The Objective Review | A Helpful Guide for Gamers
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 พ.ย. 2020
- You have probably already heard it a thousand times by now. A video game gets what is perceived to be a too high or too low review score and suddenly all hell breaks loose. You could say it is a regrettable part of gamer identity at this point. Some take it a bit further though, and proclaim games media to be too biased and incompetent, maybe even suggesting we need so-called objective reviews to take over the scene. Join us as we explore why this is indeed quite silly, and why the idea might even be a detriment to our entire understanding of video games as a medium.
Special thanks for providing your voices!
Darkfry - / darkfry0071
Pim Is Online - / @pimscrypt
David J Bradley - / @davidjbradley
Joshua Emerson - / @nestdweller3028
Zoltiboi - / @zoltiboi
Kevin the Arcadologist - / arcadology
Eyebrow Owl - / @eyebrowowl9292
PATREON: / transparens
TWITTER: / transparencyboo
#IGN #GamerIdentity #ObjectiveReview
If you see this, write a comment about Bubsy 3D being a good game actually and pretend you mean it. Heck, mix it up a bit and do one of Sonic 06 too, people will love it. Also, Bubsy 3D is actually not that bad, I mean it is, but it is not THAT bad - people talk about it like it is the plague or something. - เกม
Tell us some games that you like but are generally considered to be pretty bad! We'd love to hear your thoughts, empower each other, friends! And if you like what we do, please consider supporting us on Patreon! You get access to our Discord, where you basically get to talk to us and see our minds outside of videos. It is quite a sight. Like a zoo, but it is Kiki and Alicia, haha. www.patreon.com/transparens
I'll defend Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts til the day I die.
Big fan of silent hill 4
Knack is actually alright.
A game that is generally considered bad that I like? The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard. That game has the single, absolute, worst control scheme I've ever suffered through, by which I mean that it's uncomfortable and unresponsive and the game requires a great deal of precision which is thoroughly incompatible with the control scheme. It also is horrifically badly optimized. It's still a lot of fun, though, and the story's fantastic.
I'm not sure if it qualifies, but I really love Hotline Miami 2. This is very "it's bad on purpose" but I feel like it kind of takes the "glamour" of the first game and just drops it all, creating a game where those rhetorical questions from the first game about if you liked killing people had actual bite. The characters are vaguely pathetic and are all chasing the high of the first game, and I feel like that makes the central question of the series, "why are people compelled to violence," a lot more honest
This is objectively the best subjective review of gamers
This is fact.
"If LGBTQ is so good, why isn't there an LGBTQ 2?"
~ Some IGN commenter, probably
Amazing video as always! I hope no one takes that voice line of mine out of context...
It will be used against you forever now.
@@Transparencyboo I will get canceled for sure and it's al YOUR FAULT! Totally worth it tho
There is they just prefer to name the sequels without the explicit number 2 in them. The sequel to LGBTQ is LGBTQIA2SP
Movie reviews have this same problem too. You got people who hate Disney for their monopoly on the entertainment industry who praise critics giving their recent films like the live action Aladdin and Lion King films low scores. But when they give non-Disney blockbuster films like Detective Pikachu or Godzilla KOTM low scores, they'll try to defend those films saying how they're good actually and not to trust the critics.
Oh absolutely, we did not mention it here but it is often times a "fan" problem too. It is connected to the investment in products that we talked about in the video, and that can go for pretty much any medium we recon. People who engage with popular culture are not necessarily that often interested in talking about things on a deeper level - Batman hit a guy and it is really cool, and there is not much more they actually ask for, haha.
Between this channel and eurothug 4000, 2020 is becoming the year gamer girls save gaming.
Heck, we'd love to be gamer girl heroes!
@@Transparencyboo you already are!
@@nsalegit9482 Aw, you!
I yelled in shock when you smashed that egg on Billy Hatcher, a.k.a. The Best GameCube Game Ever ♥️
No Billy Hatchers were harmed in this video!
the funniest part about that "if it's not LGBTQ it doesn't get a good score" comment on IGN is that it totally ignores that SpongeBob is an assexual icon
Hell yeah! So true!
Bless the cat!
Jucika is a treasure, a little star.
Often traditional reviews can be a bit boring honestly. Analysis and talking about deeper aspects of games is a lot more fun to us personally. We do still write reviews professionally at times, but we kind of moved into this business specifically because we needed more.
bubsy 3d is a piece with un-earned ill repute, whose charms reveal themselves upon examination of the whole aesthetic
(sniffs audibly)
just wanted to say i really appreciate seeing more people bringing critical/theoretical material to the mostly skimming the surface level realm of youtube media criticism
Thanks for the kind words, if can at least bring something to the table we are happy! Seems like some appreciate it at least :)
About Bubsy 3D though it is kind of funny that a lot of the people who reviewed it often complain about how hard it is to get the atoms by picking them up - yeah, well, that is not really what you are meant to do. You are meant to use the atoms as projectiles and create chain reactions with them. Like the game is pretty bad, but you don't have to make it worse for yourself, haha.
