Poll: Do you trust user reviews?

[afroebob]

This is something I'm always wondering about, do people honestly trust user reviews? I look at a lot of reviews for games because if your gonna pop $60 on a single game I want to make sure its something worth buying. But I also tend to notice that there are a lot of things critics and users disagree on and more often than not I find myself agreeing with the critics.

Whenever I look at user reviews it just seems like they are filled with flaws. Not to say professional critics are anywhere near perfect (Spec Ops: The Line, anyone?) but user reviews always seem to be shallow, skin deep, ignorant, or just completely biased. A good example would be Modern Warfare 3. Now I am NOT a fan of MW3, if I had to give it a score it would probably be about 4/10. But then look at Metacritic's user score... 2.2/10 for PC. MW3 might be a bad game but a 2.2 is a little much, especially because they are mostly divided into a 80/20 split of 0's and 10's. Then look at Mass Effect 3. Now, this is NOT a supposed to turn into a ME3 ending debate, but the 4.4/10 it gets is quite a bit of criticism for a game that's only real criticism is towards the ending and once again is composed of mostly 0's and 10's. Hell, Diablo 3 is got a 3.8 score because it had online only. Ya, that's a bullshit deal but the game itself is still fun.

In the end, am I the only one who feels that user reviews are, more often than not, an unreliable way of getting an accurate consensus on the quality of a game?

 

[Tryzon]

I think you're overgeneralising. Yes, there are a lot of pretty underwhelming reviews people post, but I don't find it that hard to find decent ones. Obviously, at the end of a day, a review is going to boil down to an opinion, but a fair reviewer should be able to justify their opinions with some sort of rational argument. For instance, maybe they don't like the visual style because the colours are too grey and brown. That's an opinion, but it's one backed up by an explanation. Personally, I find a bad review will reveal itself pretty swiftly through the kind of language the writer uses.

Secondly, you seem to focus a lot on scores. Really, though, I find that reviewers who don't bother trying to sum up their feelings with an arbitrary number tend to have put more thought into their choice of words; when readers can't just throw numbers around, they actually have to consider the arguments used in the review. Just an observation.

Frankly, I find some random person who took it upon themselves to give a fair analysis of a game more trustworthy than most flashy professional publication. Everybody has biases, but a good reviewer should make it obvious through their writing that they're aware of theirs. Ignore the obvious rubbish and it's not hard to find reasonable pieces.

 

[Sassafrass]

I trust the majority of the user reviews I see here on this site. In this very section, actually. I've rarely see what I'd call a bad user review here. There has been one or two but generally the quality is pretty good.

As for you thinking that user reviews tend to be low quality, you're using examples from Metacritic. I wouldn't call the reviews there, ya know...reviews. They're just little blurbs from angry fanboys who can't stand the latest CoD/Halo/whatever and feel that giving it a zero will help in any way.

So yes, for the most part, I trust user reviews in general but I don't trust Metacritics user reviews.

 

[IronMit]

you can watch/read a few user reviewers to give you a balanced verdict of the game. i often go on meta-critic and read the lowest reviews and the mixed reviews. you can tell when you find someone on your wavelength.

Official critic reviewers are mostly a joke..they will miss what's important.
I tend to check out angry joe, yahtzee and razorfist. I won't always agree with them but at least they are honest

 

[Woodsey]

You're not really talking about user reviews though, are you? You're talking about user scores. I'd pay attention to a well-written user review, I don't bother with scores as it is.

 

[Guffe]

If there's someone I follow regularly like MovieBob and Yahtzee then I sort of know where I have them, like bob pretty much doesn't like Expendables and stuff like that while I love mindless action movies so I know I can listen to him because often he has pretty smart or decent comments but I know I am still going to like the movie.
Then again some movies he really likes I know I would hate and therefor won't watch them until later when I can acquire them cheaply.
So to answer your question: I don't listen to them blindly but people's reviews I follow weekly I know based on them if I am most likely going to like or not like the game/book/movie

 

[Entitled]

No, but I still trust them more than professional reviews.

 

[Swishdude]

If I follow a reviewer, I tend to understand their viewpoints better. However, I am not saying I will blindly listen to every word they say. If a reviewer obviously takes the time to establish ideas and focus on key points I usually trust them.

 

[his1nightmare]

I do not prefer or trust any type of review, poll or featuring of anything, but I read them/watch them. Occasionally the review makes sense to a degree that I feel like I can trust it, then true reliance is being born, for that moment and that moment only.

Only personal (alpha/beta) testing/watching/reading has any real sense for a single individual; my opinion.

 

[TotallyNotABot]

If a user review is well-written and justifies the score it gives, I tend to at the very least take their review into consideration. However, I base most of my purchases off of the score of a few professional reviewers and some friends. Still, I do tend to read some user reviews, but mostly I just ignore them.

