164 réponses à ce sujet

[Maclimes]

bigbad1013 wrote...

Cultist wrote...

Metacritic - user scores time and time again proved to match with my opinion of the game.

I tend to find that the user scores on metacritic operates primarity in the extremes, as in either: 10, everything about this game is perfect, or 0-1, everything about this game is horrible. There is also a fair amount of reviews that are either extremely low "to balance out those high scores" or extremely high "to balance out those high scores".

To me the user scores on metacritic means next to nothing to me anymore and I certainly don't trust them.

Yeah, metacritic user scores are meaningless.

[hoorayforicecream]

TheWout wrote...

And here lies the problem Chris, almost EVERY company nowadays tempts you with pre-order bonuses and ingame goodies that you will not be able to get unless you pick up the game from launch (or pay extra later on)

So, you have to rely on these reviews.
I have also noticed a trend of reviews being held back until the game goes live, so that leaves the consumer is a bit of a gray area.

I've played the DA2 demo with every class and it got me excited enough to put down a pre-order.
In addition, the reviews were raving, so i was happy.

The game itself was a dissapointment to me and delivered a strong contrast between expected and delivered.

Preordering something does not obligate you to actually buy it. Reviews for games often come out day and date, or at least within a week of. Couldn't you just wait a few days and read some reviews?

[Gemini1179]

TheWout wrote...

Chris Priestly wrote...


As customers, we should all be aware of what we are buying. Ask your friends. Read the reviews. Heck, rent the game (if you can find a store that rents games still) before you buy. Educate yourself before you put down your money.

And here lies the problem Chris, almost EVERY company nowadays tempts you with pre-order bonuses and ingame goodies that you will not be able to get unless you pick up the game from launch (or pay extra later on)

So, you have to rely on these reviews.
I have also noticed a trend of reviews being held back until the game goes live, so that leaves the consumer is a bit of a gray area.

I've played the DA2 demo with every class and it got me excited enough to put down a pre-order.
In addition, the reviews were raving, so i was happy.

The game itself was a dissapointment to me and delivered a strong contrast between expected and delivered.

QFT The pre-order bribery has left me with a distinct distaste for the whole practice after DA2 and ME3, so saying "educate yourself" also comes with a "but you won't get the the GOODIES" caveat that game producers KNOW gamers have a hard time reconciling. WE LOVE GOODIES.

Modifié par Gemini1179, 20 septembre 2012 - 08:06 .

[upsettingshorts]

You say pre-order bribery, I say pre-order rewards. Let's call the whole thing off.

[Morgax_Warrior]

A question if you will:
how did game reviewer ended up in game (mass effect)? (Jessica Chobot)

I understand the point of hey we need someone that is actually a reporter/Journalist or atleast worked in such area, but why not pick someone on neutral ground?

Emily Wong (Anndi McAfee) was another already existing alternative why not her or Khalisah Bint Sinan Al-Jilani (April Banigan).

You may find this offensive but to me it looked like buying goodwill of reviewer by giving role to one of their workers.
After this i have little trust toward official reviewers.

Modifié par Morgax_Warrior, 20 septembre 2012 - 08:13 .

[Emzamination]

Chris Priestly wrote...


As customers, we should all be aware of what we are buying. Ask your friends. Read the reviews. Heck, rent the game (if you can find a store that rents games still) before you buy. Educate yourself before you put down your money.

Neh, I'm just gonna buy it cause the box looks pretty   If the game turns out to be horrible, well there is always the Almighty receipt.

[Realmzmaster]

Reviews will always be subjective. If you are the type of gamer that must have the pre-order goodies then you take the risk. Every reviewer comes to a review with their own set of biases. Do not just look at the score. Read the review for their opinion. Take that opinion with a grain of salt.

The reviewer may emphasize certain aspects more than others and put more weight to them hence the score will be higher. The recycled areas may not have upset the reviewer the way it may a different reviewer which is why you will find different scores.

Do not get blinded by the score and always remember it is one person's opinion. In fact before GamePro folded the staff had widely different views on DA2 and they voiced the different opinions. Game Informer usually has a second opinion if the there is enough disagreement on a game.

In the end you have to decide what to listen to and make the decision. If you want the pre-order goodies then you take the risk as I said.

A review is subjective and quite honest, but that does not mean that it has to agree with your opinion.

[DarkKnightHolmes]

DuskWarden wrote...

Chris Priestly wrote...
Educate yourself before you put down your money.

I know you can't say whether there will/won't be a demo for DA3 yet, but I think a demo with a representative slice of the dialogue and combat systems is really needed for DA3. There's a lot of uncertainty and confusion about where DA3 is actually going, and even when you start showing us things that wouldn't compare to how a demo would let people get a feel for the game.

After the criticism Bioware got after DA2/ME3 demo, I think demo's are just bad luck for Bioware now a days.

[Vandicus]

DAII still has the best plot of any game/book/movie imo. Does that make me dishonest?

