Where do you get your game reviews and news?

Slugs

Thought this might be an interesting discussion.

As Joker once said:-

"hubba hubba hubba, money money money, WHO DO YOU TRUST WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR GAMES?!"

IGN? Machinima? OXM?

Myself, I just good ol' Yahtzee. Always good for both the chuckles and a decent review.

And yourselves?

Not The Real Scarecrow

Normally go to gamespot, find them fairly reliable. Sometimes they can be overly harsh with the mark I find.

dunworth1

normally from friends

sometimes from boards

odd time google helps me out

Shammy

Meatwad wrote: »

Normally go to gamespot, find them fairly reliable. Sometimes they can be overly harsh with the mark I find.

+1 on gamespot , they are usually spot on , as for ign they are imo the worst reviewers.

markfla

I always check www.metacritic.com it averages reviews from all the major sites and gives a good genuine indication if a game in genuinely good or not, sometimes you see certain sites hyping up rubbish games (getting their pockets lined from publishers no doubt).

Moiph

Gamespot is good. Eurogamer seem to give harsh reviews just for the sake of being different to the other sites imo.

Metacritic is it for me though, I find it best to get an overall average rating of a game.

v3ttel

Game trailers, I love their video reviews.

Slugs

LIGHTNING wrote:

I have recently switch to kotaku for gaming news, I went off gamespot after the Kane&Lynch Fiasco. Eurogamer have good articles and are ok for reviews.

Could you explain?

Captain Chaos

Slugs wrote: »

Could you explain?

I can't remember the exact facts, but something alone the lines of bribary and as a result a reviewer was fired and others left over the action. The gamespot site has never been the same since that happened.

I've been very wary of them every since they gave Perfect Dark Zero a 9/10. One of the worst fps games I have ever played. Thankfully I had PGR3 at the time to keep me sane on the 360.

DirkVoodoo

Gamespot, Eurogamer...if I am a bit suspect about a game I check out the metascore. If it sounds too good to be true then I might hold off buying it and lurk around here for a bit waiting to see what people make of it.

TheMooseInNam

JOYSTIQ XBOX is the only reliable site I've found. They aren't paid off or bribed by Devs. Have an excellent weekly podcast too. They don't rate games 1-10 but actually write unbiased articles about their impressions of the game and allow the reader to make their judgement from that. I always found the idea of grading 1-10 ridiculous anyway. The link's below

http://xbox.joystiq.com/

Darksaga87

I usually read the player reviews on "gamespot" And ill watch the video reviews just to take a look at the gameplay, other than that, gamespot arent as good as the used to be before their 2 beest reviews were sacked/walked out over the Kane and lynch review, which i think was a great review of a very average given an average score. But sure what can we do, look back at the older reviews when they were there. Brillance.

Ign are gack for reviews.

brian plank

i just look at gameplay videos on youtube because if a game looks sh*t it generally is. "review" sites are too predictable and spineless to trust.

cian1500ww

Gametrailers.com are what I use for reviews. Always prefer a video review over an article and these guys make great video reviews IMO.

shawpower

Yeah, metacritic for me. Nice to have an average score of all the ratings out there. If you look through the top ten, it's pretty accurate for each consol.

Fingleberries

I'd usually go to the following sites.
- Kotaku.com
- Metacritic.com
- Joystiq.com XBox section


Kotaku is all-round and doesn't really provide x/10 scores, but will have decent news and the like. Joystiq is very similar.

Metacritic is good to get a taste of what a selection of review sites give a game. You can then base them off what your favourite magazine says about it and you'll generally find the level there.

DirkVoodoo

I'm convinced IGN use a random number generator when giving their scores:



This is for a game that was basically broken out of the box. Apparently there were some unofficial community made patches that fixed a lot of issued, I never hung around long enough to find out.

Helix

from me

which is a nice position to be in

thewheel2.0

Giantbomb.com Is one of my favourite places they do a quick look which is like a 25 minute video review buy gives you a good idea of how they feel about the game. Its also run by veterans who used to work at gamespot.

They also have a great podcast.

TheGreatOne

TheMooseInNam wrote: »

JOYSTIQ XBOX is the only reliable site I've found. They aren't paid off or bribed by Devs. Have an excellent weekly podcast too. They don't rate games 1-10 but actually write unbiased articles about their impressions of the game and allow the reader to make their judgement from that. I always found the idea of grading 1-10 ridiculous anyway. The link's below

http://xbox.joystiq.com/

+1, no point in me writing the exact same response. Gamesradar is a fun site too, not your typical gamespot/ign bull.

