TheSixthAxis GT5 Review

[Scoobes]

Rawnchie14 said:

Scoobes said:

kowenicki said:

Says who?  That just sounds like... this review is positive therefore its accurate.

You cant pick and choose and really it doesnt matter that some reviews are lower than expected.  Just get the game and be happy.

There is no conspiracy, its all becoming a bit paranoid.

They throw high scores around... Forza 3:   10/10

It's not a conspiracy but the state of video game journalism can be considerred a joke at best. For an industry that's trying to grow out of the sterotypes of society, the industry journalists are doing a piss poor job. The early reviews (both good and bad) obviously haven't had a significant amount of time to test all the features appropriately, especially when the online mode was only recently unlocked. It destroys credibility.

When a film is reviewed you expect the reviewer to watch the entirety of the film before passing judgement. This may not be possible with games, but they need to test all the features of a game for a significant amount of time.

GT5 isn't the only game to suffer from this. I've read dev complaints about reviews that didn't even touch on co-op & multiplayer modes and one review for FFVII: Crisis core that was included in metacritic played the game for barely more than an hour and with no sound before passing judgement.

I think you need to do a little self-reflection right here.  It is we, as hardcore gamers, that need to understand what these reviews are all about.  They review the game as it is right out of the box, get in and play.  You're making th assumption that the majority of gamers in the world, will have a good chunk of time to sit down with a game and scour its features.  This is a gross misjudgment, as the realm of casual gaming is getting larger everyday.

I feel the out-of-the-box first impression reviews are legitimate to make, especially to a person who doesn't plant themselves in front of a game for hours at a time.  Sure, plenty of people do in fact do this, but now - there are an increasing amount of gamers that don't.  

So don't hate on them too much, they're trying to cater to two crowds at once, all while trying to get reviews to gamers as soon as possible - before the game is out too long.

I don't think that matters as much as you think. The first impressions need to be taken note of and if negative will likely bring down the overall score of the game and tone of the review. However, to not test and review all the features results in a poor review as your not reviewing the product fully so you can't make an informed commentary even to the casual gamers.

How can you recommend or review a game to people (including casual gamers) when you're ignorant of half of the games' content? The only way to cater to everyone is to test out all features and explain what works, what doesn't and the impressions of the game from beginning to end. To do otherwise shows a lack of journalistic integrity and presents misinformation and half-truths to the reader.