There’s an ongoing discussion around gaming media and the industry these days about the nature of gaming reviews, and whether or not they’re broken in their current state. We here at GamerSushi have been in a lengthy (pages of Facebook threads) discussion about what exactly makes a good game review.
Is it a percentage, a score out of 10, a letter grade, a thumbs up, or some other way of attributing a tangible rating to a product, like gold stars or smiley face stickers? Poop?
The thing that I think makes reviewing games so difficult is that in some cases games are meant to be artistic, much like a film, but they’re also pieces of software that have to function the right way and meet certain standards of quality. It’s simultaneously a critique and a “buyer beware” style product review. You need to inform gamers if what they’re thinking about buying is working or broken, fun or boring, moving or bland, and that even differs depending on if you’re playing Madden or Okami.
It’s like trying to review a blender that plays the movie No Country for Old Men. Games have several functions, so how do you accurately assess all of them in a way that is informative (without having too many spoilers), short (but still dive into the game enough to dissect it) and give a good impression of the game’s overall quality?
Personally, I hate seeing a game given an 8.8 rating. Or a 68/100. What decided those random 2 digits that kept it from being a 9 or a 70? It seems pretty arbitrary to me, and doesn’t seem to accurately relay the information that I find most crucial when making a decision about Super Mario Galaxies or Barbie’s Pony Adventures.
So, what do you guys find most important whenever you read or watch a review of a video game? What helps you identify with a score the most? Is it a letter, a number, etc? Are there certain categories like graphics, sound, replay factor that you have to know about? We’d like to get you, the early users of GamerSushi, involved in this discussion.
We have a pretty good idea of how we’re going to proceed, but we definitely want to hear from you guys. You’re all pretty smart. Except that one guy. You know who I’m talking about.
I don’t look at the ratings that much. There are too many same ratings in different games. (5 stars and etc.)
I get the information how good it is from the text review.
I like the letter grade with the text being the main thing to let you know if you think it will be fun or not.
Scores and ratings mean nothing to me. I like reviews of magazines like EDGE, it’s (somewhat) unbiased information about the game and nothing else. Let the reader decide what score/rating the game should get based on the information provided.
Just my $0.02
Personally, I think the best possible method of rating games is the way MetaCritic does it. Reviewers from a few hundred different blogs and zines each leave a quick comment, just a few sentences telling what they like/disliked about the game, then give the game a 0-100 numeric rating. Meta takes all these numbers and averages them.
This system ensures that the rating is based on all different criteria and not just one person’s first impressions or preconceived notions. One bad review of a game won’t make me any less eager to play it, but when two dozen reviewers join forces to tell the world that a certain game is a waste of money, I’ll usually go with them.
I think reviews, be they percentages, letter grades, what have you, are pointless. Game reviews often give a game a fairly low score, but the reviews read differently. Perhaps a simpler system, something like a Ebert & Roper system.
Maybe it can be divided like this:
Buy
Rent
Don’t bother!
Pretty self-explanatory, and it’s what a lot of people I know use to rate games.
i usually dont go by ratings cause like u said its mostly preference of the critic. he might love it but if its a bad game, the score wont tell u. i like to watch trailers and in game footage and ask myself – is this a game im exited for? will it keep me busy for a couple weeks? and some others but ya, thats about the long of it 🙂
The only problem with MetaCritic is is what happens when only a few reviewers rate on a game, and they all give it easy 100s. A rare occurence, but the top 10 rated PC games of all time are:
1 Half-Life 2 (96)[based on 81 reviews]
2 Out of the Park Baseball 2007 (96)[5]
3 The Orange Box (96)[34]
4 Half-Life (96)[24]
5 Bioshock (95)[44]
I know, the #2 position is an eyesore. 82 reviewers rated HL2, but only 5 rated that random baseball sim nobody has ever heard of. Obviously, more samples taken means a more accurate average.
This list also clearly proves that Valve is the greatest thing to happen to video games, ever.
I never look at ratings, its word of mouth that I pay attention to (And watching others play a game)
Like movies today I think people go more by word of mouth. Review do help though
[quote comment=”382″]i usually dont go by ratings cause like u said its mostly preference of the critic. he might love it but if its a bad game, the score wont tell u. i like to watch trailers and in game footage and ask myself – is this a game im exited for? will it keep me busy for a couple weeks? and some others but ya, thats about the long of it :)[/quote]
That’s why its important to read the text of the review.
