http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/reviewsnobssuck.jpg

Let’s pretend someone prepares a special soup for you and then asks you to give that soup a score on a scale of 1-10.* How nice right?* You love soup! Okay so now its just you and the soup.* There’s a spoon there too.* Maybe a napkin.* But nobody else.* Even the chef is out of the equation. You grip your spoon, hoping and expecting that what you put in your mouth is going to be the best soup ever.

You scoop up a big helping of the soup, and gently slurp it into your eager, trembling mouth.* Within seconds, the flavor fills your senses, awakens your taste buds, literally wakes you up.

It tastes…. like dog shit.

My question to you is this.

Do you have to finish the whole damned bowl to say that the soup tastes like crap?* Are you totally unqualified to pass judgment on that liquid bile until you’ve digested every last drop from the bowl?* If you feel that way, then you eat it. ‘Cause if I get a bowl of shit soup, I’m telling anyone who will listen to stay away from it.

The same goes for good soup, but I really don’t feel like painting another olfactory image for you right now.

Now, let’s blindly and recklessly apply what we just learned from our soup to video game reviews.



To be clear, Sarcastic Gamer doesn’t technically review video games.* Our people play and usually finish the games, and then relate their experience with said game to the handful of fine peeps that visit this site on a daily, or annual basis.* We don’t submit those scores to Metacritic, mostly because our new score system consists of only 2 stars meaning the mathmatical translation of those review scores would be either a 50 or a 100.* Additionally, there’s a lot of empty responsibility in being a part of the Metacritic quotient that we are virtually incapable of shouldering without turning into egotistical snobs.* Plus Metacritic would probably laugh us off the Internet…* Kinda like the way we all laugh when their bulletproof system gets tanked by angry fanboys.

With that out of the way, what the hell is a review anyway?* It’s you trusting some other guy who you have probably never met, and is probably somewhat of a prick when not in the public eye, to tell you which games to buy, rent, or avoid… right?

So, if that’s what a review is, (and that IS WHAT A REVIEW IS), then why in the wide world of sports do people get so damned worked up about them?

http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/whatthe.jpg

The people who review video games for the BIG BIG BIG BIG sites do it for a living.* It’s their job, and I am willing to bet that on more than one occasion they do the same thing I do at my job from time to time.* They mail it in because they’re just spent.* It happens.* Just like when I mail it in, the guys who review games sometimes get busted.* Sort of what happened to Jim Sterling earlier this week at Dtoid.* At least Jim doesn’t, fit the bill of the more agregious offender, in my opinion…

THE ALMIGHTY AMAZING VIDEO GAME JOURNALIST/SAVIOR OF ALL GAMING

In many other cases these are also people with INSANE video game pedigrees that want you to know how incredibly smart they are.* They evaluate video games in ways you and I would never even think of.* I’ve read a ton of elitist game reviews, where I couldn’t help but feel like the author was trying to tell me what a dumbass I am.* (I have hate mail and a wife for those purposes.)

Those guys are honest, but turn in total overkill reviews and are some of the hardest people in the world to impress.* I don’t necessarily need you to have graduated Magna-Cum-Awesome from the University of Framerate to counsel me on my game decisions.* As a matter of fact, the only thing I really want to know before I plop down 60 bucks for a title is…

Is this game worth it?* Is it fun?* What kind of stuff do I get to do in it.

Call me simple, but I think if you were being honest with yourself, you’d realize that your criteria aren’t all that different than mine.

Now we’re getting somewhere.



http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA (http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?a=dzXDuwFAxoA:6U8Ortv_FJg:yIl2AU oC8zA) http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?d=dnMXMwOfBR0 (http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?a=dzXDuwFAxoA:6U8Ortv_FJg:dnMXMw OfBR0) http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?i=dzXDuwFAxoA:6U8Ortv_FJg:gIN9vF wOqvQ (http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?a=dzXDuwFAxoA:6U8Ortv_FJg:gIN9vF wOqvQ) http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?i=dzXDuwFAxoA:6U8Ortv_FJg:V_sGLi PBpWU (http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?a=dzXDuwFAxoA:6U8Ortv_FJg:V_sGLi PBpWU) http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?d=qj6IDK7rITs (http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?a=dzXDuwFAxoA:6U8Ortv_FJg:qj6IDK 7rITs) http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?i=dzXDuwFAxoA:6U8Ortv_FJg:F7zBnM yn0Lo (http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?a=dzXDuwFAxoA:6U8Ortv_FJg:F7zBnM yn0Lo) http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?i=dzXDuwFAxoA:6U8Ortv_FJg:D7DqB2 pKExk (http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?a=dzXDuwFAxoA:6U8Ortv_FJg:D7DqB2 pKExk) http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?d=7Q72WNTAKBA (http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?a=dzXDuwFAxoA:6U8Ortv_FJg:7Q72WN TAKBA) http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?d=l6gmwiTKsz0 (http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/TheSarcasticGamer?a=dzXDuwFAxoA:6U8Ortv_FJg:l6gmwi TKsz0)
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~r/TheSarcasticGamer/~4/dzXDuwFAxoA

Click here to view the article. (http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheSarcasticGamer/~3/dzXDuwFAxoA/the-problem-with-review-snobs.html)

I agree completely although I am looking forward to halo wars.