 

[Griffolion]

I'm not sure if trust is the right term in this scenario. I certainly look at user reviews to see if they've covered a game in a certain angle that I (or other reviews) have missed, as it's always interesting to get multiple perspectives. But they are always going to be biased towards a person's own tastes, likes, & dislikes (and this even applies to the most professional and "objective" of reviews); you just accept that, and take the review for what it is. Just my thoughts.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

snip

First, I don't believe in review scores. Second, I read reviews to gain an understanding of someone else's opinion of a game, not whether I think it's going to be good. If I'm interested in a game I'll usually buy it. If I'm interested but not 100% committed I see what others have to say about it. I tend to prefer comic reviews/criticisms though, like Yahtzee's. The man's sense of humour rubs me up the right way!

 

[kasperbbs]

If it's well written and it explains the reasons for his scores then perhaps, but i would rather trust a professionals opinion. They have to be objective even if they are not fans of the franchise or the genre because this is their job. Most people here would probably give mass effect 3 a 4/10 simply because they didn't like the ending.

 

[UnderCoverGuest]

When the user base reflects my personal opinions, I trust them more. When they reflect opposite opinions, I take it with a grain of salt, but acknowledge their input.

When a community of independent users reviews something as a sort of movement, I again take it with some skepticism, as it depends on the nature of the movement. If I agree with that movement, I'll be more trustworthy of their views.

When I saw the MetaCritic user score of Modern Warfare 3, I immediately agreed with them, simply from the process of seeing the progressive flaws in the Modern Warfare series--namely, how disappointed I was with Modern Warfare 2. Hearing everyone say it was hardly a step forward from that, I trusted the collective opinions of the negative score movement.

Seeing Mass Effect 3's user scores, I took it with some salt. I found the first game to be unique and engaging and the second Mass Effect to be more like a Gears of War clone, though the story is what drove me to play both of the games. Well, people were saying the story was good, up to the ending, and that game-play was as playable as ever. So even though I haven't played it, I took the information I had from the first two games along with me, to verify and fill in some of the gaps left by disgruntled reviewers, exercising their frustration with the game.

Discovering Diablo III's user scores, I---pffttaaahahahaha! It's so cartoony and WoW like! Hahaha, yeah right I'm playing that stuff. I'm just gonna stick to my nostalgia-blinding, gothic-themed, immersive-music'd, spritely graphiced Diablo II.

 

[vashthblackseed]

Before I purchase a game I'll read tons of user reviews. I generally prefer to read the lowest scores first to learn about all the "flaws" before jumping into the possible fanboy pool. So far this method hasn't let me down.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Are you referring user review as in the review in this section of the forum.

No offence to any of them as I do read some of the reviews but I usually go to proper reviews when it come to game due to the fact they get to played the game beforehand (I get my game of day release).

So it isn't really a matter of trust, more like if I agree or disagree with them.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

It depends what's being reviewed. I generally side with critics when it comes to games though because I know for a fact metacritic is full of "trolls" who haven't actually played the game and base their accusation on a trailer, demo or the fact Dante should be platinum blonde.

Also reviews for things like CoD, Bioware games or anything that is part of a series running more than 2 games (RE 6, SH Downpour and GTA IV are good examples) seem to be hated on an un-godly amount and often by peeps who made their mind up before playing or give abysmal scores for tiny things (I once saw a Max Payne 3 user review on Metacritic giving it 1 out of 10 despite saying how fun the shooting was and that he liked the story because the camera jerked around to much).

I guess it just depends whether you are reading a rational review by someone who actually saw the game through or a spiteful dick...

 

[Overusedname]

I love our user review community here, and I love being a part of it. Most people here are clearly aiming to be good at what they do. Some (including me) even make video and audio reviews, and the written reviews are very thorough and well done.

Other user reviews? Not so sure. They tend to be aimless rants in run-on sentence form with no humor or consideration for the person reading it.

Also, fundamental problem with the poll here: I might trust the reviews, but never the scores. For anything really, movies, books, anime, anything. Regardless of whose doing the scoring.

I take each review one at a time. A simple user might have better points than a paid professional.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

When it comes to user reviews I think a good policy would be to read a lot of them. See what compliments and complaints reoccur in each and to what degree to gauge a broader look at the game/movie/whatever in question. There are always going to be 'reviewers' who are just venting their spleen (this game sucks because no iron sight, this game sucks because no zombies, this game sucks because it's not the original, etc) and there will be others who can't follow up their arguments but make valid points either way. High profile games are almost always going to attract trolls of course and I would be very wary of perfect scores as well.

I've tried to review some older though still current-gen games here in the Escapist's user review section but the lack of feedback is kind of discouraging me from making more. Then again, the lack of feedback could just be because I've reviewed unpopular games...or because I don't score games[sub]...or because my walls of text are cursed...[/sub]