Reviews: Objectivity or heartfelt opinion

[Brats]

Originally posted as feedback to psi ops review - thread here

Not a bad review, but one (often like many of your others imo Pete) that imo slightly overexagerates the negative aspect of the game. Granted, the last few levels aren't quite as good as the other parts of the game (although they are still very good), but what is there is so good that it deems it slightly irrelevant when compared to the whole, much like Halo's library level.

Imo games are often reviewed like films or books, in that the experience is take as a whole. A game which is has five perfect levels and one shoddy one is often marked as a worse game than one which has just the five perfect levels. I'm not sure if this is the way that games should be reviewed, bearing in mind that games are there to entertain and be replayed, but not necessarily in order.

When I replay Halo, I miss out the library. It doesn't entertain as much, so I don't play it. With a book or a film, you can't miss out a chapter or a scene, else the thing doesn't make sense. Games give you this luxury and we as gamesplayers are given the power to seperate the wheat from the chaff. I'm not saying reviews shouldn't comment on the negative, but some perspective is needed. There is a difference between a game that is fundamentaly broken throughout and one which has flaws which can be avoided on subsequent visits. Imo the structure of this review dwelt too juch on the negative aspects and came across as a 'nice try, better luck next time' analysis.

If it wasn't for the 7/10 score, I wouldn't have thought you overall opinion of the game was that high. Although the early text is very praiseworthy, it is written in a way as if to set up for the fall. You can hear the impending 'and now the negative' paragraph stomping its way forward from fairly early on.

[PeteJ]

Thanks for being so honest! I really do appreciate it

I see what you are saying about focusing on the negatives too much, but (just looking at this particular case); I do not believe the review was written in an overly negative tone. Only one paragraph ?positively sets up the negative? of the game, but that is just my way of (attempting) to make the review as smooth as possible.

When it is good, Psi Ops is very good. I cannot deny, do not deny this and did not deny this in the review. The first five levels are excellent (save for a few minor faults) and feature some memorable moments - remember when you get trapped in the gas chamber on level two? The solution was superb - yet the game promises so much more for the final chapters and never really delivers. In fact, it delivers something that almost completely ignores what made the game so enjoyable in the first place.

Your example of Halo is something I strongly agree with; however I cannot put Psi Ops in the same boat. Master Chief never grows in strength, and you are never given a sense of extreme power beyond your own skills. Nick Scryer starts off weak and progressively gets stronger as the game goes on; the feeling of power is fantastic when the best two powers have been learnt. Although initially a neat idea ? as shown in the training ? the Aura View transforms the game in the wrong direction. Scryer goes from being all powerful to surprisingly ineffective. The pacing too goes from being near-apocalyptic to sneaky-stealth. It just doesn?t fit, and makes the game end on a huge anti-climax.

?A game which is has five perfect levels and one shoddy one is often marked as a worse game than one which has just the five perfect levels.?
This is a good point and something I have thought about before. If a game clearly designed to be a single player experience throws on a poor multiplayer mode, will it score lower than that same single player game with no multiplayer? It probably would (though I?d also argue that most reviewers would moan about the lack of multiplayer ).

With this is mind, would I have scored Psi Ops higher if it was just five levels long? Very difficult to answer, but I do not think I would have done. Now obviously the review would have been different, but with the five short levels I would have certainly felt quite cheated by the length of the game. Replaying the levels in the game, when you know what you are doing, shows them up to be surprisingly short ? each taking between 15 and 20 minutes to clear. The two longest games are in fact the final two, which take longer to complete thanks to the slower pace.
Also, I have to say, that I have an issue with not being able to become extremely powerful at the end of the game, being able to match Barratt for example. The ending is a bit of a con, really. Anyway, it?s virtually impossible to look at this particular game in this backwards kind of way, knowing how it actually is.

Ultimately, there is just enough room for improvement to make the game a solid seven out of ten, and I feel it would have been wrong to award it higher.

Sorry if I?ve not made any sense or answered your points very well, please feel free to add further comments

[Brats]

Cheers for the excellent reply .

