They can be useful, but you have to have a strong conceptualization of what you want from a game, as well as a good range of opinions of the game in question. Games with universally poor or universally positive reviews, I tend to avoid.

Aye this completely. Say if you have the greatest Fifa game in the universe which scores 100%.... it's still a Fifa game to me, you get a ball run up a field, someone takes the ball off you runs back down the field.... for 90 minutes! that is all I've seen since playing it on the megadrive that is what I still see :D Not going to hand over 60euros for 1080p version of running up and down a field after a ball.

Yeah, I've never been a sports-game guy. It's a bit too repetitive...

Reviews only influence me when I know absolutely nothing about the game other than a couple of gameplay videos, and no friend of mine knows it either. This has changed ever since I became more active on gaming forums because I prefer user's opinions rather than the critics.

Which one did you find repetitive?

• 2 Games in the series
  • 2.1 FIFA International Soccer
  • 2.2 FIFA 95
  • 2.3 FIFA 96
  • 2.4 FIFA 97
  • 2.5 FIFA: Road to World Cup 98
  • 2.6 FIFA 99
  • 2.7 FIFA 2000
  • 2.8 FIFA 2001
  • 2.9 FIFA Football 2002
  • 2.10 FIFA Football 2003
  • 2.11 FIFA Football 2004
  • 2.12 FIFA Football 2005
  • 2.13 FIFA 06
  • 2.14 FIFA 07
  • 2.15 FIFA 08
  • 2.16 FIFA 09
  • 2.17 FIFA 10
  • 2.18 FIFA 11
  • 2.19 FIFA 12
  • 2.20 FIFA 13
  • 2.21 FIFA 14

Hey... that list is missing Fifa World cup 2002 the second game that came out that year. and the fifa street games but I guess at least those are just 3v3 and 5v5 but yeah. If Fifa games lost score for repeditivness they'd now be in the -50% region :D

They have a lot of influence over games I don't know much about. If I already know how a game is like, they have little to no influence over whether or not I buy it.

Ever since Skyrim got a plethora of 10s for PS3 and I experienced a game that was no where near being worthy of a perfect score, I relied much less on reviews. However, they do influence my purchase decisions, but usually long after I have already made up my mind, so they're more of a reinforcing agent really. I tend to go to walkthroughs for guidance more than reviews, but as I mentioned before the latter can help with my decision. Plus, reviews are very subjective. Look at MGR and how differently reviewers interpreted it. I for one disliked it, but if I bought it based on certain review bodies that gave it an "A" score, then I would have been really disappointed.

And to hell with metacritic. I did advanced statistics in undergrad, so I know how flawed aggregates are and how much they tend to omit. Going back to games like MGR that tend to illicit a polarizing response, metacritic is a flawed reflection for people on either side of the spectrum for games like that.

Pretty much my mantra^ :P
Because games on Steam are so much cheaper during a sale, I couldn't care if the game is horrible or not, It's not like I'm loosing $80+
Hence, reviews have zero bearing on me. (They are mostly opinion anyway.)

If I do buy a game that's not on sale, It's because it's a franchise I love and know it's going to be decent.

really depends. If its a game I know nothing about then ill use reviews and look up youtube. but otherwise not really

It's not the individual sports games, it's the idea of sports games in general. Honestly, I find a lot more enjoyment in watching sports than playing them, and doubly so for sports games.