Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Game journalism and criticism
Options
-
16-09-2013 11:10pm#1
Comments
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
Join Date:Posts: 50542
I don't read reviews by game journalists... Instead, I read up the various reviews off regular players and the game's forums to get a more balanced view.
e.g. - GameFaq
Christ that's even worse than biased reviewers.
I find a bunch of reviewers I trust and look at what they think of the games and ignore the other idiots at the likes of ign, giantbomb and gametrailers.
0 -
-
Join Date:Posts: 50542
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
I only look at the score
.
I don't like to read reviews as like trailers they tend to ruin the story or set an expectation that I don't want set. They also for the most part commit the biggest sin of all give their personal opinion.
Unless I know them personally their personal opinion is worthless to me.0 -
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
Retr0gamer wrote: »I find a bunch of reviewers I trust and look at what they think of the games and ignore the other idiots at the likes of ign, giantbomb and gametrailers.
I may have asked this before so sorry for repeating but which specific critics do you think do a good job?I'd take the opinion of someone that's played hell of a lot longer than a journalist that's only played the game for a few hours...
Game journalists often get a few days to devote to just playing the game and most publications won't review it until they've played to the end (where possible). A person on the internet, unless you're already familiar with them, could have never even played the game. I remember seeing a huge comment thread where a guy kept coming back to bash Mass Effect 3 and eventually conceded that he had not even played it once and was basing his opinion on a video walkthrough.Had this discussion quite some time ago, and for such an accepted given, it amazes me how little evidence exists to substantiate it...
...Is there any other cases that folk can cite?
There was Doritogate too which was pretty infamous.
It doesn't suggest a sort of Gamespot-like "we were paid by these guys so we're going to give them a good score" situation but it isn't good when journalists get involved in promoting anything at all, whether its Mountain Dew or Halo (or both as in this case).
Like I said, I don't think there's any actual corruption going on here but there's a perception that the people we depend on to tell us if games are good or bad are being marketed to the same as us before the game even comes out. Opinions can be swayed by things such as exclusive interviews, good relations with the magazine, free merch and so on.Easier said than done. A review is about personal preference. I genuinely couldn't give GTA V any more than 3/5, because IMO it's not that great a game. It scores that highly because it's a great technical achievement, is huge, has loads to do and has pretty spot on mechanics. It loses the 2/5 because it's dull, repetitive and devoid of any enjoyment after 5-10 hours. All IMO
That IS me rating the game on its own merits, but I'm someone who doesn't particularly like the game, finds the series boring and isn't a genre fan. You wouldn't have someone who's got no interest in football review FIFA, for example
That sounds like a valuable review to me though. If all of these publications giving GTA full scores put their biggest GTA fan on the job then that is even worse (just an example, can apply equally to any franchise). The opinions of someone who hasn't been impressed by previous iterations matter, because at least then gamers who also weren't impressed with the previous iterations will have someone to take on board.
Personally, my own favourite critic is Ben Crosshaw of Zero Punctuation. I know he's not perfect and his reviews take more time out for jokes but even then, I find them a lot more helpful than the stuff from the IGN, Gamespot et al crowd. I don't always agree with him but he usually makes good points even then. He has a reputation for just picking out the worst parts of games and exaggerating them but most people seem to skip the fact that he does actually recommend plenty of games, just that he points out flaws in these ones.- He gets no benefits from the devs, even having to buy the game he's reviewing himself on release date in most cases.
- He almost never talks about the technical stuff that others devote way too much time too (imo), at best giving a sentence to say "it looks really nice/like ass".
- He never seems to get sucked into hype, even making a chart to demonstrate why.
- He tends to just come down harder on sequels to games he liked for not living up to predecessors and his biases against certain games are generally pretty clear and consistent.
- Finally, no scores, just words.
So yeah, I would like to know any reputably sources to check out for other reviews too though.0 -
-
-
-
-
-
-
Join Date:Posts: 50542
I may have asked this before so sorry for repeating but which specific critics do you think do a good job?
The guys at USGamer are all very good, in particular Jeremy Parish who is fantastic. They have a guy there Pete Davison who I completely disagree with and likes some awful crap but he's a great reviewer and backs up his views really well.
