The Sad Unusability of Video Game Reviews
12h 39m ago by jlai.lu/u/inlandempire in games@sh.itjust.works from bottomfeeder.substack.com
"So I was trying to write reviews of a bunch of hit indie games I played recently. Then I got overwhelmed by the pointlessness of video game reviews these days and had to take a long nap.
And, I mean, pro reviews are pointless, right? If a game has a big enough budget or following and isn’t actively on fire, it gets a 9. If it is a competently made but low-budget indie, like mine, it gets a 7. If you read the actual review (nobody does), it’s a collection of facts about the game you could easily get from watching the trailer. Throw in a couple of comments from the reviewer about whether they like this genre or not, mix in 3 or 4 ham-handed political comments, and you got a review! Hit send!"
Or You Can Just Read Steam Reviews
Every indie dev at some point gets supermad about Steam reviews. However, 99 times out of 100, skimming the reviews on the game’s front page will tell you everything you need to know
And mostly read the negative one to see if there's any issue with the feature or lack thereof, or whether there's any performance issue or bug, anything you won't tolerate. Dev will tell you the stuff is good anyway. I rarely read from review site these day, and i find Yahtzee being very helpful in that he will be very enthusiastically tell you how some part of the game don't work, which is exactly what i'm looking for.
Yeah, I usually just read 2 or 3 positive and 2 or 3 negative reviews and look at the % score of the game. It's all you need to know if a game is for you or not. Also, follow people who have similar taste to you, in my case, that's Force Gaming and Iron Pineapple, whatever they play and really like, there's a good chance I'll like it as well. On top of that, I now have the habit of playing Steam Next Fest demos as much as I can to discover new games.
The moment you see a pokemon or a cod title get a 9/10, you understand how these reviews are shit.
IMO due paid reviews and companies being too scared of getting sued for defamation or similar reasons I also do not trust "professional" reviews any more and stopped reading them. But while less professional and more subjective, I almost always read user reviews on plattforms that allow them like Steam on PC or the Play Store on mobile. At least you can tell if there are some issues that most people seem to hate and then you can judge for yourself if that is a dealbreaker to you or if you're gonna gice it a shot anyway.
Way better than any review is a free demo for an actual hands-on experience. Or I also often look for some gameplay on YouTube, especially if there is no demo available.
There's demos for every game on the high seas
Every indie dev at some point gets supermad about Steam reviews. However, 99 times out of 100, skimming the reviews on the game’s front page will tell you everything you need to know.
I think I get both sides of the matter. Some devs seem to be mad simply because the review is not under their control, and the player isn't shy saying what's wrong with the game. But some reviews are like, "2/10 Chinese restaurant, there were no burgers".
Tbh, to me nonsense negative reviews are a good sign. They don't influence my opinion about the product ("I'm not looking for burgers so I don't care that this guy was disappointed that there were no burgers"), but they show me that the company doesn't force the deletion of bad reviews.
I've had it a few times before that e.g. I went to a doctor with perfect 5-star-reviews, only to find out that they suck and they sue anyone who leaves negative reviews.
If I see perfect 5-stars on something, that's when I get really sceptical. I'd never go to a doctor, a restaurant or a craftsman with perfect 5-star score.
This was a pretty dumb read. Lots of things just slightly wrong and mostly complaining.
First of all game reviews have always been about finding a core that you can connect with your audience about as with all reviews. Maybe its the game genre, it maybe it is a style or an emotion you have at your core.
And to that there are new trusted reviewers all the time, you just aren't personally hearing about them.
A new one that has gained following is IronPineapple who set their core to darksouls like games but because of their willingness to flub the definition a bit they have character and people have flocked to them for trusted takes about skill based games.
RyeGames is becoming a trusted voice in acting as a living games historian.
No new reviewers? Bullshit.
The one thing I agree on is how useful steam reviews are. Yes or no and show the percents and see what people said. Almost always there is a synopsis review and a more emotional review to tell you if its for you or not.
My complaining might just be sadness. When I was 25, I had the time and energy to dig into a game like this and find all the cool secrets everyone swears are there. Now I’m old, which is not great.
Same here :-/
Man, i just finished reading a review that spent half the time complaining that this top down merchant sim wasn't Kingdom come deliverance 2. Professionals really suck.
I like reading the RockPaperShotgun reviews. Nice writing, no score, usually some interesting points about the game going deeper than what a trailer shows.
RPS is one of two video game sites I subscribe to, the other being Jank, which is a direct, independent spinoff of RPS. They have a consistent house style that values the fun and creativity of good prose (even if they sometimes fail to reach that standard). I imagine some people would find their style hamfisted, but it feels authentic to me in a way that almost every other publication doesn't. They don't have that homogenizing tone to their voice that's reaching for the superficial cultural moment and SEO optimization that outlets like IGN have.
I feel like game reviews kinda died off with 'total biscuit' RIP. Was was good about his reviews is you could understand his personal tastes which may not have been the same as yours but you could still vibe out if it was good or not. Like he might forinstance give a average for a bolmer shooter because it wasn't his vibe. But you'd know 'oh if he's giving it an average' that's actually pretty good considering. But with IGN etc, you get different people reviewing stuff and then everything becomes arbitrary.
I don't feel it in games as much, but I still haven't found any film critic whose tastes match mine since Roger Ebert passed, so I kind of know what you're feeling. Having that one person you trust completely is so good.
Dude discovers tastes are subjective and hard to describe with numbers.
read the article, there's other points raised
The main point seems to be that individual reviewers don't have recognizable voices anymore, but honestly I don't really buy the idea that reviews ever "worked" in the way that this writer seems to want them to. Any individual number was always meaningless except for knowing whether a specific person liked the thing at a specific moment in time. Maybe some people were lucky enough to know a reviewer who reliably predicted how they'd feel about the product, such that they could just look at the number and be good to go, but IMO the "feature list" has always been the most interesting part of the review, and it hasn't gone anywhere.
I do think the author missed an opportunity to study how critics work and how they're perceived in other fields, media literacy is a lot more prevalent in other art forms like cinema or literature, which leads to more value being given to reviews, which is lacking in the video game industry imo
Why do you assume I haven’t?
To be fair, you may have read it, but I bet most of us didn't.