VGCulture - Jumping the gun in game reviews

Source: Youtube Channel machinima

Dragon's Dogma released today and reviews of it were already up prior to its release.  Back a while ago, the game industry and its community fear for the ravenous players who want the attention from others to say their piece on a game.  The problem with a lot of reviews by players (even now) is that a lot of them has very little to do with the actual game and is usually based off of first-impressions, biased outlooks on a company, fanboy/girl-ism, a need to rate everything down, or simply for attention (yes, it happens).  Player reviews are often seen as bias and so many other players turn to the critics for a real review.  Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore (and it's been so for a while now).  Critics, much like players, jump the gun on posting a review online as soon as possible (sometimes even before a game is out).  Critics sometimes get games ahead of everyone else so that they have more time to go through the game and review them.  The problem is that a lot of critics either play a small portion of the beginning or is given a game that doesn't favor that reviewer's preference in genre and immediately makes a hasty report of how they felt about the game before they are able to truly grasp the core concepts of it.  Critics try to be the first one to post for the maximum exposure or give a totally opposite score from the other critics so that they stand out.  This has lowered the credibility of a lot of critics, even some of the most experienced ones, from being trusted.

Dragon's Dogma has been barely out for 24 hours and it has already gotten really good reviews or really bad ones.  Sometimes expectation can ruin a game for a player who's reviewing.  If the expectations are really high, sometimes they'll give it a good score before they even decide anything or go the opposite way and realize the game isn't what they wanted and give it a bad score for not satisfying those expectations.  If expectations are really low, reviewers might just give it a bad score before they really start (which a lot of player reviews are like) or they might give it an obscenely high score thinking it's so much better than what they expect, even if the game truly lacks polish.  Other times, a critic might have had turmoil between certain publishers and already have biased views towards any game they release.

I was glad to see that reviews for Diablo 3 were mostly withheld until about 4-5 days later where critics got a chance to truly experience the game for what it is before laying down their reports of their playthrough.  On the other hand, a huge number of player reviews are panning it really hard for: the first few hours of launch when the game had connection problems, the new systems, the graphics, etc.  Players will complain about anything on a videogame: because it's so popular it's taking attention away from the game they want to play, because it has a way to prevent pirating the game (yes, having constant internet connection just to play Diablo 3 sucks, but it shouldn't be the basis for a game's score), because they're judging from the first few minutes of playing (I bet most people giving review on Diablo 3 being too easy or short only played the beta), graphics isn't up to expectation, or if they just don't like a company.

More and more, I have come to ignore both critic and player reviews as a true worth of a game and try my best to see the game for what it is myself (have gotten several games that's around an average score of 4-6 out of 10 and have given it a 7-9 in the past).  And then there's the most legitimate of all reasons for a score on a game: sometimes it's really difficult to determine whether a game was good or not.  I play all genres of games, I try to be as unbiased as possible, and I have a decent background in all sorts of history of consoles, games, genres and such; however, there are times where I fail to find the enjoyment of a game where others might find obsessively entertaining and vice-versa.  That being the case, it's still not a reason for any reviews to be based off the first 1-2 hours of gameplay.  There are too many reviews where critics (both editorial and player based) just jump the gun and give it a score based on gut reaction to the first part of the game.

So it seems like a lot of the bad reviews for Dragon's Dogma are on the X-box 360 which is fine since I'll eventually be getting the PS3 version!  And then I'll see for myself what the game is actually like.

GameLight - Dragon's Dogma

Official Site: http://www.dragonsdogma.com/
Source: Youtube Channel MachinimaTrailer

Ever since Dragon's Dogma's announcement at last year's E3, I have kept an eye out on the game.  It's unfortunate that the game is releasing a week after Diablo 3's launch.  It just means I won't be getting Dragon's Dogma on launch day, but I eventually will.  There's a lot that Dragon's Dogma has to offer that still has me highly interested.  Dragon's Dogma is a open-world, Action-RPG set in a fantasy medieval themed world developed by the best of Capcom's studio.  It aims to deliver a single-player experience like no other with the influence of players from all over the world with its pawn system.  Aside from customizing and choosing the different classes of one's own playable character, allies can be created and customized to fight alongside the player throughout their journey and can be uploaded to the servers for other players to hire and vice-versa.  What has me captivated by this game is how slick and action-orientated the combat works.  Rather than just slashing and shooting an enemy, a player can use all sorts of fantastics abilities to attack a whole horde of enemies, set off explosions, imbue their weapons with fire, climb atop an enemy, and perform all sorts of acrobatic feats to defeat their enemies.  Capcom's experience with Action games such as Devil May Cry, Monster Hunter, and Lost Planet has allowed them to integrate experiences and mechanics they've done so well in the past all into an RPG environment for one crazy adventure that no gamer has been able to experience yet.  As much as I despise some of the shenanigans Capcom has pulled with their fighting games (Street Fighter IV->Super Street Fighter IV->Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, Marvel vs. Capcom 3->Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Street Fighter x Tekken->'10 Unreleased characters') that has sucked enough money to buy a new console, I do commend them for constantly pushing the medium and bringing us gamers high quality games that we can enjoy for long durations.  I'm going to have to finish some more games before I decide to pick this game up, but it's high up there on my "want" list.  Dragon's Dogma releases on May 22, 2012 on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.