Professional Reviews vs Independent Reviews

What exactly is wrong with this picture?

Diablo 3

metacritic

Professional - 88/100 (B+)
Independent - 3.8/10 (F--)

I don't like Professional reviews because they rate based on a scale rather than the things that people actually care about in a game.

IGN gave Diablo III a 9.5/10 even, smh. They give the same score to every single Call of Duty that comes out, as well..

independent reviews could just be devs trying to get people to buy their game or to not buy a competitor's game, or pre-*****cent fanboys. so I don't put any stock in them. nor do I put any stock in the overall professional rating because **** metacritic and **** most games review sites.

metacritic is bullshit, and publishers are assholes for putting any stock in it. example A: http://gamepolitics.com/2012/03/15/o...tacritic-score

this is why steam and kickstarter give me hope for the industry. anything to undermine the control of the publishers imo, even if only in a small way, is a good thing.

the only games reviews I pay attention to are on giantbomb and rockpapershotgun. oh, and zero punctuation. and even then, I recognize that a reviewer's opinion may not be the same as my own. rockpapershotgun and zero punctuation don't even give silly numbered scores anyway.

Neither. Why? Because both "professional" and independent reviews are both opinion, and it's never good to just allow one person's opinion to control what you decide to do.

Tell me, if you like RPG games, and you read a "professional" review of an RPG by someone who doesn't like RPGs, and the end score suffers because the reviewer doesn't like RPGs, does that mean the RPG is bad?

Just because tons of independent say that Morrowind is the best video game ever even to this day and Oblivion/Skyrim are terrible, does that make it true?


What you're trying to do with this thread is ask why some reviews don't agree with your opinion of a game, and you have your answer in your question.

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Originally Posted by unnamed101

I love this hostility coming from a moderator, everyone else on the forum seemed to be able to discuss without incident, I would point out that most reviews come from GAMING companies (be it website or otherwise) or the fact that if a vast majority of >>people<< like a game it is far more likely to be good than otherwise, but all those points are moot to you since your 'answer is in your question' and yes that answer is that you're a douche.

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I love this hostility coming from a guy complaining about hostility.

I only respond with due opposition.

@hian:
Let me put forth what I dislike: The we-community indulging abbreviations of statements to the point where they leave nothing but nonsense.
A number ranking can ornament a review like a headline. It is to either draw people in or send them leaving. The review is not an ornament to the number. The number can be left out without changing the review, but remains meaningless on it's own.

From that standpoint the 0/0 does what it sets out to do.
It's just that the reviewer is a child and children in the mind reign the web supreme.

Also many people seem to think that one five star rating on amazon makes for a killer product, which is sad and funny.

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Originally Posted by postrook

independent reviews could just be devs trying to get people to buy their game or to not buy a competitor's game, or pre-*****cent fanboys. so I don't put any stock in them. nor do I put any stock in the overall professional rating because **** metacritic and **** most games review sites.

metacritic is bullshit, and publishers are assholes for putting any stock in it. example A: http://gamepolitics.com/2012/03/15/o...tacritic-score

this is why steam and kickstarter give me hope for the industry. anything to undermine the control of the publishers imo, even if only in a small way, is a good thing.

the only games reviews I pay attention to are on giantbomb and rockpapershotgun. oh, and zero punctuation. and even then, I recognize that a reviewer's opinion may not be the same as my own. rockpapershotgun and zero punctuation don't even give silly numbered scores anyway.

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Zero Punctuation treats everybody like shit and that's why he's amazing.

I like GB, but I've been a little skeptical ever since GameSpot bought them.

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Originally Posted by SqueezyTime

That's exactly the point of professional reviews. To give you information on the game and an idea of what it is like. No professional journalist says "the combat is slow, therefor it sucks".

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I beg to differ.
In fact every single review I've ever read was laced with opinionated value judgements leading up to a conclusion in regards to whether the game is good or not.
This to me severely damages the informative value of the piece of writing, as it is obviously meant to sway my opinion, not just inform me.

You've either not read the same reviews as me, or you fail to read my post because you didn't realize that my combat comment was meant to be an example in form of a paraphrase, not a literal statement taken from general reviews.

