Giving a game a 9 or 10 because most readers say that's what its worth, rather than what the reviewer themselves feel its worth is silly, its the reviewers score after all not ours.
Guys (kids?), Sean didn't ACTUALLY review SMB 3. He just said what he would have scored it if he had. He also said he doesn't review platform games, because he doesn't like them.
He also said in an obvious contradiction that this is how he'd review it "objectively." He went on to say that it appeals to a "limited audience," which is factually incorrect -- very incorrect. The sales speak for themselves.
This is what I took issue with, and I had assumed this what we were all talking about. If someone reviews the game negatively and admits that it is subjective, as all reviews are, I've got no reason to say a word.
Sean+Aaron wrote:
Objectivity regarding something like Super Mario Bros. 3 would be noting that it has great art design and the fact that there's a lot of levels, the music is good and the controls are decent.
That doesn't get around the fact that the difficulty level is punishing and therefore it's a game that will appeal to a limited audience.
Quoted not to single him out, but to clear this up as people keep ignoring this point.
@Bass X0-So you think that just because Sean can't complete SMB3, that makes him a casual gamer? Right, and despite him playing and reviewing games a LOT, he is still a casual gamer? WRONG!
All these labels of "casual" and "hardcore" are so meaningless anyway. They're just game industry marketing terms and have no relation to real life. I know so-called "casual" gamers who can beat me at Tetris and love to play Worms. I know so-called "hardcore" gamers who like puzzle/adventure games like Touch Detective and Puzzle Bobble. (But I'd actually call Puzzle Bobble an extremely hardcore game - it's hard, old, requires great skill and a pocket full of coins - even though it has a cutesy, kiddy veneer.) I love how most of the gamers I know are so diverse in what they play.
On-topic: Our expectations of WiiWare are lower than our expectations of full retail titles. That doesn't mean our expectations of retail titles are any lower than they once were. In fact I think with these "budget" download services available, full retail titles are really going to have to pull their socks up so they give a good bang for their buck, or people are going to pass on them for all the smaller releases these days. They're going to have to justify the $50 pricetag when you can get 5 or more games for that amount.
I'd love to meet one of these "Proper Professional Reviewers" What does that mean? Do they wear protective gear? Do they have to have a Masters Degree in Video Game playology? Where did that notion come from? They're no more legitimate in their assessment of a game than you or I so they are free to lend opinions to any game they review as they feel like it. Hopefully they know when they have lots of readers so they'll try and be thorough but it's senseless to get all worked up and accusatory when you think they have some noble obligation to us as a "Professional Reviewer". Maybe since some of them are on these boards we should ask them if Nintendo Life had to register with any official board for certification on the official Video Game Reviewers Association or something before they could review any games. Or perhaps they just decided they liked Nintendo and started a Web site and looked for some good writers? I don't get why people pin this weird pseudo-celebrity status onto people that write stuff for web sites alot. Or even on "official Journalists" and newscasters for that matter.
If anyone really takes things from a single online review or even from a single TV news report to be the gospel truth and scientific fact and hold those communications outlets responsible for your impulsive purchasing decisions then you've got some things to learn about reality.
This discussion isn't about Sean, i'm sure he knows what he's doing and he is wise enough not to review a platformer like Mario 3. Sure, saying that Mario 3 appeals to a limited audiance is a strange statement and as far as I can see incorrect. The discussion is about if you should let the fact that you don't like a genre or find a game difficult influence a review score. To my opinion a review should not be about someone's gaming skills or prefference in genre. The review should be about the game, and the score should be based on wat the game tries to achieve and how well it does that. Otherwise the review would be more about the reviewer than the game, which would be self-serving.
Nothing anyone says can change the fact that Mario 3 has brought a lot of joy to a huge audiance and that it has garnered near universal critical acclaim. Saying Mario 3 has bad controls just seems recalcitrant. And finding it too difficult makes me believe your standards for the difficulty of a game are very low and you didn't play Mario 3 when it came out. Learning how to play the game was a huge part of the fun and replay value of 8-bit games.
There are a lot of bad games on the Wiiware service, but you don't have to buy them, and their existence is made up for by a couple of good games like: Megaman 9, Exitebike World Rally, Lostwinds Winter Of the Melodias and World of Goo. The big games will always exist and it's nice the small ones also get a chance to shine. This only creates diversity in the gaming industry in the way games are developed, distributed and how mutch they cost.
This also creates different expectations for the smaller games, this doesn't have to mean your expectations have to be lower (just different), you just can't expect certain things from a downloadable Wiiware game that you can expect from a big retail game. Having more to choose from is a great thing, small downloadable games alongside big retail games, 2D games alongside 3D games, "casual games" alongside "core games".
There have always been crappy games, and as the games industry grows, it's only logical the amount of crappy games grows with it. Thankfully there are a lot of good games and that's where your focus should be, enjoying the good ones instead of complaining about the bad ones. Every popular type of media will be corrupted by companies who are only in it for the money and have no creative vision. Remember the backtreet boys? These companies have every right to be a part of the industry and it's up to you to make the right decision in what you buy.
I'd love to meet one of these "Proper Professional Reviewers" What does that mean? Do they wear protective gear? Do they have to have a Masters Degree in Video Game playology? Where did that notion come from?
Dude??? The discussion has never been about how a reviewer should be qualified.
Umm... I said something like that but doing a review is different from a being a reviewer; I certainly wasn't talking about anything Ren said.
Bass X0 wrote:
Doing a proper professional review would involve acknowledging there is an audience who will read the review who have a varied interest in genres and skill level.
Well that is just a logical statement. Can't see why Ren should get so worked up over that. You can skip the word professional though your statement counts for every review to my oppinion.
