[QUOTE="AdrianWerner"]

[QUOTE="MithrilFox"]

Critics are not professionals, they are opinionated gamers like you and me... they just happen to have a bigger forum for their opinions to be heard.

dakan45

Just because objectivity comes into play doesn't change that. We produce material for a living. Nothing else. You could just as well say journalists and developers aren't professionals either.

No matter what, it all comes down to people having differences of opinion. This is even less certain then the idea of "best practices," the notion that there is a best way to do something within a somewhat subjective field, such as teaching.

While people can agree on certain things being good for a profession, such as an organized, logical flow, beyond the idea of planning and the presentation quality, there is little in reviews that isn't subjective. If the video is just a guy talking slowly with a lot of "umm, like ya know, it's kinda cool," sure it's not a great review... but now we're just reviewing the reviews.

Let's do it guys, let's create a website that reviews the reviewers. Each review video they release, we'll critique it and give our opinion on how well they present their position.

[QUOTE="TonyDanzaFan"][QUOTE="wiouds"]

There are many moral chooses in RPGs these days. Do you think they are needed or not?

I find that many mortal chooses are not important and have no real affect on the game but for the very end of the game. They have little affect on the game play.

wiouds

Sorry your reading skill is too poor to understand a message typed in a rush.

In his defense, your message was pretty bad. "Choices" not "chooses," which you wrote twice. "Effect" not "affect," which is a verb. "Moral" not "mortal."

I just assumed you were not a native English speaker.

I have a very hard time understanding how quality can be in any way subjective. IMO, quality is purely competence from technical merit, and nothing more. Quality is quality, and opinion or preference doesn't determine or change that. If it does, I would like someone to explain to me why and how. That someone gains/does not gain enjoyment out of something is irrelevant in my book. I can't see this argument, yet everyone seems to say it's subjective. Belief does not dictate reality. I just don't get it.

Rekunta

Sure, maybe if we're talking about cars, or firearms, or computer monitors. But when it comes to books, movies, games, or any other creative product, quality itself becomes pretty subjective. We would like to think otherwise, and to try to "prove" our case we would point to things that we felt were "obviously bad" or "obviously good."

Problem is, some reviewers will heavily criticize something while others will praise it as truly spectacular.

With a firearm, you have material construction with comparisons of ruggedness and reliability, you have ballistics testing, you have accuracy and consistency, etc. If the gun frequently jams or if the sights are off, we can talk about quality.

With computer monitors we have measurable numbers like the resolution, viewing angles, pixel pitch, contrast ratio, response time, etc. You can measure the quality with a very certain degree of objectivity.

Similarly with cars, you can measure various aspects of the vehicle, such as the smoothness of the ride, gas mileage, carbon emissions, reliability, crash test ratings, etc.

Now, what concrete measurable variables can we measure in a game, book, or movie that define "quality?" Maybe in a book we can go for grammar, but even then, what if the character speaking in the dialogue has bad grammar, is that a lack of quality on the part of the author?

Let's face it... it's nearly impossible to come up with concrete numbers for the quality of a game itself. Even attempts at measuring the quality of something like the graphics falls short.

Take a look at GameSpot's review for Epic Mickey for the Wii. Now go to GameTrailers and see what they are saying. RADICALLY different reviews. GameSpot makes it clear that the reviewer just can't stand the game at all, calling it "no fun." GameTrailers praises it's many great qualities, while saying that the flaws it does have doesn't diminish it's value.

Tell me about "quality" in a game gain, please.

P.S. Also, may I suggest that since the purpose of a game is to provide entertainment, if a game is not entertaining would that not mean that it fails to accomplish it's intended goal? It's like food that tastes bad.. would you still say it's high quality despite tasting bad? Likewise, can a game be "high quality" and yet not be fun?

Well, "fun" itself is subjective. People are out there playing MineCraft, which is terribly tedious and boring to me... but whatever, some people are going nuts over it.

