Reviewers jumping on the hype train

[Reed Spacer]

Look at the Metacritic entry for 'Dragon Age: Inquistion'; it's blindingly obvious that it's being red-bombed and it's almost impossible to tell which ones are legitimate and which are troll votes.

Is it? I'd say that - from reading thte reviews and my own experience of the game - that it's actually a case of pro-reviewers ignoring a lot of flaws which user reviews highlight.

The difference between what the pros say and what the users say is quite astounding. Don't think the critics are bias? Well remember this little beauty.......

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/reviews/8701-Dragon-Age-II-Review

Sorry, but "A pinnacle of role-playing games" for DA:2? Don't tell me that these critics are being genuine.

They're either being paid, or aren't critical enough.

Yeah, but I still think my point is valid; all it takes is a few dishonest votes to skew the numbers. Anything on Metacritic should be taken with a touch of salt.

 

[MerlinCross]

Yeah, but I still think my point is valid; all it takes is a few dishonest votes to skew the numbers. Anything on Metacritic should be taken with a touch of salt.

Most reviews should be taken with some salt. Metacritic you need a truckload. Pains me to see that Metacritic is as big as it is when it comes to the industry.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I was literally going by IGN and GameSpot's own scoring system. A 5 means mediocre according to them, that is not my interpretation. IGN and GameSpot are probably the most known game reviews as well.

Those are just two sites. They may be large, but they are far from the only ones out there. If you don't like their reviews, go to one of the 50+ other sites out there.

I'm not going to go to every site and look at their scoring system. My point is that most sites actually score games based on 5 being average like IGN and GameSpot (the 2 biggest review sites). However, how they actually score games is where 7/10 is average. No other medium scores its art where 7/10 is average because that's a bad system. Then, you're only left with 7-10 being used for above average which causes everything to get bunched together.

Avarage means different things in different context. A mathematical 'avarage' is different from the 'average' as used in colloquial language (where it can mean anything from 'mediocre' to 'unremarkable'). Please don't make a fool out of yourself by confusing the two.

And while even the colloquial avarage certainly shifts there are no means (or reasons!) to measure that shift, because these numbers have no actual value. The only thing they to is summarize the feelings of the reviewer.

I didn't get the "averages" mixed up. Every game scoring above average is a problem. You pretty much look at review scores to see how awesome a game is instead if it's bad or good. Shooter B is getting an 83 so it's a bit less awesome than Shooter A that just came out and got an 88.

What makes you say it's a fact these games are not above avarage? Is it not merely your own opinion?

I agree that more money does not equal higher quality, but having a higher budget does make it easier to get a game to a level where it's an enjoyable experience to most players. And that's what most games and thus reviewers look for in games: enjoyment.

Things like storytelling, character development, originality and many other things we would look for in other forms of art are often not thought to be important in games. Atleast not by the majority of games, it seems. (And in a way it's the same for movies: for most people a movie does not need to do more than entertain, which is why blockbuster fare so well even when movie critics have no high opinions of them.)

You're saying almost every AAA game is above average? Do you seriously believe that? The mathematical chances of that happening alone are basically impossible. The only AAA game I can recall scoring below average is Aliens: Colonial Marines and it was scored just slightly below average.

Money doesn't make games that much easier to make enjoyable. STALKER didn't have a AAA budget and has the best AI still in a shooter. I bought Resonance of Fate on release, which came out the same day as FFXIII, and it has a better battle system and much lower budget. It doesn't take that much money to make an enjoyable game. A lot of AAA money goes to marketing and voice acting.

Games that focus on storytelling, character development, etc. still get basically the same scores like many RPGs (FFXIII, Mass Effect [all positive reviews], etc.) and games like The TellTale games and Heavy Rain. Heavy Rain has more critics liking it (93%) compared to Guardians of the Galaxy (90%).

They're everywhere. Some examples (from Metacritic):
Atelier Rorona (40-90)
Hatoful Boyfriend (30-85)
Crimson Shroud (25-92)

These are just three of the games I played recently and remembered recieving mixed reviews. There are probably much better examples out there.

Also, why does the lowest score for Uncharted 2 matter? Ever considered it may actually be a really good game? Of course, that doesn't mean you have to like it. Plenty of people out there who weren't into Ocarina of Time or GTA IV and those are some of the highest rated games of all time.

I'm just focusing on AAA games for a reason to a show a point on how they're all basically rated the same. I realize there's a VERY FEW games out there that do get a variance of review scores, but those are very few and far between. I don't think I've seen a movie not have at least one reviewer not like it.

I played Uncharted 2 and loved it. However, just based on controls and MP, there's no way I'd even score it an 89, which is the lowest review. I'm asking for criticism to happen, not low scores just for the sake of low scores. You might say that MP isn't Uncharted's selling point and I'd agree but MP is there and even if you weight the MP quality for only 10% of the game, the MP just being average already puts the score at a 95. I'm being as generous as possible by letting MP only be 10% of the game and saying its average (when it was bad) and even then a 96 overall would be impossible.

So find a reviewer that is annoyed by everything you're annoyed by and you should be set.

I just said that's impossible in the video game medium due to lack of actual criticism. And thanks for ignoring all my valid points like you spend most of your time doing X in a game, X is executed below average, yet game still scores a 90+ (makes no sense).

 

[NiPah]

So find a reviewer that is annoyed by everything you're annoyed by and you should be set.

I just said that's impossible in the video game medium due to lack of actual criticism. And thanks for ignoring all my valid points like you spend most of your time doing X in a game, X is executed below average, yet game still scores a 90+ (makes no sense).

Huh, didn't you name off a few critics that actually criticize games? You said TotalBiscuit would have bitched about not being able to alter look sensitivity, and he's a game reviewer.

And you're right I'm ignoring your points, there's no way to measure how much a certain aspect annoys a player, Skyrim was an amazing game to me even with the shoddy combat and I would rate it much higher then say Dark Souls which had great combat but was no fun to me. Game reviews are a personal experience and a sum of the complete experience, trying to single out certain aspects is stupid.

Elder Scrolls is one of the most beloved franchises in gaming, I'm going to side with the review which scored it 90+, not with the person who said it was below average due to something that apparently a lot of people managed to not care about.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Huh, didn't you name off a few critics that actually criticize games? You said TotalBiscuit would have bitched about not being able to alter look sensitivity, and he's a game reviewer.

