Wonderful.

Its a "you" thing, not a review 

watchdogs was a fun game. I habe 100 hrs in it (played alot online hacking)

It got a huge backlash, but it's still overrated in my opinion. Easily the worst retail game that I played on Wii U and it would still be terrible without the technical issues.

Time to buy the wii u because of this review!

Reviews, by their very nature, are SUPPOSED to be "subjective". That's the whole damn point of a review. So if their were a shitload of articles saying "fuck objectivity", they were merely stating the obvious.

The difference between a professional review and the Miiverse (and any online community for that matter) is what they are subjective ABOUT. Online community "reviews" can be subjective based around something silly like company preference, aka fanboyism. A professional review is supposed to throw away petty things like company loyalty and instead focus on what they thought about the things that matter, ie game play, controls, graphics, value, etc.

If you want an objective review, they would all pretty much be like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMU1_-_4WKg

I've no interest in getting involved with GamerGate nonsense, but this kind of talk always irritates me, so I HAD to say something. Hopefully I actually shed some light on this subject rather then just pissed you (or someone else) off.

I think in the end, it often comes down to reviewers simply having higher standards than regular gamers, and also simply not having the time to invest in a lot of games. I've enjoyed my share of poorly reviewed titles, and I've not cared for plenty of games that were praised. It's all subjective, and in the end only my preference matters to me. But game critics do serve an important function, as anti-bodies within the games industry meant to steer consumers away from potentially bad purchases and experiences, and towards ones that they will more likely enjoy. We didn't have these antibodies before the crash of 83, which was at least partially caused by many consumers being burned by bad purchases they had no way to evaluate before hand, in a market that was being flooded with software, with no means for consumers to decide what would be good for them beyond the box art and commercials.

Much like The Order, I will probably steer clear of this title until the price comes down, so that I can check it out out of curiousity. I probably won't hate it, but I also have better games I could be playing.

they could analyse the plotstructure they could messure the loadtime, framerate, bugs per hour, etc.

and they could come up with a gamepay drill for a somewhat objective review. but they wll not, thats hard work, and math is waaay to much for 90% of gaming critics.

if you make personal non objective reviews, you need a person people can trust in the front like jim fuckn sterling.

thats why i trust small youtube reviews alot more than big website reviews, sure, both are  full of their own taste, but you can find the taste of the smal youtuber and check if its close to yours way easyer.

I usually don't pay attention to critics. There's a lot of "bad" games that I've enjoyed.

If i listened to critics i wouldnt have enjoyed what has been one of my favorite games this year. Bound by flame. Go see the reviews. See what totalbiscuit said about it. I am not implying they are all paid. I´m implying they look at the games from a different point of view than consumers do. When you play a game, are you constantly looking out for its downsides? Well, these people are. That is not a mindset to enjoy what you are playing.

If you dont allow yourself to play certain games because of the critics, all you are going to play is one type of game, wich is the type of game they like to review. Good grapics, open world. Well, i find that open worlds have been the most boring thing this gen and i wish less games did it. Those sandboxes of repetition and boredom kill the pace of any good game. Bound by flame was a breath of fresh air, in a structure that Bioware used to do in the past but who got changed into the boredom sort of open world of Dragon Age inquisition, where you run around looking for node and portals to close for the Nth time. Game of the year they say. Yet the game of the year bores me to tears.

Are the critics right? No, i dont really think they are, nor could they ever be in the current paradigm. But alas, not everyone is so forthcoming.

The gaming press used to be good back when gaming wasnt mainstream and they were actually trying to enjoy the games they review and tried to tell everyone how fun they were. I miss those times.

Some people thought Sonic Boom was great too lol

Too lazy to actually edit the HTML, so this is what you get. Now, since you completely and utterly missed the point of what I was saying, allow me to say it once more.

"Like I said, ultimately, reviews are guidelines, and fan opinions should be treated the same."

Your entire little rant assumes I purely listen to critics, or that a person has to take some set of opinion as fact. You also go on that weird nostalgic rant that tries to make believe there was some golden age of reviewing, when reviewers were unbiased and fair. I'm going to smack you with a big dose of reality and tell you flat out that reviewing has not changed. Not one bit. The way you look at reviewing is the only thing that has changed. Reviewers have had to constantly deal with playing games that suck, games they don't like, etc.. Do you think people didn't rate games like Superman 64 poorly because someone, somewhere may have actually been enjoying it? No. That isn't what reviewing is. It's never what it has been. You have to see the good and the bad as a reviewer because if somebody listens to you and you skip a major flaw because that bit wasn't "fun", your credibility goes in the garbage. People who read reviews want the full picture, not just the optimistic side of it.

If you believe that reviewers only rate one type of game highly, you are so damn ignorant, you shouldn't be allowed to have an opinion on this at all. Or are you one of those people that thinks getting anything below a 9 means the reviewer must not have liked the game? Or is it more like when a reviewer doesn't highly rate a game you personally liked, clearly reviewing has gone to hell and it just isn't what it used to be? You do understand that reviewer opinion is never going to match your personal opinion 100% of the time, right? That, once again, reviews are guidelines that you are meant to choose how seriously to take with each individual title?

The worst part of people just completely dismissing reviewers is that they somehow feel review scores themselves aren't even remotely credible. Maybe it's because these people have zero ability to properly review something themselves, but things like meta scores can give a decent idea of if the game is worth getting. Say the meta is 77 and the game is from a genre you like or is from a series you're interested in. Odds are you can assume it will be more like an 83 on your end, so it's probably worth checking out. Say the meta is 40 and the game is from a genre you like. That's when you have to make the personal decision of whether or not you think your own opinion will equal a score far beyond 40, or if you're better off passing on a game. I have never seen reviewers collectively thrash a game that didn't deserve it (and I mean really thrash, not just rating it in the high 70s when you thought it deserved high 80s). That is why reviews are guidelines though. The fact that the meta for Devil's Third is 40 doesn't mean you won't personally like it. It just strongly implies that you probably won't have a good time with it, or if you do, it will be fairly forced because buyer's remorse is real.

On a final note, for each individual title, the game will have its audience. Every game will be enjoyed by somebody who thinks it's great when the majority think it isn't very good. That's the nature of opinion. Life is way too short to disregard every reviewer and schlock through every 10 or 20 hour game that you are likely not to enjoy though, especially if you have anything else that you will enjoy that can be played.