I agree with some of it. The old Gamespot rating system here made it possible to rate on 5 different aspects of the game and whatever came out as the average score was the score. Now you can only put a score in there without really having to justify it.The_Last_Ride

I used to like that kind of system, I thought it was "fair and balanced" (FOX News anyone?). Now, I realized that it's a bit misleading. I've played some games that were incredibly fun, yet the graphics absolutely sucked (Boom Blox on the Wii, for example). I just couldn't give those graphics anything above a 2 out of 5 at best. Yet, that doesn't detract from the fun factor *at all*. In fact, it has zero effect on the enjoyment of the game. So, if that's the case, why should it negatively affect the final score?

I think many review companies were realizing this and stopped doing composite scores. But then, what is their final score based on? I'd like to know the exact details, and a step-by-step explanation of the difference between each spot on the scale, such as the difference between 8.2 and 8.3, or 6.7 and 6.8. If the precise difference cannot be clearly articulated (with an understandable margin of error), it's an arbitrary score.

Therefore I stick to a six-part system. It's prety easy to explain each step of the 6 possible scores, while it's nearly impossible to imagine a possible explanation for the 110-point system of 0.0 to 10.0. I think I did that math right.

Think about it... that's 110 possible levels for a game to be scored on... how can they possibly know the distinction between them? Is it a composite of several reviewers scores? That might make a little more sense, but there's no such clear definition.

And sometimes, I get the feeling that there is more behind the scenes than just the review. If they are getting free copies to review, is there any expectation from big-name developers that their game will not receive a significantly negative review?

Free copies? Free copies are nothing. For an established reviewing site or magazine, the hundred or so dollars they'd need to spend on review copies would be a pittance.

The larger problem, and the biggest problem with professional reviewers in general, is that the vast majority of their ad revenue comes from videogame companies. Go grab a gaming magazine and see how many ads there are for toothpaste or Honda Civics. Very, very few. Having people who are financially dependent on the products they are reviewing, even indirectly, is a problem. Here's an article about an example I cited earlier : http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/09/publishers-allegedly-blackball-egm-for-negative-coverage/ EGM didn't like Assassin's Creed, and Ubisoft pulled their ads and denied EGM access to their upcoming titles because EGM dared to be critical of their AAA title.

The only analogy I can think of for this would be political news reporting being written by congressional aide: how can you ever really trust what someone says about the people who they rely upon for their jobs? Without access, without ads, *poof*, no magazine, no website.

xSkiFreeProMLGx

Exactly. That's why I trust well-done reviews by random YouTubers. I'm not a fan of people who just hit "record" and start talking out of their @$$, but there are a lot of YouTube reviewers who just sit back and play the game, then tell us whether they enjoyed it or not and what they thought about it. No expectations from developers, no ads. The only issue there is that few gamers will intentionally buy a title they know they won't like, so a reviewer who has to buy their games will generally only buy games they like and tend to give positive reviews to most games (unless they are betrayed by a bugged-out title like Fallout: NV).

That's why I enjoy reviewing demos. They're free, easy to get ahold of, and I can actually encounter games that I might give a low score to. I'm not going to go out and get a piece of crap game I know sucks, but I'll download the demo and give it an honest play-through.

-----

At any rate, I also thought about another issue. I should have stated that game critics are not "professional game critics." They may be professionals in the sense of the journalism, writing, and presentation of their craft, but the actual critique of the game itself will *ALWAYS* be highly, highly subjective. Sure, broken controls or graphics that make it hard to tell what's what are obviously bad. How do we decide they're "obviously" bad? Because the controls won't let you do what you're supposed to do, or keep getting you killed not based on your own error. Because the graphics are so crappy that you couldn't tell something was a door or an item you could pick up, and therefore got stuck for a while figuring out what to do.

Truth be known, I find that the bigger a "reviewing" company gets, the more they tend to stray from the average gamer.

I'm going to refer to a reviewer I do like, ZeitgeistReviews on YouTube, who said something to the effect, and I paraphrase, that "many game critics seem to have a stick up their ass."

It's true. Other than a few select titles, I seem to walk away from most reviews feeling like they harped mostly on what they didn't like, and even managed to give a negative spin to aspects that were otherwise good (that they liked).

