Topic: Review Scores - Do you agree?

Rarely do I agree with anybody on anything. Review scores are no different. I totally disagreed with NL's review score of Other M.

Well, I haven't read your reviews, so I have no way of knowing (care to link some?). I'll just take your word on that. Nevertheless, the point stands. Bias is a bit like humility, in a way. The more humble you claim you are, the less humble you actually are. The same tends to apply to biases, in my experience.

How did I contradict myself? Are you saying one cannot both be a passionate gamer AND a relatively dispassionate critic of games? Nevertheless, I don't think people go to Nintendo fansites to read reviews by people who aren't necessarily Nintendo fans. Most of the reviews I've seen on this website seem informative enough for me to forgive their enthusiasm about what they're reviewing. As others have pointed out, the "star ratings" or "point ratings" are usually pretty useless on their own. What I want is information about a video game. Its technical specs, its gameplay features, etc. As long as the reviewer doesn't let his starry-eyed view of that series or franchise (in most cases) interfere with his job of telling me exactly what is in a game, I don't really feel like there needs to be a dispassionate tone to the reviews. I like knowing how the reviewer related to the game in addition to the hard facts about it, actually. You obviously don't. You should change that. Go start a magazine or website or something that reflects your ideals. I'm sure you can find other writers who agree with your point of view.

No, technically it was not unnecessary. I was using what you said to make a larger statement about something I feel is a problem with geek culture in general. The obsessive fanboy rage, misogyny, racism, etc. has really come to the surface in an ugly way since comics, video games, etc. have become so much more mainstream.

EDIT: Have you read PC Gamer? Their reviews seem to be pretty trustworthy most of the time.

You contradicted yourself by saying gamers should be reviewers though they can be biased more times than not. The latter is true and contradicts the former's disagreement. Unbiased reviews by a critic that has no nostalgia for video in any way, shape or form, is a critic worth paying attention to. Comparing that anonymous person to say, NintendoLife's Corbie Dillard, is a bulletproof choice. Biased or not biased. Anyone who's concerned of whether to buy game A or game B will not side with Corbie.

It was unnecessary because most people who don't live under a rock are aware of the obvious.

I don't that site's reviews. I rarely read reviews.

I see. You didn't even read what I said, in other words. Figures.
Whether or not someone is nostalgic for a series is completely irrelevant to whether they do their job and discuss the facts about a game without letting it cloud their judgment on objective matters of how the thing is programmed. Enjoying the medium as a whole is important, though, because it helps the reviewers engage with the readers on both an intellectual and emotional level. I certainly don't want to read a video game review written by a non-gamer.

I don't see any reason to be so needlessly rude.

You should read reviews more often if you're going to hold such strong opinions on the current state of video game reviewing.

Anyhow, I'm going to discontinue this discussion before it becomes more unpleasant and completely derails the thread. Good day, sir.

Yeah I'm almost oldman status and we are known for being stubborn. Plus I've noticed in the last 5 years I'm getting extremely picky. One thing is for sure I do love reading reviews. They are a form of entertainment which sometimes turn out good and sometimes turnout bad. But even the bad ones can have an appeal of entertainment and be a wealth of information

I see. You didn't even read what I said, in other words. Figures.

Whether or not someone is nostalgic for a series is completely irrelevant to whether they do their job and discuss the facts about a game without letting it cloud their judgment on objective matters of how the thing is programmed. Enjoying the medium as a whole is important, though, because it helps the reviewers engage with the readers on both an intellectual and emotional level. I certainly don't want to read a video game review written by a non-gamer.

I don't see any reason to be so needlessly rude.

You should read reviews more often if you're going to hold such strong opinions on the current state of video game reviewing.

Anyhow, I'm going to discontinue this discussion before it becomes more unpleasant and completely derails the thread. Good day, sir.

I did read what you said and I completely disagree. Nostalgia persuades the entirety of the review and exaggerates in more than one direction some of the time. Unlike you, I don't want a Zelda fan to be nostalgic about the new Zelda and glamour on about the graphics, the music and the lore. I want know the good and the bad, and from my years of "review reading" (okay that just sounded silly), I've learned a little too much to not know what the status of gaming journalism is.

