Whose reviews do you trust?

everyone sucks. use the force, Luke

No, I do look at http://www.gamerankings.com/ which is basically the same thing as metacritic. I wouldn't trust any one place's reviews, but I do enjoy Edge and Play(U.S.) as examples of extremes that will go out of their way to find something bad to say about a good game, and something good to say about a bad game, respectively.

Also, trust isn't the right word but these guys are kind of amusing so far:
http://www.actionbutton.net/

Yeah, no one place - no one source - just generally poking around and averaging things out in my own head. For my tastes though - I think a lot of what you can read out there isn't jaded enough - the "professional" sites tend to be a little too caught up (buddy-buddy style) with the "industry." Which I guess is pretty much the deal with any medium - so what can you do. Sometimes you have to read between the lines. The easy availability of demos seem to help - though I sometimes hate downloading demos.

I'm familiar enough with certain people's styles of reviewing that I can tell whether or not I'm going to like a game based on a review in, say, Edge magazine or on IGN. That doesn't mean I agree with them particularly often though. I guess Eurogamer is the site that comes closest to agreeing with my own tastes, most of the time.

Oh, and I never trust anyone with an 'exclusive', because obviously they're always obliged to gush, so as not to endanger any following exclusives.

i like eurogamer too.

Eurogamer and Gamespot.

Honestly, I like what the Penny Arcade guys like. Sad, but true.

For video games, the critical consensus is usually right on the money for me. Sometimes I'll wind up burned by a game with good art direction and boring gameplay (Okami), or bored by a game that isn't my style (Metal Gear Solid), but generally I've had good direction, even with stuff outside of my comfort zone (Resident Evil 4, God of War ...).

x-post
props to PA for big upping Odin Sphere (though Play did it first and of course no one believed them, they're the boy who cried wolf of "Best Game EVAR!")

it's hard to trust anyone after GTAIV

we all have blood on our hands after tht one

meanwhile Famitsu have just reviewed the Japanese version of GTAIV - 39/40.

it's hard to trust anyone after GTAIV

we all have blood on our hands after tht one

― webinar, Wednesday, October 22, 2008 2:49 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

so otm. what a disgrace. i mean the game isnt terrible or anything but the reviews are totally embarrassing in retrospect.

Totally agree. Fun game, but I liked San Andreas a lot more.

We can't blame the reviewers themselves, imo, just the system at large. Had the reviewers been playing the game long enough they'd have had the time to sit with it that we have. I mean honestly, in the first week or so I was so caught up in the hype + what was great aobut the game that I kind of glossed over the not-so-great.

I can't stress enough that it happens, at least for me, w/ EVERY GTA (exception: San Andreas) that I LOVE it until I get to a certain point, then it's good, then I beat it and it's nothing to me. It leaves no mark.

Had reviewers spent a month with GTA IV, and been somehow immune to the unstoppable hype (where rating the game under 9/10 would have meant you looked contrary for the sake of contrary (read: the sake of hits)), people were almost getting their arms twisted to throw accolades at the game, too. And not even in that gamespot kane-and-lynch-sketchy-money way, but in that culturally-relevant-medai-explosion-wait-our-industry-isn't-used-to-this-attention way.

Plus it DID take a while to realize that Niko was a vapid killing piece of shit. For a while he seemed pretty fuckin' cool.

lol @ "blood on our hands" and "disgrace/embarrassing". maybe just a little guilty of the hyperbole you're criticizing?

GTA4 was not the monument to the future of gaming that some reviews made it out to be, that is clear. but most reviews were satisfied to say it was a fantastic game, and that was the truth for a hell of a lot of people, myself and of my friends who played it included.

I just felt like the press for the game said a lot of things about the game that weren't true ... that the story was some deep, complicated masterpiece, or that the stuff you do in the game affected the story in a meaningful way, or that the environment was some huge leap forward. The map was nice, but other than the new NPC physics stuff, it didn't seem all that different to me. It was the old game with better graphics and better physics. Which is certainly reason enough to buy the game, and I played a shitload of it. But it would be nice if it seemed like the press were playing the same game I played.

The enthusiast press had about three days to finish off the 20 hour (30? 40? I stalled out at 25%) story and whip up a thousand words or so. How many do you think actually made it all the way through? Like Will said, the game makes a great first impression, so the ridiculous accolades are somewhat understandable. Still, this rapid turn-around / rush to judgment is one of many reasons we should all take reviews from the big sites with an entire mine's worth of salt.

Yeah but Edge actually pinpointed most of the games major flaws, but still 10/10ed it.

Holy cow - I didn't realize the GTA IV reviews were that good. It's still at 98 on metacritic...
look at all those perfect scores...