And sometimes, I get the feeling that there is more behind the scenes than just the review. If they are getting free copies to review, is there any expectation from big-name developers that their game will not receive a significantly negative review? Also, do they avoid excessively positive or negative reviews in fear of viewer/reader reaction? I couldn't believe that FFXIII got such good reviews despite the fact that I really, really felt that it was pretty mediocre (that is, of course, my opinion).

And even moreso, what is the purpose of the review? What are we ultimately reviewing? How much do the graphics impact the review, and if that doesn't matter to some gamers, isn't it useless to them to include graphics in the composite score?

My favorite reviewers are those who seem to know how to sit down and just try to enjoy a game for what it is. If you encounter snags or issues that make you bored or annoy you, then start to harp on those. If you enjoy the game and just notice some minor flaws, mention them but don't beat a dead horse over 'em.

Here's my basic perspective: I sit down, play a game, and pick a score from 0 - 5 based on the definitions I gave. There is a clear difference at each step, and I could explain why each game got the score it did. As a teacher, and as a student of teacher college before graduating, I am and was required to justify each and every point in my rubrics. What's the difference between a 9 score and an 8 score? What constitutes a 2 out of 3 points? What, exactly, does a student need to do in order to get 2 points in this aspect of their presentation?

I see these scores, but where is the explanation? It's almost as if we read or watch this relatively long discussion of the game, and then BAM! "Here's a number we came up with it." How about an explanation of the score? They do give some general explanation of the numbers, but it's more of a conclusion based on the number rather than a definition. They paint the explanations with broad strokes. I know that there is no exact science here, but it could be a lot more specific than just... "WHAM BAM, here's a number for ya!"

Also, another HUGE, HUGE ISSUE that everyone ignores: the mood of the reviewer. Let's be real honest with ourselves... are we always in the same "gaming mood?" No, of course not. If you're like me, sometimes you're in the mood for a good FPS campaign, but other times you'd prefer a single-player JRPG. Sometimes you want to get really deep into a western RPG like Oblivion, and other times you just want to play some mindless hack-and-slash fun. Sometimes I want to just play slayer mode in Halo: Reach, other times I want to solve environmental puzzles like in Zelda or Darksiders.

What was the reviewers mood? I know that I've occasionally picked up a game that just happened to hit the right spot at the right time, and when I go back to it a year or two later, I realize that it wasn't *as* good as I thought it was.

Think of it this way: how good does just about any food taste when you haven't eaten anything all day long? Yeah, it's a lot more appealing than when you had a big lunch. And how good does Mexican taste when you're just not in the mood for Mexican? Sometimes I want a big juicy burger, other times I want to eat chicken and broccoli. It's all in the mood sometimes.

[QUOTE="MithrilFox"]Yes, sometimes bad graphics are bad and bad controls are bad, but other than what is obviously bad, it's hard to label something as "fun" or "good," because one player will love it and laud it as the best game ever, and another will say it's a "piece of crap." Obviously there is some hyperbole going on, but how can two gamers have such varying opinions of the same game? We could argue that a "professional" critic rises above personal favorites or preferred genres to evaluate a game on its own merits whether they personally enjoy it or not, but that's really a crapshoot. There's just no substitute for the opinion of someone who enjoys the same style games as you. MrGeezer

I could ask a different question.

If you freely admit that sometimes something is "obviously bad", then how can you keep harping on the idea that reviews are nothing more than opinions?

*sigh*

Another complaint about unfair review scores.

Why would you care about the score anyway, when any and all possibly relevant content is in the review?

MrGeezer

This is the problem I have, check out these two reviews from different "professionals" on the same game on the same platform: The core first-person melee combat is incredibly solid and the exploration, storytelling, and character growth are integrated brilliantly to create a unique and compelling experience. And then: When I previewed the game in September it oozed potential greatness, but somewhere along the line Arkane and Ubisoft have lost their way and we're left with what I can only deem as half a game. Really? A compelling and enjoyable experience, and then "half a game?"

EDIT: Might I also add that other reviewers said the story was awful, while this one said it was "integrated brilliantly."

Do food critics eat something and think it's absolutely disgusting, and then other food critics eat it and think it's amazingly delicious? Maybe, I dunno, but clearly reviewing is not an exact science by any stretch of the imagination, and reviewers and critics need to stop presenting their opinions as if they were fact.