Just to note, I have no issue with the score at all. Which is not to mean I would score it the same, but I have always felt that reviews are an opinion and as such no-one can take issue with that.

However, I get the feeling that your praise for the game seems somewhat half hearted and slightly unspecific, whereas your criticism is much more focused. The typical review structure of:

a) detail the background
b) follow with the positive
c) end with the negative

does lend itself to an anti-climatic review (which you could argue echoes the game itself). I'm not sure if the difference you state between Master Chief and Nick Scryer makes that much difference in this case. Any game should always build on what has gone before. Halo's main fault is that the games best moments largely come in the earlier stages, which is the same fault here.

On paper, Halo shouldn't be a 10/10 game. It's has repetitive level design, remixed levels and the library. In my heart though, those faults are irrelevant and that's the same feeling I have here.

Compare your review to the Edge review of Psi Ops and you'll see key difference between what I consider detailing negatives and dwelling on them. Although Edge seemed to have enjoyed the game slightly more (giving it a slightly higher score) you get the feeling that the review wouldn't have been vastly different if it were a 7/10.

It's personal preference, but I like a review to entertain me, be subjective, hell even break all the rules. Imo the mythical two word review of Spinal Tap's Shark Sandwich album is still better than 99% of the reviews out there (including my own).

In a nutshell, objectivity is overrated and reviews should come from the heart, not the head.

[Madbury]

In a nutshell, objectivity is overrated and reviews should come from the heart, not the head.

I think that more of a balance is required to be honest. Often it is necessary to detach oneself, to make a more balanced judgement of a game. Something I had to do with the Kaido 2 review, as its structure doesn't really appeal to me, but I knew that many others would love its GT approach.

Passion, restrained by reasoned argument, is the way to go imo.

[Brats]

It would if videogame reviews were used by people as a buying guide, but does the typical NTSC-UK reader use them as a guide, or read them after the event to compare the opinion with their own?

[PeteJ]

In a nutshell, objectivity is overrated and reviews should come from the heart, not the head.

We would hope that people read our reviews (especially the early Japanese releases) as buyers guides. From my own reviews, I doubt many people wanted Dino Crisis 3 after our 2/10 review, but then a few people may have bought PN03 after what we said. I guess most people do read reviews as 'after the fact', just to see if they agree or disagree - something I know I do all the time.

I know that, several weeks after writing a review, sometimes I realise the text is actually there for people who have played the game rather than a more balanced view of the game. The Riddick review for example (the one I wrote previous to this one) I was very proud of when I first wrote it, but it does have a hint of "this is the general opinion of the game...but that is wrong, this is what I think". I do not believe such an angle on a review is particularly wrong or misleading, but it can put more weight on the negative sides than is perhaps needed.

To make that more clear, presenting all the facts isn't as straight forward as some may think. Halo does indeed have several faults, some of them pretty major. If I were to review it objectively then I would have to mention them in a review, I'd mention that the Flood aren't as engaging as the other enemies, and that the level design is lazy in the second half, yet, if I were to write my opinion of the game on a forum post, then these things would just be brushed over as minor irritations and I'd spend the rest of the time writing straight from the heart about how much I love the game. I think that, as a review, the frist approach is the most sensible and useful because people have a right to know of the faults the game has, however the second approach may ultimately be the more inspiring and interesting to read. It's a very challenging balance to get right, and is probably more luck than judgement.

Just as an example, my Product Number 03 eight out of ten review is probably the one I am most proud of, and the one that received the biggest responce. It was the first review online, and people grabbed the game and, at least in part, agreed with my text. The review didn't dwell on the faults, despite admitted they were present. Another review was Siren, another 8/10 review, and again, one that was written completely from the heart and didn't dwell too much on the faults. People bought the game and, surprised at the level of frustration, strongly disagreed with pretty much everything I had written.
Then another, Riddick, was written less from the heart and more from a more objective point of view and both mentions and ponders on the faults and, as a result, people thought it was too negative.

