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[Pathos]

So, yep, do you think that the standards for a "decent" game are slipping, and that reviewers are really reviewing higher than they should be?

This is prompted by the Top PC Games list on Gamespot, which has Dragon Age Origins rated higher than Baldur's Gate 2 (9.5 vs 9.2). Whilst DA:O was a decent game, it's certainly not deserving of a 9.5 under any real objective review (I'd personally say inbetween 8 and 9, although numerical scorings don't really work for games).

Then again, I don't know how Mass Effect has a score of 9, considering how dull and repetitive it is. It seems to me that newer Bioware games are heavily over rated.

Maybe the reviewers are being bribed (it really wouldn't surprise me, after the Kane&Lynch fiasco) or at least pressured into giving better reviews than the games deserve.

So, what does everyone else think? I mean, I consider it really quite sad when DA:O, a terribly derivative work, is rated higher than it's predecessor (which Bioware claimed it was the spiritual successor to). Then again, I feel the same way about Eragon being heavily read.

[fenrif]

Most game review sites hand out a 6 or 7 out of ten as standard. If the games really good (read: popular, well marketed, has alot of hype) they'll bump it up a few notches. If its a flat out terrible game then they'll do a joke review where they just blast it. Of course, the bigger the site the more true this is. Gamespot and IGN are usually pointless to goto for anythin approaching critical reviews in my opinion.

GTA4 is a litmus test of this kind of thing for me. It got GOTY and 10/10 pretty much everywhere, yet I dont know a single person IRL who enjoyed it anywhere near as much as san andreas.

Penny-arcade talk about this every so often, usually when they're sent a game to review and find it to be a pile of turd. They also talk about how rating games on 1-10 scales is pointless and arbitrary. 

[GlyphGryph]

Reviewers cater to their audience and their paymasters. It just so happens their audience is people who want their opinions on game purchases (based on popularity) validated, and their paymasters are the people who make the expensive games.

So is it really surprising?

[beorn080]

Yes.

Oh wait, I should post more.

I may be shot for this, but to me, the hayday of gaming was the SNES/Genesis wars. It was also the time when reviews meant something. There were obscure games that scored well, and just weren't played for some reason. Nowadays, well, you get things like that DA:O review. 9.5? I should look up their reviews of classics and see what they gave things like FF3 and Earthworm Jim.

[cephalo]

This has been going on for quite a few years. Basically, reviews come out before the game. That right there is reason to be highly suspicious. In order to get the game before release, you have to give good reviews. I'm no businessman, but it seems to me that there should be a niche for a review site that can wait for a game's release and give honest reviews. Computer Gaming World used to be like that many years ago. They would not hesitate to give a bad review, in fact, most of the reviews were negative. Back in the day it was an extremely useful magazine.

[Ampersand]

Standards aren't slipping. Salaries for professional reviewers are going up.

Okay, but seriously, this is coming from a me, and I think the last great game I've ever played was Grim Fandango.

[fenrif]

This has been going on for quite a few years. Basically, reviews come out before the game. That right there is reason to be highly suspicious. In order to get the game before release, you have to give good reviews. I'm no businessman, but it seems to me that there should be a niche for a review site that can wait for a game's release and give honest reviews. Computer Gaming World used to be like that many years ago. They would not hesitate to give a bad review, in fact, most of the reviews were negative. Back in the day it was an extremely useful magazine.

I've been waiting a while now for a pirate review site to appear. Most games are posted on the net before release date, so the pirates could get out a much more honest review before release to compete with the paid-for ones offered by gamespot and its ilk.

[MrWiggles]

This forum general opinion on modern gaming is kinda of cynical, so it doesn't surprise me that because reviews dont full in line with said cynicism that they are biased/bought/impartial ect...

Beside that. There are some things to keep in mind. The video game industry is still kinda of young. Reviewing part of a media takes time to become impartial.

And it doesn't really exist yet. I can almost trust IGN reviews. Before X-play revamped its structure into oblivion (Cause now it feels more like a screw attack/cnet review show with some video games), it gave good impartial reviews. And in my opinion, EGM was the gold standard in impartial ethical reviews. I really miss that magazine. Penny Arcade made a comic on how reviewers found thier balls during the Sony PS3 interview and their other interviews about the current platform generation.

So yea, I dont think standards are slipping. They aren't there yet.

[jnecros]

People are sheep, well most of them any way. Like movies, I tend to ignore professional reviews and go with people I trust, and for video games I trust the word of Bay 12ers over anyone else. Most times I wait to buy a new game until I see something about it around here. I think the standards have slipped, but only because games are much more popular, there is little of the 'gamer dork' stigma flowing around these days, and hence it is a huge money industry, thus most reviews are driven by economics rather than sound judgement of artistic and structural-design factors.

[ILikePie]

Reviewers are giving higher scores and the quality is dropping too, Neoseeker's Demigod review is a prime example of this (That or they bribed big time, who's even heard of neoseeker anyway?).

