Do review scores matter to you anymore?

Pretty much review scores dont matter to me. Ive learned that how interested in a game I am determines if I like it or not. Im interested in Ryse and that game got bad reviews. Most likely I would like it though.

I think its sort of like movies, I dont even look at the reviews before watching a movie. The Godfather is considered the best movie of all time or something yet I think its crap. I thought the last GI Joe movie was good too and it got bad review scores.

Some of the best games ive played scored low. My point is, dont limit what you play by what review scores the game gets.

They never did. I know my own tastes.

Ignore the Number. And Ignore what the reveiwer likes or hates. Just get the details and see if thats what you're looking for.

They've never mattered to those of us who can think for ourselves.

No, I watch gameplay videos to make up my mind.

I take them into account, but in the end I make the final decision on purchasing it or not.

It certainly shapes my expectations, it is hard to provide a structure of reviewing video games

I haven't cared about reviews scores for a long time. One person's (or a handful of them) opinion doesn't tell you if a game is truly good or bad. You may end up liking a game that received low review scores/poor reviews, and end up hating a game that got good scores/reviews. What matters is what YOU think of the game.

But it employs people, so...

GiantBomb's Quicklooks are usually more of a deciding factor than a review, but if I'm interested in a game then I will buy it no matter what the review score says. I'm planning on getting Killer is Dead soon if that's any indication on my preference for reviews as a deciding factor.

Well it does help lead me to getting games that I would have otherwise known little about, such as Darksiders, Bayonetta, and Traveler's Tales The Walking Dead

Reviews will never decide if i buy a game or not, they are insignificant and does nothing but make a fun reading. Since why would i take someone elses opinion over my own, when its me who is going to play it.

Stop caring about reviews a long ass time ago. I've enjoyed so many more games because of it.

The score is just the writer opinion and the least important part of the score. The reasoning for it is the most important part.

I paid a lot more attention to reviews pre-internet and before internet reached the sort of speeds where videos of games became ubiquitous. But once I got the ability to actually watch a game in motion and no longer had to rely on critics for pre-release impressions, reviews kinda became irrelevant. I feel like if you play enough games, you can usually watch a video clip of gameplay and get a pretty good sense as to whether or not the game is something you want to play. Much more so than listening/reading reviews from people who fancy themselves journalists but can't seem to keep their opinions straight from one review to the next.

I'm not above using a review as a way to see gameplay to help inform myself. But does a review lead me to buy or not buy? No, not really.

The Giant Bomb Quick Look features have a better chance of swaying me one way or the other than a review. Or a good Let's Play or perhaps seeing something interesting on Twitch. Reviews have become an anachronism. A vestigial organ of this industry that may have served a purpose at one point, but is now only there to make it occasionally very ill.

I'll grumble about them online a bit but no reviews usually don't matter to me if the game in question has piqued my interest enough.

No, not really. I find them to be more about entertainment than anything. Always fun to see people flip out at the scores and parade them around. Great stuff.

If some random guy ran up to me in the street and said to me "I don't like batman arkham origins" and then ran off never to be seen again I wouldn't really care what he thought because he is just some random stranger that I don't know, never will know or really care what they have to say. That's pretty much what a reviewer is.

In fact, a reviewers opinion would mean less to me because video game reviewers are paid by video game companies through the advertisements in their magazine or website so their opinion means less to me.

I don't need some random stranger to put a number value of his opinion on something so I can justify what I like or dislike.

I find reviews to be helpful, they can give me insight about a game and tell me it's strenght and it's weaknesses after watching the review it's up to me to and me alone to decide if I liked what I saw.(Although there is one reviewer that I trust more than any other and that's Angry Joe)

@ Harbinger_CR

I finaly had the pleasure of Seeing one of AJ's videos. Sadly it was the Xbox One reveal video, damn he's nutz. I generally don't like him because he can say whatever he wants without restraint. isn't there a Reasonable Joe alternative ?

Nope, i usually got with my gut feeling when it comes to games

The review content such as pros and cons matter to me more than scores ever have. Good reviews are typically easy for me to relate to because if I see a game getting a good score in GI then I tend to enjoy that one and if a low score, I do not. If I can see gameplay previews, I can get more information from a different perspective. Game reviewers are usually not the best players in the world, so reviews of games with learning curves or multiplayer modes are not fully representing them. Instead, they give information about the potential in those games more than how good they actually are at their higher levels. To get there takes time that reviewers do not have.

Review scores always matter to me, the general consensus of course, as I have no way to try a game before I buy (consoles at least).

