It’s a known fact: not many reviewers review an entire game before casting their final judgment on it with a low, average, or high score. Many cite having too many games to look at for not going through the full thing before putting up the review, and others simply think that after they’ve played up to a certain point, they usually have a good idea on how it’ll turn out.
All solid points, and while I thoroughly play all the games I review, I’m not particularly upset with those who don’t.
Respawn Entertainment sees the situation different. In fact, one of the newly formed studio’s head, Vince Zampella, feels there’s “nothing more frustrating” than games journalists who review games without completing them.
“I’ve seen reviews where people have written things about the game that are untrue – like that feature doesn’t exist, so they obviously didn’t play through the entire game,” Zampella told the gathering at QuakeCon today.
“There’s nothing more frustrating than that. It’s unfair.”
“There’s other reviews where they were critical on a few things and they were probably right, they called it, okay – and you can live with that. And there are some that are just glowing and you eat those up,” Zampella continued.
Todd Howard added: “You want informed reviews. You can tell when someone has played your game and when it was an assignment to get the paycheque…
“If I’m going to play Modern Warfare multiplayer, I know that I’m in for 50 hours, so they do a lot of research, so when the research is a review where some guy didn’t spend a lot of time playing your game, that’s crushing.
But if they’re going to give you criticism and they’ve obviously played the game and thought about it, which we all get, it’s actually helpful.”
As for Jason West, he’d love for the entire review score system to change, but admitted it would never happen because “people love numbers”.
“I’ll put in a small pitch for what I think would be a better system of metrics, but it will never happen because people love numbers,” he said.
“The way Rotten Tomatoes works for movies I think is a lot more accurate reflection of positive or negative, versus 92, versus 91.3, and they all get averaged out and it’s pretty random.”
Respawn Entertainment is said to be working on a new title, however no details have been given. We’ll keep you posted.
Share your thoughts.
it is unfair, how can you review a game without finishing it?
you might say some things are not there, when they are thus making yourself look like a ass!
ive never bought the “o, we have too many games to review to finish them” crap, i mean ooooh you poor babies how about we switch jobs?
whats harder, finishing 5 games to review them, or having to kart around 100KG condensing units up ladders onto the roof of a 5 story building in the poring rain!
honestly, they have the best job in the world and they still complain!
people would KILL to go to E3, gamescom ect but not only do they get to go THEY GET PAID FOR IT!
people would kill to play games months if not years before release but they still complain!
as if thats not enough they get to play games ill have to wait a year or so for they also get paid to do so!
yea, playing games you guys have such a hard job how do you manage!?
I see your point. One of the problems is, many game reviewers receive their copies late, sometimes a day or two before the embargo’s up, and because they’d like their review to be the first up on the internet, the half-bake the thing.
allot of sites dont though.
most places get games weeks before the games out, a friend of mine has a IGN member on his friends list and he said hes been playing mafia 2 for over 2 weeks now!
most places get their review copies weeks before embargos are up.
just because a embargo is in place does not mean they cant write the review, just means they cant publish it.
so why not write the review, and than once embargo is up publish it!
EB normally gets stock a week at least before release, so i assume review code would be sent out same time if not before that!
True, so I guess these guys are just lazy?
more or less.
its really frustrating, i dont think its fair.
for me its ok because A i can see through there BS and B i dont decide if i should buy a game on reviews.
but theres heaps of people out there that do, a friend of mine only buys maybe 5 games a year so he relies on reviews and my advice on what to buy.
so he reads a review, and if the reviewer has no idea what hes on about and just bags the game than he wont buy it even though it may be a great game.
now that is not fair!
as a reviewer as far as im concerned its your duty to A go in with a unbiased view, and B finish the dam thing!
i more or less finish every single game that releases, so if i can manage that, plus 30 TAFE hours per week than i dont think finishing each game which is there job is too much to ask!
I see your point.