Subjective/opinionated game reviews – good or bad? |
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| BY Chris King Jun. 1st, 2008 | More on: |
With the recent releases of many big (or just really hyped) game titles in the last month, Grand Theft Auto IV, Race Driver GRID, Haze, Age of Conan to name a few…the topic of game critics giving fair reviews has become a hot issue.
If one were to browse the forums or comments areas of any game-related news site these days, it becomes quite easy to lose count of the comments saying, “Game X should have gotten better than a 9.6 because two weeks ago Game Y received a 10.0 and no way in hell is it better than this.”
The subject has many people questioning the state of the game media industry. Some are asking if there are publications or sites out there doling out the best scores to the highest bidder. Or is it simpler than that, could it just be that journalists or not, most reviewers are just as human as the average gamer?
Everyone has their own preferences, from first-person shooter to the racing genre, from Xbox 360 to the PlayStation 3, and so on; however, it seems like these days, publicly displaying any minute semblance of one’s personal preference is grounds for being instantly barraged and publicly humiliated online, resulting in being labeled a “fanboy.” If that person happens to be a journalist reviewing a game, they are chastised to no end and threatened with boycott. Are we as gamers taking this a bit too far at times? If we looked inward, would we not find that we all have our own likes and dislikes that, no matter how hard we try, are impossible to completely hide?
So, the question remains, is subjectivity in a game review necessarily a bad thing? That’s what the majority of such intolerant comments online seem to indicate.
What would the alternative be like? Such a review system would need to completely do away with any sort of number scoring that many of us love the convenience of. After all, how can anyone realistically generate an arbitrary number score for something like the quality of graphics without comparing the game side by side with every other game in existence, and then with all other games on platform, and then with all games in the genre, and then with games released only in recent history (so it’s held to the same standard), and so on? What if the graphics are very similar between two titles, but perhaps the game from two months ago made better use of anti-aliasing and lighting effects, while the newer game plays at a higher frame rate? Everyone prefers different things after all, so what is better for some is not for others. There are so many factors like this that it becomes impossible to have a number-based review system and claim to not be subjective at the same time.
For this reason, I think we, the gaming public need to be more patient with our game reviewers, or just resign ourselves to all agreeing on not assigning number scores to game reviews at all. I’m sure that would upset a lot us though, so I don’t see it happening. Without a number system, reviews become very abstract and even harder to make a direct comparison.
I seem to imagine that a game review completely void of the reviewer’s opinion would be so absolutely dry that it would be painful to read; in fact, if the reviewer was unable to display any enthusiasm towards the game at all (to show a lack of bias), I would probably feel equally unenthusiastic about purchasing the game. Seeking out opinionated reviews can be a helpful tool for many of us on making the decision whether or not to buy a game. By reading a variety of reviews on the same game from independent sources, that should yield the best feel for if the game seems to fit what we are looking for.
Well, what do you think? Are opinionated reviews really the problem with the game media industry? Would we be better off without them or are they good just the way they are?
June 1st, 2008
at 5:17 am
We have to remember that the people who review games are gamers themselves. They’re obviously passionate about their job and it’s unreasonable for anyone to expect them to not have their own tastes about games they’re reviewing. At the same time, I think most reviewers stick to journalistic integrity and don’t give a game a bad score just because they dislike its particular genre.
The reason why anyone reads a review is because they want the authors opinion. I think the real problem is some people have an expectation about a game, and when the reviewer says something they don’t like, they immediately are accused of showing bias. I do think many reviewers from different outlets point out the same hits or misses a game has, so the facts are being delivered most of the time.
As for number scores I think reading the full review will give you much more insight than a number ever could. But a lot of people scroll down just to see those numbers and nothing else. It could be taken away, but I think it’ll just cause an uproar.
June 1st, 2008
at 5:45 am
More like…professional or unprofessional?
It’s quite simple. One of the beauties of the creative arts industry is that there’s no right or wrong. Everything will depend on an individuals history, preferance tollerance taste etc etc etc to how they feel about something.
The only thing reviewers can give a good(right) or bad(wrong) answer for is things on the left side of life. Calculations…where there are such things as right or wrongs.
Stage design, graphics, viability Cohernt dialogue. All things technical can be calculated mathamatically.
However, storyline, art direction, characteristics, presentation are all subjective and cannot be expressed as either right or wrong.
how can one person objectivly judge art? Impossible…all they can do is say whether the technical side works.
Perhaps a score on how well the game plays is more fair. Critics should take a page out of old mate yahtzee’s book.
June 1st, 2008
at 11:30 am
I personally dislike a “scoring” system for reviews due to the points raised above. Evaluating something on a scale of 1 to 10 assumes that there IS a 10 out there, the best game ever created. And since I find that assumption to be silly due to ever evolving standards of gameplay, graphics, interaction etc I find the concept of using a system based on it silly as well.
I prefer to read what the reviewer truly felt about the game (it helps to have read other reviews by him and played the games he was reviewing so you can better see the points he raises. Making comparisons is also good, since it helps contrast things).
I much prefer a strong and opinionated review as opposed to a “PR review” which praises the game to no end and discusses only the strong points of it. That’s not why I’m reading the review, I’m reading it to both know more about the game and most of all to know what are its strong and weak points. All games have weak points, shortcomings or outright failures and I want to know about them before I make my purchase.
For example, there is a local television show here that discusses computer and video games. The only reviews they have are good ones. There’s nothing wrong with any game they review except minor things that get lost in the immense PR fap that ensues. The show is horrible, you come from it knowing nothing about the game or product they just reviewed. It feels like you just watched an advertisment.
June 1st, 2008
at 11:38 pm
personaly i just buy the game or rent it or get it in some fashion and deside for myself regardless of online reviews.
im of the opinion most people do that anyway.
and thats why many games that arnt to good in who evers opinion still sell.
June 3rd, 2008
at 7:42 am
I myself did away with scores some time back as they make reviews fake-objective because numbers look like something unopinionated.
This is the real problem: The numbers lead us to expect objectivity where subjectivity is inevitable and indeed the only way to go, because, as LastDance said some comments before, art cannot be judged objectively. In Germany, games magazines try to hide behind ridicoulusly excessive score tables (see this one, taken from german GamePro as an example, there are worse ones, though: http://www.gamepro.de/imgserver/bdb/1210200/1210204/Wertung.jpg )
June 3rd, 2008
at 4:19 pm
@shadaik -
As I stated in the article, I feel the opposite about number tables. I don’t know how anyone can generate an arbitrary number and claim it was somehow derived “scientifically” rather than from their opinion. I can tell you a reviewer is not making a detailed spreadsheet on quality of character models, environment textures, shadows, lighting, filtering method used, etc. for graphics. They’re assigning a score based on their gut impression. This is especially true for categories that are even more unquantifiable than graphics, say like “gameplay” or “lasting appeal.”
June 6th, 2008
at 5:33 am
Of course these numbers are assigned on gut impression in the end. But that’s the reviewer’s end of the story. To the readers, it looks different imho. A number is something mathematical and maths is two things: precise and objective. Thus, numbers give the impression (albeit unintentionally) to be something above subjectivity.
Maybe this is a european sentiment, though.
June 7th, 2008
at 7:15 am
a rammbled on for a while….. just now about scoring…. in the little box. Then i asked a pal of mine whos here….
if u had to rate this out of 10…… on several things that shall remain private….
out of 7 things i asked we ageed on a rating of the same value 3 times……
that says more than i could rant on about how scoring is a bad thing unless done as an avarage of many different people scoring for the same question. and many means ALOT.