Ah, when I meant graphics there I didn't necessarily mean design or aesthetics - which I would agree is completely subjective.
I meant more in the technological sense of how high end it is, what hardware it would use, how it benchmarks or (what tends to be the most positive thing applied to looks, for some reason) how 'realistic' it is. (Such as when people say "it had good graphics for it's time" they aren't necessarily talking about whether it looked good/bad stylistically, they mean the technological limitations at the time affecting how it looked).
So there are some sheer technological things you could rate.
It's just telling me how good the sound quality is in a 1-10 spectrum, or how realistic it appears or intensive it is out of 1-10 spectrum, doesn't really tell me anything in-depth. It's the very bare bones. I'm not sure what would be purely objective, in a technical sense, and not the bare bones, to review? It tells me very little about the experience of playing the games content.
You could comment on pure mathematics, you could talk about lines of code. But that doesn't tell me what it's like to play.
Which is what I want to know, and is something that's experienced subjectively.
I do not understand why something experienced subjectively should be seen to be written about objectively, or why that's a goal or sacred tenet of reviewing to be adhered to. This becomes artificial, to my mind, and open to exploitation.
There is no neutral or objective way that someone can tell you what's worth spending your money on. There is no neutral, objective inherently 'good or bad' game, aside from possibly the criteria of it being able to run. There are only opinions. But they tend to be dressed up as fact.
Ah, that... Well i'm not sure that a lot of people really care if a game is made under Unity, Unreal, Cry, or whatever else homemade engine it uses. It's interesting for me because it touches me professionally, and probably fascinating to a few computer nerds here and there but... I don't think it interests a lot of people.
I don't really ask for grades or ratings actually anyway. I don't like them. It's always subjective, unless you start to push really hard into how a certain graphic engine can handle better lightmaps, shaders or whatever else than the other one, rated on FPS and performances alone... Honestly I tend to go on hardware specialized sites if i'm interesting in that (like to buy the next GC for my rig...). I'm not really looking for that on a game review
Then if we start talking about how this or that game looks gorgeous because "oh it's the latest technology in cutting edge graphics" and all that crap, it means absolutely nothing. What is important is the art direction, for that without it even the best technology can look crappy (even if it certainly helps something looking gorgeous...). Remember the Witcher, the first one ? Still gorgeous, not because of its tech, but because of its art that gives it life and a lot of feelings. Well for me, at least, and it has already become completely subjective the moment I spoke about that anyway. And then, why would a game like the last battlefield with all the shiny tech systematically look better than a game like say, Transistor ? It's not even comparable. Tastes, tastes, tastes...
That's why I have a hard time imagining what kind of objective review we could have on graphics alone.
I don't think reviewing a game is one of those things. I don't see how you can just comment on the reality without any opinion, you would be left pretty much saying "this is a game. this is the genre the game is in. it comes out in september." as far as I can tell - and even that middle statement is likely to be somewhat subjective.
Well if you think that if it's already subjective when giving a game a genre to describe it, then well, ok... It's objective to me, not because the genre qualification itself is 100% objective in the first place, but because it's close enough to be qualified as objective and, maybe a better word then, neutral, flat, not judgemental. At least at a minima.
But I want to keep both separate. I'm just fed up trying to get an overview of what I will find inside before reading someone opinion. Sometimes I just don't want someone's opinion. Most of the time actually. I look for it when it's about someone I trust, like a friend, for example, or a reviewer I like, and the latter I have yet to find. Maybe TotalBiscuit, I like him.
I'm unsure what an opinion-free objective overview of the inside of a game would look like - other than a comment purely on the underlying technology - though that is part of what makes games interesting, in that they're straddling a line between technology and (broadly) art. The former normally discussed (relatively) objectively, the latter subjective by definition.
What I am expecting is neither about the art nor the technology, at least directly. I'm not asking them about the game sourcecode and also not asking them about what makes it great or not. I will be interested to read their opinion on the game afterwards, on their classic review because I like their reviews, but on most general sites like IGN I don't give a shit about their crappy corrupted/sheepish/fanboy opinion, to speak bluntly, so I would like to see the objective description first for that precise reason.
Generally I read reviews for two very different cases. Maybe it's just me, but that I do :
- Reading a review before buying a game. I want to know the raw facts about the game. I want to know what I will find inside. Not the spoilers to the story or whatever, but the key points, the features of the game. It doesn't have to be very subjective and certainly doesn't need the opinion of the reviewer for me, it can be perfectly neutral and clinical. Then reading the reviewer opinion (if I like the reviewer usually) can prove to be interesting to validate my thoughts or actually to demonstrate what makes the features interesting that I initially found 'meh, not my thing'. Then maybe I will think 'I didn't think of that, that could make sense'. Hell, it has happened several times on this very board when speaking to people, like on the SC thread. But usually i'm looking for opinion when i'm not sure myself after having read about the features.
