Game Reviews. How Do You Interpret Them?

[VaneWalker]

When looking at a game or preparing for one I assume that people would look at the reviews for the game in question.

Some might only look at the score.
Some Read or watch the whole review.
Some just ignore them.

When studying a game what steps do you take to ensure that you will enjoy it?
When has a review ever contridicted your opinion?
If you do study reviews, What sources do you usually look at first?
And lastly do you think games are being reviewed too biasedly or in a way that is not fair, Are they being reviewed on the Tech or the Fun?

 

[ZeroFox]

I usually look at Gamefaqs message boards and reviews. Also, I look to gaming magazines. A "poor" review won't necessarily prevent me from getting a game, but it certainly influences my decisions.

 

[XACE-K]

I only look to reviews for games I'm on the fence with (as in getting them or not). First, I look at reviews from gaming websites and magazines. Than I rent it to see if it's good or not. If it's good, I buy it. If not, I don't buy it and won't give it another chance.

 

[Bowser King]

Reviews and people's opinionon the game make a pretty big influence to me. Though, If a game like brawl were to get a bad rating, I would still buy it. If it's a game I waited a long time for I don't even care about the reviews. Though if it's a game like AC:CF (which, looking at the reviews, I'm having second thoughts on buying it. I really don't want 3 AC that are almost the same >_>) then reviews play a pretty big part.

-Bowser King

 

[F8AL]

I don't trust Gamespot because they're really biased and hate alot of games. IGN for the win!

 

[§leepy God]

I don't trust Gamespot because they're really biased and hate alot of games. IGN for the win!

I don't trust them both, have you seen IGN reason of rating Kirby Super Star Ultra? But Gamespot did it bad when they rated Fire Emblem RD around a 6 rating.

>_>

 

[GI Josh]

I usually don't trust the reviews at all. the reviewers play a game for like three days, then write their reviews. NOT GOOD

 

[Firus]

Depending, I might read the review. I don't regard reviews for a game that doesn't strike my interest or for a game that hasn't been pointed out to me. If I intend to get the game, or already have it, I generally look at the score and if anything strikes me as odd or surprising, I look at the entire review to see why they said something bad about it. If it's a game I expected to be bad and not get, I generally do the same. Other times, I'll read the full review anyways, I'm not always consistent with this.

But honestly, I don't take many reviews to heart. The only reviewer I give credit to (although I tend to commonly disagree with him) is The Video Game Critic. IGN, Gamespot, magazines...they all have a financial interest in things. I used to trust Nintendo Power, but now they're just a load of fanboys. (MP3 and Brawl the only two games to get a 10.0? No. The Wii is not God. Others got a perfect score, they just didn't have that same system in place.) And even if these guys don't come off as fanboys, you know they're not unbiased, none of them. I read reviews, but I NEVER take those as the final word, especially since I commonly disagree with many reviewers.

And really, that's the smart thing to do. Pay heed to them, listen to what they say (e.g. if they said that the game has this feature), and do listen to their opinions. Just don't assume they're right.
At least, that's my take on it.

I usually don't trust the reviews at all. the reviewers play a game for like three days, then write their reviews. NOT GOOD

Yeah, good point.

 

[urdailywater]

I honestly look at reviews to see what I'm to expect, then I either

Spoiler

emulate

"play" the game for a few minutes to see what the style is like (NDS only though) then just buy it if it looks good from both sides.


The only time this has failed me was with LoZ: Phantom Hourglass and Pokemon Diamond.

And Mystery Dungeon somewhat, they gave that a bad rating but ironically it's imo way better than the 2 games mentioned above.

 

[Minato]

Only reviews I look at are the reviews at GameFAQs, Game Trailers, and EGM. I generally don't use reviews to judge a game. I do like using them as sneak peeks though.

 

[Neon Ness]

I usually go to GameSpot, which is surprising, because after an "incident", I thought I'd never go there again. They actually gave Super Mario Sunshine a lower score than the King Kong video game.

...Mario platformer... vs. ... a movie-to-video-game abomination? And the latter wins somehow?

SIN.

But if I really want a game, sometimes I won't read a review so I won't get discouraged from buying it. And I can't rent games anymore because Blockbuster is all "OMG, give us ur credit kard 2 rent r gamezez nao." Ugh....

 

[M.K]

IGN reviewers are just terrible.
The IGN staff sent a guy who hated customizing and building things to review Spore. I mean, of course he isn't going to like it. If it DID interest him, then it would just prove the point that the game was good.
I trust my OWN reviews. I watch unbiased videos of the gameplay, and decided whether or not to invest more of my time into the game.

