Monday, November 12, 2007

Are games JUST THAT GOOD?!?!

There’s something about game reviews that has bugged me for a long while. It’s something that until recently I’ve not been able to label or even understand. It’s just been this little splinter lodged in the back of my brain, this little itch that would act up whenever I watched the most hyped games- usually-end up with the most impressive scores (including games I’ve directed…so I’ve benefited from this phenomenon as well, to be sure).

But why are game review scores for games in general, and hyped games specifically, always so damn high?

And does it actually make any sense?

I mean, you don’t see this phenomenon in other media. Yes, every now and then a crazy hyped movie or album or book will meet with unanimously positive reviews. But more often than not, this is not the case. Usually really hyped media tends to be a let down and it’s the out of the blue stuff (ex: Matrix vs. Star Wars Episode I) that gets the accolades. Sure, certainly it’s sometimes the case for one (and MAYBE two) movies/books/albums to live up to the hype. But it’s NEVER the case that over 90% of the hyped up movies/books/albums end up with 90%+ review scores from 90% of the critics.

And IF by the grace of God it does happen, it happens once every 20 years or so…like a perfect storm of movies or books. But it certainly doesn’t happen every year.

But with games? Happens all the time. ALL the fucking time. And I want to know why.

For some comparisons, check out the reviews of the top 12 flix on Rotten Tomatoes: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/movies/box_office.php

The highest movie ranks 90%....the pretty hyped up Michael Clayton.

The NEXT highest flick is American Gangster coming in at 79%. Now this is fucking Ridley Scott and Denzel and Russel in a bad ass story/setting/genre. Can you IMAGINE if the game equivalents of Ridley,Denzel, and Russel got together and made a game in a hot genre? It’d be GOTY! posts and review scores from here to timbuckfuckingtoo! But in movies, not even close.

Why is it the movie reviews and book and record reviews seem like they are a little more…reserved? Honest? Broken? Who knows…

But now check out the rankings that are starting to spring up for the season’s biggest games from some of the biggest reviewers! Check out the scores so far for Assassin’s Creed (9.5/10, 10/10), COD4 (95% from metacritic), Mario Galaxy (9.5, 10), Mass Effect, Orange Box, Metroid, Ratchet, Uncharted, Guitar Hero III.

It’s like EVERY fucking game- score wise- is a masterpiece!

Are games just that good, or is something odd going on? And it’s not a one time event…this happens EVERY year.

Some theories? Sure! Here ya go:

1- Games, while being technically challenging to create, are easy to make from a standpoint of if you just spend enough time on it and hire good enough people (not geniuses but GOOD ENOUGH people), you’ll end up with a great game. Not a classic, but a great game. Maybe this is not the case with other media? And why not? Are other media harder to create because the end product has the potential to be so much deeper and richer and games are pretty much one note? Or is it something else?
2- Game reviewers- by and large- are not as experienced/mature/discerning as reviewers from other media? Lots of accusations that game media buy into the hype and review accordingly. BUT this can be countered by the argument that game reviewers are more like reviewers for consumer goods and if all of the boxes are ticked on the consumer product, then it gets a great review. It could also be argued that game reviewers are more passionate and less jaded than reviewers of other mediums and this is why the scores are so high so often…because they love the medium more than other media critics and are passionate about it. Not sure if this is a good excuse as to why the scores are always so high, but it’s hard to knock passion…so there you go.
3- Games are just better than the other mediums?

Shoot, I don’t know…I don’t have an answer. Do you?

And is it just me or do you guys/gals also feel this is an odd discrepancy?

David

40 comments:

derrickgott007 said...

I totally agree...I see games get reviews that are 9.5's and 10's and then I play the game and give it a big "Ehhhh, it's alright."


Like the newest Ratchet and Clank...Hyped to all hell, and got great scores, played it and realized that it was just the same as the past games...No 10 in my book.

Plus there is all this talk about Timshift, and then I played the demo on the PS3 and I personally thought Cold Winter on the PS2 was better!

I am strickt on my reviews of games, because I look for flaws hardcore. ..I even was tough when I reviewed Calling All Cars....But I am fair. Too many of the reviewers are in the pockets of the game companys. That's why game companys send so much swag to the game reviewers. It sways their vote.

R.Bunk said...

For one I have never been a fan of the 1 to 10 rating system. I do think the 1 to 5 system is much better. Most games should fall within the 3 or 4 area, with only the truly exceptional games receiving a 5.