The discussion is about if you should let the fact that you don't like a genre or find a game difficult influence a review score. TO my opinion a review should not be about someone's gaming skills or prefference in genre. The review should be about the game, and the score should be based on wat the game tries to achieve and how well it does that. Otherwise the review would be more about the reviewer than the game, which would be self-serving.
I agree to a degree. However, if you acknowledge your preferences in the review rather than pretending to speak from some impossibly objective stance, you are doing a service to the readers who identify with those preferences. For instance, if I am terrible at strategy games and don't like ones that are too hard, and I say this, then I would not be misleading anyone if I reviewed Radiant Dawn poorly. Those who, like me, are interested in strategy games at a lower skill level would see the value in such a review. Of course, I actually loved Radiant Dawn, but it's just a hypothetical example. A person cannot see the world through anyone's eyes but his own, so the reviewer's tastes will unavoidably seep into the review. Reviewing is the stating of one's opinion. If it were objective, everyone would score a game the same.
If it's just one person doing a review of the game, as most sites have it, then that certainly leaves a lot of gaps, especially if the readers tend to view only that site's reviews. That's why I think the ideal situation would be to have multiple reviewers for the same game, though probably impractical given the volume of games compared to the amount of reviewers. The next best thing is quite possible though: have the reviewer either explain his bias in the review or have a profile that readers can look at to get an idea of what kinds of games excite this reviewer. Makes it much easier to compare one review with reviews from other sources if you know where the reviewer's coming from.
I pay less, there are size limitations, the development cycle has been shorter, so I expect less. I know an 8-rated WiiWare title won't be half as good as an 8-rated retail title. At least that's how I look at it anyway.
Exactly.
To put it another way: You can't hold an econo-box budget Yugo to the same standards to which you can hold a twin-turboed utter-insanity Porsche.
No offense to Sean Aron but I can not believe someone who reviews games can't get past World 2 on SM3!
It is medium tough game at best to beat, but World 2 is not hard at all! Among NES games SM3 is not notable for difficulty. Also funny to see this stray into so called hardcore and casual go search EBAY for the Mario3 McDonalds toys - lmao! Is Mario hardcore or casual? Why? Is Donkey Kong? Is Wii Sports? They are all arcade games! Everyone seems to have their own self serving definition of hardcore.
Also most people defending wiiware here admit to having a lower expectation in one way or another.
If you would have the role of a reviewer I would not be interested in your lack of skill or your prefference for certain genres. It's not informative or interesting, and it doesn't say much about the game. It says more about you, and I'm really just interested in the game and what it has to offer. Writing such a review would do your lack of skill or prefference for certain genres justice, but it would not do the game justice. Therefore it would be self-serving. To my opinion you should not review genres you are not good at, someone who is good at it can get more out of the game and therefore write a more interesting and complete review. Naturaly a person's taste, perception and interpretation play a role in a review, that's just stating the obvious. But it should not be as simple as you lacking skill or not liking a genre and reflecting it in your review score.
P.S. As a fellow member I am interested in your skill and your prefference for certain genres, and sorry about making you remember the Backstreet Boys.
No offense to Sean Aron but I can not believe someone who reviews games can't get past World 2 on SM3!
I agree. I wasn't being insulting when I referred to Sean as a casual gamer but really, whatever someone's preferences or skill level, everyone here should be able to get to world four at least IMO. Super Mario Bros. 3 is not a hard game. It was actually about the normal in terms of difficulty at the time it was originally released. Back then, we had many gamers being able to complete Super Mario Bros. 3, the Megaman games, Contra and Castlevania whereas today games hold the hands of the one playing it much more. I was disgusted at how easy lives were to aquire in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. That wasn't right.
Edgey, Gumshoe, Godot, Sissel, Larry, then Mia, Franziska, Maggie, Kay and Lynne.
I'm throwing my money at the screen but nothing happens!
I see the value of Adam's concept of reviewing. If you don't admit where you personally are coming from in your review (or through a reviewer profile or community interaction), people will tend to assume you're hugely into whatever you're reviewing. And there's DEFINITELY value in admitting that you're a fan of a genre, but really only the simpler ones. Matter of fact, the only reason I don't play Fire Emblem is BECAUSE it's so hard!
At the same time (and I know this is confusing), I see value in retrobuttons' idea of a review in that you don't want the review to be TOO focused on the reviewer. There needs to be a balance between the two. As I mentioned before, I believe Corbie to be the single best reviewer at doing that I've ever seen. Make mention of features that may appeal to other people, but also make it clear that your review is YOUR opinion, because it is. This discussion seems to mostly be treating this as an either/or issue when it's really not.
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I don't believe you understand where the discussion started. Sean said he would score Mario 3 a 6 because HE finds the game difficult, and HE doesn't like the genre, that's where the discussion started. The balance you talk about is lost when scoring a game based on your lack of skill or preference for certain genres. The fact that a review is someone's opinion and there is no such thing as total objectivity, (again) is stating the obvious. I think we can all agree on that.
@retrobuttons: I am well aware of what started this discussion. To Sean's credit, he DID list several more objective points he would include in the review. IMO, the SCORE is 100% opinion, while the review TEXT gives room to talk about what some people might like or the fact that the difficulty made it no fun for the reviewer. I think this discussion has perhaps been too deeply connected to review scores in the first place (as they usually are). People are ignoring and/or misunderstanding what Sean said. I note he hasn't returned to this discussion. I can only assume it's because of how his post, and by extention HE, is being treated in this debate.
Cast in point: the new review for Puzzle to Go Wildlife. The score's pretty bad, right? But the TEXT of the review tells me that the game would be well worth my $5 to download because of my tastes in gaming. Sean would do the same with SMB3.
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