Topic: Zampella: Reviewers should finish games

Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-08-13-zampella-reviewe...

Basically one of the main guys behind the incredibly successful Call of Duty series is critisizing game journalists for not finishing games before writing their reviews.

Zampella was addressing QuakeCon as part of a panel on "Building Blockbusters" alongside Respawn co-founder Jason West, id Software's Tim Willits and Bethesda Game Studios' Todd Howard.

"I've seen reviews where people have written things about the game that are untrue - like that feature doesn't exist, so they obviously didn't play through the entire game," Zampella told the audience.

"There's nothing more frustrating than that. It's unfair."

I have to think that's true. I mainly play PS3 games nowadays and I've been buying a lot of games recently. Recently I bought two games, one I thought should be sure fire hit and the other, well I thought I'll give it a chance. Those games were Resistance 2 and MAG, repectively. Resistance 2 has a metacritic score of 87! Whereas MAG only has a score of 76. That might lead you to think that Resistance 2 is much better than MAG. After beating both games I can tell you that the contrary is true. Sure Resistance 2 looks great at the beginning with it's amazing graphics, but what's hidden underneath is one of the most shallow and generic shooters I've ever played, seriously there is no depth of game play there at all. Whereas with MAG, it might be multiplayer only, but the amount of care and attention they've put in to create a fair and balanced game with a great deal of depth that keeps you coming back for more, becomes more and more apparent the more you play the game. Yes it's a little hard going at the beggining because the learning curve is high and they throw you in at the deep end quite early on, but there is one hell of a game there. With Resistence 2, nothing. After 10hrs of gaming I gaurantee you'll be bored.

Sorry about my ramblings, but to cut a long story short I agree with Zampella. Before rating a game the reviewer must beat it! Even if that takes 50hrs or more.

I agree with you too man, I have major issues with this one as well. Sometimes it completely obvious as the review even states it sometimes that they havent played the game entirely, kinda like "oh, but we didnt get to try out the online as it wasnt available at time of review"......

Been saying it for years and have always practiced what I preached when I ran my old GB World (GB/Color) review/news site and again when I did it for a mainstream media site AMN on GBA/DS. Refused to do two things and that was review a game I knew I'd have a bias against knowing I'd be unfair, and I'd never write up a review if the game didn't get fairly played out to know it all going into the writing. IGN back in the day had some doozy whoopers of lies on their site and one of my favorites was Evolution for the Dreamcast. If you ever honestly played the game you would know within reading for 1-2min they didn't, but in fact based a game review off a media beta/demo copy that was handed out to sites for preview/evaluation purposes. The review talks of things clearly that are not in the game, or things that are but don't do what they're claiming it did but did in the demo/beta stages of the game which is super disreputable made worse giving a worse score for stuff fixed in the final copy. That back in 1999/2000 was when I learned never to trust AAA level gaming media sites with huge sponsorships and reasons to take bribes and short cuts and relied on fan site level places and consumer reviews because if you end up paying for a game you're going to be more critical as you used money on it.

Perfect example of this is the Zero Punctuation review of Monster Hunter Tri. It brings video game "criticism" to all-new lows: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/... (NSFW)

Notice how about 40% of the video is spent on irrelevant topics to make up for time: hating on the Wii, racist remarks about Japan, cheap shots at farming games, mentioning adult visual novels, immature genital gags. Oh, and his Extra Punctuation lashback against the commenters just showed how obnoxious, childish and self-important he is. What a jerk.

And a counter to that is someone who clearly spent a lot of time with the game and actually writes accurate stuff about it, the Destructoid review: http://www.destructoid.com/review-monster-hunter-tri-172651.p...

If you don't have the time of day to play the game, but you're being paid to review it, what the hell are you doing?

EDIT: Oh god, and the legions of drooling Yahtzee fans in the corresponding forum topics, taking everything he says at face value and that it MUST be bad because he says you only gather mushrooms and fight teeny monsters. That's probably the worst part - that someone like that is in the position to influence a large group of mindless people. Real reviewers who do this are even worse, of course. At least Yahtzee's just doing it for... comedy(?).

I guess it depends on what type of game though... like a fighting game... if you've played through all the modes but not fully unlocked everything you could still give an accurate review. But if it's an RPG and you're talking about the story you really need to have played it.

Crystal Bearers definitely fell victim to this though and it was clear that a lot of reviewers didn't even try to play the game because the vast majority completely ignored all the sidequests when they were complaining about the length. I've currently put 40 hrs into the game and have 70% completion but most reviews said the game was only 10 hours long. It's also obvious that the people who complained that the fighting was just throwing one enemy at another didn't even try the later fights where that strategy will not work.

I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't even seen some of the areas in the game because you don't have to go to all of them.

A more deserved question mark there never was.