Some of the curves in the scoring on games can come based in the fact that this is an interactive media. Sure watching Indiana Jones on screen is cool but playing a Jones style character is quite different. So just by the nature of the media I think it's easy for reviewers to get wrapped up into the games (it's kind of what they are designed for).

Anonymous said...

It's not just you Jeffe. Just look over at gaf, kotaku and other gaming sites that tend to the hardcore group of gamers. Most are starting to find that the 10 point system is broken. But I agree, it seems like games are getting way to overhypped these days (halo 3) compared to what they deliver. Some say that 10/10 shouldn't be given out to perfect games, because there ain't nothing like that. I think of a 10 as a revolutionary game that changes a genre like Mario 64 or Metal Gear Solid 1, other just say that great games should be getting 10s.

Anonymous said...

I think it involves game critics and their sole focus on whether or not a game is broken. They often don't judge the design or artistic (not the graphics!!!!) value of games with much depth.

Anonymous said...

I think it has to do with the inexperience of game reviewers. They never discuss the design or artistic value (not graphics but expression) of games with much depth. They focus on how broken games are and rate them higher the less broken they are.

Unknown said...

I think the media is getting paid off on some of these games, or at the very least bribed by oh so much free stuff. These shere amount of perfect 10s in the last couple months alone is ridiculous.

Honestly, why the hell did Halo 3 get such good reviews from ALL of the different sources? The game s fun, and there is tons of multiplayer options, but how is this game any different from Halo 2 at all, other than being in HD (not even true HD, but that's another topic). This game brought nothing new to the table, and in fact its behind the times in my opinion.

I still enjoy this game and play it online, but it doesn't feel like a perfect 10 to me. I think a perfect 10 needs to be a bit more dynamic.

Sadeq said...

never thought about it before, though my pocket certainly feels the pain every year this time of the year.

games only need to be entertaining to receive good reviews while entertaining movies and books need also to bring something new to the media and be creative/innovative/daring to get great reviews.

here's my quick response:

end of day, be it a game/book/movie, if people find it entertaining, it's gonna sell (that's beside solid marketing or word of mouth)

Martin Brennand said...

I just think quite frankly that a lot of games recently have been really damn good. *shrug*

I can't say all reviewers are corrupt, as i've seen a few game reviews where they absolutely canned it, and a full page ad for the game was adjacent.

Then again, most reviewers are game fans, so they get a bit too excited about their favourite genres. Stick them in a game genre they hate, and you'd probably see different scores.

David Jaffe said...

Martin- my issue is not with this season's crop of AAA games. I am digging alot of them myself. I'm talking more about the fact that every year it seems to be the same thing....so are the scores accurate and it's just easier to make great games than it is to make great films/movies/books? Or is it the reviews- which SHOULD be positive- are WAY MORE positive than they should be...and if so why? Or is it that the other media grade too harshly? It COULD be that as there are lots of good movies that get 50/100 reviews....while 50/100 games are usually shit to most folks...

Eudaimo said...

I don't think game reviews are "wrong," but that they differ from movies. I have a lot more thoughts on this, but brevity had to kick in somewhere.

1. Games Fit a Niche - Both games and movies fit certain genres, but that fact is more acknowledged in the game reviewing community. We would laugh if I reviewed Final Fantasy because I hate turn-based fantasy. But how often do you read a review of a goofball comedy where the reviewer obviously hated goofball comedies? comedies*?

Filter out some of those bullshit biases, and you get much more consistent reviews (good or bad).

2. In Games, Broken is Broken: Reasonable minds differ on "soft" elements like acting and story. Those "soft" elements are the majority of a movie.

On the other hand, the soft elements are only a portion of game design. So much more of game consideration is "is it broken?" (a question we never ask of a movie).

Being "broken" is almost always unanimous. If the camera is FUBAR or the platforming is frustrating, 8 out of 10 people who play it agree.

So go to any 6.0 game review. I can almost bet they have the same complaints.

3. Reviews are high because games are good now - Enough ink has been spilled on whether 10/10 games exist or whether games should be rated on such a scale at all. The undeniable fact is that we are in a golden age of gaming. I have never seen so many top notch games come out in one season, and the reviews reflect that.

wiggin said...

the biggest problem is most of us, including the reviewers are fanboys and fangirls. i would have a hard time being objective as a reviewer when it comes to a game like ratchet for instance. i would give it a ten based on the fact that i haven't had a gaming experience that excellent since the last ratchet(not deadlocked). that is hardly objective, nor in depth, but that's how i feel about it. i think to many reviews fall into those kind of parameters.

