Have you ever gotten angry at a review?

[efAston]

It annoys me when everything's flawless in a crowd-pleaser and everything has an asterisk over its head when it's a game that was actually worth making (and playing).

Far Cry 2 was junk, it didn't recreate the dynamic gameplay of Far Cry, it didn't create a world you want to explore, and it didn't give a story which made you want to advance, but you could almost see while playing it, a marketing department ticking off a check-list "Open environment?" "Yep" "Vehicles?" "Yep" "Unlockable vehicles and weapons?" "Yep" "Lens flare?" "Yep", and the reviewers seem to be checking off the same list, and using the results to decide whether or not they recognise that they've all been delivered poorly, and that some of the selling points are detrimental to that genre anyway.

Assassin's Creed and Batman Arkham Asylum were clunky and horrible to play on a PC, because having auto-aim and fixed-camera-angle segments, on a keyboard and mouse, is like having a button for the traffic lights that people driving cars need to press. Despite Gamespot having separate pages for games on different platforms, they seem to have copied and pasted all the reviews, because they don't take that into consideration at all, while Velvet Assassin and Mirror's Edge get a big "It's good, buuuuuut..."

Gabe from Penny Arcade said at one point that he doesn't read reviews, and I'm thankfully at the point now where I can do the same. I've blacklisted Ubisoft and Bethesda, and will try anything from Frictional, Codemasters or id, and anything from Crytek or DICE that looks interesting (though after finishing MoH 2010 in 4 hours, I'll be very careful about spending more than $20 on anything from the latter).

 

[Neverhoodian]

I got a bit pissed off at DWTerminator's Youtube review of Team Fortress 2. He starts off making some valid points and observations about the game, but the second half of the video falls apart completely. It's almost as if he starts channeling a troll. He makes ad hominem attacks against the players, claiming it's the absolute worst game community out there (he hasn't played many online games if he honestly thinks that). He goes on to make the laughable claim that the unlockable weapons are upgrades compared to the standard ones. The review finishes with a rambling tirade about how the game is "stupid," "craptastic" and "nothing redeeming about it" and gives it a 1/5 star rating.

I think I got riled up about the review because of how uncharacteristic it was. I've watched some of his other videos, and he's typically more open-minded about the games he reviews. I think he was just butthurt because he's not very good at the game. Throughout the video he performs all sorts of bone-headed tactics, like trying to melee an overhealed Heavy as a Scout.

 

[CommanderL]

I got made at every review praising fable 3 and saying it was a good game it was barely a game

 

[efAston]

To all the people posting about Yahtzee - he's actually said things to the effect of "The things I liked about this game far outweighed what I disliked, but they weren't funny, so here's what's wrong with it..." and "Overall it was good, but games won't get any better by talking about what wasn't wrong with them, so...". His reviews are not actually supposed to seriously weigh up the merits and disadvantages of the game for every reader, but they're the best at it I've ever seen, because I know what the game felt like to Yahtzee while he was playing it. Serious game reviews keep using useless phrases like "it can get a little repetitive but...". If I'm playing Skyroads or GRID, even when I'm frustrated I'm still having fun, where if I get frustrated in Assassin's Creed I immediately want to do something else, and I can get a sense of that from Yahtzee, but not from "blah blah blah breathtaking visuals blah blah blah customisable weapon upgrades blah blah blah large open environment...".

 

[CountryMike]

Angry? No. I just thought it was a lame review trying to be controversial just for the sake of it.

 

[Deathninja19]

Yes I have, but I have a good reason on this one. Metroid: Other M. Almost no reviewer got the sexism. I think it was like one mainstream reviewer that noticed(Two if you count yahtzee as mainstream, which, as popular as he is, I don't and I'm not one of his haters). That just pissed me the fuck off.

Ugh then never look at the Game overthinker's (or MovieBob as he's also known) videos defending that piece of crap, he even implied that the whole sexim thing was acceptable because of Japan's cultural differences, I really dislike Bob I don't know how people can like him.

whilst i will agree he has some series fandom issues when talking about games (to the extent i dont really watch that series). But his movie knowledge is strong and his reviews give a good overall view of the film. Even if your opinions differ to his it will usually (theres a few times where he's been too dismissive) inform you of the tone and content of the film.

He's not perfect but he is better than a lot.

Sorry dude but you're never gonna convince me with Bob, he constantly shows bias and that would be fine but only if he stuck with reviewing what he knows and likes. He's only semi-proffesional and so has no obligation on what to view and yet he goes to see movies like the Expendables or Scream 4(yeah this again) with the intention to shit all over it and get up on his soap box.

