Oh Game Reviews... - ChaseB's Blog

ChaseB's Blog

Oh Game Reviews...

Posted on August 26, 2010 at 05:42 PM.

Game reviews are odd. Generally speaking, reviewers get a game a bit before it is released to the public, they play the crap out of it, and then they post a review near or on the release date so other people can read about what they thought about a game. Sometimes people use reviews to influence their own decisions, and other times people read reviews to see if the reviewer agrees or disagrees with their own thoughts on a game.

Either way, the process of writing a game review is not normal. And, on top of that, it's not how any sane person would play a game in the first place.

Reviews can also be a touchy subject. If someone writes a review that someone else does not agree with, that person will sometimes act like the reviewer insulted him or her in some way. Other times people will simply sum up their disagreement with a review by saying something like "there's no way this game should get anything over a 7.3 out of 10" -- two other favorites of mine are "this reviewer is biased" and "very objective review."

Again, game reviews are odd.

Honestly though, the score is not the issue I have with game reviews. I know I don't sit down with a game and say to myself "man this game is totally a 7.4 out of 10." But to be fair, what people actually mean when they say something like that is that in their own mind the experience fit a description, and they simply matched a score to that feeling. For example, when something here at OS gets a 7.5, all that really means is that, according to the review guidelines, the game fit into a certain criteria and therefore received the score that it did. It does not mean the reviewer was converting his experience straight to a number. Instead, the reviewer had a certain experience and matched it up to what is defined as a 7.5 according to the review rubric.

However, I guess I am talking about semantics in the example above because people still helped to define what number fit a certain experience -- in the case of OS, I was one of the people who helped re-define the review guidelines here at the site a while back.

Ha, terrible graphics. The game is only worthy of a 5.2 out of 10.

I am certainly just as odd as the game reviews themselves. I have lots of opinions about reviews, I edit every game review before it goes on the site, and I helped to define our current review guidelines. But I do not write game reviews at this point on the site.

(As a quick aside, when I first got to OS, I did write reviews. I did not do many "major" games, but I still did some relatively high-profile games). However, my co-workers at OS allowed me to remove reviews from my to-do list quite some time ago.)

But even if I don't write game reviews here, I know they are important. So my main issue with game reviews has to do with what I touched on at the beginning: Game reviews are not grounded in reality. Game reviewers are a unique bunch who play games under time constraints and have to play games under unique settings. I respect that, and I would have no issue being one of those people. But beyond that, they have to talk about games in an odd way as well. For example, I can't envision there being too many gamers out there who examine each and every game mode and talk about everything that is new in a game. I can't envision there being too many gamers out there who judge each element of a game and then think about what it all means.

As an example, I know when I play MLB: The Show, I don't even touch Road to the Show mode. I know people like the mode, but it does not interest me, and it's not what I am looking for in a baseball game. Now I could still talk about the mode intelligently, and I follow what it's about, but I don't play it. That being said, I still think The Show is amazing. However, I'm certain I would be criticized if I did not talk about RttS in a review of the game, and I think in certain contexts that's unfair.

People play games to enjoy them, not to analyze and decipher each game mode in them. The totality of the experience is what is important to most gamers when they actually play a game, and most probably do not weigh each positive and negative before deciding if they like the game or not.

Of course some would also say that a job of reviewers is to be informative first and foremost. I don't necessarily agree with that, but I do get that point. Many people do want to know if they will get the proper "bang for their buck," and they turn to game reviews for that answer. Nevertheless, I also think another job of reviewers is to explain why a game is good or bad. Basically, they don't need to advocate for a game, but they have to make a strong argument for why a game is good or bad.

One way to do that is through the traditional means of explaining each positive and negative and basically clinically dissecting a game. But I think the more compelling way to do this is a bit more nontraditional. I always point to podcasts as something that flies in the face of traditional game reviews. I have talked with more than a couple people who have said they went out and bought a game after hearing about it on a podcast. I've also heard numerous times that hundreds and hundreds of words in a game review did not sell them on a game the same way a five-minute segment on a podcast did. I mostly agree with that sentiment. I have heard a reviewer gush about a game on a podcast -- in turn this got me excited to play it -- only to come away languid and dispassionate after reading the reviewer's written review of the same game.

I think part of the reason why this occurs is because people on podcasts are not being as calculated as they would be in written form. They are simply relaying experiences they had with the game rather than carefully planning out each word. They're talking on a personal level rather than worrying about leaving something about the game out of their review. Simply talking about a game like it's a game can be much more compelling than churning out line after line about new feature X in a game. Oddly enough, on a podcast people get away with this experiential type of discussion, and yet it's something most outlets will not actually do for the review itself.

Game reviews sometimes make me a sad panda.

When people talk about games to friends -- and I mean in situations where they are really into a game (or really hate one) -- it boils down to talking about the game in anecdotal form. They will talk about strategies or bite-sized moments that made them angry or exuberant. They will mention the awe-inspiring graphics or crappy physics as well, but they will talk about those things by explaining something that happened to them in the game.

Those types of strong emotions are too often left out of game reviews. There is such a focus on mentioning each and every positive and negative in a game -- rightfully so in some people's minds because Joe Commenter might shred the reviewer for not mentioning new feature X or gameplay flaw Y -- that the actual playing of the game becomes a side note.

Would it be so bad if a review was simply made up of a reviewer's experience with the game? Would it be so bad if the main focus was not mentioning all the positives and negatives or incremental improvements in the title? Certainly the graphics and modes would still be mentioned, but the review itself would not be so structured, regimented and forced.

Sports games are especially unique in all of this. It's one thing to write about your experience in a Call of Duty campaign that lasts six hours. It's another thing entirely to talk about how a sports game holds up to you after hundreds of games. Sports games, though, are a perfect area to be different. These are usually yearly titles that many times get denounced as being roster updates or are unfortunately summed up by just a new feature. However, it does not have to be that way.

Some people like the standard format most reviews have taken on at most outlets, which is fine. But it does not mean there is only one way to do things, and it does not mean there is only one right way to write a review. Many people have trouble handling that idea, but it does not make it any less true. I really hope more people learn to realize that in the future.

Comments

# 1 therockstar2005 @ Aug 26

I liked what you said here, and I think it's a really good point. There's so much effort to try and make game reviews (here and elsewhere) "objective," but there's more to it then that. There is a real person sitting down with the controller and playing the game. There is always going to be a level of subjectivity, a level of experience. For instance, right now, my experience of playing the most recent Madden is not going so well. From an objective standpoint (as much as I can have) I would say the game is good, I'm just not liking it as much as I would have hoped. The score at the bottom of a review is not what will bring me back to play Madden, or NHL, or 2k5, or whatever. It's my experience with the game, whether I like it, whether it's enjoyable to me. All of those subjective things.

It'd be interesting to see what would happen with reviews like you described. Maybe you could write one