Buying Games VS REVIEW SCORE....

When you see a new game released and it gets a bad score lets say under 7 (gamspot standards) would you still buy it??

I know ive been stuck with some realy crapyy games that seemed cool at the store and then i come home and try it out and end up with a reall doozy ...then find myself wishing i would have read a review beforehand ... And im sure there are tons of great games out there I havent played and probably never will cause when i did look them up the reviews werent all that great.

This is a good topic, it should really be in general.

Anyways, it definantly does affect my coice to buy or not, if a game gets a shoddy review (under 6) I definantly won't buy it, and if a game gets an Editors Choice award (9+), then I'll almost always buy it providing it's from a genre I like.

in my opinion i think GS isn't always right on rating games so if u think the game was addictive the game u bought would be worth it not because GS gave it a bad rating

don't listen to gamespot or anyone else rent it to see if it good then you know if you want to play it more then once

I used to let review scores dominate what I played and bought, as money isn't that loose to toss around (and having various different hobbies down't help).

I almost exclusively only played games that got a high score from Gamespot, IGN and Gamespy. If it wasn't in the high 8's or low 9's if not higher, I didn't touch it.

However as time's gone by I've come to a gross realization that I don't give a damn about scores. I read the context of a few reviews and glean what I can from them. It's the info. For example Gamespot gave The Punisher a 6.5, but I loved the game to pieces. Sure it was a fairly generic shooter with some gimmicks, but that's what set it apart.  

Heck, just recently I was heavily debating if spending $5 on True Crime: New York City would be a waste of money. I caved anyways and had an absolute blast. It's a vast improvement on it's prior entry and I have not encountered any of the so called bugs I hear it's plagued with (although I have seen the slow down, but it's not that bad), If I looked at scores I'd never have bothered. 

Albeit I honestly avoid most games that fall below the "average" of 7 (which I'll never understand), as I generally don't have interest. It's not their score I avoid them for, just the games themselves. 

I usually take a read at the reviews and see gameplay videos more that the score itself and decide if it is worthy...

If the game belongs to a genre I enjoy, then a review below 6 may put me down, but that is not always the case... If the game belongs to a genre I don't really enjoy, not even a review above 9.5 will make me buy it.

Another thing is to look at the reviews on other places... That way you can be see it is not biased.

Rule of Thumb I always go by for game review scores:

9.0+ Look at other gaming sites to see if they score anywhere close to GSs... If they all score almost the same, more than likely the game is very good and worth buying at full price (All games including franchise games and fresh new games).  Games in this category are definitely in my collection. (Okami)

8.3-8.9 May be worth a full price purchase but look closely to what reviewers say about the flaws and ask yourself if you are comfortable to accept them or not.  You can wait a few weeks to see what other players will say about the game.  (Socom 3)

7.8-8.2 Games that score in this range would be considered a "wait till the price drops" or it could be a rental.  I would never pay full price for games in this range. (God Hand)

7.4-7.7 These games may still be worth a look but they are definitely games I can wait years till they reach the bargain bins of retail stores if I have any interest.  Don't have high expectations for games here.  You have been warned. 

7.3 and under  Unless you are familiar with the series, don't even bother looking at games that score this low.  There will be player reviews scoring perfect 10s but don't let them fool you.  If a game falls in this range, there are a lot of reasons why.  Expect major flaws from games in this range.  These are the kind of games that can still be purchased, popped in your console or handheld and quickly comes out after 2 hours no more or less. (Punisher)

Important* Never ever buy a game blindly... I almost bought God Hand blindly, but I put it back on the shelf.  I bought it for about $17 dollars and I was glad I didn't get it at full price.  The game is decent but not worth full price. 

This is the guideline I use for myself and I have had much success.  I have very good experiences with all the games that I play.  In some way, scores do influence your decision to buy games or not.  There are a lot of games that score 9 but I may not be into that particular genre.  I respect all games that have great scores even if I don't have much interest in them. 

I take the scores into account, but from experience I know that not all reviews are as unbiased. GS sometimes tends to give games low scores on every aspect when they dislike the gameplay, while IMO you should only lower the gameplay and tilt (and possibly value) scores. But in general I'm happy with their reviews. 

I tend to ignore the numerical score on game reviews because it is so subjective.  For instance lots of people consider FFX a 10.0 game and I consider it about a 7.8.

What I do read reviews for is for the text.  I just want to get a brief overview on the type of game it is, what the art style is aiming for, and how the gameplay /difficulty may be.   There are a lot of reviewers with different taste in games than me, so the enjoyment factor (the most subjective part) I dont give much credence to when reading.

The review score doesn't matter IMO. There will always be different tastes and you can't trust what someone else is saying because it may not suit your case.

For exmple: GS gave SotC a good score and I got it, but I ended up selling it like 2 or 3 weeks after I bought it, why?? because it wasn't what I was looking in a game. It's cool and all but I my keepers need way more than what it offers.

