Have Reviews Gone Too Soft? - jkra0512's Blog

jkra0512's Blog

Have Reviews Gone Too Soft?

Posted on November 20, 2010 at 11:53 PM.

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While flipping through the pages of various gaming magazines and websites, I've recently noticed something rather disturbing, review scores hardly go below seven (or 70% whichever you prefer) nowadays.

Have games gotten to that point where even a really crappy series, like 2k's iteration (or abomination) of baseball deserve scores that hover around the high 60's, despite being absolutely unplayable? In yesteryear, if games were terrible or buggy at launch they paid for it in the ratings, which could inevitably hurt sales.

I think the part of the problem lies in the fact that many of these gaming "journalists" are too buddy-buddy with developers. Open up your favorite gaming magazine and you see pictures of these "journalists" yucking it up with people in the gaming industry. First off, I couldn't care less about pictures of your social lives, you're still nerds just like me. Secondly, how can you objectively write a fair review after hanging out with people whose games you are entrusted to evaluate? There's the definition of conflict of interest if I ever saw one!

Back in the day, readers would see scores like fours and fives for games that came out as buggy as the eights and nines we get today. Madden, for the past five to six years has clearly been in the five to six score range. Many sports games add a few graphical changes here, a feature there, update the roster (terribly I might add) and package it as a whole new game. They continue to do this because reviews hardly dive into the whole game, shallow high scores are given and people buy it with the promise that after a few patches, you'll get the score many reviewers give outright.

If you spend enough time with a game you are going to find its flaw, I get that. However, that doesn't give developers who make the game and the reviewers who evaluate the product a free pass. Those problems you see long-term could be legitimate gripes after playing the game long enough.

Reviewers need to be harsher but also give credit where it's due. If a game is buggy when it comes out, then it needs to be evaluated that way, NOT by the potential many "journalists" write on about. EA's NHL series is great, however if it ships out buggy it should be knocked down a few pegs.

Sure, NHL 11 may play great but if some features are unusable or are severely lacking because of a bug or glitch, than the score should reflect that. The game, after a patch and some tuning, has become a 9+ game, but before the recent changes it wasn't worthy of the score most critics gave it out of the box.

Reviewers need to grow some, wake up and start evaluating games objectively. I think many are just afraid of the repercussions and won't stick their necks out, but instead, write a "safe" review. All I can say is, you "journalists" are only hurting the community by writing "safe" reviews.

Comments

# 1 Eski33 @ Nov 21

You have to remember that a review in a magazine or website is one person's opinion. I have no idea when people started to put so much emphasis on another's review. It seems to be the way of today.

I like reading reviews but not for the score. I like to see what the potential strong points of a game are. I never will let a review decide whether or not I buy a game

# 2 stlstudios189 @ Nov 21

well i agree to a point. scores are too high

# 3 jkra0512 @ Nov 21

I agree with what you're saying. However, whole it's still only one person's opinion it also reflects the voice of the magazine and their view on the game. I just can't see how reviewers can be objective while being shown a good time on the company dime.

I also read reviews for the actual insight in the game, but the scores are what people see, what goes on game boxes telling them how great they are, and ultimately how they are judged.

I've never brought a game JUST on reviews and I don't intend to. Just bothers me how reviews are written nowadays...