Liveinadive wrote:

Just read a few Tevis reviews, I like them a lot.
Wouldn't go there for a "should I buy" and he isn't pretending to be that so fair play.

Aye, but like I say I don't use reviews like that anyway, something incredible would have to happen to stop me from buying The Witcher 3 or NMS for example.

His reviews work better if you've already played the game. His On Videogame Reviews bit seems pertinent, but I've not got time to read it at the mo. Too much sport is happening.

It is hard to quantify but I imagine there are still a lot of people out there who do base purchase on how something reviews.
Probably not series fanbois or those with preorders but fence sitters or those contemplating whether to day one buy or wait until a decent price drop.

It is the confused mess reviews I struggle with.
Mortal Kombat X is out next week. I am fully expecting...
"MKx plays really well, looks great, is full of content and while not as refined as SF it will please it's fans.
The Gore level is sickening and says something about industry shock tactics and the series history of grabbing headlines. This time it is too far, outrage ensues!
Boobs are smaller than MK9, what does this say about misogyny, let's spend the next paragraph being sickened again.
4 more paragraphs on hot potato

9/10"

What I'm saying though is the normal reviews often aren't there, not without the other stuff shoe horned into the middle of them at the expense of more informative writing and often the shoe horned in stuff is a bit limp.
Too often I have finished a review absolutely none the wiser about if the game is actually any good.

After years and years of gaming you should probably know by now exactly what turns you on and just make up your mind via a mixture of word of mouth from friends and like minded individuals (like here?), previews and news, and overall metacritic or something.

hylian_elf wrote:

After years and years of gaming you should probably know by now exactly what turns you on and just make up your mind via a mixture of word of mouth from friends and like minded individuals (like here?), previews and news, and overall metacritic or something.

I do, but games are complex beasts these days so I sometimes find myself on the fence. Hello The Order and Alien Iso.

Aye, I love reading them too. Or at least I used to like reading Edge ones. They're just not that well written anymore. Time was when I would read every review regardless of the game.

It lists Perfect Dark as 13th best game of all time and ranks GTA4 above GTA5.

Cannae wait for their square go

AJ wrote:

It lists Perfect Dark as 13th best game of all time and ranks GTA4 above GTA5.

That proves game reviews are a shambles not metacritic.

Well I'm glad it didn't all just piss you off Paul. There's room for both, I just prefer the latter. Mechanics and 'does it work' are the realm of video now I feel.

Paul the sparky wrote:

I'm having to rethink what a review is.

On the one hand there's the product review of old, this is a thing, it does this and that, here's how it compares to other similar things [7]. Use these to figure out if a game is worth your time and money.

Then these opinion piece, almost retrospective things, which I'm far more interested in. Don't think old Tevis even needs a score at all, for me the important bit is seeing the game through the eyes of another, gaining a different perspective. It's why I joined this forum thing in the first place.

Anyway, back on topic, I've played fuck all since Tuesday, a couple of hours of Bloodborne. It was great.

If you're interested, Stanton has just put up a great retrospective on Mario 64 on EG today. Which is also what I've been playing.

Yep, but can be done in part with a wider review, not just sorely mechanics. "Game runs like a lame elk - back leg shot to shit, and also features dodgy politics"

FPS is important yup. But a review doesn't have to comment on it if it isn't the main cut and thrust of the author's context. I mean, you could write thousands of words on Dark Souls without mentioning the Blighty frame rate issue, and I wouldn't personally consider that remiss. It is nice to know when a game like Bayonetta is fucked in the FPS department, but again this is why I advocate reading multiple reviewers you trust on different aspects. Someone will mention it, or watch some gameplay/video review and voila you can see how it runs. I don't think I read much about MH4U's potential for dire online framerate, but it doesn't really matter to me in the end. Obviously that's different for others.

Do some of you not have cases of review scores putting them right off a given purchase? Lords of Shadow 2 was a complete about turn for me.

Is it no good? I was going to get it, when I see it on sale, on the strength of the first.