There's been a great deal of animosity towards increasingly incompetent reviewers the past few years. Their scores don't reflect their words, there's clear bias toward certain systems or franchises and a complete ignorance regarding unique or casual Wii games.

Now I've written many reviews in the past as a freelance writer on various websites and I must admit I often fell into the same trap many other reviewers do today. I found it difficult to assess Wii games as it was unclear by what merits to judge them by and my own opinions often reflected in my scores rather being a completely impartial guide for gamers.

I want to know what you think reviews are missing today and what you think an objective, useful and informative review should be like?

The past few weeks I have been reading many reviews, judging them, tearing them apart and trying to identity aspects that are either missing or flawed. Since I will be writing reviews on my site and presenting them to readers of different tastes and preferences I want to be able to write reviews that are actually helpful to people rather than just being a prostitute to any franchise commanding a large fanbase.

Here are some of my own opinions on what reviews should be and will try incorporating in my own writing.

As a frequent on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes what jumped out to me is the huge disparity between movies scores and game scores. The highest rated movie on all time for example is a 9.1 on IMDB, held by Shawshank Redemption while the typical score for an excellent movie is in the low 7's on RT. Gaming review scores have become nothing better than fanboy banter thanks to the insistent fan demands for higher and higher decimals and the typical fanboy massacre that now follows a 9.5 review.

I've thought about eliminating scores altogether, but rather than do that I'm going to follow the more strict and accurate schema of movie reviewers though this will likely gain me quite a few haters. Very few of this generations 9's and 10's have actually been deserved and the multitude of suck up reviews have made the meaing of a 9 or 10 next to worthless.

One of the most important yet difficult aspects of a review is to be impartial and objective. How much shit can mario party take for being a "casual" game while others like GTA4 are worshipped as the Messiah of the gaming landscape? One solution I came up with is to give two scores. One score to reflect my personal opinion and enjoyment of the game and another score that aims to asess the title purely on it's technical merits, thus highlighting a clear division between the two.

Technical merits of course include graphics, sound and gameplay but also cover whether the game suceeds at providing an ejoyable experience to it's target audiance, identifying that audiance and giving a low down on what other sort of gamers may or may not enjoy it. It also means clearly identifying every flaw and every strength of the title.

I'm really interested in your input guys, on what changes you think can help raise the review industry out of the cockroach infested scum-hole it is today? Not only to start an interesting and good discussion here but I'd also like to take some of the idea's and incorporate them into my future writing as well. The controversial reviews on megaton games like Halo3, GTA4 and MGS4 has really destroyed the credibility of video game reviewers to the point where I read them for pure entertainment rather then for the reason I should be; for help on deciding whether a game is or isn't for me.

Excellent post. Two scores is interesting but I would have to think about how to properly implement it to avoid confusion. Without a doubt, there are serious problems with the current system.

Now, we'll cue the shameless self promotion. I've been through this argument several times but this editorial pretty much sums up my thoughts on the subject:

http://www.vgchartz.com/news/news.php?id=1124

According to Rotten Tomatoes, 12 movies so far have gotten a perfect score (100%) with the required numbers of critics being at 50.

So, which genre is overrated by its reviewers?

That's from Rotten Tomatoes itself, isn't it?

I found eight movies with aggregate scores above 9.0 with 50 or more reviews. Besides, you're comparing a 110 year old medium to a 30 year old medium. I would hope there would be more scores in the 9's.

How many aggregate scores are over 9.0 in the past year of videogame reviewing? 

I actually noticed the idea that the medium is a lot older, and I have no good response to that. 

 I just read your editorial, it was a great read. Perhaps the best suggestion there is  "-For the Love of God, please refer to outside media whenever possible." If reviewers did this more often now way in hell would they be able to give a game such as GTA4 a perfect 10 without an overhwlming sense of shame and embarassment creeping up and and slapping the shit out of them for doing so. Of course perhaps ignorance is so pervasive in this industry that reviewers wouldn't recognize an oscar worthy storyline if it wacked them in the face with the 200 pound sledgehammer.

 But it seems to go the other way as well. Haze which has been the industry whipping boy these past two weeks, while definitely a bad game wasn't as godawful as some of the reviews would make you believe. The concept was great, the writing and dialog was horrendous and the gameplay and graphics were mediocre though far from a complete bastardization.