Sakreth said...

I personally have stopped reading my beloved Xbox mag. EGM Play Station mag. etc.. Its sad because while they continue to inform and give good articles I can and do get my info faster from Kotaku...Joystiq...IGN...etc.

I don't trust reviews anymore. You are 100% right when you say all these games are getting insane reviews. Shit I loved my Halo and my Halo 2 but Halo 3 was basically bullshit. Bungie just cares about money at this point. I think Thats a problem among many developers. I only play things for myself and I never buy into hype even the Halo 3 hype machine could not sway me.

To be honest I play my PSP more than my 360 :/

Anonymous said...

Yes, it's like a separated market (outside of general entertainment), really... I mean... Go to IGN.com and see all the movies/albums reviews... Even the overrated ones are, sometimes, below pretty average games.

That's a good point you made about the passion of the reviewers for games. I think it's just like that, like, they play a lot of beta versions of games, do interviews during the development process, and the hype keeps constantly shaping up. It doesn't happen to other media at all... I, the other day, was looking for a website as good for movie trailers as Gametrailers is for games' ... I didn't find anything comparable.

Also, I look to the fact that going to the movies, spending $15 on an album, just feels ordinary. Games are more like a high-end experience, where you will buy a specific machine to that kind of entertainment, and gerenally "feed" it with $60 products. Your experience with it lasts longer, too, and you tend to look deeper into it.

Maybe that's just it: games feel more "high-end" nowadays, at least amongst young people, whose generally game reviews come from.



... And sorry for my bad english. :p It's not my mother language.

grasshopper said...

I think I might have to go with movie reviewers being a little to uptight thinking if they only throw out high scores to artsy films and other movies they believe to be classics that it will somehow make them a sophisticated connoisseur of movies.
I think on average game reviews are pretty close to where they belong. Its just that time of the year when they bring the big ones out.

Joel said...

we don't put games under the same kind of scrutiny that we do to movies and books.

all a game needs to be good is to be fun.

thats why we play them, and buy them.

games can be more, but at this point thats all they are, and really all they need to be (so far)...

...but i think we all know that reviewers take a lot more into account when they rate a movie.

either way, it is what it is, i suppose..

felman said...

I think we reviewers are less critical than our movie brethren. If we like games, we rate them high, if we don't we won't. At least, that's what it should be. AC getting 10/10? I understand that 10 games aren't perfect, but they're pretty damn close. AC wasn't close.

Sometimes, I just don't get some reviewers. I understand GTA3 and how it breathed life into a genre, much in the same way Mario 64 did. But am I the only one who was bored with GTA:VC and SA? The entire point of the game was 'do whatever you want' but none of that ws particularly satisfying. After killing the umpteenth pedestrian, cop, hooker, etc, things just got stale, even with cheat codes. I'm hoping GTA4 does something great.

When you combine hype and bias, scores are going to rise or plummet (Halo3 and Heavenly Sword each on one end of the spectrum) depending on who's reviewing it. It's the ugly truth of reviewers. Still, what alternative do we have? Not review games at all? How will we know what's good and what sucks?

Anonymous said...

It's sort of simple, David, and you hit upon it yourself.
Games are products. They're consumer items. Simple as that. They either work, or they don't.
If a microwave works, it's a good product. If it works really well, even better than the other products, then it's a great product.
The same with games. When reviewing games, it's a simple question of - does it work? Is it fun? Is it better than the other products?
Films, though, are (in rough terms) deeper. They're not just products - although they might be 'targeted' in a similar way.
Films are based on scripts, plots, stories. Games are based on polygons, code and gameplay.
Films can be interpreted in many different ways, read in different methods or watched in different circumstances. Which leads to different conclusions and different reviews.
Games are products, and if they work (and work well) then they receive good product reports. And, crucially, game reviews are *buyer's guides*. Not criticism, exactly, but an investigation into whether a product works, or doesn't, and is fun or isn't.
Plus, when was the last time you saw a film review give a mark out of 100? Or 10.00?

Unknown said...

