Never trust game reviews

[The Halloween Captain]

An anonymous individual revealed:

I had a brief stint as a journalist in the industry, and there are no ethics whatsoever. Here are just a few of my experiences:

• Had my scores raised when I scored something "too low". (I could only score something "too low" for a major company, usually one who was a big advertiser.)

• Never had my scores lowered. There was no such thing as too high a score.

• Editors will say that PR people do not control content. Not directly, no, but there is an unwritten rule that the editors have to make the PR people happy.

• Editors will say there is no conflict of interest in going to a big gaming PR event (such as flying an F-16 or racing an F-1 car) because they always hand the game review off to a freelancer in these cases. But since the freelancer's scores are raised and lowered at will, that doesn't mean much, does it?

• PR people say that holding events like letting game journalists fly F-16s allows them to review the game by comparing the experiences. Since this review is a complete conflict of interest, it usually goes to a freelancer...who didn't get to fly in an F-16.

• Some PR people have taken game journalists to strip clubs and on some occasions, purchased prostitutes for them.

• VERY FEW of the game "journalists" in the industry have journalism backgrounds and practically none of them have any ethics when it comes to their jobs and serving the reader's interest. They all say they do, but their actions are different. When Ubisoft holds a PR event in Hawaii and allows the staff of IGN to invite their wives and/or girlfriends, the end reader never gets to hear about that. And it's not on IGN's dime at all.

• Therefore, you can never, ever trust a game review you read from a major publisher. And if they are starting to penetrate blogs, that's quite disheartening, as you never know if that's the person's real opinion or not. Sad.
You say, “Doesn’t this go on in every industry?” No. But even if it did, why do we tolerate bought-and-paid-for journalism?

Another anonymous individual said,

Reviews simply are not reliable. I was a game reviewer and actually quit writing for certain publications that did not allow low scores for key titles. To me this is why just about all reviews are worthless.

I partnered and created a 100% independent review site. One time I had panned MGS3, and GT3 for being piss poor while everyone else couldn't slap "Must Have" and "Best Buy" and "Gold Sticker" all over them. I called MGS3 out for being as interactive as Dragon's Lair, and GT3 for having no AI whatsoever. I got some of the quickest and angriest calls and emails from the companies and their reps. I explained that the reviews were accurate and were not going to be changed. They said they would not send titles any more and that they would speak to my supervisor... They were infuriated to learn I was the owner and they could do nothing.

My point is that 90% of the reviews out there are biased and inflated for various reasons. Ever notice how big magazines give everything easy passes and then they always dog out one budget title which they aren’t receiving any ad dollars or kickbacks for anyhow to seem as if they are real. It's all rubbish.

A developer for the MMORPG Meridian 59 has this to say:

They [those mentioned above] are correct about the relationship between reviewers and game publishers. Scores get inflated artificially in order to maintain their connections within the game industry. Reviewing games gets expensive when you consider that new games cost $50, and that dozens of mainstream games (and several more smaller scale games) are released every month.

Some sites try to buck the trend, such as GamersInfo.net [gamersinfo.net] (full disclosure: I've written reviews for them without direct compensation), but it's hard when you aren't taking publisher "advertising dollars" to supplement the site's income. And, if you have any seriously negative opinion about the game, the publishers get very angry with you.

I'm also a developer, so I've seen it on the other side. My game, Meridian 59 [meridian59.com] (M59), is a classic online game that launched back in 1996. We bought the rights to the game in 2001 and have worked hard to update the game. We did a rendering engine upgrade [meridian59.com] (comparison shots at the bottom of that page) about a year ago and tried to get a blurb in a print magazine. Now, M59 isn't the prettiest game, but it has some historical significance in being the first online game available at retail and having a monthly subscription fee. Anyway, we went to a magazine to show off the new engine, and we barely got a mention in the MMO issue of the magazine. Our game was called a "throwback" even though we had poured quite a bit of effort into improving the game. It probably goes without saying that we can't afford to buy print ads in these magazines, and the MMO games that did buy advertising got large articles dedicated to them. (To be fair, more recently we did get a half-page blurb about Meridian 59 in that same magazine recently, but this was quite a while afterwards.)

What's interesting is that while I worked at a game company, they repeatedly said that game reviews are largely meaningless, but that favorable game previews are what really drive sales. You'll notice that just about every game preview you ever read is very favorable, too. Since games are a hit-driven business, most of the sales happen right after launch. In other words, people will buy a game based on very little information. Few people really wait for reviews, but a good preview will give people a desire for a certain games. Something to think about.

http://thewiikly.zogdog.com/article.php?article=65&ed=7&p=8

 

[Mic_128]

Hyper magazine (An Australian gaming mag) is one of those rare exceptions.

