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Game journalists CRAP reviews.

Cryomancer

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I've searched but found no thread to discuss only the dumb reviews of game journalists about many games. So, here is a thread where we can laugh about they.

To start, the most iconic "i can't kill a bug swarm with a axe, 0/10"
Gamespot Pathfinder Kingmaker Review said:
many monsters and creatures require very specific tools to kill. Swarms of small creatures like rats, for instance, can't be effectively fought with a sword and shield.
https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/pathfinder-kingmaker-review-the-classics/1900-6417006/

Path of Exile - IGN review


Nintendo World Report TV Review of Baldur's Gate


Game Journalist VS 5 yo child on cuphead tutorial


Portuguese review of BG - google translated said:
oHwever, these better improvements are not suitable to make games more used for new versions, these games created for D&D fans and this is something that stands out in the whole experience, whether in its difficulty to increase for active projects , either in its complexity or even in the absence of tutorials. Source https://fnintendo.net/article/13144-baldurs-gate-and-baldurs-gate-ii-enhanced-editions
 
Last edited:

Generic-Giant-Spider

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The guy reviewing BG in that video has such a bitchmade voice. Get some baritone in those pipes, Sally.
 

Shadenuat

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PoE ign review actually illustrates well how useless main campaign in that game is and that poe would be better if it built its narrative and exploration parts based on its rogue strengths from ground up, not mimic single player RPGs.
 

Falksi

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Konjad

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Most of reviews are utter garbage (and useless for finding out about games), so it's hard to pick any in particular. It's clear that "gaming journalists" have no idea about games, most of them don't play them in their free time nor are they interested in them, and they do only a minimal job to write articles. Being a gaming journalist is basically working in a themed tabloid.
 

NJClaw

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The guy reviewing BG in that video has such a bitchmade voice. Get some baritone in those pipes, Sally.
That BG 2 review is painful to watch.

"In Icewind Dale you effectively can't be killed on the lowest difficulty settings, which is helpful until you reach areas where you can become trapped by enemies that you might not be able to take down"

Uh? What the fuck? Why would you want to play a game if you literally don't want to play it? Is BG story so good that someone feels the need to experience it even if he hates everything about how the game plays?

"Certain enemies can't be damaged by physical weapons like swords and daggers, you need magic to take them down. Does anyone tell you that?"

UH? Yes, the very audible (and readable) message "my weapon is ineffective" tells you that. Do these people actually want the game to stop at every single inconvenience with a giant popup that explains what you should do to overcome the current challenge?

"How easy do you think it is just to learn and equip magic? this ain't no Diablo 3 or Final Fantasy 7"

Uh? Since me and my retarded friends were able to learn and equip magic in Baldur's Gate when we were 4 years old, I guess it can't be THAT hard.

"On normal difficulty, characters in your party can't be permanently killed. But does anyone tells you how to resurrect them?"

Holy fuck, WHAT? You have spells called RAISE DEAD and RESURRECTION, what other tip could you possibly need?

I'm appalled.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

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UH? Yes, the very audible (and readable) message "my weapon is ineffective" tells you that. Do these people actually want the game to stop at every single inconvenience with a giant popup that explains what you should do to overcome the current challenge?

Not to mention the game assumed you had some knowledge of AD&D at the time to know those certain monsters like shadows weren't going to go down so easy. Also I'm pretty sure the game does provide you weapons to deal damage to them by that point, unless you blindly skip over everything to try and narrative rush the game on "story mode" or whatever that retarded setting Beamdog put in was called.

It's always nice when a game assumes you might be smart and know when to tuck tail and run if you don't have the means of dealing with a certain creature. And if you don't know, then you'll soon learn. How that becomes a negative point is beyond me.
 

Zboj Lamignat

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It's a low grade job attracting low grade people (could be extended the majority of modern "journalism" tbh). Back in the nineties most reviewers were actual gamers and the medium was still pretty young and yet, reading those mags now with hindsight, you can see lots of stupidity, cringe, dishonesty etc. When you look at a typical modern reviewer - twenty something neckbeard taken straight out of internet memes - what credentials does he have to deliver a worthwhile review of, let's say, a 4X game? It's not only about the overall stupidity or lack of skill, it's just plain lack of knowledge and proper exposure.
 

