Should game critics be expected to finish the game before giving a final review?

Should game critics be expected to finish the game before giving a final review?

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Should game critics be expected to play the game before reviewing it?

Yes

It's the bare fucking minimum

Yes. It’s retarded to think otherwise. Could Ebert have watched an hour of a movie and reviewed it? Maybe, but nobody would trust it.

It would be impractical in some cases, like if they get stuck at a particular point (especially at endgame). But if they didn't finish a game the review should state it.

For a game like Cuphead, all you really need to do is complete a few stages and bosses and you have a general view of the game.

But, as movies are reviewed after completing them, video games should be the same. There is far more to most games than Cuphead. Stories, post game content, etc. It should all be experienced to completion and taken into account for the review.

Yes.

i think this is a silly opinion to have when the crux of a game's enjoyment is gameplay, and performance being relevant but to a lesser degree

unless its one of those games like disgeia where you can easily play for like 700 hours and still not do "everything" abso-fucking-lutly

In this case, I'm sure he did the bulk of the work. And 24 is a decent enough for a review. It's not like it's an RPG where no """"""game journo"""""" could realistically beat in 5 hours of playing and they barely have a grasp of the mechanics.

How exactly do they evaluate the game in its totality if they haven't? What if the last boss fight was the best greatest? What if it was broken? What if there was a twist at the end or some reveal that granted some post-game bonus? Cuphead isn't even a long game. I could forgive someone not getting to the end of a 100+ hour RPG before completing their review.

I'm reminded of that clown who gave Nier Automata a 5/10 after beating Route A, saying the game lacked content.

I dont want to hear anything about a game until its finished and comes out. At this point i want to go on youtube, type video game title gameplay and watch 10 to 20 minutes of it without the fucker saying a single word about it. Never in 8 years have I consulted any review site and you shouldnt either

just wait for the first game that actually puts in a skip boss fight button

Didn't mass effect 3 had cinematic mode where you could avoid all battles and just do dialog?

I do this as well. I dont have time to read some article by a white bearded numale with abandonment issues. I watch a few trailers and If it intersts me ill consider buying it.

You reminded me of how I saw a message board post (not a professional review) where the guy said he put 999 down after getting one ending, saying "my philosophy is that whatever ending I get first in a game is what I'm stuck with." Not realizing that just getting one of 999's endings means you're not even a quarter of the way done yet. It was one of the dumbest things I had ever heard.

Did he just play the beginning of the game
Fuck this makes me mad

This rustled my jimmies a bit. Another reason why i dont like critics.

Who cares its garbage

"Diablo meets Half-Life. You even get your own office after doing a few missions"

-from a Deus Ex review written in 2000

>Cuphead isn't even a long game

It wasn't that he didn't have time to finish it, it's that he played on simple mode which locks you out of the final world, and rather than go back and play on regular, he just called it a day and put up a review. So not only did he not beat the game, he played a gimped version of the game before assigning a finalized score to it.

At this point, games reviwes are redundant. What really might be interesting is just a catalogue of all upcoming games and a summary of all games that came out in year xy sorted by genre and name with short gameplay explanations like, this game has a lock on system, skill bars etc. I dont want to google THE BESTESTEST gayme of all times 2017 edition, i wan to google mechanics or genre. Have you tried to even find games with lock on? there are like 2 sites from 2015 which have some lists, thats it. Fuck reviewers and fuck op for mentioning them

Depends, for something with a focus on gameplay like crash or cuphead you have the gist of it after a couple of hours. Plus you get games like no man's sky, I wouldn't wish finishing that on my worst enemy.

But in more story-driven games it's better to get the whole thing. I'm only saying whether it's acceptable here, it's obviously preferable if they finish it.

A million times this
>the opinion of someone who isn't me
worthless
>said opinion may or may not even be genuine, might be paid for instead
BEYOND worthless

yes

who cares. game critics aren't worth anything.

Even in Disgaea series you can reach the story ending easily in like 30 hours.
And if the critic is not willing to put in the hours to finish the story, the job of reviewing said game should be given to someone that will actually finish the game.

no

most people don't even finish games they buy

>muh hours of value
it's a boring slog

I was originally annoyed that some jerks from Square Enix stuck a message telling people that Nier's route A ending wasn't the real end of the game and to keep playing. I thought that showed an astonishing lack of faith in their audience in order to put that in Taro's game, but honestly some people are fucking retarded.