That's why I trust Lono when he says something is good. I have similar tastes in video games as him.

Just in case people wanted to know, here's the soup generator Doc used:

http://www.redkid.net/generator/soup/sign.php


Here's my overall opinion on this topic...
http://www.redkid.net/generator/soup/newsign.php?line1=I%27m+so+confused...&Talk+Soup=Talk+Soup

The message at the top should have linked here.

I agree.

I agree to some degree but I think of it more like this. A vidoe game is like a cereal box. Sometimes theres a prize in it sometimes theres not. You can choose to eat the cereal to get to the prize or grab into the box and try and get it. If you eat the cereal you my discover you like it but if you don't you may learn even though it was horrible getting to the prize it was worth it. Unfortanitly if you dig into the box you my be missing all the goodness or the horrible taste just to see if the prize is good or if it sucks. What some reviewers do is they take a little bite of cereal or try to see if theres a good prize in the box but you can never tell if what they tell you about the cereal because they never really tasted it or never really saw what the wheather ther was a good or bad prize in the box. With that yes it is true sometimes you don't finish the soup but look at the prize and the taste before you decide whether its worth it to you.

Gotta say that Doc is crazy and Lono is right. Now the world ends...

It is an interesting quandary...

Professional critics have exercised their right to leave or remove themselves from a product during a review, and to that end made it clear. It is not only a statement to the creator, but to other critics as well. The one that sticks out in my mind is when Joel Siegel walked out of Clerks 2, and still wrote a review about it. He made it quite plain how much he didn't like the movie. (Of course, he did this the wrong way too by exclaiming his disgust as he left and disrupting the movie for the other viewers.) Also, if you didn't like the content you viewed/played/ate don't give a safe review. Say you hated it. Give it a 3 out of 10. (another reason to hate number ratings) Just be ready to stand your ground from both the publisher and fanboys if you truly believe what you have said. Otherwise, be ready to conceed and admit error.

On the other side of the coin, the content provider has an obligation to create and release a product that holds it's audience to the end... or at least holds them long enough that they feel obligated to finish. If they can't, the simple market force of word of mouth and poor reviews will drive down profits and shed members of the industry who provide poor content. This is healthy for the industry as it drives competition and weeds out the tumors... generally speaking. The Fanboy Effect™ can skew this fairly significantly... look at the Final Fantasy series for that example.

I for one appreciate that sort of honesty from the reviewer. Say what you liked, what you hated, and why. For me personally, I don't follow metacritic like services; (Rottentomatoes, etc...) I find a critic whose opinion mostly aligns with mine and trust their judgment if I can't get ahold of a demo or rental copy first.

To this end... both sides in this matter are guilty. Jim was intellectually dishonest by not disclosing the extent to which he reviewed the game (something that Bungie should take into consideration before sending further games to DToid for review) and providing a score that is not as low as his feelings reflect (I know... I know... somehow getting a 7 out of 10 is "bad"...*rolleyes*). Ron could have broached the situation/concern privately with DToid before openning a can of worms. Doc, as a friend to both of these guys, could have also commented privately if he wanted more info or to share his opinion with both of them.

These three events have sent this into a spiral of useless drama for what? Seriously... what will be the final out come of people waving their e-peens around? Will anyone learn anything? Or with the pitchforks and torches rust and crumble as they collect dust until the next bout of e-drama.

I say let the issue rest, move on, and all need to stop clamoring for the moral highground. There are a whole lot of pots calling kettles black.

In the end it seems the big problem is that Jim Sterling didn't initially come out and put a clear disclaimer on his review saying that he hadn't played the game all the way through. When reading a review most people expect that the reviewer has played the game extensively. Thus the reason video game magazines and web sites are careful to differentiate between hands-on previews and reviews. Sorry Doc, but if it's your job you have to either eat the whole bowl of crap soup before you review it or make sure everyone knows you didn't finish it.

I do agree that too many reviewers seem to have forgotten that we play games for fun. I don't need every game to break new ground or add something new to gaming. Sometimes just being fun is enough.

sorry doc if its you damn job you will eat all that damn crap soup... or you will give everyone a clear and good reason why you didnt and when you do that your review wont be taken as seriously

I've changed my mind. I think that if you're going to a game reviewer to find out weather to buy a game or not, that's your choice, and if the game sucks, that's your problem. The reviewers are paid to review games, and if their opinion is incomplete, then they're not doing they're job. I just don't look at game reviews anymore. I wait until I see something I might like, and then I look up gameplay videos on Youtube. I make my decision based on that.

I think pacmanpolarbear has a point: If you played it all the way through its a review. If its just a pre-release version or you just played a few levels its called 1st. impression, preview or something else. If we agree that playing just the first level is enough for a review of a game it wont take long till somebody shows up and reviews games by the box art and tiny pics on the back.

if i reviewed final fantasy 7 based on the first hour, i'd say it sucked... see the problem here?