Are reviews too hard on games?

[wanderlike]

I used to follow a similar pattern whenever I was buying games. I'd look everywhere to see what ratings it got. Even if it got a good score, I looked for things that would be trouble, like bad control setups or something that might completely ruin it. I did the research because it made sense to. Even used games weren't something I wanted to waste $20 on if they sucked.

A few times, though, there were games I really wanted to play that would get 7/10 or even lower. So I got them anyway. And I don't know. Most times, it just seems like the problems they point out aren't as bad as the ratings they get.

The truth is - I can't really recall any game that was unplayably bad, or even so bad I regretted buying it. Are reviews too hard on games? Or am I way too soft?

[Thebunniebrothers]

Could you name any of the games you've got? If they're extremely new popular 4-player co-op multiplayer achievement class upgrading shooty shooty pow pow brown edition, then you shouldn't be too suprised that you like them so much.

[HorrorOfHell]

No, it's just personal opinion, and they usually increase the score if it's popular.
For example, Halo 3: ODST, one of the worst games I've ever played, Gamespot gave it a 9/10.
While RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, one of the best games I've ever played, only got only a 7.8/10.

The only way to get a real good idea on how good a game is, is to read multiple reviews from the players, and not the paid reviewers.

[wanderlike]

At 8/21/10 12:43 PM, Thebunniebrothers wrote: Could you name any of the games you've got? If they're extremely new popular 4-player co-op multiplayer achievement class upgrading shooty shooty pow pow brown edition, then you shouldn't be too suprised that you like them so much.

Well, this is more PS2-era that I'm thinking of, since I bought way more games back then. A few were things like "Atelier Iris" and "Drakengard," if anyone remembers those. Not rated great, but exactly as fun as the 20-50 hours I figured I'd put into them. "Stella Deus" was another. A lot of them were RPGs, if I recall, so that have been another factor.

But even the latest few "Fire Emblems" I thought were a lot of fun and they got creamed in reviews.

[Jack]

Whoever is reviewing it is usually just giving their honest opinion.

I'd like to also mention Halo: ODST, which I thought was bland as fuck. I'm not a Halo fan, never got in to them, however a lot of people who enjoyed the previous Halo games did it enjoy ODST. It's about personal taste and opinions really.

[wanderlike]

At 8/21/10 01:00 PM, Jack wrote: Whoever is reviewing it is usually just giving their honest opinion.

I'd like to also mention Halo: ODST, which I thought was bland as fuck. I'm not a Halo fan, never got in to them, however a lot of people who enjoyed the previous Halo games did it enjoy ODST. It's about personal taste and opinions really.

Hmmm. This is kind of what I was guessing. I also imagine some people are easier or harder on some series/genres as a matter of personal taste.

Probably the most annoying is "this game is awesome because the series was awesome" or "this game is crap because even though it's amazing, the rest of the series makes me expect something better from it."

[sinfulwolf]

7/10 isn't a bad score. Indeed 6 or 7 out of 10 is average. There's nothing amazing, but nothing too horrible about it. I think that people just can't picture a 6 or 7 being a good score.

[Snuff]

I think they are.

All the reviews I read in Xbox World and X360 Mag all seem really hard on games.
The only ones they give high scores are games like Cod and Halo, and occasionally games that really deserve it, such as Fallout 3.

Still, they probably get bribed.

[Samen]

At 8/21/10 01:46 PM, sinfulwolf wrote: 7/10 isn't a bad score. Indeed 6 or 7 out of 10 is average. There's nothing amazing, but nothing too horrible about it. I think that people just can't picture a 6 or 7 being a good score.

I blame school for teaching us that a 70% is a D grade.

Anyways, I'm kinda the same way as the OP. I rarely blind-buy a videogame unless it costs <$10, and usually check meta-critic if I'm looking at a game I've never heard of before. Of course, I always take the reviews with a grain of salt, and word-of-mouth suggestions always carry a lot more weight.

[Jackho]

At 8/21/10 12:26 PM, wanderlike wrote: there were games I really wanted to play that would get 7/10 or even lower. So I got them anyway. And I don't know. Most times, it just seems like the problems they point out aren't as bad as the ratings they get.

implying that 7/10 is a bad score

[MrFlopz]

I don't see how ODST was a bad game. If you liked Halo 3's campaign, you'll like ODST's. It plays almost the same. I don't see how you can like one and not the other.

[wanderlike]

At 8/21/10 01:58 PM, Samen wrote: I blame school for teaching us that a 70% is a D grade.

Anyways, I'm kinda the same way as the OP. I rarely blind-buy a videogame unless it costs <$10, and usually check meta-critic if I'm looking at a game I've never heard of before. Of course, I always take the reviews with a grain of salt, and word-of-mouth suggestions always carry a lot more weight.

I think that's the problem. Percentages are relative. A game that's 70% perfect is actually really good, but we keep the school grade mentality. Anything below an 80% we're taught to believe is doing very poorly.

