Eurogamer has dropped review scores

I think this is a step in the right direction for game journalism; what do you guys think?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-02-10-eurogamer-has-dropped-review-scores

Mr E

Fantastic idea. I hope others will follow.

COYVB

Been banging this drum for years. Harder than you would think to implement based on the fact that "most people just want to see a number at the bottom"

mrcheez

Ah crap, I'll have to read the review text now

Mr. TTime

Delighted with it too! Also easier to find out which games for which systems are the ones to go for http://www.eurogamer.net/recommended-games.

The comment threads under articles are getting harder and harder to read though. Maybe it's an age thing but I used enjoy reading the comments and finding out about different games from their community (back in the early to mid 2000's) but now it's all fanboy comments and people rushing to judgement on anything they don't immediately fall in love with.

The Eurogamer chaps do seem to think hard about what they put into their reviews - it's my only official reference when it comes to buying games - friend's recommendations too.

shruikan2553

Completely agree with them. Always preferred the idea of having games rated on grades like they are doing.

aaronjumper

Good that they will wait to review online games until after release.

COYVB

shruikan2553 wrote: »

Completely agree with them. Always preferred the idea of having games rated on grades like they are doing.

They're not really doing that though. And games should be rated with words only, and with the understanding that the review is an opinion and nothing else

Big Knox

Eurogamer have always been my go to review source. This is great and hopefully others will follow suit.

Varik

Don't like this, can't joke about EG giving out only 6s and 8s.

gizmo

Absolutely great to see, hopefully more sites follow suit.

Hopefully they don't go the way of Joystiq now in the next month or so.

Retr0gamer

But how will I know if a game is better than Halo?

Varik

A lot of sites have done this, but they go back on it later.

super_furry

Retr0gamer wrote: »

But how will I know if a game is better than Halo?

Just accept that fact that Legend of Dragoon aside, there is no such game.

:pac:

Pedro Monscooch

That sucks

7/10

BeerWolf

Would they use a Pro/Con system ?

ebbsy

Edge magazine did this once, with all the scores at the back of the mag.

FutureGuy

Wait, Majora's Mask only recommended. Should be essential. This is bullpoop. Etc.

Great news to be honest.

ZiabR

Good move, glad to see them move towards this method of reviewing.

Retr0gamer

Seems a bit of a cop out really. They've still got labels they attach to reviews, essential, recommended, avoid, etc. which is still pretty much a 5 star system and something google will be displaying as well with review searches. While it seems like a step in the right direction there still seems to be a metric to measure a games worth, which is what a review score is essentially.

Fakman87

Maybe it's just me but I don't see professional reviews being relevant in 5 years. I trust the judgement of lads on here far more than I trust a review by IGN or Gamespot.

johnny_ultimate

Fakman87 wrote: »

Maybe it's just me but I don't see professional reviews being relevant in 5 years. I trust the judgement of lads on here far more than I trust a review by IGN or Gamespot.

That's only if you approach reviews as a mere consumer's guide rather than a piece of actual criticism. Professional, knowledgable critics - offering thorough and articulate analysis, breakdowns and responses to games - aren't going away anytime soon, and thank **** they aren't.

Although it should be stressed nobody trusts a review from IGN or Gamespot.

Retr0gamer

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

That's only if you approach reviews as a mere consumer's guide rather than a piece of actual criticism. Professional, knowledgable critics - offering thorough and articulate analysis, breakdowns and responses to games - aren't going away anytime soon, and thank **** they aren't.

I'm not sure a review can be like that for a game when it's rushed to be out for embargo or a release date. We only really get those articles as retrospectives, for instance the collective meh over GTA IV on retrospection. Those kind of rushed reviews can only really be used as a buyers guide and in a environment when the writer has to play 8-50 hours of a game then write something about it while on deadline I don't think any in depth analysis is possible.

Falthyron

8/10

Would read again.

johnny_ultimate

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'm not sure a review can be like that for a game when it's rushed to be out for embargo or a release date. We only really get those articles as retrospectives, for instance the collective meh over GTA IV on retrospection. Those kind of rushed reviews can only really be used as a buyers guide and in a environment when the writer has to play 8-50 hours of a game then write something about it while on deadline I don't think any in depth analysis is possible.

I wouldn't agree with that, film critics have been turning out witty, insightful and on-the-ball responses incredibly quickly and to very tight deadlines for decades. Great games writers can do the same - problem is, of course, there aren't many great game writers out there yet. And sadly most sites and magazines have limited space and resources for retrospectives and etc..., so often the main review is one of the few opportunities to actually get something worthwhile out there. Edge have the right idea with their post-script articles, allowing the writer to reflect on perhaps a more specific aspect of the game alongside the core review.