And you're right I'm ignoring your points, there's no way to measure how much a certain aspect annoys a player, Skyrim was an amazing game to me even with the shoddy combat and I would rate it much higher then say Dark Souls which had great combat but was no fun to me. Game reviews are a personal experience and a sum of the complete experience, trying to single out certain aspects is stupid.

Elder Scrolls is one of the most beloved franchises in gaming, I'm going to side with the review which scored it 90+, not with the person who said it was below average due to something that apparently a lot of people managed to not care about.

I can count on 1 hand the number of game reviewers that actually criticize games properly, the chances of one of those few people having the same taste as me would be very rare. With movies, there's plenty of critics to choose from.

Firstly, I never said Elder Scrolls should be scored below average; I'd score it below average because I hate the combat and hate Bethesda's writing. You can love something and still score it properly by marking off for its flaws. A large percentage of playing Elder Scrolls is fighting enemies and that's not done well, which fans even admit, that alone to me merits below a 9 regardless of how much you loved the game. I really ended up loving Binary Domain but it has so many flaws that I can't give it more than a 7. What happens if a game comes along that has everything that's great about Elder Scrolls but has awesome combat? Elder Scrolls is already rated nearly as highly as one can rate of a game of its nature. That's what I'm talking about, Elder Scrolls has already hit the ceiling for review scores, yet much can be improved about the game, that's the problem. For me, if an RPG had Elder Scrolls' world with Bioware or Obsidian writing plus Dragon Dogma's combat, that would be in the 9+ area. But if that game came out, it might score a point higher than Elder Scrolls because its review scores are already so high.

Secondly, I found Dark Souls combat to be way too simplistic to be fun. All you have to do is block, then attack (even as a Dex character with a light shield). Outside of a few bosses, you can use the same strategy on every single enemy. The game was horribly repetitive and not hard at all, I seriously cleared entire dungeons + the boss without dying on my 1st & only playthrough.

 

[RandV80]

Hey did you here about that doofus that gave Dragon Age 2 5/5? What a goof!

Seriously though, I can see how it works if professional reviewers tend to view stuff like graphics and sound and what not. You can't deny that all these AAA games have high production value and get a whole lot of things right on the grading scale. Take a much 'user' maligned game like Watch Dogs and give it to yourself 20 years ago, and you'd be blown away how amazing it is. I'm not saying gamers are spoiled, but we've become so used to/conditioned to this level of production value that it's easy to look past all the amazing things the game does and throw it on the trash heap, maybe go and play Shovel Knight instead.

Personally I like the Steam user rating system. Just a simple thumbs up or thumbs down, a blurb short or long by the user, and the part I really like their time logged on playing game. Takes away the extreme ends of the ratings system, which gamers can't be trusted with, and just gives you an impression whether a game is good or not and how much value you may get out of it.

If you ask me, that's a good thing. IMO, spec wars are a horrible thing for the game industry overall. They raise the prices of games and they marginalize what i believe is really important, that is, how fun it is to play and how engaging it is as a story, game, and overall experience. I'd take system shock 2 and half life 1 over any of the soulless, railroady, overpriced, overbudgeted, bloated, user-hating graphic sluts they've been trying to pass off as games lately.

Oh don't get me wrong I'm the same way, I haven't voted in this poll because I haven't actually played any of those games. My favourite game this year was a Steam release of a 10 year old PSP JRPG, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky.

But being a retro junky probably isn't a good idea if you want to be a professional reviewer for a top end gaming publication. This topic is as much an exercise in getting older and more jaded towards the hobby than it is about the current state of game reviewers. Sites like IGN and Gamespot exist on the same hype train that the AAA developers, and while we may become jaded towards it there's an endless supply of a new generation eager to lap it up. Big review sites need reviews that prop up the positives for this audience... unless said audience is too busy playing dumb smart phone games.

Personally I've been jaded for a much longer time now. The way people are starting to feel about this current gen I felt about the last one, where I had no desire for a PS3 or Xbox 360. The Wii + PC were all I've needed.

 

[NPC009]

I'm not going to go to every site and look at their scoring system. My point is that most sites actually score games based on 5 being average like IGN and GameSpot (the 2 biggest review sites). However, how they actually score games is where 7/10 is average. No other medium scores its art where 7/10 is average because that's a bad system. Then, you're only left with 7-10 being used for above average which causes everything to get bunched together.

Yes, score inflation is an issue. Good thing there are alternatives to the sites that suffer from it. Go there. Seriously. Go to the sites with the reviewers that do a good job and support them.

I didn't get the "averages" mixed up. Every game scoring above average is a problem. You pretty much look at review scores to see how awesome a game is instead if it's bad or good. Shooter B is getting an 83 so it's a bit less awesome than Shooter A that just came out and got an 88.

You're reading too much into those scores. Unless both games were reviewed by the same reviewer there's a good chance that 5 point difference means nothing. You know how those scores come to be? "Hmm, this is something in the 80-90 region. 86 feels good. Let's go with 86."

If you don't like this kind of silly scoring, go to sites that don't do it.

You're saying almost every AAA game is above average? Do you seriously believe that? The mathematical chances of that happening alone are basically impossible. The only AAA game I can recall scoring below average is Aliens: Colonial Marines and it was scored just slightly below average.

1. Again with the maths? This is not maths.
2. Your understanding of maths is not very good, is it?

Since triple A titles make up only a very small part of the industry it's actually not all that unlikely most of these games are above average even in a mathematical sense.

But again, this is not about maths! When is comes to reviews 'average' means something like 'unimpressive', noit 50% of the games out there are worse than this and 50% of them are better.

Money doesn't make games that much easier to make enjoyable. STALKER didn't have a AAA budget and has the best AI still in a shooter. I bought Resonance of Fate on release, which came out the same day as FFXIII, and it has a better battle system and much lower budget. It doesn't take that much money to make an enjoyable game. A lot of AAA money goes to marketing and voice acting.

No, it doesn't take much money to make something good, but it certainly helps.

Look, if you're the type of person who is more into smaller games with a bit of quirk, I get that. I'm like that, too. But that doesn't mean that the games you don't like are necessarily bad or that you should dislike them for getting more attention than your favourites. That behaviour is very childish.

Games that focus on storytelling, character development, etc. still get basically the same scores like many RPGs (FFXIII, Mass Effect [all positive reviews], etc.) and games like The TellTale games and Heavy Rain. Heavy Rain has more critics liking it (93%) compared to Guardians of the Galaxy (90%).

