Should reviewers be "good" at playing games to review games?

So after reading ALL of your comments, my own points of view, and even other things.. I've made some points on what "GOOD" video game reviewers should be:

- They need to have at least a basic level of mechanical ability to play a video game.
- They need to have a solid understanding of game design and the target audience
- They do not need to be a literal god-machine to be good at this stuff
- Basic level of understanding in playing any game => You basically just need to play the game correctly in order to show the game in a good light, whether you are in favor of it or not. As long as you're playing it correctly, its okay.

This is taking me back to something as old as AVGN's review of the NES Silver Surfer, which is said to be one of the hardest NES games in existence. Some have commented that AVGN was being way too harsh with his review of Silver Surfer because he kept dying, wasn't able to complete a single stage, complaining about the difficulty and all that, complaining about the game being way too hard. The thing is, NES Silver Surfer was extremely hard for the wrong reasons. Game design flaws. Those who have played NES Silver Surfer may understand what I'm trying to get here. Heck, if it weren't for the fatal flaws, NES Silver Surfer could have been a great game. And AVGN, or James, whether you like him or not, was trying his best to play the game, and it was one of those videos that he was genuinely angry, even though he was under his AVGN character.

Can we clarify here what "playing a game correctly" is? There are many different ways to play video games. I realise you're going by the context of the Doom video, but as far as I'm concerned basing an argument off a hyperbolic one-off example doesn't really help clarify the statement...at least not for me. Which is why I'm asking.

Maybe it's obvious for linear titles, but there are plenty of titles where it won't be quite so obvious. So, let's say for example they play an old-fashioned JRPG which doesn't hold your hand down a linear path, or a ridiculously huge open-word sandbox title which just casts you adrift to explore. They don't find the secrets, and they criticise the game for being too obscure, because that is their experience of it. Did they not by definition play the game "incorrectly" because they failed to uncover these things which they would have found if they'd have looked? Is that not casting the game in an unjustly negative light, despite the fact that they are playing the game "correctly" because they know how the control scheme etc. works?

Now let's swing the other way and say they find a lot of things. Refer to my topic on spoilers and standards here. If a reviewer is showcasing parts of the game viewers don't want to see, or would have been happier not seeing, what then? I remember people get extremely worked up about Dark Souls III video reviews a short while ago, because a huge part of that game is the exploration and the surprise aspect: enemies lurking around corners, etc. The "if you don't like it then don't watch/read it" aspect doesn't apply to reviews, because you're reading a review for an "objective" viewpoint on which to base your judgement, not to find out everything there is to know about a game. So where does a video review stop being a showcase of gameplay and start being a showcase of spoilers?

Herein lies the inherent dangers of reviews of any kind. It's not always so black-and-white obvious as it is with things like Doom, and reviewers have to make judgement calls based on the limited time they get with a game, what they find, and their own personal opinion. There is also the fact that some publishers don't send review copies very far ahead of time if at all because they want to avoid spoilers...or bad reviews. They need to get these things out quickly so that they're relevant and people who want to buy the game have some views by which to go off of. So, saying a reviewer has to be able to play a game "correctly" is all well and good if you can define what "correctly" is - which I'm not so sure can be done in all honesty - but even then there are other things to consider. You could have an expert in a genre play a game and rush through it in their haste to get a review out and thereby give it a lower score because they missed those more subtle aspects. Is that playing the game incorrectly too?

An outsider's perspective is also extremely useful in determining whether or not the game in question is a good jumping-on point for newcomers, which IS a factor in an objective judgement whether the fans like it or not. Even if it's a niche title. So having an understanding and appreciation of the fandom isn't necessarily a beneficial thing, especially when you consider the bias inherent in a judgement like that.

As a random example, by itself Ar Tonelico: Knell of Ar Ciel is a terrible game, but as the finale to the franchise it's not actually as bad as it could be. So do you give it a good score because it ties in to the rest of the series, or a bad one because of its niche value? How do you objectively quantify that? Taking the middle ground gives a false impression; it casts the game in a positive or negative light. So do you go with the higher score for the fandom - and give the wrong impression to newcomers - or give it a lower score that would reflect what newcomers would think of it, but incense the target audience who get every little thing and find it a far better experience? Bear in mind that games are made for anyone who wants to pick up and play them, and NOT just the target audience. I'm not going to entertain the idea that reviewers should pander solely to the target audience, because the target audience will always be biased, an the point of reviews is to try and provide an objective viewpoint; a balanced argument and takes into consideration both sides.

I'd also question the validity of reviews for the target audience, because you can bet that people who are interested in it are probably going to buy it no matter what the review scores say. If you think of it like that, aren't reviews more beneficial for newcomers and those who are uncertain rather than the target audience, so should these things not be written for them to help them come to a decision? And, if that is the case, would a more sympathetic viewpoint - i.e. someone who is not as experienced at playing these games - be more helpful? It's something worth thinking about.

...see now the danger of trying to set limitations and standards on who should and should not review games. Being "good" is not enough and, I would argue, not even relevant beyond the basic ability to be able to pick up and use a controller or mouse or whatever. Setting standards for what YOU want out of a reviewer is all well and good, but a separate set of standards that woud apply to every reviewer just isn't going to work, in my opinion.

"playing a game correctly"

Click to expand...

Not being Polygon. We can go back to their DOOM video as a prime example of what one SHOULD NOT be when playing a game to showcase then review. Again, it wasn't in the original player's intention to play that poorly, but why did that player have to play the game if he wasn't even in to the whole genre in the first place. I can understand the whole idea of trying to get someone who wants to try out an FPS game like DOOM, but to use that video as their best means of showcasing the game... we already know how sinful it was.

