Forums

Topic: Zampella: Reviewers should finish games

Posts 21 to 33 of 33

Bankai

So, here's the thing. A modern game - especially an RPG (or shudder to think - a full baseball season on a baseball game, etc etc), can take upwards of 50-70 hours to complete. A game like World of Warcraft, even more so.

A games journalist might earn (conservatively speaking) $15 a hour from whoever is employing him/ her.

So, to expect a games reviewer to play an RPG to completion, the publisher would need to shell out around $750 for the one review.

Websites work on clicks. Even the best review for the biggest game of the year can only expect a few thousand page impressions (and we're talking from the bigger websites out there), and $750 is going to cost more to produce than revenue would be fed back into the company. Let alone the fact that, if you were to wait for the games journalist to finish playing the game, the review would be last to go into the internet, and the clicks would be even lower.

So, in short, all of you crying foul because a games journo doesn't earn a platinum before reviewing the game is basically saying you want all the games publications out there to go bust. Good idea - or not.

Think about it this way: how long do you need to play a game to properly form an impression about who might like this game, how well this game stands in comparison to others in the genre, and whether it's the kind of game you want to keep playing into the future? A games reviewer is not there to be able to provide a FAQ as well. A games reviewer is there to provide a guide to whether you might want to buy this game. If a game takes longer than 10-15 hours to start to get good, then I would argue for most normal human beings it is a game.

Edited on by theblackdragon

Stuffgamer1

...it is a game...to be avoided. Of course, there's the fact that some gamers are predisposed to liking games that take a while to get up to speed. This is especially true in the RPG genre, which Yahtzee doesn't even really like to begin with, which is the surest sign that an RPG fan shouldn't take his word as hard fact for THEM in the first place.

I do mostly agree with you, WaltzElf...it's simply not practical to play entire long-donkey games before reviewing them, and you can usually get decent impressions on a game within a few hours. And if someone DOES want a "full-playthrough" review, they can just bloody well wait until some fan of the game posts one on some random part of the web.

Edited on by Stuffgamer1

My Backloggery Updated sporadically. Got my important online ID's on there, anyway. :P

Nintendo Network ID: Stuffgamer1

Slapshot

Lots of the games I love the most that are I guess you can call "chliche" games are reviewed very average or below average. Reviews are based on opinions and should for the most part be played to completion, at least the main story chunk of the game, and then rated based on the opinion of the reviewer. I really do think some mainstream sites are paid off on reviews, as take Tomb Raider Underworld, Im a huge fan of the series but its so bugged is crazy, got nearly perfect reviews from some sites that praised it like its a new Halo game.

I think it all falls down to this... some reviewers just arent cut out to be reviewers, and everbody has there own taste in gaming and money is indeed the root of all evils.

3DS FC: 4382-2029-8015
All my News and Reviews in One convenient place!

My Nintendo: Slapshot82 | Nintendo Network ID: Slapshot82 | Twitter:

Bankai

slapshot82 wrote:

Lots of the games I love the most that are I guess you can call "chliche" games are reviewed very average or below average. Reviews are based on opinions and should for the most part be played to completion, at least the main story chunk of the game, and then rated based on the opinion of the reviewer. I really do think some mainstream sites are paid off on reviews, as take Tomb Raider Underworld, Im a huge fan of the series but its so bugged is crazy, got nearly perfect reviews from some sites that praised it like its a new Halo game.

I think it all falls down to this... some reviewers just arent cut out to be reviewers, and everbody has there own taste in gaming and money is indeed the root of all evils.

Everyone claims that a reviewer is being 'paid off' if they score a game well that otherwise gets a bad reception. It happens sometimes, yes, but not nearly as often as people like to think.

Reviewers are people too, and are in a privledged position that they have probably played more games than almost anyone else. They have their own perspective on games, and if they like a game, even an average one, then they're probably not being paid off at all.

I gave Samurai Warriors 3 4 (or was it 4.5)/ 5 for Gamepro.au. That's way above the average, but I liked it. I wasn't paid off my Nintendo or Koei.

That said, I'm 40 hours into the game (amongst my other job and life responsibilities) and I still haven't played through all 38 character story modes. Does this mean I shouldn't have reviewed the game? If you think so, then there's something wrong with you... or better yet you should try and be a games reviewer for a week. I'd love to see you try and complete 2-3 games in a week, review them, manage the website, engage in social networking, track down news, and have a family life besides that.

J_K

Having to play every little nuance of the game is insane, but to at least attempt to finish the main story line short of all the other endings and every item should be key for a RPG. I recall a dreamcast game IGN only bothered to play 2 worlds on, it was like action RPG that had some tree area levels, then later other lands rocky and stuff. Well the game had been totally knocked and revised/done over but the tree assets were kept and were poorer. The review only touched the tree area talking how poor some areas were and ultimately the commentary was obviously only on that as stuff they said was missing in lighting/details showed up in every other area. That my beef with it, and as a former 'commercial' game reviewer I having seen such shoddy work made the effort not to. I reviewed FF4 and FF5 for the GBA in my time doing it and I played the damn games, not just 10hours and whipped up a fantasy and this was around a normal job as well in my free time as it was a freelancing job I did. Don't give me that it is not possible as that's crap.

