I want to preface this by saying there a heck of a lot of reviewers out there I have a lot of respect for, and a heck of a lot of up and comers who I'm excited about.
Niceties out of the way, I've found the review section to be sorely lacking in any sort of intelligent reasoning, rational insight or even humour which raises a chuckle for quite a while now. In times gone by, our little community managed to provide another source of information for those seeking opinions on a particular product, but nowadays I can only find frustration.
This may seem like an old-timer whinging about how things used to be better in the old days, but I form my opinion free from any preconceptions and judge solely based on the level of reviews being written today. Let's begin with that point of discussion in both review circles and in the bedroom. Length.
I'm okay with modern media writing being tight and punchy, but over the last few months there has been a succinct lack of words in reviews, and thus a distinct lack of ideas and thought. It seems to be a by-product of the twitter generation that reviews barely go over half a page and rarely discuss more than two or three points.
I am really sick and tired of opening up a review of a product I'm looking to buy and finding nary a detail in sight. Okay, so the graphics are good and there's some gamplay which is broken but what else? Is that all there is to a particular product, are you really such a good reviewer that you can boil it down to a couple of points? No, nobody is. I understand that words are sometimes scary and putting a bit of effort into your work seems superfluous but if you actually want your work to be worthy of somebody reading it, you have to give them something a bit more in-depth than a couple of paragraphs.
As with all things, the devil's in the details and games are no different. There's a school of thought which says you don't have to know everything about a game to buy it but I'd like to think the reviews section has evolved beyond a simplistic consumer guide and has become a community where products are discussed in detail.
Of course, I'm not saying your review should take in every little pixel and give it a mark out of ten but games have more than two strings to their bows. If you only write a couple of paragraphs about a game, you are doing a disservice to the game itself and the people who worked on it. More than that, you can not give a fair and balanced review of the whole product if you do not review the whole product.
I've been so surprised by a lack of depth in reviews that I'm starting to think people are doing it on purpose, that we have some sort of 'review troll' on our hands. This perception isn't helped when you see reviews where the sole intent seems to be to provoke a reaction rather than open, intelligent and equitable debate on a particular game.
People, to be blunt, have become comment whores. The desired end result of reviewers seems to be comments. It's as if their worth as a reviewer is dependant of a numerical value of little to no significance. The way to do this is to tap into the internet's love of arguing with complete strangers and to this end a culture has developed whereby presenting a biased and inflammatory stance on a particular product has become the norm and well balanced and rational insight has become scarce indeed.
Scarcity has become to buzz word of the review forum as a lack of insight, depth or even spelling has become a systemic disease.
I'm absolutely shocked as to how people think that people are going to actually take the time out to read a poorly spelled review. To most rational, forward thinking people, spelling is very important as it indicates the reviewer has actually taken the time out to make sure their I's are dotted and their T's are crossed. It shows a basic lack of respect for your audience if you think your poorly spelled 'review' is still worth the eyeballs of the forum participants. I can accept a few typos, God knows I do love a typo, but when there are at least ten spelling mistakes per paragraph you're in some trouble. Take some time out before you hit the "submit" button and actually read your review. It will make you take a look at each word and question whether or not it's spelled correctly and heck, you might become a better reviewer. Same goes for grammar, and I'mnot going to waste timeby going over the same points again.
For all I've talked about so far, the elephant in the room undiscussed. I write of, of course, the use of humour in review.
Right then, how should I put this? You are not Yahtzee, stop trying to be Yahtzee and your attempts to be Yahtzee are laughable for all the wrong reasons. Humour, as a general rule is like honey. It's sweet, it's nice to have on toast but would you want to eat two tonnes of the stuff in one sitting?
Humour is best used sparingly in review, as the main point of a review should be to actually 'review' a product, not be a stage for your comic stylings. Listen, I wouldn't be complaining about the use of humour in review if at least half of it was funny, but most of the time you come off as a rabid Yahtzee fan and here's the thing about trying to imitate his humour: it doesn't work on paper.
Yahtzee's humour is largely visual. Go ahead and play one of his videos and close your eyes. You'll find it's mostly not all that funny, and that's because without the illustrations his comic punch lines are lost in translation. When you try to translate his largely visual-reliant humour to a text based medium you won't end up seeming like a witty savante, instead you'll end up seeming like a tool.
How to sum up everything I loathe about the review section in a summarising paragraph? A lack of depth, a lack of care with copy and a lack of original thought. Lift your game.