"[That new game] didn't have as good of controls as [generic franchise sequel] and even though [that new game] had exceuted better set pieces and it was quite obvious a lot of hard work was put into its development cycle (not to mention a far smaller studio with limited resources developed it), [generic franchise sequel] is hands down the better game for fans and [insert current platforms] owners! 10/10 GOTY - [That new game] 7/10. And no nominations, lol."

I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just pointing out the flaws in this industry's media, consumer reception and consumer interpretation.

Good day.

The reviews I "enjoy" the most are GameTrailers. They usually seem to get it right most of the time. Also they seem to rate each game on its own merit without comparing it to something else. Everyone else's reviews seems to be biased. Either way, like I said earlier, all reviews are opinions and not fact.

Again, why this ridiculous idea that game critics need to be robots? No where else do fans expect critics do anything but present their personal take on things.

I agree with review scores most of the time. I usually will add or take to the score, but not by much. Or sometimes I will completely void a review, but that's only like 5% of the time.
You really have to read what the reviewer is saying along with the score and decide for yourself.

This. I want peoples opinions if I am reading reviews, and I want those opinions to based on their feelings and preferences. Just as my opinion on a game would be.

I'm going to just throw this out there. Most reviewers unless they work for a major publication or Website like IGN, Don't get paid to do reviews and mostly do it as a hobby for this hobby that they love. I appreciate all of them. They do a great job here at Nintendolife. Reviews are not just, if a person likes or dislikes a game. A good review good or bad Gives you all the information you need to know about a game. How does it play? Are the graphics anygood? Hows the music? Is the game single player or Multiplayer? Does the game have internet play or local wifi? All of these things wrapped up into 1 review should make it a good review whether the reviewer likes the game or not. All of the Nintendolife Reviewers have hit what makes a review important. Plus each reviewer will bring their own special insight to their body of work which make each review special. Very seldom are there 2 reviews the same for a game

Thank you Nintendolife You guys are great! and my one stop shop. Well sometimes I will watch a video review at youtube **Blushes**

there's no need for blushing, Windy — we appreciate it when people trust our reviews, but in no way do we expect to be someone's be-all, end-all answer guys regarding whether or not to pick up a game. Please, do all the research you can before making a decision, YouTube videos, reviews on other sites (it's why we link to Metacritic, guys!), ask your friends, ask everyone in the usual 'impressions' threads that pop up, etc. and so forth. Please do be as informed as possible when making a purchase! As long as you're giving us a glance along with everyone else, we're good

I beg to differ! Chicken_Brutus writes amazing reviews for crappy games I never wanted in the first place

That's it in a nutshell. Just being informed before you buy is the whole enchalada I just don't do a whole lot of web surfing anymore. I have been running a Phantasy Star Zero Group at PSO-World since PSZ came out and that keeps me quite busy. we still have 2 weekly get togethers on that. So pretty much it's you guys and Youtube. My morning news! haha

Haha you know who I really like alot is the guy doing the Megaman and Castlevania video reviews at Youtube. Ego-Raptor man that guy gets me laughing.

Honestly, from what I can gather, it's because games are more technical, so there are some universally "good" and "bad" aspects of games. Some people just want to know the technical side of things, and probably dislike sorting through a person's opinion to get to those parts. Are there glitches? Are there framerate drops? Screen tearing? Are the controls workable? Those are the things they want to know, not whether or not the person enjoyed the game. Those are likely the kind of people who'll enjoy any game so long as it's well-made and technically sound.

Of course, there are also people who just want thorough descriptions of games so they can feel for themselves what a game would be like, but I don't consider those people that smart, since they're obviously incapable of picking out as much of that kind of info from a well-written review as they can, and then watch gameplay videos.

Awesomely interesting discussion going on in here.
I do agree with the side of the camp that critics not only can but also SHOULD be passionate/subjective about what they are reviewing, like Bankai said, in literature and art this is an accepted fact of life, only when it comes to games people seem to get picky. If you care to read the review of a game it's more than likely you have some general or elevated interest in the game so it makes perfect sense it is reviewed by someone with a similar approach and not someone who has absolutely no opinion/experience with said game - which would be necessary to qualify as a "neutral" reviewer.

