Of everyone who bashes Lair, who has actually played it?

[thermal7]

Penny Arcade played it and said it sucked. You would have a tough time making the argument that they are biased. In fact I would say their brutal honesty is one of the main reasons they have become so popular.

Also the guy from Factor 5 said more or less, "it's not our fault it sucked" and "development was cursed". They don't give me confidence in the titles quality.

I very much agree the review system is far form perfect, particularly the focus on producing a number to review a game. I personally much prefer the concept of getting to know various reviewers tastes and identifying those like minded to you. Then when they recommend a game it is something you can rely on more than 8.75442 rating. Anyway I digress.

So yes the review system has its issues and there is bias, conflicts of interest and probably money changing hands. However, it is hardly worthless and when all reviews are taken in aggregate it is possible approximate a games quality. Especially if you are prepared to read a bunch of reviews.

Further more, who says we need to be 100% certain about everything we say. If I say Lair is bad, it goes without saying that I am not 100% certain of this. I am not saying I played the game completely unlocking every secret. I also was on the development team and know its every line of code. I also have played every game that is similar and thus am well equipped to compare it.

What I am saying is it is highly likely it is bad, but rather than speak like this:

If the bad reviews were in fact not overly biased, nor due to bribery or related to a conflict of interest, bearing in mind that I have not played it, it is highly likely that Lair is bad.

I just say it is bad, because it is a near to truth as we can get. So it is ridiculous to say you have to had played a game for a significant amount of time to say it is bad. There is enough evidence to give enough certainty to be able to make such statements.