After reading all of those reviews they all seem entirely believable. People have different tastes, and unsurprisingly many of them probably differ from yours. Just as there are people who hate DA2, there are people who love DA2. Lets be perfectly honest here, DA:O has a lot of old fashioned mechanics. That is not to say that they're good or bad mechanics in of themselves, but for some people many of the "modernizations" that DA2 did, especially with combat, were a great thing. For others they were absolutely horrible. I personally loved the letter system in DA2 rather than the omniscient third person epilogue text(it felt impersonal and lacking in immersion, similar to a scoreboard recounting my results) while for some people the epilogue text is absolutely necessary to have what they consider to be a good ending. Reviews will always reflect the subjective opinion of the reviewer.

[Maverick827]

I didn't think being able to weed out the useless information from a review was difficult. When I read a review, I look for things such as character creation robustness, average FPS (especially important for console games), control quality, screenshots...anything about character, story, or any sort of "fun factor" blurb is going to be absolute garbage.

[Wulfram]

Chris Priestly wrote...

First - All reviews are honest. I know people don't believe this, but mainstream review sites don't get "bought off" to give good (or bad) reviews. If they did, and it ever was proven they did, they would kill their business. It is not worth a review site the small amount they would be paid by a company compared to what they earn as a business.

Explicit trade offs aren't going to happen, no.  Thinking "If we give that game a 70 they'll never give us the exclusive interview for thier next game, so we'll bump it up to 80" is likely to happen for some people even when the games company involved is actually scrupulously fair and would never dream of doing such a thing.

Though I think the bigger problem is that game reviewers tend to give too much for basic AAA production values and too little for being innovative or having a good story.

Modifié par Wulfram, 20 septembre 2012 - 08:23 .

[Jerrybnsn]

You just have to learn how to read game reviews on a curve. First of all, the reviewers have no monetary investment in a game because they're given a game for free to play. They don't feel that heart sinking feeling of buying a game for $60 and realizing within the first half and hour that you just blew $60. So naturally, prof. game reviewers score higher. Go by this chart.

10 is a great game
9 is a good game
8's range means it's okay but there are issues and you must purchase with caution.
7's some might find enjoyment out of the game but the reviewer didn't
6's the reviewer cringed every time he had to load this and had to remind himself he gets paid
5's the game is only playable while drunk, reviewer hopes not many people will buy this game to call him on his assesment because it's hard to read your drunk writing.
4's the game is so broken that the reviewer knows everyone will call him a hero for slammin it
3's and below don't exist in the game reviewing world

Modifié par Jerrybnsn, 20 septembre 2012 - 08:33 .

[Robhuzz]

I never trust 'professional' reviews. Even if they're not downright being bought off to give good reviews, it's painfully obvious they either don't know a thing about the games they were reviewing or were otherwise 'persuaded' to give false praise to manipulate readers. In either case, the reviewer's opinion is not objective and thus it is worthless to me. With 75 or so 'perfect' scores and not one review that I read commenting on that craptastic ending, it's darn obvious the same happened with ME3, whether the devs at BioWare want to admit it or not, marketing is the publishers task in this case and we all know what EA is capable of.

Look at the serious user reviews on metacritic (Ignore all the 0s, 1s and 10s obviously) or visit forums (albeit at the risk of you being spoiled) to see if a game is really what it should be instead..

[b09boy]

Not a chance. This is just the nature of the business. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either being ignorant or lying to you (hey Chris, same old, eh?).

Who pays for publication advertisements? Who allows publications access to previews, exclusive trailers, etc? Who releases early builds so reviews can be produced on time? Fact is, all these things are held hostage, even if it's never outright stated especially to the gaming public.

[byzantine horse]

Depends on the previewer doesn't it? If they like the game they will say that they do and hopefully explain why (shoddy reviewer if they don't explain themselves eh?). If they don't they will say that and explain why. In an ideal world, anyway.

[TheRealJayDee]

Ninja Stan wrote...

Most, if not all, professional reviews are "honest." They are also subjective, just as the reviews of the general public are. If you believe that only negative reviews are "critical" or "honest," then you have just set your own criteria for who to listen to. You don't need gaming media to change, you need to change which reviews you're reading.

You also need to disavow yourself of the idea that some reviewers are "honest" and some are "dishonest." Use reviews to inform, not replace, your own judgement, and you'll be fine.

Yeah, sorry, even if I say every reviewer is just giving his real, honest opinion on the games he plays, then the reviews to DA2 and ME3 taught me that most reviewers and I simply have a very different understanding of what makes a good (Dragon Age or Mass Effect) game. I would still love to play the Dragon Age 2 most, if not all of the reviewers must have played, but it just wasn't in the box I got. It's not that only negative reviews are good or honest reviews, I really wanted the games to have good reviews. Thing is, purely positive reviews aren't automatically good or honest reviews either. The reviews should look at both the positive and negative aspects of games, and inform the reader about them. And the DA2 and ME3 revies just ignored too much of the negative aspects of the games. Some players didn't.

