The Problem With Game Reviews (II)
by sweep
The next month is going to be pretty busy for gamers everywhere The global economy is screwed, which means our gaming decisions gain extra importance as we are limited to the amount we can spend. One thing I forgot, but was reminded after hearing Jeff and Ryan talk to Greg Kasavin and Amer Ajami, is that crunch time hits game journalists just as it hits publishers and developers. Come November...
The next month is going to be pretty busy for gamers everywhere
The global economy is screwed, which means our gaming decisions gain extra importance as we are limited to the amount we can spend. One thing I forgot, but was reminded after hearing Jeff and Ryan talk to Greg Kasavin and Amer Ajami, is that crunch time hits game journalists just as it hits publishers and developers. Come November and the gaming industry really starts to take the strain. There are a lot of games being pushed out in time for christmas. And a lot of them look, for want of a better word, awesome.
Worth 5 stars?This will be the first true test of the Giantbomb review system
Assigning stars on a scale of 1 to 5 sounds simple and easy - but what happens when 7 games are released in a month and they all get handed 5 stars? How do we differentiate between qualities of these titles? Suddenly the system seems a little over-simplified...The simple answer is - read the written reviews. The five star rating is designed to show how much fun the game is - and should not directly factor into your purchasing decisions. But at the same time, gaming reviews are so complex that they often require a simple face value for readers to hold as a summary of the review they are reading. These two elements of a review should be able to exist in harmony - although this is seldom the case.
Gamers now have certain expectations of the content they read - resulting in a style of journalism that only seems to exist in online gaming circles. The problem with game reviews is that they are usually written by gamers, instead of by journalists. This means we end up with a very insightful list of the games qualities at the cost of articulate writing and eloquence. This is arguably our own faults.
Gamers are traditionally kids
Especially on the internet - because kids have more free time, and enjoy the anonymous freedom gifted to them in the world of the Web. Kids are also easy to please, and do not require the attention to detail or depth that other forms of media seem to enjoy. The result is the shallow review system currently in place - where any gaming website you would care to mention writes reviews based on the "this game is awesome! 9.0" school of journalism. Apart from anything else it is becoming tiresome to read repeatedly monotonous reviews where the writer cannot grasp and represent the enthusiasm they felt during their gaming experience and fails to translate it into writing.The problem is not helped by the apparently unobtainable expectations of the typically unreasonable reader. It sometimes seems to me that every game is being compared to some kind of super-game, that the reason we see so few perfect scores is because every game falls short of ridiculously high expectations.
I find that often reviewers have to write in a specific way in order to compensate for the hostile demands of the people who want to skip only to the bottom line. This "I only play games which get a score above 8.5" mentality is destructive to both the community and to the freedom of the reviewer. I often think that any game reviewed under a 6.9 or 3 stars is fairly pointless, as most gamers will simply dismiss it unless it is particularly controversial.
Gotta Love The IRCAs Vax pointed out in the IRC a few days back - reviews are not based on fact, they are opinion and perspective. Actually he said something more complicated than that but I forgot what it was. But his point remains valid. There is no perfect answer, just as there is no perfect score. And consequently if we seek only games with a perfect score we shall forever live in a state of perpetual disappointment. Alternatively we can read the reviews at our disposal and then form an educated opinion based on our own experiences.And so we reach the Catch 22
We would prefer to buy all the games we want and then form our own opinion of which are best - but with money being so short firstly we must filter out which games are worth buying - and this in turn will effect the perspective we have of the games we eventually buy, meaning our opinions have been diluted by the review recommendations. Does that make sense to anyone except me? We seek an educated opinion before we experiment ourselves in order to prevent wasting time and money on rubbish games - but at the cost of an honest perspective.
As a hypothesis, it needs a little work.
In short, I think that too much responsibility is placed on game reviewers. With the system we have at the moment you either end up with someone like Jeff Gerstmann acknowledging the problem and then going "I wrote this review, if you dont like it then fuck off" which is honest and insightful, but marred by levels of personality that flaw the subjective - or you could end up with someone like Nate Ahearn over at IGN who seems to be easily captivated by explosions and fast cars - and systematically writes with the flair of a plank of wood.
Invaders, Possibly from Space!!This is why I still read magazines like Edge - which without such an imposing community of kids sitting around online constantly berating them, have the freedom (and time) to write with an understanding and style that best reflects the soul of the title at hand. I really appreciate the effort that is put into their articles - it goes out highly recommended to anyone seeking to take away more from their gaming.Anyways to finish on a light note, I just want to point out the reason I'm still here (despite my whining) is because I have learnt to accommodate the styles presented to me by the lads here at Giantbomb. I personally think Ryan is one of the finest gaming Journalists out there, and I follow his advice to the letter. That man knows his shit...
Anyways, thats all I got for now. I just want to add that I am STOKED for Space Invaders Extreme on XBLA and I'm getting interested in Spiderman:WOS again - which sucks because I cannot afford to add another game to my wish list...
Lastly, Thanks for reading this MEGA HUGE wall of text of a blog post
Special Love to everyone who stuck with me for this entire blog!
Sweep