NotorietyH

Joystiq and Giantbomb for me. Every other website pales in comparison in my opinion.

I do watch some stuff on Gametrailers from time to time.

Jeff Gerstmann was the reviewer who was fired from Gamespot allegedly after pressure from Eidos after he gave Kane & Lynch a 7/10. He set up Giant Bomb with Ryan Davis and added Vinny Carvella and Brad Shoemaker, all three of which left Gamespot after Jeff was fired. Giant Bomb is a great site.

DeVore

No one has mentioned www.penny-arcade.com ?

i will buy just about any game Tycho loves without reading the description almost. I simply seem to be in step with the guys ideas about what makes a good game.

DeV.

Fuzzballs

I like Eurogamer. I dont feel they have harsh reviews.
My favourite is nowgamer.com. This is the sister site for GamesTM magazine.
Which in my opinion is the best games magazine out there along with Edge.

Fol20

Captain Chaos wrote: »

I can't remember the exact facts, but something alone the lines of bribary and as a result a reviewer was fired and others left over the action. The gamespot site has never been the same since that happened.

I've been very wary of them every since they gave Perfect Dark Zero a 9/10. One of the worst fps games I have ever played. Thankfully I had PGR3 at the time to keep me sane on the 360.

Kane and lynch were advertising on gamespot.
The fella that reviewed k&l gave it an awful review.
the publisher of that game threatened to stop advertising or something along that line if the review wasnt taken down.
Gamespot took down the review,and a few days later the person that reviewed the game was let go.

RAIN

I change around a lot. I use a load of places for news N4G and Twitter(great for news if you write for a site - because its instant), Gametrailers and Eurogamer are the most reliable for review scores I find. Edge and IGN's reviews are all over the place.

I listen to the IGN and 1Up podcasts every week too, pretty good although 1ups are gone a bit flat since David Elise left.

That_Guy

I only really use Gamespot for upcoming games. Don't really go by reviews. I'll read a review after I've finished a game.

Everyone's got different tastes in everything so what could be amazing for me may not be for others.

If I read a review before playing a game, especially if the review is slating the game, then automatically I'll get into the mindset the reviewer had when playing the game which isn't cool as I'm basically ripping off their views.

Oafley Jones

Fol20 wrote: »

Kane and lynch were advertising on gamespot.
The fella that reviewed k&l gave it an awful review.
the publisher of that game threatened to stop advertising or something along that line if the review wasnt taken down.
Gamespot took down the review,and a few days later the person that reviewed the game was let go.

He was quickly followed by the other decent reviewers that Gamespot had. From wiki....

Jeff Gerstmann, Editorial Director of the site, was fired on November 28, 2007.[51] Immediately after his termination, rumors circulated proclaiming his dismissal was a result of external pressure from Eidos Interactive, the publisher of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, which had purchased a considerable amount of advertising space on GameSpot's web site. Gerstmann had previously given Kane & Lynch a fair or undesirable rating along with critique.[51] Both GameSpot and parent company CNET stated that his dismissal was unrelated to the review, but due to corporate and legal constraints cannot reveal the reason.[51][52] A month after Gerstmann's termination, freelance reviewer Frank Provo left GameSpot after eight years stating that "I believe CNET management let Jeff go for all the wrong reasons. I believe CNET intends to soften the site's tone and push for higher scores to make advertisers happy."[53]

GameSpot staffers Alex Navarro, Jason Ocampo, Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker, and Vinny Caravella also left as a result of Gerstmann's termination.[54][55] Davis co-founded Gerstmann's subsequent project, Giant Bomb, and was later joined by Shoemaker and Caravella. Navarro became the community manager at Harmonix and Ocampo joined the IGN PC Team as Editor-in-Chief, though neither still hold those positions, and in 2010 Navarro joined up with Whiskey Media, a family of sites that includes Gertsmann's Giant Bomb site, to be part of their new site Screend.com, focusing on cinema.

Haven't been back to that site since.

Don't really trust any gaming sites for reviews, prefer to check out feedback from boards and the likes of grcade.com forum.

Retr0gamer

I'd never trust Yahtzee. He's gone to town on some excellent games so don't let him put you off. He's given bad reviews to Valkyria Chronicles and Super Mario Galaxy tow of the best games in a long time.

I always check 1up although they can be late with reviews.

Riesen_Meal

Kotaku in Online form...

Edge magazine in paper form....

