Can We (Still?) Trust Major Gaming Review Sites?

[exar333]

The only gaming press I ever trusted was PC gamer, in the 90's. Pretty much everything now is either shilled or amateurish (with a few exceptions). Metacritic, Amazon, lots of others can all be manipulated via guerrilla comments and/or reviews or just a target because of something else (DRM, etc) that may or may not really affect the gameplay.

 

[tential]

There is no one place that will give you a complete review on anything. You need to look at a variety of sources, including but not limited to professional review sites. I usually check a big site like Giant Bomb, a game blog like Rock Paper Shotgun, critics like Angry Joe or Spoony, forum reviews, both the positive and negative Steam reviews, and the best negative review on Amazon.

The last source is a underappreciated one I think. The most helpful negative Amazon reviews do a good job of listing what was wrong with a game, which I think is more important to enjoying a game than looking at what is good with it. Having a bunch of mediocre features and a few great ones with no flaws can be more enjoyable than a game with many great features and a few horrible ones.

I've got some great info on games from amazon actually. Under rated source for sure.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

If the game review site takes any money in any way, either directly, in the form of promotions, in the form of ad revenue, user donations or anything like that, they're going to be bias. The question is to what degree.

It seems obvious to me that of the hundreds of millions that some games have in marketing budget alone that the idea of none of that ever working its way into reviewers pockets somehow is simply absurd.

Go on to forums and discuss the game with people who have played it, get a feel for what they're saying, that's generally the best way to get a good feel for the game.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

"Professional" reviews matter ONLY if you regularly buy games within a few weeks of release. Don't even get me started on preorder idiots. The common practice of using early adopters as beta testers after the game has been released is enough to keep any reasonable person from giving a damn what those reviewers say.

 

[shortylickens]

The only gaming press I ever trusted was PC gamer, in the 90's. Pretty much everything now is either shilled or amateurish (with a few exceptions). Metacritic, Amazon, lots of others can all be manipulated via guerrilla comments and/or reviews or just a target because of something else (DRM, etc) that may or may not really affect the gameplay.

PC Gamer used to be awesome but they turned to shit when they had a big staff turnover.

Have not yet seen any source as good as them.

 

[Red Hawk]

If the game review site takes any money in any way, either directly, in the form of promotions, in the form of ad revenue, user donations or anything like that, they're going to be bias. The question is to what degree.

It seems obvious to me that of the hundreds of millions that some games have in marketing budget alone that the idea of none of that ever working its way into reviewers pockets somehow is simply absurd.

Go on to forums and discuss the game with people who have played it, get a feel for what they're saying, that's generally the best way to get a good feel for the game.

Ad revenue doesn't necessarily mean there's a bias. A well run review outlet will keep as much distance between the part of the business that manages advertising deals and the part that writes and edits reviews. If a site that's been paid to run ads for a game has a reviewer who has a negative review of the game and the game publisher doesn't like that, the website management should have the balls to say, "Well, tough. Our reviewer thought your game was bad". Expecting websites to run without ad revenue is an unreasonable expectation.

 

[Subyman]

Example: Dragon Age Inquisition

Gaming review sites give this anything from 8-10, while users (metacritic etc.) have nothing good to say about the game.

There is an extremely wide gap between what players think about a game and ratings on the established sites...

Dragon Age is absolutely a 8+ game. Maybe read the professional reviews. Unlike Metacritic trolls ("Game suxors"), they explain their reasoning for the score. I generally trust Giantbomb (Giantbomb's quick looks are fun to watch) and Rock Paper Shotgun the most. IGN, Polygon, and GS are a little iffy. When GS complained about GTAV's misogyny in the actual professional review, I kindly tuned them out.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Ad revenue doesn't necessarily mean there's a bias. A well run review outlet will keep as much distance between the part of the business that manages advertising deals and the part that writes and edits reviews. If a site that's been paid to run ads for a game has a reviewer who has a negative review of the game and the game publisher doesn't like that, the website management should have the balls to say, "Well, tough. Our reviewer thought your game was bad". Expecting websites to run without ad revenue is an unreasonable expectation.

I didn't say it was a reasonable expectation, I'm simply saying there's always some bias.

Even if what you're saying is true, we have to consider the free market effect where other businesses who do take on extra money for paid off reviews have larger profits, remain healthier as a business (all else being equal) and so over the long term tend to survive against those who remain honest.

When there's a profit in being dishonest then people will be dishonest, the people who don't stand to profit are those you can most trust, that tends to be fans of the games who talk about them because they enjoy the game.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Example: Dragon Age Inquisition

Gaming review sites give this anything from 8-10, while users (metacritic etc.) have nothing good to say about the game.

There is an extremely wide gap between what players think about a game and ratings on the established sites...

Yeah but metacritic user reviews are full of it as well. Dragon Age Inquisition was an awesome game, I highly enjoyed it. I especially find metacritic is ridiculous for RPG games because RPG's seem to attract overly protective fanboys who scream and wail at even the slightest change and give everything a 0.

