Worst way to review a game?

[Seacliff]

Best post eva, 10/10. Would read again.

One of the biggest gripes I have with some reviews is if they give a game a poor score and never even got close to finishing it. How can you judge if a game is good or bad to the point you think you can review it if you never even played half of it?

This... Is a good example of a bad review.

 

[Susan]

Just to be clear, I mostly do feedbacks anyway, not full blown reviews. (cabfe's post reminded me of the difference)

So some of the things I mentioned or do, might not be applicable to an actual review.

@Matseb2611 :

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Thanks for the tip, Matseb! ^^

@Mihel :

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I agree with you, Mihel. Harping on grammatical and spelling errors is every bit just as bad as harping on graphic issues, and on things about the game that do not suit a person's personal taste.

It would be great if a person can keep a consistent judgement about every aspect of a game, but what I meant was, what if the reviewer has no experience in a particular field, or decides not to comment on that particular issue because they feel it might be biased?

Maybe mentioning that "I'm not experienced in so-and-so aspect so I won't comment on that" or "I'm focused on the action, not the story" could give the developer an idea about what the reviewer is focused on.

A personal example is, I'm terrible at games that require quick reflexes. If the majority of the game requires that, then I wouldn't play it anymore (thus no feedback). If it's just a minor part of the game that requires quick reflexes, then I would play through it and give feedback on that game, but most likely, I won't mention much about the reflex mechanism because I know it will be biased.

Too high an encounter rate would be impossible to ignore, but missing out on passabilities is a bit of an iffy for me. Not everyone goes bug-hunting when they play a game. I certainly don't. They still seem to find me, though.

@cabfe :

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Good points!

I agree with you that at least a short comprehensible story is a bare minimum requirement these days.

I think spelling errors in French are more painful that English spelling errors. I'm so sorry to hear that.

@GraveBusta :

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Sorry to hear that your game (or any other) gets slammed for having "unrealistic" graphics.

That's the unfortunate reality of the majority of new generation gamers that cut their teeth on all those flashy, ultra-defined 3D games such as Final Fantasy XIII, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty and TES.

Even in RM, people who love RTP style graphics, hate gameboy style graphics.

I get what you mean about saying any part of a game is bad without giving any proof or at least mention something that will help the developer to improve the game is just plain unhelpful and disruptive.

There may not be anything you can do about it, other than to ignore those kind of reviews like what TheoAllen suggested.

@Hahn Deathspark :

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Glad that you're enjoying yourself.

I certainly am, considering the amount of interesting and helpful points being tossed around here.

I agree with what you mentioned about "specialized" reviewers. I pointed that out in a way in my previous post.

I think what most of the people meant here is, you can give reviews (even bad reviews), but don't give reviews with "This story/gameplay/graphic/music is good/bad <full stop>" without saying why.

[SIZE=14.4444446563721px]Those kind of 'reviews' don't help in improving a game.[/SIZE]

Personally, I don't mention much about certain aspects of a game when I know I'm not familiar with them.

Leaving a 'review' that says that this fighting game (example) is terrible, just because I can't play it due to lack of skills, or just because I don't like that genre is just unfair and demeaning to the creator.

@bgillisp :

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I think that those kind of reviews are made by employed reviewers, if you know what I mean.

That's one of the frustration things about reading reviews of games made by triple A companies.

@Cheeky Moon :

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Good suggestion on how to separating review/feedback points. ^^

@Seacliff :

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Thanks for the good example!

Thanks for the tips and the interesting ideas, everyone! ^^

 

[whitesphere]

No game review can possibly be "unbiased."  I personally believe complete objectivity is impossible, because logic is always based upon our own personal core assumptions.

However, I think a really bad game review ONLY offers opinions rather than saying WHY.  For example "This game sux!" or "This is AWESOME!"    Even if the review goes on for paragraphs and pages, if it ONLY offers the reviewer's opinions and doesn't tell me ABOUT the game, I think it's a waste of a review.