Cryomancer

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UH? Yes, the very audible (and readable) message "my weapon is ineffective" tells you that. Do these people actually want the game to stop at every single inconvenience with a giant popup that explains what you should do to overcome the current challenge?

Yes. Game journalists wanna that level of handholding. I miss on Gothic where if you use a non blunt weapon on a Golem or magic, it deals ZERO damage... Lets be real, if people could "animate" rocks, a blade would't be effective against this "living" rock. In fact, will deal more damage to the blade than to the golem. Arcanum Ore golems actually damages weapons and it makes sense.

Bottom Line: A pinnacle of role-playing games with well-designed mechanics and excellent story-telling, Dragon Age II is what videogames are meant to be.

I enjoyed the conflict between mages VS templar HOWEVER, say that DA2 is a good rpg is pure BS.
 

JarlFrank

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
It's not only about the overall stupidity or lack of skill, it's just plain lack of knowledge and proper exposure.

Cue modern game journos claiming a feature is innovative when it has appeared in a dozen games in the 00s, 90s, and even back in the 80s, but the journo has never played the classics so it's completely new and "never before seen!!!" to him.
 

Zboj Lamignat

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Yeah... I still remember someone posting an online review of the last HoMM game on the strategy board. The reviewer completely failed to understand that the game is turn based and what turn based even is/means. That's the level we're looking at.
 

Ghulgothas

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It's a low grade job attracting low grade people (could be extended the majority of modern "journalism" tbh). Back in the nineties most reviewers were actual gamers and the medium was still pretty young and yet, reading those mags now with hindsight, you can see lots of stupidity, cringe, dishonesty etc. When you look at a typical modern reviewer - twenty something neckbeard taken straight out of internet memes - what credentials does he have to deliver a worthwhile review of, let's say, a 4X game? It's not only about the overall stupidity or lack of skill, it's just plain lack of knowledge and proper exposure.
And several are bitter and insecure over the fact that they have to stoop so low as to write about about video games, and must embellish highbrow concepts and themes onto games where none truly exist.

They'd be less of a laughing stock if they were forbidden from touching any games that came out before their time. They're clearly only suited for the ease and comfort of modern Triple-A releases, why force them to make fools of themselves?
 

Ghulgothas

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Does 'CRAP' extend to heaping undue praise on games that didn't deserve it? If so then this deserves to be here.
This one is a microcosm of a larger critical conflict, but it still bears posting in this forum.
Those of you who know, know.
 

Ol' Willy

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As I said, to be a competent game reviewing journal you need a team of grognards, specializing each in a defined genre; let this people play those games to hell, take notes, then, a skilled writer with no necessary knowledge about games turns this notes into a proper review. Because being good at games and being a good publicist is too much to ask this days.
 

markec

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Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Dead State Project: Eternity Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
http://archive.is/HI1tc

Wot I Think – Fallout: New Vegas
By Quintin Smith on October 21st, 2010 at 4:36 pm.


Obsidian’s pseudo-sequel to Bethesda’s Fallout 3 hits the UK tomorrow, arriving amid a raft of positive reviews. But I see you there, perched atop that blasted rock, canteen in hand, waiting for the official RPS review. That wait is over. Here’s Wot I Think of New Vegas.
There’s a distant sound that can be heard throughout your time with New Vegas. Quieter than the cheery 1930s pop hits that warble from your radio, quieter even than the chirps of night-time insects, or the long gasps of wind blowing across the wasteland. It is the sound of Obsidian phoning this game in. I’m talking long distance, reversed charges, not-giving-a-fuck.