This is why I don't trust review scores. I saw The Walking Dead review, played it and was disappointed after 10 minutes. I feel like if you are interested in a game, go for it. I just bought Ryse, Xbox One coming tomorrow. I'm pretty stoked, whether Ryse got a bad review or not. I'm excited for the co-op gladiator battles.

I used to care about reviews because they had more factual information than opinion and it allowed gamers to be more informed about the game prior to purchase. Now the opinions are so strong that the facts are left out or blurred.

The 20 rating point scale ( or 100 point rating scale for IGN ) isn't necessarily broken, but rather heavily misunderstood. Anything below 8.5/10 is considered today by society as a "failure of a game" and without a doubt this now reflects on reviewers when they rate a game, and thats why review scores are all over the place these days and it can be ridiculous.

Take Ryse and Knack for example, they're both tech demos, but do they honestly deserve a mere 4/10? the answer is no, IMO

The number is the least important part. But reviews as a whole matter to me only if I am undecided on whether or not to get a game. Reviews are a purchase guide. The reason they cause so much controversy and get so much attention is because many people online use them as a way to either validate their purchases, and in the case of a poor review, they consider their purchase invalidated… eliciting an extreme emotional reaction. (see any comment section of any remotely anticipated game that is reviewed with any score less than an 8 for examples)

well, i read reviews, but i don't use them much as buyer's guides. if i'm interested in the game or the reaction to the game, i like reading about it. in that sense, the score isn't very important to me. the score is just some distant quantification and the text is where the actual discussion will be (if there is any, i suppose. there are plenty of reviews that read like a manual).

Never did

To some extent. Let's be real. A 60$ video game is expensive. An 8$ movie ticket is much less expensive. I will definitely put some thought in before buying a game. A movie ticket? Not really. 8 $ doesn't bother me. 60$ does. If a game totally flops, is hampered with bugs ect, you shouldnt buy it for 60$.

This is a good point. I think people have become so adverse to game reviews these days because their perception of them have been perverted by such pre-pubescent antics of places such as SW. Some have outright disregarded reviews based on these antics and not the reviews themselves, which is ridiculous. There are exceptions, but overall I find many release reviews to be fairly on the money.

+1

I've lost complete respect of gamespot reviews I make up my own mind if I think a game is worth my time i'll buy it regardless of the score.

Review scores are on of those things, that it's nice to have them, especially if you're not sure about a game you want to purchase, but even then, they can still be wrong. I think we could talk about games we liked that got medicore reviews and games that got perfect scores that we hated. The way I go about it is, if there's a game I really really want to play, I'm probably going to get it despite reviews, unless said reviews are downright dismal (like 3s and 4s). A lot f times if the game is getting between 5-7 that usually tells me it might be better to wait until a price drop.

Also we have demos and rentals and word of mouth. I get that a game is a bigger investment than music, a movie or a TV show. If a movie sucks, then we're only out $10 and a couple hours but $60 is a lot to spend on something crappy and especially now with new hardware, who wants to go out and spend a couple hundred dollars on new hardware if the launch games are terrible?

But I do get tired of people constantly throwing a fit every time a site reviews a game and people don't agree. People had a fit over GTAV not getting a perfect 10. Sonic fans throw a fit every time a Sonic game doesn't get a good review. Nintendo haters were mad the new Zelda and Mario games got 9s. PS4 owners are mad that their exclusive launch games didn't get high scores. But throwing an immature hissy fit, won't change the scores. Then you have those gamers who act like reviews are the word of God and let the game reviewers dictate what they buy instead of playing for themselves.

Best thing to do, play a demo, rent the game or ask other folks. I like that GS and other sites have user reviews. That was the main reason I joined back in 2007 was so I could write my own reviews.

For those of you who don't read (or trust) reviews, and have no way to experience a game without buying it, on what basis do you determine if a game is worthwhile?

I too know my tastes but use the scores also for orientation at times, though it is probably better to play a demo version instead. On the other hand, I hate it when reviewers mix personal or political reasons into their valorization of a game (which might occasionally raise the question by whom they are actually paid).

Scores never mattered to me, but reviews are something I factor in. I give demos, videos and player impressions more weight (especially for multiplayer) but I do pay attention to reviews.

I try to look for common threads in reviews (often people that love a game and people that hate it say the same thing) and then I decide based on those factors if a game is for me.

Yes. Not to a great extent but they do influence me.

Say a game gets a 4 / 10 score across the board with most professional reviewers. That would influence me to an extent to not buy the game on release, even if I was hyped for it. I'd still get the game down the line when it was on sale. An example would be Colonial Marines. Initially planned for a day 1 buy, I skipped it due to low scores but I still ended up getting it, only at a 90% discount.

