The Video Game Critic

Posted: **July 10th, 2007, 1:25 am**

Fair enough, but I just don't agree with the line of reasoning that the pro reviewers give inherently better opinions.

On one hand, fan reviews have the bias of: "I spent my money on this, so I'm gonna find more things to like about it."

But the reviewers have the bias of: "I'm playing this game in my office, in a sterile environment, I got it for free, and I have a billion other games to play."

So people make up their minds on what to trust and proceed accordingly.

But nevertheless, I personally will never buy into anything just because a consensus of so-called professionals is advocating it. To quote Micheal Crichton, consensus is nonsensus.

In any rate, I'm sorry if I did sound condescending: not my intent.

-Rob

Posted: **July 10th, 2007, 1:39 am**

^^ Good points, here. If you can't trust one pro reviewer, fine, but sites like metacritic are great for getting a more accurate bead on the quality of a game. The Critic's site is great, but why should we put more stock in what he says as compared to anyone else?

Posted: **July 10th, 2007, 1:44 am**

*breaks in*

Super Swing Golf, Zelda, Far Cry, Trauma Center, Wii Play, Wii Sports, and RE4 have kept me busy, and games like Alien Syndrome, Manhunt 2, and Puzzle Quest are on the way. Plus, you've got the obvious heavy hitters in MP3, Galaxy, and Brawl. You should've picked one up.

Posted: **July 10th, 2007, 10:58 am**

[QUOTE=Mr. Mustard][QUOTE=Atarifever][QUOTE=Mr. Mustard]

That may be fair, as I haven't actually played any of them, and obviously it all depends on an individual's taste. But I do put a lot of stock on how reviewers score a particular game, and a quick check on Metacritic shows that only 12 games have received an average rating of 75, and of those only six have achieved an 80 or better. Compared to the PS3's 27 games of 75+ and 18 80+, or the 360's 92 games at 75+ and 58 80+, it seems a little thin.

[/QUOTE]

You're confusing reviewer tastes with good games. Give it a few years, once the tastes have changed those numbers will be reversed. I remember when reviewers liked what I liked, and then they went crazy, like they are today, and started taking marks away for cartoon graphics and short lengths. Before long minigames and arcade games will be the norm, and games that are now getting 80% will be getting the 40s they deserved all along, and arcadey type games will be getting 80s and 90s again. I imagine, as you seem to agree with reviewers, that isn't a good thing. Sorry.

[/QUOTE]

You're confusing opinion with fact. You may believe that for a game to be decent it has to be a shorter, arcade styled game but I certainly don't. Don't get me wrong I enjoy shmups and arcade games too, but I don't think that a good game has to be that specific type. I'm also confused as to why you seem to believe that arcade games will soon be the norm, and today's modern games will be pushed to the back burners. I think the simpler games are becoming more common now because of the wider audience Nintendo has found, but I also don't see any signs of regression from the more complex, "modern" games either.
[/QUOTE]

Confused dot com. Where'd I make cliams that it was universal opinion. I guess you misunderstood. I said the reviews would change because the reviewers who write the current crazy reviews (that's my opinion BTW) would not represent majority opinion anymore. I don't think current "mainstream" games will go away, just that they will stop being mainstream. Given that there are more people who are in the "female of any age or male over 30 or under 14" group than there are people in the "male 14-30" bracket, I believe what is considered "mainstream" is going to be very different as more non gamers become gamers. Unless you think the current review sites won't want to make more money for some reason, you have to assume they will start reflecting the current tastes, just as they changed when arcade gaming and space shoot em ups stopped being as popular.

All I'm saying is your meta critic ratings will look much different in a couple years, so YOU shouldn't be mixing opinion with fact. In the words of Erich Fromm, "yes, 10 million people can be wrong... and very wrong."

Posted: **July 10th, 2007, 12:59 pm**

[QUOTE=Mr. Mustard]

[QUOTE=feilong80]Except that all you are doing is using opinion and then calling it fact.