 

[Gargomon251]

Most of the times I get as many reviews as I can prior to getting a game, unless it's something I already know and love, like most Zelda, Metroid, etc. games. I usually trust EGM, take a good average from the many GameFAQs reviews, and if I'm still skeptical, I'll check Xplay and see the game in action, as well as asking friends who already have the game. I'll still watch Ben Croshaw just for laughs, but I NEVER take his "reviews" seriously. At least AVGN's games DESERVE to be torn apart.

 

[F8AL]

Only reviews I look at are the reviews at GameFAQs, Game Trailers, and EGM. I generally don't use reviews to judge a game. I do like using them as sneak peeks though.

Why would you look at GameFAQs reviews?

 

[Minato]

Why would you look at GameFAQs reviews?

I look them up because I get to see the lowest possible score and the highest possible score with their opinions. I get to see things half empty and half full from people who aren't paid to do reviews.

 

[Dr Drew the Dragon]

No mention of Gamerankings?

It's like the Rotten Tomatoes of video games...

 

[marthmaster59]

Gamespot is a no.When they rated yoshi's story at 5.0....it was a great game and cuteness should be no factor for your game unless you are gay.

 

[Waka_Waka_do_do_yea]

I look up reviews made by amateurs. Usually done by searching for videoreviews on youtube. GameFAQs do sound like a nice idea, there should be tons of different opinions from there. I do watch gamespots, IGNs or Gt's reviews. But mostly because they have quality videos.

 

[ndayday]

Meh, I don't like reviews. They're just one person's opinions on a game, and they're usually far from what your experiance with the game. Take Metroid Prime Hunters for example. It was wasn't rated that high (I think) for a bad single player and a good multiplayer, but none of those opinions mattered to me because you can use it to talk with random people. =P

 

[Firus]

Meh, I don't like reviews. They're just one person's opinions on a game, and they're usually far from what your experiance with the game. Take Metroid Prime Hunters for example. It was wasn't rated that high (I think) for a bad single player and a good multiplayer, but none of those opinions mattered to me because you can use it to talk with random people. =P

>.>

<.<

You thought that abomination (if you could even give it THAT much) was worth it because you can talk to random people?
Meh.

 

[marthmaster59]

Not for popular games,fanboys fly all around those.

 

[LivewiresXe]

I personally only trust the GameFAQs ones (because there's so many of them you can often get a nice solid opinion), the Gametrailers ones, and occasionally the EGM ones. A lot of other places seem to greatly favour one genre over other, or have some weird system bias or series bias, or something odd like that. I used to like the reviews EGM2/XG/GameNOW did when they were around, too.

 

[Witchking_of_Angmar]

Since I don't get games very often (tight budget plus ripoff european prices) I usually invest a lot of time seeing if it's worth the money. First, I check on GameSpot and IGN. I filter out all the easily discernible trash and give the game a mental score of what the "press" gave it. Then I check on smashboards and other forums that I am familiar with to see if anyone has any comments/reviews/opinions about that game, and use that as the main part of my decision. I also look at youtube videos of the game to see the actual gameplay in motion.

I do this with multiple games and compare ever more precisely until I have a definite winner.

 

[Roihu]

After what they did to Kirby Super Star Ultra (Though, it's not like I trusted them before), hell no.

No mention of Gamerankings?

It's like the Rotten Tomatoes of video games...

This is what those idiots said about KSSU.
"We knew something was wrong after beating the first game, Spring Breeze, in 20 minutes. It's a watered down version of past Kirby games, where you guide the pink fellow through clouds and forests in an inevitable showdown with his nemesis, King Dedede. It's good innocent fun, as you inhale bad guys, spit them out or copy their abilities, enabling you to cut and shoot your foes. But with only four levels, there's no reason to play it again."
No, ****. It's the first level.
"Revenge of Meta Knight is cool, only because you play as that character,"
...
I'm not even gonna say anything.
And just about every other reviewer said it was easy...
LET ME ****ING SEE YOU BEAT THE FREAKING TRUE ARENA!

 

[Gory snake]

I find games reviews too difficult to trust, these people are paid to review a game that they've played a for a few hours. It takes me days to properly play a game and form an opinion of it. I use Metacritic when I want to see how well received a game is, but even then Im not too sure what to trust.

 

[Hyper_Ridley]

Generally I just use reviews to see if there is a consensus on a strength or weakness on a game, but otherwise I don't really care about the score.

 

[Gates]

No mention of Gamerankings?

It's like the Rotten Tomatoes of video games...

I don't use Gamerankings that much, but I thrive on Metacritic. Looking back at games that I've played in the past, Metacritic's score aggregations have been almost spot-on. It's also great that they link to specific reviews to see where the reviewer was coming from if you didn't already know.

In terms of non-aggregate reviews though, I guess I trust Gametrailers the most. Game Informer is second, but I realize they inflate their reviews, so I take them with a grain of salt. IGN and EGM are also people who I trust for reviews, but they're not the first people I turn to.

