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Post by Gandalf the Fabulous on Dec 26, 2017 8:12:26 GMT
www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_the_last_jedi/www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dragon-age-inquisitionNot so much talking about individual reviews but reviews as a whole and a general consensus? Of course you aren't going to put as much weight in random_johnny69's review as you would a reviewer you enjoy watching or reading but when trying to gauge something by the general consensus a lot of people seem to put more stock in the general consensus of random internet critics and so called "professional" reviewers and journalists than the general consensus of the far larger general populace when personally I wouldn't trust "professional" reviewers as far as I can throw them. Just because somebody works for Gamespot or Kotaku does not mean they know what they are talking about and a lot of the time many of these so called "professional" reviewers are just as easily swayed by cheap marketing stunts, dumb ideological and political bias, bribes and sometimes even what they think readers and fans of their reviews want to hear, there are so many factors that can sway the "professional" review (you know other than the only thing that should actually matter, the quality of the game itself) it is hard to know how sincere a reviewer is as they spend too much of the review talking about irrelevant shit while sometimes outright ignoring glaring issues or significant features. At least with user reviews you can get a general consensus of how many people genuinely liked the game opposed to how many who did not, and while there is the occasional mass flagging (though when that happens it is usually a sign there is something horribly wrong with the game) generally they are more representative of how much the actual populace enjoyed a certain title. Besides it is not like we don't have plenty of examples of "games journalists" failing at simple video games. Of course the best barometer for judging the quality of something is your own personal opinion but I am sure when it comes to games or movies that you are unsure about most people will check out reviews from time to time.
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Post by Ahriman on Dec 26, 2017 10:23:50 GMT
I sorta trust Steam reviews. 1. It makes sure that reviewers actually played the damn thing. 2. It eliminates subjective score weights, where John thinks that 5/10 is okay game and IGN thinks that 8/10 is okay game. You still have to take customer base into account, naturally. RPGs are mostly reviewed by RPG crowd for example, so if you aren't part of it then you should divide review score by three-four times to get the chance you'll like this game. P.s. Thanks for pigeon video, filled today's quota of mental suffering nicely.
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Post by river82 on Dec 26, 2017 13:04:50 GMT
I sorta trust Steam reviews. 1. It makes sure that reviewers actually played the damn thing. 2. It eliminates subjective score weights, where John thinks that 5/10 is okay game and IGN thinks that 8/10 is okay game. You still have to take customer base into account, naturally. RPGs are mostly reviewed by RPG crowd for example, so if you aren't part of it then you should divide review score by three-four times to get the chance you'll like this game. P.s. Thanks for pigeon video, filled today's quota of mental suffering nicely. Aren't Steam reviewers engaged in an eternal competition to see who can write the most amusing, trollish 10/10 review?
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Post by Ahriman on Dec 26, 2017 13:14:55 GMT
I sorta trust Steam reviews. 1. It makes sure that reviewers actually played the damn thing. 2. It eliminates subjective score weights, where John thinks that 5/10 is okay game and IGN thinks that 8/10 is okay game. You still have to take customer base into account, naturally. RPGs are mostly reviewed by RPG crowd for example, so if you aren't part of it then you should divide review score by three-four times to get the chance you'll like this game. P.s. Thanks for pigeon video, filled today's quota of mental suffering nicely. Aren't Steam reviewers engaged in an eternal competition to see who can write the most amusing, trollish 10/10 review? Side sport. In the end they'll have to pick +/- anyway. And usually people don't spend their time writing witty essays about games they don't care about.
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Post by shechinah on Dec 26, 2017 13:26:22 GMT
In a way, neither and both? I don't look at scores as much as I look at what people have written about the game's content. For example, how they describe what it is and how well it's done. Most of the time, however, I rely on footage from Let's Plays to see if I find it interesting.
The only exception to this is with games like Bioware's or Telltale's where I want to be blind to the story.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2017 13:44:37 GMT
Like the poster above I sift through reviews to see what the reviewers actually say on the topics that interest me, and what they praise or diss and why. Because some things people praise is actually something I do not l8ke, and vice versa. Score itself is meaningless to me. I also look at screenshots not videos b/c I am averse to videos.
