MP3 vs Bioshock: reviews

[Desroko]

Legend11 said:

Non Sequor said:

BenKenobi88 said:
I'd rather trust a professional critic than thousands of gamers, to be honest, because fans tend to set a game's score offbalance.

See RottenTomatoes vs. IMDB movie scores. I trust RottenTomatoes usually, because it's professional critics' words. IMDB voters are usually big fans and just put "10/10" without thinking.

I'd rather trust a professional critic too, but unfortunately there are no professional critics for video games. Game magazines really scrape the bottom of the barrel in their hiring. I wouldn't trust these guys to review anything more complicated than socks.

I have to ask, what exactly makes a professional critic and why do you feel there are none in videogames? Some magazines have been around for over 25 years (like EGM) and their reviews are very well respected, yet you're putting those people that work there down along with many others because in your opinion they aren't professional critics? Some of these people write for Time, Newsweek, etc and do spots on tv channels such as CNN yet they're not professional in your opinion?

Try reading the Escapist's feature on game reviews from a few months ago. Gaming journalism, even at the magazines that have been around a long time, is grossly unethical and subjective. EGM, which you hold up as a beacon of light, would routinely assign, e.g., sports games to writers who had admitted elsewhere that they hated sports games. Which made it ironic when their editor-in-chief claimed that he knew of at least one major magazine that they would give out high scores in exchange for advertising revenue.