Too Many Reviews

[Rhomaios]

Is anyone else just sick of all the classic game reviews? Especially for games for which there are already a dozen reviews out there. Seems like everyone wants to be a video game journalist these days.

[+wongojack]

Where are you seeing them? On Youtube?

[+Random Terrain]

Yes, if you're talking about YouTube. I just want gameplay footage with game sounds, not some guy droning on and I don't want to see some guy staring at me. Seems like most "reviews" are from people who never read the manual anyway, so I don't know why they bother.

 

Looks like rompedia has some useful videos:

 

youtube.com/user/rompedia/search?query=Atari+2600

It's just too bad that the screenshots aren't from the games. I'd rather see the game instead of the title screen created for the video.

[Rhomaios]

Yeah, Youtube mostly, but also people who advertise their Youtube channels on forums. I've even seen threads where people list dozens of their favorite YT reviewers, with such stinkers like AlphaOmegaSin. Yawn. I'm with Random Terrain here. There is a whole lot of people who barely know anything about what they're playing mouthing words they took from Wikipedia in front of a wall of games they never play. I just want some longplay. It doesn't even have to be the whole thing, just enough to get a feel for whether or not I'll like it.

 

This is also possibly a bias in me, since I much prefer reading. Not saying that there aren't too many writing reviewers, but I never see them around, and not many advertise (for free, no less) all over forums.

[+wongojack]

I'm almost never just going to someone's random YT channel, so I just don't put up with it. I do like me some longplay videos though. I have a TV in my office and I had it playing "Tron First Million Points" today.

 

I also prefer reading to watching a video. There are two big reasons:

1) I don't have to listen. No sound required to read.

2) I read (or skip) as fast as I want. I don't have to wait 2 minutes for you to do some silly intro

 

I know you can skip ahead in videos, but it is just sooo much faster if I can skim and read. For walkthroughs, it MUST be written. I can't stand to watch 3 45 min clips just to find the part of the game where I need a hint.

[dashv]

*disclaimer, I'm working on my own review videos to be launched soon*

 

The only reviews that urk me are ones where:

 

* The person doesn't actually give a review they just randomly spout random stuff about the game

* They use the same 30 seconds of game footage looped over and over for 5 minute video.

* The person is clearly just doing it for the views vs doing it for the love of it.

* The person thinks making a funny video means saying completely stupid, and factually inaccurate things, while swearing up a storm.

 

I like video walkthroughs sometimes when I need to know how to find something. Like some of the harder to find blast shards in infamous for example. Screenshots don't always cut it.

 

I also don't mind video reviews that are true reviews and genuinely entertaining.

 

Play throughs are okay but I am sometimes worried it will spoil the game for me.

Edited December 16, 2014 by dashv

[Rhomaios]

The rare good review isn't odious. It's the glut of them that stinks.

[Austin]

YouTube video game reviews have their place. For me it was great in the early days when you had Retroware TV: The Show and when the HVGN was just starting. It was new, fresh and exciting back then. Seven or eight years later though, I'm older and I don't really care anymore. Everything invokes a bit of a, "been there, done that," kind of feeling for me. For instance, it was unique to make the public aware of Journey to Silius in 2006 or 2007, but the dozens upon dozens of similar reviews of the same game that spawned since is mind numbing and completely unnecessary. There is still good, original content to be had but it's hard to sift through all the noise.

 

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. It's kind of a touchy subject because I've done reviews myself and have seen the evolution of YouTube and the content creators over the years.

[Atariboy]

There's the occasional exception, but in general, if I'm looking up a game on YouTube, I want to see and hear the game and nothing else.

 

Yes, if you're talking about YouTube. I just want gameplay footage with game sounds, not some guy droning on and I don't want to see some guy staring at me. Seems like most "reviews" are from people who never read the manual anyway, so I don't know why they bother.

I'd take this a few steps further.

 

Not only go I want to see gameplay footage without talking heads or dubbed music over all the original sound effects, but the person playing the game should at least have a basic familiarity with the game. I've seen more than one Pole Position video where the uploader never even got out of low gear for one such offense.

 

The video also should be of at least watchable quality and respecting the original aspect ratio is also a must. If I see a 4:3 game stretched to 16:9 proportions when looking to see a prospective game in action or whatever the reason may be, I'm automatically moving on.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Atariboy

[Pixelboy]

My rule is simple: If a YouTube video-game-related video starts with "Hi everybody! <Name of reviewer> here with a review of <name of game>", I press the back button on my browser to return to the YouTube search results to look for another video with no commentary. Of course, if I'm actively looking for a detailed review, I will listen to the voice commentary, but that's rather rare. Usually, I just want to look at the raw game footage.

 

EDIT: I find it keeps getting harder and harder to find that one commentary-less video I'm looking for among the YouTube search results...