I've bought a few games based on their score alone. A prime example being Red Dead Redemption, which ended up being one of my favorite games of the decade. I also got Max Payne 3 based on its 9.5/10 score - which I regret to this day, have not finished it and believe it's one of the most overrated games of this generation.

Although a much larger influence to me is possible previous entries in its franchise - I got every Halo game after Halo 3 just because I liked H3. Same goes for a lot of other games.

They do but i always give about 2 points leeway because its not uncommon for me to like a game 2 points more than a reviewer or 2 points less.

I've been gaming for 27 years, I know what I like. That gives me a pretty good bit of experience to fall back on in determining what I want and don't want, and my success rate is pretty high with that. When I was letting reviewers tell me what to buy and not buy, I found myself getting stuck with games I disliked far more often. As a purchase guide, they are only useful if you are undecided. If based on demo, videos, and impressions posted online I determine to buy a game, I'm past the point of needing a purchase guide, so reviews are rendered completely irrelevant.

I decided based on what I had seen and heard to pick up Ryse, and the day the review went up and everyone felt compelled to make multiple posts on the forums like "Ryse get's a 4 lmao" I just stared blankly at the screen and shrugged. The name of a game and a random number, so what? Every day I boot up my One I've been playing it first, and enjoying it just fine because it's exactly what I expected it to be when I made the decision to buy it.

I wasn't sure I wanted Forza, so I read reviews on it, and decided to buy it based on what I read in them. Seems pretty simple and uncomplicated to me, I really don't see the need for the big fuss.

Yes, but from where I stand, my likes and dislikes of the subject is on the smaller side of consideration in determining whether a game is worth my dollar. Not saying it's irrelevant, but other things take precedence because I'm going to be playing it. So what I want to know first about a game before I think about buying is: are the mechanics well-implemented? Is the level design competent? How long is it? What are the extras? How's the sound? Just general stuff, much of which is subjective, sure, but some of which is not. I enjoy the film Gladiator and am fascinated by Roman history, but I'm not going to buy Ryse simply on my preferences alone if the controls are ass or it's a QTE fest.

And I can't find that out without buying it first, or depending on a review. And I know I've probably missed some games I would've otherwise enjoyed due to a review that speaks poorly on what parts I find most pressing in a purchase, but I've also bought games that I've hated that had garnered unanimous praise. Gaming ain't cheap, and reviews are really all I have to go by. I can't simply disregard them based on taste alone because what constitutes a great game transcends that.

Naturally knowing what you like could become a problem if it prevents you from branching out and trying new things. I'l change my philosophy to knowing what I don't like and trying everything else...... You know....... As soon as it becomes financially viable.

Who wouldve thought being a better game would cost so much. :D

@MirkoS77: To each their own, I suppose. I've never been happier with my hobby than I was when I started using reviews only when i don't know if I want to purchase a game or not. If how you do things works for you, more power to you.

about some games , i just know they are good for my taste or not .

but about some other games that i have no idea how they are and whether they are good for me or not , i'l check the meta score and yes it does matter to me .

for example , there was GTA V or Bioshock infinite this year , and i really didn't check on their scores . i just knew they are masterpieces .

but about games that i never played before , like the new tomb raider , yes i checked the metascore . and metascore is one of the things that i check before buying a new game . and if i want to choose between two similar games , like two shooters ( BF4 and COD for example ) , metascore has a big effect on my choice .

to say i don't trust reviews makes it sound like i don't give reviews any value (i more or less trust that most reviews i read are honest reactions to the game). i think a good review will increase my appreciation for a game i've already played, which i think has great value.

i guess the one area that i just don't trust reviews in though is whether or not they mention bugs/glitches/performance. i know a lot of reviews are meant to further discussion more than anything else (and again, i value those the most), but most of the big reviewing sites do treat their reviews as evaluations of software that either functions or doesn't. it's disappointing then that they're really unable to say if the game performs well. yeah, it can be fishy sometimes like when nobody mentions that the PS3 skyrim ran like sh*t at launch (which i think was due more to ignorantly believing the publisher than anything malicious), but i think most often it's just that game reviews aren't able to function like that. reviewers play in different conditions than normal gamers in online games, day 1 patches can make big differences, and platforms like PC have very diverse hardware.

anyway, a lot of my purchasing decision is based on gameplay videos or demos and what i know about the developer. if i'm curious about what sorts of things are done in a game, i'll play the demo if one is available or watch one of the numerous gameplay videos that will be posted on youtube shortly after launch. developer knowledge is helpful too and i'll likely take a leap of faith on a game made by a developer i really like.