Do you consider User Reviews as much as critic reviews?

I know I do. I don't see why someone who isn't an official critic shouldn't be considered just as much as a critic. I heard someone say that my reviews don't count because I'm not an actual critic, I'm just a user. so what is your stand on this?

No I don't factor in user reviews at all when making purchasing decisions. For me it's professional reviewers all the way.Archangel3371

when i'm decding based on reviews i look at:

1st- metacritic score
2nd- gamespot's review (especially if kevin van ord is reviewing)
3rd- user overall score

I don't. For stuff like TVs or electronics and things that aren't subjective, I value user reviews a lot. For subjective things I never even consider them and probably never will. Things like people organizing to get a game a low/high score based off of fanboyism or things completely unrelated to the actual quality of the game (like the Portal 2 incident) have made the entirety of them invalid in my eyes.

Plus, they're just written by some dude on the internet. At least a professional is ideally good enough and experienced enough to get paid for it. User reviews aren't any better than some random person on the street that I've never met or seen before trying to school about how awesome or bad a game is. Additionally, user reviews on games are more than likely done by the Gamestop employee type: someone who's been alive for less time than I've been a gamer.Itmight be the old man gamer in me, but I don't care what that person has to say. Even if they're a "pro" if they're younger I usually immediately chalk anything they say up to a generational gap and it goes in one ear and out the other unless it's something technical like framerate or glitches.

[QUOTE="Archangel3371"]No I don't factor in user reviews at all when making purchasing decisions. For me it's professional reviewers all the way.ShadowsGameTime

I know I do. I don't see why someone who isn't an official critic shouldn't be considered just as much as a critic. I heard someone say that my reviews don't count because I'm not an actual critic, I'm just a user. so what is your stand on this?

turtlethetaffer

I think you should consider both but ultimately decide on a game based on whether or not it interests you. I suspect that user reviews are sometimes clandestinely manipulated by people with a vested interest in promoting various games, and users who really dislike a game can skew it in the other direction.

Everyone has different likes, dislikes and expectations, so there's no way any particular review from any source will be representative of the way you might experience a game.

Nope, as with critic reviews, I never do. After all, a lot of the time, I findthat my experiences and enjoyment of a particular game tends to rank amongst a minority of the populace (half of thegames I truly love are poorly-ranked by users and critics alike, and three-quarters of those that I greatly dislike are critically-acclaimed). As I've said before many times, when it comes to games, movies and music, the only opinion that matters to me is my own.

But that's not to say I don't enjoy reading and writing them :) I love writing reviews just to get my opinion out in the open and to see how many people actually agree with me.

Definately, probably even more so than critic reviews ( there's certain evidence of bribery by developers involved in some cases) . Note that I usually check out the user reviews in which the user took the time to make a detailled and informative review rather then some guy that was enthousiastic for 5 min and wrote a review just at that time. I also only check out reviews that have like 9 agree 1 disagee status (pref all agree) instead of the non-ranked ones. Usually the average user score and some detailled user reviews are more then enough to make up my mind on a game.

If it's well written, yes I tend to pay attention to and lend more credence to their review. Most user reviews on this site use terrible English, and if they can't even be bothered to do that, it does make me wonder how credible can they be when critiquing a game.

The most important thing I consider is my own tastes and interests.

Lots of games I loved that other people hated and vice versa.

Example : Far Cry 2, Alpha Protocol, MAG, these are love it or hate it games.

Nobody can decide for you if you like or don't like the concept of an open-world first-person shooter.

Nobody can say if you like or don't like magic.

Nobody can say if you've always loved games that are cyberpunk or steampunk or fantasy or sci-fi. These are your own personal tastes.

Some people play an atmospheric game like Heavy Rain and say "God this is soooo sloooow."

Other people love it and are sick of shooters.

So that's #1.

Secondly, I read critic reviews, user reviews, watch youtube vids of the gameplay, etc.

In some ways user reviews are more important than critic reviews, because there are lots of them.

When I read user reviews, negative reviews are the most valuable ones, they tell you what's wrong with the game, some little quirk or issue or bug.

Professional reviewers can say "this is a great game blah blah" but go to the negative user reviews and you might read "there's no iron sight", this tells you more about the game than the whole 1000 word professional review.

I know I do. I don't see why someone who isn't an official critic shouldn't be considered just as much as a critic. I heard someone say that my reviews don't count because I'm not an actual critic, I'm just a user. so what is your stand on this?

turtlethetaffer

The general consensus I'm getting is that you'll consider them more if they're well written? Also, I'm glad I'm not the only one who notices that so many of the reviwes on this site are written using poor english.

Professional reviewers are all paid off. For reference see Dragon Age 2.

I just know whether to get the game by the general reaction from my community and gameplay videos, screenshots, etc.

I look at the average rating of the user reviews most of the time. Many user reviews are just as good as 'professional' ones.001011000101101

When they are well written, I agree. Because, honestly, I think a person is a good writer or they aren't, and many reviewers out there are good writers.

Generally I take a look at the user rating, because Gamespot gives some weird scores. There's plenty of cult classics that are very excellent that Gamespot rates low.

Generally I take a look at the user rating, because Gamespot gives some weird scores. There's plenty of cult classics that are very excellent that Gamespot rates low.

MaskJackal

and there are also games that GS rates high that don't deserve it.

I pay more attention to user reviews than professional ones. Sorry Gamespot. :) It's easy to tell which user have actually played the game and aren't just fanboys.SilverSignal

Exactly. And I'm sure all games have a worthy user review if you just look at the recommended ones. Imo it's also refreshing to read from a well argumented player point of view instead of that of a critic sometimes.

The difference between users and critics is that critics will never give incredibly low scores to a game just out of spite. Nor do they tend to be biased or subjective in their reviews. Or give a game a perfect score just because THEY favor it.

On the other hand, just a handful of unfairly low scores from a bunch of morons can bring the user average down. I trust IMDB for movies. Aside from that, I pretty much never listen to what other gamers say about games.

If I did, I would have missed out on some fantastic titles, like LittleBigPlanet. Or actually believe that Resistance 2 was inferior to the original, when it's quite the opposite.