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Squilliam on 28 May 2009
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World Of Warcraft said:
Rath said:
I just try and find somebody that in the past has had the same opinions as me on certain games.

Some people will lean more to the graphical side, some to the story etc. Reviews are inherently biased, you should just aim to find someone with the same bias as you.

Close.  Very close.

Here's my take:

Reviews can be objectively measured in several aspects.  Are all the facts correct?  Are all the facts complete--that is, did the reviewer play the whole game?  If you have a reviewer that is shown to consistently get facts wrong, see problems that aren't there, or complain about things which become non-issues after the first two hours of the game then you can question the integrity of the reviewer and the review.

Reviews can also be judged subjectively.  The best reviewer of any game is yourself.  You are the very best person at deciding whether you will have fun with a game or not, what you will enjoy in the game, etc.  Excluding yourself, the best reviewer for a game would have to be someone with exact or very similar gaming preferences.  If the reveiwer enjoys the same things you do then the review will likely highlight things which will interest you.  If the reviewer is annoyed by the same things that bother you then the review will likely highlight the things that would annoy you.

Thus, the ideal reviewer is someone with identical taste in games to you, who always plays 100% of the game before writing the review, and double checks all facts.

 

So, do you lean towards the 'reviews are for purchase decisions/play decisions' camp rather than the 'games as art' camp?



Tease.