To make matters worse, how many games are actually getting scores of +90%? Obviously, it's a minority. But is it a vast minority?

[MrFlopz]

At 8/21/10 04:48 PM, wanderlike wrote:

At 8/21/10 01:58 PM, Samen wrote: I blame school for teaching us that a 70% is a D grade.

Anyways, I'm kinda the same way as the OP. I rarely blind-buy a videogame unless it costs <$10, and usually check meta-critic if I'm looking at a game I've never heard of before. Of course, I always take the reviews with a grain of salt, and word-of-mouth suggestions always carry a lot more weight.

I think that's the problem. Percentages are relative. A game that's 70% perfect is actually really good, but we keep the school grade mentality. Anything below an 80% we're taught to believe is doing very poorly.

To make matters worse, how many games are actually getting scores of +90%? Obviously, it's a minority. But is it a vast minority?

Let's face it. Only heavy weight titles get 90+ scores. It is sad but its true. A small developer can make a game that plays exceptionally well but it will be overlooked and the 70,80% score it receives will stop it from getting any mainstream attention.

Still though, you shouldn't dismiss a rating as inflated just because it is a major title. Just ask people who have played the games.

Halo 3 skimped on the Campaign a bit, but created so much content and customization that the game is still one of the most played games on Xbox Live today. That game deserves about a 9.5%.

Gears of War 2 made slight tweaks to the combat that went a long way. The lancer is finally useful and the hammer burst is now a viable, unique weapon. Plus they went all out with the campaign and made it a very long and epic experience. A high rating is very much deserved.

However, when rehash games like Modern Warfare 2 get so much praise it makes me lose faith in the ratings.

[Jackho]

At 8/21/10 05:08 PM, MrFlopz wrote: That game deserves about a 9.5%.

What

[Dr-Worm]

Um, no. Actually it's the exact opposite. Most reviewers are way, way, way, way, way too easy on games. We have a 10 point review scale on which anything lower than 8 is considered bad. Does that make any sense to you? It's because of this that the vast majority of major releases score at the very least a 7 just for being competent at the most basic level. That's like if Roger Ebert gave at least three stars to every movie where the audio is properly synced.

Reviewers shouldn't reward games for not being broken. That should be a given. But that's just one of the many ways that most mainstream game reviewers are way too easily impressed. Major triple-A franchise releases get almost universal praise despite never doing anything new and perfect 10's are constantly thrown around to the point where they don't mean anything.

Meanwhile, smaller games and indies tend to get judged much more harshly because, well, game reviewers are high-class prostitutes and only put out for the biggest and richest publishers.

And then fanboys get all pissy at the likes of Yahtzee Croshaw and Jim Sterling and don't take their reviews seriously just because they demand more than base competence and actually, y'know, criticize games, almost as if they were game critics or something. Really, they're the only ones who are actually doing their job right.

[Samen]

At 8/21/10 06:14 PM, Dr-Worm wrote: Yardee har furr durr

This is why you don't get to be paid to have opinions.

[narf]

Review scores don't reflect personal preference. Its also their job to be overly critical.

[Screamo99]

personaly, i'm really easy on games, I thought that farcry 2 was interesting, but annoying.

[Androu1]

Sometimes they are. Sometimes they aren't.

Sometimes it depends on how much the pockets got filled.

Sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes the review bases itself on crap that probably wasn't necessary to the game, like story.

Sometimes the review bases itself simply on how actually FUN the game is.

All I know is that I ignore "professional reviews" and only read reviews from other average gamers. Then I see what's the general opinion (not the score, I read THE WORDS) of the game and decide on getting the game depending on what I want and what the reviews say I will get.

Sometimes I just ignore reviews and get games, even if the game may be shit. It's like, surprise!

At 8/21/10 06:14 PM, Dr-Worm wrote: And then fanboys get all pissy at the likes of Yahtzee Croshaw and Jim Sterling and don't take their reviews seriously...

Sometimes it's stupid. I know people ignored Kane & Lynch 2 completely, without even TRYING the demo, just because Jim's review was HIGHLY negative. I'm OK with people agreeing with it if they actually DID try the damn game or the demo. But if they didn't try the game, then what the fuck do they know?

Some people admitted not even watching the trailers and shit, then said "Thanks for saving me some money. This is why I always go to Destructoid for reviews. Everyone that gave it a high score got bribed."

Heck, it probably was them trolls, but I don't doubt people being stupid enough to actually do that.

Specially bothered me because Kane & Lynch 2 seems like one of these "love it or hate it" games. Some GAMERS genuinely hate it, others genuinely love it. Seeing people that MAY love it ignore it because of the review of a person that HATED it is pretty shit.

If EVERYONE does say the game is a broken piece of shit, then it's obvious that the game is a complete failure. But if at least another person enjoyed the game, you may enjoy it yourself.

I also don't see 6/10 being a bad score. I think a bad score is 5/10, which would mean it's below average. Off course, I didn't study in a school in which a 7/10 was like a D or whatever crazy shit. I was taught that 5/10 is average. Same for 10/20. And 50/100. And so on.