[VectorGamer]

I've done videos of just game play in the past and was told that the newer videos I'm making with an inset of my son/daughter and I playing it are better because they enjoy seeing our reactions to the game. I guess it's just a matter of taste.

[Bill Loguidice]

Is anyone else just sick of all the classic game reviews? Especially for games for which there are already a dozen reviews out there. Seems like everyone wants to be a video game journalist these days.

 

My only criticism is that if someone is going to cover a classic game, particularly one that's been reviewed to death, I'd like to see something new brought to the table, i.e., a reason to justify the effort in both creating it and for the reader to read it. It's my personal policy for everything I formally review, classic, new, or "other," to try and bring some history, perspective, or other applicable value-add (comparison, etc.) into the effort.

 

As for video reviews, I can't say I watch very many, so I can't really comment on them. When I experimented with them myself, I did a similar thing to what I did with my written reviews in terms of trying to add value, but I'm not a great speaker (I stutter and don't exactly have a dynamic on-screen persona) and the effort required to make something decent was impractical. I would much rather put my time and effort into a written work for the most part. With that said, we all have our strengths, and I can certainly acknowledge when someone is good at making videos.

[karokoenig]

Just the gameplay footage without any commentary surely is alright. But when I want a thorough review, I need information on top of that. You rarely see in the footage alone if controls are tight or if they suck. Also, many people who upload gameplay footage - or playthroughs - do so with enhancements like low-speed emulators, savestates, editing out cheap deaths etc. And not everyone says so.

 

So, as long as it's informative and language is decent, I don't mind commentary. IF I am looking for a review.

[Gabriel]

When I'm looking on YouTube to determine if I think a game might be worthwhile, I try to find a video with as much gameplay footage as possible. Then I turn the sound off, because 8 times out of 10 there's some commenter who doesn't have anything intelligent to say and has a really annoying voice to boot.

 

I often find that even when I do listen to the reviewers, they seldom cover the meaningful bits of the game. Ironically, they'll often spend huge amounts of time talking about the graphics, which their video allows me to see for myself, making their commentary completely pointless.

 

Someone mentioned AlphaOmegaSin above. I sometimes watch him, but never for his reviews. I only ever watch his videos when I want to see someone rant in the most ADD way possible. I'm not sure if I've ever made it all the way through any of his videos. The guy is just all over the place. I don't think he's a faker. I think he's a real geek, but his channel is definitely not really about gaming. It's just about whatever random shit he wants to 'sperg out about that day. Most of the time it's at least semi-gaming related. The best parallel I can think of for AlphaOmegaSin is in the world of pen and paper RPGs. He's that guy at the game shop that just 'spergs out about everything and can't stop telling you about his favorite character, campaign, book, or whatever. He's that guy that never developed any structure to the way he describes things beyond what an 8 year old is capable of.

 

Related to him is Razorfist. I don't really pay much attention to Razorfist's reviews, because it is 230% clear that his interest in games is different from mine. However, Razorfist has a pretty damn good voice. He scripts his stuff, and he does it fairly well. His editorial rants are definitely better than his reviews. Even when I don't agree with what he says, it's still fun to listen to him.

 

There was one guy I listened to briefly. I think he was ShadowElite08 or something. He styled himself as "the JRPG enthusiast." I quit watching him because his verbal tics were getting annoying. Plus, he's... I want to say unreasonably positive, but that doesn't really describe it. It's not that he never says anything negative. I guess the best way to explain it is that the fanboy is strong in him. It seems like every game his covers is going to be OMG SO GRATE!

 

Game Sack doesn't do reviews, but I've developed a liking for watching them. I like their shotgun approach to just presenting random games. They're pretty strong on footage, as well. It doesn't hurt that they don't present themselves in the irritating way most YouTube game presenters do. However, their skits are beyond lame. On the other hand, when they do stop motion animation, it's usually pretty cool.

 

I occasionally watch ProJared, but not for his reviews. I only watch his infrequent humor pieces. In those he kind of steals theSpoonyOne's old schtick, and they're usually amusing.

 

I watch Classic Game Room. Once again, I don't see Mark as a reviewer. He occupies some strange place in the video gaming ecosphere where he just shows game footage and talks and I love him for it. Mark's videos are like sitting down with your buddy on the couch and talking about some new game while you play. Ironically, Mark is probably the best actual reviewer of the YouTube bunch, because he actually covers details about the games.in far greater depth than everyone else. I do miss the days when Mark would make longer videos about games.

 

There's that other guy that does reviews under the Classic Game Room banner, but he's clearly trying too hard to be funny. He's at least arguably succeeding to some extent, but not as well as he needs to. When I find myself accidentally clicking on one of his videos because I think it's a Mark video, I typically click out.