And that's just with movies as the GameOverthinker he likes Nintendo to the point where it clouds his views on everything games related and similar to MovieBob he uses the show to get on his soap box and rail against the so called 'jock like mentality' of modern fps' and the people on them.

He obviously has issues and just can't remain impartial in anything he does. And another thing, even though these phantom jocks existed it doesn't make sense outside of the USA as other countries simply don't have the kind of sport centric school culture which births those idiots doesn't exist, yeah there are pricks in the world but not all of them are like the ones Bob portrays to make a point or get a cheap laugh.

So to answer my own question yeah I do get angry at reviews, every single one done by Bob Chipman.

 

[Ganthrinor]

I've been angry at reviews yes, but then I have to smack myself and remember that reviews are largely opinion-based and they're like anuses. Everyone has them, and everyone else's stinks =)

 

[Deathninja19]

Angry? No. I just thought it was a lame review trying to be controversial just for the sake of it.

I don't get that though if Jim was trying to be controversial he'd have given it a 6 like the Witcher 2 or a 4 like Assassins Creed. I agree that Jim can go too far but 7.5 is a good mark it's way above average (5) and 0.5 below a great (8) and every point he made was fair, if a single player and co-op is terrible even in a multiplayer game like Battlefield it should get low marks because that is 2/3 of a game's features and yet Jim gave it a 7.5 which is a great score if a game has bad content.

 

[DustyDrB]

I read the comments for Jim's BF3 review as well (just out of curiosity, since I'm not even interested in the game) and noticed that very few people were disagreeing with the man (at least through the first 200 or so). His review echoed many others I'd read, but the other reviews and their ratings seemed incongruous. Jim's seemed to match, and many comments said the same thing. So that's a weird example to use, as that review actually had an unusually low amount of anger in the comment section.

As for me, I don't get angry at reviews. Never have, not even once. There's a few reasons for that:
-People are different, so I expect they can have a vastly different opinion of the same experience than I do. This is a cliche answer for a reason.

-Reviewers are mostly not objective. This is related to the first point, but it's one that a lot of people seem to not get. They can objectively assess the technical issues (how the game runs), but any rating of the story, gameplay, and art design is subjective. People seem to think that objectivity is implied just because they put a number rating at the end, but the number doesn't come from some machine. It comes from someone playing a game and asking themselves how much they enjoyed their experience with it.

-Because of the first couple points, I tend to follow only a few reviewers whom I've come to "understand" and can relate to. I find this is a far more helpful way to find if I'll like a game or not than following the overall "Opinion Stew" of Metacritic.

-I'm not an emotionally-charged person. So...I just don't get angry in general.

 

[SpaceBat]

I rarely get annoyed, unless it's really blatant fanboyism done by professional gaming sites. I've seen countless Gamespot reviews where certain games get points taken off for some flaw, while other games (such as the MW series) don't get any points deducted for the exact same flaw, merely because the reviewers love the series.

On the other hand, it IS Gamespot, so I should have known beforehand that their reviews are rarely credible.

 

[Furioso]

Does anyone remember the horrendous Metro review on this very website? No? Well here you go.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/7423-Review-Metro-2033
In the video for it it looks like he is poorly trying to fake the game being hard, just standing there and shooting like it is supposed to be some sort of run and gun game when it clearly isn't, and never tries to be

 

[Deathninja19]

I read the comments for Jim's BF3 review as well (just out of curiosity, since I'm not even interested in the game) and noticed that very few people were disagreeing with the man (at least through the first 200 or so). His review echoed many others I'd read, but the other reviews and their ratings seemed incongruous. Jim's seemed to match, and many comments said the same thing. So that's a weird example to use, as that review actually had an unusually low amount of anger in the comment section.

As for me, I don't get angry at reviews. Never have, not even once. There's a few reasons for that:
-People are different, so I expect they can have a vastly different opinion of the same experience than I do. This is a cliche answer for a reason.

-Reviewers are mostly not objective. This is related to the first point, but it's one that a lot of people seem to not get. They can objectively assess the technical issues (how the game runs), but any rating of the story, gameplay, and art design is subjective. People seem to think that objectivity is implied just because they put a number rating at the end, but the number doesn't come from some machine. It comes from someone playing a game and asking themselves how much they enjoyed their experience with it.

-Because of the first couple points, I tend to follow only a few reviewers whom I've come to "understand" and can relate to. I find this is a far more helpful way to find if I'll like a game or not than following the overall "Opinion Stew" of Metacritic.

-I'm not an emotionally-charged person. So...I just don't get angry in general.

Look after about the 3rd page of comments I think? After that it starts getting way beyond ugly with people calling Jim 'fat tits', once again comparing COD with the game and so on it just shows how scarilly invested in games people can be.