Personally, I enjoy older snes games much more than many of the newer games on the market. Developer just put much more thought into their games back then, they didn't try to innovate either, they did what they wanted and didn't care about reception that much. Just look at all the JRPGs, they all play the same, but have different stories and settings. Back then if a dev decided the game he was playing needed an upgrade the whole company would then work together to put something new but similar. They didn't care what others would think. Today, everyone tries to innovate, and games just look like this:

"Oh, I have great idea, I'll make JRPG, FPS hybrid, every few steps or so you would engage in a huge FPS battle which takes at least 20 minutes to complete."

This idea is obviously broken, but no one has ever tried doing something like it. => Uncotrolled innovation usually gives us broken games.

Yes I have played Half Life 2, Bioshock and some of the other wonderful games of the decade, and yes they do look stunning, but I didn't enjoy them as much as I enjoy playing Metroid or Final Fantasy.

tl;dr : I like snes and dos games and don't like the direction games are going.

[Tilla]

And in my opinion, EGM was the gold standard in impartial ethical reviews. I really miss that magazine.

EGM is back AFAIK. Or coming back shortly at anyrate

[returntonull]

I call nostalgia. That and we've had time to shift through all piles of crap for older games.

I remember going on an Emulator searching spree for good old games. I couldn't find any games really that I hadn't played before. All the 'recommendations' were the same. So really of an age we've got several dozen good games everyone remembers and a mile high pile of crap we've hid under the rug.

As for game reviewers. You're generally better off with independent blogs than the official sites anymore, but then RPS probably spoils me on that front. Comparing old reviews to new ones is a bit difficult too, you'd have to adjust for score inflation, and then you've got different reviewers, different standards, and...

...

Okay, I wrote all that and then typed 'different standards' and had to stop for a minute. Standards are lower, games are far less niche than they once were, and we've got more of them being released than ever before. And despite Activision wanting to recreate the crash of the industry in the 80s, all these games while not stellar are at least high quality.

So I'm wondering will we have more games everyone will remember in 2, or even 10 years by virtue of their being more games, or by virtue of there being more good games?

[MrWiggles]

And in my opinion, EGM was the gold standard in impartial ethical reviews. I really miss that magazine.

EGM is back AFAIK. Or coming back shortly at anyrate

I'm sorry. But come agian? Links anything? Is it the same editorial staff? I miss Dan the Shoe Hsu, and can't forget Sean Baby rant at the end.

[Farce]

GTA4 is a litmus test of this kind of thing for me. It got GOTY and 10/10 pretty much everywhere, yet I dont know a single person IRL who enjoyed it anywhere near as much as san andreas.

I liked GTA4 more than San Andreas.  Niko was pretty cool, whereas CJ was a busta.  Buffing up and getting a posse of 7 dudes was pretty awesome, but everything else was sorta just lame.  GTA4's design of "EVERYTHING IS SLOW, SPRINT IS LEISURELY JOG" was kinda annoying, but taxis are awesome, and Wayne and Little Jacob are great.

VC was my favorite, if anything - it still had the cool boomstick gun sfx, none of that firecracker stuff.


Anyway, sure, I guess.  The last game I can remember that I was really satisfied with was Metal Gear Solid 3 - before that, KOTOR.  Where I spent most of my gaming was on my PS1, playing stuff like Breath of Fire 3 and FFT.  Due to memory card issues I had to replay those over and over and over - maybe a little irritated after each restart, but I'd usually pass where I was previously, anyway.  Nowadays games can barely keep my attention enough for me to come back for a second session.  :\

[MrWiggles]

I call nostalgia. That and we've had time to shift through all piles of crap for older games.

I remember going on an Emulator searching spree for good old games. I couldn't find any games really that I hadn't played before. All the 'recommendations' were the same. So really of an age we've got several dozen good games everyone remembers and a mile high pile of crap we've hid under the rug.

As for game reviewers. You're generally better off with independent blogs than the official sites anymore, but then RPS probably spoils me on that front. Comparing old reviews to new ones is a bit difficult too, you'd have to adjust for score inflation, and then you've got different reviewers, different standards, and...

...

Okay, I wrote all that and then typed 'different standards' and had to stop for a minute. Standards are lower, games are far less niche than they once were, and we've got more of them being released than ever before. And despite Activision wanting to recreate the crash of the industry in the 80s, all these games while not stellar are at least high quality.

So I'm wondering will we have more games everyone will remember in 2, or even 10 years by virtue of their being more games, or by virtue of there being more good games?

Probably. We have some games right still activity played and sold for longer then ten years. That never happen in the Atari era or the 8-bit era. That something unique to modern gaming. There are still good games. The games that are good are in greater variety then what they were in the past.

I also dont see how the direction of gaming has really changed. Nolan Bushel the father of video gaming was in it to make fun games and MONEY. He had bonuses set up to make games that were good with the least amount of chips. So they as cheap to make.

Video games have always been about making something fun and making money from it.