DeVore

Yahtzee is a funny one... he reviews games but if he says anything even vaguely positive about the game then you can take it as being ok. To be honest, a lot of games are just as bad as he says but we have lost the ability to say "this is a turd" because all we get are turds. He's the one pointing out the turdhood.

I dont take his articles too seriously because he's obviously ripping on the games for humour but I do get a sense of what to expect from him...

DeV.

Gamer Bhoy 89

Eurogamer

NotorietyH

DeVore wrote: »

Yahtzee is a funny one... he reviews games but if he says anything even vaguely positive about the game then you can take it as being ok. To be honest, a lot of games are just as bad as he says but we have lost the ability to say "this is a turd" because all we get are turds. He's the one pointing out the turdhood.

I dont take his articles too seriously because he's obviously ripping on the games for humour but I do get a sense of what to expect from him...

DeV.

I've totally gone off Yahtzee, I don't know why. Loved him when he first started and just lately, or the last few months I've barely chuckled at any of his reviews. Maybe I've grown tired of his schtick. I think he's slightly fallen in love with himself and his wordplay feels a bit forced to me these days. Still worth a watch though.

Slugs

I do agree with the comment that he's fallen in love with himself, but that doesn't take away from the quality of his videos afaIcs. I think he still manages to give a fair review of titles, and he's still The Escapist's biggest draw to the site.

_Godot_

I read Edge and GamesTM. And I rarely buy games the day of release anyway, a day of release purchase is reserved for something I've been really looking forward to (like when Dragon Quest 9 comes out) or something made by Atlus, which can get to be hard to find after a while.

jmx009

I use gamespot all the time. I find them very " non liberal " ( for the lack of a better word) when it comes to reviews. I also rely on ign for game news.
Personally, i think gamespot is best for game reviews (nowadays they are late on delivering reviews though) and IGN for game news.

That being said, IGN is usually the first website to post reviews.

I also like gametrailers for their lengthy HD video reviews.

Drexel

I usually use gamespot but i didnt know about the guy gettin fired so i might be lookin else where. Eurogamer had a review of Rise of the Godslayer taken down because it turned out the reviewer had never played Age of Conan before and only played the game for an hour or so!

James Howlett

Games TM

Online I occassionally check out Gamesradar & The Escapist.

Grumpypants

Metacritic and i browse over most of the other big ones could read 5 or 6 reviews for a game im interested in.

But the most reliable one is myself on Bone-idle i know what i like so i rarely give myself bad advice

mayordenis

Yahtzee is well quite useless really, uninteresting I'm happy for reviewers a spade a spade but he just spams people with his rhetoric.
His absolutely woeful "Game Damage" topping off my low opinion of his work.

To be honest the whole Game Journalist fanboy sub culture is quite strange - I remember so many people like going mental over "Gerstmangate" and like pledging allegiance to Giant Bomb - I just don't get it.

Undead

Kotaku 1st and foremost, have their RSS feed straight to my phone, find them informative, funny and fairly on the ball with breaking news.

Butch Cassidy

Captain Chaos wrote: »

I can't remember the exact facts, but something alone the lines of bribary and as a result a reviewer was fired and others left over the action. The gamespot site has never been the same since that happened.

I've been very wary of them every since they gave Perfect Dark Zero a 9/10. One of the worst fps games I have ever played. Thankfully I had PGR3 at the time to keep me sane on the 360.

Perfect Dark Zero was one of those big release games that got big positive reviews in a lot of places at first even by the gamers and then shortly after the hype died down everyone went "ah, that's sh*t". Bit like MGS 2 and loads of other games.



I still go to Gamespot for their archived reviews and videos. It's a nice easy site to navigate with a lot of reviews dating back to 1996. Though I wouldn't have a perference for a particular reviewer and I'm not a fanboyz, them GS reviewers that left after the Eidos "scandal" were very good.

It is hard though on who to believe especially with the bigger sites. I have a browse on wikipedia sometimes to have a look at the "reception" portion of an article. There's usually a table of review scores from different sites and a little blurb backed up by quotes and links. It's grand for quick access kinda stuff.


I like Gametrailer's video reviews

VinLieger

Im a gamespot refugee that fled to giantbomb when their writing took a nose dive after the mass exit. Regular visits to kotaku during the day for news and use gametrailers for all video needs but giantbomb is first stop for reviews previews quick looks etc and the guys have some cool **** there such as the quests and the endurance runs.

ironictoaster

Kotaku. They don't give long winded articles or scores out of 10. They just tell what they loved and hated about the game, kinda the stuff you want know.