- Reading a review from a pure cultural stand point. Here I will try to find as many opinions and reviews as I can. But maybe that's my benchmark/metacritic/professional side that speaks... Dunno.
Now then if you are not sure what it would be for me, then I can try to do something about a game. Don't expect it to be 100% mathematically objective with the Absolute truth or whatever in that vein, just objective in its lesser, more common meaning.
Of course, for some games you probably have a lot to say on features (like RTS, RPG, 4X, etc) while on some others like FPS or racing games, it's true that you don't have much to tell. Even on Star Citizen, if you only speaks about the space combat side without even talking about the game modes available and what they consist of, you don't have much left to say, but you still can speak about things like "it's a game that tries to emulate various independent thrust points for the flight model of the ships", "some weapons are gimbal mounted, which means that they have a certain degree of rotation that doesn't require the ship to directly face its target", etc etc. Even in racing games i'm pretty sure that you can find things to say, but I honestly have very little clues about racing and sports games so... vOv
But they already do it to some degree in a lot of reviews, you say ? Well, that's true, in a way. I'm a little harsh on them for that, for sure. But I think they mix everything by always using it only to back up their opinions everywhere, and overall, they don't speak a lot about what you do in the game. Maybe it's on purpose ? Maybe it's to let you discover it by yourself ? Or just to tease you and makes you want to try it ? Perhaps. But overall it also makes me feel like i'm always talking to advertisement and teasing rather than a simple overview of the FEATURES. I mean, it can even be said in a few lines if you just feel like you don't want to learn about every feature of the game. It can be a bit more exhaustive too, depending on the audience, I don't know... Honestly I think it's rather obvious when it's not describing anymore but major spoiling. And reading a review is by itself already spoiling in a way. If you want a total surprise just buy a random game and launch it. xD
Anyway, let's do something really rough and perfunctory, on let's say, Civ 5. Not doing something exhaustive because ffs, it's a full job...
Let's start by the start. You start to explain that Civ 5 is a 4X game as a genre, and what a 4X means. You DON'T explain what you do in a 4X since it's too broad in itself and here it will become extremely subjective since you will only focus on a few titles you know.
Then, you say it : there is solo gameplay, multiplayer, easy modding, whatever. You can go into details or not.
The player chooses a civilization between a certain amount, and they all have their little unique bonus and unique units/buildings. You DON'T say that it gives each flavor, even if it's obvious. It's unnecessary at this stage and is again, highly subjective. That's for example where most reviews will start to tell how it's awesome because :flavour: and different gameplay for each, some other will tell you that's it's not enough for that actually and so that sucks, etc. Don't care about their opinion here for now. Let's just unveil the facts, shall we ?
Once the civilization is chosen, the player can start with different starting conditions and customizes the world he will play in : you can speak or not about the configuration of the landmasses, oceans, mountains, etc. You can even start to talk about all the little options that are available to choose to change the starting conditions in various ways.
Then you speak about the game itself because it's the next step ? Starting with a settle, unit that can build cities, so you build your first city, and then start to build things into your city like buildings to improve its capabilities, or other units like new settles, workers, or military units. You can build or not other cities, etc. Well, that's the basics. For someone that doesn't know anything about a 4X, it's nice. For someone like most of us I believe, that's useless. That's where you do the different between a review with the objective to make a game known to neophytes, and a review that will directly go to details and more complex and specific features when it's addressing connoisseurs. Question of audience as usual.
So, for the connoisseurs, you can speak about what makes Civ 5 specific and different from other 4X and its Civ previous titles. Like the doctrine three and how it works, etc.
Well, i'm already tired so I won't do the whole game because lol.
Hope you get the idea. Not saying that it's impossible to find those over the internet. Actually, you can. Especially in wikis. But wikis are not here or actually filled with info when the game is just released, or before it gets released.
Anyway, that's it. That's what makes me want to play a game or not. I will start to tell myself 'omg we can do that and even that ? That's awesome !' or 'I am not sure to like their system and what they plan to add', like it has already been the case for me recently about Beyond Earth, leaving me clueless about things and making me hesitate seriously to buy it. If I hadn't had all the reviews they did themselves through twitch, I would have bought it without any hesitation because I was expecting to find inside some things that are not.
Edit : Or to take another example : recently I was looking for good 4X to play. Those are not legion, as you can imagine, especially these days. I looked up a list and picked up a few of the most interesting. Galactic Civilizations retained my attention. I didn't know anything about that game except its name before. I didn't go look for a generic old review done on a journalist site. I went directly on the wikipedia general page, and then on their damn wiki. That's eventually what convinced me to buy it. Then of course, I tried to get a bit of the subjective side of it, by looking for the feel and atmosphere on youtube records, that kind of stuff.
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Topic: Games Journalism is over. (Read 15582 times)