I really like Ellie Gibson from Eurogamer. She gets to review an awful lot of crap and yet she always does entertaining reviews.
Freelancers I like would be Kat Bailey, Bob Mackey and Ray Barnholt.
I really like Adam Sessler from Rev 3 games. His co-hosts and reviewers are pretty poor but the Sess is fantastic and really goes in depth on games.
That's just a few off the top of my head.
0 -
Advertisement
-
Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 29,430 CMod ✭✭✭✭
Join Date:Posts: 28141
Actually no, we need a lot less of what she does. Critics need to actually know the genre they're dealing with. They need to speak with a voice of experience and hard earned knowledge about the history of it. Critics like her really just stir ****. Which is good for making money off ads but not very interesting really in terms of contributing to the genre. Criticism from out the genre can be very funny, I remember certain literary fiction writers taking J.K. Rowling to task many years back. Their essays were interesting sure, did they have any impact on the young adult fantasy genre? No. Not a bit.
I'm a little confused about what you mean here. As in any critic who comments on a specific genre needs to an expert? Sure there's always a place for the specialist, but there's also a need for more general observers and commentators here. A film critic might specialise in, say, Asian or horror cinema, but they could have incredibly interesting things to say about the romantic comedy they stumbled into by accident. There's tonnes of great writers out there with a narrow, particular focus, but equally there's lots with an extremely broad, all-encompassing one. Both, IMO, are needed in a robust landscape.
Just to restress I don't think Feminist Frequency is a great critic. I think she makes some interesting points and often very well, but I can see her approach taken to a completely different level in different hands.There is nothing absurd about any of those concepts.
Games often share elements with literature and film but that is by no means the whole story.
They also share elements with sports or other hobbies.
Every game doesn't need to be a narrative masterpiece. You could have a brilliant game that has no story at all. Equally you can have a game that doesn't seem much like a traditional game - more of an interactive story.
A game just needs to be true to itself and acheive what it sets out to do.
Is Crysis 3 a masterpiece of storytelling? Of gameplay? Probably not.
Is it a technical marvel? Absolutely. That's why it's a lot better than some people give it credit for. It routinely took my breath away at how amazing it looked.
You could just as surely have a game with an engrossing plot, complex and interesting characters but if all the game mechanics are ****e and you don't want to play it then the game could well be terrible.
Dismissing some of the technical aspects of gaming when they are every bit as important as the cultural aspects is very narrow-minded.
Didn't make myself clear enough on this point either, apologies. I am not for a second denying technical details are important (personally, I'd put a little more emphasis in the cultural experience, but that's just the way I approach media). Some games are technical marvels, and there's a lot that could be said about the way the likes of Crysis build worlds in giddy, geeky language (I mean that in a nice way). I do take particular issue with replayability though
I'm often amazed how people will dismiss a game almost entirely because the designers haven't built the game with multiple playthroughs in mind. That is, I'll use the word again, an absurd way to look at things.
I think I object more to box ticking reviewing. As in the way some publications read like they're just going 'Graphics. Check. Longevity. Check. Voice acting. Check.' These are no doubt worth considering, but in a way every single game needs a unique approach. I can't write about Gone Home and GTA V in the same way. Many publications and many gamers absolutely refuse to acknowledge this, though. IGN used to be the worst, although they seem to have (thankfully) changed - using a specific set of criteria to judge and rate every single game. That's an extraordinarily limited approach to writing about games. The graphics in some games might warrant a brief, throwaway remark, but the mechanics justify 100s or 1000s of words. Writing needs to be much more adaptable depending on the circumstances. It's why ideas like the 'post script' section in Edge are a great idea - allowing the writer to focus on what they really want to talk about, and expand on their ideas without being tied to a rigid 'review' formula.
Alas, one doesn't need to look far (metacritic, gamefaqs etc...) to see how narrow-minded some gamers are when it comes to discussing games in any depth. They get hung up on things like price and length, and have an inability to discuss the core game itself in any depth. Honestly, a lot of the problem is that games journalists react to the gamers - and the gamers that speak up are often the ones not worth listening to.0
Advertisement