Recommendation: Don't buy it
Niceties out of the way, I've found the review section to be sorely lacking in any sort of intelligent reasoning, rational insight or even humour which raises a chuckle for quite a while now. In times gone by, our little community managed to provide another source of information for those seeking opinions on a particular product, but nowadays I can only find frustration.
This may seem like an old-timer whinging about how things used to be better in the old days, but I form my opinion free from any preconceptions and judge solely based on the level of reviews being written today. Let's begin with that point of discussion in both review circles and in the bedroom. Length.
I'm okay with modern media writing being tight and punchy, but over the last few months there has been a succinct lack of words in reviews, and thus a distinct lack of ideas and thought. It seems to be a by-product of the twitter generation that reviews barely go over half a page and rarely discuss more than two or three points.
I am really sick and tired of opening up a review of a product I'm looking to buy and finding nary a detail in sight. Okay, so the graphics are good and there's some gamplay which is broken but what else? Is that all there is to a particular product, are you really such a good reviewer that you can boil it down to a couple of points? No, nobody is. I understand that words are sometimes scary and putting a bit of effort into your work seems superfluous but if you actually want your work to be worthy of somebody reading it, you have to give them something a bit more in-depth than a couple of paragraphs.
As with all things, the devil's in the details and games are no different. There's a school of thought which says you don't have to know everything about a game to buy it but I'd like to think the reviews section has evolved beyond a simplistic consumer guide and has become a community where products are discussed in detail.
Of course, I'm not saying your review should take in every little pixel and give it a mark out of ten but games have more than two strings to their bows. If you only write a couple of paragraphs about a game, you are doing a disservice to the game itself and the people who worked on it. More than that, you can not give a fair and balanced review of the whole product if you do not review the whole product.
I've been so surprised by a lack of depth in reviews that I'm starting to think people are doing it on purpose, that we have some sort of 'review troll' on our hands. This perception isn't helped when you see reviews where the sole intent seems to be to provoke a reaction rather than open, intelligent and equitable debate on a particular game.
People, to be blunt, have become comment whores. The desired end result of reviewers seems to be comments. It's as if their worth as a reviewer is dependant of a numerical value of little to no significance. The way to do this is to tap into the internet's love of arguing with complete strangers and to this end a culture has developed whereby presenting a biased and inflammatory stance on a particular product has become the norm and well balanced and rational insight has become scarce indeed.
Scarcity has become to buzz word of the review forum as a lack of insight, depth or even spelling has become a systemic disease.
I'm absolutely shocked as to how people think that people are going to actually take the time out to read a poorly spelled review. To most rational, forward thinking people, spelling is very important as it indicates the reviewer has actually taken the time out to make sure their I's are dotted and their T's are crossed. It shows a basic lack of respect for your audience if you think your poorly spelled 'review' is still worth the eyeballs of the forum participants. I can accept a few typos, God knows I do love a typo, but when there are at least ten spelling mistakes per paragraph you're in some trouble. Take some time out before you hit the "submit" button and actually read your review. It will make you take a look at each word and question whether or not it's spelled correctly and heck, you might become a better reviewer. Same goes for grammar, and I'mnot going to waste timeby going over the same points again.
For all I've talked about so far, the elephant in the room undiscussed. I write of, of course, the use of humour in review.
Right then, how should I put this? You are not Yahtzee, stop trying to be Yahtzee and your attempts to be Yahtzee are laughable for all the wrong reasons. Humour, as a general rule is like honey. It's sweet, it's nice to have on toast but would you want to eat two tonnes of the stuff in one sitting?
Humour is best used sparingly in review, as the main point of a review should be to actually 'review' a product, not be a stage for your comic stylings. Listen, I wouldn't be complaining about the use of humour in review if at least half of it was funny, but most of the time you come off as a rabid Yahtzee fan and here's the thing about trying to imitate his humour: it doesn't work on paper.
Yahtzee's humour is largely visual. Go ahead and play one of his videos and close your eyes. You'll find it's mostly not all that funny, and that's because without the illustrations his comic punch lines are lost in translation. When you try to translate his largely visual-reliant humour to a text based medium you won't end up seeming like a witty savante, instead you'll end up seeming like a tool.
How to sum up everything I loathe about the review section in a summarising paragraph? A lack of depth, a lack of care with copy and a lack of original thought. Lift your game.
Recommendation: Don't buy it