 

[thegreatkazoo]

Good read, but this can't be taken on face value alone. Viz, a critical analysis of the claims has to be looked in to...in the interest of fairness.

 

[Crimson King]

Your honest opinions will come from online sources like Penny Arcade, who will not take an advertiser unless they play the game, Kotaku, and sites that blow the whistle on these practices. Magazines are your worst spot for unbiased opinions.

 

[Firus]

*Sigh*

It really saddens me how pathetically corrupt society is.

Even opinions are BS now.

Of course, I'm not saying I didn't realize this...but to hear people in the industry actually admit that it's true and to exactly what extent is still pretty stunning.

 

[NukSuCao]

I never trusted them at all. Every game I've ever bought and loved has received a poor score, while the ones I hate become COD4.

I just flipped through the review site my friends all use around ten seconds ago. I didn't see any negative remarks about almost any of the games, including the ones that should never have been made, or are creatures that lurk in the depths of Activision.

 

[SinkingHigher]

Once I saw how well Super Paper Mario and Phantom Hourglass did in reviews, I knew for sure that there was something going on because no one that actually played PH with decent knowledge of the Zelda history (like any game journalist would undoubtedly have) would give it anything higher than a 4, but I kinda knew it in the back of my mind long before that.

The world runs on money. Anything standing in the way of your product getting you the big bucks needs to be taken care of, whether that is literally or metaphorically the case.

I've realized that the only reviewers I can trust when it comes to me spending my money on something are my friends.

Pay no attention to any kind of major gaming site unless you want to know a release date or see some previews.

 

[The Real Gamer]

NOOOO not Game Informer!!!

Thanks for the thread though. This should definitely open a few people's eyes for the first time. People always have to remember that there is absolutely NO SUCH THING as an unbiased approach to ANY situation. Don't rely on just one gaming source for you to form an opinion.

TBH, I'd rather just ask a few of you guys for some opinions on some games, as well as those well made reviews that you see on youtube from gamers like us.

Happy playing ^.^

 

[Masmasher@]

Reviews are usually from a casual gamers perspective anyway
so take it at face value.
Lol blazeblue was given a 9.4 by ign. While it was a review beyond the casual gamers perspective its to no surprise seeing as ign assisted in the special edition DVD for the game

 

[UberMario]

I didn't realize that anyone believed the review scores, user ratings (when there's more than 10) are usually more accurate.

 

[The Halloween Captain]

1up Perfect Dark Zero review - final score = A

Having incubated for years, fan-favorite developer Rare have come out of hiding to lead the Xbox 360 to uncertain victory. Perfect Dark Zero, sequel to their best-selling franchise debut on the Nintendo 64 and a sequel nearly six years in the making, is almost guaranteed to be a hit -- simply by virtue of being Microsoft's favorite child. But being positioned as a launch-day savior also puts PDZ under incredible scrutiny; luckily, the game can fend for itself just fine. On many crucial levels, PDZ is practically a love letter to first-person shooters, borrowing the most brilliant bits from the best games in the genre and incorporating them into its gameplay design. In fact, its fundamental FPS building blocks are so sound, you immediately get the impression that Microsoft may have gotten another Halo-like triumph on their hands -- a shooter so good as to be irresistible to both the casual and the hardcore.
In an attempt to document raw impressions of PDZ upon first playing the game, I chronicled in a news story my single-player journey from beginning to end (check it out here). The overall experience from my first marathon play-through could best be described as a rollercoaster ride filled with incredible highs and some devastating lows. The game's controls are sublime and the weapons feel awesome, hefty, and are a blast to shoot. Meanwhile, PDZ sports plenty of visual detail to give the proceedings a proper next-gen varnish. But for such a high profile first-party game, PDZ's 14 single-player missions are shockingly uneven. The biggest problems here are a result of Rare's decidedly old-school approach to how it handles storytelling and level design. Unlike story-driven shooters like Halo, Half-Life, and just about anything under the sun these days, PDZ's single-player campaign is broken up into self-contained missions that tenuously tie into one another, loosely forming a story.