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Post by Heimdall on Dec 26, 2017 13:53:43 GMT
Yup, the content of the reviews means more to me than the scores given to it.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2017 14:57:32 GMT
I don't think the general "consensus" is necessarily reliable. For example, that consensus says "Mass Effect Andromeda is a terrible game and I refuse to play it". And then, there are of course very different preferences. Most of the time, my personal enjoyment of a game isn't too far from the "consensus", but sometimes it's way off, as in the case of Witcher 3. So I can never fully rely on anything.
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Post by ShadowAngel on Dec 26, 2017 15:51:45 GMT
As others said, ignore the scores they give and look more into the why's and whats of the game. I prefer essay written reviews over your one sentence "10/10 must buy!" Or "0/10 this thing is shit". I also prefer professional reviews over your average user as if you follow a good one, they're more seasonable on their perspectives on a game, but both are still important. Being scored high/low means little when most of a user base disagrees plus one can still enjoy/dislike something that the mass thinks differently. A reviewer is to simply give an opinion piece of information, they don't make the decision for you on whether or not to get a game or if it's bad/good.
The good reviewers are the ones that don't review a mere week or 2 after launch, they play multiple times to really understand the game and it's aspects. The issue with reviews right when a game launches, is they're riding off the immediate finish of a game, you're going to feel something is good when it's brand new and that's what blocks some people from properly judging the games in game content and mechanics. Suddenly, a month later you then see those reviewers changing their scores or what they said (D2 is a great example, people loved it once it launched, now it's getting smacked since the new paint is gone). It's why IGN, the know, kotaku, and a few others are reviewers i Ignore as they're mind is always changing.
User reviews are hit or miss. As said, I don't like the "10/10 best game ever" comments as it provides no detail on why they think it. Furthermore when a game doesn't live up to expectations, it can then be blown up to larger scale criticism I.E. Andromeda as one example. Game was mediocre yes, but it's far from the worst thing out there and didn't need reviews saying "no Shepard = bad game".
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Post by boxofscreaming on Dec 26, 2017 23:52:48 GMT
On the one hand, the general consensus is normally wrong. On the other hand, video game reviewers are the absolute lowest rung on the journalistic ladder.
Neither can be trusted.
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Post by Arijon van Goyen on Dec 27, 2017 7:03:37 GMT
We're sick and tired of these binary options polls. People, try making 5 options polls next times. Go Non-Binary!
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Post by bizantura on Dec 27, 2017 12:06:18 GMT
I simply go to youtube for gameplay footage and know pretty fast if it is for me or not. Don't rely on reviews that much from other players or professionals anymore, do ask players of the game of interest about gameplay and such in forums. Got so many games in digital portafolio bought because of "wauw" from others that didn't match up that I am sick and tired of it.
Do try games when available for less then 5€ for those maybe's. I tend to play 250 hours or more on a single game so yes it is hard sometimes to find those games that keep my intrest. The fact that big publishers are not interested in making story driven games anymore makes me replay so many games it is becoming worrysome due to not finding them.
For me Bioware is forced to be anything but Bioware and I am curious if there ever will be a new "dragon age" true to the established franchise. That makes me kind of sad.
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Post by linksocarina on Dec 27, 2017 14:52:00 GMT
Your notions of professional and sincerity being easily compromised are grossly misplaced.
At the end of the day, critic scores are usually more accurate than general consensus, because the critic scores tend to not just write for one person, but need to encompass the whole audience who can read them. Its covering all bases on the "checklist" so people get what is in the package.
That leads to some problems, and where critics fail sometimes is the lack of rigor in their writing and their over-reliance on adjectives like good, excellent, greatest, and so forth. They also need to be clearer on the fact that nothing is fully objective in this medium, with the exception of games that are truly broken like Ride to Hell or Big Rigs, to name some examples.
That "push for objectivity" is the greatest lie of all in the end, its also why critics and user videos fail to cut it, if you ask me; it is the push to pretend to be authoritative without really any authority behind it. No one is ultimately perfect, but the best reviewers in any genre, from Robert Christgau to Roger Ebert, wore their biases on their sleeve and were unafraid of what the public said about them.