Truth is, you are going to find a lot of people on these forums who have a very high distrust of metacritic and professional reviews in general. Yes, you are right: if you judge the Wii's library by metareview scores, then the library, frankly, looks like a pile of crap.

However, you will find many people on these forums, not just myself, shaking their heads in disbelief over how wrong some of these reviews are. Just ask JustLikeHeaven (a happy PS3 owner, hardly someone you could say is just trying to support Nintendo out of fandom), Paul Campbell, a, The Critic, or myself about this.

You should also take a closer look at the meta reviews for Wii games. Often, you will find many games that have many high marks, and some very, very low marks, bringing the score down into the 70's. Take SSX Blur. There are some dreadful scores for that game. But also some very high ones. It is my experience that the high scores are mostly correct.

As far as the industry heading towards simpler games, I guess I'll just shrug my shoulders at that. I don't really know if that's the case. I do know that, at the very least, there is a market correction going on, and an underserved audience for arcade type games is being found. To what extent remains to be seen.

-Rob
[/QUOTE]

That is true, but I also didn't condescend on people who disagreed with me.
[/QUOTE]

Forgive me, but I don't see a single condescending word or phrase in that whole post. If you are that sensitive, you might be in tears after reading some other threads on this site.

Posted: **July 10th, 2007, 1:10 pm**

[QUOTE=JasonhasRSI]^^ Good points, here. If you can't trust one pro reviewer, fine, but sites like metacritic are great for getting a more accurate bead on the quality of a game. The Critic's site is great, but why should we put more stock in what he says as compared to anyone else?
[/QUOTE]

I'll give you some very good reasons. First of all, he is not making a living off his reviews. Critics of everything from films to videogames, who are paid for what they do and who want to continue to be taken seriously so that they continue to get paid, need to appear hard-to-please at least sometimes so people will hopefully take stock in their apparently diverse opinions. This is why I put the most faith in film critics that either do not get paid, or that are so well established that their credibility is less of an issue, like Roger Ebert, or Peter Travers of Rolling Stone.

Second, we know that Dave has a deep background of video games and knows what really matters, unlike some "professional" reviewers, who want to impress people by appearing to only be pleased by the games with the absolute best graphics, etc.

Posted: **July 10th, 2007, 1:12 pm**

[QUOTE=JasonhasRSI]^^ Good points, here. If you can't trust one pro reviewer, fine, but sites like metacritic are great for getting a more accurate bead on the quality of a game. The Critic's site is great, but why should we put more stock in what he says as compared to anyone else?
[/QUOTE]

I'll tell you why we can. The more reviews from the same person you read, the better you can understand his or her biases and preferences in games. You can then decide for yourself if you agree with them. So it isn't "trusting" in the sense that "oh, Dave said it was great, so it is."

It's more like "I know where Dave was coming from."

For instance, I know the Critic doesn't seem to enjoy deep sim experiences in games. So I sort of figured out that I would probably like MLB 2k7 despite his D+ grade, and I did. In his Sonic Wii review, I figured he'd like it, because of its pick up and play action, but he wouldn't like some of the grafted on RPG elements. And that's exactly what happened in the review.

Conversely, the biases and preferences of many reviewers seem to be things such as "adult" = "good" (and we all know what adult really means. Sure isn't mature narrative content or subtle gameplay nuances). Or, and this is a big one: "length" = "good." The latter is probably the worst bias of the pro reviewer. I'll play a really long game (which I consider over 25 hours) if it is great, but man is it hard, as a working stiff, to keep up with a long game.

But really, it's like anything else: the more you get to know someone's reviews, the more you can trust them. The metascores are filled with people I don't know at all.

-Rob

Posted: **July 10th, 2007, 2:59 pm**

[QUOTE=Paul Campbell][QUOTE=Mr. Mustard]

[QUOTE=feilong80]Except that all you are doing is using opinion and then calling it fact.

Truth is, you are going to find a lot of people on these forums who have a very high distrust of metacritic and professional reviews in general. Yes, you are right: if you judge the Wii's library by metareview scores, then the library, frankly, looks like a pile of crap.

