Do game reviewers need to play 100% of the game?

[StaceyPowers]

1 minute ago, Kane99 said:

I agree. But I still think a reviewer should check out every aspect of the game at least once. They don't have to completely run through every aspect of the game, just see every aspect and report back. I just think those things should be tested out before giving the final review. But that's just me. 

It would give them more context to frame informed opinions, I reckon.

I do think some games are so big though that if one tries to cover everything, it is a mile wide and an inch deep. I guess best for me in those cases would be someone who has played most of the game or all of it, but is focusing the review on one component or another in depth.

[The Blackangel]

19 hours ago, Kane99 said:

I agree. But I still think a reviewer should check out every aspect of the game at least once. They don't have to completely run through every aspect of the game, just see every aspect and report back. I just think those things should be tested out before giving the final review. But that's just me. 

Absolutely. They don't need to do every single challenge, collect every single item, do every single side mission, as long as they do some of them so they have an idea of the options you can do if you want to deviate from the main story for a while. For example, in RDR2, I don't need a reviewer to catch every single breed of wild horse. I don't need them to own every single gun. I don't need them to finish every challenge offered to me in the story board. I just need them to acknowledge that they exist with at least a brief description of what it is before they move on. That's not asking too much is it?

[Withywarlock]

(Apologies in advance for what is a shieldwall of text. This is a topic I'm very passionate about. Skip to the bit in bold for a briefer version)

I think a lot of discussion about reviews falls into the trap of the "Just-World Fallacy", where in a just world reviewers:

• Are given enough time to play a game to fully and confidently write their thoughts to a word count
• Are using a universal scoring system that can be unanimously be agreed upon as being "just right" (for instance, I hate out-of-10/100 scores including decimal points)
• Are having their reviews scored by an editor with consistent standards and transparent reviews criteria
• Are all going to make the same amount of money from a "First Impression" or "Review-in-Progress" versus a "Review" of varying degrees of completion

In the case of Cyberpunk 2077, reviewers had to work with the following:

• Two days before reviews could begin to be released.
• PC-only copies given to outlets with high end hardware
• A version of the game with a vague description of what its "Day Zero" patch entails, and no comments on what else will come in the "Day One" patch.
• Only being allowed to use pre-existing marketing materials lest they have future early review copies (and presumably ads) pulled.

So while I don't think Kallie Plagge's review was particularly good because of the vaguery (focussing on what she felt rather than the object of her feelings), I can't put the entire fault at her feet when she's got 2 days to figure it all out. While her review could technically wait until it was more substantial, the rest of the games industry won't. That's where the above fallacy comes in to play. If Gamespot had delayed, their readers (and ad revenue) will find someone else who has reviewed it. It only takes one outlet/reviewer to have their thoughts up online to vacuum up all that monetisation and future readership.

I think of this dilemma as a similar scenario to worldwide nuclear disarmament, though video games obviously aren't as important - everyone agrees that nukes are bad, but no country wants to be the first to disarm theirs because that makes them an easy target for invasion or being blown up themselves, assuming they have anything worth exploiting in the first place (my country's greatest export, for example, is fish 'n' chips and crippling misery, so to any tinpot dictator I say "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough"). Likewise, everyone agrees that reviews should be done with as much knowledge and experience as possible, but no outlet wants to be in second place in releasing reviews. To quote Tallageda Nights, "if you ain't first, you're last."

--THAT BIT IN BOLD YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP TO BELOW--

But let's say for the sake of argument reviewers are given about a week or two to review a game, which judging by CP2077's length and breadth, is enough time to have some solid ideas on what it is and isn't, do they need to complete it? Yes and no.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery is quoted as saying "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." This applies to all kinds of fields of work, but literature especially. A review isn't finished when the game's 100% completed. A review's finished when the reader has no questions left at the end. I didn't need to play The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics to completion to know it wasn't going to get any better, because I've played tactical RPGs long enough to recognise what I like and don't like about their fundamental mechanics. New Game+ wasn't going to make it any more palletable, and even if it did it wasn't worth suffering 15+ hours of dire gameplay to get there, but I still did because I wanted to maintain my integrity and--, OK, it was because I had nothing else better to do.

