By on 19 Apr, 2012 at 1:15 PM
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Game Reviews, Just Another Sales Pitch?

Game Reviews, Just Another Sales Pitch?

Ever since big titles such as Mass Effect, Skyrim, and Call of Duty became popular, and hit the mainstream gaming market, I started noticing that game reviews were changing. Is it just me, or are most reviews of multi-million-dollar game franchises no longer critical? Instead, it feels as if game reviews can be read more like a sales pitch, trying to sell you the game rather than reviewing the game with a critical outlook, pointing out their flaws — however small they might be.

This seems to be happening more and more with the big budget games, as the reviews come pouring in pages upon pages, throwing and heaping praise on the game — and its developers — for creating such a visceral, emotional and amazing title. It gets to the point where its actually borderline manipulative, based on all the hype. Popular reviewers have become less critical with high profile games and more critical with less anticipated games, which in the long run could stop developers from building new and creative games. However, that is a debate for a different day.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the high scores for Skyrim and Mass Effect are invalid. However, if we use a game like Kingdoms of Amalur as an example, you’ll notice that it got some pretty harsh review scores due to it being an unknown entity, where on the flip side, a game like Skyrim received universal praise even though it had more than a dozen game breaking bugs.

This phenomenon is pretty obvious with smaller games, and also occurs with games released by eastern publishers. For example, Shadows of the Damned. Games like Shadows of Damned would have certain reviewers dig into them with vigour. They would analyse every single flaw of the game, no matter how big or small. All of their findings will be thrown under a microscope, where the smallest detail can turn into a crippling problem. I am disappointed in this, not only because the games I enjoy aren’t getting fair reviews, but also because a lukewarm review is keeping someone from playing a stellar title.

Don’t you wish reviewers would buy less into the hype of a game, and rather relearn the art of impartiality? After all, isn’t that what being a reviewer is all about?

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Name: Charl den Dulk
Location: Pretoria
Position: Author, Exclusives

Charl has published 37 posts. Read all of Charl's posts.
  • http://www.facebook.com/brendon.bosch Brendon Bosch

    Starts a SLOW CLAP

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Hannes-Toerien/558346201 Hannes Toerien

    It is easy to create impartiality in these games. Have people who review the sports games, review RPG’s or FPS games. Just switch around the reviewers. If you have to critically assess the same genre of game over and over, the games aren’t being assessed as RPG or FPS games any more, but rather as “how far do these games go towards being the same as say Skyrim”. It is not good for the franchise if people assess games against one another, because the aim of a game is for it to be unique, not a clone of another game.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001518271446 Daniel Lau

      spoken like a true nerd baller^^

    • http://egamer.co.za Dean Oberholzer

       Yeah the aim is definitely to be unique, but a lot are just clones. They shouldn’t however be compared to the others directly, although one should say it’s not up to standards of the industry — without saying which games are better.

      Following that, I do believe games which are sequels, or part of the same series, should be compared as this is important. Are the developers getting better or worse? Is the game just a knock off for money, or does it offer something.

      Problem with letting sports people review RPG/FPS, they don’t understand the depth of how it works and what can be done etc – so sometimes it will make for a shoddy review. :-(

      Definitely valid to get their opinion! They should try it out and tell the reviewer how they feel, from an outsider perspective..

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=720787108 Charl Den Dulk

      I believe games should be reviewed on their own merit and not that of games it might or might not emulate. Even if it has a spiritual “father” in another game it should be viewed as something new and separate. 

    • http://egamer.co.za Dean Oberholzer

      Games should definitely be reviewed on their own. I’m not saying otherwise. Even if it has a”spiritual father” — however, if there are better games it should be noted. That will come through after playing and finding the problems, though.

      Games in the same series should be reviewed against each other (if they can be )because that’s important. People want to know if it will live up to the experience, or be better or worse.

    • http://www.facebook.com/nadine.franzsen Nadine Franzsen

      I agree completely. This is sadly what happened to Prince of Persia (2008). Everyone was comparing it to the Sands of Time trilogy, whereas it was an entirely separate game. And a good one at that, but it received a lot of negative responses which is sad. Reviewers have too many other games stuck in their head when they review a new game. And they look for all the faults compared to the “great game”. What really bugged me as well is when people said Amalur is a Fable rip-off. Sure it has similar elements but they are different games that should be reviewed separately and not weighed up which is better or worse.

  • http://twitter.com/Weeman360 Pienaar Anker

    This is why I watch zero punctuation. It’s all about the balance :D

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=720787108 Charl Den Dulk

      Zero Punctuation has gotten old fast,  he has the habbit of taking a negative aspect of a game and expanding them to great heights to produce humourous situations in his reviews. He’s more interested in a few cheap laughs than actually reviewing the games.If I were to listen to his reviews I might play maybe one game all year.

