I've always wondered, how many hours do reviewers put into a game before ranking it?

I've played a lot of games, and most of the times, I read at least 1 review of the said game before playing it.  Yet, how I feel about the game often don't agree with the scores, usually about +/- 10%.

 First, let me state that I am not so critical on the graphics. So, it's likely I have totally different expectation from the reviewers.

Another thing I noticed is that, the reviewers often hesitant to rank a bad game lower than 5/10. If the game is a complete crap, why give it a 5/10 instead of 1/10. Hell, give it a 0/10 since it's pretty much not worth a penny. There are a few of those out there.

 As for the higher ranked games. I often found them to be graphically superior to the ones with less graphics. But gameplay and playability that I considered somewhat equal. The score would be anywhere from 1 to 3 points off.

Something like, an awesome game with acceptable graphics would get a 7.5/10 while an okay game with awesome graphics gets a 9/10.

 What exactly are they guildlines on ranking games? 2 points for graphics, 2 for gameplay, 2 for multiplyer, 2 for story,  and 2 for music?

Note that "not critical on the graphics" doesn't mean I don't care about it. It has to be "acceptable".

games worth 0/10 mostly aren't even reviewed.  furthermore replay value can also be taken in too account.

I think most of core gamers would agree reviews are pretty accurate. Especially when you uses sites as gamerankings.com as a some kind of guide. I can't afford to buy any game I'm interestet in (teasers, hype etc.) so I really appreciate this particular site. For example I think 9.0 (IGN) for Killzone Liberation is a bit too high but with many rankings marged you get ~8,0 and as for me it's pretty accurate. Also they provide users voting. There is a problem with casual gamers because they normally expect something different than core gamers who obviously makes reviews (there are still people who buys this crappy Wii-play). IMO you don't need to play 30h to provide a reliable score. I would say really narrow category of games needs closer look to find this hidden appeal (mostly logical games, puzzle etc. ).

There is a site that averages out the reviews from all major game review sites on the Net that i use if i need a final opinion on whether or not to buy the game. Cant remember the name though, have a link to it on my home computer and im at work now :(

Ign I know does becuase at times they'll bring it up. But you know those two guys on that show judgement day on G4? the one guy I think his name is Tommy, I'm not sure now, he's the one that makes music for games, I argued with him once on the g4 forums, because he don't, sometimes he admitted that if he didn't like the game after an hour he didn't play any longer then that. I'm how is this a real review? I've played games that changed my opinion after an hour in both directions. I'd just read carefully into what they say, sometimes you can tell by what they say. I think it's mixed some finish some may play through half way perhaps or a quarter, I mean honestly though how can they pump in all the 20-100 hours that various games demand? It's not easy.

I've been working in VG press (in France) for 10 years now and my answer is : it depends.

Generally speaking, somewhere between 5 and 10 hours. More on RPG. Less on small games with easy grasping concept. So sometimes, it's enough to finish games, sometimes not.
But that's not alway relevant and since we're doing that all the time, since we're playing both great games and also all the shitty ones you'll pass, we can usually get a good idea of the overall quality of a game in a pretty "short" time.

You can have a good idea of a sport game (let's say Virtua Tennis 3) or car game (Motorstorm, Forza, Excite Trucks) pretty quickly because the mechanics are all there right from the begining. Most of FPS or action (God of War, DMC, Pirates) can be finished or at least 70% completed. At the opposite, it's really hard to have a solid opinion about MMO, RPG or RTS cause it may be great at the start, then show many flaws later (like FFXII).

Beyond that, it also depends on several other aspect :
- Affinity of the reviewer with the game (you'll spend more time on a game you like, of course).
- How long before (when not after) release date we recieve the game.
- Being a freelancer (or not), since you then need to work a lot (so faster) to earn a decent salary.

But don't forget one thing : 10 hours of playing isen't quite the same than 10 hours of reviewing a game.
In fact, I usually try to avoid reviewing games that I wish to play and finish.

They should play through the entire game but in some cases they do not. I remember reading a lot of reviews for Enchanted Arm and I could tell that they didn't play the game beyond the first couple of hours. Just for background, the first 5 hours of Enchanted Arms is pretty much an in game tutorial. A good deal of reviews complained about how the game treated you like you were stupid, telling you to press this button for this or make sure you do that. If they had bothered to get out of the initial area of the game they would have realized that the game was only holding their and because they were at the beginning.

With RPGs in particular, its important to play through the whole game. I know that initially I didn't like Skies of Arcadia that much, but after getting deeper into the game I enjoyed it immensely. I really enjoyed FFXII, but about 20 hours in my license board started to fill up for all my characters and they started to play near identical. I logged in another 10 hours or so before I just became bored with the gameplay because my party was filled with carbon copies from a gameplay standpoint. The sad thing is that I made it a point to try and keep my characters unique. I won't blather on anymore but I just thought I'd give you all few examples of why I think the way I do on this subject.

Reviews are a crutch for people who lack the ability to form their own opinion or grasp that the success or worth of a game is highly subjective. Your best indicators are the sales and fanbase, its just pretencious to think there is a single standard by which a game can be called good or not, and most seem to think this standard is Game Reviewers. While there is no arguing many agree with them, the fact of the matter remains that their primary use is in deciding what games to pursue, not deciding which games are the best after the fact. When you try and use Game Reviewers as proof of anything, you're just being childish and vain. Right now the issue is popular because of all the Ps3 games that are selling poorly and Sony Fans who want desperately to find solice in the fact. Thus Game Reviewers become a popular avenue for convincing ones self that they made the right choice even though the market doesn't reflect it.

I've never been a fan of reviews and I think people put too much stock into them. They generate too much hype in some cases and in all honesty, most reviewers never finish the game. You cannot base a review on 5-10 minutes of play. Reviews are also totally subjective. One person my love it to death, another my hate it. It's hard to get a good cross section. People should just ignore reviews all together and go by word of mouth more.

Oh, and I worked in the magazine business at one point, and yes sometimes publishers to push for good reviews of bad games. When they're paying advertising dollars, sometimes a good review is expected. There's a lot of politics there.


-Darkness