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

[Rayansaki]

I wouldn't want to finish that game either!

But while I think it would be wrong for a big publication to publish reviews without finishing the game, I'm more sympathetic towards Yahtzee because he does all the reviews by himself, so he is forced to play at least 1 game every week, unlike say, a site where there are 5 to 10 reviewers that get different assignments.

While Mindjack isn't the right pick for this argument (game lasts like 5 hours) imagine reviewing a game with 50 hours worth of content, then find stuff about it on the net, trivia, alternative endings, writing a review and practicing saying it and finally recording. That's easily 60 hours of work for a single week, or 12 hours per weekday. That's why I forgive him for giving up on FFXIII, or ignoring all the side content on the fallout and mass effect games. It's just not possible for him to do a full playthrough and review it.

 

[Chewster]

Why not? Are the shit parts of the game going to magically get better? Are the rubbish graphics going to spontaneously look amazing? Are the gameplay mechanics going to suddenly not be broken or unoriginal? Probably not.

As long as the reviewer is honest about it and sees most of the game, what difference does it really make? Reviews are subjective "professional" opinions and as such should be taken with a grain of salt regardless and having not finished a game should be one aspect to take into consideration when reading/watching them.

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.

How do you figure that to be practical in any way, considering the length of some games? I poured over a hundred hours into Fallout 3 before I had explored every inch of that wasteland. How do you think a reviewer is supposed to do that, given the regular time constraints for journalism? Games aren't like films. Some have short game lengths, some have monstrously long ones but even the short ones are going to be at least three times that of a normal film. Not getting to do everything possible is not an unreasonable expectation to have. Hell, doing everything you possibly in a game is probably not even feasible for most regular gamers anyway.

Consider this: if a game critic/reviewer does manage to finish a game in time for their review, under what constraints did they do so? Do you think that pumping out reviews on a regular deadline even allows the average reviewer to get a full appreciation for the game, regardless of whether they finished it or not? I'm going to go with "probably not". Personally, I'd rather a reviewer explore whatever world they are assigned in depth, taking their time to take in all the details, rather then have them rush through it, just so they can see what the ending holds.

If a game is not that impressive half-way through, chances are, it isn't going to magically become awesome in the second half, though there are a few titles where I wish that were true.

 

[DustyDrB]

Wow. I'm in the minority here.

If you as just a guy who wants to play a game don't finish a game because you grew bored or frustrated with it, then of course that's fine. If you want to tell your friends it was a bad game and what not, that's fine too.

If you're a reviewer, whose job it is to provide information about gameplay mechanics, technical issues, and the overall quality of the parts of the game ranging from narrative to combat to voice acting, you're obligated to complete the game.

The difference is that the first person is playing the game for recreation, while the second is playing it because it is his job to do so. If a game reviewer doesn't like the gameplay mechanics, he's gotta stick with it because his readers may in fact have different preferences and enjoy those parts he does not. These people need to know if there are issues with the rest of the game. If the reviewer quits early and writes a review on a game he didn't finish then his opinion is incomplete. Who knows what he may have missed? Maybe there was shift in gameplay (rare, but it happens) or a bevy of bugs after the point where he quit (not uncommon at all).

 

[Spy_Guy]

I have been gaming as long as I know, now, some people may have gamed longer than that, true, but I have yet to see a bad game be saved by its ending, and I have yet seen a good game be ruined by its ending (though certainly dragged down, AC2).

However, I doubt it'd make that much of a difference if the reviewer finished a game or not. Then again, it's like statistics, you don't have to get everyone's opinion when making a poll, only a representative part of the whole.

For instance, if I play the new Dungeons game on Steam, I can pretty quickly deduce that it's a vile mix of management sim plus hack-and-slash. No ending is going to change that fact.

If I play AC2 and enjoy it thoroughly and then get shanked by the ending, it doesn't nullify my experience of it, so I may still be able to say "great game".

So I don't think less of a reviewer if they don't finish a game.

 

[ScorpSt]

I don't think you should give a game a scored review without completing it, but a review in and of itself is perfectly fine as long as you say:

• 
  1. I did not finish the game
  2. This is why

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

No a REVIEW can't be valid, but a criticism can. Yahtzee is a critic not a reviewer. If the game is so bad he couldn't finish that means there was nothing driving him towards the ends, meaning it is a terrible game.

 

[navyjeff]

Wow. I'm in the minority here.

