Are games reviewers too easily impressed?
 

I recently managed to finish oblivion for the first time, after having the game since not long after release. It was a struggle, and eventually I just dipped the difficulty and sprinted to the end to finish it once and for all.

And this is a game that got 9+/10 review scores and GOTY awards.

So with Fallout 3, I'm stuck, do I buy it or not?

And again with the high review scores everywhere.

except for all those nagging doubts...

This is summed up in part by this blog which I read yesterday.

So I ask the good people of Abandonia, why do you think "good" games get "amazing" review scores? Are the numbers now meaningless? And where to go these days for decent game reviews...

I go here.

He's as pedantic and as set in his ways as I am in mine, except he's a lot more talented and funnier than I'll ever be.

Also, he has real game making talent to back up his complaints.

Regardless of which, if I want to play something I'll play it and if I don't, I won't. I'd rather make up my own mind :)

I read that somebody actually calculated the average rating for games released in a year, and it was well "above average", over 80 per cent or just under 4 stars out of 5. Imagine an "average" hotel rated 4 stars, how absurd is that. So you obviously need to redefine "average", and you'll easily conclude that a game that is rated below 90 per cent actually left on the reviewer a "same old, fun for a minute" impression.

Heh, I do enjoy Yahtzee, but his vids are not really reviews, and his tastes differ from mine (He loves the new prince of persia games for a start, which are nothing like my cup of tea!)

I guess it's a case of seeing so many great games as I grew up, and being constantly disappointed by the current generation of games (hence being on here I suppose!).

It feels to me like that spirit of invention and pushing the boundaries has been neutered in some way.

Yathzee is not supposed to be taken serious. He's pretty much all-rant and pissing off fanboys. He's more of for entertainment than actual information, pretty much like AVGN.

However, one point in your post...

Does this mean you rushed trough the game? If thats the case, then youre definitely not going to see the point, the goodness of game.

However, If the game isnt still as good as you tough, then its just personal taste. You just have to try and hope. If you want, you can even stop reading reviews all-together and next time just go to a store and buy game based on its cover and back description.

Third choice is to learn to enjoy everything.

Paid reviews. You read a magazine, and all (or most) of the games get very high reviews. That's because, even if the reviewer themselves are not paid off, the magazine stands to gain or lose money based on the reviews they provide. For instance, if a particular company pays to place ads for their latest games in Blah Computing Magazine, and the magazine gives bad reviews of the game, the ads for that game might be withdrawn by the game company. Therefore the magazine loses money.

Seems just about everything you read is tied to money making. So I don't think you can trust the reviews for spit. Read them, appreciate them, maybe use them as a tool for insight into the game. But in the end, make your own judgment about the game.

TheChosen: I sprinted to the end, after spending a lot of time trying to appreciate the game as a whole, there were good things about it, but they were too few and far between for me. For example, the Dark Brotherhood and some of the Daedric quests were good, but the poor AI, poor main quest and poor voice acting really spoil it after a while. I did manage to eke out more than 40 hours from it though, so I don't think my staying power or willingness to explore can be questioned.

On the paid reviews part, okay it might not be blatant, more through advertising and "exclusives", but there is some pressure I'm sure, but not on all magazines or websites. Some just seem to put less weight on flaws that for me would lose points, or just ignore some flaws altogether.

Well, since I think new games cost me too much I practically always wait until they are priced around 15 euro's (If I would care about being out of fashion I wouldn't be visiting abandonia, now would I :p). By then there should be plenty of user comments on the internet to proove the 'professional' opinions wrong or right and there should be enough patches available to fix those notorious initial bugs. And then there's my decisive personal taste and opinion too, ofcourse.

Yes, it is a big problem. It been for several years too, almost 10 years now.

Back in the days I actualy cared to read PC gaming magazine, those reviews were good for something. The best game hardly ever had better rating than around 90%, which I think is by far the best system. How can a game get 97% is way beyond me! There is no such thing as a "perfect" game...

Good point. I think community forums are a much better tool for assessing games than anything you can buy. Forum members are not typically compensated, and have more likely given a game a really good run through than a mag reviewer who zips through, only to highlight the biggest points.