Yes, but there aren't many reviewers or gamers that care beyond 'OMG, it has a story!" and "It made me feel things and therefore it is amazing." Things like writing styles and narrative structures don't recieve much attention in game reviews. Most game critics are not equiped to review a game like that, and most gamers don't care they aren't.

I'm just focusing on AAA games for a reason to a show a point on how they're all basically rated the same. I realize there's a VERY FEW games out there that do get a variance of review scores, but those are very few and far between. I don't think I've seen a movie not have at least one reviewer not like it.

Then stop focusing on triple A. Volume wise it's just a small part of the industry, not exactly representative of gaming as a whole. These games aim for a broad appeal and are made by skilled people. It's not wonder most of them are well-liked.

I played Uncharted 2 and loved it. However, just based on controls and MP, there's no way I'd even score it an 89, which is the lowest review. I'm asking for criticism to happen, not low scores just for the sake of low scores. You might say that MP isn't Uncharted's selling point and I'd agree but MP is there and even if you weight the MP quality for only 10% of the game, the MP just being average already puts the score at a 95. I'm being as generous as possible by letting MP only be 10% of the game and saying its average (when it was bad) and even then a 96 overall would be impossible.

From a reviewers perspective you're going at it wrong. We (atleast, the majority of us) rate the game as an experience. Uncharted 2 singleplayer is the most important part of the game and if it's extremely enjoyable the game is very likely to recieve high marks. We don't deduct points for things that could have been better but don't bring the overall experience down. A lackluster MP attached to an amazing singeplayer experience will (or atleast, should!) by most be viewed as a dumb extra players can safely ignore.

Good example would be Spec Ops: The Line. The developer focused on the SP experience, because they had this story they wanted to tell. Publisher pushed for a multiplayer mode anyway, despite that not being what the game was about. Developer included an at best servicable MP to appease the publisher and that was it. Many reviewers picked up on that and focused on the campaign instead. Some didn't even mention MP.

So find a reviewer that is annoyed by everything you're annoyed by and you should be set.

I just said that's impossible in the video game medium due to lack of actual criticism. And thanks for ignoring all my valid points like you spend most of your time doing X in a game, X is executed below average, yet game still scores a 90+ (makes no sense).

Here's a radical idea: if you can't find anyone to agree with you, maybe you're the problem, not them

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Look at the Metacritic entry for 'Dragon Age: Inquistion'; it's blindingly obvious that it's being red-bombed and it's almost impossible to tell which ones are legitimate and which are troll votes.

Is it? I'd say that - from reading thte reviews and my own experience of the game - that it's actually a case of pro-reviewers ignoring a lot of flaws which user reviews highlight.

The difference between what the pros say and what the users say is quite astounding. Don't think the critics are bias? Well remember this little beauty.......

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/reviews/8701-Dragon-Age-II-Review

Sorry, but "A pinnacle of role-playing games" for DA:2? Don't tell me that these critics are being genuine.

They're either being paid, or aren't critical enough.

That's one review. Let's look at an average of reviews for DA:II
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dragon-age-ii

82%, that means that, on average, professionals think DA:II was about four fifths good and one fifth bad. Which is pretty accurate. DA:II WAS a great game for the vast majority of it, with just a few major cock-ups.

Now lets look at the user average for it: 44%
That's total bullshit. There is absolutely no way that DA:II was more bad than good, anyone who says it was it either not a fan of that type of RPG or looked at the flaws first and refused to acknowledge the positives.
And that's an average which means there's a whole load of users putting up 0s and 1s just to bomb the rating.[/]

I'm sorry but I don't buy it.

Firstly I genuinely hated playing through DA:2, and found it more bad than good. I personally rated it 4/10.

But that's opinion, we all have a different one and it's all subjective.

What gets me with some of the pro reviews, and leads me to believe they're either being paid off or aren't critics enough, are the positive comments regards aspects of the game which have been largely panned elsewhere. - e.g. The graphics, the area, etc.

What it all boils down to is that those reviewing the game, and certainly the collective pro reviews, are too far detched from user opinion to be given much credability.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Look at the Metacritic entry for 'Dragon Age: Inquistion'; it's blindingly obvious that it's being red-bombed and it's almost impossible to tell which ones are legitimate and which are troll votes.

Is it? I'd say that - from reading thte reviews and my own experience of the game - that it's actually a case of pro-reviewers ignoring a lot of flaws which user reviews highlight.

The difference between what the pros say and what the users say is quite astounding. Don't think the critics are bias? Well remember this little beauty.......

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/reviews/8701-Dragon-Age-II-Review

Sorry, but "A pinnacle of role-playing games" for DA:2? Don't tell me that these critics are being genuine.

They're either being paid, or aren't critical enough.

Yeah, but I still think my point is valid; all it takes is a few dishonest votes to skew the numbers. Anything on Metacritic should be taken with a touch of salt.

Yeah that's fair enough. I think overall fanboys and bombboys balance each other out, but I do find user scores reflect my feelings on a game more than pro scores on the whole.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Yes, score inflation is an issue. Good thing there are alternatives to the sites that suffer from it. Go there. Seriously. Go to the sites with the reviewers that do a good job and support them.

I'm talking about game criticism as a whole, not a site-by-site analysis. It hurts the medium to have such a lack of actual criticism.

You're reading too much into those scores. Unless both games were reviewed by the same reviewer there's a good chance that 5 point difference means nothing. You know how those scores come to be? "Hmm, this is something in the 80-90 region. 86 feels good. Let's go with 86."

If you don't like this kind of silly scoring, go to sites that don't do it.

I was talking about the overall score of a game, not a single review. Again, reviewing as a whole, not just single reviews.

1. Again with the maths? This is not maths.
2. Your understanding of maths is not very good, is it?

Since triple A titles make up only a very small part of the industry it's actually not all that unlikely most of these games are above average even in a mathematical sense.

But again, this is not about maths! When is comes to reviews 'average' means something like 'unimpressive', noit 50% of the games out there are worse than this and 50% of them are better.

Again, my math is good (actually really great). I'm not asking for half the games to be below average and half to be above average. All AAA games being above average is a mathematical impossibility (not due to wanting a 50/50 spread) just due the probability of every AAA game being above average in quality.

No, it doesn't take much money to make something good, but it certainly helps.

Look, if you're the type of person who is more into smaller games with a bit of quirk, I get that. I'm like that, too. But that doesn't mean that the games you don't like are necessarily bad or that you should dislike them for getting more attention than your favourites. That behaviour is very childish.

