Topic: Do Digital Foundry do the best game reviews . . . without even trying to?

We all know the Digital Foundry game analysis videos they do.
What if we think about them differently for a bit, in a way not intended by DF but to possibly shine a different light on them. What if we look at these DF videos as a game review instead of their tech analysis point of view.

Lets see what the Digital Foundary analysis videos give us and do not give us.

Give us

• Indepth graphical analysis
• Indepth performance analysis
• Indepth control responsiveness analysis
• Good discussions about the game aesthetic and how well it fits the developer's main onjectives for the game
• Indepth music and sound analysis
• A decent discussion about any major game breaking bug or glitch
• Comparisons to other versions or ports of the same game
• Opinions purely based on the above mentioned evidence
• Good conclusions based on the evidence researched above
• Enough understanding to know DF actually understands the game they are talking about

Does not give us

• Opinions that are not based on researched benchmarks and performance of the game
• Paid reviews
• Final review scores
• Review authors who review games they have not played much or any of
• Review Authors who do not understand the game they just reviewed
• How fun the game potentially is

The Digital Foundry analysis videos seem to provide us with all the information we want in a review apart from the fun factor. Information that a large number of reviews do not include. So if we are on the fence about a game, the best thing to do could be watch a DF video about it, if DF have made one about that game.
However if you are not sure how fun a game is, that's tough because fun is so subjective. If a review says a game is fun, it's just the author's idea of fun, not your own idea of fun. That's why you really need to know your reviewers well. Not personaly, just enough to know what kind of games they find fun, so you can choose to read reviews whose authors like the same kind of fun in games that you do.

So what do you think?
Does Digital Foundary do more to help influence our video game purchase choices than the average game review?

They make technical analyses, if that’s what you want, then excellent- they’re great.

Even if a game is a masterpiece from a technical standpoint, it doesn’t magically make it fun to play.

Game's quality is very Subjective.
Even one people consider it a Masterpiece, it is a Junk for other peoples and vice versa. It's fun to one people but not for other peoples.
And i have interest with peoples think it's Mediocre but for me it's a Hidden Gem.

They are great. I love their videos

They never discuss about game design or creativity of game design. They're good to judge big budget AAA that play all the same and don't have any game design work. But for everything else they're useless.

No, although they're analyses are good, they're purely technical... I'd skim their videos, as I'm not too bothered unless a game has major issues Then, look elsewhere for info on gameplay, along with possibly some normal reviews if wanted

What if you want to know if a game is worth your money to purchase or not? Most reviews don't tell you that so where would you find out that information?

So you want info on gameplay as well as the usual normal bias that the average review has. Sure I guess that's the best of both worlds. I can't argue with that.

have you even watched Digital Foundry game analysis videos? They often talk about design creativity and howe well the game aesthetic blends in with what was trying to be achieved by the developer. Good game aesthetic can be qualtified and that's what Digital Foundry do.
They don't only analyse big budget AAA titles. Go watch DF Retro and you'll see other games being analysed also.

That's the truth.
Most game reviewers do not understand this. Their opinion is just that, opinion, just like all of ours. Their opinion exists ni the review to help us want to purchase the game, not to try and push that the game is perfect in every way.

I'm ok with opinionated reviews (to a point) as I like to read what they think about a game. However I am against arrogant reviews that just gush about how perfect the reviewer thinks a game is while ignore all of the flaws the game has.

I agree in the sense that most reviews are not particularly useful out of context of anything else. With a few exceptions, no one reviewer on their own will do anything to convince me one way or the other about a game. Unless a review has a particular personality you understand and can use to contrast to your own opinions, there's little point in caring other than the general consensus.

Digital Foundry at least has a niche that makes them stand out and are useful to people.

Ideally, there'll be actual gameplay videos.... Still worth reading impressions as well, though If the 1st review I look at seems overly pushy or unduly anti, I'll look around for a few more

@the8thark I was not talking about aesthetic design. I was talking about game design. You know like what are the rules of the game, what actions can my character do. The main work that was done in Super Mario Odyssey is the launching cap thing. With that the game had a lot of gameplay variety, a lot of game design ideas. All of these ask a lot of work and Digital Foundry never judge that. They think game designers don't exist anymore in the modern industry. It's maybe true on the big budget AAA market but in the indie scene and in the intermediate budget industry like Nintendo there are still game designer who can decide how the game will play by adding new ideas.

