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Vendetta wrote: You don't see people decrying Empire, say, for giving a movie five stars, and saying that that must mean it's a perfect movie never to be bettered, why do you do it with games?

One of the guys in 1up was commenting on this on the GFW Radio podcast, he pointed out how funny it is that, while when it comes to movies, the audience tends to be a lot more forgiving than the reviewers, in games it's exactly the opposite.

Might have something to do with the fact that a bad movie will be internationally panned, but a bad game will get 70% and be described as 'fun for fans of the genre'. Movie critics might be wankers, but video game critics have the nerdsphere's cock so far down their throat I'm surprised they can see the keyboard.


But come on. Halo got a perfect ten back in the day; give it a month and perspective will come back. Remember Bioshock's amazing review scores? HA!

A movie you can just sit back and watch. If you like what you see, the actors deliver, the script is believable and there aren't glaring plot holes, then the movie easily scores full marks.

A game is not like that. As well as achieving all the above, the controls have to be sharp, you want to get something out of it that you are looking for when you bought the game, you want unpredictability, a couple of pleasant surprises perhaps, must not be frustrating yet still be challenging, extra content, post game bonuses, online co-op etc. A game can hardly ever be perfect.

Not to mention that if one can play the game, and find a bug, unpleasant quirk or tiresome mechanic, it affects a game far more than a movie. In a movie, a boom mic visible is gone in a second, but a bug or lameass implementation comes back over and over for hours and hours. Look at GTA4; it has bugs (at least on 360) and they're only serious because while fucking around you will see them on a semi-constant basis. Of course, those reviews that mentioned these issues didn't have it affect the final rating much, because you have to follow the other reviewers' lead or people stop reading the ads on your site.

The other thing is that most reviewers are professional and I have to argue whether that can even work.

Aside the annoying argument of taste, there is the factor that these people play games for a living while we play games for our own amusement. Thus, game reviewers try to be professional but can that work? When you do something for your own entertainment, it will stop being entertaining when you have the stress of professionalism on you. Can you enjoy a game when its a chore you must do? What are you supposed to do? What are you supposed to point out? You have a deadline and three other games to play. I wouldn't be surprised that several people in this industry have become sick of video games after their carrier as a reviewer.


Also, how many reviewers are merely good players pulled from the street, metaphorically speaking and how many are journalists? Movie critics often come from the industry. How many reviewer sites do you see that have reviewers whom are also or were game developers? Who are these people, really? Why, in end, should we trust their criticisms and summaries? Because they are gamers?

Video games are/is (not sure which to use) a young art, it still doesn't quite know its place. From back-garage developers doing it out of nerdish obsession we now have full studios devoted to do games for the price of millions. It's trying to be like the movie industry but video games are not movies. Or are they? The PS3 is also a digital entertainment station that can play movies. The XBOX 360 has an internet connection and an in-built dick-measuring system. Yet Nintendo rules the market simply because it doesn't try to be like movie industry. It tries to be a video game industry.

I would also like to point to squidi's blog regarding this topic. http://www.squidi.net/blog/entry.php?id=2008.04.09

Movie critics are pathetic because they dont even remotely understand the audiance they claim to speak to. In reality they're basically just talking to themselves, about themselves, and their own personal biases and insecurities.

Game critics are patheic because they dont even remotely understand the audiance they claim to speak FOR. In reality they're basically just talking to themselves, about themselves, and their own personal biases and insecurities.

There, thats the difference.

Vendetta wrote:You know, it never ceases to amaze me that this comes up for every game that gets a 10/10.

You don't see people decrying Empire, say, for giving a movie five stars, and saying that that must mean it's a perfect movie never to be bettered, why do you do it with games?

Because 5 stars means anything between 80% and 100%, a movie can get five stars and still not be perfect in every conceivable way.

A 100%, on the other hand, means anything between 99% and 100%, a significantly narrower band. Besides, maybe my experience is limited, but in general I see a lot less movie reviews that sound more like the 'critic' is vigorously giving the producer a combined rim-job and reach-around than actually 'reviewing' anything, a common problem with mainstream game reviews.

Aside from the obvious fact that professional reviewers have sold out (yes, even ben yahtzee). Has anyone here played the game yet?

I'll wait a few days to post my impressions since i'm just coming off beating the game in one sitting, but I am interested in hearing other people's impressions of it.

Darksider wrote:Aside from the obvious fact that professional reviewers have sold out (yes, even ben yahtzee). Has anyone here played the game yet?

I'll wait a few days to post my impressions since i'm just coming off beating the game in one sitting, but I am interested in hearing other people's impressions of it.

I'm only at Raging Raven, but I've been blown away so far.

(yes, even ben yahtzee)

Really? I just thought he sucked at actually playing some types of games and had a bias against others (like PC RPGs).