Can We Trust Video Game Reviews?

[Mach]

Great feature story in business journal publication TheStreet.com. Features a lot of quotes from me as well.
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/newsanalysis/techstockupdate/10393795.html

Thoughts on the subject?

[D3adcell]

You can to a degree. If everyone gives a game shitty scores, it is probably shitty. Though a lot of times sites and magazines will have very different scores. It's best to read the reviews and not just look at the scores though (like many do).

[XboxEvolved]

You can trust mine, because when I review games I don't review them assuming everybody has all this expendable cash like a lot of sites and journalist do, I review them assuming that you have some extra cash every so often, so why should we work on a 7-10 scale?

[JasonXe]

I need to get paid off.

Anyway, you think in the 3 new sites that we should eliminate scoring altogether like some sites do already?

[HolyPaladin]

I read the article, but there wasn't anything that us gamers haven't already discussed to death on message boards as of late.

I still like to refer to a site like GameRankings when looking for review scores, because instead of getting one or two scores which may be biased or heavily influenced by advertising dollars, getting a general industry consensus from several dozen reviews, sometimes even upwards of a eighty or a hundred reviews for a single game, we should get a better picture of how the game honestly measures up. Even if certain specific reviewers are motivated by dollar signs, it's unlikely that every single one of them are, or by the same advertisers. If I look over the numbers for a given game, perhaps one, two, or even five of them might be influenced by money, but probably not all fifty of them.

Still, numbers alone don't mean so much. Hell, a little while back I played Two Worlds for forty-some hours on my 360, and it scored fairly poorly (50% average); probably the lowest-scored game I've ever willingly played. I like to read over several reviews to see what their impressions where, the good and the bad, and then weigh that in with my personal interests and tastes to determine whether or not the game is right for me. If a dozen reviews complain of awkward controls and a lousy camera, I'm definitely going to think twice about buying the game.

Ah, scores may make for a conversation piece, but I don't and never have determined my purchases on them. I know I don't speak for everybody, though. It's just a shame more people don't really do their homework before making their game purchases.

[VonGak]

There's just too much screwing up the credibility of reviews like:

- Money hatting; mainly in the form of adverts
- Exclusive rights to pre/reviews and media
- Good ol' bias like brand dedication, genre preferences and culture
- Not qualified (I need game-play videos to prove the competence of the reviewer)
- ...

So instead I just gather as much media on the title as possible and read impressions from people on the net who share similar taste.

About skewed reviews, I guess it's an issue the review industry as a whole faces but it becomes extra dirty in gaming where big money strong companies like MS, Sony and Ninty got strong interest where as in the movie industry there's no 3'rd party financial influence (dunno if I make sense).

[Cofey]

I always look at reviews just out of interest, but I never pay them much heed. There have been plenty of games that received fantastic reviews that just don't interest me at all (such as Mass Effect). I'm sure if I looked I would also find that some of my favorite games got bad or decent reviews.

It all comes down to personal preference.

[JasonXe]

I miss last gen, when everyone agreed that Phantom Dust was a sleeper hit. I think I tagged that phrase to it and everyone copy off me (xplay).

[Karavi]

You know, honestly, it comes down to instinct and if someone is interested in a game they should get it or rent it anyway. There are many instances in indie websites where they're pressured to do something. If it's not pressure to score something higher or to give 'good' feedback towards something - it's them trying way too hard to make it look as if they're NOT kissing ass.

Example: Podcast - There are certain aspects of the friend's of friend's feature that I think are beneficial..

Website owner (who oddly enough has many friends/contacts at Microsoft) - Why are you kissing ass? You know, you can be honest and say it's a horrible feature. Let's ignore the fact that I myself am using the feature and enjoying it - make sure everyone knows that you hate it though.

Podcast guy - Wait, what? But I do see good things about it!

^--Actually happened. (Note that corporate sites need not do this, and generally don't, it's more prevalent in indie sites). Things like that are idiotic though, and make opinionated gaming media.. well, not opinionated. Of course, there are some independent sites that don't indulge in that sort of behavior, but either way. It's there, and now it's blasted in everyone's face. Whether or not the Jeff Gerstmann incident was indeed due to the Kane & Lynch review.

So, in my opinion, it all comes down to thinking for yourself. Renting games is always a good way to go if you're unsure.

[JasonXe]

Everyone should take Video Game Reviews as the weatherman on your local t.v station. Today they said a winter blizzard is otw at 9am and all we had was less than a inch of snow. Sometimes it best to stick your head out of the window to see whats going on.

[Pro A.]

Its a little easier, I think, in general, to come up with a consensus on video game reviews because the major game reviewers are all about gameplay (usually). Games with good gameplay get good scores (usually) and we all know good gameplay when we see it (usually). This was more black-and-white in the 80's and most of the 90's because we had two dimensions and everything went left to right. The third dimension has opened it up and the line is starting to blur, especially with new ideas and dynamics coming into play.

If you go to gamerankings and you see a lot of 8's and 9's on the board, that means it probably has something worthwhile. I mean, the companies didn't bribe every magazine and website, right?

*Silence*

...Right?

[LiquidEagle]

Not any more...

[woundingchaney]

Could we ever trust video game reviews??

[JasonXe]

you can do whatcha wanna do.

[TheGreenElf]

I trust reviews from IGN, EGM, Nintendo Power, and Gamespot (yes, because I like how harsh they can be).