Should Reviewers have to finish the games they play?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-08-13-zampella-reviewers-should-finish-games

I thought this was interesting and want your opinion SW. Should a reviewer be obligated to finish a game before they review, my opinion is no but if they aren't going to finish it, they best have the guts to tell me they didn't. They also should tell me the most important thing"WHY" they didn't finish it.

Depends.

Things like Total War i can forgive for not finishing.

Any game which has a story should be finished, i mean alot of games are less than 10 hours these days, if they can't be bothered to finish them then they shouldn't be reviewing games. Its like a movie reviewer reviewing a film based off the first half hour, its sloppy and lazy.

They shouldn't review the game if they have no intent on reviewing all of the game. SAGE_OF_FIRE

Its a business, not a hobby, while its fair for me to buy a game, play some of it, not touch some of it, and leave it and come back, they are under deadlines and they have to finish games of varying length and quality then write competent reviews that I would want to read. Is it necessary or even possible to finish every game you play under that pressure?

wow it doesnt seem fair to judge a game without finishing it..

thats like talking to a person for 15 minutes and completely judging the way they conduct themselves

at the very least they could say in which reviews they finished the game or have not..

wow it doesnt seem fair to judge a game without finishing it..

thats like talking to a person for 15 minutes and completely judging the way they conduct themselves

at the very least they could say in which reviews they finished the game or have not..

Depends.

Things like Total War i can forgive for not finishing.

Any game which has a story should be finished, i mean alot of games are less than 10 hours these days, if they can't be bothered to finish them then they shouldn't be reviewing games. Its like a movie reviewer reviewing a film based off the first half hour, its sloppy and lazy.

Snagal123

Movies are like 3 hours tops, you can't compare reviewing Toys Story 3 to reviweing the World Ends with You, you won't even fully grasp the content of the game in the time you could watch TS3 4 times.

not good.... how do i delete one of those posts?

It depends.

I mean I want to say it would be like if announcer in a sports game announces the game is over near the end because team A has many more points, only to have team B make a comeback when the announcer wasn't watching. Then again, there are times when we can all agree that a game has no chance of redeeming itself.

[QUOTE="SAGE_OF_FIRE"]They shouldn't review the game if they have no intent on reviewing all of the game. ActicEdge

Its a business, not a hobby, while its fair for me to buy a game, play some of it, not touch some of it, and leave it and come back, they are under deadlines and they have to finish games of varying length and quality then write competent reviews that I would want to read. Is it necessary or even possible to finish every game you play under that pressure?

Depends.

Things like Total War i can forgive for not finishing.

Any game which has a story should be finished, i mean alot of games are less than 10 hours these days, if they can't be bothered to finish them then they shouldn't be reviewing games. Its like a movie reviewer reviewing a film based off the first half hour, its sloppy and lazy.

Snagal123

^This.

It really does depend on the game. For example, a reviewer doesn't have to get all 242 stars in Super Mario Galaxy 2 to write his/her review.

wow it doesnt seem fair to judge a game without finishing it..

thats like talking to a person for 15 minutes and completely judging the way they conduct themselves

at the very least they could say in which reviews they finished the game or have not..

Silent_Grave

A lot of the time the reviewers also have to do other things besides actually write the game, they play more than one game at a time after all. The have previews and events to go to and stories to cover etc. Also, can we stop with the shallow comparisions, you can't judge a person in 15 minutes obviously but the generalquality of many games is pretty damn consistent.

[QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

[QUOTE="SAGE_OF_FIRE"]They shouldn't review the game if they have no intent on reviewing all of the game. SAGE_OF_FIRE

Its a business, not a hobby, while its fair for me to buy a game, play some of it, not touch some of it, and leave it and come back, they are under deadlines and they have to finish games of varying length and quality then write competent reviews that I would want to read. Is it necessary or even possible to finish every game you play under that pressure?

