In some ways this is a follow up to my last Evening Topic where we discussed fanboyism. Everything from films to plays gets reviewed in some form or another and video games are, of course, no exception. But video game reviews have a tendency to stir up a lot of controversy, especially among fans of certain games.
Not only are reviews a source of fanboy rage, there’s also a strange eschewment of the review system in general. Certain sites and publications seem almost too soft on games, rarely giving out anything less than a 6/10 while other sites and publications are deemed too hard, rarely giving out their highest grade. So I ask:
- Do you consider certain sites/magazines’ reviews to be more professional than others’?
- Have you ever read a review you absolutely disagreed with, even if you respected the source of the review?
- How much playtime should go into a review?
- Does a game need to be finished in order to be reviewed properly?
I try as best I can to do like as I do with movie reviewers; I actively seek out a couple of writers who’s opinion I mostly agree with, or I know the reviewer well enough to know where our opinion would differ. It also helps a lot if the writer is good at his job, e.g. his style is fluent, witty and informed, consistently.
Lately though, I’ve mostly been getting my game impressions from podcasts. Even if that person has only played parts of the game, you can still get so much more out of a spoken impression about how he feels about the mechanics, visuals or storytelling.
As far as review scales go, I really dislike the 10/100 point scale, for the reasons you mentioned. My favourite scale has to be the 5-star scale, employed by Giant Bomb and the like. 1 is a horrendous game, 2 is pretty bad, 3 is mediocre, 4 is pretty great, and 5 is fantastic. End of story. No room for nitpicking about whether a game is a 7.4 or a 7.5.
I also like Kotaku’s loved/hated system for the same reason, it dispenses of numbers altogether.
@Herman S. Lilleng, would a “3″ game just be a completely average game in every way, rather than just “mediocre”? It could just be me, but mediocre actually sounds worse than “pretty bad”. *Shrugs*
I like the Norwegian expression “midt på treet” (lit. “middle of the tree” for you English speaking types), as it tells you exactly what you need to know.
@Jens Erik Vaaler, This is true, I guess mediocre is the wrong word in that context, rather “good/enjoyable” or something like that. My point being, when a game gets 3/5, you know pretty much exactly how the reviewer feels about it.
P.S. Where is my contributor power? xD
@Herman S. Lilleng, it’s coming, it’s coming. :P