Suggestion: Game Reviews

[NuJunkie]

I've been playing games since the 80s. I was fortunate to be in the era of game reviews focusing on the things that mattered to gamers. I want to suggest that this site get back to the simplicity of how to judge a game. I was a fan of GamePro magazine and the review scores touched on things that actually mattered to me. They were key categories, in my youthful opinion, to determine how good or bad a game was. While I'm not suggesting we do the exact same thing, I think picking categories that matter and focusing on those categories would keep the reviews within the scope of what gamers want to see. In case people never saw a GamePro review score, I'm sharing an example.

[Ryan]

NuJunkie, I hear ya - but graphics can be judged on their own without playing the game. The sound can be heard, without playing the game. So for things that are so readily accessible to anyone without ever touching the game, I don't see the value in focusing on those things in a review over how a game plays and how a story is told. Plus, while the medium is subjective (as it's a review anyway), I feel like graphics and sound are more-so because it's also very personal. If that makes sense... probably sounds better in my mind than in my ability to write it. :P

[NuJunkie]

Not using numbers is fine by me, but there needs to be a focus for discussion on the points that we "rate" a game on.
Example, some people might care more about graphics while others care more about gameplay mechanics. I've personally purchased a game after reading a bad "score" review because in the review it had positive things to say about the things that I cared for. I believe all that information, on the actual game, gets lost today.

[Ryan]

My suggestion is have no scores at all... and I believe Jeremy said that's the angle he's going - which is awesome in my book. It will be a basic play it or don't approach.

I feel numbers hurt the industry at large because for some reason anything below an 8 is garbage, and they harm the value of a writer's work as well. So many people just skip reading and jump right to an arbitrary number.

[Eno]

I saw a link which states that most reviews on steam happen after 13 hours.
https://kotaku.com/deep-study-of-10-...-fa-1825908713
“Gamers play a game for a median of 13.5 hours before posting a review”

Maybe they play a bit more but also maybe they switch to another Early Access and forget to update the review, as the game evolves.
I like Ark survival, the very beginning, but not the grinding part where I have to tame creatures and feed them. But I have friends who play continuously only Ark. For them it is not grinding.
Ark has a mixed rating but most likely all people played the game quite long and the message of the negative reviews is "why the game is not better?" "Why there is lag on official servers?" and not the traditional "is not a good game". The game has amazing graphics and you see creatures fighting with each other, you see a live nature even if you are watching through a "spyglass".

When I look on Steam, considering to buy a game, I see many reviews from different people. Then I check if those people made other reviews too If they made only one review I do not trust them.. If they have more reviews, I check if they up-voted the same games I up-voted. Some people have other tastes and if they down-vote games I up-vote, then I am more cautious about their reviews.

Steam has a very big advantage with the open review system. I trust it a lot.
Of course developers run away from it because is more comfortable to be on Epic store where nobody knows if the game is good not not. They show some nice pictures and trailers and hope to cash in at release date. Or before.
Of course I will trust no professional reviewers who earn their living from this activity. Who pays them? I definitely not.

[DarknessFX]

Good points.
I like the way Famitsu do the scores with 4 different reviewer opnions and scores, sometimes the reviewer that is a FinalFantasy fan don't like DragonQuest and after a few reviews the reader start to align with who is the reviewer that share the same taste.
Also I think it's important to have different reviewers by their favorite genres. The racing fan write reviews about racing game, sports fan writes the favorite sport, JRPG fan about JRPG, etcs. It blows my mind when the guy who wrote a review about a casual mobile game also wrote about a 4x strategy and then an openworld.
The reviews should only be published if the reviewer actually finished the game, there is way to many Brutal Legends reviews online that never knew the game changes to Tower Defense on the last 10% and becomes a really bad game. If a reviewer didn't finished the game, didn't face the grind, all his opnions and score are pointless to the gamer.

[Eno]

Key categories are fine. People will try to highlight the positive aspects of a game. But each game can be judged from different perspectives.

It bothers me when the review fails to highlight the targeted audience and the quality of the game.
Example 1:
I bought previously games which had simple puzzles and were more educative, presenting life during war. I up-voted the game too but it was not the kind of game I would play. Being rated as very good made me buy it but I guess is a game for 12y old players.
Example 2:
I down-voted a game because it is not realistic. But the immersion is great. After 2 years I decided to play it again and I found more problems with the game, with the user interface and with difficulty balancing. So I find myself playing the game again and again but still down-voting it.
I see the flaws. I go around them as I can. When developers like to prevent you saving and loading the game at will and they overwrite your saves, I find the save folder and I make manual backups. If I can, I will even adjust balancing parameters in configuration files, if those files are in some public format like xml.

So if a game is addictive due to immersion and if every player will say "buy it" does that game deserve to be rated as exceptional?
Yes, I do recommend the game in words but I down-vote it because I do not have the possibility to say this game deserves 7.9/10 rating.

A review should allow to rate different aspects of the game:
- impact on you (if you feel the time spent was worth the price - you should mention if you got it on sale)
- your opinion about what the general rating of the game is (if it is over-rated or under-rated)
- target audience (age)
- difficulty: casual, relaxing, hard...
- soundtrack
- length (the game may offer 200 hours of content but maybe most reviewers switch to another game after 15 hours)
- performance and bugs