Gamespots reviews are a little too harsh some times.

I think some of the Gamespot reviewers are a little jaded these days. They seem to slap some games down with a heavy hand when the truth is that the games are actually quite good. Two examples that come to mind are games I'm currently playing and enjoying quite a bit.

The first is Viking: Battle for Asgard. I'm about halfway through and I can clearly see that this game has all the basics for a good game. Great graphics ... check; decent sound effects and voice acting ... check; Mildly interesting story ... check; great gameplay and varied missions ... check. The game mechanics work very well and the missions have enough variety to make them feel fresh. On top of that, the game is broken down into two disctinct play styles. On the one hand you have the basic solo play hack and slash and on the other you have a large scale battles in which you are one of hundreds of on-screen warriors and you're goal is to take down some key figures in the battle. Nothing in this game is broken and therefore not deserving of the of the low 5.0 score Gamespot gave it. If you want a good hack and slash with a little bit of large scale RTS-like battles you can't miss with this game.

The second is James Cameron's Avatar. I'm just getting into the game, but my initial impressions arevery good. The graphics and sound are movie quality and the gameplay mechanics are workable. I'm playing the PC version so perhaps the controls on the consoles are a little more querky. The game features two story paths and lots of variety in guns, armor and power-ups (skills). The action is also very tense with the Pandora Jungle proving to be very intimidating. Perhaps the gameplay will wear thin and become repetitive in time, but clearly jhe game is not broken and it seems to offer an accurate recreation of the movie setting and plot. Fans of the movie would surely love the game.

Both of these games should have been at least 7.0 or higher based soley on the fact that they offer solid gameplay and good production values. Minor annoyances may crop up preventing the scores from enter the "great" level but neither should be lumped with some of the other trash in 5.0 category. I think that some of the Gamespot reviewers are having a hard time seeing some of these decent games for what they are: Good, solid, but maybe not innovative, games. They seem too quick to nit pick the games weaknessesand weigh some minor annoyances way too heavily.

Well it of course all comes down to opinion, and how exactly you look at a game. By today's standards lots of games that aren't quite up to par with other major titles are lost to many gamers. A lot of reviewers compare games to other games. Say a new shooter franchise comes out, it will most likely be compared to big shooters like Killzone 2 or Call of Duty Modern Warfare. All in all, if you honestly don't agree with a review on here, feel free to write your own giving your side of the story as possibly getting others to buy and enjoy the game. hawk_767

Gamespot's reviews have sucked since even before Gerstmann-gate (before which they were pretty solid). I think the biggest problem (aside from the new editors) is that they have lost the mentality that they can judge games objectively, or mostly so. They'll tell you it's "just they're opinion" but if you read the old site's review policy it was quite clear that they believed they could critically review games, not just give their crap opinion. I've been looking for legit game reviews ever since Gamespot went to Hell. IGN and GameInformer have sucked for a long time. Giant Bomb is decent.

really? ive always thought them to be a bit biased.

Better to be too harsh than too forgiving,the way I see it. That said, somewhere in the middle is good,too.

I feel they are far too harsh on unknown/independent titles and way too soft and timid when it comes to big super hyped titles.

really? ive always thought them to be a bit biased.

ConkerAndBerri2

...Towards what?

[QUOTE="ConkerAndBerri2"]

really? ive always thought them to be a bit biased.

MadVybz

...Towards what?

To me I feel they are more biased toward hyped games.

I feel they are far too harsh on unknown/independent titles and way too soft and timid when it comes to big super hyped titles.

Pixel-Pirate

Well it of course all comes down to opinion, and how exactly you look at a game. By today's standards lots of games that aren't quite up to par with other major titles are lost to many gamers. A lot of reviewers compare games to other games. Say a new shooter franchise comes out, it will most likely be compared to big shooters like Killzone 2 or Call of Duty Modern Warfare. All in all, if you honestly don't agree with a review on here, feel free to write your own giving your side of the story as possibly getting others to buy and enjoy the game. hawk_767

I'm still trying to figure out how GTA4 got 10/10

My perfect review is a review that covers the strong and weak points of a game no matter the personal tastes of the reviewer (which is why the long-gone Greg K is my favorite GS reviewer).

I don't really care how much a reviewer likes or dislikes a game (I won't even get started on how silly some people's obsession with numbers is), I am just looking for information about the game.

A bad review isn't a reviewer doesn't hold the exact same opinion of a game that I do, but a review in which the reviewers omits facts which don't support the conclusion the writer wants to lead gamers to or a review in which the reviewer goes off on a tangent.

Some review sources are better than others, but most offer useful info some of the time.

Gamespot gets it wrong a lot. Like most other game reviewing sites, it suffers from judging everything by whether or not they like a game. There are a lot of games out there for example, which have terrible gameplay and graphics, but great sound, yet the sound will still get a 5 or a 6 at best because the rest was so bad, while if exactly the same sound had been in a better game, it would get a 9. But once they got past the point where they've decided whether a game is good or bad, they'll judge everything by that standard, because they'll only pay attention to the pros or the cons, depending on their opinion on the game.

And sometimes, like with Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, they just don't know how to do something, and will present it as 'you can't do this, which is frustrating'. In the aforementioned Oddworld the reviewer criticized the game for it being too hard to catch some bosses alive, while I've beaten the game catching all bosses alive, which wasn't much harder than my first run.

[QUOTE="MadVybz"]

[QUOTE="ConkerAndBerri2"]

really? ive always thought them to be a bit biased.

Pixel-Pirate

...Towards what?

To me I feel they are more biased toward hyped games.

I wouldn't really call them biased...Just afraid of the backlash they would get because fanboys would go crazy.

I feel they are far too harsh on unknown/independent titles and way too soft and timid when it comes to big super hyped titles.

Pixel-Pirate

Too harsh? Years ago revolutionary games like MGS got a 8.5 but now Game Spot is handing out 9`s like candy.

Well, as far as I've seen, Gamespot has been more lenient as of late than usual. Of course, opinion is the key word here, and from an objective perspective, some of the games they give low scores simply aren't as good as the other games you can find out there. As initially compelling as those games probably are, Gamespot must have had reasons to give the game the low score they got.

[QUOTE="Pixel-Pirate"]

I feel they are far too harsh on unknown/independent titles and way too soft and timid when it comes to big super hyped titles.

indongga

I completely agree with you. I can't say if they were really payed off by IW, but whatever the reason, it really left a sour taste in my mouth seeing MW2 getting all of those rewards for simply doing more of the same. It got a 9,6 (I think), while UC2 got 9,3; they said UC2's problem was that it lacked novelty. Oh, the irony.