Today I want to talk about something that comes hand in hand with games, and that is, as the title cunningly informs you, review scores. This will not be a blog with answers, but of questions for the viewers at home.
Reviews can be very useful, we all know games are expensive, wherever you live. Whether you buy five a year or fifty, you don't want to buy a bad game, you want to enjoy the experience. So if you are looking to spend your hard earned dollars/pounds/euros/human skulls/rocks, reviews can help you spend intelligently. The problem of course is that the process is wholly subjective, and very personal.
IGN is a huge site, with a great many readers, no doubt many thousands, and is certainly the largest gaming website I am aware of, and the most prominent. Yet each game receives a score based on the opinion of one individual, and that score gets added to the database, and seen across the world. Even with the best will in the world, you will not agree with everyone, and this being the internet, someone will probably even get angry, maybe their cat just spontaneously combusted or something, I hate it when that happens. This could give the reviewer a huge influence on the success of a game, one viewpoint could inform many thousands of potential buyers.
One thing I find interesting when reading reviews concerns sequels. For this example I shall require the assistance of Fallout 3, and Fallout New Vegas. Fallout 3 received a very impressive score of 9.6, New Vegas 8.5. This intrigues me. In my opinion, New Vegas offers a much deeper experience, and this is down to basic mechanics. The game allows you to focus on different skills much more than 3 if you want a pacifist option for example. The crafting is far more involved, allowing you to make food, medicines, recycle ammo and so on. This is compared to the Fallout 3 crafting of weapons, which felt incredibly tacked on and shallow to me, like an idea they never bothered developing. New Vegas' faction system gives a more involved relationship with the setting than the basic karma meter of 3. Now I hope that pretty much everyone would agree with me there, the very well received mechanics of 3 have been improved and expanded on, and successfully so, in New Vegas. Yet despite this, the game got a significantly lower score.
So then, my first question for you. How objective should a reviewer try to be? I for example would consider the above mentioned changes to be fairly objectively better. So, that leaves story, setting, and characters. Now these are going to be highly subjective, and different for everyone. So then, should a reviewer focus more on the mechanics, and less on the stuff that is open to personal preference? Did you prefer the DC ruins, or the Mojave wasteland, and does your decision affect the actual quality of the game, or just your personal view? let me know
Now on to my next point. There is one thing that really annoys me in reviews, and that is complaints that things haven't changed. Step up Assassin's Creed 2, and Brotherhood. Assassin's Creed 2 received 9.2, Brotherhood an 8. Now, if you read through the review, the majority of it is complaints that they haven't really added anything to the game. Now, my question is, should they? I loved AC2, I am perfectly happy with more of the same, I do not feel that 'more of the same' is an objectively a bad situation. Brotherhood changes the setting, continues the story, adds more items, and more characters. Isn't that enough? What is unclear in the review is how much the reviewer has knocked down the score because of the lack of new stuff, and how much is because they didn't like other changes. Also, we don't know of course what the reviewer would have scored AC2 as, should you try and have the same reviewer follow a series in order to maintain continuity?
9.2 to 8 is a big drop, and the phrase, 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' springs to mind. So my next question for you lovely folk is: if a game has the same mechanics as its predecessor, can it/should it, be given a lower score? I am more of the view point that if a game is worth one score, and the sequel doesn't change anything, then it ought to get the same score. I do not believe that familiarity makes a game worse. What if someone didn't play the original? The sequel will be as new and exciting to them, as the original was to the reviewer.
So basically, what I want to know from you all is simple, how much of the reviewer's personal preference should be included in the review? Obviously none of us are perfect, our opinions will always colour what we do, and personal opinion cannot be left out entirely, but should we give it free reign, or try to retain a degree of professional objectivity?
The floor is yours.
- yes you at home
Reviews can be very useful, we all know games are expensive, wherever you live. Whether you buy five a year or fifty, you don't want to buy a bad game, you want to enjoy the experience. So if you are looking to spend your hard earned dollars/pounds/euros/human skulls/rocks, reviews can help you spend intelligently. The problem of course is that the process is wholly subjective, and very personal.
IGN is a huge site, with a great many readers, no doubt many thousands, and is certainly the largest gaming website I am aware of, and the most prominent. Yet each game receives a score based on the opinion of one individual, and that score gets added to the database, and seen across the world. Even with the best will in the world, you will not agree with everyone, and this being the internet, someone will probably even get angry, maybe their cat just spontaneously combusted or something, I hate it when that happens. This could give the reviewer a huge influence on the success of a game, one viewpoint could inform many thousands of potential buyers.
One thing I find interesting when reading reviews concerns sequels. For this example I shall require the assistance of Fallout 3, and Fallout New Vegas. Fallout 3 received a very impressive score of 9.6, New Vegas 8.5. This intrigues me. In my opinion, New Vegas offers a much deeper experience, and this is down to basic mechanics. The game allows you to focus on different skills much more than 3 if you want a pacifist option for example. The crafting is far more involved, allowing you to make food, medicines, recycle ammo and so on. This is compared to the Fallout 3 crafting of weapons, which felt incredibly tacked on and shallow to me, like an idea they never bothered developing. New Vegas' faction system gives a more involved relationship with the setting than the basic karma meter of 3. Now I hope that pretty much everyone would agree with me there, the very well received mechanics of 3 have been improved and expanded on, and successfully so, in New Vegas. Yet despite this, the game got a significantly lower score.
- you gave me how much?
So then, my first question for you. How objective should a reviewer try to be? I for example would consider the above mentioned changes to be fairly objectively better. So, that leaves story, setting, and characters. Now these are going to be highly subjective, and different for everyone. So then, should a reviewer focus more on the mechanics, and less on the stuff that is open to personal preference? Did you prefer the DC ruins, or the Mojave wasteland, and does your decision affect the actual quality of the game, or just your personal view? let me know
- make it high, or I will come for you
Now on to my next point. There is one thing that really annoys me in reviews, and that is complaints that things haven't changed. Step up Assassin's Creed 2, and Brotherhood. Assassin's Creed 2 received 9.2, Brotherhood an 8. Now, if you read through the review, the majority of it is complaints that they haven't really added anything to the game. Now, my question is, should they? I loved AC2, I am perfectly happy with more of the same, I do not feel that 'more of the same' is an objectively a bad situation. Brotherhood changes the setting, continues the story, adds more items, and more characters. Isn't that enough? What is unclear in the review is how much the reviewer has knocked down the score because of the lack of new stuff, and how much is because they didn't like other changes. Also, we don't know of course what the reviewer would have scored AC2 as, should you try and have the same reviewer follow a series in order to maintain continuity?
- the fate of low score reviewers
9.2 to 8 is a big drop, and the phrase, 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' springs to mind. So my next question for you lovely folk is: if a game has the same mechanics as its predecessor, can it/should it, be given a lower score? I am more of the view point that if a game is worth one score, and the sequel doesn't change anything, then it ought to get the same score. I do not believe that familiarity makes a game worse. What if someone didn't play the original? The sequel will be as new and exciting to them, as the original was to the reviewer.
So basically, what I want to know from you all is simple, how much of the reviewer's personal preference should be included in the review? Obviously none of us are perfect, our opinions will always colour what we do, and personal opinion cannot be left out entirely, but should we give it free reign, or try to retain a degree of professional objectivity?
The floor is yours.
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