No, but they should disclose if they didn't, as well as disclosing what difficulty they played on. At that point it's up to the consumer to decide if they're opinion is worth a fuck or not.

no but they should be open about how far they went

that said, i watched someone speed run the cuphead in half an hour, how it's fucking possible to spend 24 hours on cuphead and still not finishing it? i guess it's still fine...

No. 24 hours is 0.6 of a work week. With the volume of games to review that is a fucking huge amount.

That's a given, why would you rate something you didn't finish?

Of course they should. If they can't do it, they should not write the review at all.
But they don't get paid if they don't write a review? That's their problem for being professional reviewers instead of doing it as a hobby.

Eh getting to the last level should be enough but today's games have big narratives so the reviewer should be expected to know the ending

So in the case of "Mario Odyssey"

Do you mean if they beat just the story mission or collected all those pointless moons at the end that was clearly just recycled filler.

compromises for retards are necessary if you want any kind of mainstream success

>No. 24 hours is 0.6 of a work week. With the volume of books to review that is a fucking huge amount.

Yes thats how retarded you sound

I'm gonna be the faggot in here and say no, they shouldn't. Specially if they hate the game in the first place.

That being said, whenever one of these fucks does this, there should be a disclaimer stating that they did not finish the game, and it should disclose with as much detail as possible where they stopped. That was the reader can each make their own opinion as how valid the review of said game is.

If the reviewer just didn't finish the final boss fight and watched in Jewtube cause muh deadline? mostly valid. If the fucker only played 2 hours of an RPG? he can go fuck himself with his fake news bullshit.

That and how having to manually save was some mind blowing thing for some that they had to warn you twice that the game does not auto-save

Why is there such a rush to review things? I'd much prefer to trust the opinion of someone who spent a lot of time with a game and let their opinions settle for a while rather than someone who immediately opened up a Word file as soon as the credits started rolling.

how the fuck do you play cuckhead for 24 hours and not beat it

>Game Review
>Contains any SJW jargon

no because they are too irrelevant to warrant any expectations at all

i look forward to a future where vidya """"journos""""" and the people who harbor them are hunted for sport

The guys is at least honest about the extent to which he played the game. What's wrong with that ? You just have to read his review having that in mind, heck if that bothers you just read, one of the thousand other reviews that are up online.

Even just playing one hour in most games can cover the basic gameplay loop, giving you a good feel of what's in store. So "almost" finishing it is not that bad.

I played it way after release, did it have that note from Squeenix telling you to replay at launch? Was he that retarded?

No.

business.financialpost.com/technology/gaming/nier-automata-review-creative-daring-ambitious-oh-and-also-a-big-fat-mess

Then the whole internet can laugh at them.

>Why is there such a rush to review things?
Because mindless sheep need someone else's opinion to validate their tastes, and if you're the first one out the door, all the mindless sheep will flock to you and you get that sweet, sweet high traffic number that allows you to sell add space.

Blame publishers not sending review copies. I don't understand why they don't just send early copies but implement embargoes for a few days after release. That means the reviewer gets to put out a quality review without rushing to get it out on time and the publisher doesn't have to worry about poor reviews impacting launch sales.

I guarantee they didnt make it through 40%of the main mission.

I beat it right before I started playing.

It's this faggot Not only did he complain about lack of content, he also complained about unanswered questions when he quit 1/3 through.

It really depends on the game, I feel. Like, for a game like Cuphead that can be completed in one long sitting, there's no excuse for not playing it through to completion. For very long games like Persona 5, though, I'd say you have a firm grasp of everything the game has to offer in terms of mechanics (aka the important part) in the 10-20 hour range.

5/10 is a deserved score. Why would anyone want to replay a shit game?

They want to be first so their article gets the most exposure.

t. Japan
We might have got a mediocre localization but at least they fixed most of the bugs.

...

It did have it at launch but it was clearly something added by Square Enix's marketing team.

>can't beat fucking Cuphead within 24 hours

Is there any hope for us?

Why would anyone post such shitty bait?
The world is full of mysteries.

I don't think it made you skip battles, just made them piss easy.

He also tweeted about how annoyed he was that the game took him away from Breath of the Wild.

He ALSO gave Mass Effect Andromeda a fucking 9/10 or some crazy shit.

No but they should dedidicate a full work week to it at the bare minimum.

I could maybe see their argument if they were in the NES era or something with playing a good game could take a shitload of time and bad games would be almost unbeatable but in this day and age, you could breeze through most games in a afternoon.

It's also unfair to games that do something like multiple endings or show little teeth to get punished for doing something wrong but you see videos like the cuphead tutorial or read that a reviewer only played a quarter of the game before quitting that tells developers to make things easier and shorter.

