Is it fair...

[drunken monk]

... to judge a game biased on something its not and never tried to be? Personally Im tired of reading reviews where games get points taken off for not doing things they never set out to do in the first place.

When Im reading a review for Alien Breed I dont want to see negative comments about how mindless it is. Maybe thats what Im looking for and thats obviously the kind of game they set out to make. I want to know if they did it right.

When Im checking out a review for Enslaved I dont want to hear about the fact that it doesnt have a multiplayer component and how it hurts the overall value. Thats bs. Does God of War have multiplayer? What about DMC? Ninja Gaiden? No one buys action games like that for multiplayer. They buy it for an epic single player experience and thats what I want to hear about. I want to hear about combat, story, character development, etc.

A games length should be stated but I dont think points should be taken off for that either. Id much rather buy a great 9 hour game with no filler then buy a good 15 hour game with 4 hours of filler.

And why do we have filler and shitty multiplayer modes in games? Reviews. For the first time in video game history reviews are having a very negative effect on most games.

I hated Alone in the Dark but Im willing to bet that if they spent all the time they invested developing filler, to polishing the rest of the game, it could have been good. If they werent worried about game time affecting review scores we could have had a good 7 hour game instead of a 12 hour glitchfest.

Same goes for multiplayer. Multiplayer modes have a profound effect on review scores and most developers feel obligated to make one. The problem is that not every company has the resources to do both single player and multiplayer right.

Dark Sector could have been great if they didnt spend development resources on multiplayer. Instead we got an average game with average multiplayer that died within the first month of its release.

I really think the review structure we have going right now needs to change. Its hurting the industry more then its helping. You can say that review scores dont matter but you know deep down thats not true. There could be a game out thats exactly what your looking for but would you honestly drop your hard earned cash on a game with a metascore of 60? I doubt it.

Thoughts?

[The Revolution]

The innate problem with reviews and reviewers is that it's just as much of a business as the games themselves. They do have to pander to their market. A lot of them shift for the new thing to hold you over until the next GTA comes out, or the next God of War. because let's be honest, it might not be anyone in this forum, but the average gamer sits in his bed and wets himself for the next installment of his favorite game.

Hell, it MIGHT be a lot of us in this forum. We are on a strictly rpg forum here. However, our Genre is not catered to by media at large, so we can pretend to be indie.

Multiplayer goes a long way in selling a game. I don't find it's the same for an RPG, but if you're shelling out 60 bucks for a mindless button masher... you're going to feel robbed after 5 hours of playing and the only incentive of playing again is that you have a new costume. Multiplayer extend the life of something that you might have experienced all before.

Oh, the reason why it's not the same in my head for an RPG is that it's like a very interactive book. Characters, settings, plot and what not sweep you in. You want to experience it again. Games without that type of development normally grate on me. It soon boils down to "Press joystick forward, tap on A until you find the credits". You do the exact same thing with Rpgs, but at least you have characters to like or hate while you're doing so.

You're right, though, as reviewers are now the fanboys. And personally, I want my reviewers to be fair removed and critique it on it's own merits. Everyone's milage will vary depending on what you like, so I rather have the specs than the editorals. Telling me it's a grind fest, good. Telling me it's a grind fest but not as well done as something WoW did, bad. I just care if it's a grind fest, I don't want you telling me someone else did it better.

[Cyrus the virus]

I think that most people who review anything, not just games, don't have much of a clue about what they're doing. It's one thing to play a game and provide your opinion, but another thing altogether to pick it apart and review it.

Games need to be approached without bias or expectation and reviewed based on what they provide and not what the reviewer wishes it was. Basically, fuck reviews. You can usually get a bit of information about a game from a review and draw your own conclusions, but it's mostly easier to just watch some videos on youtube.

[drunken monk]

Demos go a long way too but not every game is fortunate enough to have one. I am very glad that all XBLA games have demos. Personally its hard for me to drop money on an indie game without trying it first.

[Raph]

I like demoes.

[Ges]

I've had the same problem with many people hating Chrono Cross for not being Trigger. Taken by itself, it was a great game. People said it can't be Chrono because it was just a gussied up Radical Dreamers. I have yet to meet one person who has ever played Radical Dreamers. Regardless, none of them even realized Radical Dreamers was a) a text adventure and b) was meant as an epilogue/side story of Chrono Trigger anyway. A lot of the uninformed had never heard of it and simply stated it wasn't Chrono-themed and were taken aback as to why Square would use an unrelated game to serve as a backbone for Cross. Of course, they didn't get it at all. That annoyed me to no end back in the day.

CC was great, not Trigger great, but not being Trigger doesn't mean it sucked.

[Ges]

That's what I'm saying, people make it out like CC was shit just because it didn't live up to CT, and it wasn't shit at all.