I'd even go as far as arguing that by completing a game one's thoughts of it may worsen. I hated God of War (2018) by the end of it not because it's mechanically or artistically bad, but I was loathe to pick it up after every session because it desperately needed curating/editing (ironic given the mess my post is turning out to be). To be bluntly honest, I think whatever it achieves is wasted as a video game and knowing what I do about it now, I'd sooner and gleefully see a TV show or movie about it. Bearing in mind that I don't have the stress that Kaillie Plagg does as Gamespot's Reviews Editor, looking at reviews day in, day out without playing much of the game themself to verify. I review a handful of games a month and write the odd editorial, and I'm practically my own boss - barring the spell-checking, code of conduct, scoring and general chat with my editor, I'm free to publish whatever I want whenever I want. I'm free of a lot of the stress and burnout that comes from full-time games journalism, and grateful there's not any freelancers in my area who want to take my corner.

--THE END OF THAT BIT IN BOLD YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP TO ABOVE--

So, in case the above waffled too much about the industry itself rather than practices (again, apologies for the passion. It's exciting to be part of a new forum!), here's the TL;DR: a reviewer should be given time by studios, publishers and editors to fully articulate their thoughts as accurately as they possibly can, whether or not they complete the game. I think reviewers should see all of the game and tinker with it enough to confidently speak on the subject, but there's sadly too much should and not enough shall.

Thank you for reading if you made it this far! xD

Edited December 24, 2020 by Withywarlock
and after all that I *still* had to go back and edit it >.<

[Syntax]

I think it depends.

 

Many just play the main story only, it would be horrible hard to get the full game done (ex; side quests, other unlocks) with the timeframe and they don't normally add too much value to the game and story line already. I do think they need to play enough to know the game and it's concept/story, so maybe around 25-50% would work for me.

[Kane99]

58 minutes ago, Syntax said:

I think it depends.

 

Many just play the main story only, it would be horrible hard to get the full game done (ex; side quests, other unlocks) with the timeframe and they don't normally add too much value to the game and story line already. I do think they need to play enough to know the game and it's concept/story, so maybe around 25-50% would work for me.

I can understand side quests/missions. But I feel as if they should at least touch every aspect of the game. So if there is a certain mechanic in the game, like crafting, building, etc, it should at least be tried once. That's how I feel anyway. 

[m76]

I don't think that the reviewer must play the entire game to be able to judge it. What is the point? If you hate the game for 10 hours, it's unlikely that your review would change if you waste another 5 hours on a game you don't like. Or vica versa, if you are convinced that it's great then your view won't do a complete 180 on it probably.

Do you need to finish every sidequest every activity, and find every collectible too? This is an arbitrary metric that means nothing.  Au contraire, if the reviewer forces themselves to try out parts of the game they are not interested in, all they can come up with is a false image anyway. There is no person who likes every aspect of every game. So why force reviewers to test every aspect of every game?

A review's purpose s to give an overview of the game and an opinion based on the reviewer's experience. How would it benefit the review if you force the reviewer to play the game after they lost interest or made up their minds on the game?

Reviews are a subjective genre, there is no such thing as an objective game review. Of course playing the game should be a requirement, but maxing out every mechanic in it isn't.

As someone who also reviews games, I try to finish the main quest of the games before reviewing them, to be able to give an overview of the story. But in no way do I exhaust everything the game offers. But there were a few exceptions where I hated some games so much that I didn't even bother to finish the story. I'd not have changed my view if I forced myself to play another 10 hours with a game I absolutely detested.

Edited December 26, 2020 by m76

[Patrik]

Yes they should do, me as a person that believes that the storyline is more important than everything else in game, also believes that it could get bad in any time, so the reviewer has to take that on consideration and finish the game to know if the storyline is worth focusing on since the beginning or not

[Heatman]

On 12/17/2020 at 11:33 PM, StaceyPowers said:

Mostly I just care if the reviewer is HONEST about what they did and did not play of the game.

As long as the said review stays within what the reviewer did in the game, I don't have any problems with it. You must play to be able to have a valid say in the game.