Reviews - good? bad? 100% opinion? factual? influential?

[Coral]

It seems that people like to cite reviews when they favor their argument and discredit them when they don't favor them. Are reviews just one persons opinion, or do specific websites have credible reviewers who can grade quality? Some games score in the 9-10 range on average yet some people label them as trash or overrated, while others that score anywhere from 5-8 are presented as under rated, or too harshly reviewed.

Pick one or the other, stop flip flopping. =)

What do reviews mean to you?
If you could change the way all reviews are written what changes would you make? Why? and who would benefit the most from this change? who wouldn't?

Debate!

[virion]

i like the reviews on http://www.gamerevolution.com. they grade everything on the A-F scale. plus some of the reviewers i have come to like their style and humor they bring to the article. generally i hate reviews and will never read into a score. especially through gaming magazines. even on G4's tech review.. they always rate things too high. the whole review, they'll say they were unimpressed with something or down right say a major part of it was bad and at the end give it an 85%.. WTF?

so for the most part, i take reviews with a grain of salt. i'll try to look at the facts and see through the opinions. though, i take many chances with games, even movies and music. another thing about movies, i never even like reading the plotlines or back of the cases. gives too much away for me. i like to go into the experience completely fresh. i feel that way, i have a higher chance of having an emotionally attachment to the media. whether, hate or love. it don't matter.

[Rensa]

They're opinions. But opinions can be backed up with reasoning, and certain people can build up a reputation for the appropriate application of reason in their reviews.

[Rorshach]

I dislike review scores. They're kind of arbitrary, unless they're whole numbers. "This game felt like a 9.2" "NUH-UH! IT WAS TOTALLY A 9.3" Kind of silly.

I prefer Kotaku style, where they list off the pros and cons. That way I can weigh in whether the cost is worth the benefit.

[HGW XX/7]

Reviews are 100% somebody else's opinion on their experience with the game, which 100% of the time will be different than mine. I can usually read a review and tell if it's must buy or not, the scores mean nothing to me.

[virion]

I prefer Kotaku style, where they list off the pros and cons. That way I can weigh in whether the cost is worth the benefit.

oh yeah.. gamerevolution does that as well.

[Darc Requiem]

Reviews are 100% somebody else's opinion on their experience with the game, which 100% of the time will be different than mine. I can usually read a review and tell if it's must buy or not, the scores mean nothing to me.

That is basically where I am at this point. The text matters more than the score. Plus the text can usually give you an idea of how much the reviewer actually played the game.

[Tanooki]

These days reviews mean very little to me so there's nothing to flip-flop on. Few people will handle a review in a responsible manner speaking of the pros and cons in a rational format intentionally removing most if not all opinion level bias out of the equation. I intentionally did this at this site which is why my crap tended to be a good 1/2page to a 1page longer in MS Word when I did them. When I can find someone from a site or a general review say at gamefaqs or something where they touch on the core principles and rate its quality against itself and just the system it is on I'll take it at value. If those criteria for the most part are ignored then the review means nothing to me other than a corporate payoff (as gamespot proved finally happens and often,) the wanker is a biased idiot, or perhaps the jerk is a pro-system, anti-that system and as such scored with a stupid tilt. 90% of reviews on line as such I won't trust.

I mean I have Monster Hunter Freedom 2 right now on PSP and I so far can not understand why the hell that game got such great reviews and why the 3rd one is flying off the shelves. Everywhere you go has an unforgivable unnecessarily long load time. The camera has no lock on and things seem to just move at angles despite being controlled on an analog stick. The requirements while given decently in town are a bitch to figure out at times in the field, and the map is fairly garbage so you can go in circles on accident pretty easily too. Honestly I'm at a loss to figure out what the hell the point of the game is let alone why so many find it fun. Perhaps you have to be way into hunting and gathering to give a damn.

[Nismo]

Nothing.

I play the game and decide then if I like it. I own plenty of games rated below a 6 that I love except for Sonic the Hedgehog for PS3.

[Z.E.I.D.A.N]

Yeah, Kotaku's style is definitely the best. A number doesn't really mean much to me because different people have different criteria for what makes 9.2 different from, say, a 9.5. Just give me the pros and cons of the game so I can weigh in whether the game is worth it for me or not. What a reviewer thinks is good is not necessarily what I think is good, so just a list of positives and negatives relating solely to the content in the game works the best for me.

[MR EPIC]

Reviews are only good when they coincide with what I want to hear or already know.

[Smokey]

Text is good, number scores kinda suck. Basically I'll read a review, take it with a grain of salt, and make my decision off of that info combined with what I already know. So, while reviews do play a factor, the fact that it's merely an opinion that may or may not be somewhat factual keeps me from just going off of someone's review.