Personally this is why I think games get higher reviews than movies. Take American gangster for instance. In all of history what movie does American Gangster have to fight against. Godfather. Movies have been around for decades, the classics are really a lot to hold a candle to when you think about it. Someone who watches American Gangster is gonna say, "Yeah it's good, but it's no godfather". With games it's different, when a new game comes out it usually has the best graphics, and is on the best machines. This is because gaming technology is constantly changing, so most reviewers don't compare the new stuff with the old stuff. It's basically like this, would you consider Deus Ex(an FPS RPG sort of game) better or worse than Bioshock? most reviewers will say bioshock, mostly because they think it's not really fair to compare games with such vastly different technologies running them. When it gets down to it things in general are scored based off of comparisons to other things. The big difference is that the new books harry potter vs. the stand, and new movies, American Gangster vs. The Godfather. are being compared to a long history of books/movies, that are more or less running off of the same technology(particularly books). While games,(no matter what the game is) are running off of the last two Generations of technology.

Anonymous said...

Dave-

I think the amount of positive scores for agmes are due to their diversity and the nature of games. While I agree that many games probably get too high of a score based off of hype and the such, the issue is that games are vastly different from other mediums. They are interactive, and they are absed off of more than their sotry and the actors portraying characters, if there are even any actors doing so. While a movie might be great becuase of an actor's performance or awesome directing, a game can be great for much different reasons, such as it's play mechanics and graphical style. The thing is, there are so many different ways that games can be approached, that it's easy to see why there are so many positive scores. Gran Turismo and God of War are both excellent, but for entirely different reasons.

In the end, there is a good reason why we all play games. They can offer many unique experiences and various forms of entertainment that books and movies simply can not do.

Anonymous said...

P.S. Sorry about all the misspellings. Typed a bit too fast. :p

Anonymous said...

I'm still wondering what the differences are between 9.5 & 9.6% in gaming reviews.

Sniperwolfee said...

Nah, games are JUST THAT GOOD.
No question about it.

Sure there are some stinkies, but overall, the hype of being able to control something or someone, makes the average product so much sweeter.

Anonymous said...

what did we do for atari cartridges back in the day? we bought them purely based on their arcade origins and their amazing cover box/cart art.

we also walked 3 miles to school in the snow, and our dads carried m-16's in the jungle and our moms hit us with wooden spoons...did i say too much?

don't tase me, bro.

Anonymous said...

The reason its so different i think is because of the rate games are released...look at movies, 24-30 may get released from the big studios in a year...with games you have that many games in a month, sometimes you have 3 or 4x that since theres so many different consoles

so with movies you have less games that live up to they hype, but you also have far less movies being released then games...im sure the % of shit-bad-good-great is about the same

and since theres so many consoles its possible to get 1 or 2 awesome games a month...times that by 4 or 5 current consoles and its not hard to get 8 - 10+ great games a month...even if thats over 2 or 3 months its still higher then the base number of great movies in the same time

i know my theory is confusing...but the main thing is that theres so many more companies competing in gameing...and with the newer consoles its even easier for small companies to make games..whereas in movies theres probably 100's of companies world wide that are the "atlus" or "snk" of the movie industry that never get there stuff out to the mass public

iddqd said...

I read plenty of reviews that swing towards one extreme or another. Either they love it or they can't stand it. I think it boils down to a time issue. How long do you invest in a movie? Two hours? How long do you generally invest in your average game? I'd say a good deal more...10 hours...15 hours? With this kind of investment, it's much more likely to have a "love it or hate it" attitude. Not often am I indifferent to something that just took up 20 hours of my life. Either I love it for it, or I can't believe I just wasted the time.

Hyped games are going to have the financial/talent backing to be able to swing more towards the "love it" side of things. Besides, do I really want to be the guy that said game X turned out to be awful, and have it end up being the #1 game of the year? Probably not...

Anonymous said...

games are better. It's as simple as that.

Anonymous said...

Quote from Dan Hsu's review of Gears of War:

"You can always find reasons not to give a game a review score of 10. Control issues(Gears of War has that). A.I. problems (that, too). Bad dialogue or storytelling (yes on both). Linear Levels, online lag, limited modes (yup, yup and yup). But as I was playing though the game, I found one consistenly good feature: It was constantly impressing the hell out of me."

I guess as long as games impress us they are perfect for some.

The thing that's different for this medium is it is still evolving. And that makes it easy to impress us gamers because of it.

DF334 said...

Well, I agree with derrickgott007 that the rating systems are too high! 1 to 5 is the best way to go. Too bad the worst magazine in the world has always used it. I never thought that Halo was a 10 in the first place, because what the hell did they change beside the graphics? I think the only games that deserve 10's are ones like : Bioshock, Heavenly Sword (The girl version of GOW) and any game that changes the experience in a game! Oh...watch 1up.com! I really think that they get paid especially Matt Leone!

Anonymous said...