Is that realistic? I am not talking about what would be ideal, I am saying is it realistic to expect what a normal site or print company would contain as staff to finish every game they play. Ideally yes is the case but should it be expected given the realities of the industry?

no. i played twilight princess for 3 hours and knew i hated it. after i started having to play as the wolf and go in and out of the dark world i put it down and never wanted toplay another zelda again. and know the ugly new one won't change my mind.

[QUOTE="Snagal123"]

Depends.

Things like Total War i can forgive for not finishing.

Any game which has a story should be finished, i mean alot of games are less than 10 hours these days, if they can't be bothered to finish them then they shouldn't be reviewing games. Its like a movie reviewer reviewing a film based off the first half hour, its sloppy and lazy.

ActicEdge

Movies are like 3 hours tops, you can't compare reviewing Toys Story 3 to reviweing the World Ends with You, you won't even fully grasp the content of the game in the time you could watch TS3 4 times.

As i said it depends, i can forgive some games. But not finishing a game that is less than 10 hours is lazy, they shouldn't be reviewing games. Don't tell me about pressure and deadlines, that comes with any job, if they can't perform their job then they shouldn't be doing it.

As i said games like Total War, Civ and similar games which aren't about story its understandable. If a game has a story which is essential to the experience then not finishing it but still passing judgement is poor reviewing.

If someone reviewed Heavy Rain without finishing it would that be a good review? No it would be pointless.

[QUOTE="SAGE_OF_FIRE"][QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

Its a business, not a hobby, while its fair for me to buy a game, play some of it, not touch some of it, and leave it and come back, they are under deadlines and they have to finish games of varying length and quality then write competent reviews that I would want to read. Is it necessary or even possible to finish every game you play under that pressure?

ActicEdge

Is that realistic? I am not talking about what would be ideal, I am saying is it realistic to expect what a normal site or print company would contain as staff to finish every game they play. Ideally yes is the case but should it be expected given the realities of the industry?

I say play at least 15 hours into it, if you cannot finish it in that time it either means the game is huge or you were playing slowly and enjoyed it. but for games like batman arkham asylum, I really enjoyed it a lot until the very end which would dampen my review if I gave one. If a game is huge like oblivion or fallout 3, I think the reviewer should just try to get it done and do as many activities as possible.

[QUOTE="Snagal123"]

Depends.

Things like Total War i can forgive for not finishing.

Any game which has a story should be finished, i mean alot of games are less than 10 hours these days, if they can't be bothered to finish them then they shouldn't be reviewing games. Its like a movie reviewer reviewing a film based off the first half hour, its sloppy and lazy.

Seabas989

^This.

It really does depend on the game. For example, a reviewer doesn't have to get all 242 stars in Super Mario Galaxy 2 to write his/her review.

SMG2 is not really a 242 stars game, its 120 and has some extra if you still wanna play :P

But I could have written a fine review of SMG playing up to 80ish stars. Maybe less.

[QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

[QUOTE="SAGE_OF_FIRE"] Higher more staff then. SAGE_OF_FIRE

Is that realistic? I am not talking about what would be ideal, I am saying is it realistic to expect what a normal site or print company would contain as staff to finish every game they play. Ideally yes is the case but should it be expected given the realities of the industry?

They don't review close to every game. They are still looking for hits though and pubs want them to review games obviously. The more games you review the wider an audience you can form.

That would be like reviewing an entire cake after only eating one slice.

[QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

[QUOTE="Snagal123"]

Depends.

Things like Total War i can forgive for not finishing.

Any game which has a story should be finished, i mean alot of games are less than 10 hours these days, if they can't be bothered to finish them then they shouldn't be reviewing games. Its like a movie reviewer reviewing a film based off the first half hour, its sloppy and lazy.

Snagal123

Movies are like 3 hours tops, you can't compare reviewing Toys Story 3 to reviweing the World Ends with You, you won't even fully grasp the content of the game in the time you could watch TS3 4 times.

As i said it depends, i can forgive some games. But not finishing a game that is less than 10 hours is lazy, they shouldn't be reviewing games. Don't tell me about pressure and deadlines, that comes with any job, if they can't perform their job then they shouldn't be doing it.

