@Col_McCafferty There’s an element of both. The games are clearly high quality in certain aspects and so will obviously review well. But there definitely is a little bit of circular hype, in that the games’ devoted fanbase feed into the reviews which then grows the devoted fanbase. I can’t really think of an equivalent series.
I mean, presumably the people who rave about Naughty Dog games tend to like their style of game design as well, lol.
I'm not a Souls fan, but like I said on NL, games that score this high are excellent, almost universally. At least in terms of what they're trying to do.
Of course, a game reviewing well doesn't mean people are obliged to like it. I hated The Last of Us, disliked Bloodborne, and wasn't particularly wowed by the new Spider-Man movie. But they were all clearly good examples of what they were trying to be.
I like the game's director and producer said the game is 30-40h long and now everybody who played it is like "well that was a lie"
Soulsborne games always get great reviews because they're reviewed by people that like those games.
I'd say that's a good thing as long as the review acknowledges the game is not for everyone and states why.
It's the same with fighting games - I wouldn't want a review from someone who doesn't have a very good understanding of the genre as it's really easy to miss things that make or break a game like that - and you gotta be into them to have that.
@Ralizah The Last of Us is a good example. I didn’t really like it but I could see why people did. Objectivity is almost impossible when it comes to reviews which is why you seek out multiple sources.
I’d also like to add how sorry I feel for the journalists who’ve been assigned Elden Ring. Being given code a week ago of a game which is both difficult and incredibly long is just plain unfair on them. You have to get your review out in time and having to attempt to rush such a game and also write about it is too much to ask of anyone. So I do worry that their experience of this game will be ruined as they would have savoured it slowly like the rest of us on release. It went gold a while back, review code should have been sent out long enough ago for them to be able to fairly, accurately and humanely review it.
@nessisonett I am sympathetic but also it’s the nature of the job, everyone’s under the cosh from time to time - should have seen my mobile going nuts this past week because of all these storms 😂 Not always a good idea to pursue a career that’s also your hobby, but if you can come to terms with some of the worse aspects I’m sure the perks are great. It’s nice that there hasn’t been a need to get a score on the Push Square review so Liam can take his time.
It's why I'd never want to be a game reviewer it would just suck any enjoyment out of it for me.
Well measuring all games on the same absolute 0-10 scale is impossible to do accurately. For example trying to give journey and elden ring and CoD scores that are self-consistent and resonate with everyone doesn’t compute.
But if you have more granular factual scores (eg resolution, fps, art style, length, story, innovation etc ) as 0-10 scores each, then you can get users to apply their own weightings to each of those and give people a weighted score that is meaningful to THEM.
To be fair, if I was a critic I’d just plagiarise other peoples reviews, change a few words around, stick an appropriate score on the end so as not to raise too many eyebrows and go back to bed.
@kyleforrester87 60/70/80 hours of game time to play in one week depending on your skill level is a non-starter. And then to write a review and go through the editing process. It’s one thing to be swamped at work, it’s another to be given an impossible workload that follows you home at night. You basically couldn’t sleep if you were trying to get a full review out.
@nessisonett i do know people who work weeks like that to be fair, actually thinking about it I used to do about 70 hours a week every week for over 6 months, probably another 10 hours travelling on top! That’s not a complaint, I enjoyed it overall. But the upshot is, there is either time to do it properly or not and I agree if a game like Elden Ring needs 100+ hours and there’s only a week to get a review out, something’s gotta give and it’s either a multi-person effort, the quality goes down or it’s delivered late.
If you love your job you’ll never work a day in your life, and beware of destination addiction - my 2 bits of life advice to myself
@nessisonett I saw the tweet from Tamoor Hussein at gamespot, who talked about how hard it was to play and write the review in such a short space of time. It's like being forced to binge watch 5-6 seasons of a TV show over a few days. You can do that but really it's an experience that's meant to unfold over weeks if not months. I can't imagine anything worse than being stuck on some brutal boss and trying to figure out how to beat it without community help and figure out what to bloody write!! Props to @LiamCroft for powering through
@R1spam On the other hand - Mitchell from IGN tweeted that at no point was he forced to complete the game before the embargo (it could've been a review in progress like here on Push Square) but he did anyway because he loved it so much.
Buuuut he also said he played it for 87 hours so if he did that in a week... that's not a healthy amount of gaming, lol
I'd quickly get annoyed when I hit some sacred cow game with a lower score than my peers and was barraged with death threats from people because I messed up the game's precious metascore, lol.
Some games are very worthy but aren't 10s, 9s, or even 8s. And that's perfectly alright.
@kyleforrester87@Voltan that's just to play it, not to take notes, write the review, prep for any video or podcast content. If your on hourly rate, overtime and it only happens a couple of times a year, sweet!! If your salaried and happens regularly, not so much lol!
One more reason why random scores are useless most of the time. Gamers and reviewers would be better off without them.
The crowd, accepting this immediately, assumed the anti-Eurasian posters and banners everywhere were the result of acts of sabotage by agents of Goldstein and ripped them from the walls.
@R1spam I’m sure 87 hours includes time spent taking notes and putting together a framework as you play, unless he had a stopwatch as he picked up and put down the controller. Plus time spent away eating etc. Obviously I won’t assume to know the process so happy to be corrected but I am sure they don’t play the entire game and then pick up a pen and start making notes?
@R1spam It’s nice to get some appreciation on this front 😂 Yeah, I could have just powered through the night and played flat out or something, but I’m just not going to put myself through that for a review.
Like you also mention, I think a lot of people forget about the difficulty. They’re hard enough on their own, but I’ve had to play Elden Ring without the ability to summon other players and very little guidance in general.
I got stuck on a number of bosses during the process. I’m not going to bash my head against that wall for hours on end when my time could be spent elsewhere.
I recognise I’m extremely lucky to be in this position, but there are some drawbacks. Trying to finish Elden Ring in basically six days is an impossible task.
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