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LuckyTrouble on 29 August 2015
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DevilRising said:
FinalFantasyer said:
Oh jeez, who to trust! Nintendo fanboys who finally got an exclusive 3rd party game or non-biased professional video game reviewers who do this for a living. Hmmmm....

That can go both ways.


"Professional" game reviewers are absolutely biased. There has not been a single un-biased one since the mid-90s. There was a time when actual game journalists who works for magazines like EGM and GamePro back when they were actually good, really DID give legitimately unbiased reviews, meaning that they reviewed the merits of the game, regardless of their personal opinions of it, or personal tastes. GamePro most especially, was the best at this in the early to mid 90s, because their ratings system did not have an aggregate score. They would rate each aspect of a game individually, from graphics, sounds, controls, fun factor, etc., so they would let you know if, say, a game had great graphics but shitty sound, or shitty gameplay. Or a game with crap graphics but amazing gameplay. Because they would score each thing seperately, and the reviews themselves would be an unbiased look at what the game is about. Period.

Zero personal opinions, just the facts of the game. And that was great, it was reliable.

 

Now? Not a chance. Even outlets that try to put forth an air of unbiasedness, such as GameTrailers, fail. IGN once had an ounce of credibility, but that too was many, many years ago.

 

These days, all ANY "professional" reviewer is, is no more or less than some gamer, just like any one of us, who just so happens to get paid to give their personal opinions. And that's it. Nothing unbiased or "professional" about it at all, except that they're getting paid, so they "must know what they're talking about".

 

On the other hand, yes gamer reviews and non-paid opinions are biased. Of course they are. EVERY opinion is biased, that is the nature of opinion. But I have found, at times, that you can trust "fan reviews" sometimes more than "pro reviews", because there have been cases where they will actually tell you more of what the game is about, and not just trying to get clicks, views, etc.

 

Either way, it would not surprise me at all that this game has wonky cameras, controls, a half-baked story, etc., but that is only because that has been how EVERY Itagaki game, especially the Ninja Gaiden 3D games, have always been. He was never known for high quality. And yet many people claimed to love his NG games, or DoA, or whatever.

If you're really trying to argue that there was some magical mystical time when reviews had zero opinion associated with them, and thus, no bias, I have some really bad news for you. Do you not understand what rating a game on its merits means? What scoring things like visuals, sound, fun, or otherwise implies? It means they are using their own personal measures and experience to grade the game against their own personal scale of good. It is still a completely biased system because they are still reviewing the content as they perceive it. They didn't magically find a method that eliminated bias, and then decided it was no good and drop it. They didn't count the polygons and precisely measure movements, or use some perfect scale for determining music quality in both output and composition. There is no standard measure for fun. I have no idea how you got the idea in your head that reviewing anything has ever been an unbiased affair. As soon as you start assigning scores, or grading the content in anyway, whether it be with your own words, letters, or numbers, you are using personal opinion, and thus, bias.

If you feel bias is more obvious now, okay. I mean, it comes down to how you perceive it and how it aligns with your own personal biases. omg look at how it all ties back around to one central idea. In the end, bias is everywhere, always. If you can come up with a way to flawlessly eliminate bias that doesn't come down to straight up making a list of irrefutable facts that don't actually review the game in any conceivable way, I invite you to revolutionize the industry.