I'm not asking for the games I don't like to be rated poorly. I'm asking for criticism of all games. The games I love should have reviewers not like them because everyone has different tastes. I don't really care if a game is AAA or indie or whatever, I'm asking for differing opinions on all games across the board. It's not about me wanting to see the games I like having a higher score than the games I don't like.

Yes, but there aren't many reviewers or gamers that care beyond 'OMG, it has a story!" and "It made me feel things and therefore it is amazing." Things like writing styles and narrative structures don't recieve much attention in game reviews. Most game critics are not equiped to review a game like that, and most gamers don't care they aren't.

Game critics may not be able to analyze story and characters like a film critic but they do know quality (at least in their opinion) from shit. You're acting like game critics haven't experienced good writing in other mediums like movies, TV, books, etc. Everyone has a handle on what they feel is good writing, good story, interesting characters, etc. Games are no different and should be criticized if the writing isn't good especially in a game where much of the enjoyment of the game is due to story and characters like a Heavy Rain or an RPG. One of the biggest problems in the industry is the low quality of the writing due to not many good writers being in the medium and just due to how games are developed (gameplay/levels first, writing second). This aspect should be heavily criticized and its not.

Then stop focusing on triple A. Volume wise it's just a small part of the industry, not exactly representative of gaming as a whole. These games aim for a broad appeal and are made by skilled people. It's not wonder most of them are well-liked.

It demonstrates everything wrong with game reviews. You just said it's no wonder MOST of them are well-liked. But ALL of them are rated as good by reviewers.

From a reviewers perspective you're going at it wrong. We (atleast, the majority of us) rate the game as an experience. Uncharted 2 singleplayer is the most important part of the game and if it's extremely enjoyable the game is very likely to recieve high marks. We don't deduct points for things that could have been better but don't bring the overall experience down. A lackluster MP attached to an amazing singeplayer experience will (or atleast, should!) by most be viewed as a dumb extra players can safely ignore.

Good example would be Spec Ops: The Line. The developer focused on the SP experience, because they had this story they wanted to tell. Publisher pushed for a multiplayer mode anyway, despite that not being what the game was about. Developer included an at best servicable MP to appease the publisher and that was it. Many reviewers picked up on that and focused on the campaign instead. Some didn't even mention MP.

I was being as generous as possible with Uncharted 2 only weighing the MP as 10% of the game's score. Naughty Dog put effort into Uncharted 2's MP (and Uncharted 3), it's not just there to be marked as a checkbox of a required feature. Naughty Dog kept up with trying to balance the MP longer than even a COD or BF is supported nowadays. Uncharted and Spec Ops aren't the same in that regard. Uncharted's MP is something that many Uncharted players do look forward to so I think it's more than fair to have 10% of the game's score to be the MP, I'd say 25% going towards MP would be fair for Uncharted.

And another good example is Spec Ops because there is not one negative review for that game, which is about story (so more variance should be expected in its reviews already). I tried playing the demo of that and the shooting was well-below average so I didn't even finish the demo. Spec Ops is a GAME and it is a SHOOTER, it should have good shooting to be a good game. I realize a lot of enjoyment people had with Spec Ops was the story, but I can get good story from other mediums and not have to put up with bad gameplay to get it. Why suffer through bad gameplay to get to the good stuff? Why isn't the game criticized a lot more for that?

 

[chikusho]

There are quite alot of games out there that has been bad in my opinion, but for some reason got good or even great rating from reviewers with different tastes.

There, I fixed it for you. There's no mystery here.

 

[NPC009]

I'm talking about game criticism as a whole, not a site-by-site analysis. It hurts the medium to have such a lack of actual criticism.

I was talking about the overall score of a game, not a single review. Again, reviewing as a whole, not just single reviews.

You are talking about things that do not matter. This is not a matter of numbers, it's a matter of people having opinions and that silly trend of expressing those opinions in numbers.

Again, my math is good (actually really great). I'm not asking for half the games to be below average and half to be above average. All AAA games being above average is a mathematical impossibility (not due to wanting a 50/50 spread) just due the probability of every AAA game being above average in quality.

This has nothing to do with maths! AAA is simply a name for high budget games with high expectations attached. Most of these games manage to live up to a good part of those expectations. Imagine that, good games being called good because they're good. The odd ones out are games such as Colonial Marines, which looked very promising but failed to deliver. There's a few of those every year, though most don't succeed in failing as well as CM did.

I'm not asking for the games I don't like to be rated poorly. I'm asking for criticism of all games. The games I love should have reviewers not like them because everyone has different tastes. I don't really care if a game is AAA or indie or whatever, I'm asking for differing opinions on all games across the board. It's not about me wanting to see the games I like having a higher score than the games I don't like.

And sometimes there's a consensus. That happens. Reviewers going out of their way to dislike something is not something we should aim for.

Game critics may not be able to analyze story and characters like a film critic but they do know quality (at least in their opinion) from shit. You're acting like game critics haven't experienced good writing in other mediums like movies, TV, books, etc. Everyone has a handle on what they feel is good writing, good story, interesting characters, etc. Games are no different and should be criticized if the writing isn't good especially in a game where much of the enjoyment of the game is due to story and characters like a Heavy Rain or an RPG. One of the biggest problems in the industry is the low quality of the writing due to not many good writers being in the medium and just due to how games are developed (gameplay/levels first, writing second). This aspect should be heavily criticized and its not.

Look, I also want better criticism of aspects such as storytelling, but you also have to consider what the readers seem to want. Most seem to want an entertaining game and don't worry to much about writing. Most reviewers write for most gamers. That's something to keep in mind.

But let's move on to something different for a bit: why should everything be heavily critised? A game is not the sum of its faults or virtues. It is the game as a whole; the overall experience it offers, that matters. But it is as if you want games to be torn apart. I don't think that is helpful at all. A highly critical review has about as much value as one that is not nearly critical enough.

It demonstrates everything wrong with game reviews. You just said it's no wonder MOST of them are well-liked. But ALL of them are rated as good by reviewers.

I don't get where you get 'all' from. There are always a few that were just too disappointing.

I was being as generous as possible with Uncharted 2 only weighing the MP as 10% of the game's score. Naughty Dog put effort into Uncharted 2's MP (and Uncharted 3), it's not just there to be marked as a checkbox of a required feature. Naughty Dog kept up with trying to balance the MP longer than even a COD or BF is supported nowadays. Uncharted and Spec Ops aren't the same in that regard. Uncharted's MP is something that many Uncharted players do look forward to so I think it's more than fair to have 10% of the game's score to be the MP, I'd say 25% going towards MP would be fair for Uncharted.