You really hit the spot dude! I've been wondering the exact same thing and here's my conclusion on the matter

http://hairyashell.blogspot.com/2007/10/flawless-victory.html

Some games are sometimes just overrated by the hype and sadly some games fall under the underrated side.

I agree with you that game journalists nowadays arent as mature or experienced as other mediums like movies/books etc. But then again, I think there needs to be a balance. One cant get sucked into the hype *cough Halo cough* nor underrate a game so strictly either.

Anonymous said...

Apples to Oranges I dare say!

The relative age of the several described mediums plays a large role. Game reviewers have the luxury of getting excited over 'new' things more often than Movie/book reviewers. I believe it is much easier to be innovative with a game than with say a movie. All gamers jump at a chance to get something 'new', be it game play, graphics, narrative etc. There is more of this innovation in video games than other mediums simply because games haven't had the time to do it yet, where movies/literature have had a much longer span to experiment.

Along this logic, when you experience something new that is pleasurable, its hard not to 1- Hype the game, and 2- Be... generous with review scores.

It would be interesting to see a post-hype review of games a bit down the road, when all the initial excitement has died down. Stripping off all of the 'new' and reviewing just the game that is there.

Anonymous said...

The reason we don't have stable, well-distributed scores is because the media of video games has not found its limits yet. (And that's a good thing!)


Film and books are "stable" media compared to games. Critics have a pretty good feel for four-star quality and two-star quality. Not so for video game reviewers.


You can play a game and think, "this is pretty awesome!". And then two years later you'll play another game which improves on it in every way.

You might remember games from your past that you thought were average - 6/10 review material. But if you go back and play them now with your current-day critical eye, they're not 6/10, they're probably more like 2/10.

I don't think we'll see meaningful review scores for games until we've explored more of the boundaries of the media. And I hope we don't hit those boundaries for years to come.

Anonymous said...

I'm inclined to think a lot of it has to do with the fact that many game reviewers have the opportunity to play games before they are complete, giving them an idea of which games will be deserving of hype. This is obviously not foolproof, but I think it leads to the hype often going to games that deserve it.

gary Z said...

games n movies r a different ball game altogether even though both belong to the entertainment jargon..s its true tat certain games r over rated in accordance to movies but tats wat sells a game unlike movies tat calls for stuff lik the story the cast etc .... these days as the trend seems to be the movies r using games as a medium to sell ...n as u pointed out there a heck a lot of difference in the passion of hardcore gamer from a movie buff . most of the times he gets fallen for the love for gaming rather than the quality....

Anonymous said...

To answer your headline...NO. I don't want to start getting all fanboy-ish (I prefer PlayStation), but honestly, Halo is not great, not close. Yet, so many reviewers out there praise it as the greatest thing to come along in years. The reviewers absolutely buy into the hype. The nerds who get super psyched up for something like Halo 3 convince themselves it is going to be amazing no matter what, and when they play the game for review, ignore the problems that are so obvious and just mark them down as "minor squibbles." Halo 3 took me five hours to beat my first time through, by myself, on hard. The story (again) was convoluted and plain stupid (that is, if you could figure it out), the action was merely the same thing as the past titles, and the graphical quality was not what you'd expect from a flagship title. Now, I really don't care about graphics that much, but when reviewers are saying it's OK that they weren't what was expected becuase they "look better than the beta," that's bullsmack. Yet God of War comes with one small clip in one level and the dorks at Gamespot HAVE to point it out. I'm not trying to kiss your butt there, either, it's true. Honestly, you guys had a little obvious text boxes now and then, and reviewers had a fit over it. But it's OK if Halo 3 wasn't really that big of a deal becuase, well, it's Halo. LAAAAMMMEEE. Same goes for Gears of Wear, LAAAAMMMEE. I'm not being a fanboy either, I had a 360 and enjoyed it, but games like Gears were mediocre. So what, it looked amazing, well congrats. The story was horrible, the multiplayer had the same gametype repeated 3 times with slightly (and I mean slightly) different variations, and well, the story, again, sucked. And don't even get me started about the official Xbox Magazine putting on their cover for the Gears of War review "PS3 crushing brilliance!" RIIIGGGHHHHTTT. One lame ass game will take down an entire console, RIIIIGGGHHHHHTTT. Seriously, f those guys lol.

Dan Robinson said...

You can't compare film reviews and game reviews. You watch a movie and play a game.