If you as just a guy who wants to play a game don't finish a game because you grew bored or frustrated with it, then of course that's fine. If you want to tell your friends it was a bad game and what not, that's fine too.

If a reviewer, whose job it is to provide information about gameplay mechanics, technical issues, and the overall quality of the parts of the game ranging from narrative to combat to voice acting, you're obligated to complete the game.

The difference is that the first person is playing the game for recreation, while the second is playing it because it is his job to do so. If a game reviewer doesn't like the gameplay mechanics, he's gotta stick with it because his readers may in fact have different preferences and enjoy those parts he does not. If he quits early and writes a review on a game he didn't finish then his opinion is incomplete. Who knows what he may have missed? Maybe there was shift in gameplay (rare, but it happens) or a bevy of bugs after the point where he quit (not uncommon at all).

If I am reviewing a Toyota or a Kia for Car & Driver, am I obligated to drive it cross-country NYC to LA to get the full idea of how the car works? I think an hour on a test track and a couple hours in traffic should be more than enough, even if I never get the car up to top speed or take the car apart to its nuts and bolts.

I haven't finished Fallout 3, but I think after 40 hours of wandering the wasteland that I'm more than adequately prepared to write a review. The game didn't even change appreciably after 10 hours. If I'm writing a book report, I should probably read the whole book to know what the entire plot is; if I'm reviewing a video game, and there's nothing new to discover after two hours (except for plot points), I think there's more than enough info to write a review.

Reviews are not strategy guides or tech manuals. They are arguments to help the reader/listener decide whether a game is worth their time and money.

 

[Byr0m]

This is too much of a grey area really to say Yes or No (even though I did vote Yes). However, the fact that a reviewer didn't finish a game most likely speaks volumes about the game - either denoting it unplayable/broken, too long, simply boring etc. or a combination. It also depends on what you mean by 'didn't finish', more specifically in terms of how far they got in the game. Hell, it even depends on the game and/or game type i.e. the gameplay for PAC-MAN is basically the same all the way through but for a typical hack and slash you get new moves further into the game so the gameplay changes.

To wrap up, I would say Yes, but it is fairly unprofessional without a good excuse, in my opinion.

 

[Mr. Eff_v1legacy]

I think one should always try, to finish a game, for sure. But even if you don't finish the game, you can still get a pretty good idea of the story and characters and have already experienced the gameplay, voice acting, graphics, etc.
It's possible for a game to be so bad that someone just doesn't want to finish it, and that's a pretty telling thing to say in a review.

 

[cystemic]

if a game is boring and horrible from the onset and the reviewer does struggle through the beginning then i see no reason to continue the torture especially if the game is repetitive and slow

 

[DustyDrB]

Wow. I'm in the minority here.

If you as just a guy who wants to play a game don't finish a game because you grew bored or frustrated with it, then of course that's fine. If you want to tell your friends it was a bad game and what not, that's fine too.

If a reviewer, whose job it is to provide information about gameplay mechanics, technical issues, and the overall quality of the parts of the game ranging from narrative to combat to voice acting, you're obligated to complete the game.

The difference is that the first person is playing the game for recreation, while the second is playing it because it is his job to do so. If a game reviewer doesn't like the gameplay mechanics, he's gotta stick with it because his readers may in fact have different preferences and enjoy those parts he does not. If he quits early and writes a review on a game he didn't finish then his opinion is incomplete. Who knows what he may have missed? Maybe there was shift in gameplay (rare, but it happens) or a bevy of bugs after the point where he quit (not uncommon at all).

If I am reviewing a Toyota or a Kia for Car & Driver, am I obligated to drive it cross-country NYC to LA to get the full idea of how the car works? I think an hour on a test track and a couple hours in traffic should be more than enough, even if I never get the car up to top speed or take the car apart to its nuts and bolts.

I haven't finished Fallout 3, but I think after 40 hours of wandering the wasteland that I'm more than adequately prepared to write a review. The game didn't even change appreciably after 10 hours. If I'm writing a book report, I should probably read the whole book to know what the entire plot is; if I'm reviewing a video game, and there's nothing new to discover after two hours (except for plot points), I think there's more than enough info to write a review.

Reviews are not strategy guides or tech manuals. They are arguments to help the reader/listener decide whether a game is worth their time and money.