I also agree with the folks in here saying that the description of the game in question is what I read a review for. Unfortunately many times I have been angered about the style people write their reviews, especially on IGN, that - for example - I was desperate to find out about a certain game mode (i.e. if it supports COOP, if yes, local or only online, ...) but no one in several different reviews mentioned it, leaving me questioning the person's professionality. Because bias aside, COOP mode is a FEATURE that people NEED to know about. It's the basic things I want to know about the game together with other statistics/features, THEN I want to read about the impression the reviewer had. Im really angered by things like that. For example: What about all those reviews about heroes of ruin NOT dropping a single word about the lack of endgame content (no game+, no respawning bosses, ...). Everyone was just blowing into the same horn of the general generic appearence of the game (which I disagree to, I liked the style) and that it had muddy textures (just in one area really, and I couldn't care less because the floor textures was covered with spell effects and dead monsters anyways...). No word about the real game-breaking issues this game had.

So making a already too long post short, what I want from a review is:

o) facts about genre standards and features, online connectivity, multiplayer modes, etc...
o) personal opinion/impression of a guy that loves videogames and the genre in question in particular
o) if biased/nostalgic opinions always with reasoning why so I can make my own conclusions
o) review score for quick reference that should reflect the final "gut feeling" after putting all into perspective

EDIT: Oh yeah and funny how this exact subject made it onto the frontpage a day after I posted this thread. Nlife stalking their boards for inspiration? Coincidence?

Maybe there should be a scoring system like this. Like separating tech review from impression.
(lets take Castlevania as example, the new one of course)

TECHNICAL FINESSE
graphics 8
sound 8
controls 7

FEATURES
multiplayer - none
streetpass - ...
multiple playthroughs
collectibles
leveling your character
changing weapons
...

IMPRESSIONS
Feels like a breeze of fresh air but die-hard fans of the old metroidvania fans might find it lacking more than newcomers to the series.

OVERALL (gut feeling)
7 / 10

That's too much work.

About a year ago I made a conscious decision that my game reviews would focus on what I consider to be important in a game. I couldn't care less about New Game Plus modes most of the time, because I personally am not inclined to play them anyway.

If I was to review a Call of Duty game, I wouldn't waste much energy talking about the multiplayer, since that's not all that important to me (for Activision's sake it's probably good I don't review Call of Duty games then).

However, bring me to a game like Atelier Ayesha and I will (and did) criticise the game for lacking a Japanese voice track option. That was important to me, and therefore I felt the need to pull GUST and Tecmo Koei up over it. To other people something like that would be far less important that a New Game + in another game.

As a result my reviews are not for everyone, and I'm cool with that. I'm not even trying to tell you whether a game is worth buying or not. Go do some searching through YouTube if that's all you want.

No. My intention with my reviews is to lay out a point of view about a game. This is what it does well. That is why I think it's an important game.

I'm happy with the people that are now reading my reviews and the discussions these reviews are generating. It's validation that game reviews don't have to be buyer's advice; they can also be a kind of critical essay looking at the game as a piece of entertainment or art.

To me, the difference between a good critic and a bad critic is not that the former is objective; A good critic is able to argue a persuasive argument about the merits and failings of a game. A bad critic simply dumps information in word form and relies on the game score to explain what he/ she meant.

Personally, I don't agree or disagree with any one particular person or site's review scores. Sometimes I agree with some sites and their verdict on games, sometimes I agree with sites and individuals with the opposite opinion based on the game in question. I've bought highly rated games and found them poor quality or bad, I've bought average or low rated ones and found them decent.

I really don't see much problem with reviews or scores to be honest. They're all just opinions, and you'll either agree with them or you won't.

As for reviews should include, I'm not really sure if they should focus on the technical side in any way to be honest. Seems like that's one reason quite a few poor games ended up getting decent scores, because someone tried to even it all out and ended up having to give it a higher than needed rating. I'm also not sure if reviews should mention originality, story, context, characters, writing or other similar aspects for much the same reason. If you need a good reason for this, look at New Super Mario Bros 2. Is it a great game? Arguably not. But I've always been a bit bothered by the reviews that seem to boil down to 'its unoriginal, negative score' in that they seem like they're valuing the content/world over how fun the game is to play. Is that a good or fair thing? I honestly don't know.