I do agree there is too much of a focus on getting stuff ready in time for an embargo (while ironically games have become harder to review in such controlled circumstances), but certainly with single player games a gut response by a writer is very often a fascinating one. Some games are too big for a quick turnaround too, but a full response to most can easily be formed in a couple of days (especially if you have the luxury of getting paid to do so).

I've become particularly fond of Kill Screen recently for more in-depth and offbeat responses to new releases, as an aside, although they do occasionally take a little bit longer before publishing.

Stone Deaf 4evr

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I wouldn't agree with that, film critics have been turning out witty, insightful and on-the-ball responses incredibly quickly and to very tight deadlines for decades. Great games writers can do the same - problem is, of course, there aren't many great game writers out there yet. And sadly most sites and magazines have limited space and resources for retrospectives and etc..., so often the main review is one of the few opportunities to actually get something worthwhile out there. Edge have the right idea with their post-script articles, allowing the writer to reflect on perhaps a more specific aspect of the game alongside the core review.

I do agree there is too much of a focus on getting stuff ready in time for an embargo (while ironically games have become harder to review in such controlled circumstances), but certainly with single player games a gut response by a writer is very often a fascinating one. Some games are too big for a quick turnaround too, but a full response to most can easily be formed in a couple of days (especially if you have the luxury of getting paid to do so).

I've become particularly fond of Kill Screen recently for more in-depth and offbeat responses to new releases, as an aside, although they do occasionally take a little bit longer before publishing.

Still though, it must be a lot easier to write a witty review of a 2 hour movie than it is to condense 40 hours of gameplay into 60 lines of text.

Shiminay

Johnny, that's a really silly statement you silly billy You can't review a game in 5 hours but you certainly can review a film in 5 hours when you're on the ball and have years of publishing standards and experience behind you like film journalism. You can give a first impressions kinda like TotalBiscuit's WTF Is series or Jim Sterling's Squirty Plays, but that's not delivered as "review" content nor should it be treated as such. A 40+hour game cannot be reviewed in less than 40+ hours and embargoes used to mean that reviewers who were given 2 weeks hands on time with a game didn't have to half-arse their work when trying to do their jobs.

Removal of scores are something I'm in favour of for several reasons:

• It's a meaningful recommendation from a human who's opinion you learn to trust or ignore based on your own experiences. You can learn about the personality of the reviewer and then seek out the one(s) who's taste most matches your own - they're less likely to steer you wrong.
• It forces the largely moronic "gamer" community to use it's fking brain and not scream abuse at someone who didn't dare give a flawed game a high enough score cause they didn't care about the flaws
• It breaks this Meta-Critic aggregate scoring cluster-fk thing up - it's hard to believe that people's wages are being tied to that.

johnny_ultimate

Shiminay wrote: »

You can't review a game in 5 hours but you certainly can review a film in 5 hours when you're on the ball and have years of publishing standards and experience behind you like film journalism.... A 40+hour game cannot be reviewed in less than 40+ hours and embargoes used to mean that reviewers who were given 2 weeks hands on time with a game didn't have to half-arse their work when trying to do their jobs.
[/LIST]

Well I would generally hope that most reputable, worthwhile publications aren't crapping out reviews without the writer having actually having had the chance to play it properly first, embargos or not! You can generally tell the dodgy ones pushed out just to be first out there compared to the ones that are based on the entirety of a game (or, when it comes to 'incomplete-able' games, enough time to form an educated opinion) - the former typically are awful reviews anyway and not the sort worth any type of defending. I'd imagine most of the games with incredibly strict, tight embargos are just the blockbusters anyway, which usually aren't the most complicated to actually respond to. Not to mention one's responses will be established throughout playing, rather than a definitive 'eureka!' moment as the final credits roll (that's a very rare pleasure in gaming - games like Brothers or the Mother series aside).

Certainly with games that simply cannot be reviewed to an arbitrary embargo I think reviews have certainly gotten better - whether that's the likes of USgamer's approach of a week or two worth of updates that then becomes a final review or indeed just holding off point blank until a proper impression can be formed (as is happening with Evolve at the moment). It's very rare I'd come across a review that legitimately 'isn't ready', outside those occasions when a game's servers self-destruct when the public launch happens.