[wanderlike]

Hmmm. I think movie reviews are also too hard on things. If you look at most A-F scales, the reviewers consistently give one letter grade lower than the aggregate score from viewers.

To me, this is a problem. Movie critics consistently being off by that tells me they don't reflect the views of the movie-goers they represent. In their case, though, it works out. If critics rate a movie a B, it's probably going to be really good in theaters. I can auto-adjust for their sucking.

I'll have to check and see if there's a similar correlation for video game reviews...

[MrFlopz]

At 8/21/10 05:59 PM, Jackho wrote:

At 8/21/10 05:08 PM, MrFlopz wrote: That game deserves about a 9.5%.

What

Any game that is still played by hundreds of thousands of people 3 years after release deserves over a 9. What would you give it? Seven? Besides, no other Xbox game has matched Halo 3 with the amount of customization. A lot of games that receive 9s and 10s are only played for a few months.

And yes. Halo 3 has a better multiplayer and single player than Halo 2. Halo 2 was a revolutionary game but it was the glitchiest one I've ever played.

[sixflab]

Ocassionally they give a really low score for one flaw but usually I find game reviews to be fair and unbiased. Yeah highly anticipated sequels will always get higher than they are supposed to but they get paid to do that.

[Samen]

At 8/22/10 01:07 AM, MrFlopz wrote:

At 8/21/10 05:59 PM, Jackho wrote:

At 8/21/10 05:08 PM, MrFlopz wrote: That game deserves about a 9.5%.

What

Any game that is still played by hundreds of thousands of people 3 years after release deserves over a 9.

9.5 % means that you gave it 9 and one half points out of a possible 100.

[MrFlopz]

At 8/22/10 01:11 AM, Samen wrote:

At 8/22/10 01:07 AM, MrFlopz wrote:

At 8/21/10 05:59 PM, Jackho wrote:

At 8/21/10 05:08 PM, MrFlopz wrote: That game deserves about a 9.5%.

What

Any game that is still played by hundreds of thousands of people 3 years after release deserves over a 9.

9.5 % means that you gave it 9 and one half points out of a possible 100.

FUCK! My mistake. I meant to simply put a 9.5. This is what lack of sleep causes. Ugh.

[MrFlopz]

At 8/22/10 01:16 AM, Liquify wrote:

At 8/22/10 01:07 AM, MrFlopz wrote:

At 8/21/10 05:59 PM, Jackho wrote:

At 8/21/10 05:08 PM, MrFlopz wrote: That game deserves about a 9.5%.

What

Any game that is still played by hundreds of thousands of people 3 years after release deserves over a 9. What would you give it? Seven? Besides, no other Xbox game has matched Halo 3 with the amount of customization. A lot of games that receive 9s and 10s are only played for a few months.

So, by this logic then Final Fantasy 7, 6, and Chrono Trigger are all scoring 100+/10 correct?

Would you find 100,000+ playing those games around the clock? I think how long people play a game for is a very accurate way to judge a game. If people stop playing the multiplayer in a year, it isn't a very good game.

[Samen]

At 8/22/10 10:33 AM, Liquify wrote: Sorry, but if you want to talk about longevity then games of the SNES and PS1 days will ultimately be the best games.

longevity

SNES and PS1

No shit the only older games people still play are older games.

[Calcos]

At 8/21/10 04:47 PM, MrFlopz wrote: If you liked Halo 3's campaign, you'll like ODST's.

I liked Halo 3's campaign, and I hated ODST. I played for an hour, and never touched it again.

[wanderlike]

At 8/22/10 02:40 PM, Samen wrote:

At 8/22/10 10:33 AM, Liquify wrote: Sorry, but if you want to talk about longevity then games of the SNES and PS1 days will ultimately be the best games.

longevity

SNES and PS1

No shit the only older games people still play are older games.

Well, I think that's a word choice issue. It's not necessarily longevity. In which case, obviously, Pong has a lot of these games beat. It's staying power. And to be fair, games with very few bells and whistles are played by lots of people ten years after the fact.

Many of the shooters that were revolutionary today will be footnotes in five years. Which is weird. I'm not sure why this is.

[Robotchk12]

At 8/22/10 06:11 PM, wanderlike wrote: Well, I think that's a word choice issue. It's not necessarily longevity. In which case, obviously, Pong has a lot of these games beat. It's staying power. And to be fair, games with very few bells and whistles are played by lots of people ten years after the fact.

Many of the shooters that were revolutionary today will be footnotes in five years. Which is weird. I'm not sure why this is.

That's because games with few bells and whistles rely on engaging repetition for replayablity, and games like Modern Warfare 2 rely on hype that rarely lasts.

[wanderlike]

Too true. Not to mention, I think simpler games have an inevitable advantage. I know a lot of times I've kind of "revolted" against games with overly-complex gameplay. When that happens, I tend to seek refuge in something a little simpler and easy to access.

Sometimes it's nice to only have to worry about four different directions of movement and no ammo.