Do I think that the reviews are overly generous? I think the scores are a reflection of how fun a game is and how well it was developed (does the game delivers on its promises). Obviously if you don't have fun playing a game your review would reflect that. I think the examples that you give show that there are a lot of games to be enjoyed if you're a fan of those types of games. Obviously you wouldn't give Call of Duty 4 a 10 if you hate shooters.

Alan Vallely said...

Simple -
The important Art critics have an art degree, the important Film critics have a film degree...

Do Game reviewers have any training in game design or theory education? No. What you essentially have are players, not designers, reviewing - which means they don't get the nuances of design and haven't already been "saturated" by the process. Thus, you'll notice there are few very critical reviewers who rarely reward things as good.(Yahtzee Crowshaw being one - search for "Zero Punctuation").

It also is important to consider that Video Games are constantly evolving, so usually something that was amazing 5 years ago cannot compete with something made today (primarily in a graphical sense). Other artforms don't suffer from this kind of problem, being that visual art and films don't "get worse as they get older" - often the reverse is true.

So if, 10 years ago, you gave Doom a 10/10, and now something that is a lot like Doom, only with better graphics, better AI, and perhaps more interactivity comes out, is it better? worse? the same? To the player, it's "Better" - not until you take into account a variety of other factors do I think you can discern a proper score.

Anonymous said...

Al, that's kind of true.
But don't forget that games are, crucially, just consumer items. Again, like was said before, like microwaves or vacuum cleaners. On a basic level, they either work or they don't, or they work really well.

No game review will ever be on par with film review until reviewing games stops being about how the experience is delivered (or how it fails to be) and focuses solely and unilaterally on the quality of the experience itself.

And that will only happen as developers get better

masterofsuspense said...

I think that there are several differences with games and other media. I am a movie buff, but I have chosen to work on games because there are few key differences that I find more appealing when working with games.

The first and biggest is the lack of judgment, movies won't get made if all the necessary parts aren't good enough. This is partly due to the studio system and free agents, first the script has to be solid for a studio to even consider making the script in to a movie, this isn't true in the game industry where the whole game can be made solely on a good idea. The second is the free agents, or directors, producers, actors etc. All these must be up to par with the rest of the components before the movie is given a green light. Again, this is not true in most of the game industry. The game developer must make due with what is has, rarely an outside director or producer is attached to a game.

In story telling wise there is no "cut" in games, in the director's cut and the word cut sense. If a story component doesn't work in a game, usually it is left in there and worked around with to justify the time spent on it. In movies if a take is bad or it out right doesn't work it is left on the cutting room floor, sometimes changing the whole viewing experience. And even more rare is an altogether different cut of a game per director or a producer of the game, the experience doesn't change.

And this takes us to another problem in the industry, there are no "double dibs" like in the movie industry, a big screen experience and the dvd experience. Games don't come in theatrical cut for us to experience the first time and then if the game works well it might sell again in second time, and prove to work on a second viewing. Now some might argue that games with multiple endings has this quality but I don't consider it so. Even if there is a second viewing of a game it is ultimately the same game with few modified parts of the story to give you an illusion that the game is new the second time around.

Another noteworthy thing is that movies are usually made in a year or two if you consider the pre-production time, so this makes them more contemporary than games which can take up to five or six years to complete. So they rarely can address issues that people can relate with at the time of the game beginning production.

And last, I think that most games that are not that good get good reviews is that there hasn't been a widely recognized incredible game ever. There is no Godfather of games, even though there is Godfather the game which is nothing like Godfather the movie.

So ultimately, I think that the whole industry is broken, not just the reviewing part of it. And severe changes have to be made. When will game industry mature, who knows. But when it does, we enter in to a golden time of gaming, a time in which all parties will reap the benefits.

Anonymous said...

Quoting tacticsiege from a few comments above: "It would be interesting to see a post-hype review of games a bit down the road, when all the initial excitement has died down. Stripping off all of the 'new' and reviewing just the game that is there."

Agreed. There should be some kind of re-reviews for games that are 10 years or older or so. Only problem is that ten years from now, even those scores will have changed, since like so many have said, gaming is still maturing and is undergoing so much change. I think that's a good thing though and I'm not sure that's ever going to change. Unlike movies and books that have a fairly stable and very limited framework to work with, games pretty much have possibilities limited only by our imagination in the long run (and in short-term at best by the current generation of hardware).

I think the only way reviews can catch up to games is if they start openly focusing on one or two aspects of games. Is it good from an artistic standpoint, or is it good from an entertainment standpoint, etc.? Games are already just far too diverse to attempt to create a scoring system that works for every single game to rate everything about a game by and label it with a single score.

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