Now I am your average male video gamer that owns a ps3 a decent PC and a DS. Now occasionally I hit the net to read reviews in order to chose what game to buy next so i don't waste my money on a game that is worth only 1 hour of fun, but sometimes I read poorly written reviews that are talk about irrelevant things or make criticisms about silly things, so I end up buying a game only worth 1 hour of fun. The point of a review is to convince the audience that this game is a good guy or its utter trash.
I have a bit of guff about certain game review techniques that need to be cleared up.
1)Go through the whole plot and its game play before reviewing it.
I remember a while back a guy reviewed a JRPG Enchanted Arms where he described the supporting characters. But the thing was that these supporting characters were only with the protagonist for about the first 5% of the game. Even Penny Arcade Picked up on this.
Another example is of Yahtzee's review of Army of Two. He was talking about how his co op friend died while step jumping, a co-op feature that army of two game play is built on. There is a problem though, as by his account the his method of flushing out the enemies up top a step jump was not right.
I really don't like how people don't go through the whole or at least half the game before reviewing it. This means the review is invalid since I'm getting a review of the first 5% of the game. Wow
2)Broken Game play
What does broken game play constitute to? I never received a definition. They should explain why the game play is broken when reviewing a game .Instead of just saying its broken justify it also.
3)Reviewing sequels and Sticking to the "formula"
From what I see there are two views on what a sequel should be. I will use a Chicken Schnitzel as an analogy. From a developer, all he needs to do is add some sauce to the chicken and voila! New recipe. Everyone's gonna Buy it! But as a Critic from what I am seeing from these reviews, they want to a whole different thing. Maybe change the breast of a chicken to a drumstick, instead of breadcrumbs use even more herbs and spices and bam you have KFC original recipe.
I would return to the restaurant for a chicken schnitzel not original recipe.
Reviewers seem to want thousands of changes to the point that the sequel is a totally different game play from the first, because all i see is "It's just the same as the first one but with duel wield/better graphics"
I know with a sequel they are supposed to be new fun and innovative but developers are bound human limits.
*the analogy might not make sense*
In a nutshell reviewers seem to want to change the formula of the game too much from what i am reading.
Though this is understandable under certain circumstances(Mario series, MoH and sooner or later Guitar Hero series)
But too many changes can be a bad thing. I will use Star wars Battlefront and Star wars battlefront 2. I loved number one because you were just a normal low rank grunt with a bunch of other low rank grunts but in SWBF2 you could turn into a Jedi/bounty hunter/sith etc which defeated the whole purpose of the game in my point of view.
4)Repetitiveness
I know Assassins Creed has copped a lot from its repetitiveness. I liked Assassins creed's game play. Where as you advanced you gain more weapons/skills to help you in further assassination targets. The setting of the assassination taking place changed the gameplay also.(From a large castle, a mental asylum or even a ship dock in each setting you had to find a way to get to the target)
5)Relevance
I remember Halo 3, GTA 4 and MGS 4, Every review will talk about "hype" and whether it lives up to it's "hype". Personally I don't want to read that, I want to read if its a good game or not. Also i don't think things like mandatory installs should lower the score of a game. It may be an inconvenience but it isn't worth lowering marks.
6) Only focusing on the good/bad points in the game
Yes you may hate JRPGS/FPSs but you can't just say everything bad about them and leaving out anything good or vice versa. It just doesn't constitute to a good review. This means its biased and people looking at a certain critics views therefore buying games under false perceptions.
*off topic sorry I accidentally pressed enter when typing this and it messed up, so i had to do a new thread.
I have a bit of guff about certain game review techniques that need to be cleared up.
1)Go through the whole plot and its game play before reviewing it.
I remember a while back a guy reviewed a JRPG Enchanted Arms where he described the supporting characters. But the thing was that these supporting characters were only with the protagonist for about the first 5% of the game. Even Penny Arcade Picked up on this.
Another example is of Yahtzee's review of Army of Two. He was talking about how his co op friend died while step jumping, a co-op feature that army of two game play is built on. There is a problem though, as by his account the his method of flushing out the enemies up top a step jump was not right.
I really don't like how people don't go through the whole or at least half the game before reviewing it. This means the review is invalid since I'm getting a review of the first 5% of the game. Wow
2)Broken Game play
What does broken game play constitute to? I never received a definition. They should explain why the game play is broken when reviewing a game .Instead of just saying its broken justify it also.
3)Reviewing sequels and Sticking to the "formula"
From what I see there are two views on what a sequel should be. I will use a Chicken Schnitzel as an analogy. From a developer, all he needs to do is add some sauce to the chicken and voila! New recipe. Everyone's gonna Buy it! But as a Critic from what I am seeing from these reviews, they want to a whole different thing. Maybe change the breast of a chicken to a drumstick, instead of breadcrumbs use even more herbs and spices and bam you have KFC original recipe.
I would return to the restaurant for a chicken schnitzel not original recipe.
Reviewers seem to want thousands of changes to the point that the sequel is a totally different game play from the first, because all i see is "It's just the same as the first one but with duel wield/better graphics"
I know with a sequel they are supposed to be new fun and innovative but developers are bound human limits.
*the analogy might not make sense*
In a nutshell reviewers seem to want to change the formula of the game too much from what i am reading.
Though this is understandable under certain circumstances(Mario series, MoH and sooner or later Guitar Hero series)
But too many changes can be a bad thing. I will use Star wars Battlefront and Star wars battlefront 2. I loved number one because you were just a normal low rank grunt with a bunch of other low rank grunts but in SWBF2 you could turn into a Jedi/bounty hunter/sith etc which defeated the whole purpose of the game in my point of view.
4)Repetitiveness
I know Assassins Creed has copped a lot from its repetitiveness. I liked Assassins creed's game play. Where as you advanced you gain more weapons/skills to help you in further assassination targets. The setting of the assassination taking place changed the gameplay also.(From a large castle, a mental asylum or even a ship dock in each setting you had to find a way to get to the target)
5)Relevance
I remember Halo 3, GTA 4 and MGS 4, Every review will talk about "hype" and whether it lives up to it's "hype". Personally I don't want to read that, I want to read if its a good game or not. Also i don't think things like mandatory installs should lower the score of a game. It may be an inconvenience but it isn't worth lowering marks.
6) Only focusing on the good/bad points in the game
Yes you may hate JRPGS/FPSs but you can't just say everything bad about them and leaving out anything good or vice versa. It just doesn't constitute to a good review. This means its biased and people looking at a certain critics views therefore buying games under false perceptions.
*off topic sorry I accidentally pressed enter when typing this and it messed up, so i had to do a new thread.