As i said games like Total War, Civ and similar games which aren't about story its understandable. If a game has a story which is essential to the experience then not finishing it but still passing judgement is poor reviewing.

If someone reviewed Heavy Rain without finishing it would that be a good review? No it would be pointless.

Sure does but as I said, is it realistic for me to expect a reviewer to play a 40 hour main story (40 hours is a work week), write the review and still get out all their other responsibilities? Does that make sense? And even then, there is things like FF13 where some people hated it for 20 hours and then kinda liked the rest. In the wake of reviewing for the masses should they be obligated to play through 20 hours of garbage to get to the good? I sure as hell know as a player I wouldn't.

[QUOTE="Seabas989"]

[QUOTE="Snagal123"]

Depends.

Things like Total War i can forgive for not finishing.

Any game which has a story should be finished, i mean alot of games are less than 10 hours these days, if they can't be bothered to finish them then they shouldn't be reviewing games. Its like a movie reviewer reviewing a film based off the first half hour, its sloppy and lazy.

ActicEdge

^This.

It really does depend on the game. For example, a reviewer doesn't have to get all 242 stars in Super Mario Galaxy 2 to write his/her review.

SMG2 is not really a 242 stars game, its 120 and has some extra if you still wanna play :P

But I could have written a fine review of SMG playing up to 80ish stars. Maybe less.

True.

For SMG2, at least 70 stars for the review.

That would be like reviewing an entire cake after only eating one slice.

mattisgod01

Its the exact same piece of cake regardless of whether you eat the whole thing or not. you can quite literally eat one slice of cake and say whether or not its good :|

[QUOTE="mattisgod01"]

That would be like reviewing an entire cake after only eating one slice.

ActicEdge

Its the exact same piece of cake regardless of whether you eat the whole thing or not. you can quite literally eat one slice of cake and say whether or not its good :|

After 2-3 hours of playing a game I know exactly how much I care for it.

Hell after 5 minutes I know if it something I want to occupy my time with.

[QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

[QUOTE="mattisgod01"]

That would be like reviewing an entire cake after only eating one slice.

SAGE_OF_FIRE

Its the exact same piece of cake regardless of whether you eat the whole thing or not. you can quite literally eat one slice of cake and say whether or not its good :|

or what if the cake you where reviewing had cherries on top and the slice you had didn't have one of those cherries?

After 2-3 hours of playing a game I know exactly how much I care for it.

Hell after 5 minutes I know if it something I want to occupy my time with.

Wasdie

Really?

The tutorial levels of Fallout 1/2 were so boring, and they ended up being some of my favorite games.

Same goes for Pokemon Red.

The Darkness.

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]

After 2-3 hours of playing a game I know exactly how much I care for it.

Hell after 5 minutes I know if it something I want to occupy my time with.

tagyhag

Really?

The tutorial levels of Fallout 1/2 were so boring, and they ended up being some of my favorite games.

Same goes for Pokemon Red.

The Darkness.

[QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

[QUOTE="mattisgod01"]

That would be like reviewing an entire cake after only eating one slice.

SAGE_OF_FIRE

Its the exact same piece of cake regardless of whether you eat the whole thing or not. you can quite literally eat one slice of cake and say whether or not its good :|

Sure but cake is constant throughout, no matter what slice you have it will taste the same. And again, comparing a movie to a painting or book isn't fair. My question isn't whether you get the best picture of quality if you finish it, of course that's the case. My question is that for the industry, who its providing reviews for (the masses) and the realistic shecdule of reviewers, can you write a good accurate, fair (not perfect) review without finishing the game. I think that in the wake of deadlines expecting 100% completeion is unfair and in the wake of who is going to read the review and their tolerance levels, you should be able to play enough of a game to inform them without finishing it in many occations. You do not need to 120 star SMG2 to review it well for example.

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]

After 2-3 hours of playing a game I know exactly how much I care for it.

Hell after 5 minutes I know if it something I want to occupy my time with.

tagyhag

Really?

