Best Games Reviewer

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Who do you trust enough to give a none biased game review ??

Is it IGN with their "If it isn't COD it's sh!! attitude" or maybe it's that of a magazine or blog.

Mine is ZeroPunctuation << (Click for Mass Effect 3 review)

Unfortunately it sounds like some people on here type, however what sets it apart is it cuts the BS and doesn't jump onto the imaginary bandwagon where humping EA is good and everything else is bad ! !

Plus there's the comedy side to it.

For those unfamiliar here's the old but brutally honest Portal 2 review:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvhjczPD1DA[/youtube]

Agreed-I tend to like the stuff he likes, and I generally agree with his recommendations. Unfortunately he isn't a fan of multiplayer, but you play MP games based on what your friends play anyway, not what's actually good.

Rich Stanton formely of Edge magazine, now of Eurogamer.

Zero Punctuation doesn't give a balanced viewpoint on most games. The guy's approach is find all the flaws and blow them out of proportion, while largely ignoring the positives.

I use to kind of find Yahtzee funny now I just hate him. I also know a little bit of personal info about him from a girl who use to date him, he's a real as*hole (and hates kittens apparently). He's also not very good at games and despite how his reviews are suppose to "non-reviews" his words do effect purchases. His Demon Souls review in particular was horrible because he spends the entire whining about how game's pander to kids now in terms of difficult but oh no this game is too hard. The funny thing is that the game really isn't THAT hard, its challenging and doesn't hold your hand but its not brutal and unfair like the plethora of indie platformers coming out nowadays that just try to be as hard as possible.

So long story short: Zero Punctuation isn't funny at all to me and Yahtzee is a dick. He's disappointing and didn't even roast Mass Effect 3 for its ending like I hoped he would, proof he really just loves to troll people. In my opinion the whole "I troll u lol lol" culture of the internet is getting tired. Yahtzee is a paid troll who sucks at games.


On the other hand he DOES love Silent Hill 2 and totally gets what makes the old games great and I loved his bashing of the newer titles..so..he's not completely reprehensible.

I really enjoy Zero Punctuation as entertainment, but I know from experience that Yahtzee and I have very different tastes. Every time he reviews a game I am familiar with, I feel like he has not approached the game with the right mindset. So when he reviews a game that I am not familiar with, I don't take his opinion too seriously.

I also suspect that Yahtzee is just "not good at video games". I know that's a very vague thing to say, and it doesn't disqualify him as a game reviewer. But I've lost count of the number of times he has had a problem with a game that would have never even occurred to me as a problem. The worst example of this was when he reviewed Braid. He mentioned that he was annoyed at a puzzle where there were "two identical doors, one of which could be opened while the other couldn't". I don't know how many people here are familiar with Braid, and I don't want to go into details, but suffice it to say that this reveals that he completely misunderstood the rules of the game world.

EDIT: Actually, I sort of do want to go into details, if only to provide an advertisement for the terrific puzzle game Braid. The puzzle he is talking about takes place in a world where time rewinds when you move left, pauses when you stand still, and progresses normally when you move right. The only things unaffected by this time manipulation are yourself and anything which is glowing green. In the puzzle, you obtain a glowing key, and there are two not-glowing doors, one to your left and one to your right. When you walk up to the left door holding your key, it won't open. When you walk up to the right door holding your key, it will open and you can go through. However, this is not arbitrary. The trick is that the doors themselves are not glowing. Therefore, when you approach the left door, time is going backwards for the door, not forwards. Since time is going backwards for the door, how can the door open?

Does skill matter when you're talking about one-player games? It's not like it's a competition, it's an experience to be enjoyed.

It matters if your job is to tell people about the frustrating aspects of a game. If you find things frustrating that the average gamer wouldn't, then you are misleading the average gamer about what their experience is likely to be. My problem with Yahtzee is that he seems to not want to like games. So, when he hits a problem, he writes it down on his List Of Problems instead of really thinking about the problem.

