Generally, I've given up on game reviews. A lot of them seem biased, pushing a specific angle. And who knows how many are bought off forthe reviews of "AAA" games. I'm much more interested in fellow gamer impressions than some PR-esque review babble.

Journalism has lost its integrity as well. It's hard to find a preview or a decent article that is unbiased or discusses an original premise with well thought-out arguments. Journalists are on the payroll of a lot of game companies, I think it's pretty clear.

With recent review quotes like these:

IGN review of Halo 4 said:

"Halo 4 is a masterstroke everyone can and should celebrate, and its two guaranteed sequels instantly make the next-generation Xbox a must-own system, with Halo 5 its most anticipated title."

Hardcore Gamer review of Assassin's Creed III said:

"Assassin’s Creed III is one of those rare games conceived to be revolutionary from the beginning. Games like this only come around once in a generation. One of the most, if not the most, ambitious titles ever created. An inspiring testament to what can be accomplished with unbridled devotion, it’s possible that nothing of this magnitude will ever be attempted again. It’s a truly definitive event that will be looked-back as a crucial step in gaming evolution."

and this:



...do you still take video game journalism seriously?

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@Zero

Precisely.

Sooo... I just finished Halo 4 and honestly, it really brought a lot of the magic back to the series for me. I thought they really raised the bar for these types of games in several areas, the story had me wanting to play more to find out how things would turn out, the graphics and music are the some of the best the 360 has seen (but it's the art direction in particular blew my mind at times and will stand the test of time long after the technology is outdated), and the ending left me satisfied with it as an ending and yet highly anticipating future games in the series to see where they go next. If the next Halo shows up on new hardware from Microsoft, it will be a very compelling argument in favour of purchasing said hardware.

While the IGN review goes a little overboard with the hyperbole, it's actually pretty close to my own opinion on the game.

The latest dogshit reviews on Zombi U have seriously made me not give a flying fuck about any reviews by anyone anymore. Now all I can do is form my own opinion based on game footage. I can't trust anything. For all I know, when someone says a version of a game looks like another, it'll be way off, or run way worse, or run way better. Who the fuck knows. I can't trust anyone.

@carlosrox
Wii software was always more divisive. Wii U software will be the same.

If nothing else, it's nice to see the hive mind transmission being interrupted once in a while.

Can't link it now but have you guys seen the latest Bonus Round over at Gametrailers? Shane Satterfields comments go to show everything that is wrong with videogame journalism. Saying The Walking Dead or Journey shouldn't be eligible for GOTY awards because they are smaller than games like Assassins Creed is ridiculous. The guy can't have any clue what's going on in the industry today.

The biggest offender, in my eyes, is Game Informer. The reason why I'm stating this goes well beyond their review of 1000 Year Door, too. This entire last generation, I have seen nothing but subtle and overt jabs at the Wii. Probably their most overt is simply excluding the Wii when it comes to multiplatform releases. Not to mention a rating scale that seems to stop at 9 (for the most part). I have lost count of the number of times that a game that gets reviewed on the 360 that was also releasing on the PS3 and the Wii only lists the PS3 release as the other platforms upon which it is releasing.

It has happened so often, and so deliberately, that one cannot form the objective opinion that they didn't exclude the Wii release intentionally. It must just absolutely gall them that the Wii actually won the generation. There have been plenty of other, smaller, offenses, but this one was BY FAR the most often and egregious; to the 4 million subscribers that look at that magazine (well, probably a fraction of the subscribers actually look at it, honestly), it would seem almost as if the Wii was an invisible player this generation. I would only ask them why?

@Deerock69

What multi-platform releases did this happen with? From how often you claim it happened it sounds like a case where the title was shared but the games were fundamentally different like Sports games or tie ins.

Here it is, watch this and behold ignorance at its finest. http://www.gametrailers.com/full-episodes/ce8ayh/bonus-round-vga-game-of-the-year-special

@warerare The thing is, I kind of get his point and to a certain degree you are comparing apples and oranges. It'd be like saying album of the year and choosing a 3 song EP over all of the full lengths.

...but on the other hand, if you asked me what the best album of the year was and there was an awesome 3 song EP that was better than the full-lengths, I'd pick it. I'd also pick a digital download for GOTY if I felt like one was the best game of the year. I'm not sure that I have ever felt that way though, despite loving a lot of digital downloads.

Still, this is, in part, why I decided to not have an "overall" Negative World GOTY and just stick to platforms and such.

A lot of these digital versus retail lines are just going to get more and more blurred moving forward anyway.