The tutorial levels of Fallout 1/2 were so boring, and they ended up being some of my favorite games.

Same goes for Pokemon Red.

The Darkness.

Yeah.

There are 3 possibilities for a game.

1. I love the game. I just need more.
2. I'm bored to tears and I see no reason to keep playing.
3. I'm not thrilled at all, but for some reason (external or interal to the game) I feel that the game is going to get better even if it is kind of boring now. So I keep playing

All games fall under those 3 categories for me.

[QUOTE="SAGE_OF_FIRE"][QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

Its the exact same piece of cake regardless of whether you eat the whole thing or not. you can quite literally eat one slice of cake and say whether or not its good :|

mattisgod01

or what if the cake you where reviewing had cherries on top and the slice you had didn't have one of those cherries?

Since you can just pop the cherry in your mouth in ;ess than 30 seconds its rather irrelevant but if its a good cake, a cherry will not turn it into a bad cake. If its a bad cake, the cherries will not magically make it a good cake. You have no point.

[QUOTE="Snagal123"]

[QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

Movies are like 3 hours tops, you can't compare reviewing Toys Story 3 to reviweing the World Ends with You, you won't even fully grasp the content of the game in the time you could watch TS3 4 times.

ActicEdge

As i said it depends, i can forgive some games. But not finishing a game that is less than 10 hours is lazy, they shouldn't be reviewing games. Don't tell me about pressure and deadlines, that comes with any job, if they can't perform their job then they shouldn't be doing it.

As i said games like Total War, Civ and similar games which aren't about story its understandable. If a game has a story which is essential to the experience then not finishing it but still passing judgement is poor reviewing.

If someone reviewed Heavy Rain without finishing it would that be a good review? No it would be pointless.

Sure does but as I said, is it realistic for me to expect a reviewer to play a 40 hour main story (40 hours is a work week), write the review and still get out all their other responsibilities? Does that make sense? And even then, there is things like FF13 where some people hated it for 20 hours and then kinda liked the rest. In the wake of reviewing for the masses should they be obligated to play through 20 hours of garbage to get to the good? I sure as hell know as a player I wouldn't.

I said it depends,i will forgive if a game is very long or very crap, but even then some long games need to be reviewed to the end. Reviewing say Dragon Age or Mass Effect without completing it would be wrong as its a story driven game. Lets not forget as well, game reviewers play games outside of their work hours, because they love games, they don't just have 40 hours.If they're not they should find another line of work.

The better option would just be to take their time with reviews, id prefer to wait for a good review than a rushed lazy review without even finishing the game, but i understand not everyone would agree there because i know some people base everything off reviews and can't come to a opinion on their own.

[QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

[QUOTE="Snagal123"]

As i said it depends, i can forgive some games. But not finishing a game that is less than 10 hours is lazy, they shouldn't be reviewing games. Don't tell me about pressure and deadlines, that comes with any job, if they can't perform their job then they shouldn't be doing it.

As i said games like Total War, Civ and similar games which aren't about story its understandable. If a game has a story which is essential to the experience then not finishing it but still passing judgement is poor reviewing.

If someone reviewed Heavy Rain without finishing it would that be a good review? No it would be pointless.

Snagal123

Sure does but as I said, is it realistic for me to expect a reviewer to play a 40 hour main story (40 hours is a work week), write the review and still get out all their other responsibilities? Does that make sense? And even then, there is things like FF13 where some people hated it for 20 hours and then kinda liked the rest. In the wake of reviewing for the masses should they be obligated to play through 20 hours of garbage to get to the good? I sure as hell know as a player I wouldn't.

I said it depends,i will forgive if a game is very long or very crap, but even then some long games need to be reviewed to the end. Reviewing say Dragon Age or Mass Effect without completing it would be wrong as its a story driven game. Lets not forget as well, game reviewers play games outside of their work hours, because they love games, they don't just have 40 hours.If they're not they should find another line of work.

