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Forums - Gaming - Gamespot reviewers, and not finishing games.

My favorite situations like this were both from IGn but similar....

on one occasion they reviewed front mission 4, and griped endlessly about how the game looked nothing like the intro movie, then said they stopped playing after one battle....2/10. said "review" was pulled and replaced by another.

#2 was when thy reviewed enchanted arms, and only talked about the beginning of the game, problem being that the characters all change after that section. then penny arcade called them out on it.



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While it can be tough to completely play through a game (RPG's especially) before the review date or embargo life date, I've never written a review without having completed the game first and it's completely asinine that other major review sites fail to properly peruse the title before putting words to pad.



The rEVOLution is not being televised

That's why I love IGN. They always play their games to completion before reviewing them... At least that's what they say.



@OP

Reviews=/= sales. Two completely different equations right thar.



This will only take a moment of your time. *steals your watch*

DMeisterJ said:
That's why I love IGN. They always play their games to completion before reviewing them... At least that's what they say.

IGN is as bad as Gamespot. The IGN who reviewed GTA IV only played it for less than 3 days.

 



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Here's the key line from that depressing article:

It's not the optimal situation, but reviewing games is a business.

A business. Keep that in mind the next time you read a "review": the point is not to evaluate the quality of the game in question. The point of the review is to 1) make money for the reviewer's website/magazine and 2) hype the game in question so that the reader will buy it. Leaving aside shovelware games or those from unknown publishers, nearly every review is positive these days to try and get the reader to buy the game. We've essentially reached the Famitsu model of scoring, where games get whatever score the hype and fanbase seems to want them to get. I just wish more people would realize this, instead of thinking that there's anything objective about review scores!

More fun quotes:

"Since story and characterization are such an integral part of the RPG experience, they're games that usually demand being played to completion in order to be discussed with any authority...It's just not time- or cost-effective."

That line should put to rest any doubts that reviews are about anything other than making money.

Still, some reviewers argue that there's no reason for a reviewer to finish a game when most readers aren't going to complete it either. "The last figures I saw for Half-Life 2: Episode 1 said that only 50 percent of the people who bought it completed it," says Gillen. "And that's on a game which lasted four hours. Even for the increasingly common six to ten hour games, you wouldn't expect a completion rate [that's] any higher, let alone the 80 hour RPG epics. Hell, failure to complete [a game] doesn't even mean that a player dislikes the game--they can get distracted and move onto other things, but still love their time with the game."

Disgraceful and embarassing. It's this man's JOB to review games! You cannot simply say, "well, a lot of people won't make it to the end, so I don't have to." You would be fired for work this shoddy in virtually any other field. But I guess it's par for the course when it comes to "gaming journalism".



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End of 2008 totals: Wii 42m, 360 24m, PS3 18.5m (made Jan. 4, 2008)

I think it's understandable that some reviewers are not able to finish a very large game before the deadline.

However, I really think the reviewer should mention that he hasn't finished the game in his review. This is only honest, but it never happens, they all pretend like they finished the game instead of just admitting they didn't.



Glad to see such lively conversation in here. It's rare to discuss things on messageboards that aren't filled with billions of trolls, and their shenanagance. :)

Slowly growing to like the forums here!

And also, the quote about Half Life 2 is comedy gold. Maybe if people had been given better reviews, the 50 percent who didn't like the game enough to finish it, would have purchased something they would have liked more.

But yes, it's all about gaming sites giving us fluff jobs now. Placate us with the reviews we want to hear!

*sigh*



 

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