Yes, the two scores may be confusing for some. I think I may break my reviews into two segments. The longer, more in depth one would focus on an objective overview and technicalities with a conclusive score based on the merits I outline. Then I would have one paragraph of a completely subjective "review" based upon my own experiences and opinions of the game with the score reflecting my own personal enjoyment. People would be able to vcross reference the pro's and cons of both for comparison to see how they stand up based purely on one gamers enjoyment. Of course I would be open on whether I am a fan of the franchise or even the genre to begin with.

1. Absolutely. To see the phrase "Oscar worthy dialogue" mentioned by GTA IV reviewers (I believe three separate reviews mentioned this) in an insult to anyone who has ever watched The Godfather, Casablanca, Chinatown, etc. etc. etc.

2. You just did a pretty good job of summing up my Haze review, which I need to finish up before the end of the week. For some reason, reviewers felt at liberty to make up for their inflated scores by flogging this game unmercifully. Is the game any good? No, not really. It's an interesting concept with slightly subpar graphics and absolutely atrocious dialogue. It also plays like a Poor Man's Halo, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

3. That would be an interesting concept. Just give the blow-by-blow in the main review and the interject your opinion in a smaller footnote area with a separate score.

Yeah I trust film reviewers way more. At Metacritic right now, Indiana Jones is at 65. That's exactly where I expect a big budget rehash to be. I still haven't seen it and I'm still going to pretty soon, but the reviewers aren't all frothing and screaming "Indy's back baby!" and drowning each other in 9's and 10's. It's totally okay to enjoy a movie rated in the 60s on Metacritic, but if you enjoy games in the 60s, you're supposed to be nuts.



I think a reviewer could give a game a bunch of scores, but instead of them being graphics, sound, gameplay... they could be...


Controls
Art Direction
Technical Merits
How Well it Delivers to Fans of the Genre
How Well it Delivers to Non-Fans or New Fans of the Genre
Personal Enjoyment

And then NOT average them at all. Or give each score a little explanation next to the number.

Nice title I laughed a lot. I think the problem with reviews is more about inconsistency and subjective values than high scores. To tell the truth I want higher scores. IMO that movie rating in your post is kinda lame. What is the point of having a 10 point scale if you will never go beyond 8`s. The biggest problem with reviews today is publishers controlling them with ad money. Inconsistency in scores is one of the consequences (however bias and personal tastes also play a big role in inconsistent scores).

Let me rant a little about this subject using some examples. Fire Emblem RD for the Wii got a lot of shit from reviewers, its gameranking average is 78. Among the problems we have the frustrating challenge level, lack of motion sensing controls and dated graphics.

The lack of motion sensing controls is a non issue, it is like docking points from a PS2 game because the R2 and L2 buttons are not used. Motion controls would not improve the game in any way, it would feel tacked on and make it lose even more points.

The challenge issue is kinda funny. Trauma Center New Blood also got a lot of 5`s and 6`s for being way too hard, even though there is an easy setting for both games. On the other hand, some damn hard games like DMC 1/3 and Ninja Gaiden Black enjoy 90+ ratings. Of course they may be better than the other games in the reviewer`s eyes, but my point is that they did not lose points for being near impossible.

The graphic issues is the worst of all. Sure FE RD and TC NB could be done on the Gamecube (graphics wise). However, Disgaea games (awesome BTW) have 85+ scores even though they look just a little better than some PSX games. Even Disgaea 3 on the PS3 got a free pass. FE despite being part of a niche series that was never know for pushing the hardware lost points for being GC like.

A good solution for the reviews would be to offer 2 reviews, one praising the game own merits from someone that like the game and another trashing it or at least providing useful info why people with similar tastes would hate the game. That is why I always use Gamefaqs user reviews to research on new games. I usually read a 10/10 review and a sub 4/10 review to get all the pros and cons of the game. Another reason I prefer user review is due to the fact these guys pay for their games. They can tell us better if the game is woth the full retail price. Anyone would enjoy a 6 hour game without multiplayer if they got it for free and with lots of exclusive collector items.

We're talking about aggregate scores. For obvious reasons, no aggregate score will reach perfection but several individual reviews that made up that score might.