The better option would just be to take their time with reviews, id prefer to wait for a good review than a rushed lazy review without even finishing the game, but i understand not everyone would agree there because i know some people base everything off reviews and can't come to a opinion on their own.

I think its wrong to cut out of a 40 hour game story and review it but I also know that its not realistic to expect 1 game to be a weeks work. As for reviewers playing games outside of work, well that's fine but realistically that's of their own choice on games they personally like and buy. They have to review games they also won't like. I don't really have interest in DA or ME and am not going to play them on my own time but if its my job I still have an obligation to be fair and not skip out because it was crap to me or boring or too long. I don't think its fair to say, if the game is excessive crap and long you can skip out early but if its DA or ME you can't. That's incredibly unprofessional.

As for taking their time, sure ideally that's what I want but I am talking realistically and realistically most games make their mass bulk of money first month and specifically first week or 2. Can't be posting reviews 2 weeks late for quality purposes in business sadly. Hence why my opinion stands that the game doesn't need to be finished but they need to tell me why it wasn't and how much of it was finished.

Should they have to do 100% of the challenges/trophies no.

They should have to play the whole campaign, and all the game modesat least once.

Definitely. I find it weird that it's someone formerly from Infinity Ward saying it, but he's right. I don't expect reviewers to completely 100% games, as I understand they're under time constraints, but they should complete the main story mode at the very least. For better or worse, people read reviews not just to find out if a game is good, but what content it contains. Gaming journalism is hardly a professional industry, but reviewers still have an obligation not only to the readers, but to the material under review.

Slashkice

Actually, game journalists have more patience than the average person who might pop in a game. If the first 3 hours can't captivate them to keep playing they will most likely just quit. Most reviewers will play more than 3 hours. Honestly, if something is story driven its ideal to finish it but I'm not sure if I really needed to play all of likefinal Fantsay 3, 4 or 5tocomment. The review isn't suspose to ive you a huge narrative breakdown after all.

Not necessarily. It depends on the game. You could review SMG after 30 stars, 60 at the most. On the other hand, to review an RPG after getting only about a quarter of the way through wouldn't be right. The gameplay and story may improve as you progress and become more powerful, or the opposite may happen.

Sure does but as I said, is it realistic for me to expect a reviewer to play a 40 hour main story (40 hours is a work week), write the review and still get out all their other responsibilities? Does that make sense? And even then, there is things like FF13 where some people hated it for 20 hours and then kinda liked the rest. In the wake of reviewing for the masses should they be obligated to play through 20 hours of garbage to get to the good? I sure as hell know as a player I wouldn't.

ActicEdge

The difference here is that it's their job, so yes they're obligated. Game reviewing isn't the only job with strick deadlines and things to do that you don't like. If I'll do half-assed job and won't meet the deadline I would get fired. If they can't finish games and write informative reviews in time, they should seek other jobs.

Yes. They should.

Definitely. The Darkness was a 7/10 until the ending which turned it into a 8.5/10tagyhag

I think its wrong to cut out of a 40 hour game story and review it but I also know that its not realistic to expect 1 game to be a weeks work. As for reviewers playing games outside of work, well that's fine but realistically that's of their own choice on games they personally like and buy. They have to review games they also won't like. I don't really have interest in DA or ME and am not going to play them on my own time but if its my job I still have an obligation to be fair and not skip out because it was crap to me or boring or too long. I don't think its fair to say, if the game is excessive crap and long you can skip out early but if its DA or ME you can't. That's incredibly unprofessional.

As for taking their time, sure ideally that's what I want but I am talking realistically and realistically most games make their mass bulk of money first month and specifically first week or 2. Can't be posting reviews 2 weeks late for quality purposes in business sadly. Hence why my opinion stands that the game doesn't need to be finished but they need to tell me why it wasn't and how much of it was finished.

ActicEdge

When i said crap i did not mean what you think. I think Final Fantasy is "crap" but if i was a reviewer i wouldn't go into it with that attitude as you said its unprofessional. When i meant crap, i meant Big Rigs crap, i wouldn't expect a reviewer to play 20 hours of that before telling me its crap.