Gaming needs a Christgau or Ebert, instead we get fan-pandering from entertainers that overshadow any discussion of nuance. It's a focus on it as a product first, an experience second.
Should be the other way around.
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Post by Gandalf the Fabulous on Dec 27, 2017 16:29:15 GMT
Your notions of professional and sincerity being easily compromised are grossly misplaced. Is it? We have seen plenty of examples of corruption and scores being swayed by advertising dollars www.kotaku.com.au/2012/03/yes-a-games-writer-was-fired-over-review-scores/of for exclusive early access or other perks we have seen cronyism and coordinated attempts to control the narrative instead of reporting on the stories that need covering, we have seen incompetence and clear examples of reviewers not knowing what the hell they are talking about, hell we even see "games journalists" brazen enough to admit that they have no real interest in video games and would much rather spend publisher funded press events eating canapes and "talking about politics in the Philippines" archive.is/j7x2t#selection-1595.138-1595.149In the end all a critic really is is a person with an opinion and while you would expect a critic of a certain field to at least have some knowledge and interest in the field he is reviewing things in even that incredibly low bar has proven to be too much to ask for a lot of "games journalists", at least with user reviews all you have to worry about is did the user like the game and if not why, by looking at the general consensus you can see if a game has major problems and do some digging to find out what it is where many "professional reviewers" may not even mention it. As for the games industry "needing a Christgau or Ebert", I don't know who Christgau is but Ebert was little more than a person with an opinion who was just as ignorant as anyone else, he wasn't a creator (as far as I know) and all he ever had to offer was little more than an opinion laced with pretentiousness and why anyone put so much weight in his opinion is beyond me.
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Post by slimgrin727 on Dec 27, 2017 17:22:31 GMT
In a way. both critic and user reviews tend to balance themselves out despite review bombing and unprofessional critics. Game forums are just as valuable to me. If a new game releases and the devs really fucked something up, you can bet there will be threads within the hour on Steam and GOG. There are also reliable youtubers who frankly do some of the best in-depth reviews. People like Angry Centaur, Easy Allies, Elder Geek and Angry Joe
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Post by Unicephalon 40-D on Dec 27, 2017 17:31:00 GMT
Yeah, I havent read, watched what reviewers say, or even given much about what friends say about games other than "interesting, I'll check out it by meself and make my judgement then thank you", after umm.. 1986? "I dont give a f**k, holmes" ( windowlicker ) - to everything until I, I try it.
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Post by Cyonan on Dec 27, 2017 18:46:55 GMT
I don't really trust reviews in general since they're an inherently subjective thing. I'd need to know that the person reviewing the thing has tastes that somewhat line up with my own in order for it to hold any weight.
When it comes to games I prefer to simply just watch some actual uncut gameplay on YouTube. Movies I don't really watch a whole lot of them that aren't on Netflix.