Secondly, I reject the term professional reviews as you use it as it erroneously gives the impression that professional reviwing entails expertise of some kind that your average Joe doesn't have, when all it actually means is that you're getting paid to say whether you like or don't like a product.

In either case, I'd like to see an example of the kind of reviewing that you're talking about. Hand me a link, and I'll consider your point. Ad far ad I'm concerned though, ign, gamespot etc are perfect examples of mine, so don't expect me to come around if that is your idea of professional reviewing.

Reviews? I only read those for items such as home appliances, and that is only to get a sense for how well built the appliance is. As far as reviews for games? Only read a few and those few made my head explode into a black hole that then sucked my humanity from my soul and left me a dull life less husk that now hates any and all game reviews.

In short no game reviews are a bad source of information on a product meant to offer only entertainment which is subjective to each person partaking in that entertainment to begin with. So the only way a game review can even be written is with the persons over stated subjective opinion on the matter deeply encoded into the message making any and all attempts to be useful well useless.


Screw video game reviews they are kind of like the old are you a ford or dodge guy crap. Neither side had any really valid reason for preferring one product over the other but damned if they wouldn't have people know which one they bought.


scorpio

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Originally Posted by gratscorpio

Reviews? I only read those for items such as home appliances, and that is only to get a sense for how well built the appliance is. As far as reviews for games? Only read a few and those few made my head explode into a black hole that then sucked my humanity from my soul and left me a dull life less husk that now hates any and all game reviews.

In short no game reviews are a bad source of information on a product meant to offer only entertainment which is subjective to each person partaking in that entertainment to begin with. So the only way a game review can even be written is with the persons over stated subjective opinion on the matter deeply encoded into the message making any and all attempts to be useful well useless.


Screw video game reviews they are kind of like the old are you a ford or dodge guy crap. Neither side had any really valid reason for preferring one product over the other but damned if they wouldn't have people know which one they bought.


scorpio

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Well said. More or less what was on my mind. If I'm looking for information on a game I usually just go with Wikipedia or gamefaqs, because they usually have the information I need to form an initial image.

For movie/games I just look at the comments/ratings from normal people. You usually have thousands of people giving their opinion and the end rating tends to give a good overall picture.

I wouldn't form an opinion on what just a few people say, you never know if they've been bought out or have screwed up tastes. Especially with movies, pro critics tend to give high scores to random bizarre shit just because they've become so blasé with 'normal' movies. You get films where 20 critics give on average 9.5/10 and normal users average 5/10, you know somethings wrong with the critics.

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Originally Posted by hian

I beg to differ.
In fact every single review I've ever read was laced with opinionated value judgements leading up to a conclusion in regards to whether the game is good or not.
This to me severely damages the informative value of the piece of writing, as it is obviously meant to sway my opinion, not just inform me.

You've either not read the same reviews as me, or you fail to read my post because you didn't realize that my combat comment was meant to be an example in form of a paraphrase, not a literal statement taken from general reviews.

Secondly, I reject the term professional reviews as you use it as it erroneously gives the impression that professional reviwing entails expertise of some kind that your average Joe doesn't have, when all it actually means is that you're getting paid to say whether you like or don't like a product.

In either case, I'd like to see an example of the kind of reviewing that you're talking about. Hand me a link, and I'll consider your point. Ad far ad I'm concerned though, ign, gamespot etc are perfect examples of mine, so don't expect me to come around if that is your idea of professional reviewing.

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Not gonna waste my time getting you to "come around" if you're just gonna be a dick about it.

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Originally Posted by SqueezyTime

Not gonna waste my time getting you to "come around" if you're just gonna be a dick about it.

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Since when was this suppose to be a persuasive thing where those who want to follow the words of a "professional" review have to "convince" the people that want to think otherwise?

Also, gotta love it when apparently I'm being hostile to people by saying that it's possible you won't agree with professional reviews and sometimes you won't agree with user reviews. Newsflash: Just because someone says something you don't 100% agree with doesn't mean they're attacking you, physically or metaphorically.

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Originally Posted by Oisterboy

I tend to just watch gameplay videos and make my call from there.

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This. Well almost this. I'll normally watch a stream of someone playing the game, reviews are just peoples opinions and I'd rather make my own.

Comparing the merits between video game reviews is like comparing Youtube comments. They're all crap and you should know better than to waste your time with them.