I'd certainly hope that if a 40+ hour game is being reviewed the writer has spent 40+ hours with that (although then again a depressing amount of 40 hour plus games have revealed pretty much everything they actually have to offer within the first few hours :pac:). The same way I'd hope any good film critic would have spent two hours with a film before filing a review, I'd hope any good games critic will have spent sufficient time with the game before filing - and in most cases I'd imagine that can happen even with the inconvenience of an embargo.

Stone Deaf 4evr

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Well I would generally hope that most reputable, worthwhile publications aren't crapping out reviews without the writer having actually having had the chance to play it properly first, embargos or not! You can generally tell the dodgy ones pushed out just to be first out there compared to the ones that are based on the entirety of a game - the former typically are awful reviews anyway and not the sort worth any type of defending. I'd imagine most of the games with incredibly strict, tight embargos are just the blockbusters anyway, which usually aren't the most complicated to actually respond to.

Certainly with games that simply cannot be reviewed to an arbitrary embargo I think reviews have certainly gotten better - whether that's the likes of USgamer's approach of a week or two worth of updates that then becomes a final review or indeed just holding off point blank until a proper impression can be formed (as is happening with Evolve at the moment).

I'd certainly hope that if a 40+ hour game is being reviewed the writer has spent 40+ hours with that. (although then again a depressing amount of 40 hour plus games have revealed most of their surprises within the first few hours :pac:)

mother of god, can you imagine having to review some of the boring muck thats out there and forcing yourself to sit through 40 hours of it?

johnny_ultimate

Stone Deaf 4evr wrote: »

mother of god, can you imagine having to review some of the boring muck thats out there and forcing yourself to sit through 40 hours of it?

Somebody's response to the first ten hours of an Assassin's Creed game would pretty much tell you almost everything (worthwhile) there is to know about the game :pac: Not much you learn when climbing your 20th tall building that you didn't get first time around

Adyx

Retr0gamer wrote: »

But how will I know if a game is better than Halo?

If it doesn't say Halo in the title somewhere I think you're okay.

Agricola

High time. The 10 point scale is broken anyway. Everything was more or less somewhere between 6 and 10.

nesf

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I wouldn't agree with that, film critics have been turning out witty, insightful and on-the-ball responses incredibly quickly and to very tight deadlines for decades. Great games writers can do the same - problem is, of course, there aren't many great game writers out there yet. And sadly most sites and magazines have limited space and resources for retrospectives and etc..., so often the main review is one of the few opportunities to actually get something worthwhile out there. Edge have the right idea with their post-script articles, allowing the writer to reflect on perhaps a more specific aspect of the game alongside the core review.

I do agree there is too much of a focus on getting stuff ready in time for an embargo (while ironically games have become harder to review in such controlled circumstances), but certainly with single player games a gut response by a writer is very often a fascinating one. Some games are too big for a quick turnaround too, but a full response to most can easily be formed in a couple of days (especially if you have the luxury of getting paid to do so).

I've become particularly fond of Kill Screen recently for more in-depth and offbeat responses to new releases, as an aside, although they do occasionally take a little bit longer before publishing.

It's apples and oranges though with film critics when it comes to many games. Ok, "The Last of Us" and similar storyline driven games can be reviewed properly but something like "Battlefield Hardline" is going to be a whole different story with a lot of educated guesswork going on. You don't have problems in film review like "how do we review a multiplayer game before people have played it in multiplayer?" You also have the problem of needing to learn how to play a game and an evolving "meta" even in single player games. Films also don't get patches and don't have the whole "well Paradox always did good patching before so should I soften my criticism because I think they'll fix this problem?"

Proper critique for many games can only be a retrospective thing, sometimes long after launch, e.g. a critique of Titanfall now would look rather different to the ones that came out before or shortly after launch in most cases, ditto Civilization: After Earth and such kinds of more formal critique, while highly interesting, are useless as a buying guide which is the main use people have for reviews. With multiplayer focused games reviewers are often forced into making predictions about a rather fickle mob when calling whether or not a game will still have legs in a few months (see current back and forth about Evolve and whether it can sustain a playerbase).


I think you're right that professional critique will always have a place and a useful one, I just think you're being unrealistic if you think reviewers can put out reviews close to launch that aren't going to be plagued with many, many problems due to the medium itself.

COYVB

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I wouldn't agree with that, film critics have been turning out witty, insightful and on-the-ball responses incredibly quickly and to very tight deadlines for decades.