Each sortie begins with a text briefing (complete with embarrassing voiceovers) and ends with a laundry list of objectives you've either completed or failed. Unsurprisingly, this disjointed narrative completely destroys any sense of story continuity as you travel from one exotic locale to the next. Rather than making you feel like you're Joanna Dark in her struggle against arch-nemesis dataDyne, you wander each of the levels without an arc or mission context. You could be Joanna Dark. Or maybe you're just a psycho on a warpath who has to flip a bunch of switches, unlock a bunch of doors, hack some computer terminals, and flip more switches just so you can move onto the next level in a quest to satisfy your appetite for destruction. While there are still a ton of reasons why the game is unquestionably worthy of your Xbox 360 launch dollar, its single-player storyline is not one of them.

But who the hell plays a shooter for its overrated storyline anyways, right? If the game mechanics feel good -- and more importantly if PDZ is a true successor to the ways of Perfect Dark and GoldenEye -- then aren't these single-player missions nothing more than gauntlet runs to test the mettle of the hardcore? Certainly, PDZ bears more spiritual resemblance to an old-school, side-scrolling shooter than it does its modern FPS contemporaries. Apparently (and you will begin to notice this after retrying any number of these missions for the 10th time), practice makes perfect and repetition breeds mastery. Just as you would learn enemy patterns and spawn points in old games like R-Type or Contra, PDZ is intentional in its simplicity. The way Rare has designed its single-player mission structure certainly enforces this old-fashioned gaming philosophy. Beating a mission on any of the two default difficulties unlocks a further skill level (on the same mission) for you to tackle. So, in theory, an obsessive compulsive gamer could very well spend days trying to zen-run the first few maps, unlocking weapons and gadgets in the process.

Although it's an interesting (if not retro-minded) take on the FPS genre, the reality is that story and characterization do matter in 2005 -- a lot. Perhaps to compensate for the game's lack of a compelling narrative, PDZ packs an amazing co-op mode that allows you and a friend to play through all 14 missions of the story mode together over Xbox Live or in a near flawless splitscreen mode. The effect is something akin to what the Halo games had previously established, except Rare has designed many of its levels to clearly encourage players to seek out partners to master each of the story missions. And since each of these stages are so self-contained, featuring a definite "path" (in fact, if you get lost, a flashing blue arrow mapped to the ground will literally take you to your next objective), there's plenty of memorization and cooperation involved for both players in order to successfully ace each of these levels on the harder difficulties. Fighting off waves of semi-intelligent bullet fodder with a friend in PDZ is undoubtedly the game's greatest virtue.

Similarly, PDZ's suite of multiplayer options more than makes up for its weak single-player showing. Just like you could with its N64 predecessors, PDZ allows you custom its deathmatch sessions right down to hand-picking the kind of weapons you and your foes begin the game with. The one element of multiplayer gameplay that may still prove to be acquired taste is how much damage most of the firearms do. Aside from the shotgun and perhaps rockets and grenades, the weapons in PDZ don't have a tendency to take down targets in just a few shots. Rather, you'll find yourself unloading entire magazines on your enemies in the heat of battle, only to have him turn around and shoot you in the face for the win. So most of the time, close quarters action is decided by he/she who dominates with the shotgun, while medium to far range combat depends almost exclusively on headshots to be lethal. Expect to reload your weapon sooner than what you'd be used to in other shooters, while constantly roll-dodging to avoid enemy fire at close range. Combined with the exceptionally slow movement speed of your character and you have multiplayer gameplay that can occasionally be highly frustrating for beginners. The return of Perfect Dark's insidious and occasionally humiliating A.I. bots gives the game nearly limitless replay value if deathmatch, capture-the-flag, and territories is indeed your thing.

Compensating for all the mindless and reckless circle-strafing of its deathmatch modes are the "Dark Ops" tactical games that combine Counter-Strike's turn-based, one-life-per-round strategies with PDZ's wide array of useful weapons and gadgets. Since the stakes are much higher in a game of Dark Ops, players tend to play more cautiously, using more stealthy camp-and-move tactics as opposed to just straight run-and-gun. Moreover, the fact that weapons do less damage than you're used to also works out to be a blessing in Dark Ops simply because you tend to survive more skirmishes than you would a typical game of Rainbow Six 3. Still, there are two minor drawbacks to Dark Ops; first of all, with up to 32 players per server, sometimes waiting for the next round to start, particularly if you died pitifully early on in the match, can be excruciatingly long. Which, I suppose, is all the more reason to not run out in the open to get your *** shot off, but doesn't make for very exciting times in-between rounds. Secondly, you can't practice Dark Ops offline with teams of bots. (When I asked Microsoft why, they admitted it was simply because the A.I. behavior routines would have been way too complicated to implement). Still, between this and the incredibly addictive co-op mode, PDZ has much to offer in the way of multiplayer variety. If you're into shooting others on Xbox Live, there's absolutely no way you should pass up this game.

