Time for a lil personal rant of my own:
Over the past 3-4 years, I've seen review bombs on Steam come and go, and while they do not work much at all these days (not like they did all that much in the past either, but I digress), I at least found them to being a sure fire way of finding out that something bad is going on with any game.
Fast forward to today and well we have Deathloop, a game with objectively mediocre and barebones AI, PC issues and the game not allowing you to do all that much outside the box (shooting out lights and the like, you know, stuff that's existed in far older games years ago, that modern AAA devs seem to have utterly forgotten). I look at the Steam reviews and it's gone up to "mostly positive", so I'm left with two thoughts; "Are people so happy with barebones AI and just mediocre games" / "Have all the problems been magically resolved in the span of a week, AI and new mechanics (like shooting out the godamn lights)?".
Basically I'm losing major trust in Steam reviews, because it occurred to me that the former thought can and does ring true for a lot of other markets out there (like mobile gaming and whales being dumb to MT tactics and being coddled to thinking it's fine and to accept the bad practice). Deathloop's user reviews in the positive range basically paint the game as "well worth the price", and yes, while I know that's their opinion, a lot of that personal opinion likes to push it a lot further, to get you to buy the game, because if they think it's worth it, it should be worth it to anyone else (hence why anyone in any walk of life would suggest you buy something in the first place, that's just what we do).
The other part of where I lose this trust, is that for the negative reviews (the ones that actually list the faults and don't sweep them side like positive reviews can and do) end up being met with negative commentary of their own, jester badges being awarded or being listed as "funny" reviews, mostly from fanboys or those that bought into the game, or just pointless shitheads that are bored.
I'm not saying Steam user reviews should go away, because I absolutely still end up using them half the time (besides youtube reviews by non journos, because journos are a waste of space at this point), but I believe they need to be filtered in the way review bombs are, because I don't find mindless reviews helpful, let alone the fanboyish ones or the ones that will gladly excuse every bad mistake or bad practice under the sun.
Another part of me is thinking that Steam in general is being filled with a new generation of gamers that grew up with lower standards and being easier to fool with barebones crap and bad bugs. Like I don't want to be any type of "old guard", but at the same time I have very, very low tolerance for mobile style gamers or fornite kids excusing shit, or wannabe 2B2T griefers who excuse their own shitty actions.
Basically I don't think deathloop deserves the "mostly positive", primarily because it's priced high, but has some of the worst AI and not all that great game design, and it's left me thinking that I'm one of the sane few who isn't buying into something so mediocre. I don't want to be Rick, but I look around me and everyone I see is ending up like a Morty.
Step right up come on in, feel the buzz in your veins, I'm like an chemical electrical right into your brain and I'm the one who killed the Radio, soon you'll all see
So pay up motherfuckers you belong to "V"
