't really be a "wrong" review.
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Old 03-16-2008, 09:41 AM   #22
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...for you. I think the main point is that reviews are just people's opinions, though they're supposed to be less biased, though we all know that it's impossible to not let a little bias in. But ultimately, there can't really be a "wrong" review.
Bias will enter the review in various increments, however, saying "there can't really be a wrong review" is letting the reviewer off the hook. What is the purpose of a review? Is it merely a self serving exercise to highlight how clever the reviewer is?

Often it seems that way. Many times they read as if the reviewer has placed herself or himself on a higher plane than the ignorant gamer. For that reviewer it is not "wrong"
it could be "wrong" for everybody else though. In this type of self serving review the critically superior writer completely missed the point. What is humorous about this is the smug author is unaware of it.

The review failed to inform the gaming public important elements of the game. The reader does not have the needed information to make a decision. But it did succeed in feeding the writer's ego. Bias in a review is legitimate only if the writer acknowledges that bias. There is nothing wrong in stating "I dislike long character dialog in games," or "I hate doing puzzle after puzzle."

My point is unchanged, give us the facts about the games. Then and only then can the reviewer rant.
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Old 03-16-2008, 10:53 AM   #23
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But ultimately, there can't really be a "wrong" review.
Unless you're reviewing Uwe Boll films. There's only one kind of review for his films.
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Old 03-16-2008, 11:08 AM   #24
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Ah... Sar, I see what you mean now. Even so, to some extent that reviewer is still "right." Saying that they have a bias doesn't "let them off the hook," unless the people reading don't realize this.

Reviewers are just people. If the reader forgets this, they are at more fault than the reviewer. In fact, I'm pretty sure most review sites have a little blurb about how all reviews are merely someone's opinion and may not follow your own preferences or beliefs. It's impossible for someone to not have bias, and if that statement "let's them off the hook" then we are a very forgetful society, and need to reevaluate the amount of thought we put into the reviews we read.

So basically, I just looped back to the beginning of this topic. Sweet.
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Old 03-17-2008, 12:43 AM   #25
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I'm so glad I started this thread. I'm really enjoying everyone's input on this issue. Thanks for posting your thoughts everyone. (please continue!)
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Old 03-17-2008, 01:17 AM   #26
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Personally, I don´t care too much about reviews. But in some magazines I tend to read the reviews from certain authors, that I know have the same tastes in games that I do. Then I know I will enjoy it to.
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Old 03-17-2008, 11:06 AM   #27
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Just to add I had a chance to buy Scratches yesterday for a fairly good price. However, I read the Gamespot review which gave it a lowly 3.9. They seemed to hate it. As a result, I didn't buy the game ... so I guess reviews are important.
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Old 03-17-2008, 12:47 PM   #28
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I think it is a good idea to read a range of reviews until you can identify a reviewer or site that best fits your style and stick to them.

It's never going to be perfect, but you get to know their style and use your own judgement as to what you like and dislike to form your own opinion on the game.

Some reviewers are just out for shock value (Zero Punctuation - I hate everything misery party for instance), other sites like Gamespot etc don't rate adventure games highly at the best of times and especially 1st person games (Scratches got an unusally harsh review) and the speciality sites might be over generous with their scores.

You need to take that all into consideration.

Edit: You could always look at sites like Metacritic which gives and average of a range of sites.
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Old 03-17-2008, 01:58 PM   #29
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As much as I enjoy reading reviews in general, I'm putting less and less stock in them lately when it comes to matters of personal taste. They can be very valuable in bringing up legitimate gameplay issues, such as bugs, awkward controls, and so on, but I feel pretty much on my own as far as whether or not I will actually like the game in question.

Example: the review of Culpa Innata at another adventure game site. It was gushing, with superlatives in every description, best game ever, best puzzle since Le Serpent Rouge, A+ all around. I read the review, and it convinced me to give the game a chance. These days I'm more than willing to give just about any likely adventure game a chance, anyway, so it doesn't take too much convincing, but it's with the praises in mind that I begin playing, and am completely let down.

Would I have been just as let down if I hadn't read the review? I think I would've just chalked it up as another game that didn't do it for me. But since I had read the review, I feel I have to reconcile the unbelievable praises I read with the reality of what I played. Ultimately, it leaves me questioning not my own taste, but the objectivity of the reviewer, and leaves me suspicious of any other reviews that person is responsible for.
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Old 03-17-2008, 02:17 PM   #30
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I think it is a good idea to read a range of reviews until you can identify a reviewer or site that best fits your style and stick to them.

It's never going to be perfect, but you get to know their style and use your own judgement as to what you like and dislike to form your own opinion on the game.
Exactly! I usually don't read reviews in games magazines - well, I don't really read game magazines to begin with, the reason being that most German game magazines focus on action, shooters and soccer games, to name but a few - it boils down to "They focus on games I'm not interested in". They build up hypes around the latest shooter, sometimes around the latest RPG; if there's an adventure being released, it's more like "Oh yeah, and then there was this adventure as well...". The rating tends to be average at best, even though all the Sam & Max-episodes get rather high ratings (usually more than 80%, around 83-85 would be the average, I think). The rating does of course depend on who wrote it and what kind of magazine it's being published in. The ratings for Nostradamus, for example, weren't that great if you compare it to any shooter that's been released in the past years. Gamestar thought Nostradamus was worth 71% - I don't agree with that at all because I had a great time playing this game and there weren't many things I didn't like about the game (timed sequences and a very short ending being two of them). PC Action rated the game 64%, Culpa Innata received only 47%! For me, this was one of the best games ever. I could go on and on but I don't want to bore you guys to tears