And for the benefit of the whole audience, I am rewatching Polygon's video in order to actually point out what was wrong in a more analytican and logical perspective, other than Polygon hating of course. (Dear Arceus please let my murderc**k not shrink for what i am about to do, AGAIN)



EDIT: IT FINALLY OCCURED TO ME:

The best way i can describe playing a video game "properly" => basically, one isn't making the simplest of tasks look tedious and broken. We all get that are different ways and styles to play the same game, but one should least have the common sense to make sure that when they are playing said game (whatever this is aside from DOOM and FPS games), that they are able to do all of the basic tasks without making it look and feel hard for themselves. Something as simple as aiming a firearm and knowing the basics of ranged firearms combat are such things. Knowing how to actually walk, jump, and move in a side scroller. Knowing how to select and command a group of units in a Real time strategy game. Basic common elements. As mentioned before, one does not have to be a literal "hardcore" god (or a sexual tyrannosaur like me) to do the job properly, and yet we have people in these sites who have these as a job and they... okay I'm being quiet now.

But wait, then there are some games that make even the most basic tasks feel broken and busted right? But that's an entirely different topic altogether.

(and yes aside from making a play-by-play analysis of Polygon's video, I'm looking at another of their gameplay showcases to see if they are playing a game correctly. Yes I am trying to see if Polygon is making somethign reedeemable)

I'm late on this, but I do want to throw my 2 cents in on this. I am a mixed on rather if a reviewer should be good at playing games or not because as someone mentioned before, they could unfairly judge the game because they weren't good and I have seen this before with IGN UK's review of Yakuza: Dead Souls where the reviewer, Keza MacDonald, said that the game was unfair and in the moment they showed the footage, it shows the person backing into a corner and getting beaten to death by zombies even though in my experience the game wasn't all that fair and I was able to get myself out of a corner by dodge rolling even though you should never back yourself up in a corner in any zombie game period. At the same time, there have been reviewers who were honest and said "I'm not that good at the game, but I still had fun.", so that's the main reason why I'm so mixed. If I had to choose a side, it would depend on who's doing the review. If it is a one man team who does reviews like Jim Sterling and his site The Jimquisition, then no. If it is a game journalist company who does reviews like Polygon, then yes. With a company, you got multiple people to choose from when doing a review and a review is sort of like a job, the best ones qualified should get it. With a one man team, you got no one else there and since each person has a different skill level with each game, some are good at FPS games and some are not so and because it's only that one person which is why I think for a single person reviewer that it should not matter since it's just one person who will more than likely be just as good or worse than other people and they reviewed the game because they wanted to.

Now looking at the Polygon gameplay and the review. Both the review and gameplay was done by Arthur Geis, he did confirm on Twitter that he was the one who was playing in the footage shown in Polygon's video. While the gameplay footage didn't seem to affect Arthur's review of the game who gave it a 8.5 across the board on all systems nor is that footage used on the site with the review, there is something else to bring up, presentation. Arthur's review was posted on May 18th while the gameplay footage was posted on May 12th, that's a near one week gap between the review and the video. I heard a good point from ReviewTechUSA about this and what he said was this "that video that was being shown on Polygon was supposed to demonstrate the gameplay" "that was to show what the game is like. You were supposed to, in a way, you were not advertising the game because you're reviewing it, but you were supposed to show it to the best of your ability and it really only" "if that was the first reel that I saw of DOOM, I would've been hesitant about buying it. I'm happy that I bought it now, I haven't played much of it admittedly, I haven't had much time, but I think so far the singleplayer campaign is phenomenal, but if I saw Arthur's gameplay on Polygon first I would be like "Ohhh, this looks like the controls are clunky, it looks sloppy"". There are people who do just look at gameplay rather than reviews to determine if they should buy a game, and again Arthur's gameplay for Polygon was uploaded nearly a week before his review went up, there is a 99.9% chance that there were people who thought the game looked poor from that video and for the exact reasons as to ReviewTechUSA said. It also really doesn't help Arthur's gameplay that during E3 2015 when he was playing the game then and had recorded footage of it that he was playing the game much better as was shown from ReviewTechUSA again and even posted by Arthur himself. You could argue the controls had changed a bit, but I 199% doubt that the controls would've be changed so much, especially for an FPS since and is being played just fine now by a large majority of people, that it would make a person who played the game just fine to them playing the game like a derpy horse. Yeah there are some one person or independent places with just a few reviewers who do upload footage of them playing the game and it is terrible, and if during the following they didn't do any of the next few things, then I don't think they should've even showed that footage unless they wanted to show some gameplay, but I would probably still think they shouldn't have uploaded them sucking at a game. Had this video been attached to the review and/or released on the same day, at least people would say "He gave the game a good score even though the footage wasn't that great so I'm assume he just sucked at playing, but thought the game was good.", or had this been used on video with the person who's playing impressions on the game, which would be Arthur, and he mentioned the controls and/or commented about his gameplay and he said "Even though it may not look like it, the controls are really good", or had the controls been mentioned in his review and maybe even a comment on how he played, or had he played the game better, or had the video not been uploaded at all and it was just the review it would've all ended a lot better for Arthur, it would've been better for Polygon since that poor gameplay footage would've not been, replaced by better footage on there, or explained or even justified if the controls had a negative comment by the person who was playing them (although there might've still been some criticism from people who thought the controls were better, but at least it would be better on Polygon since the reviewer gave his opinion), and it would be better for consumers who didn't buy the game due to that footage and missed out or didn't buy the game until later because they were misguided that the game had poor controls. Maybe this also would've been better as well if the person who uploaded it wasn't a critic, didn't plan on reviewing the game, and was not part of a company, but something independent runned by one person.