TLDR: To know if a game was good before playing, I read many (Backloggd) reviews, then decided. There is a reason for why it has the score that it does, but I couldn’t trust it blindly.
This is that, applied to roughly the top 0.2% of games and in the form of a spreadsheet, though I will keep at it: https://cryptpad.fr/sheet/#/2/sheet/view/X1Nb6ruJC5reUQvkfEIV19VmbxQJ8-VU9PUFQiU2htM/embed/
The rest of this post is just me explaining why I did this so if you want you can ignore my yapping. We’ve all probably found a book, movie, game or whatever else that is “critically acclaimed” disappointing, or maybe even quite bad. I felt that way with TotK, for example.
That’s not the only time something like that happened to me, but recently it made me question if there could be a way to know with greater certainty if a game is worth playing it or not. Being critically acclaimed and having a high average score is not the best way to tell that, since it hides all kinds of problems that the public may have with a game.
So, to be able to tell if there were significant problems, I jumped straight into Backloggd, which is a video game review site. Users are the ones that make the reviews and like them, and you can also see the amount of likes a review has and comment. That may seem trivial but some other sites don’t offer the ability to like reviews (Metacritic), and some others do offer it, but don’t show the exact amount of likes a given review has (GameFAQs). That’s why I chose only Backloggd, because aside from being popular, it makes it easy to judge which are the biggest problems that people have with a game, and if said problems affect a significant amount of people.
Basically, my initial idea was to just look at the top reviews that the highest rated games had. Then I would see if they were really beloved or if they were actually controversial. As said, the average score is very good at hiding that; and as a matter of fact, I’ve already seen a case of a “5 star” game with negative reviews at the top when sorted by the number of likes.
Still, I am aware that someone liking a review doesn’t necessarily mean that they are in full agreement with the reviewer’s opinion or with the rating that they give the game. For example, in a review I wrote not long ago on Mother 3, I gave the game 3 stars (haha, also I still liked it). However, the two people that liked the review had given the game 5 stars. I don’t know if that’s because they found the review interesting, well-written, or funny, but at least in reviews with a higher amount of likes there is sure to be a group of people that does agree with was is said. I’ll admit, this isn’t a perfect way to know how many people agree with a certain opinion, but I really don’t know another review site that offers something better.
Anyways, I looked for controversial games among the highest rated and proceeded to exclude them from what you could say is my “to-play list”.
At that time, I didn’t even read through any reviews. I was just looking to finish as soon as possible. It didn’t feel right for me to ignore something like Silksong without having any idea on what kind of issues it could have, but still I kept on going for a while like that. I only changed this after looking into the review page of a fan-game I’m quite fond of (read as: I love it), which is Ring Racers. The page is filled with negative reviews, which isn’t unexpected given the type of game it is. So, I got to reading them. The majority of their gripes were reasonable, but the thing is, even after all of that I didn’t feel like they’d shown what the problem with the core of the game was, so my opinion has hardly changed. After going through that I made sure to go back and start doing this for real, and the result is this list.
Right now what I do is read through mostly negative reviews on a game, from the most-liked one to the last one with at least 10% as many likes as the one on top. While I read, I copy the things that stick out the most, those being the aspects of a game that would probably diminish my enjoyment of it. I don’t really feel the need to copy down every minor complaint, because I’d rather keep the pages brief. Finally, if what I have collected at the end doesn’t point towards a game being that bad, or if only a small minority of people complain about the game, then it passes. So in the end, until there is proof against it, I’ll consider the rating to be justified. Oh yeah, and I never take the story into account for anything, so I’ve excluded every single VN I’ve seen. Not that I hate stories in general, but that’s quite another subject.
One last thing, about the fact that: “While I read, I copy the things that stick out the most, those being the aspects of a game that would probably diminish my enjoyment of it”. Obviously I do this list for myself and I can’t possibly get rid of my own bias, but still I think it could be of use to others. In essence, it’s a place where the gripes that some reviewers may have with the highest-rated games are condensed, so it can be useful for anyone that may be questioning whether to play any of them. And if that’s not the case, at least it can serve to show Backloggd for those who may not have known of it. There’s some really good reviewers over there.
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I read the bad reviews and if a reasoning that appeals to my tastes repeats, I’ll believe it.
The thing is, for a game like Clair Obscur or Elden Ring, I’d echo those same complaints, but I still enjoyed them; in Elden Ring’s case, despite those complaints, I’d still call it one of the best games ever made. You might share those criticisms but still find plenty to love about it.
I do agree, as only reading reviews feels like getting to know a game only at a surface level. I’d like to believe that I won’t miss anything by ignoring those games that I excluded but really it is inevitable.
yeah basically. Funnily enough, I did mark those comments that didn’t repeat as unverified kind of like you say haha
Congratulations, you are now an art critic!
Seriously… that’s basically what you’re doing, curating your own list based on what you think is important. And it’s great! I’m the next step down on the food chain, the guy who devours the curated lists that people like you spend time putting together. Thanks!
The fun thing about art criticism is there’s no barrier to entry. Literally anyone can do it.
I’d argue that if a game doesn’t have anything to nitpick at, it probably wasn’t doing anything bold enough for me to truly fall in love with either.
Hideo Kojima rewrote parts of Death Stranding 2 late in development because the beta testers were unanimous in praising it. He said something along the lines of if nobody hated it, he was playing things too safe.
I also read something about him saying something like that in an interview. I’ve not seen much of the actual game, but ironically it has still been accused of being too safe, in spite of what Kojima said
I get what you mean but at the same time, it’s not that big of a deal. Because if a game that is really complained about seems good to me, I may still include it because the reviews arent managing to convince me. Though realistically, I may fail to catch that.
As for the opposite case, where a game that passes the review stage turns out to not be so bold, well… tough luck. I mean it could still be good and be safe, like Mario Kart 8, and that isnt really a problem I feel.
