When you ignore reviews....

[Mr Mystery]

How do?

Getting back into the swing of things with pootery games, and have procured some titles for me spangly new PS4.

But something has changed out there - reviews. Lots are online, and it would seem gone are the days of indy games mags ruling the roost - stuff like Mean Machines, Total! and that. And it's left me flapping in the void looking for news about non-AAA games and the like.

And when I do read them? It seems the market has moved on. Reviewers are coming from a position far more au fait with the current gaming mood than I - and it puts me off their reviews.

For instance, if the game I am buying PS4 exclusive, should I really care that an XBone game did it better? I don't have an XBone, and don't have plans to change that.

Yet, even the cheaper games seem to be around £20, which remains a fair amount of money to risk on a small disc of crap.

So where does one turn? Amazon has user reviews, but these seem to be mostly 1 or 5 star, with little in the way of constructive comments 'Bad Game' doesn't tell me what I want to know...

Help me BoLsYwan Kenobi, you're my only hope.

(also, any mention of a certain interwebular effort about 'ethics' in gaming and that will be met by a personal, breakfast time visit from yours truly, when I shall poop on your cornflakes.)

[Kirsten]

Any games in particular?

[Mr Mystery]

Just in general really.

What I miss is picking up a magazine, and finding out about lesser known games. I'm so far out of touch with the wider gaming market, I have no idea what's out there.

AAA stuff is different of course - who could fail to know that Battlefront IV is coming in November - and yes I'll be having some of that, and I'm seriously hoping for decent Starfighter action to be included.

But just...odd, kooky little games. For instance - Soul Suspect has (allegedly) just been delivered to my flat. Detective style game, where you have to solve your own murder. Interesting premise appeals to me, so I went for it.

[CoffeeGrunt]

I dunno, I typically tend to work by word of mouth for things these days. If I hear enough people praising something, then I consider watching/playing it.

[Psychosplodge]

Unless you want the sparkly crap that comes with a special edition, never pre-order.

Then find a youtuber, or a few youtubers that you like(or check out twitch.tv), and hope they play the game you want. assuming it's not something spoiler ridden it'll give you an idea of issues. What the gameplay is like etc.

I watched a lot of GTA V rooster teeth/acheivement hunters.
Jesse Cox is always amusing, but he's more often doing long rpg playthroughs, with other stuff thrown in.
Totalbiscuit gives you a preview/overview type thing, but not really a letsplay style.
press heart to continue seems to be doing a lot of anime game lets plays atm.
The SO watches game grumps and markiplier.

Avoid pewdiepie like the plague.



But if you search on youtube someone will be playing it and you'll find opinions.
I certainly wouldn't trust any of the current games reviews websites.

[Houghten]

Unless you want the sparkly crap that comes with a special edition, never pre-order.

A policy that also serves well for non-video games...

[CoffeeGrunt]

I watch Angry Joe a bit. He's shouty and occasionally a bit overly-righteous, but he's handy for getting a more average view of recently released games, and he's at least unafraid to say his opinion. Totalbiscuit is solid. Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation is more an amusing teardown of games than reviews as well.

[Erik Setzer]

I watch Angry Joe a bit. He's shouty and occasionally a bit overly-righteous, but he's handy for getting a more average view of recently released games, and he's at least unafraid to say his opinion. Totalbiscuit is solid. Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation is more an amusing teardown of games than reviews as well.

Well, damn. I was going to post Angry Joe and Yahtzee (who also has written a pair of amusing novels) as well.

Yahtzee does seem to be more "negative" but you can tell when he actually likes a game. And Angry Joe might be "angry" but he does try to hit the positives and negatives of any game he reviews.

The thing about reviews, though, is that you might feel different about a game. I've had times I've disagreed with the reviewer's opinion of a game. It helps when they actually explain what they have a problem with, because some people have a different idea of what's fun in certain games (i.e. some people didn't like how insane the Saints Row series got, but I absolutely loved it breaking with its GTA clone roots and literally going to Hell... with a musical number!).

[Psychosplodge]

See thats part of the advantage of youtube, even if they don't necessarily like it you're seeing the actual gameplay, not just some failed journalists 300 words to earn his wages that week.

[eldargal]

I find most all of the youtube reviewers insufferably full of themselves. I find Steam aggregate reviews quite accurate. Otherwise see what some of teh fangirl websites are talking about.