A NEGATIVE VIEW

Love them or hate them, odds are that if you’re reading this you also read game reviews from sites and magazines such as Game Informer, Kotaku, OXM, Polygon, etc. Some people actually use them to determine whether a game is worth purchasing or not,

while others are just looking at what people say about games they’ve already played. It can be entertaining seeing what others think about something you like or dislike. Often these reviews and their scores lead to debates on whether a game is actually any good or how it stacks up to another similar game. Additionally, it seems that once readers get their particular outlet’s score, they close the book on whichever game isbeing reviewed and that is just plain stupid. When a game is reviewed, that should give you some initial impressions but by no means close the door on the game. What people forget is that these scores are still subjective opinions not some grand majority consensus. Let me go through a few titles that I see in a different light than other company’s game reviewers.

I’ll start with a game that as you all know I adore, “Alien: Isolation”. It got some good scores but didn’t do so well on other major sources such as IGN, Polygon and Gamespot.

Now what should we take away from bad scores? Should they simply deem a game as bad and unworthy of anyone’s time? No, worst case you should continue to research the game because again, these scores came from a total of one person per company. The reviewer may just not take well to the way it was executed, but that shouldn’t suggest nobody else enjoys it or that you yourself wouldn’t have a blast playing the game as I did with Alien!

Now the reverse of course is also seen with games that score incredibly well like the recently released Call of Duty: “Advanced Warfare”. Now I won’t say the game is bad but I know there’s plenty who would say it is, even within the CoD fanbase. I feel it was a mediocre entry, sure some of the new tech is cool, but aside from the clunky maneuverability options that have been introduced; the game play still feels stale to me.

I just don’t see how it merits 9.0s and 10/10s. It has the same strong core elements with a few new, yet out of place maneuverability options and what feels like a couple of flashy gimmicks. They can be fun and useful at times but for the most part the innovations just don’t impact the experience much and in some cases they actually hamper it so when you factor in the values of the writer you can see how easily it is to be deceived by something as simple as a review score. What makes a 9.0 for one person may only hit a 6.0 for you and vice versa. It’s all about perspective.

I’ll keep this one a little shorter since the list could easily go on and on, but the point here is that you shouldn’t judge a games worth based on such few sources. If you base your spending on reviews and whatnot I would suggest waiting and checking out the game online first, because as detailed as an article can be there’s no experience like actually playing the game. The closest you can get to that without actually, you know, playing the game, is by seeing it in action throw YouTube or Twitch. I wouldn’t discount all of the reviews; just understand that they’re opening the door for discussion on a game not determining the final value of it. Of course you can read reviews on whether the game sounds good or bad, but always keep an open mind and you may just surprise yourself with which games end up being quite good!

(By the way, while I enjoy the rest of the series more, I still really liked Devil May Cry 2 and thought it was aworthwhile game)