However, you will find many people on these forums, not just myself, shaking their heads in disbelief over how wrong some of these reviews are. Just ask JustLikeHeaven (a happy PS3 owner, hardly someone you could say is just trying to support Nintendo out of fandom), Paul Campbell, a, The Critic, or myself about this.

You should also take a closer look at the meta reviews for Wii games. Often, you will find many games that have many high marks, and some very, very low marks, bringing the score down into the 70's. Take SSX Blur. There are some dreadful scores for that game. But also some very high ones. It is my experience that the high scores are mostly correct.

As far as the industry heading towards simpler games, I guess I'll just shrug my shoulders at that. I don't really know if that's the case. I do know that, at the very least, there is a market correction going on, and an underserved audience for arcade type games is being found. To what extent remains to be seen.

-Rob
[/QUOTE]

That is true, but I also didn't condescend on people who disagreed with me.
[/QUOTE]

Forgive me, but I don't see a single condescending word or phrase in that whole post. If you are that sensitive, you might be in tears after reading some other threads on this site.
[/QUOTE]

Actually I was refering to Atarifever's previous post, where he stated that I'm "confusing reviewer's tastes with good games" and that games I may like "will be getting the 40s they deserved all along."

Posted: **July 10th, 2007, 3:21 pm**

[QUOTE=feilong80]

[QUOTE=JasonhasRSI]^^ Good points, here. If you can't trust one pro reviewer, fine, but sites like metacritic are great for getting a more accurate bead on the quality of a game. The Critic's site is great, but why should we put more stock in what he says as compared to anyone else?
[/QUOTE]

I'll tell you why we can. The more reviews from the same person you read, the better you can understand his or her biases and preferences in games. You can then decide for yourself if you agree with them. So it isn't "trusting" in the sense that "oh, Dave said it was great, so it is."

It's more like "I know where Dave was coming from."

For instance, I know the Critic doesn't seem to enjoy deep sim experiences in games. So I sort of figured out that I would probably like MLB 2k7 despite his D+ grade, and I did. In his Sonic Wii review, I figured he'd like it, because of its pick up and play action, but he wouldn't like some of the grafted on RPG elements. And that's exactly what happened in the review.

Conversely, the biases and preferences of many reviewers seem to be things such as "adult" = "good" (and we all know what adult really means. Sure isn't mature narrative content or subtle gameplay nuances). Or, and this is a big one: "length" = "good." The latter is probably the worst bias of the pro reviewer. I'll play a really long game (which I consider over 25 hours) if it is great, but man is it hard, as a working stiff, to keep up with a long game.

But really, it's like anything else: the more you get to know someone's reviews, the more you can trust them. The metascores are filled with people I don't know at all.

-Rob
[/QUOTE]

I tend to agree with what you are saying, but its unfair to lump professional reviewers into another category (e.g. they are all into 'hardcore adult' gaming) simply because they are paid for what they do. While he was at Gamespot, I grew to absolutely trust Greg Kasavin's reviews and was able to gauge my likelihood of enjoying a game by reading what he had to say about it. The key is to focus more on the text of these pro reviews, and less on the big number at the top, which can be tricky for some and result in wacky looking metascores, etc.

Posted: **July 10th, 2007, 3:26 pm**

[QUOTE=JasonhasRSI]I tend to agree with what you are saying, but its unfair to lump professional reviewers into another category (e.g. they are all into 'hardcore adult' gaming) simply because they are paid for what they do. While he was at Gamespot, I grew to absolutely trust Greg Kasavin's reviews and was able to gauge my likelihood of enjoying a game by reading what he had to say about it. The key is to focus more on the text of these pro reviews, and less on the big number at the top, which can be tricky for some and result in wacky looking metascores, etc.[/QUOTE]

I liked Kasavin too. There are some reviewers at Gamespot I find myself invariably at odds with, but usually I found myself agreeing with Kasavin and still find myself agreeing with Alex Navarro.

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