Poll: Can a review be valid if the reviewer did not finish the game in question?

[ZydrateDealer]

The answer....NO!!

If the game is fairly short then yeah the reviewer should finish it if they don't have anything else to do; but if a short game fails to hold their attention then it's not a good sign. They should play enough to experience the graphics, the interface and at least comment on the gist of the plot without giving away too much because people complain about spoilers.

"Oh Yahtzee doesn't even finish the games he reviews!" Yeah well he unlike you has a life to attend to and those things are a fucking massive time sink.

 

[Clockwork Scarecrow.]

Of course. I mean ideally finishing it is great but most of the experiences, in-game mechanics, controls and story quality a game can offer can be seen in the first five hours.

Also, consider game magazines (the ones on the shelf) where they have a team of about five to then people reviewing games. Since so many games come out, particularly now with the iPhone and all, finishing every title is quite a tall order.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Just like the poll asks.

Now since yahtzee is such a celebrity here, I feel the need to call him out on this. After yet another review where he openly admits to not having finished the game in question, I for one think he's becoming more and more full of shit. Don't get me wrong, I don't sympathize with the games over the reviewer and I definitely am not going to go blow a bunch of money on some game I don't care about to prove him wrong. But should people in such a position be obligated to at the very least finish the game before calling it one of Satan's balls.

Imagine you take a bite of a turd sandwich. It tastes about as well as you would expect. Do you need to eat the rest of it to make judgments about it? If a game is so bad you can't play all the way through it..? Honestly, I think it would be more reasonable to question GOOD reviews of unfinished games than bad ones. How can you know that the 40 hours of gameplay will be awesome, just from the first 2 hours?

Also, Yahtzee is an entertainer, not really a reviewer.

 

[Faladorian]

Just like the poll asks.

Now since yahtzee is such a celebrity here, I feel the need to call him out on this. After yet another review where he openly admits to not having finished the game in question, I for one think he's becoming more and more full of shit. Don't get me wrong, I don't sympathize with the games over the reviewer and I definitely am not going to go blow a bunch of money on some game I don't care about to prove him wrong. But should people in such a position be obligated to at the very least finish the game before calling it one of Satan's balls.

usually a game that you feel like putting down before you finish it is defined as a crappy game. He also doesn't have time for it, seeing as he needs to make a review every week, and he can only start writing the review once he's done playing.

 

[Aris Khandr]

I voted for girl scout cookies because that's always the right answer.

But yes, the review can be valid without finishing the game. Especially when the complaints of the review are based on mechanics, rather than story. Mechanics aren't likely to change halfway through, so if you've learned you don't like them, it's best to stop there.

 

[RikSharp]

i votes you dont have to finish a game.
if you are reviewing and explain why you did not finish it but still give your review of what you did play, theres no problem.

i also fully agree that we should not have to play through crap bits of the game to get to good bits.

 

[GeorgW]

Of course it's valid, it's just not a valid review of the end of the game...

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Ok for starters Yahtzee is not a reviewer he is a critic and a comedic one at that and a lot of reviewers don't actually have time these days to finish games with the amount of mediocre to decent ones that get churned out. I think this only really matters in terms of story. If they have played to a point where they have used all game mechanics eg all 3 pure classes in ME then yes the review can be valid in terms of gameplay.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

No, a game is like a book, a whole package, especially games with stories as their main ingredient (like FFXIII which he only played a tenth of the game's length) not getting the full idea about their ending and happenings is a grave mistake.


Reviewing is a JOB, you can't say you're not having fun and suddenly stop working. It's the cheap person's way of doing that and in any job you'd get fired on the spot. If you really dislike a game, do finish it and then review it whole. If you don't you're just irrelavant and don't know what you're talking about since you don't have the full picture but only slight fragments and guesswork.

It is a little unsettling knowing the majority on here doesn't expect someone to do their job. A reviewer has two things they need to do. Do what they are paid to do and give their readers the best impression of a game that they possibly can. Reviewing an unfinished game does neither.

 

[nipsen]

Take Lair in its original form for example, would you need to play to the end to realise the controls sucked? Or play all 100% of the missions to realise its repetitive? Or See all of the levels to realise the graphics weren't particularly outstanding?

Still.. that's a blanket statement that will excuse someone who just didn't play the game, try to figure the game out, and still hates it. If you reviewed Lair and said: "The controls suck, the game is repetitive, and the graphics are terrible - and I have this from a brilliantly reliable source by the name of MajorGeneral, who has imparted his wisdom to me on our xbox fan-site" - then I'd have no problem whatsoever with the review.

If, on the other hand, you claim the same - and imply that you have played the game, see massive change in the controls since the patch, and that all aspects of the graphics are horrendous and terrible.. then obviously your review isn't very good. And now your honesty as well as your credibility as a reviewer is on the line.