@glaemay
Fair enough.
People should not need a review to find out that information. A good advertising video or two from the developer should explain that. If people are reading reviews specifically for that information, they have not done their research, watched the game trailers and visited the game's website.

A good game review should not have to re-tell what the game is about. A good review should answer the question of why the game is good, in the reviewer's opinion.

In other words, a review should focus on the execution and implimintation of the features in the game, not describe the features themselves.

Based on your example above.

• Explaining that cappy exists in Mario Odyssey and explaining some of the design ideas of a game.
  That is the job of the developer via websites and game trailers.
• Explaining how well those design ideas were executed and implemented into the game.
  That is the job of game reviews

Digital Foundry don't go over what the main ideas in games are because they realise most of their audience has already visited the game's website and watched the game trailers so they know that information already.

I'm glad you know them so well

@the8thark Yeah but based on your logic a game that has a very poor gameplay should never be sanctioned in reviews and should have the same score as a game with a huge variety of actions possible like Breath of the Wild as long as it has good graphics. That's negating the specificity of videogames as an artform: the creativity of game design.

@glaemay
What you said is exactly why I do not like review scores as a concept.
Personally I read the reviews in full to see what type of game it is and how the good points and flaws fit in within the context of the genre and scale of the game.

Also poor gameplay is not the same as little gameplay. Walking simulators like Journey have very little gameplay but what they do have is done very well and they deserve the acclaim they received. It's all about the context in which the game is developed and the genre it is targeting.

All forms of art are critiqued in detail. Paintings, music, sculpture, film and much more. Video games are no exception to this.

How much gameplay a game has or does not have does not determine how good a game potentially is. How good or bad that gameplay is, does help to determine that.

@the8thark I agree with you. Modern industry don't need game designers anymore. Gameplay mechanics have been standardised. We don't need new gameplay mechanics. Just well done gameplay. Gameplay creativity is a mistake and people thinking about adding new game mechanics have no place in the modern industry. I don't care if there is 100 times more work in Breath of the Wild gameplay variety than in Journey's gameplay. All of these should be thrown in the trashcan and should never been recognized in a scale of quality. And it's the same for cinema. You know what Orson Welles did? Trying to put camera in weird innovative places, trying to invent new shoots or way of filming. But what was the point of that when ciname has already been standardised before him? He was just a hack like Shigeru Miyamoto of Hideo Kojima who try to add gimmicks in videogames because they think game design is a creative art when in reality it's a standardized science.

@glaemay
Then, we can change the standard.
Game designer is still needed to create different and unique games rather than cookie cutter games.
Peoples need to be educated by different standard.

Not really. Most times, I couldn't care less about the technical analysis and honestly I think there's way oo much emphasis on it. 60fps is a masterpiece, but a drop to 58 renders it absolute garbage to too many people, even if it's not noticeable without an in depth analysis. I've played a lot of games that were heralded as masterpieces seemingly based on their technical achievement, but just weren't fun to play.

Whether it's fun and well designed is what matters to me and DF does not cover this at all. From a technical standpoint, if the FPS drops to unplayable or if controls aren't responsive, this would reflected in the review as to whether it was fun or not, because if a game has major technical issues, it's not going to be fun to play.
Digital Foundry is good for what they do, but as a review as to whether a game is actually fun or worth my money, they just don't cover near enough or anything of real importance to me.
That being said, a review score isn't ideal either as games are subjective. What NL is doing here now with a Pro and Cons list is far more ideal as you get a basic overview of whats good and whats not in a game.

@the8thark I do not like Digital Foundry. They are only useful if we are talking purely about the technical aspects of the game. And even then, they put too much weight on those aspects. There have been a plethora of great games, well loved over the years, that DF would have ripped apart because they have some technical issues.

On the other hand, I will give them that their focus on those hard, measurable issues does reduce the influence of reviewer bias. Something most sites struggle with, including this one.

No, not in my case. As a professional software developer, I often find their analyses interesting for the insights it provides into the technical side of game development. However it very rarely has any effect on purchase decisions. When deciding whether to buy a game, I'm interested in what the overall experience is like. Technical performance is only part of that, and for that purpose I'm usually fine with the level of detail any good reviewer might include in their review about the game's performance.