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/grandtheftauto4?q=gta%20iv

Halo 3 also has some pretty over the top scoring...
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/halo3

i dont see why you need that much time for a game to "sink in." for cryin' out loud, i see overhyped movies and have to turn reviews around in a matter of hours and i can usually tell if they're good, bad, or medium. if you have three days with nothing to do but play a game, you should be able to make a balanced decision about it.

I wish there were more review sites nowadays that actually waited a least a few weeks to post their reviews. There are plenty of books, movies and video games that take real time - as a human being - to digest and think about, more than just the initial emotional response. I think for many games it's just as necessary, if not more necessary, than a two hour film, to be able to revisit it in the mind and perhaps even replay it, given the length and amount of content in these games.

I do think it's ridiculous if these reviewers are expected to actually give readers accurate, deep insight about games within a weekend, but the truth is they're not expected to - they just have to make the deadline. Thumbs up or thumbs down, basically. At least some of these sites or magazines require the reviewers to have completed the title, but I doubt that's true for everyone.

What WAS so bad about GTA IV, anyway? Bear in mind I haven't played any GTA since Vice City.

For me it was just the repetitive and grinding nature of the missions. Didn't really mind the lack of crazy fun compared to San Andreas, I thought that did help the atmosphere and realism. Can't remember the other objections...

GTA IV is a good game, don't get me wrong, it's just not the impeccable 10 that everyone else said it was. I agree with ledge - the missions were very repetitive, the accomplice characters were naggy, and there was a distinct lack of anything fun to do between the missions. You couldn't pimp cars (afaik) and there were only like 3 stores in the game (plus all the clothes were boring and uncustomisable.) There weren't many fun or funny vehicles to play with and you couldn't fly planes.

One of the most beautifully lit games I've ever played, and the weather is impeccable, but as a sandbox GTAIV had little to do in it.

Heh, meanwhile, Eurogamer give 10 out of 10 to Fable 2, and that's enough to make me go out and buy it on Friday even though I'd previously been completely uninterested in it. I'll no doubt be back here complaining in a couple of months time.

what websites do ppl visit these days for games news, reviews and general chit chat

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/NewAnswersControllerServlet?boardid=67

ILG, my friends, Zero Punctuation, and Gamespot reviews are all I pay attention to.

Gamespot only for the game footage, not for the reviews themselves.

yeah I'll second ILG too, love you guys

About 20-30 blogs/sites in my RSS reader... ignoring the individual blogs, there's a bunch of the 1up blogs (retro, chiptuned, rpg, iphone) and Gamespite/Toastyfrog, Rock Paper Shotgun, Tiny Cartridge, Hardcore Gaming 101. Some old standbys that I'm hanging onto like Wired, Joystiq and MTV Multiplayer for basic news and reviews.

Though I want to say the great thing about RSS is that over time I've found many random ones that I really like and have good writing. I don't know if any of them have a huge audience, but that doesn't matter to me as much as that proven trust.

General chit-chat... well, uh...

since the horrific redesign of gamespot i badly need a new clean easy-to-use simple site for game reviews/footage/upcoming stuff. what are there? used to love the whole 'top 10' coming soon/highest rated/genre thing of gamespot but that seems to have disappeared and i'm damned if i'm wading through that slow-arsed crap to find it.

also, above comment from 5 yrs ago should be revised to:

it's hard to trust anyone after GTAIV LA Noire

we all have blood on our hands after tht one

I find Giant Bomb Quicklooks to be an effective preview/sample of the game. Seeing their delight in either great gameplay bits or sublime dumbness rendered large helps me figure whether I want to check the game out or not.

Also it's something to watch on my phone when I'm at the gym.

the game review system is so corrupt its hard to tell whos on the take and whos not. sometimes its best to go on metacritic and take a look at the outliers because thats where you might find the actual truth.

One of the most beautifully lit games I've ever played, and the weather is impeccable, but as a sandbox GTAIV had little to do in it.

I like Polygon these days, though they get decried as biased as well, naturally, anytime they put out a negative (or even slightly negative) score

I'd love for someone to just read all of the reviews, and keep track of who seems on the take, and what the most interesting information coming out of the reviews -- all without ever playing the game themself. I would call this new webpage Bettercritic. (thought of the idea then the pun not the other way around for the record)

ILG sells me on more stuff than almost anyone else

pretty much same here tbh. usually still messing with the coint & plick results until june or so anyway.

fuck, do i have to do that this year again
can someone give me some suggestions about how to bring other communities into this so the ridiculous amount of work i do actually has some breadth of response? doing twenty ballots or two hundred is roughly the same workload.

just let me vote for my terrible awesome game of the year like 200 times, that should solve the problem