Different ball game. You can watch a movie and have a review written in 3 hours (I've done my fair share of movie festivals to know that it can be, and typically is, done a lot faster than that, too), that'll not get you anywhere close to enough game time to be able to give even a decent first impression

johnny_ultimate

Again, there absolute is different timescales involved (although I can't really imagine any game reviewers are expected to turn around a review in a day), not arguing that at all. But given sufficient time to play the game, any reasonable reviewer should - relatively quickly - be able to come up with more interesting conclusions than 'you should or should not buy this', barring those exceptional circumstances like online only titles that need more time to 'settle'.

Optimalprimerib

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Somebody's response to the first ten hours of an Assassin's Creed game would pretty much tell you almost everything (worthwhile) there is to know about the game :pac: Not much you learn when climbing your 20th tall building that you didn't get first time around

In assassin's creed? Just after the tutorial?

crybaby

good on them, I have been guilty on more than one occasion of scrolling to the bottom to see the score.

2smiggy

delighted with it , probably too many good games get skipped (and films too) because of out of 10 scale. I'm fairly guilty of it too with avoiding film because of IMDB.

Mr.Buzz

Finally! Now we'll actually have to read the whole thing rather than just scrolling to see score! I wish everyone would do this.

ebbsy

We need the return of the Predicted Interest Curve ( for the oldies out there )...............

CiDeRmAn

I remember reading the likes of GamePro and EGM back in the day and seeing folk measure one game being better than another, in a completely different genre, on the basis of one percentage point.
Deary deary me.

COYVB

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I can't really imagine any game reviewers are expected to turn around a review in a day

It happens more than you would think

Doctor DooM

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I remember reading the likes of GamePro and EGM back in the day and seeing folk measure one game being better than another, in a completely different genre, on the basis of one percentage point.
Deary deary me.

Even as a small child I could notice how GamePro and EGM rated way, way higher than the English mags.

Even in those days, review scores were a problem...

Retr0gamer

Fighting games seem to be a big problem when it comes to reviewing, Very hard to know if a fighting game will be good or not until the fighting game community really get a go at it. For example you'd swear SF4 was better than King of Fighters XIII going by reviews :P

Smash Bros Brawl got great reviews and from a casual prospective it's great but it makes a dreadful game for the fighting game community. At least with the no review score method you can at least get an overview of what the game is like from a particular part of the community and know which side it's coming from rather than a definitive metric at the end.

nesf

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Fighting games seem to be a big problem when it comes to reviewing, Very hard to know if a fighting game will be good or not until the fighting game community really get a go at it. For example you'd swear SF4 was better than King of Fighters XIII going by reviews :P

Smash Bros Brawl got great reviews and from a casual prospective it's great but it makes a dreadful game for the fighting game community. At least with the no review score method you can at least get an overview of what the game is like from a particular part of the community and know which side it's coming from rather than a definitive metric at the end.

Strategy games can be similar for different reasons, it can take a few weeks or a month of players having their hands on it for a title's shortcomings to show up. A reviewer can only see so much in the bigger games like Civilisation of Europa Universalis, it'd be unreasonable to expect them to have a comprehensive review even with 100 hours of gametime before launch. They can though offer a perspective on what they liked and disliked compared to similar games which is useful but doesn't translate into a numeric score very well.

CiDeRmAn

6/10, I mean who wouldn't be happy with that?

nesf

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

6/10, I mean who wouldn't be happy with that?

Developers getting a bonus if they average 7/10 or higher.

Doctor DooM

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Fighting games seem to be a big problem when it comes to reviewing, Very hard to know if a fighting game will be good or not until the fighting game community really get a go at it. For example you'd swear SF4 was better than King of Fighters XIII going by reviews :P

Smash Bros Brawl got great reviews and from a casual prospective it's great but it makes a dreadful game for the fighting game community. At least with the no review score method you can at least get an overview of what the game is like from a particular part of the community and know which side it's coming from rather than a definitive metric at the end.

I actually had an epiphany when I got into fighting games.

Reviews are irrelevant to knowing how good a game is. I'm a far bigger expert in fighting games than a reviewer could ever really be. Every subsequent review I read became more and more drivel as I learned more. My friends and I got into a joking habit of reviewing fighting game reviews! I usually deducted marks on reviews that focused on irrelevant stuff, which was basically all of them to a degree. Sometimes, the weakest character in the game would be mentioned as over powered.

I realised then- the same is true probably for all games. Any game you really dig into, they just can't do it. Not their fault. they can't put that much time into one game, or one genre.

Now a good reviewer can still write something interesting, but for opinions on how actually good a game is, the community that plays it is where that decision is made.

So the more you like a genre the less you should give a **** about reviews of games within it.

Benzino

Kyle Bosman discussed this in this week's Final Bosman, a good watch as always.

The Final Bosman