BTW, I bought it not for the score. I bought it because I got interested on it by reading all the previews about it. I base my games on that, not on the score.

I find myself putting less and less faith in the numeric scores of game reviews lately. That's because -- particularly in reviews on Gamespot, and only slightly less so from IGN -- their evaluations just seem to be increasingly off-base to me over the last couple of years, when I compare their comments with my own experiences. This is much more of a problem in certain game genres, much less so in others. And since the next-gen machines have been out, it has been more of a problem on the reviews for the PS2 than other consoles, in my opinion.

To me, the online review process just seems to have gotten a lot more shallow over the last couple of years. Perhaps that's not really the case, but it certainly seems that way, with the evaluations having a lot more to do with surface presentation than long-term, underlying gameplay. There seems to be an inherent bias against games that don't make their graphics the top priority, and further bias against things running on older hardware, with both those factors overshadowing an analysis of the actual game itself fairly often.

I realize that there are also a lot of gamers who are more interested in how a game looks than in how it plays now too, so maybe this is just keeping up with the times. But I'm a gameplay-over-all guy, so I find it interesting how frequently some reviewers treat PS2 games dismissively, or at least as though they are at an automatic disadvantage in the reviewer's eyes, because they aren't the best looking game he's ever seen. At times, an in-depth analysis of gameplay seems to be almost a cursory afterthought, if the visuals didn't blow them away in the first few minutes. As someone who plays games rather than just watching them, those kinds of reviews do me a disservice.

Anyway, I've learned not to put much stock in the numbers, and to try to sift through the opinion in the review to at least get a clearer idea of what the game itself is really like. A decent review can often tell you a lot of good information about a game, and whether you will like it or not, regardless of whether the reviewer ultimately liked it himself. I've eagerly bought games that didn't get good number scores, after reading their review and realizing that the person reviewing it simply doesn't appreciate that genre, or simply didn't "get" the game. But I could tell from what they discussed that I would still like it myself.

Some of the reviews are so slanted or off-base as to be useless on all levels, of course. But by reading a few different sources, reading other players' opinions, and reading between the lines, I usually find the sum total to be informative, even if the final scores and the conclusions of the reviewer are clearly a little off.

My old roomates never payed attention to review scores, they would go to Gamestop and buy garbage like Dark Kingdom because it had a cool box.

I just purchases games i want to own regardless of the score. I read review scores to get the pros and cons of the game. If the cons dont seem to bother me much, ill just pick the game up anyway.

I greatly enjoy godhand (3.0 from gamespot)
I greatly loathe GTA:SA (9.6 from gamespot)

Dont let anyone else decide what you like. hot114

Actually, Gamespot gave God hand an 8/10.

And some people can't afford to find out if every game they have moderate interest in is good.  So some of us take another route, wait till reliable reviews come in and see if it's worth our hard earned cash.

Firstly, Good FRESH Topic, I was meaning to start the exact same one, but out of whole career on GS, I only started two or three posts, so I never got to it. It ended up slipping my mind and I'm glad you brought it up.

Secondly, Look at my PS2 list. I bought these games based on Gamespot and other major gamin g websites. I'm not the kind to waste money on something I don't know, and Inever rent (I can find better use for that money). Now if you look at my Dreamcast list (My gameboy colour list surprisingly has great reviews, but I never used to go on Gamespot when I wanted to buy a GBC games). You can see that some games are rated poor (for good reason).. However, if theres one thing that makes me contradict the way I buy a game is this: I LOVED SOnic Shuffle for the Dreamcast, but it was given a 5.4 (or 5.6) score...Maybe its because as a kid my standards for gaming was real low (The Dreamcast was my first, so the fact that I owned one was enough for me).

Lastly, I am REALLY satisfied with my PS2 list, everything I own is something I personally do not hate. Great great games.

I check the review before buying a game.... I do this so I have an idea of what the game is all about but the review doesn't decide for me whether to buy it or not. The first thing I check is the gameplay then the graphics...

It depends on what the game is, or what franchise it belongs to. For instance I am going to buy Atelier Iris 3 despite the lackluster review it received simply because my enjoyment with the Atelier series has always been from the witty banter of the characters and cynical off comments that are thrown in here and there, such as the crack made against the ESRB in the first one. The story, battle, graphics, and so on in the series have never been good, or anything to brag about in my opinion. However, the craft that goes into the scripts of the Atelier series is where it really shines and shows that it's special. I realize this isn't what most people play games for and most people won't notice it or be able to appreciate it, but for me it's what I look for and is why I enjoy the games in that series. This is also the reason I get all the games released by Nippon Ichi since I have noticed this sort of thing is a trend they have with their titles. So I really could care less about what Kevin says in his review of the game, because I am already going in expecting that.

Now, if we are talking about something that is more of a no name title, which I am unfamiliar with, then I tend to play by the book and ask around to find out if it's really as bad as the review says it is. Usually it is, and usually I don't buy it. Unless I am feeling masochistic or something... 

I buy based on the cover arthairgel623