Why even have reviews?

[Calax]

I tend to agree with NatS. Reviews generally are not very helpful, although gaming mags can make OK toilet reading if there's nothing else. Although I suppose if I didn't browse gaming message boards, I might find them more useful.

 

 

There's an obvious conflict of interest when major gaming publishers buy ads in the gaming mags or web sites. Take your reviews with several handfuls of salt, imo.

actually it can be funny if you see hype for somthing on the same page as an article lambasting it because it sucks.

[Azarkon]

Reviewers, presumably, serve a useful function in that they play and are exposed to more games than the rest of us, and having made it their living, should be more knowledgeable about games in general. Unfortunately, this is often not the case in the game industry - or rather, it maybe the case for individual reviewers but the establishments for which they work are driven by all the wrong things so as to render those facts irrelevant. Look, I'm not necessarily asking for objectivism; a subjective opinion is just as good - when placed in the right context. That is to say, if I can find a reviewer with whom I mostly agree, and he has time to play ten times the amount of games that I do, then perhaps I can depend on him to point me out to all the great, under-appreciated games that I don't know about and all the popular, over-hyped games that I might not like. That's the reviewer's, and the critic's, economic value, put in part eloquently by Anton Ego in Ratatouille (though there he really only cites the "discovering new diamonds" function of critics). But when reviews are driven by marketing, when they do nothing but reiterate what the rest of us already receive from each company's hype machine, and when they make no attempt whatsoever to go beyond the bandwagon for fear of being different, then they lose their value, and become worthless. That is my problem with the current state of game reviews.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

But who sparks that interest? Advertising? Company websites? Word of mouth?

 

I tend to browse Amazon, then go to the company website.

 

So where, out of those two, are you getting unbiased information? Hey, reviewers aren't perfect, but they put less spin on a product than a company website. Also, reviews aren't the only thing the gaming press does, they also put up previews and consolidate gaming news so you don't have to visit a dozen individual company websites.

 

Amazon allows user reviews, which is great, but I don't see how those are more trustworthy than a gaming site. Heck, it could just be the game's developers posting about how wonderful their product is.

 

I use the company website to get specific information, not so much about the gameplay, more to do with hardware specifications and potential problems from said forums, If there is a major problem that doesn't seem down to generally retarded users I may reconsider, this is usually down to how well a company has suported products in the past, or if its the first product etc...

 

Its not exactly difficult to see what kind of an outfit a company is.

 

I don't even read Amazon reviews, well unless I fancy a giggle.

 

I just look until I find something that tickles my fancy, and then i buy it.

 

I'd wanted to play full spectrum warrior for a while, but because I didn't buy it for years, it eventually cost me 1p, and it was the best 1p I have ever spent.

 

1p a good game, and I never read a single review of the game, and I'd never spoken to anyone in depth about the game.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

I find Amazon's reviews to be very biased. Almost every game I look at on Amazon.com has an average rating of 4-4 1/2 with the rare dip to 3 1/2.

 

I find them hillarious.

[Walsingham]

I try to do a rottentomatoes.com approach. Read a bunch, trying to get people who thought it was good and people who thought it was bad.

 

EDIT: I also rely on the buzz round here, because I know the background preferences of the peopl here.