Now, if it’s purely size you care about, New Vegas has you covered. From the moment your character (a professional courier who gets attacked and left for dead in the intro movie) wakes up in a backwater town, you’re introduced to a sprawling wasteland even bigger than that of Fallout 3. There are dozens of settlements to find. There are (shh!) secrets to stumble across. There are four and a half shitloads of different weapons. There is a heaving mass of character perks, just waiting to be unlocked as you progress through the game’s wide array of quests.
But something Bethesda were very aware of when they turned Fallout into a first-person game is that the wasteland is potentially quite a boring setting for the player to be set free in. I mean, you think wasteland, you think deserts, charred ruins and grumpy survivors wearing faded, drab clothes.
So, Bethesda went to great lengths to infuse their D.C. wasteland with colour. It was populated by kooky, occasionally even cartoonish characters- it’s no accident that super mutants and the Brotherhood of Steel featured so prominently. Then you had the independant towns, which were all built in or around visually striking setpieces, and Bethesda even built a labyrinth out of the subway system. Whatever direction you walked in Fallout 3, you felt confident you’d find something interesting.

Whatever direction you walk in New Vegas, you might find something interesting, but it’s much more likely you’ll find something pretty uninteresting, like an empty shack or an NCR army outpost where you’ll hear two different potato-faced soldiers voiced by two different actors say the same line of dialogue about the Mojave being hot. There’s also a slim chance you’ll find nothing at all but a few irradiated creatures, since the game has entire acres of barren scrub and desert that you absolutely would not see in Fallout 3. In my whole time with New Vegas, I found nothing as architecturally entertaining as Megaton, and nothing as eerie or inventive as Little Lamplight. Hiking long distances felt like a chore.
Maybe you’re reading this and thinking that a more bleak and empty and therefore a more “realistic” vision of the wasteland would suit you just fine. Trouble is, it’s more than that. It can be hard to tell the difference between a lack of content and an authentically barren wasteland, but sometimes New Vegas is so impressively bold in its laziness that the distinction is clear.
Look, here’s a shot of the incredible NCR sharecropper farms, the “pride” of the state! One of the guards working here told me that they have to keep the place well-defended, just so every wastelander walking past doesn’t come in and stuff themselves. This isn’t actually a joke. It’s just a disconnect between the scriptwriter and the whoever designs the actual areas.

And here’s a bustling casino floor in crazy New Vegas!

I took those screenshots from quite far back to get a sense of space, but they’re not staged. Almost all of New Vegas simply has a quiet minimalism to it, which is probably for the best since there’s a pretty awful bug with Windows 64 bit that dropkicks your framerate if you’re standing close to several people at the same time.
More frustrating are the absences where you know there’s meant to be an actual feature, but it was evidently forgotten or abandoned somewhere along the brief road to getting this game on the shelves. I had a long conversation with a bartender about the etiquette for hiring one of her prostitutes, before discovering after three increasingly confused laps of the bar that there were no prostitutes in the building. Later, I encountered a man tied to a pole, begging to be cut down, but there was no way to do so. And in one awesomely surreal instance, I had a chat with a character about their impressive snowglobe collection when there wasn’t a snowglobe in sight.
This isn’t another Vampire: Bloodlines, where an ambitious game’s been left unfinished, because there is no ambition here. Imagine for a second that the above problems didn’t come about because of a lack of time, but because of carelessness, and apply that carelessness to the entire game- most importantly, to the quest design and the dialogue. Now you’re getting close to imagining New Vegas.

God, the dialogue in this game. I think there were several points where I was so bored my brain began rotating in my head like food in a microwave. Whatever voice acting agency or methadone rehabilitation clinic Bethesda used to voice the populace of Oblivion and Fallout 3 is back, and while I didn’t particularly like the writing in Fallout 3 either, the characters in that game were often interesting or disturbed enough that you were curious about what they had to say.
With an unforgivably small number of exceptions (and one character who does actually approach the cast of Bloodlines in his likeability), the characters in New Vegas are all tedious constructs, voiced by people who sound like they’re boring in real life, wandering around in the Oblivion engine, which as we all know is about as charismatic as a slow-motion seizure. The low point for me was probably these guys:

Caesar’s Legion are New Vegas’ big addition to the Fallout lore. They’re a huge, warlike tribe that attempt to embody the characteristics of a Roman legion, meaning leather tunics, little skirts and ferocious disciple- drugs, and as far as I can tell, jokes, are banned. There is just nothing interesting about them, except for the fact that they all pronounce Caesar “Kai-zar”, a mystery I never got to the bottom of.
New Vegas’ saving grace is really just the framework it fails to employ particularly well. While I won’t be returning to New Vegas after this review, I did have a fair amount of fun doing all the old Fallouty things- exploring the wasteland, looting bodies, solving problems with my skills instead of violence and, when I didn’t have the skills, blowing apart head after tender head with my favourite shotgun.
It’s just that this is absolutely not the classic that Fallout 1 and 2 unquestionably were, and it’s also not the bold, bright reinvention that Fallout 3 was. It’s just… here, offering more Fallout. Do you want some more Fallout? If so, New Vegas can provide, so long as you don’t mind your every hour with it being laced with some small amount of disappointment. That is, unless you haven’t played a Fallout game before, but in that case you’re better off with the Game of the Year edition of Fallout 3.

I want to finish by talking about the new Hardcore mode, because that’s what lured me into doing this Wot I Think in the first place. Hardcore mode means playing a version of New Vegas where you have to eat, drink and sleep, where ammo takes up weight allowance in your inventory, and where crippled limbs can only be healed by a doctor or with a one-shot Doctor’s Bag item.
In execution, Hardcore mode isn’t hardcore. At all. Playing as a big ol’ science nerd with no survival skill, no barter skill, average endurance and meagre strength, I breezed through all of the obstacles of Hardcore mode without having to think about them.
Just about every building in the game has a working sink somewhere, so water isn’t an issue, and the piñata-like presence of food in the bins and cupboards of New Vegas’ “wasteland” is bolstered by the fruit you find growing naturally everywhere you go. The most you ever end up thinking about Hardcore mode is when some landmine or mutant with a club breaks your leg out in the middle of nowhere, and there’s nothing for it but to fast travel back to a town and go limping the rest of the way to a doctor.
The way it sounded in previews, Hardcore mode was going to provide New Vegas with an additional, survivalist dimension. Instead, it’s just a handful of weak extra rules that have little impact on the rest of the game. Hardcore mode is, at least, ripe for a modder to come along and fix up, which I suppose describes a lot of New Vegas.
What a bummer I am. Look, let me make it all better- here’s a post onSavyGamer about how you can buy Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 3: Game Of The Year Edition for £30. At that price, I’d say this game is probably worth it.
 

DalekFlay

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awsker

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As far as I'm concerned, there's only one video game journalist worthy of the name.

mkBrqcD.jpg
 

HansDampf

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https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/05/23/pathologic-2-review/
Game too Dark Souls. Dark Souls hard. Have you heard about Dark Souls?
If the intent here is to follow a Soulsian “hard is good” philosophy and apply it to the survival genre, this is misplaced. Souls games are about reaction, movement, and practice. You can’t practice finding a piece of bread.


And recently, TLOU2... I wasn't paying attention to that game or the discussions about it, until NeverKnowsBest posted a review on his channel. His review is fine. But in it he also pointed out that most professionell reviews barely talk about the gameplay at all. And he is right. Especially this excuse of a review from the Washington Post: ‘The Last of Us Part II’: One of the best video games ever made
Not a single word about gameplay. But even letting that slide, the rest of this "review" isn't informative either. It's all about his feewings. Why is everyone so retadred?
 

Falksi

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Does 'CRAP' extend to heaping undue praise on games that didn't deserve it? If so then this deserves to be here.
This one is a microcosm of a larger critical conflict, but it still bears posting in this forum.
Those of you who know, know.


I agree with a lot of that review tbh. Enjoyed DMC4, but the reboot - whilst featuring a shit looking main character - is the one I enjoyed most as a game.

DMC5 is fucking wank by comparison.
 

Durandal

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My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
It is fundamentally impossible for gaming news sites to create truly good or insightful game reviews.

The way the business is set up means reviews are rarely anything more than a shallow overview of the gameplay described with meaningless adjectives, and mentioning a handful of personal experiences they had with the game that they judge the entire game by. This isn't necessarily the case (though admittedly rather common) because the reviewer is just inept, but writing for a press outlet brings with it several constraints that prevents good reviews (that aren't trying to be more humorous and entertaining instead).

