It’s kinda hard to talk about objective fun in reviews, it’s the most subjective thing about entertainment. Some people play brutally crushing, soul-destroying survival games for fun
It is fine that it is subjective, but this is why reviews from a major corporation don’t make any sense. You want reviews from a large number of individuals so that you can get to know some of their taste to see if it is similar to your own. Then you can make a decent guess if you will also find the thing fun.
Not to mention these major review sites rate on a 7-10 scale which is kind of worthless. They are also effectively bribed by game studios so it is actually worse than worthless. It is actively harmful to finding out the truth.
You want reviews from a large number of individuals
This isn’t that helpful either. I end up getting lost because of all the different opinions. For example Starfield as a recent example, professional reviews are mostly positive but individual opinions are all over the place. I am left confused.
Yeah, and e.g. I don’t have much fun with racing game. Doesn’t mean the games are bad and other people, who actually like the genre don’t have fun. This is why you should know the reviewer and their tastes and biases to make a better judgement whether a game is for you or not from a review.
I like ACGs format for reviews along with the rating scale being a spectrum from Buy now, wait for a sale, never touch. He’s the only one I really go to nowadays to see if the new hot thing is worth my money. It usually isn’t haha
For example, I love soul crushing difficult games with a million things to keep track of and grind. I like GregTech for creations sake! A mod that is infamous in the Minecraft modding community for a reason.
Then there is stuff like baba is you, games about programming and circuits (zachtronics games), the modded in levels of Celeste (and other hardcore platformers), very punishing XCOM games, or dark souls challenges, traditional rogue-likes, and so on, and so forth. (A lot of which I also like lol)
And a lot of people find these fun… And a lot of people hate their guts. A lot of people love casual mainstream (with often generic gameplay) linear story-centric games you can beat barely thinking. Which is perfectly fine, but their gameplay (not story) does tend to bore me. Even if they tend to get high ratings.
It’s kinda hard to talk about objective fun in reviews, it’s the most subjective thing about entertainment. Some people play brutally crushing, soul-destroying survival games for fun
It is fine that it is subjective, but this is why reviews from a major corporation don’t make any sense. You want reviews from a large number of individuals so that you can get to know some of their taste to see if it is similar to your own. Then you can make a decent guess if you will also find the thing fun.
Not to mention these major review sites rate on a 7-10 scale which is kind of worthless. They are also effectively bribed by game studios so it is actually worse than worthless. It is actively harmful to finding out the truth.
This isn’t that helpful either. I end up getting lost because of all the different opinions. For example Starfield as a recent example, professional reviews are mostly positive but individual opinions are all over the place. I am left confused.
Yeah, and e.g. I don’t have much fun with racing game. Doesn’t mean the games are bad and other people, who actually like the genre don’t have fun. This is why you should know the reviewer and their tastes and biases to make a better judgement whether a game is for you or not from a review.
I like ACGs format for reviews along with the rating scale being a spectrum from Buy now, wait for a sale, never touch. He’s the only one I really go to nowadays to see if the new hot thing is worth my money. It usually isn’t haha
For example, I love soul crushing difficult games with a million things to keep track of and grind. I like GregTech for creations sake! A mod that is infamous in the Minecraft modding community for a reason.
Then there is stuff like baba is you, games about programming and circuits (zachtronics games), the modded in levels of Celeste (and other hardcore platformers), very punishing XCOM games, or dark souls challenges, traditional rogue-likes, and so on, and so forth. (A lot of which I also like lol)
And a lot of people find these fun… And a lot of people hate their guts. A lot of people love casual mainstream (with often generic gameplay) linear story-centric games you can beat barely thinking. Which is perfectly fine, but their gameplay (not story) does tend to bore me. Even if they tend to get high ratings.
cough cough gregtech new horizons
Yea the greater majority of the population wouldn’t like escape from tarkov or even something lighter like a souls game but some of us enjoy the pain.