The PokéCommunity Forums

The PokéCommunity Forums (https://www.pokecommunity.com/index.php)
-   Video Games (https://www.pokecommunity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=27)
-   -   IGN 7.8/10 - Too much water (https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=405204)

Juno January 18th, 2018 11:03 AM

IGN 7.8/10 - Too much water
 
I remember as a kid, when I went to buy games I would pick out games 100% on my own, just by looking at the cover art and reading the description at the back. And maybe my standards were lower then, but I've never not enjoyed a game until reviews became a common practice - seeing a number like 6/10, 10/10, 3.5/5 and so on tacked onto a game seemed to have altered my perceptions of games and I would go in expecting to feel a certain way about it.

That said, these days, I almost always look up reviews of a game first, just so I know what I'm buying and if it's worth it, but I can't help but wonder if I'm missing out on games I might have enjoyed just because I listened to some stranger's opinions.

Do you have a similar experience/sentiment? How often do you consult reviews before buying a game, and how much stock do you put in them? Have you ever seen a game with bad/mixed reviews and bought it anyway because you wanted to experience it yourself? Did you end up agreeing with the review(s)?

TY January 18th, 2018 11:21 AM

rarely do I use reviews to make a decision on buying a game or not. The reviewers do usually not share the same vision that I have and thus if I wanted to try a game id go over some videos of it then deciding do i want to buy it or not

正真正銘 January 18th, 2018 12:15 PM

I glance at reviews, but I think there are less relevant nowadays with the advent of Twitch and YouTube where you can actually see what the game is like. I don't personally like reviews because it is hard to attach a number to one's enjoyment of a game. Breaking reviews down into categories such as graphics, story, gameplay, et cetera may seem helpful, but these elements are intertwined and often experienced simultaneously. When I am actually enjoying a video game, I don't usually think of these elements, but am fixated on playing more of the game. Even if you do break video games reviews into categories, which are more important? Whether or not the reviewer values graphics or multiplayer can influence the final score. It then becomes a question of "how well does this game fit my definition of an ideal game?" Additionally, Reviewers are not like ordinary gamers. Professional reviewers are often being payed to review games. This may end up meaning that reviewers play games to get payed rather than for enjoyment. This can also mean that reviewers have to play games under strict time constraints which are unrepresentative of the average gaming experience.

Desert Stream~ January 18th, 2018 1:03 PM

As someone who enjoys a lot of niche genres, I hate reviews :p I will play games that get good reviews though

ZeoStar January 18th, 2018 5:01 PM

I avoid reviews since I buy impulsively. A game might be filled with bad reviews, but that doesn't mean I won't have fun with it.

EC January 18th, 2018 6:20 PM

I know they are kind of the same thing, but I look for short impressions these days more than full reviews. You know, the last paragraph rule that the folks at Giant Bomb talk about. The last paragraph of a review kind of says it all.

Satoshi Ookami January 19th, 2018 10:56 AM

Never.
Weeb games never get correct reviews.

BlazingCobaltX January 19th, 2018 12:11 PM

If I ever read reviews, I usually do long after I have played the game. If I'm interested in a game I trust that enough to make a choice. Unless release day reviews are abysmal, I don't change my mind.

Juno January 19th, 2018 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlazingCobaltX (Post 9829245)
If I ever read reviews, I usually do long after I have played the game.

I do that a lot too - I don't know why, but I think sometimes I'm just curious to see what other people thought of the game, and if it's similar to what I thought about it or if it gives me some new perspective on it.

Hermione Granger January 19th, 2018 2:06 PM

I've never let a review deter me from getting a game that I'm interested in, if I dislike a game I just trade it in for another.

Judge Mandolore Shepard January 20th, 2018 6:47 AM

When it comes to games I buy, I don't really look at reviews for my decisions. I rather buy the game since it interests me, then have my own review.

Reunilu January 21st, 2018 5:16 PM

I kind of have a simiilar sentiment, but it's mostly with aggregate scores. I don't need to see the specifics of why the game is so good, just that a majority of people think it's good, but I will take the score with a grain of salt. As for reviews like from Game Informer or IGN, never. I always try to look for someone that's streaming the game or has put up a decent quality video of the game.

Somewhere_ January 21st, 2018 5:47 PM

Before purchasing a game, I watch all the trailers, read reviews from various sources, read how well regular gamers enjoy the game, and watch gameplay. I also wait a while before actually buying the game and if I still want it then ill buy it.

There are some exceptions, but I usually do all those things. I like to be well informed prior to making a purchase.