Well, I'm not totally aware of the "review" process for a car, but I'm sure they undergo rigorous inspection by 3rd party organizations during their development. I'm not sure that analogy as helpful anyway, though.

Disagreed on that last part of what you said. In this day an age where bugs are rampant and can wipe out dozens of hours gameplay you've put in, a reviewer should definitely report to readers any substantial technical issues they discovered from the beginning of the game to the end.

As for the first part of your argument, I'll give here. Many games do have tons of side content, much of which can be elusive. Most games still have an end though. So I think a reviewer should at least play through the content required to finish the game.

That still leaves things like MMOs, though. I don't know what to say there because I haven't played any beyond a few hours on a trial.

 

[duchaked]

if you've played enough to cover more or less what the game has to offer, one more level or boss fight may not change a whole lot if you're hating the game through and through already

as for FF13, I won't blame Yahtzee for not finishing it after 5 hours. I certainly didn't keep playing after that much time.

 

[Macrobstar]

i would say no simply because you cant base your opinion on an incomplete experience. imagine if you (for some reason) just stopped playing bioshock short of the big plot reveal and all you had played to upto that point is getting ro ryan and yadday yadday yadda. you would be basing your opinion on the story on an incomplete expereince before you'd even got to the juicy part and you wouldnt even know it simply becuase you didn't finish the game to its conclusion.

But if it couldn't hold your attention up until the big reveal then its failed to entertain, and no one should have to sit through something boring just because they might like it later

 

[LadyMint]

Of course a review can be valid without finishing the game. It's not like you're going to go watch a movie, which will only take a few hours of your time. Most games can take days to finish, and I suspect most reviewers don't have the time to dedicate to that. There are important things for them to hit, such as gameplay, graphics, storyline and any bugs that might arise, but I don't care if they don't make it to the end. I'd rather not hear their opinion about the ending at all.

 

[poppabaggins]

i would say no simply because you cant base your opinion on an incomplete experience. imagine if you (for some reason) just stopped playing bioshock short of the big plot reveal and all you had played to upto that point is getting ro ryan and yadday yadday yadda. you would be basing your opinion on the story on an incomplete expereince before you'd even got to the juicy part and you wouldnt even know it simply becuase you didn't finish the game to its conclusion.

I stopped playing Bioshock around 7 hours in, because I was terribly bored by the generic shooting mechanics and boring powers. I can conclude that I don't like Bioshock, because I play games for gameplay. I can watch a movie or read a book to get a better story in a shorter amount time (compared to almost any game).

I also stopped playing Xenogears after 15 hours because the game required me to grind it's horrendous battle system. That's another game with a supposedly great story.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Well, no, but Yahtzee's reviews are never valid regardless, so it doesn't matter.

This isn't even the first time he's done it, you know.

 

[Spencer Petersen]

If a game cant convince the player to want to actually play the game then the game in question has failed in its fundamental goal. Also, the bosses in Mindjack which Yahtzee got stuck on is killed by just killing waves of guardsmen until the boss is killed in a cutscene.

 

[babinro]

A review can still tell you if a game is worth buying without having beat the game. Game difficulty is not a factor either to determine if a game is worth your money. I've seen way too many comments mention that a review is invalid because it was not played on the highest difficulty.

What it can't tell you is what sort of longevity the game may have via single player or multiplayer.

 

[azurine]

if the game sucks, people should have the right to say it sucks. why make them play something they don't like? are they going to think "hmm, these first ten hours were dreadful, but maybe it'll pick up now."

if you're at a restaurant, and your chicken is raw, and you're not a raw foodist, are you going to eat the whole thing AND THEN note a complaint to the chief? NO, because you don't want to eat something that the chief put no effort into, or didn't care about!

 

[AriaRequiem]

Ok, I know that to judge the entire story of a game you need to finish it but what Yahtzee usually does is tell us about the things that are wrong with the game. This can usually be done within a few hours of play, if not less. Controls, bad voice work, stupid dialog, poorly conceived controls, shitty enemies/allies. All this is apparent within a very short time.

My opinion is that you don't have to finish a game to properly review it unless it's a game which carries itself on it's story more than it's gameplay because the ending is so important. (Final Fantasy for example). And really, more than anything, reviewers don't have time to play all the way through the games they review. There are just too many and not enough hours. A good reviewer (and journalist) should play the game with those key points in mind and when they have a good impression, they stop. If the game was enjoyable, they'll finish it. Likely during a release drought.