Also things like the 'DA2 Signature Edition' don't work very well with a 'inform your own judgement' approach. But it's fine. I preordered DA2 and ME3 because of my love for the previous games, and I won't preorder a Bioware game again soon. I will buy them after some time and after I informed my own judgement by reading lots reviews. User reviews, that is....

[Cutlass Jack]

Dear Bioware.

Please inform all review sites/magazines to only use reviewers that will agree with the opinion I'll have once I play it. If not it will be completely dishonest, even if you release a demo in plenty of time for me to cancel my preorder.

If you do not, I'll cancel my pre-order.

Thank you.

Modifié par Cutlass Jack, 20 septembre 2012 - 09:11 .

[Vandicus]

Jerrybnsn wrote...

You just have to learn how to read game reviews on a curve. First of all, the reviewers have no monetary investment in a game because they're given a game for free to play. They don't feel that heart sinking feeling of buying a game for $60 and realizing within the first half and hour that you just blew $60. So naturally, prof. game reviewers score higher. Go by this chart.

10 is a great game
9 is a good game
8's range means it's okay but there are issues and you must purchase with caution.
7's some might find enjoyment out of the game but the reviewer didn't
6's the reviewer cringed every time he had to load this and had to remind himself he gets paid
5's the game is only playable while drunk, reviewer hopes not many people will buy this game to call him on his assesment because it's hard to read your drunk writing.
4's the game is so broken that the reviewer knows everyone will call him a hero for slammin it
3's and below don't exist in the game reviewing world

The scale is not necessarily accurate for each reviewer, but you make a very valid point that the reviewer does not spend money on the game. Things like amount of time played vs cost of game as well as level of replayability probably do not factor highly into their criteria for scoring a game because they themselves don't have to pay anything. 

[Kenshen]

TheWout wrote...

Also, since pre-ordering is almost a "must" nowadays, it's all you can rely on.

The only review you listed that I don't agree with was the one calling it the game of the decade or however it was termed.  If anything they were vague but I know there are others that go into more detail.

And why is pre-ordering a must?  I can only think of two reasons why one would pre-order.  First to be 100% sure you will get the game the second it is released.  I still remember the night I went to get ME3 and felt bad for those that were being turned away because they had already sold all the walk in copies they had.  Second reason is for whatever gift that might come with the game.  Honestly I can't say I have ever gotten anything worth pre ordering that made a difference vs buying a copy off the store shelf.  So I fully disagree that pre ordering is a must.  Matter of fact in these days with how games are being pushed out the door well before they should be is a great reason to not pre order.

[robertm2]

Ninja Stan wrote...

Most, if not all, professional reviews are "honest." They are also subjective, just as the reviews of the general public are. If you believe that only negative reviews are "critical" or "honest," then you have just set your own criteria for who to listen to. You don't need gaming media to change, you need to change which reviews you're reading.

You also need to disavow yourself of the idea that some reviewers are "honest" and some are "dishonest." Use reviews to inform, not replace, your own judgement, and you'll be fine.

when a review website is getting paid big for advertising do you honestly think there is no bias there? there is only one instance of a game that was adverstised on a website getting a mediocre review and the reviewer was fired shortly after. i dont buy that. there are honest reviewers out there sure but most major websites cannot be trusted when they are being paid by the publishers of those video games for adverstisements.

not to mention that alot of review websites are barred from mentioning certain things in their reviews or else they will lose their future exclusive previews and post release interview priveledges. like someone stated before i only know of one reviewer who mentioned me3's ending and he gave it a 7.0 total. Spoiler!!! he has no advertisting on his webiste and does not get all of the extra priveleges and early access that places like IGN do. There were 75 perfect scores that tells me that at least somebody in that 75 was not being entirely honest.

Modifié par robertm2, 20 septembre 2012 - 09:35 .

[IanPolaris]

BrotherWarth wrote...

Chris Priestly wrote...

First - All reviews are honest.

Incorrect. Several reviews of Dragon Age 2 on console at or before launch mentioned auto-attack being present, which was patently false since that was patched in later.

Not only that but can ANY reasonable person expect any IGN review of ME3 to be unbiased (and honest) when one of their star employees (Jessica Chobot) gets PAID to make an appearence in the game itself?  If this were music or TV, this actually would have been illegal under the Payola laws at least in the US.

-Polaris

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

Nope unless its fan reviews never trust them.

[frostajulie]

If you read the longwinded reviews on Amazon and Metacritic you know right away which reviews are real and you can then compare those reviews with what you are looking for to get a fairly accurate review for a game. Amazon customer reviews have never steered me wrong. Not the 1 liners the ones that go in depth about how and why the game got the score it got. I wish I had not fallen for the hype and preordered my first ever preorder CE with ME3 I could've saved myself 70 bucks if I had just waited and read the fan reviews.

Lesson learned.