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kain_kusanagi on 05 November 2012
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GameOver22 said:
JustThatGamer said:
Tom Chick, proof that some peoples 'opinions' can be wrong.

A review is meant to be as objective as possible, it's meant to tell you if the game's glitchy, long, short, varied, polished etc. Sure some things like the story, fun-factor, sound etc, will always be subjective but the majority of a review should be stating facts about the game and what the effects of them e.g. framerate, game length, play-ability, camera perspective and so on.

People who have read the review and defend it as the critics 'opinion' are moronic, what part of that awful review actually informed anyone about the game? Zilch. Why Metacritic uses a publication who's reviews are consistently poorly written and always troll popular and acclaimed games for hits is beyond me. GameRankings doesn't use shitty sites and is better for a ton of other reasons to boot, if you like accuracy and quality use that site instead.

Problem is, a lot of those things you mention are subjective. I'll give you framerate, game length, and camera perspective as objective. Variety, polish, and play-ability, at least to me, are incredibly subjective and depends on what your background and expectation are. Further, while framerate might be objective, how this plays into a review score is subjective. If a game has minor framerate problems, how should this impact the score? 0.2 points, 0.5 points, 1 point, no points? Point is, while framerate issues can be objectively measured, the framerate problems might affect different people's assessment more than others.

Reviews are subjective. They depend on someone taking a position (an opinion) and making an argument for that position. Not to mention, they have to do this in incredibly limited word space, meaning they will not be capable of fully explicating their argument, hence, some of the ambiguity in reviews. Personally, I don't want a review to give me a bunch of objective facts. Not only would it be boring to read, but it would be incredibly limited in its scope. Point is, tell me whether the gameplay is good and how it compares to its competitors. I don't need to know for instance, "When you squeeze the right trigger, your equipped gun fires bullets at a rate of one clip per 4 seconds." That would be quite objective, but it doesn't really provide me with much info about the quality of the game.

Look at it this way.

I hate sushi. I've tried it many times, but always hate it. I like cooked fish dishes, but I don't like sushi.

Stay with me.

If I wrote a review for a sushi restaurant, should I let my hate of sushi effect the review? No, I shouldn't even write the review. I should hand it off to someone else who at the very has nothing against sushi. My opinion of any sushi restaurant would be that the food is terrible, no matter how much that same sushi is loved buy sushi lovers. What point would my review of a sushi restaurant even serve?

Now back to games.

If a reviewer doesn't like Halo games, why would his review be taken seriously? It's not that his opinion or taste in games is invalid. It's that his dislike of the game series makes the opinion worthless to the reader. A review should include the reviewers opinion, but it shouldn't get in the way of informing the reader about the pros/cons that only an unbiased mind can conclude. A Halo hater is always going to hate the latest Halo game. Nobody needs a review like that.

Halo 4 is not a bad game therefor it should not be considered garbage by anyone other than those who hate it's style like I hate sushi. And just like I shouldn't rate sushi a Halo hater shouldn't review Halo 4.