Yukari January 22nd, 2018 8:08 AM

Everyone is different and the general consensus of a game doesn't necessarily reflect what your experience with it will be. It's for this reason that I don't really listen to other opinions about games before trying it out- far too often they alter my expectations of a game and end up making me enjoy it more or less than I otherwise would. I think this is a good thing in some situations though- I enjoy Dark Souls 2 a lot more than most other member of the Souls community do simply because people really exaggerate the negative qualities of it and/or let them get in the way of enjoying what good is there. But at the same time I enjoy games like FF6 less because people talk about how amazing the game is and it simply didn't live up to my expectations for it. I don't look up reviews as much anymore unless there's an exceptionally overwhelming amount of negativity towards it since even games I don't enjoy very much I still appreciate having an experience with.

MagikarpGuy January 22nd, 2018 10:33 AM

Usually I don't look up for game reviews. For me is common that games that I like just appear in front of me, in recomendations on youtube or podcasts that I listen. Numbers means nothing for me.

Satoshi Ookami January 22nd, 2018 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rabinov (Post 9830380)
Interesting point, why do you think this? I'd like to think that as someone writing game reviews, that person would be able to do so properly enough.

Most reviewers are adapted to western games since those are what mostly sells so anything Japanese automatically gets labeled as weird and usually just for that gets a lower scores.

NergyTheMighty January 22nd, 2018 11:38 AM

These days, I'm starting to buy games based on my own merit rather than listening to reviews, and here's why.

One day my mom took me and my youngest brother to GameStop to pick something out we wanted. My brother, he shall be dubbed Thomas (it's not his real name, for privacy reasons), wanted Sonic Forces to be in our Nintendo Switch library a whole lot, despite it getting disappointing reviews and such. I was a bit wary since there were much better games for the system like, oh I don't know...MK8DX, but his mind was set. And so it went that he bought Sonic Forces, I bought Pokemon Diamond (I hadn't experienced Gen IV yet, and HeartGold didn't count.), and we went on our merry way.

Shortly after we arrived back home, Thomas wasted no time in putting the game into the Switch. After Thomas played the game for a while, with me watching, he did indeed see problems with the game, a major one being that it was too short (He beat the game in a day!), he was satisfied for the time being. Through it all, though, what I realized was that the game wasn't as bad as I heard some people male it out to be. It wasn't groundbreaking (as was literally every modern Sonic game to date), but it held up, and I felt that it was a good example of Sega doing something right somewhere along the line developing this game. It was then that I felt that games are better reviewed by your own merit, not risk it by viewing some guy who has a 12% chance of being the guy who was stuck on the Cuphead tutorial for 10 minutes. :t176:

Desert Stream~ January 22nd, 2018 3:21 PM

I feel like reviews are too opinion based to actually be helpful. If a game has a lot of bugs, that could be a sign it's actually a bad game. But how often do you actually see that in reviews? Instead, I find a lot of people will complain about the gameplay or artstyle or whatever, when I could really like the gameplay or artstyle. If someone who only plays RPGs tries a platformer, they're probably gonna review it badly, when someone who actually likes platformers would really enjoy it. There's far too many factors for most reviews to actually be helpful imo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Satoshi Ookami (Post 9830689)
Most reviewers are adapted to western games since those are what mostly sells so anything Japanese automatically gets labeled as weird and usually just for that gets a lower scores.

Cough People complaining about a game because of it's anime artstyle Cough

pixelani January 25th, 2018 2:57 PM

Video game reviews are, for the most part, kind of ridiculous. The problem with reviews is that video games are too interactive and subjective to easily evaluate critically, unless it's clearly very good or very bad.

As a primarily JRPG-focused gamer, I'd like to echo the previously expressed sentiment that there is a bias toward Western titles and companies, or those Eastern-made titles that have gained massive popularity in the west already, generally speaking. If you look at the best reviewed games of 2017, you see things like Mario, Zelda, and Persona at the top - all Eastern, but all the nth title in some already successful blockbuster series. You see American and European indie titles.

There's also a heavy, heavy bias toward "the classics," without an actual grip on what those classics really were or what they did right and wrong. Just one example of a JRPG that suffered this fate was I am Setsuna; one of my personal favorites, and widely agreed to have a great soundtrack, was only moderately received by critics and by a substantial potion of JRPG fans... because everyone went into it expecting Chrono Trigger. People literally expected the first retro-JRPG title made by a new dev team from Square Enix would be an experience equivalent to what is generally agreed to be one of the best games of all time, just because it used a very similar combat system and had other nods and references. Literally what? It was never evaluated on its own merits. It's not a groundbreaking experience, it's not the best ever at anything that it does, but it's now characterized as bland and unremarkable because it's held to the standards of entirely different titles, and not of its niche or genre as a whole.

