Respectable Reviwers?

[Reasonable]

numonex said:
The only reviewers I would trust are from the US. Reviewers outside the US do not count. IGN and Gametrailers are the two main reviewers. Their reviews and opinions count. No one elses opinion matters.

Official magazines reviewers obviously do not count due to their bias reviews favouring their systems.

Yeah, us poor Europeans would clearly know nothing.  And heaven forbid the Japanese, who drove so much of videogame history, would know anything worthwhile about videogames.  But wait, why should I even post, apparently only US opinion matters.

But heck, I will post.

OT - game reviewing is pretty variable and that's all there is to it.  Every job, whether a plumber or a reviewer, has people who are amazing (normally a small minotiry), ideally a decent number who are good, and some real idiots at the bottom of the scale.

Videogame reviewing though, is harder than most, as for a number of reasons the basic criteria for reviewing aren't even clear.

Take films.  In principle, if you want to be a professional film reviewer, you are not just offering another opinion, but an informed opinion (a distinction often missed on the internet I find) - i.e. you will very likely undertand more about films, acting, narrative, cinematography, etc. than the average man in the street, and you will also attempt to review free of bias.

Now in films, few reviewers in reality are of this level.  Most are just offering an opinion, no different from you or me, others are actually informed, and therefore worth the read.

But in games it just all seems less clear.  Is a short SP game as good as an MP game with lots of online?  Well, that seems to vary from site to site and gamer to gamer?  Should a game with equally fun gameplay but better graphics score more or the same than another very fun game with slightly weaker graphics?  Again, very divided opinions.

All I can say is any official magazine should be viewed with utmost caution, obvious fanboy or biases reviews should also be treated with caution, unless you are a similar fanboy in which case they are proabably perfect for you, and a few sites/magazines do seem to have a certain level of reliability, although again, I've never found one which attains a truly consistent level, with even Edge (which I tend to like overall) having a reasonable number of review 'wobbles' where they clearly show inconsistent standards across their review team.

Personally, I believe the best reviewer for you is you (or people like you on the internet).  Think about what you like, what you don't and just pay attention to what a game offers vs any marketing hype or bullshit and you should be able to buy wisely.

The toughest test is not buying day one.  Sure, it's tempting, and if you're sure about the title why not, but personally, with games as with films, I find that there is a whole lot more interesting info available in the days right after release for those who want to chose carefully or with limited budgets, and if you can hold of diving right in you'll cut down a lot on the amount of games you regret buying.

I will say (impartially too) that I've been quite impressed with the approach Naz is taking on this site, even if I do feel the value score is proving hard for the reviewers to apply sensibly acorss different genres/games.