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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Why can't gamers diferentiate between their personal taste and quality.

Ganoncrotch on 26 December 2013
oniyide said:
ganoncrotch said:
oniyide said:
ganoncrotch said:


But yeah regarding the rest of your post I do agee that a good reviewer should be able to see that there was an amount of work gone into something such as a fighting game, but I don't believe someone who isn't a fan of the fighting genre would ever really get balance issues which are clear from the get go.

 

I agree they shouldnt put someone who has a disdain for a genre to review said genre, but sometimes crap and deadlines happen.

It's not just about deadlines, I would say not every review site would have a fan of each type of Genre especially Niche things like Katamari, there is probably a huge portion of review sites who just plain don't understand the point to some Niche games so they score very badly because those sites still want to post reviews about games coming out. No amount of time will make someone a fan of Katamari and then give it a fair review imo.

That's kinda why most reviews should be looked over to see if the person who is reviewing it actually seems to know what issues are in the game rather than just reading the bottom line, I've read some Rpg reviews like PSO and seen complaints about things like Grindy J/Krpg style gameplay as a negative... I fucking love that gameplay, loved the shit outta PSO.



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oniyide on 26 December 2013
Akvod said:
oniyide said:
Akvod said:
oniyide said:
Akvod said:
stlwtng4Dmdrxip said:

It seems that in every game site, in every comment section/forum there's people saying that this game is good or bad depending if they liked the game or not.

I hate many above average games, and i love many average games.

Just because you like a game, that doesn't make the game good and vice versa. How isn't this clear for most gamers?

Even" professional" reviewers make this mistake all the time.

 

Thoughts please.

So are you saying there is an objective basis for quality?


there are some aspects that are objective, for example frame rate, screen tearing, controls, etc.

The importance one puts on those attributes vary from person to person. And again, there are the non-objective attributes that probably make way more of a difference than a technical attribute like frame rate.

of course, im just stating their are some aspects of a game that IMHO are objective. For instance if a game simply doesnt work (Steel Battalion). But those are extreme cases.  

No, what you described are things that are measurable. That still doesn't address how much value (if any) to give to that attribute.

For example, would you argue that having a higher player count is a good thing, all else held equal? Say for Battlefield 4, 24 players on the current gen consoles and 64 players on the next gen.

If you say yes, have you considered things like how big the maps are or how the game will play out?

And again, a lot of the measurable things you mentioned come with a trade off. Pixels for framerate for example. How much weight do you give to each of those things?

While if you have the same exact game (all else held equal) then it'll be easy to assess the "quality" of a game with the objective measurments you gave. So that might work for something like multiplats (and it has been going on). But when we try to assess quality for the game itself, or the game relative to other games, then those measurable attributes just fall into something subjective again.

i havent played BF and to be honest i dont plan too so im the wrong person to ask for that. I was talking basic mechanical things that are apparent in games across th board. For example controls. Would you argue that if the controls of a game flat out suck and therefore bring the quality of the game down? I mean a video game MUST control well or it becomes unplayable, but what the hell Just dance doesnt even work really but people love it so you're probably right in the end.



oniyide on 26 December 2013
ganoncrotch said:
oniyide said:
ganoncrotch said:
oniyide said:
ganoncrotch said:


But yeah regarding the rest of your post I do agee that a good reviewer should be able to see that there was an amount of work gone into something such as a fighting game, but I don't believe someone who isn't a fan of the fighting genre would ever really get balance issues which are clear from the get go.

 

I agree they shouldnt put someone who has a disdain for a genre to review said genre, but sometimes crap and deadlines happen.

It's not just about deadlines, I would say not every review site would have a fan of each type of Genre especially Niche things like Katamari, there is probably a huge portion of review sites who just plain don't understand the point to some Niche games so they score very badly because those sites still want to post reviews about games coming out. No amount of time will make someone a fan of Katamari and then give it a fair review imo.

That's kinda why most reviews should be looked over to see if the person who is reviewing it actually seems to know what issues are in the game rather than just reading the bottom line, I've read some Rpg reviews like PSO and seen complaints about things like Grindy J/Krpg style gameplay as a negative... I fucking love that gameplay, loved the shit outta PSO.


i kinda agree, IMHO any game site magazine worth its salt should have multiple reviewers on hand to cover a spectrum of all possible gameBut from experience only the big boys do it(IGN,EGM, GI) they have large staffs, some sites dont. I think EGM has the best system 3 people review one game. IMHO if some of these niche games that score badly are probably simply not good. If multiple people are saying the same thing then that raises eyerbrows. One could argue it wasnt a fair review but another could argue maybe the person just likes playing bad games. Or at the very least the game has serious problems but the enjoyment overrides th problems, but that brings us back to square one. Hell i loved Goldeneye for WIi so much so I bought it for PS3 again. But the game has serious issues, it freezes, framerate drop, level up system is unbalanced, worst spawn points of any FPS ive ever played, but despite those faults its my most played game for WIi hands down, but i would never give it a 9 or higher, not with those issues.

Heres the thing, they DO do that, at least the bigger boys do. EGM had a whole article on just that, which i really wished i would have saved. Bottom line they do have editors that do look at reviews.



Akvod on 26 December 2013
oniyide said:
Akvod said:
oniyide said:
Akvod said:
oniyide said:
Akvod said:
stlwtng4Dmdrxip said:

It seems that in every game site, in every comment section/forum there's people saying that this game is good or bad depending if they liked the game or not.

I hate many above average games, and i love many average games.

Just because you like a game, that doesn't make the game good and vice versa. How isn't this clear for most gamers?

Even" professional" reviewers make this mistake all the time.

 

Thoughts please.