You're bringing maths into game scores again. That's a really silly way to look at it and if you keep that up, you'll find yourself never agreeing with them. You're the one using the scores wrong.

Some reviewers consider multiplayer important, others do not. That is reflected in the scores. If you want diversity, you should say they should all dedicate part of the score to the MP part of the game.

And another good example is Spec Ops because there is not one negative review for that game, which is about story (so more variance should be expected in its reviews already). I tried playing the demo of that and the shooting was well-below average so I didn't even finish the demo. Spec Ops is a GAME and it is a SHOOTER, it should have good shooting to be a good game. I realize a lot of enjoyment people had with Spec Ops was the story, but I can get good story from other mediums and not have to put up with bad gameplay to get it. Why suffer through bad gameplay to get to the good stuff? Why isn't the game criticized a lot more for that?

There are plenty of mixed reviews, but you want to see the game be torn apart, don't you? If you can't fine anyone who agrees with you on that, I'd say that is your problem, not that of the industry.

Also, have you ever considered that story and gameplay do not have to be seperate? It is possible to tell a story through gameplay. Gameplay can be used to illustrate developments (think of Ico guiding Yorda through the castle, or the way the robed figure is able to move about in Journey, especially in the last leg of the journey) or can be intentionally made to clash with the story in order to emphasize certain themes or messages (Spec Ops: The Line manages to do this to a degree).

 

[Pseudonym]

I encourage people to look at the metacritic user reviews for a game called out of the park baseball 2007 for the pc.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/out-of-the-park-baseball-2007/critic-reviews

To sum up the story: out of the park baseball 2007 is a video game, a few video game critics reviewed it and were very impressed. So much so that they rated it an average of 96/100. (so mostly 5-star or 10/10 reviews) This average is based on five reviews. Because of this the game appears at a very high spot in metacritics list of best rated games of all time and it is tied to halflife 1&2, the orange box and bioshock as one of the five best PC games of all time. Now I haven't played this game so I'll suspend judgement but I understand it might raise some eyebrows. The reaction in the user reviews was included the following.

Worthy of 6/10, but rating as 0 to counter the BS going on here. Your review must be at least 150 characters long. Your review must be at least 150 characters long.

A sports game like this getting tied for the greatest video games of all time??? with Bioshock and Half Life? Are you serious? What on earth happened here?

It's hard to understand how it is possible for a sports simulator of a game only enjoyed by less than 3% of the world population to be considered one of the best videogames of all times. That is why most people find it insulting seeing it all the way up there. Most of the people on this planet simply don't care about baseball in any shape or form, simple as that. A game with only 5 reviews shouldn't even be shown in the list unless you specifically search for it. The solution would be to simply include the amount of reviews into rating calculation like it's done on imdb.

A good game ? Maybe. A game that deserves to be the 2nd best game ever made ? Certainly not. Just because of 5 critic reviews, this game is overrated."

One point awarded for probably being a good sport SIM. Nine deducted for being worthless for the rest of us that want to play a game and have fun.

I simply cannot understand why this should be even close to the top 100 in an all time list of PC games.

I would also like to point to a user review I randomly found by looking at the user reviews for Metroid Prime.

No I cannot say good-bye Halo you stupid moron, where is the multiplayer Biznotch. Wheres the game of the year award. The game is incredible but nothing compared to the classics like Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, or Halo. But really the only problem with this game is that the controls are wierd, but since the Gamecube controller is not designed for FPS I congratulate nintedo on the effort. Great Game, the zero is just to get the attention of the itiot who said it was better than Halo.

Now the point I want to make here is: amongst user reviews there are reviews and scores given not even based on the merits of the game but based on the fact that it is a game in a certain genre or that giving a low score gets attention or brings down the average score. These people don't even feel like they should hide their bad intentions. Their reviews are utterly useless to anyone trying to find out whether this game is for them. They add nothing to the commentary on video games. So they have no value as art criticism neither as consumer guides. These just seem like fanboys of halflife and halo and people who don't like sports games hating on something they in some cases haven't even played and in some cases they have played it and they don't even think it is as bad as the score they are giving it indicates. So though some user reviews are useful, some others are horribly bad and written with bad intentions. Because of that I refuse to take the average score of them seriously at all. That aside, the average score of a game being high tells me other people liked it. I could still hate it. This is why I read and listen to reviews and don't just read the scores. I might even look up some gameplay footage. That way I can make an educated guess about whether the game is for me. Or if I just want interesting commentary about a game I already know I don't even bother with the score. If you really care about the average score on metacritic, I'd like to ask you why? And to be frank: though professional reviews have some problems as well they are still well above metacritic user reviews in my book.

 

[vledleR]

As we enter further into the age of the online connectivity, it gets harder for the gaming press to make accurate game reviews. It's one thing to create a controlled online environment for a few dozen journos, it's another thing altogether when you have millions of people trying, and often failing, to access key portions of an online game.

One of the few reasons I'm trying not to buy day 1 anymore, all too often reviewers are just way off mark, and unfortunately, sometimes it's of no fault of their own.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

You are talking about things that do not matter. This is not a matter of numbers, it's a matter of people having opinions and that silly trend of expressing those opinions in numbers.

Reviewers aren't expressing their true opinions (most of the time). It's not about the numbers in the end, it's about true opinions. Numbers just symbolize those opinions, I have no issue with criticism in other mediums.

This has nothing to do with maths! AAA is simply a name for high budget games with high expectations attached. Most of these games manage to live up to a good part of those expectations. Imagine that, good games being called good because they're good. The odd ones out are games such as Colonial Marines, which looked very promising but failed to deliver. There's a few of those every year, though most don't succeed in failing as well as CM did.

There are not a few AAA games that fail every year with regards to review scores. The only one I can even recall in like 10 years is Aliens:CM, and again, that was rated as JUST below average. The probability of everything being good from wherever is basically a mathematical impossibility. It's impossible for all AAA games to be good or all indie games to be good or all games published by EA to be good. It's impossible for all horror movies or superhero movies to be good as well, it just doesn't happen. It's not really a math thing, it's more of a history and human thing saying that has never happened before because humans make mistakes all the time.

And sometimes there's a consensus. That happens. Reviewers going out of their way to dislike something is not something we should aim for.

Exactly, SOMETIMES there's a consensus, not an overwhelming majority of the time.

Look, I also want better criticism of aspects such as storytelling, but you also have to consider what the readers seem to want. Most seem to want an entertaining game and don't worry to much about writing. Most reviewers write for most gamers. That's something to keep in mind.

