Reliable game reviews

[TheHitcher]

What sites do you guys use for reliable game reviews? Yeah, I know it's not very cool to use other people's opinions to form your own, but sometimes you just want to know more about a game before you buy it.

For me it used to be IGN, but recently I think they've become more biased and are generally vague about what makes a game good or bad.

I do love Zero Punctuation, but I see it more as entertainment rather than a review (although Yathzee can be frighteningly accurate). I suppose I could just use the Escapist for this purpose, but that just never really occurred to me. Thoughts?

 

[Prince Regent]

I mostly use the reception sections on Wikipedia nowadays.

The Escapist is increasingly more being quoted there too.

 

[Digitaldreamer7]

This is hard to answer, what I have done that works for me is find a few different reviewers, then look into their backlog of reviews about games you own/play. See how many of the reviews they have given align with your own feelings about the games (both good and bad). Keep in mind they may go into technical detail that doesn't matter to you, just focus on the points that do. It's also a good idea to get your reviews from more then one source. I tend to look on meta critic and read lots of individual scores and comments, looking for a general theme or complaint that everyone seems to have rather then taking the overall score as a rating. I tend to lean towards user written reviews rather then professional reviewers because in my experience they review to make money first, review for the sheer passion of the hobby second. I know there might be a few exceptions to this rule, but, I find that if a game is good or bad enough to get a nerd off the couch to go write a review or blurb about it, it's worth reading. After all, he/she is doing it with no ulterior motives.

Just my thoughts on it.

 

[King Toasty]

The Escapist, usually. GameTrailers isn't bad for older games.

 

[Strain42]

I used to get game reviews from Play Magazine because imo they were one of the best gaming magazines out there. But they're out of business now.

Now I honestly just figure out if a game is good or bad by listening randomly rather than going out and looking for stuff.

I never really used reviews as a way of me testing if I wanted the game or not anyway, but I won't lie...

There are a few cases where Yahtzee has hated a game, but some of the stuff he says sounds cool to me, so I look into it more (rarely buy it, but at least look into it)

 

[jacobythehedgehog]

I use escapist. I find they are the best

 

[Mallefunction]

I look to my friends who like similar titles to me. Unfortunately, most game critics rarely have my view on games. Sometimes they make good points, but honestly, they tend to make me ashamed to admit that I like a game XD

 

[IBlackKiteI]

IGN's reviews vary between spot on, to completely biased bullshit.

I haven't seen a whole lot of Gamespot ones, but the ones I have taken a look at are pretty good.

While The Escapist's reviews are overall ok, it seems like those who make them just sometimes completely expect the wrong things out of the game they're reviewing. Like, there was this review for Black Ops, and the guy who did it repeatedly stated how apparently shitty the plot was and didn't focus on much else. If I remember correctly there was a similar thing with Bulletstorm. Thing is these games are practically meant to treat everything other than gameplay as secondary, but they don't seem to get assessed much on that aside from a footnote.
Anyway it's not a huge concern, and this site probably has good reviews compared to many anyway.

 

[grindedstone]

1. Forums

2. Giantbomb.com

3. EscapistMagazine.com

4. Metacritic

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Will I get in trouble if I say X-play? Adam's views on games and his tastes are pretty much exactly mine. I check the Escapist reviews of games that I already own, but I often find myself at odds with many of the reviews. Black Ops is the one that sticks in my mind the most.
One of the ones I did agree with completely was Susan's review of Alan Wake. That one I loved.

 

[Clobersaurus15]

Usually use Eurogamer, the numbered scores are sometimes a little wonky but the accompanying text is more often that not well written and gives a good account of the gaming experience.

 

[Saladfork]

When I want an opinion on a game, my first stop is usually the 'thatguywiththeglasses' affiliates like The Spoony One or Angry Joe.

 

[Stall]

I usually just go to Metacritic and read some of the blurbs, or I just say "fuck it" and buy the game even if I am a little indecisive.

 

[kasperbbs]

I usually go to gametrailers for reviews, their scores often match my opinion on the game, but if i plan to buy something i visit a lot of random sites.

 

[HerbertTheHamster]

"Game reviewers" are basically people who couldn't qualify to become real critics.

I form my own opinion based on previous experiences with the developer and gameplay material I can find on the web.

 

[SanguineScale]

Will I get in trouble if I say X-play? Adam's views on games and his tastes are pretty much exactly mine. I check the Escapist reviews of games that I already own, but I often find myself at odds with many of the reviews. Black Ops is the one that sticks in my mind the most.
One of the ones I did agree with completely was Susan's review of Alan Wake. That one I loved.

No one's gonna get you in trouble, and in fact, I used to watch X-play for all sorts of review before I frequented internet ones. They were very good and offered a wide variety of games to choose from. Even now, when the content of the show consists of less reviews than in the past, they still find time to review the games necessary.

What I find flawed in their design is not their opinion compared to mine, but the length and depth of the reviews themselves, which, I'm starting to find out, are quite relatively lacking. I'm uncertain if it is the fault of the smaller timeframes given to reviewers or lack of motivation from the producers but the reviews seem to me less about reviewing games and more about squeezing in unnecessary pop culture references..... To them, every review must be hilarious and informing, and with less than 3 minutes for most reviews (I'm ballparking that figure) neither aspect is pulled off with any sort of grace. They also tend to switch from topic to topic with reckless abandon, going from a sentence about how the game looks to a paragraph about the games story. Some topics get much more attention than others, while many aspects of the game are given vague, uninteresting descriptions either validating or reprimanding that aspect, with almost no context to speak of.

It gives me headaches just thinking about it.

But yeah, I can't really watch X-play anymore. Sorry