Ciara O'Brien's reviews in the Ticket

gearoidof

Hi all,

I'm just wondering if anyone else has noticed how tepid Ciara O'Brien's game reviews in the Ticket are?

I get the definite feeling that she just quotes the press release, and having trawled through her back catalogue of reviews, I can only find 1 review in which she didn't give 3 or 4 stars, and that was for "Sonny with a chance".

It's a startling contrast with Joe Griffin, who can be quite inciteful.

Dcully

emm ! who is Ciara O Brien and what is the ticket?
Excuse my ignorance but as a gamer i havent a clue what your talking about.

gearoidof

Sorry, the ticket is the Irish Times' Friday supplemental. With a Gaming review section:
http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/gaming/

Zeouterlimits

The gaming page in the Ticket is not great, no. Still, covering games like Blacklight is pretty good for a mainstream paper, I was happily surprised by that when I read it this morning.

K.O.Kiki

I just read a Joe Griffin's "review" of Naughty Bear.

It was 2 and a half paragraphs, of which 1 full paragraph was just marketing blurb, and he failed to give a clear "buy/don't buy" in the final sentence.
" I imagine a sequel might iron out its flaws. " is not as good as "don't buy this game, it's not worthy of your money".

Shiminay

This is the same Irish Times that ran an article saying that MS Kinect was a headband that you wear in order to make it work... Xbox forum thread. I really don't know why main stream press bothers if they're not going to at least make a token effort.

Helix

i seem to be the only one in the irish gaming press who balls out abuses a game if im in a bad mood

Vim Fuego

I follow Ciara O'Brien on twitter. I would, based on pictorial evidence.

But yeah, ****e Irish press reviews are the norm at this stage.

Agricola

Read one or two game reviews in the regular media and by and large its a waste of time. It always comes across as a half arsed tip of the hat to an industry that still isnt taken that seriously. Id love to see people who know their games, doing proper reviews which are of the standard of movie reviews, appearing in the likes of the Times or the Indo.

Helix

we try to do that with our reviews in the herald every week tbf

its just we dont bother running reviews for games we hated, since theres one column a week and not enough space to bother with super crappy stuff

Coriolanus

Helix wrote: »

we try to do that with our reviews in the herald every week tbf

its just we dont bother running reviews for games we hated, since theres one column a week and not enough space to bother with super crappy stuff

Do a five inch must buy vs avoid at all possibility countdown? Or something. :P

Mindkiller

I find the Ticket a great resource for movie reviews. Wouldn't turn to it for game-buying advice though.

thewheel2.0

Huh if you Google "ciara o'brien irish times" this tread crops up... kinda has to be damaging to have a thread raging on her reviews, doesn't bode well for her career. You'd have to feel sorry for anyone writing games reviews in mainstream media, especially in this backwards country.

CiDeRmAn

But really, with the ubiquity of internet based review sources, why would anyone read a page in the times for a game review, and then consider it definitive?
I mean, really?
Who would get their primary gaming information from a newspaper?
When you can just Google the game, or go to www.gamefaqs.com instead?
Anyone trusting such crap deserves to be spoonfed whatever rubbish the papers sell them.
And don't think a good deal of the papers reviews aren't just promo material reprinted.
Be warned if the reviews section is "sponsored", that just means "bought"

Helix

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Be warned if the reviews section is "sponsored", that just means "bought"

in a lot of cases yeh

i wont give someone a favourable review if their game stinks tho, for any reason

we have a good relationship with ubisoft, for example, but i still called pure football worse than a terminal illness and gave it 0

johnny_ultimate

Definitely not the strongest section of the tickets, but a decent start. I sometimes enjoy the column they right, although I think they are limited to one page in which they have to stuff in four or five reviews and a column. Some of the game reviews are quite limited and basic, but in fairness they don't have the space for in-depth analysis - a few basic gameplay summaries and a final opinion line or two.

Incidentally, there was an amusing article written by the male reviewer a few weeks back on how bitter some gamers have been in corresponding and communicating with him (while also noting how helpful and useful others have been). We gamers certainly are a vocal bunch :P

quarryman

Helix wrote: »

in a lot of cases yeh

i wont give someone a favourable review if their game stinks tho, for any reason

we have a good relationship with ubisoft, for example, but i still called pure football worse than a terminal illness and gave it 0

who do you review for?

Menengroth™

quarryman wrote: »

who do you review for?

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=67093996&postcount=10

anonymous_joe

The gaming section of the Ticket's very new. It'll get better with time.

Helix

quarryman wrote: »

who do you review for?

games editor of click magazine, and we do game.ie and the herald's gaming section

po0k

Helix wrote: »

i seem to be the only one in the irish gaming press who balls out abuses a game if im in a bad mood

Objectivity above all else.

Helix

im perfectly objective, ill just be meaner than normal if i feel like it. the score wont be any different, ill just go to town on it with my word bullets, posing rhetorics like "are your mothers proud?"

testicle

Vim Fuego wrote: »

I follow Ciara O'Brien on twitter. I would, based on pictorial evidence.

But yeah, ****e Irish press reviews are the norm at this stage.

Have you heard her on Matt Cooper's show on Today FM? You'd get sick of listening to that voice.