Do reviews need reviewing?

Submitted by Kat on February 14, 2007 – 8:00 am6 Comments

Video game reviews are flawed, according to Matt at the Culture Kills… Wait I Mean Cutlery blog. He posts that the two main flaws are that game reviews aren’t adjusted over time, and that reviewers base their judgements on previous games in the genre. Here’s a great example from his post:

“I mean, according to Gamespot, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 which was released in 2001 is the absolutely unscalable pinnacle of Playstation 2 gaming with a perfect score of 10 out of 10. Is it a great game? Yes… but in 2007, is it the greatest PS2 game ever made? Not by a long shot. I would be willing to bet money that at least 10 better games came out in the last year and feel confident in keeping my money. There are quite a few titles from a system’s launch that will stand the test of time, but by keeping those original scores unrealistically high, they make judging future titles that much harder.”

Additionally, something he kind of touched on with the 2nd flaw is sequel burnout… a good example is We Love Katamari. Because it was a sequel to Katamari Damacy, it couldn’t possibly be as new and innovating as the first game, and therefore got a lower review score.

Certainly, when I’ve just finished a great game I’ll give it a high review score, but sometimes months or years later, I’ll look back and realize that it wasn’t quite as great as I’d rated it in my enthusiasm, and I’ll adjust my personal review scores to reflect that. What do you think?

KEEL

I think the only “reviewers” that get it right is “Edge”!
If you’re gonna have a 1-10 / 10-100 scale a 7 / 70% shouldnt be bad which is the way it is today…

Here’s my scale…

1. Avoid
2. Very Bad
3. Missable
4. Mediocre
5. Decent
6. Good
7. Very Good
8. Awesome
9. Must Play
10. Gears of War
http://www.farbot.com/ Paul

Everything is relative. You can’t rate a game based on technology or games that don’t even exist as a glimmer in a developer’s eye yet.

I have no problem with those scores. What we might need is more links between it and games and reviews for games that appeared that year or within 6 months to get an idea of what other titles it was rated with. This can give more serious gamers some context.

But at the time, and even now, really, could you go wrong with Tony Hawk 3 for someone who wants a skateboarding game? I doubt it.
Cruds

I don’t read reviews to get an opinion, I rather go to the shop to try the game for 20 min. If I still have any doubts there is always someone behind the corner that can tell me more about it.
Subnet6

IMO, the problem with reviews is the scale. 1-100 is absolute insane. What the heck is the difference between a game that gets a 73 and a game that gets a 75? Thats just stupid I think.

Even 1-10 is too much. Games should be rated like movies, with stars. 1-4 or 1-5. This gives the users a good idea of the quality of the game, (which is all the number is good for since reviews are subjective) and forces them to read the review. If you see a movie that is 4 stars, you know there must be good things about it and you read the review. By reading the review you find out if you will be interested in it or not.

Far too much importance has been placed on the number. ZOMG Zelda got an 8.8. It should have had a 9!!!!! But seriously whats the difference? If reviewers used a star scale like Roger Ebert, Zelda would have gotten 4 stars because it’s a great game and reading the review would have shown the flaws that do exist. Then you wouldn’t have issues like with Tony hawk, because there would be many 4 star games so you don’t have to worry about rating something lower that is better. Movies vary wildly in quality and content as games do so this method would work just fine.
Maxathon

Well, I’ve never read Edge, since I can’t afford to pay for magazines, and that one is particularly expensive. I do, however, have free subs to all the 1up mags and to GameInformer.

I hear nothing but praise for Edge, and I’m prepared to believe it. Still, to say that “only” Edge reviews games fairly on a sane scale is stupid. EGM and GFW are rock solid.
http://gamernode.com Chris Pereira

His logic is flawed. At the time, those reviews are applicable–so if I go back and read a review of Gran Turismo now, and then go play it, should I expect to see the best graphics around?

As for the sequel burnout, that still doesn’t make much sense. A game in the Katamari example gets a lower score because you can get a similar experience for cheaper. We lower review scores on sequels if they aren’t better because they don’t deserve the consumer’s money. It’s also why there is text to go along with the score, and why scores aren’t the absolute end-all resource for determining whether or not a game is worth buying.