For example, I had the exact same first reaction when it comes to the doors in Braid. But my secondary reaction was: "Hang on, this is a puzzle game. There cannot possibly be an arbitrary rule such as 'these two doors behave differently'. I'd better think about what is going on." So I had a think, and the solution dawned on me.

As another example, Yahtzee says in his Super Mario Galaxy review that he got a sore wrist from shaking the remote. This seems so implausible to me that I can only conclude that he was moving his wrist way more than is required. But instead of thinking about it and going: "Maybe I'll experiment and try to discover how much movement is really required!" he just kept flailing around and getting a sore wrist.

Picking out the flaws in a game for me is a good point, if you roll a turd in glitter and merely go on about the glitter this in my opinon isn't a valid review, I want to know about whats in the middle and any issues that may cause me to not enjoy my experience, rather then just know how shiny the outside is which I feel most reviewers do.



I agree, I found Demons Souls and Dark souls more "fun" rather then difficult, and a few more of his reviews are very much "WTF ?? That was easy as hell" which has led me to believe he probably just sucks at gaming.
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Obviously I take everything he says with a pinch of salt, some I just value for a giggle and indeed he seems like an absolute dick.

I buy games after doing a lot more digging around, but I value it for it's pure single player review, most reviewers seem to write at least a sentence about the single player and then pad out the next two pages of the review raving on about how you can do this that and the other... only on multiplayer. I buy games for ME not so I can jump online and own some 14 year old tools,who should be banned from using the microphone on anything until their balls drop.

And as I already said I just prefer his attitude towards it as majority of reviewers have a biased opinion on games, be it title,genre or general fanboy knobishness, that's why I made the post because I was wondering how other people went around it.

I would rather have 3 good reviewers then filter out and piece together BS of 10 IGN-esque reviews.

I enjoy the Classic Game Room reviews because of the relaxed review style, and also seem to give a balanced and non biased opinion on the games being reviewed from any of the videos I've watched.

Have to agree. CGR is the only one I really get any enjoyment out of. I do sometimes try games Mark reviews, like EDF 2017 or Rock of Ages or NieR, but I don't really need anyone to try and tell me what is a good or a bad game. I don't think it's really possible to be objective about it, so I'm only looking for entertainment.

After the IGN/Gamespt fiasco over ME3 marketing I've given up on reviews completely. I was starting to feel this way a few years ago when I noticed the only games that got 9.0 reviews anymore were brand name shooters (such as COD). Later when 90% of gamers were fuming over ME3's VERY unsatisfactory ending and the whole Diana Allers/Chobot self-insert s**t I really gave up on any kind of professional reviewer. Basically every single site insulted the fans, said the ME3 ending was "art" (its not) and to stop being entitled for wanting something tangible out of a series people have stuck with for 4 years. Also combine with the day 1 dlc for ME3 that we all tolerated but was vital to the story, yeah, I spent 80+ on the CE. Thanks for insulting me IGN, GS, and Bioware. Sorry I don't "get" your art.

I don't need reviews, I know what games I'm going to buy and what I'm getting into. If I must I'll listen to buyer input from other forums I post on but game journalism? Nothing but a joke. Not a real job, its pathetic. Go boohoo harder Chobot because people didn't like your annoying, unnecessarily character in ME3 and insult the gamers a bit more than delete said blog to save face.

On the PC side, I find PC Gamer reviews to be generally spot-on.

Consoles... I'm not sure. Still looking and open to suggestions.

I think giant bomb does some good reviews, and presents the games in a funny way while being honest about the content quality etc. I prefer to listen to their podcast though.

Yahtzee's Victor Lewis Smith rip-off schtick is played out.
Anyone that hasn't already should download all the old episodes of Consolevania which are now available from iTunes.

Gamespot seems to randomly give games overly harsh ratings. They also sometimes rate games too highly just cause they were hyping them up before their release.