I totally agree that if it wasn't finished then they should say why, and how much they did play, but if reviewers aren't finishing 10 hour or less games then something is seriously wrong and i fear that is the case sometimes.

[QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

Sure does but as I said, is it realistic for me to expect a reviewer to play a 40 hour main story (40 hours is a work week), write the review and still get out all their other responsibilities? Does that make sense? And even then, there is things like FF13 where some people hated it for 20 hours and then kinda liked the rest. In the wake of reviewing for the masses should they be obligated to play through 20 hours of garbage to get to the good? I sure as hell know as a player I wouldn't.

Icarian

The difference here is that it's their job, so yes they're obligated. Game reviewing isn't the only job with strick deadlines and things to do that you don't like. If I'll do half-assed job and won't meet the deadline I would get fired. If they can't finish games and write informative reviews in time, they should seek other jobs.

You know that the job of a review is to tell you the opinion of the reviewer on what they played from an objective view right? If I don't finish a 40 hour RPG because the first 20 hours suck and I tell the readers I didn't finish it because playing 20 hours of something that is not fun to get to 40 hours isn't worth it, that's completely fair. And you know that by meeting deadlines because you played 1 game to completion you're sacraficing the quality of everything else you had to work on right?

As for my own view, game reviews suck and they especially suck because the reviewers will not tell it like it is. If the reviewer does not want to play more than 5 hours because the first 5 hours suck, I would rather him or her tell me that than play the rest, conclude it sucks and say the game sucks as a whole. The first is way more honest even if its "unfair" because I as a consumer am not going to play 15 hours of suck if the first 5 hours were complete suck. And no, you don't need to finish a game to write a good review, that's not accurtae at all. And no, you don't need to finish a game to write a good review, that's not accurtae at all. Simple example, never finished Bit Trip runner (2 levels left), I can review it perfectly fine, its not necessary for me to finish it to write a review.

[QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

I think its wrong to cut out of a 40 hour game story and review it but I also know that its not realistic to expect 1 game to be a weeks work. As for reviewers playing games outside of work, well that's fine but realistically that's of their own choice on games they personally like and buy. They have to review games they also won't like. I don't really have interest in DA or ME and am not going to play them on my own time but if its my job I still have an obligation to be fair and not skip out because it was crap to me or boring or too long. I don't think its fair to say, if the game is excessive crap and long you can skip out early but if its DA or ME you can't. That's incredibly unprofessional.

As for taking their time, sure ideally that's what I want but I am talking realistically and realistically most games make their mass bulk of money first month and specifically first week or 2. Can't be posting reviews 2 weeks late for quality purposes in business sadly. Hence why my opinion stands that the game doesn't need to be finished but they need to tell me why it wasn't and how much of it was finished.

Snagal123

When i said crap i did not mean what you think. I think Final Fantasy is "crap" but if i was a reviewer i wouldn't go into it with that attitude as you said its unprofessional. When i meant crap, i meant Big Rigs crap, i wouldn't expect a reviewer to play 20 hours of that before telling me its crap.

I totally agree that if it wasn't finished then they should say why, and how much they did play, but if reviewers aren't finishing 10 hour or less games then something is seriously wrong and i fear that is the case sometimes.

Its my general opinion that if something can be finished in one 12 hour sitting all of it has to be played. But its also my opinion if after 6 hours you have a good enough grip to give me the info I need go for it. Just tell me it was 6 hours so I know how to take said information.

As for my own view, game reviews suck and they especially suck because the reviewers will not tell it like it is. If the reviewer does not want to play more than 5 hours because the first 5 hours suck, I would rather him or her tell me that than play the rest, conclude it sucks and say the game sucks as a whole. The first is way more honest even if its "unfair" because I as a consumer am not going to play 15 hours of suck if the first 5 hours were complete suck. And no, you don't need to finish a game to write a good review, that's not accurtae at all.

ActicEdge

There are reviewers like that, just not from the major sites or mags.