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Post by linksocarina on Dec 27, 2017 19:38:21 GMT
Your notions of professional and sincerity being easily compromised are grossly misplaced. Is it? We have seen plenty of examples of corruption and scores being swayed by advertising dollars www.kotaku.com.au/2012/03/yes-a-games-writer-was-fired-over-review-scores/of for exclusive early access or other perks we have seen cronyism and coordinated attempts to control the narrative instead of reporting on the stories that need covering, we have seen incompetence and clear examples of reviewers not knowing what the hell they are talking about, hell we even see "games journalists" brazen enough to admit that they have no real interest in video games and would much rather spend publisher funded press events eating canapes and "talking about politics in the Philippines" archive.is/j7x2t#selection-1595.138-1595.149In the end all a critic really is is a person with an opinion and while you would expect a critic of a certain field to at least have some knowledge and interest in the field he is reviewing things in even that incredibly low bar has proven to be too much to ask for a lot of "games journalists", at least with user reviews all you have to worry about is did the user like the game and if not why, by looking at the general consensus you can see if a game has major problems and do some digging to find out what it is where many "professional reviewers" may not even mention it. As for the games industry "needing a Christgau or Ebert", I don't know who Christgau is but Ebert was little more than a person with an opinion who was just as ignorant as anyone else, he wasn't a creator (as far as I know) and all he ever had to offer was little more than an opinion laced with pretentiousness and why anyone put so much weight in his opinion is beyond me. You do realize that critics also panned what happened to Gerstmann back then too right? Ton of websites talked and decried it, and the folks that were in charge of management at the level of Gamespot at the time were I believed fired over the event. It was such big news I wrote a scathing blog about it (one I kind of regret, because I look at it and see how naive I was in most of my own thinking) which got picked up by the very website it's on as a featured contributor article. What I knew then as part of a consensus, and what I know now as an actual critic, are two different worlds and two different styles of writing though. As to the videos, Larry is not always accurate (sometimes that is on purpose just to fuck with people) in everything he researches but the issue with Driv3r is the issue of Atari and the magazines that got caught up in the issue. You kind of glossed over the fact that other journalists called out the issues, and the transgressions by Atari and the like were pretty well known at the time...hence why they were bought out by Hasbro at one point, bought out again by ISEA and re-vitalized as a brand named subsidiary of ISEA in 2008 after years of publishing failures. The other video's problem follows this sort of book report mentality that people seem to pine for, that reviewers and critics need to follow a certain pattern in their writing and coverage. The common attack of Campbell being "smug" and "pretentious" in his framing of Rock Band 4 i'm actually fine with, because to him he sees no value in Rock Band 4. Hes being brutally honest and genuine about it...would you rather he lie and say it's the most fun hes seen in the genre or something terribly generic? You can't have it both ways, to attack a journalist for being a liar one day and say another is too pretentious or has no interest in the field to have the job. We frankly need a bit more of that pretentiousness from critics because that sort of analysis is the purest sort of perspective of what you can get from a preview or review. I don't mean the sort of "cover all features" like John Bain does, he's good at book reports but terrible at critique, but actually discuss the features, the emotions, why the game works for you or why this genre in particular doesn't. I suck at fighting games but it won't stop me from reviewing them if I have to, I don't need to be good to understand how they work. I just need to explain why it works (or doesn't) to the people reading. It has played into my own forms of critique, since I try to inject emotions and feelings into reviews. That is what Ebert and Christgau did (Christgau was a music reviewer from the 70s-2000, I believe), it was more than just their opinions laced with pretentiousness, it was authoritative because they understood the craft of not only the medium, but in how to use their words to make a good critique. It was purposeful writing, with a thesis and function, not just a book report of features to sell you stuff. It was beyond the game as a product, which most people focus too heavily on as it is. Besides, i'd rather a few pretentious writers and a mob of review bombers with no direction. At least one group I can understand their thought process, their likes and dislikes and judge the nuance. With the other it's just amorphous and impenetrable logic that screams to be authoritative in the worst way. It is smug