A good review obviously has opinions.  These are really helpful when combined with the specifics that led the reviewer to that conclusion.  If I reviewed a really crappy game, like the "Block Land" game (it's on Youtube), I'd say something like this:

"The game attempts to make simple custom graphics, which is a plus.  Unfortunately, the graphics themselves seem buggy (face portraits are chopped off, tilesets seem improperly fit).  The text in the game had a large number of typos and grammatical errors, which made it hard for me to follow.  Combat in the game was boring because it was extremely unbalanced --- most fights were 'you have to TRY to die' easy, rendering it boring.

The maps, overall, reminded me of the classic Adventure game for the Atari 2600 --- very blocky.  While this was justified in-universe, which was a plus, it meant the exploring felt odd.

Overall, it had some interesting concepts, but needs a LOT of polish, re-balancing and bug fixing to reach its potential.  Right now, I wouldn't play the game again, and I would be very reluctant to play future games by this developer, because the game didn't seem to be completed, yet was listed as completed." 

I consider THAT to be an example of a good review of a very bad game.   Sure the reviewer has his opinion on the subject, but he gives reasons WHY he feels the way he does.

Bad reviews are SOLELY opinion with NO information about the game itself.  People read reviews to find out information about the game, so a bad review is just opinion.

 

[GraveBusta]

No game review can possibly be "unbiased."  I personally believe complete objectivity is impossible, because logic is always based upon our own personal core assumptions.

However, I think a really bad game review ONLY offers opinions rather than saying WHY.  For example "This game sux!" or "This is AWESOME!"    Even if the review goes on for paragraphs and pages, if it ONLY offers the reviewer's opinions and doesn't tell me ABOUT the game, I think it's a waste of a review.

A good review obviously has opinions.  These are really helpful when combined with the specifics that led the reviewer to that conclusion.  If I reviewed a really crappy game, like the "Block Land" game (it's on Youtube), I'd say something like this:

"The game attempts to make simple custom graphics, which is a plus.  Unfortunately, the graphics themselves seem buggy (face portraits are chopped off, tilesets seem improperly fit).  The text in the game had a large number of typos and grammatical errors, which made it hard for me to follow.  Combat in the game was boring because it was extremely unbalanced --- most fights were 'you have to TRY to die' easy, rendering it boring.

The maps, overall, reminded me of the classic Adventure game for the Atari 2600 --- very blocky.  While this was justified in-universe, which was a plus, it meant the exploring felt odd.

Overall, it had some interesting concepts, but needs a LOT of polish, re-balancing and bug fixing to reach its potential.  Right now, I wouldn't play the game again, and I would be very reluctant to play future games by this developer, because the game didn't seem to be completed, yet was listed as completed." 

I consider THAT to be an example of a good review of a very bad game.   Sure the reviewer has his opinion on the subject, but he gives reasons WHY he feels the way he does.

Bad reviews are SOLELY opinion with NO information about the game itself.  People read reviews to find out information about the game, so a bad review is just opinion.

what happens when they get no info at all?

 

[Gothic Lolita]

I can agree mostly with Milennin.
But I played many games I hated in first, like Happy Birthday, To The Moon and Rust & Blood.
Basically I don't like Adventures or Horror games where you can only run.
But these 2 adventures and 1 horror game proved me, that it can be done good.
Could continue the list, but it's off topic. :/

Video Reviews I don't do and not really like personally.
But I would watch to get to know what went wrong. Why so?
Often they start to make fun at you, like here:

The next thing is, you shouldn't judge a game, because it has a topic you don't like.
Like: LGBT, MLP, Adventure Time, Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, Adult, Childish or whatever
Because sometimes even you dislike the topic, the game can be good, my experience. (\s/)

I think there can be a short I liked the grahics and stuff, but it shouldn't be the main topic. /)

 

[Tsukihime]

"If the game was really that good, it wouldn't need any fan-service"


You know, games like these


This usually leads into some religious rants or something about mothers and fathers not being too happy seeing their children playing this kind of game and how it's just contributing to "the problem in society" or something vague like that.


Especially if the game has say a 14+ or an 18+ rating. Then I'm kind of wondering whether the reviewer even looked at what they're playing before they decided to provide a review.