First, deadlines are a bitch. Not only are you trying to churn something out before the review embargo, but you also have to get something ready while the game is still relevant. People want to know ON LAUNCH whether the game just lives up to the hype. And three-four months after the game is released, most people will already have discussed it to death and aren't really interested in hearing yet another cold take. That means less clicks and means less $$$. So your only option is to beat the game as fast as possible so you can scribble something down as fast as possible. Being able to beg for preview codes from the publisher does give you a lot more time (and generally more time for reviewing is set aside for big AAA releases as they will be read more, if the longer length of AAA game reviews is any indication), but the outlets that aren't as lucky are going to have to speed through even more. And rushing something rarely results in a quality product.

The problem here is that compared to other mediums like music or movies, games on average take a significantly longer time to 'complete' (4-8 hours compared to a 2hr movie), even moreso to replay and thoroughly understand the game. And games are not just longer, but harder too, which makes you spend even more time at trying to beat the game, and leaves you with even less time to write a review (knowing this, it's not surprising that digital exhibitions/walking sims like Gone Home or Gris fall more in line with your average game journalist's personal tastes, as their short length and low execution barrier makes them much easier to review, and it is indirectly also why journalists clamor for Easy Modes). This is why reviews for the more niche deep high-execution games like stylish action games, arcade games and fighting games frequently misunderstand how the game works, don't go in-depth with the gameplay at all, and mostly just stick to talking about the audiovisual experience. Often said games are also built on certain cultures where the player is expected to be aware of certain genre traditions (most arcade games are designed around clearing the game with one credit, even though the games rarely explicitly mention that is the case), which you'd figure is part of a journalist's job to investigate, but what happens more than it should is that a newb to the genre gets assigned to write a review of a game whose genre they have minimal experience with, with everything that entails.

Second, review drafts rarely get peer-reviewed by someone else who actually knows shit about games. If you want to hone your stance on a game, you go talk to someone else about it who has also played it. You shouldn't expect to become an enlightened gaming maestro if you sit in your own ivory tower and don't talk to anybody but yourself. By discussing the game, you might find you overlooked something in the game, or instead it helps get you a better perspective on why the game is good/bad. It's useful to have both the opinions of people who are really good or really shit at the game, as it gives you a clearer indication of how the game is received on multiple levels and where its problems/strengths may actually lie. More importantly, discussing the game prevents you from talking out of your ass and saying something that will embarrass you down the line. The problem is that discussing games isn't really possible when you're writing a review before launch and the only one around you that has actually played the game is you. This is why the editor should ideally have enough experience in writing quality reviews and be able to point out structural flaws in a review draft even if the editor hasn't played the game in question, but evidently this is hardly ever the case. Assigning multiple writers to write one review about a game does help in this regard, though it rarely happens. And finally...

...the reader base of gaming news sites doesn't care much for quality. They just want to know if the game is playable or just have the reviewer validate their opinions--everything else is fluff. People like me and probably most people in this thread who are clamoring for something more in-depth get the shit end of the stick here, because the hand of the market dictates that shallow uninsightful articles maximizes clicks. On the other hand (and not to blow my own bugle), hobbyist reviewers and video essayists aren't as bound by these constraints, and so are able to put out more insightful commentary on games on average compared to journalists. Hopefully the public's standards for game reviews will eventually be raised high enough that gaming journalists are forced to step up their game, but we're a long way off from that.

As an aside, you don't have to be good at games to write a good review, but it certainly helps.
 

ultimanecat

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Games journalists such as those at RPS actually consciously got together and decided that writing about games had to be personal and driven by a subjective narrative, because they were tired of writing about them like products. Unfortunately, this also meant that any asshole with a hot take about how Dark Souls made them question their gender could write a review, and outlets quickly learned that these assholes are cheap to find and readers (for a time at least) would engage with that sort of content out of pure rage.

Of course, being short-sighted retards, outlets also didn’t realize that when you let any idiot write your reviews, you’ve really just become a middleman in the idiot market and slightly smarter idiots will be happy to cut you out of the process. Thus, the YouTube and Twitch market was born.
 

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