I usually read about 4 or 5 reviews to decide. For example, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II only got like 5.5 or a 6 from EGM, but they said that was b/c it brought nothing new since the first game.
Fine by me! I loved the first game and wanted more!
So the text is most important to read the details that will help you decide.
I have never played a Splinter Cell game b/c the trial and error method of getting past a level is not appealing to me. i learned that by reading the review. If I went by the score alone, I would have been disappointed
[quote comment=”378″]Personally, I think the best possible method of rating games is the way MetaCritic does it. Reviewers from a few hundred different blogs and zines each leave a quick comment, just a few sentences telling what they like/disliked about the game, then give the game a 0-100 numeric rating. Meta takes all these numbers and averages them.
This system ensures that the rating is based on all different criteria and not just one person’s first impressions or preconceived notions. One bad review of a game won’t make me any less eager to play it, but when two dozen reviewers join forces to tell the world that a certain game is a waste of money, I’ll usually go with them.[/quote]
I thought the way that worked was there are full reviews on those blogs and sites and metacritic culls those single lines and scores from them.
They still do full reviews.
I don’t bother with reviews really, the people that do them most of the time have no idea of what the game is about mostly. I just ask around my friends if they’ve tried it and what they thought of it but still they are just as worse as the reviewers. 😛
Yeah, it really annoys me when reviewers punish a game for not doing something that it’s not even trying to do, like perhaps docking Bioshock because it didn’t have multiplayer, etc.
Thanks for all the feedback guys. Good discussion going on in here.
For reviewing I’d tell of all the ups and down’s of the games. Mention the really stupid bugs if there are some. Talk about the voice overs, and game play. Then tell them if it has replay value. Then just say Buy, Rent, Pass.
ya, reading the text is good, but it also detracts from whats going on because u cant actually see the game. if someone told u there was going to be a game about everything u liked, it would sound pretty good on paper, but u would have to see it in action to know for sure, so thts why some good gameplay footage is alwayse a way to go (mabey like 5 min or so), unbiased, not opinionated, just the game, and u can like it or not.
Even so, even if u do have the gameplay footage of it, it might not be the good part of it at all. Its hard to explain but I looked @ some reviews on games I had and they blame all the wrong things on it, they weren’t biast towards another game or anything but they only were doing the start of the game which is just a bit annoying ’cause not everything happens @ the start.
[quote comment=”407″]ya, reading the text is good, but it also detracts from whats going on because u cant actually see the game. if someone told u there was going to be a game about everything u liked, it would sound pretty good on paper, but u would have to see it in action to know for sure, so thts why some good gameplay footage is alwayse a way to go (mabey like 5 min or so), unbiased, not opinionated, just the game, and u can like it or not.[/quote]
I don’t necessarily find that to be true. I have been reading reviews in magazines all my life and I never watch video reviews unless its on X-Play. The only reason I would need to see the game is due to the graphics and honestly, thats the least important part of a game for me.
really? could you mention some good sites then, cause the text reviews i read are mostly biased, or based on what the majority wants to hear, and i usually rely on youtube for some videos. ( they can also show gameplay mechanics, how linear it is, and what u can do with it)
[quote comment=”414″]really? could you mention some good sites then, cause the text reviews i read are mostly biased, or based on what the majority wants to hear, and i usually rely on youtube for some videos. ( they can also show gameplay mechanics, how linear it is, and what u can do with it)[/quote]
yeah, what i do is read thefull text of about 3 or 4 sites and based on that, I can tell whether or not I would like the game. Even if they are biased, they describe the game well enough that I know what I like and I can make an informed decision. I really have not seen any bias in any reviews I have read.
I like EGM or 1up.com, ign.com, gamespot, gamespy and xplay. i know people like metacritic to find a bunch of reviews, but gamerankings.com is also very good. If you read all of those reviews for a game and you still can’t decide, then rent it and see, but I have never gone wrong.
For example, they all talked about how great Soul Caliber IV is. I rented it from gamefly and I like it, but I am ready to return it. I know I don’t really like fighting games that much, so I took that into account when reading their reviews and decided to wait and play it myself before rushing out and buying it.