But the game is finishable in 3-4 hours if you're not retarded.

It is because they DON'T want a review out there that they do this, you moron.

They want you to go to the store and let the hype and marketing sweep you into buying the game instead of making an informed decision. This is specially true if the publisher knows that the game is shit, but they still need to sell it or everyone gets fired.

Yeah they should

>complimentary
Shouldn't it be complementary? Even that doesn't quite fit in the context, as it doesn't complete anything.

Video games are probably the only medium where the average Joe is way more experienced and knowledgeable than the people who write about the subject for a living. Why is that?

absolutely

however if its a fuckhuge rpg, they should at least finish the main quest

>Chad

I expect them to finish the game and shortly look at most extras that the game offers.

No, complimentary is correct. It means it was provided for free.

If it's too much work to play the entire game before reviewing it, why don't companies maximize their time by letting them do full LPs and upload them online with an editor cutting out any grinding bits so they get LP money + company paycheck for reviewing the game?

Then people can actually see if they're shit at the game, how far they played, what they did, and even see the gameplay themselves with a reviewer's commentary that they like. Why don't companies jump on the LP bandwagon train like everyone else?

Fpbp

How the fuck can you play that game for 24 hours and not finish it?

Because that's completely untrue. You are mistaking people who are good at video games for "average joes" when that's not the case. Obviously someone good at the game in question would be the best to review it, but these people aren't easy to find and hire as regular writers, as they're probably busy with school/work in their own life, and even if it were easy, people who are good at games aren't necessarily good at writing, so their review might still be worthless.

>finish the game

Finish what
The main story?
Easy mode? Normal? The hardest difficulty, because otherwise you can't unlock the true ending?
Simply reach the end of the game?
See the credits rolling?
See all the content?
Complete every objective in the game?
Finish the endgame?
Complete the pokédex?
Do every mission? Just try every "type" of mission?
Unlock all the characters?
Unlock everything?
What about collectibles?
What about games with procedurally generated content?
What about post-endgame content, that's not important?
What about card games, multiplayer only stuff, or just games with slightly different structure than the norm?

At the end of the day, "finish the game" is too generic and doesn't mean shit, it just can't be a rule

>in the span of 2 hours, Peter watched most of The Matrix but fell asleep with his hand down his pants when Neo sees the oracle.
>He watched some with VLC media player and the majority on his dvd player.

Hence the fucking embargo, the publisher can control when the reviews come, and how rushed it is. The reviews are coming regardless, and if they reviewer has to just buy it at launch like everyone else then they're going to be forced push out a half ass review as quickly as possible to stay with the pack. Then you get this shit, where they don't finish the game and are just as likely to put out a damaging review because they didn't get to explore it properly as they are to gleam over flaws.

How is that even a question? Of course they should, especially a game thats 9 hours long on average.
Seriously, how the fuck review sites have any credibility left? Who reads that shit?

You may as well go full retard and post a food analogy.

They should play a certain hour amount regardless of game. If it's super long, that's still a valid review. If it's a shorter game, they can determine how replayable the game is and five deeper into mechanics.

>Should film critics be expected to finish the film before giving a final review?

>In the span of 30 minutes, Peter ate most of his burger but became full and threw it away
>He ate the leftover apple pie he also bought later that night

>in the span of 2 hours, Peter ate most of his steak but became full after filling up on salad when the waiter comes by with his check
>He ate the rest later after eating it up in a microwave

Won't work as many barely play games, suck shit and would quit if they were made fun of, and most developers want to keep the actual game as far away as possible from the audience to hype up the 10/10 scores to rope people in before they figure out they new game they bought is a piece of shit.

Yes, because watching a movie doesn't take any skill.

>>>/twobestfriendsplay/

> Game reviewers only need to play an amount equal to a movie

>steak was chewy in the microwave. 6/10

>We went on a 3 day trip to Spain to taste the local cuisine!
>However Peter got sick after eating paella and decided to eat instant noodles the remainder of the trip
>8/10

Within the context of Cuphead, two bosses short of Satan isn't the worst ever offense.

I mean Dominoes garlic crust tastes terrible when reheated, so that can be a legit critique.

try reheating in the toaster on reheat / conventional oven setting senpai.

what if there's a big story twist in the last couple of levels or unique power ups or gameplay modifiers (As there often are).

Oh man, what's the matter with me. Thanks dude.

>people who are good at games aren't necessarily good at writing

Neither are professional critics. I'd rather have a review by someone who can't write but at least knows what they're talking about than a person who can't write and doesn't know shit.