 

[Hollock]

I was mad at a mix of reviews. Rolling stone gave slumdog millionaire and paul blart mall cop the same score.

 

[sifffffff]

I've never gotten really mad over a review. Slightly indignant once but not mad. The review that irked me was Charles Onyett's video review of Alpha Protocol since his main complaint seemed to be "the graphics sucked." I just don't think having bad graphics is enough of a reason to give a game a poor review.

That being said I choose what I like and don't like. If I'm playing Barbie go-kart racers and enjoying it I'm not going to care what any of the review sites say about it.

 

[Deathninja19]

Yes I have, but I have a good reason on this one. Metroid: Other M. Almost no reviewer got the sexism. I think it was like one mainstream reviewer that noticed(Two if you count yahtzee as mainstream, which, as popular as he is, I don't and I'm not one of his haters). That just pissed me the fuck off.

Ugh then never look at the Game overthinker's (or MovieBob as he's also known) videos defending that piece of crap, he even implied that the whole sexim thing was acceptable because of Japan's cultural differences, I really dislike Bob I don't know how people can like him.

whilst i will agree he has some series fandom issues when talking about games (to the extent i dont really watch that series). But his movie knowledge is strong and his reviews give a good overall view of the film. Even if your opinions differ to his it will usually (theres a few times where he's been too dismissive) inform you of the tone and content of the film.

He's not perfect but he is better than a lot.

Sorry dude but you're never gonna convince me with Bob, he constantly shows bias and that would be fine but only if he stuck with reviewing what he knows and likes. He's only semi-proffesional and so has no obligation on what to view and yet he goes to see movies like the Expendables or Scream 4(yeah this again) with the intention to shit all over it and get up on his soap box.

And that's just with movies as the GameOverthinker he likes Nintendo to the point where it clouds his views on everything games related and similar to MovieBob he uses the show to get on his soap box and rail against the so called 'jock like mentality' of modern fps' and the people on them.

He obviously has issues and just can't remain impartial in anything he does. And another thing, even though these phantom jocks existed it doesn't make sense outside of the USA as other countries simply don't have the kind of sport centric school culture which births those idiots doesn't exist, yeah there are pricks in the world but not all of them are like the ones Bob portrays to make a point or get a cheap laugh.

So to answer my own question yeah I do get angry at reviews, every single one done by Bob Chipman.

im going to stop you right there.
Do you know how to generate hits for a web show.
You talk about something recent and popular. No ifs or buts about it THATS HIS JOB. If the moviegoing public demand knowledge of god awful films than he shall provide in his own way.

I agree that people would like to hear an opinion on a film but when a film like the Expndables isn't actually reviewed on it's own merits and is used further his strawman arguements his review becomes a pointless and infuriating endevour.

But I'm not gonna argue with you, I don't want to turn this in to why I dislike Bob but I'm just gonna say this is honestly my experience with Bob (bar the offensive humour), first I liked him then came his ego.

http://deadhorseinterchange.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bob_Chipman

 

[DustyDrB]

Look after about the 3rd page of comments I think? After that it starts getting way beyond ugly with people calling Jim 'fat tits', once again comparing COD with the game and so on it just shows how scarilly invested in games people can be.

Ah, OK. I quit reading after about 150-200 comments (I forget which page that goes to) before I got bored of all the agreeing and people saying "Shitstorm incoming" (but it never came). Jim's reviews do always seem to attract more trollish users. That's Destructoid in general, though (and that's why I love the place. It's pretty free and easy over there). But I was expecting some entertaining raging, but only saw agreeing and foreshadowing. Now I should go back and read further.

 

[CleverNickname]

Portal 2, when they say the graphics are meh.

... I've never made as many screenshots as in Portal 2. That thing is gorgeous. It doesn't "look passable despite the old old engine". Especially from reviwers who gave high scores to Bland of Duty or other idea-less rehashes.

 

[CountryMike]

Angry? No. I just thought it was a lame review trying to be controversial just for the sake of it.

I don't get that though if Jim was trying to be controversial he'd have given it a 6 like the Witcher 2 or a 4 like Assassins Creed. I agree that Jim can go too far but 7.5 is a good mark it's way above average (5) and 0.5 below a great (8) and every point he made was fair, if a single player and co-op is terrible even in a multiplayer game like Battlefield it should get low marks because that is 2/3 of a game's features and yet Jim gave it a 7.5 which is a great score if a game has bad content.

No, you're wrong. And if you think the singleplayer & co-op are 2/3 of the game you have no idea what you're talking about. They're not even relevant. It's all about the MP and scores should reflect that. Anything below 9/10 is just plain silly