I’m not a person who regularly reads reviews that have been
written on gaming news websites such as Gamespot, IGN etc (Probably because I’m
lazy and I can’t be bothered to read things I’m not particularly interested
in!) But whenever I do go on those websites all I care about is the rating they
give for the overall game.
I much prefer to watch gaming news and
commentaries/reviews on Youtube for the visual stimuli and to hear about the
latest games that are coming out and to get a trial run feel for it in a video.
And for reviews I go to a very specific channel, “The Cynical
Brit” AKA TotalBiscuit. He is the type of person who really looks out for the
flaws in the games he reviews and gives valid points and judgements, unlike
other Youtube channels I’ve seen where they only review games they love and
always give it a “SUPER AWESOME HAPPY-YOU-SHOULD-BUY-THIS” Review. So I
appreciate reviews which aren’t all awesome (Unless the game is actually that
good, and most of the time they aren’t) and prefer ones that point out the
flaws and bad parts, because it’s just way more believable and realistic to me
and probably because I can be a bit cynical myself hah. His "WTF Is" Series is ones i really love to watch for new upcoming releases or just games i've never heard of before.
This got me thinking
and makes me question whether or not gaming review websites or any review
website for that matter are paid to give a positive review rating or if they’re
actually telling the truth and it’s their personal opinion on the game, which
is another thing. You can’t really fully trust a review rating because it’s the
reviewer’s personal opinion on the game/book/movie and they may like the
complete opposite things that you like in a game/book/movie. It would make more
sense to watch a video of gameplay or to play it yourself and then come with
the final conclusion.
Here is an interesting IGN Quote I found talking about how
they score games in their reviews “http://uk.ign.com/wikis/ign/Game_Reviews”
“Unfortunately, there's no science behind a score, no
algorithm that can be run to "get it right." It evolves as a process
from an editor playing through a game, talking with the senior staff about the
experience, going through several edits and revisions to make sure the argument
is air-tight and looking at how it stacks up against other games in the
franchise, in similar genres, on the platform and more. In short, we do our
best to get it “right”, if there is such a thing.
 |
Sometimes one person gives a game a great review, but
another editor says they didn't like the game -- who's right? The IGN
review is the official statement on a games quality. It is the opinion of the
reviewer, but we entrust each editor to speak for the site as a whole.”
Its great that they go back and forth with the editors and
senior staff on the game review but as I said before you can’t completely trust
a review until you play it for yourself.
And who’s to say the editors/senior staff may have had a bad
day at work and then came home to play a game they were going to review as
relaxation, but in fact it felt like more work, so in turn they give it a bad
review.
I don’t generally tend to go on big reviewing websites,
unless I’m buying something expensive like a phone or a camera online. Just
because I like it when non industry related people do the reviews, because I
can trust they are gamers and have similar opinions to me, whereas with a big
corporation I don’t really know what is actually going on, whether they’re
being paid to write a good review, or if they just hate the genre of the game
and was forced to write a bad review because its their job, I feel they don’t
have the same passion as freelance reviews do because its their job and
everything that is a job will make a man lazy and uninterested, even if it is
games.
There is a new type of journalism going around, called “New
Games Journalism” which is basically the reviewer giving his
first person perspective on the game, it’s very personal and shows the
reviewers feelings and experiences of the game when they played it, kind of
like a blind review commentary video but on paper instead (or on word or
blogger or whatever)
I think this is a better way of reviewing, well it’s more
fun to read a person’s personal experience through a game, rather than it
explaining game mechanics and graphics etc in such a boring conventional
fashion, however I would only really read something like that if I wanted to
read something fun.
If I wanted an actual game review, I would probably never
use new games journalism, because I’d rather read one that gets to the point
rather than go through all the experiences and encounters in the game.. That’s
sort of spoiling it for me, I’d rather just play it then to be honest. So NGJ
is not for me personally, well not reading wise anyway.
I know a lot of youtubers review this way and its
entertaining and I know I said earlier that it would spoil it for me, but
whenever I watch reviews on youtube they’re generally spoiler free, and if they
aren’t there’ll be a riot in the comments section. But besides that I only
watch them to see all the new games I’ve never heard about that are coming out
like indie games.
But if it’s a game I know I would play such as Dead space 3,
I wouldn’t watch or read a review on it, I’d play it AND finish it, then see
what reviewers scored it.
No comments:
Post a Comment