in the sense of being right while everyone else is lying to you, and I would know, since I was that once. That's not good critique, thats self-gratification. Most user reviews, including my own back in the day, are just that. <iframe width="26.920000000000073" height="11.879999999999995" style="position: absolute; width: 26.92px; height: 11.88px; z-index: -9999; border-style: none; left: 1279px; top: -987px;" id="MoatPxIOPT0_34368901"></iframe> <iframe width="26.920000000000073" height="11.879999999999995" style="position: absolute; width: 26.92px; height: 11.88px; z-index: -9999; border-style: none; left: 10px; top: -454px;" id="MoatPxIOPT0_75236427"></iframe> <iframe width="26.920000000000073" height="11.879999999999995" style="position: absolute; width: 26.92px; height: 11.88px; z-index: -9999; border-style: none; left: 1279px; top: -454px;" id="MoatPxIOPT0_26808621"></ifra
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Post by Gandalf the Fabulous on Dec 28, 2017 3:28:48 GMT
You do realize that critics also panned what happened to Gerstmann back then too right? Ton of websites talked and decried it, and the folks that were in charge of management at the level of Gamespot at the time were I believed fired over the event. It was such big news I wrote a scathing blog about it (one I kind of regret, because I look at it and see how naive I was in most of my own thinking) which got picked up by the very website it's on as a featured contributor article. What I knew then as part of a consensus, and what I know now as an actual critic, are two different worlds and two different styles of writing though. As to the videos, Larry is not always accurate (sometimes that is on purpose just to fuck with people) in everything he researches but the issue with Driv3r is the issue of Atari and the magazines that got caught up in the issue. You kind of glossed over the fact that other journalists called out the issues, and the transgressions by Atari and the like were pretty well known at the time...hence why they were bought out by Hasbro at one point, bought out again by ISEA and re-vitalized as a brand named subsidiary of ISEA in 2008 after years of publishing failures. I am sure it is very easy for other critics and game's journalists to call out other publication's scummy behavior while turning a blind eye to their own, how many times have you seen Fox news call out somebody on the left for doing something shady and outright ignoring the story when it is somebody on the right getting caught for the exact same thing or worse? Same goes for left wing news as well. A lot of the time you can have shady things going on for years where everyone in media knows something about it but nobody covers it for fear of upsetting sponsors or revealing their own misdeeds, only calling it out when the story grows too big to be covered up. The other video's problem follows this sort of book report mentality that people seem to pine for, that reviewers and critics need to follow a certain pattern in their writing and coverage. The common attack of Campbell being "smug" and "pretentious" in his framing of Rock Band 4 i'm actually fine with, because to him he sees no value in Rock Band 4. Hes being brutally honest and genuine about it...would you rather he lie and say it's the most fun hes seen in the genre or something terribly generic? You can't have it both ways, to attack a journalist for being a liar one day and say another is too pretentious or has no interest in the field to have the job. Actually I can, is it really too much to ask for a games journalist to be honest and have an interest in the medium he is reviewing? I mean it is one thing to not like a game and give an accurate assessment of how it fails but this guy seems like he had no interest in video games to begin with and specifically this genre of video game. I don't know about you but I don't read gaming publications for some random asshole's blog post about how he would rather be eating canapes and talking about politics in the Philippines instead of doing his fucking job, and unless it is somebody like Yahtzee (who I watch really more for entertainment rather than a serious critique that will inform my purchases) I don't really feel much attachment to the writing styles of particular journalists and they all seem pretty interchangeable to me, I mean who the fuck is Colin Campbell? Why should I care about his opinion? And what qualifies him to be writing about this game? If they are going to send somebody to preview a game I would at the very least expect the person they send to have an interest in rhythm games and know what they are talking about, is this a good game in the genre of rhythm games and what does it do right and what does it do wrong? Not "how do the canapes taste and what is going on in the Philippines". Imagine if a tech reviewer had this sort of apathy towards whatever piece of hardware he was reviewing? "uh yeah sure this motherboard has slots where you can plug stuff in and a few glowing lights, I suppose it does what you need a computer to do but I am really only here for the wine tasting and samples of caviar and would rather be talking about the political climate of Bruges". 10/10 tech review, very informative!