But let's move on to something different for a bit: why should everything be heavily critised? A game is not the sum of its faults or virtues. It is the game as a whole; the overall experience it offers, that matters. But it is as if you want games to be torn apart. I don't think that is helpful at all. A highly critical review has about as much value as one that is not nearly critical enough.

The readers want true opinions from a reviewer. Movie reviewers do just fine not pandering to the lowest common denominator; Transformers gets tossed under the bus for being shit regardless of whether most of the general public likes those movies. The score of a game has become too important to the game's industry (even to gamers themselves). It's commonplace for a developer getting a bonus for a game reaching a certain score on Metacritic whereas a movie studio couldn't give a shit about how well a movie scored on RottenTomatoes.

You're bringing maths into game scores again. That's a really silly way to look at it and if you keep that up, you'll find yourself never agreeing with them. You're the one using the scores wrong.

Some reviewers consider multiplayer important, others do not. That is reflected in the scores. If you want diversity, you should say they should all dedicate part of the score to the MP part of the game.

You're again putting too much importance into my math, I'm using math more as an example than anything. I'm not saying Uncharted SHOULD be scored where MP weighs 25% (it's just that I would weigh it that way); I'm saying that MP is part of the game and should be part of the review score regardless if the reviewer feels it should be 1% or 99% of the score. It's part of the game and needs to be part of the score; how big a part is up to the each and every reviewer. That's just another reason why you should see more variance in scores because every reviewer is going to weigh MP differently. Yet the lowest score for Uncharted 2 is an 89. If your favorite TV show has a shitty episode, that episode is part of the show and it should factor into your final score you'd give that TV show.

There are plenty of mixed reviews, but you want to see the game be torn apart, don't you? If you can't fine anyone who agrees with you on that, I'd say that is your problem, not that of the industry.

Also, have you ever considered that story and gameplay do not have to be seperate? It is possible to tell a story through gameplay. Gameplay can be used to illustrate developments (think of Ico guiding Yorda through the castle, or the way the robed figure is able to move about in Journey, especially in the last leg of the journey) or can be intentionally made to clash with the story in order to emphasize certain themes or messages (Spec Ops: The Line manages to do this to a degree).

Asking for a below average review does not equal tearing apart the game, it just means below average. Below average is not the end of the world.

You're saying that Specs Ops shooting was purposefully bad in the shooting department for story purposes? That may be your opinion and opinions of others as well but not everyone. Thus, there should be some reviewers who felt the shooting was just bad because it was bad so there should be negative reviewers for the game as well. My opinion is that there's no reason for bad gameplay (Journey nor ICO have bad gameplay). Of course, you don't want to glamorize shooting and make it all flashy due to the themes of Spec Ops, but you can do that without making the shooting bad. It's not like Naughty Dog made the shooting worse when playing as Ellie in The Last of Us and the game succeeds in Ellie's character development exactly where the latest Tomb Raider failed with Lara Croft's character development.

 

[Evilsausage]

Answer to BloatedGuppy


1. Ohh so the reason can only be because of those damn people down voting things without a valid reason.
So was Diablo 3 a great game? To some maybe, but there was a large playerbase that didn't like it. Not just for its issues at launch.
Btw not all games get down voted on Meta, take Path of Exile for example which also is a ARPG. It actually got lower rating by the professional reviews then D3 and RoS. Yet it has higher user score then D3 and RoS.
If you combine the sugercoated professional reviews with the tad too angry user reviews i think you get a pretty fair score. About 6.5 for D3 and 7.5 for RoS.

2. No the sales drop wasn't that big. In Ratio to D3-RoS drop it was much smaller.
Blizzard has a very loyal fanbase and is a big name in the industry so ofc it will sell. But Diablo 3 sold 6.5 million copies the first week while Ros sold 2,7 million. Thats about 65% less.

3. Hehe true sometimes i go Swenglish.Two p in flop there
I never said the 3.9 user review was fair, just that it showed a different side that wasn't so fantastic about the game. Btw do you think 8.9 is a fair avrage rating?
Im sure D3 pleased some, I heard it was quite nice on consoles and the simplifed system probably suited new players to the genre.
But you have to remember that it was one of the most anticipated game of all time. Something it could not nearly live up to.
Seen many threads on the internet mentioning what a dissapointment it was. Even Forbes listed it as one of the most dissapointing games of 2012.
Main developer quit after making a fool out of himself, many famous streamers leave and stuff like Auction house gets removed after many complaints. So yeah I think its quite accurate to compare it with the Phantom Menace. It might have sold well but it did dissapoint many Diablo fans.

4. The options where limited yes but they where there. In BC I played a shockadin with spell dmg gear and not a standard holy build. Still i got past 2200 in rating in the arena
There where options and people could have been given even more of them.
Atm atleast the mage talent tree (if you can call it that) is filled with lousy skills and few you must pick. There is also less skills, less stat variations on items etc.

I have done a couple Heroics and no it isn't really hard. Nothing like BCs heroics before they nerfed it.
So far i have progressed through normal instances and Heroic without a single CC needed. The only wipe was when a tank went full retard. Yeah im sure there is challange at Mythic but its will just be same area now a third time with more people. Its already kinda boring doing things doing over and over.

5. I never said I had solid facts behind it to begin with. I just said it lacked good content and wouldn't be surprised if the rumor was true.

6. Funny how you defend the professional reviewers as long they praise the game even though most of them haven't gotten near end game content. But im not allowed to criticize what I have seen so far.

7. Mages are trash, probably the worst they have ever been in WoWs history. Really bad survivabilty and horrible damage. Let me guess im not allowed to say that, since I don't have the full arena set? Look up the mage forum and see how satisfied they are.

8. I have nothing against hard Pvp content. But if the pvp in itself isn't that fun due to less skills, insane health pools and a bad class i see no reason to do it. I might later with some better gear. But right now its too little about skill and too much about what class you have.


9. I listed one thing as sucky. The Garrison which is the only new big feature. Lack of freedom to decorate it, horrible companion system which can be compared to farmville. The garrison pretty much ruined the professions and the game has gotten even less social.

I listed several things that was new and fresh back when Burning crusade came. It did introduce alot of good things. In WoD there sure isn't much we haven't seen similarly done many times before. Thats why WoD is lazy
But your free to list any major new features i might have missed. Good luck with that btw

10. Truth is I did not run all end game raids in vanilla and BC. Or grind exalted rep with all factions. Most people don't do it, many don't even raid at all.
But at that time there where atleast alot that felt new. Is it really to greedy to ask for something more new and refreshing end game on the fifth expansion?
I also doubt mythic and highmaul would blow my socks off.