So are you saying there is an objective basis for quality?


there are some aspects that are objective, for example frame rate, screen tearing, controls, etc.

The importance one puts on those attributes vary from person to person. And again, there are the non-objective attributes that probably make way more of a difference than a technical attribute like frame rate.

of course, im just stating their are some aspects of a game that IMHO are objective. For instance if a game simply doesnt work (Steel Battalion). But those are extreme cases.  

No, what you described are things that are measurable. That still doesn't address how much value (if any) to give to that attribute.

For example, would you argue that having a higher player count is a good thing, all else held equal? Say for Battlefield 4, 24 players on the current gen consoles and 64 players on the next gen.

If you say yes, have you considered things like how big the maps are or how the game will play out?

And again, a lot of the measurable things you mentioned come with a trade off. Pixels for framerate for example. How much weight do you give to each of those things?

While if you have the same exact game (all else held equal) then it'll be easy to assess the "quality" of a game with the objective measurments you gave. So that might work for something like multiplats (and it has been going on). But when we try to assess quality for the game itself, or the game relative to other games, then those measurable attributes just fall into something subjective again.

i havent played BF and to be honest i dont plan too so im the wrong person to ask for that. I was talking basic mechanical things that are apparent in games across th board. For example controls. Would you argue that if the controls of a game flat out suck and therefore bring the quality of the game down? I mean a video game MUST control well or it becomes unplayable, but what the hell Just dance doesnt even work really but people love it so you're probably right in the end.

Controls are subjective as well (I'm thinking looking sensitivity for FPSs, although same applies for button placement).

I mean, is LBP's controls bad or good? Some might say it's bad because they're used to Mario's snappy ones, while others might like LBP's controls.

I mean, where's the objectivity in this guy's assessment of a game's controls?



Veknoid_Outcast on 26 December 2013

I would argue the exact opposite, that a game is good precisely because one likes it, and is bad because one doesn't like it. What I don't understand is when someone says "it's a bad game, but I like it," or, conversely, "it's a great game but I don't like it." If you like it, it's good, at least to you. But you can't speak for anyone else anyway, so YOU are all that matters.



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Captain_Tom on 26 December 2013

I can. I played Demon's Souls for 1000 hours and thought it was the absolute best game I had ever played. However I would give it somewhere between a 9 and a 9.5.

I loved TLoU but I didn't even play it for 100 hours. Still I would give it a 10.

I could go on and on really...



Captain_Tom on 26 December 2013
Veknoid_Outcast said:
I would argue the exact opposite, that a game is good precisely because one likes it, and is bad because one doesn't like it. What I don't understand is when someone says "it's a bad game, but I like it," or, conversely, "it's a great game but I don't like it." If you like it, it's good, at least to you. But you can't speak for anyone else anyway, so YOU are all that matters.


So the OP's point is that people like you can't tell the difference.  I really kinda hate Halo, but I can see objectively what made the first 2 or so such a big hit.  I even have to give them credit for revolutionary game mechanics.  It's not that hard to stand back and try to be objective...



Nem on 26 December 2013

Different people have different opinions. Surely its not that shocking. We arent borg afterall.

Besides, just when you try to define what quality is or what a great game is, you wont be able to have consensus. What a good game is, is in fact a matter of perspective, so you yourself are just exacerbating the issue. ^^



Veknoid_Outcast on 26 December 2013
Captain_Tom said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:
I would argue the exact opposite, that a game is good precisely because one likes it, and is bad because one doesn't like it. What I don't understand is when someone says "it's a bad game, but I like it," or, conversely, "it's a great game but I don't like it." If you like it, it's good, at least to you. But you can't speak for anyone else anyway, so YOU are all that matters.


So the OP's point is that people like you can't tell the difference.  I really kinda hate Halo, but I can see objectively what made the first 2 or so such a big hit.  I even have to give them credit for revolutionary game mechanics.  It's not that hard to stand back and try to be objective...

It's one thing to hate a game and acknowledge its influence. It's quite another to personally dislike a game and "objectively" love it. If a game matches my personal criteria for greatness, it IS great. Why should I bother trying to guess what others will think. I can only judge something against my own standards, my own personal truth. If you think you can identify some objective, universal truth, you're fooling yourself.



Captain_Tom on 26 December 2013
Veknoid_Outcast said:
Captain_Tom said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:
I would argue the exact opposite, that a game is good precisely because one likes it, and is bad because one doesn't like it. What I don't understand is when someone says "it's a bad game, but I like it," or, conversely, "it's a great game but I don't like it." If you like it, it's good, at least to you. But you can't speak for anyone else anyway, so YOU are all that matters.


So the OP's point is that people like you can't tell the difference.  I really kinda hate Halo, but I can see objectively what made the first 2 or so such a big hit.  I even have to give them credit for revolutionary game mechanics.  It's not that hard to stand back and try to be objective...

It's one thing to hate a game and acknowledge its influence. It's quite another to personally dislike a game and "objectively" love it. If a game matches my personal criteria for greatness, it IS great. Why should I bother trying to guess what others will think. I can only judge something against my own standards, my own personal truth. If you think you can identify some objective, universal truth, you're fooling yourself.


-It is universal that Demon's Souls suffered from a needlessly choppy framerate at times

-It is universal that TLoU combined a great and unique combat system with storytelling that put 90% of survival movies to shame.

-I is universal that Halo simplified the weapon system, added third person vehicles, introduced a form of regenerating health, and put it in a package anyone can pick up and enjoy.  

 

No one is saying you have to "Love" the game; just look at it and realize that it does do certain things well and then weight that with what most people expect from games.  Is it unique?  Does it do things people love better?  

So the OP is asking:  "Why is it so hard for YOU to do these things?"  Answer that.