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PSN: LinksOcarina
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Post by linksocarina on Dec 28, 2017 16:58:14 GMT
You do realize that critics also panned what happened to Gerstmann back then too right? Ton of websites talked and decried it, and the folks that were in charge of management at the level of Gamespot at the time were I believed fired over the event. It was such big news I wrote a scathing blog about it (one I kind of regret, because I look at it and see how naive I was in most of my own thinking) which got picked up by the very website it's on as a featured contributor article. What I knew then as part of a consensus, and what I know now as an actual critic, are two different worlds and two different styles of writing though. As to the videos, Larry is not always accurate (sometimes that is on purpose just to fuck with people) in everything he researches but the issue with Driv3r is the issue of Atari and the magazines that got caught up in the issue. You kind of glossed over the fact that other journalists called out the issues, and the transgressions by Atari and the like were pretty well known at the time...hence why they were bought out by Hasbro at one point, bought out again by ISEA and re-vitalized as a brand named subsidiary of ISEA in 2008 after years of publishing failures. I am sure it is very easy for other critics and game's journalists to call out other publication's scummy behavior while turning a blind eye to their own, how many times have you seen Fox news call out somebody on the left for doing something shady and outright ignoring the story when it is somebody on the right getting caught for the exact same thing or worse? Same goes for left wing news as well. A lot of the time you can have shady things going on for years where everyone in media knows something about it but nobody covers it for fear of upsetting sponsors or revealing their own misdeeds, only calling it out when the story grows too big to be covered up. The other video's problem follows this sort of book report mentality that people seem to pine for, that reviewers and critics need to follow a certain pattern in their writing and coverage. The common attack of Campbell being "smug" and "pretentious" in his framing of Rock Band 4 i'm actually fine with, because to him he sees no value in Rock Band 4. Hes being brutally honest and genuine about it...would you rather he lie and say it's the most fun hes seen in the genre or something terribly generic? You can't have it both ways, to attack a journalist for being a liar one day and say another is too pretentious or has no interest in the field to have the job. Actually I can, is it really too much to ask for a games journalist to be honest and have an interest in the medium he is reviewing? I mean it is one thing to not like a game and give an accurate assessment of how it fails but this guy seems like he had no interest in video games to begin with and specifically this genre of video game. I don't know about you but I don't read gaming publications for some random asshole's blog post about how he would rather be eating canapes and talking about politics in the Philippines instead of doing his fucking job, and unless it is somebody like Yahtzee (who I watch really more for entertainment rather than a serious critique that will inform my purchases) I don't really feel much attachment to the writing styles of particular journalists and they all seem pretty interchangeable to me, I mean who the fuck is Colin Campbell? Why should I care about his opinion? And what qualifies him to be writing about this game? If they are going to send somebody to preview a game I would at the very least expect the person they send to have an interest in rhythm games and know what they are talking about, is this a good game in the genre of rhythm games and what does it do right and what does it do wrong? Not "how do the canapes taste and what is going on in the Philippines". Imagine if a tech reviewer had this sort of apathy towards whatever piece of hardware he was reviewing? "uh yeah sure this motherboard has slots where you can plug stuff in and a few glowing lights, I suppose it does what you need a computer to do but I am really only here for the wine tasting and samples of caviar and would rather be talking about the political climate of Bruges". 10/10 tech review, very informative! Your making a grand mistake though in your logic; that all journalists are corrupt or scummy in their behavior. That is frankly ignorant bullshit. As someone whose been on the other side I can attest to that personally, and the whole "what about these guys" is a logical fallacy to deflect an argument to make things seem like they are equal. As per Campbell, you don't have to really care about their opinions, but my argument is we need someone with opinions working out there to be a good critic. Saying he doesn't care about video games is also grossly exaggerating the critic in the industry itself, it's presumptuous because of one article where people got angry that he didn't really care for the game he was supposed to cover. But, did you know about him before that Rock Band article? Do you have examples of his career before and after that prove he doesn't like video games? Let's look at Campbell, he still writes for Polygon, lets see some of his other work out there. He already has a long career, writing for a bunch of places as an editor and publisher, if you follow his linkedin profile he was a writer for Edge Magazine, Amiga Power, the Official PlayStation Magazine, and others for eight years, from 1988-1996. He was also worked as EiC for Edge Online in 2004-2009, worked as a Tech writer for The Guardian, worked at IGN and a bunch of other publications. He's been around basically, and has won awards for journalism in 2011 and 2012. He also wrote a fiction book about games journalism, apparently. We got a few previews here, one for Absolver, an E3 preview. The first few lines of this one, discussing the basics of the design and customization. How about Far Cry 5, this one is