All presented the facts, but dealt with them slightly differently. Quite how they should be written isn't something I, or anyone, can really answer. I guess it all just comes down to a bit of luck and an awful lot of honesty

[Chadruharazzeb]

It would if videogame reviews were used by people as a buying guide, but does the typical NTSC-UK reader use them as a guide, or read them after the event to compare the opinion with their own?

I've always fallen into the latter category, to be honest. I always make my decision to buy a game well before any reviews have been published, and like you say, I then read them to see how other opinions tally up with my own.

It's not really possible to write from that point of view though (obviously), and entirely pointless, so the review has to be a buyers guide. The balance between objectivity and personality has to blend well, or the review tends to be boring, and people just end up looking elsewhere for opinion.

Write to objectively and it'll read like a dull-as-ditchwater Edge review, be too "human" about it and it ends up reading like the idiotic fanboy masturbation/ mad ranting of KiddieFAQ's.

I like to state the obvious.

[Papercut]

objectivity, objectivity, objectivity.

not that objectivity should prevent a reviewer from describing their personal thoughts on a game, but the overall message of a review should remain objective and balanced.

I think it's possible to both give your personal experience of a game and a balanced assessment in a good review.

I also think that focussing on negatives is fine, as long as a title's strengths are represented. For a lot of familiar genres, especially sequels, there is little point retreading in great depth what made earlier games good. I find it more interesting to learn about what does and, in particular, doesn't work in what has been added.

If you want opinion pieces you're best off reading the Edge columns, blogs, or Penny Arcade. I reckon thats where 'heartfelt opinion' best belongs.

[mr_sockochris]

When i review a game i always write it with my own personal feeling of the game as the main focus. If it's a great game i tend to concentrate as to what is so good about it and why the game should be bought and only mention the negatives in brief. My Prince of Persia review is a prime example where i spent a good chunk of the review on the positives and just briefly mentioning how its linearity and slightly limited combat could annoy some. For crappy games i'm totally the opposite and give as much info and opinion as to why I think the game should be avoided.

BTW, the PN03 review is great, i always point people in the direction of it when they want my opinion on the game because it's exactly how i felt about it.

[RLench]

objectivity, objectivity, objectivity.

not that objectivity should prevent a reviewer from describing their personal thoughts on a game, but the overall message of a review should remain objective and balanced.

I think it's possible to both give your personal experience of a game and a balanced assessment in a good review.

Exactly my opinion as well.

Reviews should be objective...can you trust a review when it's one person's opinion? I know I can't; I bet very few people on here - if any - have the EXACT same opinions on games that I do. Reviews aren't there to make a decision for you; they're there to help YOU make the decision yourself. If more people understood this when reading a review, a reviewer's life would be so much easier

I will always trust objective reviews though - I may not agree, but I will at least trust the reviewer - but it is very difficult to trust a review that is so clearly biased and subjective

But it's impossible to be completely objective (before the first word is even written/read, some kind of prejudice/personal has been made by deciding to review the game) so personal opinion has to be included. I have no problem with this as long as it is CLEARLY visible that it is a person's opinion being shown. If someone says "I didn't like it because..." during a review, it's good as it shows why he/she didn't rate the game highly...but that doesn't mean I'll feel the same way about it

It's also another reason why I think scores should be abolished - or at least moved away from a 10 point system *opens can of worms*

[John Beaulieu]

Reviews should be objective...can you trust a review when it's one person's opinion?

a review is one person's opinion .......

[MD]

True but you can be objective about it and have a reasonable idea what Joe Public would think about it. I hate RPGs but I could write a objective review of it (well give me a year and a bit...).

One journalist accused me of being a Nintendo whore, oh did I put him right...

Although I would trust reviews more if 2 or 3 people gave brief view like Zzap 64 and Crash did back in the olde days.

[John Beaulieu]

i don't want a review from another person to tell me what i (or joe public's) opinion of a game should be - i can make up my own opinion and all that - what i want from a review is to know what the reviewers opinion of the game is.