But the way to avoid that problem is to be clear with what you're saying and why, isn't it. If that's not good enough for people who simply want to hear others agree with the opinions they already have.. well, life must be hard, I guess. Specially when there are literally hundreds of reviewers out there who craft an opinion based on the general forum-noise even before the game is actually out.

 

[kasperbbs]

In my opinion yes ,they do have to finish the game to judge it properly. Lets say one plays a game for 30 - 60 minutes ,he really likes it and finds it fun ,but if he had finished the game he might see it as a repetitive pile of garbage that lacks imagination and was rushed half way through. Its even more important when judging a story. As for yahtzees reviews ,i only watch them for the jokes ,if someones takes them seriously i feel sorry for them.

 

[Luhrsen]

How many times does he need to say; he's a critic not a reviewer?

 

[BreakfastMan]

Why does one need to finish a game in order to write a review? I did not finish Too Human, but I could still tell it was a pile of crap. Also, how would one finish a game like Fallout 3 or TES IV: Oblivion? What if the last boss is controller breaking hard? Saying that a reviewer needs to "finish" the game does not make much sense in real life.

 

[Metazare]

There are plenty of games that have been released that are utter garbage without question. If a reviewer isn't going to finish a game that's not unprofessional at all. So long as they explain their reason behind quitting the game of course. If a game for example has something REALLY wrong with it, like being absurdly boring for example or key game mechanics not working correctly the Reviewer is well within their rights to stop playing it. If they explain why they stopped playing it then they've done their duty. They've told you that there is something horribly wrong with the game, which if there is you wouldn't want them to ignore or sugar coat it.

But you also need to take into account who the reviewer is, often times people are paid more to write a good review and not point out key flaws with a game.

 

[bfwissil]

If the game was so bad that it wasn't even worth finishing, or was so bad that it wasn't even feasible to finish, that's clearly part of a review.

 

[gmergurl]

Are we assuming time constraints and a paid job? Or just plain user reviews?

If the former, there's certainly excuse for not finishing a game. If the latter, one shouldn't bother reviewing, except maybe to say "I hated this so much I couldn't finish."

Well Yahtzee did kinda go "This wasn't really worth finishing after that boss."

But I think it depends on the situation. If you just couldn't beat a boss and so then you give it a bad review, no, no, that's not valid. However, somewhat like in Yahtzee's case, if you get a point where you are "stuck" but you just can't find any motivation to figure it out or if you find yourself pushing yourself because, well, it's your job (I want your life Yahtzee), yeah, not finishing it and reviewing is fine.

Also, when do you stop playing? The first boss? Either something's terribly wrong with the game or something's wrong with you. Someone like Yahtzee, I'd say it's the game. Not saying he's some super gamer, but he's been around the block before and I'm sure if he actually thought a game was good, he'd figure something out to finish it.

This being said, when Yahtzee doesn't finish a game because he thinks it's bad, I think that means it's bad. After all he's being paid to play these games, I don't know any motivation besides a bad game that will cause someone to stop playing when they are being paid to do so. Given, some games he's hated or said were meh that I actually liked. I haven't checked, but I'm almost 100% sure he's finished all those in question. SO yeah, when he doesn't finish a game... I think there's a problem.

 

[Krantos]

If you have to finish a game in order for it to be good, then that says enough about the game right there.

I actually agree with something Yahtzee said on the topic once. Essentially he said you should always finish a good game just in case it gets bad at the end. However, if the game is so bad early on that you can't finish it, then no amount of turn around is going to make up for it.

 

[Lucane]

So long as they see everything the game has to offer, then I see no problem with not finishing it.

I was thinking the same thing in a Game like Brutal Legend you could play for hours and never play the RTS style part of the game now if the reviewer Decides to review the game before then It'd a little unfair as the game up to that point is fairly half 1st time experences and exploration the game only gives you so many chances to actually come up with your own tactics for any one mission otherwise it's USe new troops new special move. However finishing is still moot because wiether they've gotten 100% or only 5 minutes pass the intro They are reviewing 100%of what they've played If the 1st quarter of the game is amazing then you would assume the maker would continue along the route till maybe the end the same with it either being terrible or meh It wouldn't be to the Developer's benefit to make the begining suck and be completely different from the midpoint and ending like it was 2 different games Duct-Taped together.

[Which is nothing like when you Tape two regular ninjas together to make one giant ninja!]
Cookie for the Reference.

 

[Danish rage]

Well it´s not really a reweiw, more a weekly comic about games.

You take it waaaay to serious.

 

[BreakfastMan]

I want honesty here: How many people here actually ENJOYED playing the Twilight Town introduction with Roxas relative to the rest of the game?

I did! I actually found Roxas's character to be loads more interesting than Sora, and I thought the Twilight Town introduction bit was one of the best parts in the entire game. Of course, I also liked Organization XIII, which everyone else seems to hate, so it may just be me...