Honestly though, with a lot of games I'm interested in (like if I'm a fan of the series or something) I won't even look at the reviews except for the fanboy aspect of "MARIO GALAXY HAS A 97 METACRITIC AVERAGE TAKE THAT GAYLO 3 LOLOLOLOL" which I almost always keep to myself.

In terms of scores, I like to think that the scale is from 50 to 100 rather than 0 to 100. With games I find that reviewers usually tack on 5 points for the game just being able to work without an ***-load of glitches, and I don't mean like glitches that you have to work hard to find, I'm talking glitches that are very major and obstruct the ability to just play the game. Because of this, I usually only buy games with scores above 90, with 85 being probably the lowest I'll go. This may make me sound like kind of an overly choosy prick, but if I just bought every game with a score above 75 I'd be spending upwards of $200 a month. By being so selective, I can basically guarantee that I'll be getting my money's worth. The only times this method doesn't work is if the game in question has <20 hours of gameplay, but most reviewers would knock off a few points because of that.

Also, I've found that a general rule on handheld games is to add 5 points to the final score to give it a better scale in measuring up to console games, ie. a handheld game with a score of 85 is as worth buying as a console game with a score of 90.

 

[BloodyPuppy]

I usually base my purchases on gameplay videos, Zero Punctuation videos (taken with a hefty grain of salt obviously), suggestions of friends, previous installments of a series, and pretty much whichever source I can find that's going to be most pessimistic about the game. I based whether or not I would buy Fallout 3 on videos (unimpressive), friend's suggestions (unconvincing), previous Fallout's (Epicsauce), and No Mutants Allowed (Pessimism squared). I didn't end up buying it. Now I'm busy playing old turn based games like X-Com and Jagged Alliance 2. So happy.

 

[VaneWalker]

.I'll still watch Ben Croshaw just for laughs, but I NEVER take his "reviews" seriously. At least AVGN's games DESERVE to be torn apart.

I was absolutly a pissed off mother facker when I saw his brawl review.

 

[BloodyPuppy]

I was absolutly a pissed off mother facker when I saw his brawl review.

As far as I'm concerned, it's really only his fighting game reviews that aren't to be trusted. Pretty much all his other stuff has valid criticisms.

 

[K64]

I usually don't trust the reviews at all. the reviewers play a game for like three days, then write their reviews. NOT GOOD

True, some reviewers do that a lot, but that's where friends come in. I respect some reviewers, they play the terrible games so we don't have to suffer. They sure saved me when Sonic the Hedgehog (06') came out and I was going to recommend it to my cousin.

 

[Red Exodus]

I generally don't trust reviews, I just read them and see what they have to say and if it's a game I want I'll review the review after I play the game.

The worst reviewer [I guess you can call him a critic] I've ever seen has to be Yahtzee. Biggest troll I've ever seen.

 

[Cashed]

Yahtzee's reviews are great to watch after you finish the games. Whenever I watch his reviews and I've completed the game, I generally agree with him.

 

[BloodyPuppy]

I generally don't trust reviews, I just read them and see what they have to say and if it's a game I want I'll review the review after I play the game.

The worst reviewer [I guess you can call him a critic] I've ever seen has to be Yahtzee. Biggest troll I've ever seen.

Oh please, barring fighting games he makes some good points. You just have to take it with a grain (okay maybe like a cup) of salt and do some research on the game yourself. I take what Yahtzee says seriously, but he tends not to be the final word.

 

[Canvasofgrey]

Just a written opinion really.

I see game reviews just as I do with movie critics, they might not find it entertaining, but I sure as hell might.

 

[BloodyPuppy]

Just a written opinion really.

I see game reviews just as I do with movie critics, they might not find it entertaining, but I sure as hell might.

Truer words have never been spoken. Seriously, how did Ebert not enjoy Fight Club? What the hell?

 

[VaneWalker]

I honestly hate movie critics more than anything else.

But when has someone ever pissed you off enough in a review that would make you want to punch babies

 

[§leepy God]

After the review that 1up gave ACCF compare to Wii Music, they lost my respect as well.

 

[GreenKirby]

I stopped trusting them. Especially IGN when they basically flamed Sonic Riders after giving hyping it up as if they played it.

Gamespot isn't any better. Because when they along with IGN reviewed DK: Barrel Blast, it seemed like they played ONLY easy mode. Also, a good number of 'flaws' they mentioned could have easily been mentioned in any Mario Kart game.

And then Nintendo Power. After Nintendo sold Rare, NP basically ****s on any Rare made Nintendo game.

 

[Gargomon251]

And then Nintendo Power. After Nintendo sold Rare, NP basically ****s on any Rare made Nintendo game.

this is one reason I don't trust people that ONLY REVIEW ONE CONSOLE. I can just tell there's bias in there.