 

[master_shake_]

Dragon Age is absolutely a 8+ game. Maybe read the professional reviews. Unlike Metacritic trolls ("Game suxors"), they explain their reasoning for the score. I generally trust Giantbomb (Giantbomb's quick looks are fun to watch) and Rock Paper Shotgun the most. IGN, Polygon, and GS are a little iffy. When GS complained about GTAV's misogyny in the actual professional review, I kindly tuned them out.

oh god i saw that.

and my first reaction was hey who gives a hoot and the second was....

uh all the people you kill in that game are men.

gfy gs.

 

[StrangerGuy]

I didn't say it was a reasonable expectation, I'm simply saying there's always some bias.

Even if what you're saying is true, we have to consider the free market effect where other businesses who do take on extra money for paid off reviews have larger profits, remain healthier as a business (all else being equal) and so over the long term tend to survive against those who remain honest.

When there's a profit in being dishonest then people will be dishonest, the people who don't stand to profit are those you can most trust, that tends to be fans of the games who talk about them because they enjoy the game.

The thing is these "professional" review sites depend entirely on the blessings of the devs/publishers for survival to the point the relationship can be classified as incestuous. No independence, objectiveness and unbiasness will ever come out of it. Nobody sane will ever think the publisher will give them a prerelease copy for review if they slammed the publisher hard last time even if that was entirely justified, for example.

 

[IEC]

Conflict of interest in many cases, so no.

 

[pathos]

Well, first of all, I don't let other people tell me if I"m going to have fun or not. So, in that respect, game reviews are pretty pointless.

Not that professional reviews, or message boards and such, never have anything worthwhile to say, mind you.

If a game is buggy, or badly ported from console, or filled with qte's, generally reading what other people have to say will give you a general idea of the state of the game, and that's always helpful.

But, at the end of the day, other people aren't me. It doesn't make their opinion any more or less valid than mine, or anyone else's. It's just, I've never found anyone else's opinions to be a very valid way for me to figure out if I'm going to enjoy a game or not, with just a very few exceptions.

 

[Childs]

The only website I only really trust Giant Bomb, and thats because they were founded when Jeff Gerstmann was working at Gamespot and refused to give Kane & Lynch a good score for Eidos's ad money. Kinda ironic now since I actually liked Kane & Lynch, and now Giant Bomb is owned by CBS Interactive, which owns Gamespot, but whatever.

TotalBiscuit is another one I trust 100%, but he doesn't really do reviews.

 

[Omar F1]

Only one review that counts and that's your own,personally I never go by online review sites because always something I don't agree with,especially when I've the game in question.

Sometimes, I like to check online reviews just to get an overall idea about the game, that's it. I don't give much consideration whether they like it or not.

Through the years, I've seen people complain of every single game out there, why?
I mean, they're just a games by the end of it, just a game that resembles an overall idea from the developers.

I trust the major website opinions far more than the random users over the forums, and as being mentioned by others, I also highly regard a lot of Steam's reviews, which usually represents a true gamers opinion, not a one who is barely interested the games anymore, in which he always complain about everything.

 

[QuantumPion]

The only website I only really trust Giant Bomb, and thats because they were founded when Jeff Gerstmann was working at Gamespot and refused to give Kane & Lynch a good score for Eidos's ad money. Kinda ironic now since I actually liked Kane & Lynch, and now Giant Bomb is owned by CBS Interactive, which owns Gamespot, but whatever.

TotalBiscuit is another one I trust 100%, but he doesn't really do reviews.

I like and respect TotalBiscuit but I don't have the same taste in games or have the same gripes as he does. Same goes with Yahtzee, whom does not like multiplayer games and is a bit harsh against PC games in general. I do like AngryJoe, LevelCap, and Force. My favorite youtuber is Scott Manley although he does almost exclusively space related and/or indie games. The best way to get a balanced opinion is to watch them all, and use your brain to get the whole picture. TB is very picky about old-school PC-specific things. AngryJoe is very picky about gameplay and annoyances. LevelCap good overviews of shooter mechanics, Force is good for blizzard related topics, etc.

 

[Wingznut]

...wat? Metacritc does not equal users. Metacritic is the voice of a small group of trolls which like to bomb polls for games for retarded reasons.

Exactly. :thumbsup:

 

[bystander36]

Even if the scores given on these reviews are positive due to being pressured to do so, the words usually spell out what the game is really like. Don't just look at the numbers. I've seen it go both ways for me, as well. A game that has a low score can be pretty descriptive, and have all the things you like about a game with a few technical issues which will be fixed in a patch.

They key for me is to not rely on the score, but see why they gave it that score. If you know what you like, that is all you really need.

 

[Childs]

I like and respect TotalBiscuit but I don't have the same taste in games or have the same gripes as he does. Same goes with Yahtzee, whom does not like multiplayer games and is a bit harsh against PC games in general. I do like AngryJoe, LevelCap, and Force. My favorite youtuber is Scott Manley although he does almost exclusively space related and/or indie games. The best way to get a balanced opinion is to watch them all, and use your brain to get the whole picture. TB is very picky about old-school PC-specific things. AngryJoe is very picky about gameplay and annoyances. LevelCap good overviews of shooter mechanics, Force is good for blizzard related topics, etc.