    • reV

       I highly doubt Yahtzee sees himself as a serious “reviewer”, Zero Punctuation’s purpose is to entertain, it certainly contains a lot of valid objective criticism but it’d be pretty fucking stupid for people to take its videos as proper reviews.

    • http://twitter.com/Weeman360 Pienaar Anker

      Yeah I really don’t take it seriously btw. 
      Even-though it’s mostly negative, I find that when I have actually played the game he’s talking about it’s a lot funnier because I can relate to what he’s saying.

  • Phil 123 Smith

    I agree. Professional game reviews are a joke. How does the COD series score so highly on every release despite it being almost identical to the previous? I think reviews on sites like these are more accurate and when buying a game I read the opinions of individuals or watch gameplay videos, rather than looking at IGN or Megacritic

    • http://egamer.co.za Dean Oberholzer

      Just choose us. We’ll choose you, every time :D

  • Alessandro Barbosa

    I completely agree with you on this, and I’m glad someone shares my opinion about Skyrim. It was good, but it’s named carried it. Just last year we had The Witcher 2 and Dark Souls, but still Skyrim bagged so my GOTY awards? DAFUQ is wrong this this world :P

    • http://egamer.co.za Dean Oberholzer

       Uhm. I told you this last year at the awards you fool.

  • Jac_Solar

    Yeah, I can’t remember the last time I read an actual “review” (As in, useful.) at the site(s) I tend to visit. 

    However, I can’t specifically recall when they used to actually review games, as opposed to what they are doing now (They, read: Mainstream review sites and magazines.) 

    I think most people have their own unique take on what game reviews should be ‘about’.

    My own opinion is; Reviews should be about objectively analyzing the individual components/content of a game; mechanics, animation, graphics, voice, story, quests and how they work together (As part of the game/gameworld.), seperately. And objectively analyzing ‘the game’. Or just 

    A subjective analysis could also be offered in addition to this. 

    The ‘problem’ is that it’s probably very hard for a reviewer to stay with this approach, since most (All?) reviewers are human. They’ll get bored, or maybe they think their personal opinions are better, etc. And the reviewers state of mind will change from time to time; maybe a reviewer is biased against or for a specific genre, game series, publisher, developer, or even someone involved in the game itself like voice actors. Maybe they get bored with gaming, and consequently gives a random game a bad review mostly because they are bored with gaming in general. Then they come back after a break from gaming, and give a random game a really good review cause its the first game they’ve played in awhile. 

    Game reviews could be taken to a different level, but it’d have to be heavily regulated – and I really doubt that will happen, since reviewing has basically stayed the same for all the different types of media, well, atleast in modern culture, I think! 

    But one could argue that it’s harder to review games than, say, movies or music, since it’s a different experience and cause you can play most games in more than 1 way. Ie doing side quests, just picking up loot, whatever; the player is the most important element in a game. The player is in control; the player is the hero or the baddie; the player partakes in the game. It’s an active, interactive and engaging experience (Well, usually.) 

    Well, either that, or the ‘scores’ could be modified. Yes, for some reason, random people score games completely out of way. I really dislike Uncharted 3, for example (The other 2 seemed just as boring, but I didn’t finish them.), cause it’s presented and sold as a game, but doesn’t offer much in terms of gameplay. It’s basically an interactive movie, where you have to move your character from scene to scene and occasionally tap a button. Story is on par with the standard mediocrity Hollywood churns out. But the graphics are good, voice acting is good, animations are good; It’s a solid 6-7/10 on a general 1-10 review score chart, or the logic they all seem to use (As I understand it..) 

    Most FPS games are more or less the same; Weapons, story, graphics, locations, animations, voice actors might change. That’s basically it, and it’s very superficial stuff. Some FPS games let you drive cars, or even rarer; give you some unique mechanics like climbing. 
    Pretty much every single FPS game on Xbox 360 could probably be created by modifying another FPS game (locations, items, etc.) but, somehow, these games are, probably, the best moneymaking games. Most of em are only 5-7 hours long! 

    Compare that to a massive open world game, which are forced to be scored with the SAME system used for rating FPS games, and you’ll realise there’s a problem there.. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/nadine.franzsen Nadine Franzsen

    How Skyrim got such high reviews I do not understand. And I mean from EVERYONE. Hype hype hype hype. Hype hype hype hype.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=720787108 Charl Den Dulk

      @ Nadine well, I also though so till I started playing I am now +- 80 hours into the game and I haven’t even started the main quests. The reason I questioned the review scores was because of the many bugs contained in the game. In one instance I ran into a giant who promptly amacked me across the entire map and I ended up alive on the other side.