11. Once again never said user reviews are better. But most games with a low user score usually is flawed in some way. Something the majority of professional reviews rarely bring up.
Its not like many professional reviewers is bias either. Many work with hyping big titles before its release and then gettig to travel and meet the developers. Ofc its gonna be very hard for them to give it a low score.

12.
Most people who read reviews of a game they haven't played yet, so it is really hard to tell if its a fair review or not.
In D3s case very few professional reviewers brought up its major flaws.
Going through professional reviews doesn't give a honest rating just like user reviews also have its flaws.

13. I don't think anyone base their buy on one user review. People know user reviews are ofted crude, even if the rating often is exadgerated its combined rating tells us if a game isn't as perfect as the professional reviews wants us to belive.

 

[Spearmaster]

I'm going to say that reviewers should, as a courtesy to their viewers/readers, disclose the rough percentage of game content they completed for review or at least their time played. That would be a way for consumers to be more informed about how much of the game the review actually applies. That way when a reviewer gives a game a sterling 9.5/10 with only 15% of the game played we would probably be able to discern for our selves whether its "hype" or not.

To be honest I think every AAA title is hyped just for virtue of being a AAA title, its not all the reviewers fault either, fans of studios and franchises have to bear some of the blame here, as well as the studios themselves.

As a side note I have found in the last few years that many games have become more front loaded when it comes to quality, almost like the developers know reviewers are are only going to play the first 10 or so hours before writing their review. Maybe its just me...

 

[Sarge034]

Avarage means different things in different context. A mathematical 'avarage' is different from the 'average' as used in colloquial language (where it can mean anything from 'mediocre' to 'unremarkable'). Please don't make a fool out of yourself by confusing the two.

And while even the colloquial avarage certainly shifts there are no means (or reasons!) to measure that shift, because these numbers have no actual value. The only thing they to is summarize the feelings of the reviewer.

I was reading through enjoying the civil, intelligent conversation between you and runic knight and then I saw this. Do the two definitions really differ so much? In math an average is literally the dead center of all values, and in colloquial language average is used to describe a thing that is neither good nor bad, one might say it was in the middle. They both serve to convey the thing, whatever it is, is in the middle. /semantics But I will hop on the train saying "7" seems to actually mean "5".

But I do have a question for you. How would you feel about doing away with numbers all together? I personally want to hear a review that is both objective AND subjective. I want the reviewer to tear into the technical aspects of a game and then tell me what they personally thought about the game. I don't think they have to be mutually exclusive and it solves a lot of the "problems" we're dealing with now. For example, most games use the "A" button (whatever it is on your preferred input device) as the catch all button. I had issues in ME3 mp, Shadows of Mordor, and the two AC games I've played with "miss clicks". Actions being preformed when I wanted something else to happen. While in Sunset Overdrive I didn't have that issue somehow. Were I reviewing those games I would say something to the effect that the system worked but could sometimes cause unwanted actions to be preformed (the objective bit), and then go on to say that these "miss clicks" personally didn't cause anything larger than a minor inconvenience for me but did result in my dying a few times (the subjective bit). That way the problem is stated, my opinion is known, and the reader could draw their own conclusion as to if it would be a problem for them. I personally know a few people who can not tolerate dying because of an issue on the game's end so they'd know what they were in for if nothing else.

Capatcha "do unto others" I do love a civil discussion!

 

[NPC009]

Reviewers aren't expressing their true opinions (most of the time). It's not about the numbers in the end, it's about true opinions. Numbers just symbolize those opinions, I have no issue with criticism in other mediums.

And how do you recognise an opinion that's not true? Is it's an opinion that is very different from yours?

What I'm gathering from your posts is that you want reviewers to have stronger opinions. Not just saying 'This is a bad game, you probably shouldn't buy it' but go all the way to 'this is a bad game, it is an insult to gaming and gamers!' Sure, it's fun to see people like Yahtzee verbally destroy games, but I don't think it should be the standard. Even bad game tend to have atleast some merits and we should acknowlegde those. If every starts tearing disappointing games a new one things will just seem much worse than they actually are. Not very helpful.

This seem to be a good moment to go back to Spec Ops for a bit. I personally didn't think the mechanics or gameplay as a whole were bad. Underwhelming would be a good word fot it, but aside from a few difficult patches the game wasn't frustrating to play. I'd say the gameplay was good enough for what it was trying to do: support the story. That's why most reviewers didn't have much of an issue with it. Heck, if I recall correctly atleast several reviewers called the gameplay a bit too fun and wondered if being punished for enjoying shooting enemies was harming or hurting the message the game was trying to send.

There are not a few AAA games that fail every year with regards to review scores. The only one I can even recall in like 10 years is Aliens:CM, and again, that was rated as JUST below average. The probability of everything being good from wherever is basically a mathematical impossibility. It's impossible for all AAA games to be good or all indie games to be good or all games published by EA to be good. It's impossible for all horror movies or superhero movies to be good as well, it just doesn't happen. It's not really a math thing, it's more of a history and human thing saying that has never happened before because humans make mistakes all the time.

That's strange. Most high profile titles I checked get atleast both positive and mixed reviews. And while you do find negative reviews among the ones written by users, most of those red scores seem to be 0s given out of spite. For example, 1/3 of the negative user reviews for Watch Dogs give a 0. There are also some 1s and 2s that seem to be written by otherwise perfectly reasonable people who wanted to adjust the overall score to something they would have given in the game outside of Metacritic.

Anyway, you should not forget what triple A actually means: a game with a high budget made by experienced people. The term came into use in the nineties to distinguish high profile titles from shovelware, cheaply made licensed game and other practices gamers and serious developers weren't proud or fond of. Games were triple A because they rated highly.

What changed was that developers, publishers, journalists and even gamers in general started calling games triple A based solely on expectations. Most games still managed to deliver, but you see duds here and there. Keep in mind that this is a fairly recent change. If I'd had to pinpoint a period, I'd say a little after the PS3 and Xbox 360 launched. Is it really that surprising to most triple A games are good games?

The readers want true opinions from a reviewer. Movie reviewers do just fine not pandering to the lowest common denominator; Transformers gets tossed under the bus for being shit regardless of whether most of the general public likes those movies.