 

Happy Video Game Nerd / Lophatjello / Stop Skeletons is pretty fun to watch. I like his optimism and he covers things fairly well. He recently made a video about how he's dropping the name of Happy Video Game Nerd and the shtick to just talk about games, and that should be fine as that's really what he did in the first place. However, outside of his Happy Video Game Nerd style pieces, I don't find any of his content worth watching. Outside of the extremely well done stuff like his love letter to Mystic Quest, Earthbound, and his Parasite Eve Retrospective, he focuses on Let's Play style videos where the commentary just isn't interesting and the games aren't worth watching either. Regardless, HVGN has been pretty influential with me. He's the reason I tried Earthbound for the first time (and loved it). Because of his Parasite Eve series, I even picked up and played Parasite Eve a bit. I feel he articulates his points well, without the hyperbole a lot of other people on YouTube engage in.

[Gabriel]

My rule is simple: If a YouTube video-game-related video starts with "Hi everybody! <Name of reviewer> here with a review of <name of game>",

 

That ShadowElite08 guy I mentioned does EXACTLY this.

[+thegoldenband]

I'm generally more interested in chronogaming efforts these days, like Chrontendo, Game Boy World, and Generation-16. But I do enjoy and "follow" certain reviewers, like Game Sack and Nice and Games -- and our very own Austin. I also find things to enjoy in the No Swear Gamer who's posted here lately on occasion.

 

All of these reviewers have personalities and styles that make themselves felt over the course of their videos, but aren't the subject of the videos, which makes a world of difference. And I'll take self-conscious/deliberate dorkiness, à la Nice and Games's dryly nerdy wit, any day over reviewers who are trying to be cool and show off their 'tude (as it were).

 

Of course, the incoherent invective + incompetent gameplay combination is way too common and almost always leads to valueless results. And it's annoying as hell to look for raw gameplay footage and only be able to find videos with some pubescent wannabe overloading his mic with shrieks and nerd rage. Worst of all is gameplay footage that's been overdubbed with music, though occasionally that's done for copyright/content-detection reasons, I think.

[Cynicaster]

If you look at the amount of this sort of stuff that's out there--both in print and audio/video form--compared to the size of the actual audience, it's obvious the internet is laughably saturated with "reviews" of classic games.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love a good retro gaming Youtube video, but in order for something to qualify as such (for me) it needs to have some kind of interesting "slant" to it. The straight-up "reviews" are completely pointless if you ask me. If I want a "review" of a 30 year-old game, I'll just fire up the emulator and play it. Why do I need some random guy on the internet to break it down for me?

[S1500]

What annoys me are the game reviews where it's 90% footage of someone talking into the webcam, or 90% of unboxing the product & admiring the cardboard & paper, and less than 10% of the actual gameplay.

 

Like we need to see your 3 minute introduction before that.

[+thegoldenband]

Oh, jeez, the long intros are the worst. BTW YouTube's ability to play videos at 1.5x or 2x is a real saving grace for most of this stuff. I don't know that I could sit through many reviews at normal speed, especially given the number of people who seem determined to kind of mumble along at a very deliberate pace.

 

Crank them up to 1.5x or faster, and suddenly they become as quick and snappy as a spunky female reporter from a 1930s movie.

[Rex Dart]

Like we need to see your 3 minute introduction before that.

 

Oh man, if I'm not seeing gameplay by the one-minute mark, I'm turning your experiment in video editing off.

[TPA5]

If it's a well-done classic review, I don't mind them. Especially if they talk about it with a modern lens. There's some games from the days of yore that aren't as easy to play now, and it's nice to know about those.

 

Ultimately, YouTube is a place where folks can upload videos for free, so you're going to end up with a lot of junk.

[mbd30]

I enjoy reading and watching classic game reviews. As long as the reviewers are halfway intelligent and entertaining, I don't think there can be too many.

[+GoldenWheels]

I tend to stick to the same ol channels...TurboViews, Classic Game Room, Game Sack. There is a lot of junk to wade through on Youtube for sure but I'd rather have too many vids than too few.

 

Oddly If i want to learn about new games I usually read an article and then go watch a gameplay vid.

[Gentlegamer]

I'm the same, there is an over abundance of amateur game reviews on youtube and elsewhere. I may look at a gameplay video, but I also have emulation available if I really want to see what the game is like, and I find the various classic game communities are better for learning about a game.

 

I have plans for a SNES fan site, and one thing I don't want to do is reviews. "The controls are this, the graphics are this, this game is a hidden gem, blah blah blah" I think we've all read or seen that a million times.

 

Instead of reviews, I want to do something more like critique and comparison, something in the ball park of Hardcoregaming101, but with my own angle. The danger is falling into the trap of the run of the mill boring review or it being just a blog of what I've played, who wants to read that? What audience does it serve?

[Atariboy]

Reading a earlier post reminded me of another pet peeve and that's introductions.

 

I don't want to see someone's amateurish attempt to appear professional or whatever they think that they're accomplishing with their YouTube video of a videogame that they're playing, by having their own opening that they repeat with every last video that they ever upload.

Edited December 17, 2014 by Atariboy