Game Reviews: It's Opinion, Not Fact!!

by Gabriel Ang

I was beginning to notice how many recent reviews contributed by gamers to game sites, as well as ones made by the site's staff, have been really critical about how they review their games. This even includes some letters fans give to columnists. While It's good that reviews become more critical of the games, what I'm trying to point out is how some of these try to convince the readers that the game sucks and they would be idiots to buy them. Some reviewers also mentioned how they couldn't understand why others would buy these games despite the flaws they point out, and how they also couldn't understand how gamers could like a game for certain qualitiesthe reviews said to be unimportant. These reviewers are so incredibly narrowminded. Their reviews suggest their personal belief that their viewpoint is correct and infallable, and in some cases think others are idiots for likaing a game they bashed.

They forget the most important aspect of game reviewing: It's you personal opinion, not established fact!!

As an example, I'd like to use some paraphrased content I got from one of the letters sent to RPGamer's resident columnist, Andrew "Bunnies are HOT!" Duff (and for respect, the person will remain anonymous). The person basically bashed many recent games created by the then named Squaresoft mainly for one 2 reasons: He thinks their gameplay sucks and he believes people only like them for their graphics. He considers those games to be a purely graphical game with "pathetic" gameplay. He would then, in some ways, accuse fans of these games (Final Fantasy 7 specifically) to only like the game becuase it had good graphics. His letter suggests that he likes games for their perceived quality, and yet at the end of the letter he mentions how he would continue to play games like Devil May Cry even though some games in the series weren't good in his opinion. I found this to be an ironic statement to his perception on game quality.

I don't mean to insult anyone bashing games, but some are starting to forget that their reviews are based on their own personal opinion and may or may not be true to other people. I'm just trying to explain to these people that while their opinions about games do matter and may affect the person's perception towards that game, they must understand that games are viewed differently by different people. Their opinions about games aren't absolute truth. Truth varies from person to person, so they can't go telling people not to play games because they said they aren't any good. If they didn't like the game, then they didn't, but that doesn't mean others can enjoy the game.