But as much as you want to openly embrace PDZ for all its charms, it's impossible to suppress a surge of disappointment for all the seemingly obvious missteps that could have been fixed before the game landed in retail. A lackluster story, unlikable characters, frustrating level designs, lack of more mid-mission checkpoints, all stick out like sore thumbs in an otherwise superlative package. And we, like lovers scorned, are only bitter because we care.

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3145846&did=1

lol

EDIT: The author of this article, Che Chou, is believed confirmed to be a Microsoft employee. Microsoft is also known for it's history of astroturf marketting, that is, falsifying grassroots campaigns for it's products, in addition to false product reviews that are overwhelmingly positive. Note how other microsoft franchises are referenced throughout the review. Note also how this is Che's only review for 1up.

 

[Puddin]

I've never cared for game reviews anyway, if I want a game I'll go out and buy a game regardless of it's stars out of 100.

 

[The Halloween Captain]

I've never cared for game reviews anyway, if I want a game I'll go out and buy a game regardless of it's stars out of 100.

Ah, but how do you find out if you want a game?

 

[Puddin]

Ah, but how do you find out if you want a game?

If anything I'll watch Video Reviews to see footage of the game in action, nothing more.

 

[The Halloween Captain]

If anything I'll watch Video Reviews to see footage of the game in action, nothing more.

But obviously someone told you about the game so that you knew to watch the video review, correct?

What's interesting is that while I worked at a game company, they repeatedly said that game reviews are largely meaningless, but that favorable game previews are what really drive sales. You'll notice that just about every game preview you ever read is very favorable, too. Since games are a hit-driven business, most of the sales happen right after launch. In other words, people will buy a game based on very little information. Few people really wait for reviews, but a good preview will give people a desire for a certain games. Something to think about.

 

[Puddin]

But obviously someone told you about the game so that you knew to watch the video review, correct?

True, and while a good preview does drive sales what decides whether or not I would actually buy the game are video reviews that have more footage to show than previews, obviously it's like your quote says the reviews are meaningless as long as enough people get into the preview which is exactly why I wait for more footage to be out in reviews.

 

[rinoH]

lol GameInformer gave Wheelman a 8.5 or something like tha tand that game is crap. Too bad EGM closed down they were one of the more truthful mags though i think they are getting a revewal in the winter.

 

[Solid Neku]

Reading this reminded me of when Pokemon Red/Blue came out a little over ten years ago. I remember picking up a Nintendo Power magazine and I saw that they gave Pokemon a 7/10. That made me O.o and wonder if they had a death wish.

 

[M.K]

Once I saw how well Super Paper Mario and Phantom Hourglass did in reviews, I knew for sure that there was something going on because no one that actually played PH with decent knowledge of the Zelda history (like any game journalist would undoubtedly have) would give it anything higher than a 4, but I kinda knew it in the back of my mind long before that.
.

The logic "Game A was terrible to me, but got a good score from the reviewer; therefore, the reviewers are corrupt and wrong" doesn't apply. It's completely obvious that there is already biased in game reviews, because people tend to forget that we are basically reading what someone else thinks of the game. If it's not a game they particularly enjoy, it doesn't necessarily correlate to your own experiences with the game.

 

[lordvaati]

1up Perfect Dark Zero review - final score = A



http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3145846&did=1

lol

EDIT: The author of this article, Che Chou, is believed confirmed to be a Microsoft employee. Microsoft is also known for it's history of astroturf marketting, that is, falsifying grassroots campaigns for it's products, in addition to false product reviews that are overwhelmingly positive. Note how other microsoft franchises are referenced throughout the review. Note also how this is Che's only review for 1up.

I have the issue that reviews that game. in it Shoe stated how disgusted he was of how Che gave it a 9(he gave it a 6.5) So i believe it depends on the magazine/person more than the whole entirety.
Ironically, in an interview that Shoe had with Peter Moore(back when he was president of Microsoft) he went off about all the flaws of the 360, which at the time was shocking and controversial. thus, I shall trust Dan Hsu- for he does actually try to speak the truth. hopefully the new EGM will keep that same message.

lol GameInformer gave Wheelman a 8.5 or something like tha tand that game is crap. Too bad EGM closed down they were one of the more truthful mags though i think they are getting a revewal in the winter.

the original owner bought the mag back, and it's supposed to relaunch at the end of this year.

 

[Mota]

I guess this is logical. I recommend just reading reviews off independent websites.

Reviews don't mean much, try the demo, check out gameplay footage.