I think that's the divide we are starting to see now: many people still want games just to be fun. They may even get annoyed by or angry at games that aspire to be a little more than pure entertainment. On the other hand there seems to be a growing group of gamers and critics who want games to be more than fun. They appreciate games like Gone Home for trying something new and may even find the original price acceptable.

The score of a game has become too important to the game's industry (even to gamers themselves). It's commonplace for a developer getting a bonus for a game reaching a certain score on Metacritic whereas a movie studio couldn't give a shit about how well a movie scored on RottenTomatoes.

I absolutely agree with you there. Back when Metacritic and Gamerankings were fairly new, I saw the sites as great services to consumers. Finding a varity of reviews of for a particular game had never been so easy! Sadly several groups started valuing the aggregate scores too. Consumers looking only at the score instead of the reviews, and publishers handing out bonuses to developers that achieved scores consumers liked.

I'm saying that MP is part of the game and should be part of the review score regardless if the reviewer feels it should be 1% or 99% of the score. It's part of the game and needs to be part of the score; how big a part is up to the each and every reviewer. That's just another reason why you should see more variance in scores because every reviewer is going to weigh MP differently. Yet the lowest score for Uncharted 2 is an 89. If your favorite TV show has a shitty episode, that episode is part of the show and it should factor into your final score you'd give that TV show.

But what if that one lowpoint isn't low enough to justify a lower score (from the reviewer's point of view)? I've seen it happen.

Actually, I've got an example. When Tetris appeared in the 3DS VC I wasn't thrilled. Old-school Gameboy Tetris is nice on it's own, but I grew up playing the multiplayer and they had left it out of the VC release. As a result the game felt very lacking; half of it was gone! Most of my fellow (who never played the multiplayer much) disagreed: the clever mechanics and legacy of the game were enough to hand out one of the highest score we could give.

Would you say the other reviewers' opinions weren't 'true'? They considered the value of the MP and came to the conclusion that its absence had no effect on the value of the game. Isn't the fact that they did take it into consideration enough?

Asking for a below average review does not equal tearing apart the game, it just means below average. Below average is not the end of the world.

But many people do treat it as such. I can't blame reviewers for wanting to take a more moderate stance on things. Again, this has something to do with their frame of reference as well. When Superman 64 and those quick buck early access Steam disasters (very poorly put together and unplayable games that barely offer anything in terms of content) are 1s, it doesn't feel right to give something like Final Fantasy XIII or Watch Dogs a 4. While these games were (major) disappointments, they're still fully playable games with some good ideas that were decently executed. (Against tougher bosses Final Fantasy XIII's battlesystem is a thing of beauty, instead of micromanaging each individual character you guide the flow of battle with timing and insight. Too bad the system rarely gets a chance to shine during all those regular encounters...)

 

[NPC009]

I was reading through enjoying the civil, intelligent conversation between you and runic knight and then I saw this. Do the two definitions really differ so much? In math an average is literally the dead center of all values, and in colloquial language average is used to describe a thing that is neither good nor bad, one might say it was in the middle. They both serve to convey the thing, whatever it is, is in the middle. /semantics But I will hop on the train saying "7" seems to actually mean "5".

From my experience they do. I think that when people imagine gaming scores, they imagine them following a sort of bell curve. Think normal distribution. When they pick up a random game the changes of that game being above or below avarage are about equal. It's what the numbers tempt us to do: numbers are logical, they make sense.

Of course, in reality it doesn't work quite like that, because:
- Magazines and websites focus on reviewing games most gamers are interested in. Gamers become interested in games because they look good. As a result we see more positive than negative scores. (They're cherry picking, you could say)
- Grading scales vary from site to site. I've seen sites that use an academic scale were 55% = F. As a result they have many reviews with a score of 70% or higher.

So even if you put all those numbers together you won't get a lovely logical bell curve. All those numbers are and will ever be are numbers that sort of mean words.

But I do have a question for you. How would you feel about doing away with numbers all together?

I'm not against numbers, but I do feel many are using them wrong.

Scores can be very helpful when looking for different opinions on one subject. We live in an age were there is more information than time, so we don't want to waste our time reading (or skimming through) reviews that have nothing new to offer. That's where sites like Metacritic can come in. Find the game and read reviews with a variety of scores. I think that would be a good way of using them. But instead people are attaching extreme amounts of value to them, especially to the aggregate scores. Publishers withholding (often essential) bonuses to developers or even trying to pressure journalists, gamers trying to manipulate the aggregate score instead of giving scores that reflect their own opinion, silly voting wars... It's a mess.

It would be hard for sites to step away from numbers now, though. They need the traffic Metacritic and Gamerankings generate. Stop attaching numbers to reviews and they'll become much harder to find.

So I think that it's best to use scoring systems that are simply, clean and transparant. So no bullshit with decimals or weird percentages, but something simple like a scale of 1-10 or 1-5 stars. Of course there needs to be a page that explain in detail what those numbers mean, sites should make sure that page is easy to find for readers. Personally, I also like a quick summary of the review to supplement the score. Like I said, many readers want to know if a review is worth reading before they read it, something like a little summary or some bullet points could be very helpful.

I personally want to hear a review that is both objective AND subjective. I want the reviewer to tear into the technical aspects of a game and then tell me what they personally thought about the game. I don't think they have to be mutually exclusive and it solves a lot of the "problems" we're dealing with now.

That's what I aim for when I write a review. There's not enough room on a page (500-600 words in most magazines) to go into every detail, but I always try to provide examples of what does and doesn't work. And I try to explain why I did or didn't like the game. That could be something more abstract than how the game works. Monster Hunter for example. While controls are responsive, they're also quite complex and in some cases the controllers/handheld systems doesn't have enough buttons to allow for comfortable play (like having to hold your hand like a claw to control both camera and movement). They can also be insanely rewarding games to play. It feels great when you use perfectly aimed attacks to finally bring your a tough monster, craft your newely gained materials into a powerful weapon or piece of armour, and actually see the result on your character. If I can convey that sense of excitement to the reader, I think I did a pretty good job

From my experience these are also the reviewers most readers find most helpful. I review a lot of niche games in unusual genres. I know the subject matter will be new to many and I have to take that into account. Take the Etrian Odyssey series. Explaining that it's a dungeon crawler with various classes is just half the review. Many readers won't have the frame of referance needed to put that info to good use. They'll lose interest and go read about something else, forgetting about Etrian Odyssey. But if I can explain the thrill of exploring the labyrinth using maps you draw yourself, people will keep reading and maybe even say: "It's not something I'd normally play, but I want to try this sometime."