Thursday, March 31, 2011

You Can't Have it Both Ways


Reading recent reviews over the game Homefront, I am getting more and more upset with review sites, not all...but a few.

Its the ones who complain and then give a game a lower score based on the length of the single player campaign in First Person Shooters. Lets take IGN for example, they talk about the single player campaign as being a negative for the game. quoting,

IGN"The single-player campaign is a lot of fun, but its inexcusable shortness is also Homefront's greatest downfall. Homefront is going to run you $60 new, and if you're not at all interested in multiplayer, then the value Homefront delivers to you as a consumer is minimal. The campaign's seven chapters can easily be completed in five hours"

Sooooo, shouldn't they say the same thing about other FPS as well??? Why do they mention it with this game and not any other?!?! I mean, they don't just mention it in passing, they base a portion of their total score on this aspect. But in going back and reading other FPS reviews, this seems to be the norm with these guys.

They pick a FPS and shit on its length for one game and not on another, why?..I don't know...I think they are just fanboys. Just read the Battlefield Bad Company 2 review with this quote,"And with such a frantic campaign pace, it is over in short order. I blew through the game in just a few evenings of lazy play, probably clocking in under six hours." Now they also say they didn't like the single player campaign either, but with Homefront, they say that the length is a focal point.

Then we have the Medal of Honor review. But here they didn't like the game over all, so they had something else to focus there shit on. But that didn't mean that at the very end, they managed to throw out that Medal of Honor single player campaign is 4-6 hrs long. Never saying that it was bad thing because they already tore up the games single player campaign anyway, but at the same time, why bring it up then? If you didn't mention it in Call of Duty?

Its like they just make things up to complain about at random, there is no consistency in their reviews.

Even there review on Killzone 3, the single player campaign can be beaten in under 6 hrs, but do they mention that in their review?? Nope, you bet your ass they don't.

Go ahead, and read the Call of Duty review, they don't mention Boo about the length of the single player campaign, even though its the same length as Homefront. NOW, they CAN say they liked one over the other, but that's not the case here. They clearly state that the length of one game is a drawback, and then turn around and not mention the length of another game, even though they are the same.

One could argue that the dismal play of the game coupled with the length of the game is the reason they focused on the length, BUT they don't do that. They just flat out say, its a short game, therefore it gets points taken away from it. I know scores don't matter, but you can't bring up a flaw of a game being short and then not mention that same flaw for other games of its type. IF that was the case, then all FPS that are less than 6 hrs should get the same treatment. Call of Duty was too short, Medal of Honor was too short, Battlefield was too short, all of this looks bad for these games and therefore takes away from the whole.

IGN are morons, and I'll be taking down the link in the blog roll because of it. Go some where else, anywhere else for your legit game reviews, because you aren't going to find it at IGN.

7 comments:

Oli said...

I like Gamespot, i've always thought it seems so official and professional. I also prefer watching their video reviews on Youtube, i agree with your thoughts on this post :)

Big D said...

As much as I hate to defend review sites, even compared to CoD, battlefield, etc the campaign in Homefront is short. It took me like, 4 hours to finish it.

Not only that but it is pretty sucky over all. I can deal with a short campaign if it's good, but sadly it's not very good. I heard the multiplayer is sweet though.

rinns said...

I've never been a fan of IGN.
I find that a lot of game reviewers are biased, but I can't expect anything less.

Blake said...

It regards to length of game, the difference between a 4 hr game and a 5 hr game is not enough to justify bringing up the shortness.

Also different people have different play styles, some people shoot through the game as fast as they can. Others like me, poke around, looking at textures, looking for hidden items, etc.

So the length varies per player as well.

But I still don't agree with them using it as a negative for one game and not the other. But IGN as far as I'm concerned are the bottom of the barrel reviewers.

If we think about other games that run into 30 plus hrs even to the crazy games that run us 60 hrs.

Karyn said...

IGN is terrible; I always avoid them. Gamespot is better but I prefer reading user reviews as opposed to official game critics. The Reviews tab on GameFAQs is what I usually go by if I must read reviews.

Also Homefront is getting so much flack for its alternate history angle. Apparently it is too impossible for people to take seriously. Homefront just can't win.

Kelli said...

I never go off anyones review. I find that some people like you said try to find stuff to complain about and make the game seem like its totally not work it, instead of slightly mentioning a negative with some good positives.

Sometimes when I read reviews I'm like "I don't know about this game then" but after I tried it I find that for me I had a whole different opinion, I would actually think the game is okay to play... not to buy... but to rent.

Kelli said...

let me rephrase that. I don't go off "unreasonable" reviews. I do however take into consideration a more detailed review that can list even one positive over alot of negatives.

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