Edited on by J_K

My Stuff - http://members.cox.net/tanookisuit/gameinventory.html
The Gamer Theory Forums - http://forums.gamertheory.com/

Bankai

J.K. wrote:

Having to play every little nuance of the game is insane, but to at least attempt to finish the main story line short of all the other endings and every item should be key for a RPG. I recall a dreamcast game IGN only bothered to play 2 worlds on, it was like action RPG that had some tree area levels, then later other lands rocky and stuff. Well the game had been totally knocked and revised/done over but the tree assets were kept and were poorer. The review only touched the tree area talking how poor some areas were and ultimately the commentary was obviously only on that as stuff they said was missing in lighting/details showed up in every other area. That my beef with it, and as a former 'commercial' game reviewer I having seen such shoddy work made the effort not to. I reviewed FF4 and FF5 for the GBA in my time doing it and I played the damn games, not just 10hours and whipped up a fantasy and this was around a normal job as well in my free time as it was a freelancing job I did. Don't give me that it is not possible as that's crap.

I had a two week window to review Demon's Souls, and I only got to play 15 hours. It's not possible.

Of course, when I do write the review I also don't try and pretend that I've finished the game. Doing that is dishonest, and leads to silly claims that the reviewer should play the whole game first. I play enough to give an opinion on the game and leave it at that.

Corbs

If you can't get the gist of a video game after 5 or 6 hours, another 20 hours isn't going to make much difference. Given the sheer number of reviews we have to do, not to mention all of the PR and other facets of working for a gaming media site, there's just no way we could finish all of the games we review, at least not all of the retail titles. I generally can finish DSiWare and WiiWare titles, given their usually short length, but many retail titles in today's gaming market can feature anywhere from 30-60 hours of gameplay and that can be tough to completely cover within the limited time frame we're given.

Edited on by Corbs

Plain old gamer :)

James

It depends on what kind of game you're reviewing, really. Obviously for an FPS it's not going to be too hard to finish it before reviewing it, and as we focus on download stuff I know that virtually everything I review on DSiWare or WiiWare gets completed before a review. I can honestly say in all my time gaming that I've never completed a game and thought "that completely changed my opinion on this game".

Hey, here's an idea - all games should be made shorter to allow us to finish more of them! I say about an hour is the new optimum length. Make it happen, developers!

James

Nintendo Network ID: DaddyNewtsUK

pikku

James Newton wrote:

It depends on what kind of game you're reviewing, really. Obviously for an FPS it's not going to be too hard to finish it before reviewing it, and as we focus on download stuff I know that virtually everything I review on DSiWare or WiiWare gets completed before a review. I can honestly say in all my time gaming that I've never completed a game and thought "that completely changed my opinion on this game".

Hey, here's an idea - all games should be made shorter to allow us to finish more of them! I say about an hour is the new optimum length. Make it happen, developers!

this.
what about a game like Animal Crossing where everything happens in real time? shudder

pikku

3DS Friend Code: 1891-1165-2008 | Nintendo Network ID: pikmaniac

RowdyRodimus

To make this guy happy they should review all games based only on the single player aspect. No online multiplayer, but they have to get through the single ploayer campaign. However, since he focuses on FPS games, then his would likely recieve scores in the 4's and 5's at best and then see how long it takes him to whine about something else.

I am the one you despise. I am he who says what you really deep down know but are affraid to admit. I am the Anti-Fanboy, the crusader of truth in a world built on your lies.

MrB4

As a writer for a gaming website, I try to complete as much of the game as possible, or at least check out every feature of it before doing a review. It's only fair to judge a game based on all of its characteristics, and not just the ones you saw on the first play through.

Like me or Hate me, I will never change, so just deal with it.

LuWiiGi

This is a good point. Reviewers shouldn't look to review the game as fast as possible, but to make the review as thorough as possible.

No animals were harmed in the making of this post.

WarioWare: DIY: FC - 0904 7088 3011
Favourite users: PunnyGuy, StarBoy91, cloudcult10, Xkhaoz, Dragoon, DannyBoy, NintyFan, NintendoPurist, Sadman, Wooperman1, Golgo, GamesX99, turtlelink. The rest of you are cool too, though.

Bankai

LuWiiGi wrote:

This is a good point. Reviewers shouldn't look to review the game as fast as possible, but to make the review as thorough as possible.

That philosophy works for fan sites and blogs that don't give a toss about making a living from the writing.

Professional sites need to make money. Unfortunetly being last means your review isn't going to make much money, because everyone has already read reviews elsewhere. That's why they race to be first.

This topic has been archived, no further posts can be added.