Continuing the above, the "7.8/10 too much water" review was probably the most ridiculous that I've ever come across as a gamer. The writer clearly wanted something from those games, and clearly had certain expectations simply because of the franchise associated with the games. And then... docks it points because it has "too much water." When it has less water than the games on which it is directly based, and water travel is physically faster. Completely unreasonable. A similar situation occurred when Kotaku staff chose to review Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Out of their entire staff, the person they chose to review the game was their token JRPG nerd - who had already outwardly expressed his personal distaste for the original Xenoblade Chronicles. To literally not a single person's surprise, the person who personally disliked Xenoblade Chronicles gave a mixed-to-negative professional assessment to its direct sequel. Why do we do these things? Why do people who don't like a series or don't understand a game's basis review games that they inevitably will not like?

I don't know. Maybe it's just me - I tend to chronically disagree with critical assessments of most games that I like, and I know some will take that as me being unable to accept criticism of my favorite titles and series. But overall, I think there are tons of game reviews that wildly miss the mark. If a game would be enjoyable to the typical person in its target audience, then that needs to be the main point on which it is evaluated - its level of success in achieving what it set out to achieve in the first place, and then after that its new ideas and innovation. If a game would not be enjoyable for a typical person in its target audience, then you can dock points and elaborate upon which mechanics or elements cause that. If a game does some things right and some things wrong, it gets an appropriately mixed review with explanation as such.

But really, I've rambled, so I'll get back to the point - the biggest thing is assigning the right person to review the game. Someone who knows what the goals of the game are, who doesn't personally dislike the series or entire genre, and who doesn't have any unrealistic expectations or illusions.

Desert Stream~ January 25th, 2018 7:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pixelani (Post 9832053)
A similar situation occurred when Kotaku staff chose to review Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Out of their entire staff, the person they chose to review the game was their token JRPG nerd - who had already outwardly expressed his personal distaste for the original Xenoblade Chronicles. To literally not a single person's surprise, the person who personally disliked Xenoblade Chronicles gave a mixed-to-negative professional assessment to its direct sequel. Why do we do these things? Why do people who don't like a series or don't understand a game's basis review games that they inevitably will not like?

I hated that review so much lol.

Thomas the Shinyhunter January 26th, 2018 11:31 PM


pixelani January 27th, 2018 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Catnip~ (Post 9832135)
I hated that review so much lol.

Same! It was the most irritating I've read in years, seriously. He's not a bad writer; he usually has good viewpoints and articles; he's the reason I've started the Trails series. And then he goes and just... ugh. Why on earth would you review a game you're pre-destined to dislike? That's not the point of gaming - that's not the point of reviews!

Adam Levine March 13th, 2018 6:38 AM

Considering the fact that IGN once rated PMD2 a 4.8/10, I'd say reviews are pretty much nothing to me.

I'd rather consult a person who actually had experience with the game without being overly technical.

blue March 13th, 2018 12:13 PM

Reviews rarely, if ever, influence my decision to buy games but I do like to read up on them prior to the release of certain games. IGN are ridiculously biased, though.

Mana March 14th, 2018 10:14 AM

You remember those old demo disks? I used to get those with magazines for PS1, and most of the games I went on to buy started there. It's where I found Jade Cocoon, which is in my top 3 for PS1 games for sureeee.

These days, whilst I don't read reviews often I do watch footage and read up on the information a bit. If a game has a larger following and lots of media I'm more likely to look it up (and subsequenty buy it).


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 10:14 AM.


Like our Facebook Page Follow us on Twitter © 2002 - 2018 The PokéCommunity™, pokecommunity.com.
Pokémon characters and images belong to The Pokémon Company International and Nintendo. This website is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Nintendo, Creatures, GAMEFREAK, The Pokémon Company or The Pokémon Company International. We just love Pokémon.
All forum styles, their images (unless noted otherwise) and site designs are © 2002 - 2016 The PokéCommunity / PokéCommunity.com.
PokéCommunity™ is a trademark of The PokéCommunity. All rights reserved. Sponsor advertisements do not imply our endorsement of that product or service. User generated content remains the property of its creator.

Acknowledgements
Use of PokéCommunity Assets
vB Optimise by DragonByte Technologies Ltd © 2023.