from a week and a half ago. Got a preview of it there discussing how it's a Far Cry game with a religious fanatic tint and the notion that it may be capitalizing on current political climates. So out of those two previews, which is a better article to you and why? For me, the Far Cry one stands out more as a critical take. Most of the article is about wrestling with that main theme presented in the title, the issues of the games use of cults and near fascist-like tendencies while trying to be a-political. The concerns of Far Cry as a marketing tool, versus addressing issues facing the general public. So here we have a stance, an opinion, and a take regarding the iconography and portrayal of the cult in-game. He spends the first two lines basically saying "its Far Cry as you would expect it" and points to a video to showcase that. The focus of this preview was something more substantial than a book report that was summed up in one paragraph. The Absolver preview is more by the numbers. It is the checklist of features, the feint praise to the developers for their work, and ends basically saying watch for this game, it's fun. There is less substance there that makes Absolver stand out; I know about it's features, but the lack of rigor in Campbell's writing there doesn't make a strong impression when compared to the Far Cry 5 article. To me at least. Campbell is not afraid, it seems, to discuss his own biases though. Across his page we got reviews and news items, of course, but we also have a few feature articles discussing women in games, political upheaval, and one particular article I really enjoyed, discussing how GTA V was used as a form of literary criticism at Royal St. George's College in Toronto, discussing issues of white privilege, violence, racism and sexism and how GTA 5 can be used as learning tool to dissect these themes, the satirical veneer and stereotyping as a social critique. That is good journalism and critique though. It's reporting not just on the game or its features, but how it can be used to broaden expectations and criticism of the entire medium. The better part of Campbell's work, based on the limited sample size here, goes beyond the bullet points of the product. That is a critic who actually cares because its a push to grow the medium beyond that boredom. Good journalists and critics should strive for that a bit more, id argue, and not be afraid to inject themselves and their wealth of knowledge and thoughts into their work. If everything is ultimately an opinion, you might as well have the most thought provoking over the most pandering in the end. That way, they are less interchangeable too. One of the problems with critical works in the field right now is what I said earlier, the lack of rigor and strong writing to really dissect and discuss a game. Everything is interchangeable because everyone is writing the same bullet point style. What you maybe pine for is more substance, but any time substance comes up, people decry it as not real journalism though so it's usually a lose-lose.
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Post by Gandalf the Fabulous on Dec 29, 2017 6:41:23 GMT
I never said all journalists are corrupt and scummy in their behavior however there are many who are, and while the individual journalist may not be corrupt most still work for some media company who are usually beholden to some sort of sponsor or some sort of political agenda.
Now I will admit that I haven't read Colin Campbell's other articles, I don't really have much of an interest in doing so, however while the 2 articles you quoted are definitely a lot better and more professional than his Rock Band coverage (which even you have to admit was a shit piece of journalism and he was the wrong person for the job for that particular story or event) I don't really see any thing particularly special about them either, they are pretty much observations anyone could make from the trailers or gameplay footage alone (and in the case of Far Cry 5 you can see that his coverage of the game is clearly colored by his own political agenda and biases). While I don't think it is particularly bad for certain publications or writers to have certain biases so long as they wear those on their sleeve I think the problem is more when these biases cause the journalist to cover up other sides of the story only giving voice to one side or even covering up or purposefully misconstruing the other side in order to push an agenda or control the narrative which many critics and journalists tend to do.
As for him moving around to different publications and winning awards it does not really surprise me as games journalism in particular is a pretty nepotistic industry with many writers moving between publications and having friends and colleagues within other publications
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2017 19:01:08 GMT
Neither. I have a few friends who like similar things as I do. If I need a recommendation I ask them and make the decision based on my gut feeling.
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Post by Kroitz on Dec 31, 2017 0:06:14 GMT
At the end of the day, critic scores are usually more accurate than general consensus, because the critic scores tend to not just write for one person, but need to encompass the whole audience who can read them. Its covering all bases on the "checklist" so people get what is in the package. If there is a consensus that is more interesting to follow it's the one that is made or broken during an argument, which is why I like a good round-table discussion between critics.
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Post by dmc1001 on Dec 31, 2017 1:00:27 GMT
I'm going with critic scores. Too much emotionalism ends up factoring into user scores. Honestly, I feel like it's starting to ruin games, movies, and any type of media where "I feel" is supposed to mean something about how good of a game I'm getting. I want technical scoring to be weighted more heavily. 'Cause you know what? Fuck your feelings. Mine, too, for that matter.
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