Yeah, I don't have the same tastes as TB either, but I can use that as a base and apply it to my own sensibilities. He's very good about PC specific issues, and he's the only one who seems to go into depth about the problems he ran into. The problem with a lot of Youtubers these days is they are treated like press, so they get flown out to events and get advanced press copies of games. Most of guys who came up doing BF vids seem to have gone that way. TB doesn't seem to care, and he seldom gets copies of things early.

 

[ControlD]

I like and respect TotalBiscuit but I don't have the same taste in games or have the same gripes as he does. Same goes with Yahtzee, whom does not like multiplayer games and is a bit harsh against PC games in general. I do like AngryJoe, LevelCap, and Force. My favorite youtuber is Scott Manley although he does almost exclusively space related and/or indie games. The best way to get a balanced opinion is to watch them all, and use your brain to get the whole picture. TB is very picky about old-school PC-specific things. AngryJoe is very picky about gameplay and annoyances. LevelCap good overviews of shooter mechanics, Force is good for blizzard related topics, etc.

Thanks for that list btw. I already check out TB and AngryJoe but I had not heard of the rest.

 

[StinkyPinky]

I like TotalBiscuits style but his taste of games is also not the same as me. However the problems he often highlights aren't genre specific so I find him useful. AngryJoe is more a broad appeal type of guy and doesn't get into the technical side of things too much (often because he reviews the console version) but his taste of games is closer to mine. So between the two I get a decent idea.

If anyone knows any more you tubers that have similar formats to the above, kindly let me know please.

 

[sandorski]

I stopped caring about Gaming sites review scores a long tome ago. They get too caught up in the hype and score too high on the hyped games, IMO. These days I go to YT and watch some Playthroughs to get a feel for the game and that has served me well in deciding.

I really like TBs "WTF is" and other reviews of games. He always makes good points about the games and doesn't get too over the top about his criticisms. He also seems well balanced when the games in question are not the type of games he even likes. Always making sure to point out his game preferences and seeing why others who like that type of game might like the one he is Reviewing.

I really like Angry Joe for about 5 videos. After that I began to loathe him more and more as his over exaggerated style got tiring. Eventually I just Unsubbed as his vids were just more to ignore in my Subs list.

 

[TheSlamma]

IGN hasn't been trustworthy in probably 10 years. They especially have a hardon for sony titles. But hey it's a Rupert Murdock company

Gametrailers.com is the only "major" gaming reviews I really bother with listening to, I agree with them probably about 80% of the time. I think the guy that does the reviews is trying to be honest and fair.

 

[sweenish]

Pretty much every major site has eventually put me off of them. I'll still read a couple, though, and disregard the score.

EGM was a golden beacon for a year or two before everyone picked up and left, similar to the PC Gaming of yore.

- IGN was bought from the time I first navigated to them
- gamespot lost a lot of trust over the Kane and Lynch thing. They just don't seem reputable any more
- I left joystiq for being bought, but they seemed to have changed their tune over the last year or so. Same with engadget.
- destructoid was/is run by mega-douches, I only frequented them for about a month before leaving
- kotaku was decent a while ago, but all pretense of that has been lost for a long time
- polygon was supposed to be the shining beacon, but race to first reviews under publisher-curated experiences resulting in fantastic scores along with their over the top feminism led me to full-out delete my vox account. I had already ditched the verge long ago.

Some of the other sites mentioned I haven't tried. I'll have give them a spin.

 

[Subyman]

Pretty much every major site has eventually put me off of them. I'll still read a couple, though, and disregard the score.

EGM was a golden beacon for a year or two before everyone picked up and left, similar to the PC Gaming of yore.

- IGN was bought from the time I first navigated to them
- gamespot lost a lot of trust over the Kane and Lynch thing. They just don't seem reputable any more
- I left joystiq for being bought, but they seemed to have changed their tune over the last year or so. Same with engadget.
- destructoid was/is run by mega-douches, I only frequented them for about a month before leaving
- kotaku was decent a while ago, but all pretense of that has been lost for a long time
- polygon was supposed to be the shining beacon, but race to first reviews under publisher-curated experiences resulting in fantastic scores along with their over the top feminism led me to full-out delete my vox account. I had already ditched the verge long ago.

Some of the other sites mentioned I haven't tried. I'll have give them a spin.

The writing on Polygon puts me off. They like to make their titles in question form, which really bugs me. "How the Xbox One learned to love games and a low price"

Another thing that bugs me about them is they always act elitist. I found it hilarious when they published an article titled "GTA5's misogyny is a problem its creators must finally address" and then immediately after that they published an article titled "The War against critics is as old as the printing press, gamer gate is just another example."

So they write an inflammatory article saying Rock Star needs to atone for their best selling game ever and then immediately follow that up with "the press is under attack by gamer gate" and how critics are above the medium they critique. Such a joke.