The bottom line is: When looking for a new game to buy, I don't rely on ratings published in game magazines. Instead, I go online and try to find as much information on the game as possible, reading reviews on game sites, talking to other gamers about the game, reading boards and gamers' reviews as published on boards to get as much information as I can. If the game still sounds good to me, I'll get it. I'm lucky enough to have found reviewers online whose taste in games most of the time matches mine; there are a few exceptions, of course (I still hate Myst and Myst-like games with lots of technical puzzles even if my preferred reviewers love those *g*) but usually I know where to look and whose reviews to read if I want to get detailled information on a game. After a while, you develop some kind of sensibility for that
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Old 03-18-2008, 12:05 AM   #31
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Some reviewers are just out for shock value (Zero Punctuation - I hate everything misery party for instance)
I second that. I find the ZP reviews amusing most of the time but I'd never base a decision whether to buy a game (or, since he is almost entirely negative, not buy a game) based on his reviews.
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Old 03-20-2008, 12:30 PM   #32
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These days; I tend not to use reviews as a guide for which games to buy. Instead, I use websites like this one, justadventure and gameboomers for adventuregamers and rpgwatch and other rpg-sites for rpg-games.

The reason simply being that I think big gaming sites like ign, gamespot etc. have given ridiculus scores to games like Oblivion, Bioshock while they have given no so good scores to adventure games - sometimes complaining that the games seem to slow. Then I just want to scream: 'of course, they are slow action wise. They're meant to be slow - they're adventure games - not fps games' - but as the polite person that I am, I don't.

I just don't trust reviews anymore...

unless it is from an adventuregame site or dedicated rpg-site...
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Old 03-20-2008, 12:49 PM   #33
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I usually find myself taking extra notice of different reviews after I've bought a game.
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Old 03-21-2008, 07:37 AM   #34
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for me what separates game reviews from others is the price of pc games.

After all, it's not like I'm paying 10 dollars for a book, or twelve dollars for a movie...I'm paying fifty to sixty dollars for a recently released pc game...

I'm not made of money, and any purchase I make of that size is gonna have to have some serious consideration in terms of how I invest my time and money.
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Old 03-21-2008, 07:40 AM   #35
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Of course it's all very subjective; but yes, I do feel that certainly mainstream sites and magazines do tend to have a herding play-it-safe approach. For example, I remember GTA San Andreas coming out and receiving 9/10 and above everywhere. And yet, although I'd enjoyed Vice City and GTA3, all the silly statistics and a far too large map made San Andreas a boring game for me in the end. I don't think there is as much of a "hate adventures" conspiracy going on as you think - the sad fact is, a lot of rather average or poorly thought out games from today wouldn't pass muster next to Sierra / LucasArts output in the 90s, so why should reviewers fall head over feet for them ten years later?

I always try and score a game based on how much I enjoyed it, period. It might be subjective, but it's the most honest thing to do. A lot of people thought Darkness Within, which I gave 2.5, was worth an extra star. But I didn't enjoy it more than half the time; hence a halfway score. I do try and use the "90s test".
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Old 03-23-2008, 09:02 PM   #36
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I think enjoyment is the one factor that most reviewers forget...
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Old 03-26-2008, 03:48 AM   #37
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I do read reviews to glean what I can about a game. I personally don't care whether the reviewer liked it or not. What I am seeking is information, is the game point and click or something else? Is it story/character or puzzle driven? Is it glitch free? What is the game about? Tell me that and I will decide to buy or not buy.
This is the way I use reviews as well, most of the time. It tends to go like this:
1. Spot a game going cheap on eBay, box looks interesting, title sounds vaguely familiar, no real information given.
2. Head for Gamespot -- not because their reviewers are any better than others, but their reviews are long and detailed. They also show the average score given by owners of the game, not just the reviewer's score, although I'm far more interested in the description than the scores.
3. If it's an adventure game, head to Adventure Gamers for a review by specialists in the genre, and maybe comments in the forums.
4. Now I know something about the gameplay, I've seen a few screenshots, and I might have been reminded of other things I'd heard about it. This is probably enough to decide whether to buy.
5. If I'm still on the fence, check around for other reviews and opinions.

Google is good for seeking unbiased opinions -- by which I mean opinions from people who aren't under pressure from the game publishers. Comments pop up in all kinds of places.
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Old 04-13-2008, 02:29 AM   #38
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As usual a lot of people have said what I think a lot more eloquantly than I could. So here's just for emphasis:

I look for gamplay info, tech. problems, pictures for an enhanced idea, overall score from multiple reviews, player reactions. And all of that is still just an indication.

Also how many reviewers are pressured by ad sponsors to hold of or actually change the score?
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Old 04-13-2008, 04:28 AM   #39
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Also how many reviewers are pressured by ad sponsors to hold of or actually change the score?
That's always going to be a matter for speculation but any source of reviews with a decent and robust editorial policy should be able to avoid this one. At the end of the day it's down to the individual player to decide what sources they consider trustworthy. Otherwise all your game purchases are going to end up just shooting in the dark.
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Old 04-14-2008, 01:38 AM   #40
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Very interesting discussion. As a reviewer myself, I'm curious though, if anyone finds more ellaborate, in-depth (and obviously longer) reviews interesting, or do you think a good review is just a thorough, concise evaluation? For example, I wrote a review of an older and very unique adventure game title a few months ago and I've put a lot of effort and time to describe some of my more subtle impressions of playing it. And I'm not talking about some personal anecdotes, but all strictly gameplay related things.
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