I would think even those who don't finish a game play it for a long, long time before reviewing it. If I put a ton of hours into a game and still haven't gotten to the end, what on earth can they expect? If you've played a game over halfway through, you're qualified to have an opinion. If I don't like the first half of a game, whatever comes in the second half doesn't matter because I'm not playing it long enough to find out.

I agree more or less with this.

Goes back to what I've always said about putting enough time into a game first. Thanks for sharing.

I kind of agree with that but it can cause issues. Take for instance TWEWY, the first week is about half of the game and many people hate it because of the cliche characters and story... but they are deconstructed and subverted in the second half which a lot people miss. If reviewers only played the first half they can misrepresent the game.

I despise that game with a passion. I agree 100% with everything he said about it. Of course, everyone knows you shouldn't take Yahtzee's opinions without a big grain of salt. He focuses on the worst of the games for comedic effect. Getting upset that there are people that take his reviews as gospel is pointless.

@The Fox Of course you're entitled to your opinion (as is Yahtzee his) and I have no contest with that. Monster Hunter Tri and many other games I like have plenty of flaws and deserved criticism, and I have no issue with people who can make unprejudiced arguments against them.

You have to agree, though, that a sign of a half-baked review is when the reviewer spends nearly half of his air-time talking about irrelevant topics.

Back on topic: I agree that completing a game for review isn't necessary so much as putting in a substantial amount of time. Enough that they can evaluate its different aspects in a rational manner. If story is a big feature then they should at least complete the story - TWEWY, Shadow of the Colossus and a lot of other games have great twists and plot events that really show their greatness.

@Oregano I finished the first week of TWEWY and haven't picked it up for a long while - thanks for the reminder; I think it's time I revisited it. I'll probably restart it because I've forgotten a lot about the story and game mechanics.

Well for me Super Mario Galaxy 2 wouldn't be a 10 without that last star. So I think playing through the entire game as opposed to just most of it or some it could affect someone's review. It's the most fair way, but also kinda impractical.

it's incredibly impractical, considering it may take one reviewer a month to complete a game (as opposed to just getting through it or getting as far as they feel is necessary to do it justice) so they can review it, and in the meantime people are screaming for their review now-now-now. it's a real catch-22. getting through most of the game (or at least beating it) as opposed to completing it and finding every last thing that could possibly have bumped the score higher is pretty much the most i'd expect from a competent reviewer.

I was just basing what I said off of the example that Rawmeat Cowboy and Craig Harris are pretty much professional reviewers (they get sent review copies by Nintendo) and they 100%'d the game in a week. That, to me, is ideal reviewing. But of course not everyone can do that, so that's when I feel just seeing the credits would easily justify a review.

I thought TWEWY had three weeks? I don't expect anyone would review it based on half the game. A reviewer worth his salt isn't going to quit a game halfway through because he doesn't like it; no, it'll only be if he hasn't the time or skill to finish it, and neither should be a problem with a game like TWEWY which is short and has many difficulty options available on the fly -- much to my delight, as that's perhaps my favorite innovation in the game.

I meant my comment more for games like say Monster Hunter 3 or Fallout 3 or other games that you can put 40+ hours into without completing everything, or perhaps even seeing the ending (didn't beat either, but I know there are games like that out there).

Completion could certainly affect score, but the impracticality of this is yet another shortcoming attached to the concept of scores. The text of a review could admit how far the reviewer has gotten in the game. I don't see this often, unfortunately, perhaps out of a concern for this kind of reaction, but an honest review should note this, I think.

@theblackdragon Agreed.

@Adam: It does have three weeks but the second and third weeks go a lot quicker because some days are pretty much skipped but I do agree with games like Monster Hunter Tri and Fallout 3 that it would be hard for a reviewer to play the whole game, especially if they're supposed to have a review ready for release.

That's probably the main difficulty though, you need to take different approaches to different games and genres.

I'm torn on this issue. On one hand, I would like it if a reviewer had finished a game so that s/he could write from a point of reasonably thorough experience (though I don't expect completion, as that would take entirely too long in most cases).

On the other, I completely empathize with what Yahtzee said about quitting because he simply couldn't stand it any longer. If you've put ten hours into a game and it's still painful to continue, you've got to face facts: It's not getting any better, or at least not enough to be worth the suffering in the meanwhile. Since a review is fundamentally meant to be a written expression of one's opinion on a game, I think it only fair that one be allowed to admit that his/her opinion is "too terrible to finish."

That said, I DO agree that they should have the common decency to admit that's what they've done. Writing a review for a game you didn't finish while giving the false impression that you DID finish is a MASSIVE no-no.

I think it depends on the type of game. If its a first person shooter, you'll most likely see everything there is in the first half. But if its an RPG or Adventure game, there is most likely gonna be more features towards the end.