Why the half assed reviews?

I’m pretty sure my head just sploded at least 3 times within this article alone.

MEDIC!

I think one of the challenges of writing a game review is to remain focused on what your intentions are, and writing for your audience. For example, reviewers on a site like IGN.com or Gamespot.com need to remember that they are bound to placing a numerical value on a game and providing a review for mass consumption. This leaves little room for things like personal bias and nuance as much of their audience will often simply skip to the last page of a review for a summary and a final rating.

Bloggers on the other hand are less about achieving critical mass and spoon fed reviews, and more about focusing in on the things the big sites are forced to ignore, like personal bias and nuance, which I personally find more informative and interesting to read.

So much of what we enjoy about gaming is really very subjective. For example, often I’ll see people criticize WoW for being too cartoony and having crappy graphics, which technically is true. The engine is getting on in years now, and Blizzard has definitely taken a exaggerated approach to design. If I were writing a review for a large publication I may simply stop my review there and assign WoWs graphics a numerical value that is now placed in reference to other games.
How can I give WoW a 9/10 when I also gave AoC a 9/10 and anyone with half a brain can see that AoC’s graphics are technically “better”?

Because subjectively I feel that WoWs graphics are top notch because of their design and art direction choices and as a Blogger I can give a rats ass about assigning a number that will be held up in comparison to another game I reviewed last week. This is by far more interesting to me and it’s one of the things that draw me to communities and blogs in general over the big-time game review sites.

When I was working with my friends at Wii60 I wanted a review system that kept a verbal term there to give a summary that conveyed our meaning. I had also wanted to abolish graphics from the equation since just about every game has good graphics these days, but others wanted to leave them in. So what we developed was five categories that were consistent with every game and five categories that were unique to that game genre or style. The idea came when I considered a review I wrote for Shadowrun, which completely hinges on the multiplayer and has no story, and any JRPG where story is one of the essential purposes.

The problem is, it was sometimes tough to come up with a fifth category for a game, or there were times where I knew a game was more than a rental but the points were just shy of what they ought to have been (and a very, VERY strict system was developed so everyone was clear on what numbers to use). It just didn’t feel honest.

So now my own blog uses a simple verbal system. Excellent, Good, Rental, Poor or Atrocious. In the end, you know what you get in each case.

Something I would have added that Adam Sessler didn’t is, yeah, the game is a 4/5 score, but in addition to “what if you’re not a fan of the Beatles?”, what if you’re just sick of music games? I like some Beatles songs, but overall their music doesn’t resonate with me. I’m from a time past and am convinced most people are only so in love with them because they’re SUPPOSED to be legendary. In addition, I’m sick of a new music game coming out annually. Just focus on DLC and leave it be.

If it were me, I’d give such a game a Rental score. I mean, I could label it as being good or excellent, but does it do anything that Rock Band hasn’t already accomplished? Not at all. So why give it the same rating? To me, rent it and see if it’s worth a purchase to you. That’s part of the purposes of renting, after all. To test drive.