I disagree. They should be reviewing every game the way that it was meant to be reviewed, or not at all. If gaming sites want to review "casual games," they either need to hire some "casual gamers" as reviewers or just stop reviewing anything but the latest flavor-of-the-month FPS.

But then, perhaps I'm expecting a bit too much by demanding any sort of intellectual rigor from the gaming press. In fact, I know I am.

So what? You guys should be getting used to this already.

So they should intentionally misinform their audience? Great business move. A review is meant to tell someone whether a game is worth buying, that is its only goal. If only "hardcore" gamers read my reviews, then targeting my review towards "casual" gamers is providing misinformation or performing my service poorly.

The only logical way to review things is to cater towards your audience. The gamers who read these sites and obsess over reviews are not the ones who typically play highly casual games, it makes no business sense at all to cater for an audience that is never likely to look at your site.

While it might be a good idea for an IGN to have a casual gamers network, that still wouldn't stop the main site crushing games that don't appeal to their audience. And really it is unfair to expect anything else, they are a business after all.

But all of this is largely irrelevant as many sites are often very generous with reviewing casual titles, perhaps Wii Music got bad reviews because it's well ... bad.

@Picko:

The purpose of reviews, ideally, is the communication of complex opinions and an analysis of a game as an art piece, not trying to assign an absolute value or tell people whether a game is worth buying.

I do feel similar, i still like IGN. But i do hate when they and other reviewers do not treat the reviewed product without bias and their own prejudice towards it, it has nothing to do with Journalism, Wii music just shows that some of the reviewers are still immature kids that dont know how they should to their jobs.

Coincidentally, IGN is an asset of Fox Interactive Media.

I will never hold any interest in game reviews as long as the reviews lack any intellectual motivation. From what I've seen, game reviews seem to try to fulfill a variety of objectives, few of which I hold even the slightest interest in: summarizing the game (anyone can do that), describing personal opinion and experience on the game (again, this only takes writing skill), or trying to influence sales in some way (many reviews of major games tend to focus more on producing a clear-cut answer as to who should buy the game rather than provide any insight other than the reviewer's opinion). All three seem to mostly require the means and skills to communicate ideas, and nothing more. Many people can do those things. Hell, it happens in this forum all the time. The reviewers, in my eyes, do not have anything that would set them apart from people who I know better and can also communicate their views on a game, other than the fact that maybe they are more used to doing it and I know them less. In other words, I don't see why I should consider their opinion, highly subject to various influences, any better than one from any gamer I am more familiar with.

Once reviewers begin to get their jobs for their ability to offer intellectual insight into a game, I will consider taking note of their reviews. But for now, they hold no more value to me as information conduits than the myriad gamers, each with a unique background and view, who I can easily access through both real life means and the internet.

Ignore the freaking score. Most reviews are awesome, and tell you a lot about the game. The score doesn't. The score in influated by hype, and it is what idiots look at. Idiots are, unfortunately, what most people who complain about reviews are (no attack at any here who disagree with them).

Read the review, and see that it very seldom give a replication of what score it gets. I recommend reading the review, and then the score, like on IGN. If the review is badly done, ignore the score. Simple as that.

So pretty much, the score is about bragging rights, and the reviewer is darn biased on that, but on the review, he is (usually) trustworthy.

So you have realized what I recently figured out; everyone has bias, and that bias will cloud their judgment. Beyond that, people are generally corrupt and try to control how you think. Reviwiers see themselves as ambasadors for the hardcore, and are very biased to whatever they think "hardcore" is.

No one had problems with the review system when SMG got 10's.

I use reviews just as a simple guideline for my gaming research. Then I download the games that interest me and if I like them then I buy them or their sequels. If not then I lose nothing.