@BH14 said:
It isn't as simple as "it is his opinion, he can give it any score he wants". Professionalism, credibilty, reporting, being unbias and backing arguments don't matter anymore? The review was pure garbage. I have to believe a GAME CRITIC has to be held up to higher standards especially when he is reporter for the Washington Post. When did it become OK for a professional critic to simply turn into an Xbox troll with his main objective to get many views no matter what. He also had an article that said "Is Dark Souls 2 the worst game ever?". Anybody who thinks his UC4 review is a legit is a fool.
In regards to the score, it's totally okay for him to give it whatever he wants as long as it follows naturally from the body of the review. But the rest of the review (whatever is said in it) has to be of a standard that stands up to scrutiny.
The issue I have with this review isn't the score, or even the reviewer's low evaluation, it's the way they aren't approaching the review sincerely, using it instead as a smut piece for cheap shock value. It's the kind of class-less move I'd expect from a sensational magazine, not an outlet billing itself as a reputable publication.
So yeah, 'It is his opinion' is not a mantra that wards off any and all criticism, as much as shitty reviewers would like it to be. And I stress this: It's not the opinion I disagree with, it's the approach to reviewing and methodology by which they arrived at that opinion that I disagree with. An approach and methodology that invalidates the opinion, regardless of what evaluation is contained within.
I've made this point before elsewhere so I'll paste it here (note that I was addressing someone else when I made this post so some of the points my not apply to this thread):
I would use the term 'interest piece' to describe what you are calling an article/opinion piece because if you say a review is an 'opinion piece' people get fixated on the retrograde semantics of whether a review is an opinion/includes an opinion or not (well of course it does. No shit!).
But I do agree with you: A review serves a fundamentally different purpose and is approached with a different mindset/methodology than an interest piece (which is a selective/highly filtered look at a game through a lens of the authors' choosing).
And (to add to what you are saying) yes, its true that a review includes opinion, subjectivity and bias as constants. But for some reason people take that to extremes to mean all concepts of moderation should be thrown out the window and a review should be whatever the writer wants it to be. Anything goes! (hang on there busters! No it doesn't!).
The thing is, people criticising modern reviews (such as you and me) are fully aware that opinion, subjectivity and bias are a constant: the point is what role a reviewer allows these things play in the review.
For example, you mentioned that "A review also should be laced with opinion in order to give depth and a sense of comparison and subjective perspective", and this is completely true.
The evaluation in a review should be judged against the design goals of a game (which will be apparent from observing how the game works). It's just that the act of observation and deducing design intent introduces a degree of (acceptable) subjectivity. This is fine, it's the subjective element working in the correct role. I might not agree with the reviewers' deconstruction of the game, but I wouldn't be able to fault their methodology.
The problem is we have reviewers bringing extra-game frameworks to bear on videogame appraisal, and that makes no sense because that isn't a fair appraisal of the game in the context that matters for a review (what the game is trying to do) but against the reviewers arbitrarily applied personal set of values (at that point you might as well rate down Horror games for being distressful/scary. This is why context matters!). At that point the review isn't actually about the game anymore (context has gone out the window)... It's about the reviewer.
And doing that is fine too... as long as you don't try and pass it off as a review (which is the point you were getting at above: Stick it an interest piece).
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