Pick a website... any website. Now show your website to the crowd and put it back into the topic. Careful, don’t let me see it. *taps the topic then flips it* Now tell me, is this your website?

Because no matter what website you pick, *somebody* has got an excuse as to why it’s bias. Or why it sucks. Or why you’re the worst gamer in the world if you believe even the slightest of dribble to come off their digitized templates.

And oh, it doesn’t stop there; magazines can catch the heat too. Be it videogame mags, sports mags, men mags, it doesn’t matter. As long as you like, somebody hates it.

But don’t be confused; fanboyism isn’t the point of the topic. It merely sets the stage. Because what’s the first thing people say about mags/sites they hate? The reviews.

And why? Most often because of one or two reviewers who either consciously, or subconsciously (or my favorite term – Fanboy Induced Paranoia), seems to favor/hate a particular series or console.

And these small groups of reviews begin to stereotype the website/mag as a whole. So much so that it becomes perfectly reasonable to devalue any sort of credibility they had before.

But then it got me to thinking (yeah, I’m really making ya wait till I get to the point :p), exactly why do reviews suck so damn much now?

With so much hatred against professional reviews, can it *all* be in the minds of gamers, casual and hardcore alike? I’m beginning to doubt that.

I’m sure we’ve all seen this, where you’ve read a review, and the person is sooo off on a game that you just want to rip the review apart. It doesn’t matter what mag/website I read, I’m gonna find a couple of reviews that I wanna sink my teeth in to. And most people either will or have as well.

So I wonder, are reviewers just too damn jaded?

Underrated games… are they really underrated? Do reviewers downplay a game because it’s *not* the next big thing? Because it doesn’t revolutionize the world? Because it’s not a franchise? Why?

Be damned if I know. :) But it does seem like reviewers have extremely high standards for videogames. Some unreachable level that *most* games won’t reach. But where did this wall come from? Who started it? Well, I have an idea, and it makes me wonder…

Are reviewers just too damn bias?

I’m quite sure we’ve all come across this. Where a review (or a group of reviews) seem to rate a game just a little bit too high. Like when IGN did their review for Raw on the X-Box. That 9 seemed just a little bit too high, didn’t it?

Be it because said reviewer has a personal bias for the franchise, or because they just want their advertising dollars (which appears to be the case for Raw), games *do* get high marks in areas they shouldn’t be getting marks in.

And when a reviewer does that constantly, I can see how a reader can look upon that mag/website as “bias” and be turned away from it. But it can’t be just because reviewers are jaded. And it can’t be just because reviewers are bias. And so I wonder…

Are reviewers just not getting it anymore?

Take Blinx for example. The game has its flaws, so it’s fair game to call them out. But I can’t even begin count the number of times the game was begged as a “platform” game in the style of Mario or Sly Cooper.

The fact is, the game has very little to do with platforming. In fact, it’s more of a puzzle game than anything else. Where you’re more worried about what combination of crystals to use to pass an area than you are about collecting hearts and rubies. And the small elements of platforming it does all definitely does *not* qualify it as a Mario Sunshine. Yet it was graded as so.

And Blinx is just *my* example. I’m quite sure you have your own.

But pick an excuse, and pick a card, it doesn’t really matter, the overall state of reviews in the country are in a horrible state. If reviewers aren’t jaded, they’re bias. And if they’re not bias, they’re just missing the concept.

And it’s not as if you couldn’t throw in some more variables as well.

Either way, the credibility of professional reviews seems to be destroyed. *Everyone* has a reason as to why a website/mag sucks. And they’re all going to tell you the same thing “Don’t listen to reviews. Play what you like.”

Hella good advice, yes, but gamers are still going to base their opinion on their favorite mag or website. Perhaps some people enjoy being single-minded. I don’t know.

Personally, I never follow professional reviews. (technically, I gave up on reading videogame webpages a long time ago)

Now I come straight to the forums. I listen to what the gamers have to say. I listen to people whom, more often than not, don’t have a hidden agenda. It just seems to make so much sense.

But what is it about reviews that *you* think reviewers are missing?

You have to have a reason why you think some mags/websites are bias and why others aren’t, right?

The One, The only One
- The Lotus One

Actually lotusson, I don' t think anything has changed. Professional reviewers now were just fan reviewers during the early days of video games...there was no such thing as a " professional reviewer." Back then, everyone' s " review" was routinely ripped apart, just because it was one person' s opinion and they had no credibility besides the fact that they liked games. Now that there is such a thing as a " professional reviewer," people expect them to have journalistic integrity and be completely unbiased. Well, you know what? Not all of them are like this, and it' s all because most every reviewer is a gamer, and every gamer has their own palette of taste.

The reason I condemn entire companies because of one or two poor reviewers is because I believe it' s up to the company to get rid of that person, as it' s earning them a bad reputation. It is painfully obvious by now that there is one person in particular (who will go un-named) at GameSpot that has a personal vendetta against the XBox. You' ll notice the same name on many of the questionable reviews, and he' s getting raked over the coals in the forums. Problem is, GS isn' t doing anything about it.

On the flip side, same goes for that craptastic pile of fanboy garbage, OXM. The differences between PSM and OXM are immense, if you' d only look. OXM actually goes out of their way to show off the power of the XBox and CONSTANTLY brings it into direct competition with the PS2 side by side. This isn' t OXM Vs. The World, it' s OXM. Shut up about other systems and focus on your own problems. PSM has enough integrity to not stoop to such a level, and simply focus on the system at hand. OXM spends pages upon pages in feature-length articles, written for the sole purpose of telling us just how great the XBox' s hardware is. Basically, they' re hiding behind the fact that they' re FAR behind the PS2, and acting like a bunch of pre-teen fanboys (which many of them are).

I have seen numerous cases of out-and-out system bashing in OXM, and that' s just unacceptable for a supposed professional magazine with professional reviewers and writers. This is just as unacceptable as that one reviewer at GS who can' t seem to give ANY XBox game over a 6. Ever. These are the kind of people that are ruining the effectiveness of most reviews.

I write reviews just so people can read them and get an idea as to the game' s inherent quality, and whether or not they may enjoy it. That' s about it. That' s the way I' ve done it for the past five years. I don' t care if I played the game on a microwave, if it' s good, it' s good. An organization without its share of bias in game reviewing just doesn' t exist, as far as I know...well, except all of us here at Kikizo. ;)