You guys really deserve a lot more of reach. Like, A LOT of dudes out there should reflex on topics like this. Thanks for the new content, looking forward to the next one!
We'll hopefully get there one day. Maybe some weirdo will throw this video around and they will be angry about it while we cash in the sweet reward of their clicks. Anything could happen.
Holy sh*t, Sonic Mania was released over 2 YEARS AGO!!? ._. My youth truly is a fleeting fantasy.
Over 3 years even, holy smokes!
Gotta go fast?
“Speak for yourself!”
this was a really good video, and the framing near the start of the two review scores from two different people, but under the same website, reminded me of how close i sometimes was to falling into these "objectivity" traps when i was much younger
i'm glad i didn't go down that road, and instead slowly came to recognize the absurdity of overshadowing many different people, giving different personal opinions, under a single publication brand-name, as if the brand were the one holding these opinions
I mean yeah, like we said - there is some kind of logic to it. More than anything we think that review scores probably should go away, because it makes certain people engage with the text very differently. Numbers are quantifiable and "true" in a sense. They are higher and lower than each other, you know when you did the ">" to indicate less/more than in elementary school? Yeah, apparently it sticks really hard, haha.
I never clicked a video more fast in my life.
Edit: Well i present myself i am a literature and linguistics student. So i have my big share of this discussion.
And i always remember how mad some gamers and geeks get one time when i say this conclusion in a forum:
"Art/games are in the best case scenario in this type of discussion and critique, phenomenological and/or dialectical by nature (basically sociological value of art and his value is based on his discussion or the phenomenon of how is broadly perceive, not is his inherent objective value) and is impressionist at worst( mean that the value of the art form is based about little pretty subjective impressions)"
This both things are explored in this video and even made a statement of how important the subjective opinion is.
This is probably my most loved video about video game critic that i saw until now. You did a pretty good job people.
Same!
@@thepositiver9977 Yep, same here.
Very cute, you all! Thank you! :)
Once again in awe at the work you put into those videos. There#s always something going on. Specially recorded footage, diagrams, picture collages, REALLY PAINFUL IN-JOKES. Just incredible stuff and the result is a video that easily keeps my intention even though I've read the script before. Powerful stuff.
Also really digging the takeaway that embracing subjectivity is good actually. Hell yeah!
I suppose that is our brand at this point. We could just have some game footage rolling, but we don't really want to do that. Part of the fun (and sometimes pain) making these things are thinking about what to actually put on the screen. Glad people enjoy it and do see the extra effort put into that. And yeah, subjectivity is cool actually. Objectively.
@@Transparencyboo
It definitely, nay, objectively is more fun to see than generic videogame footage :)
Highlight reel moment: Wario Brothers intensify at 32:32. :D
I'd put money on the fact that the same people using "subjective" as a derogatory term are the same ones who use "political" as a derogatory term. In both cases meaning: something I don't agree with.
Oh, for sure.
@7:58 Hey, why'd you use a picture of me for this part?
(Great video by the way, really enjoying it!)
Haha, nice to see you here, friend. Really appreciate it! :)
Also, hit us up in Twitter if you like. We should totally stay in touch, haha.
Very late to this video, but it all reminds me of a story a close friend of mine had, about how when she was growing up, her childhood console was a Playstation, and her favorite childhood game was Bubsy 3D. She was completely enamored with it, played through it constantly, made her dad play through the hard parts so she could see more of it, drew crayon drawings of bubsy and wrote little new adventures about him when she'd pretend, and like. Honestly, I'm glad that someone can have that experience with it.
That is absolutely lovely. I hope they still have fond memories of it :)
It's 2 A.M. right now and I can *objectively* say this was divine and I am very tired
Hope you got some nice sleep
So... i have to admit i'm a bigger film fan than video games. and i used to think the same way about films, that there is an "objective" way of "judging them".
Then i got older and realize "objective" in this context just means "you is dumb for not liking/disliking the thing i like/dislike", which is like throwing a tantrum and desperately creating "reasons" for it.
anyway, great vid!
But i'm kinda curious: why do gamers hate Last of Us 2 so much?
The dislike for The Last of Us 2 is coming from a few different places, but the most vocal minority who are convinced everyone hates it do so because they think it is too SJW for starters. You know, the usual type of bad criticism that tend to crop up from time to time.
Was your sonic 06 friend nitrorad?
I fucking WISH!
You comment on the need to be right as part of the refusal to accept other opinions, but I think it's something more than this -- it's the need to _always have been right._ If you need to be right and find out you were wrong, you can accept the criticism and change your views. If you need to _always have been right,_ then you double down on your nonsense when called out on it. The latter is something that is at the least greatly exacerbated by an authoritarian upbringing.
Also, from the moment I saw the title, I immediately thought of the Jimquisition episode on the topic. That, more than anything for me, drove home the point that objective reviews are impossible.
Ah, yes, we kind of thought that was implied. That it is also tied to an unwillingness to change your mind, and that the need to be right is like you say a case of also always have been right as well. It is one of those biases, haha.
And yeah, the Jim Sterling article, and video if you want, is very much needed to be mentioned. It is still relevant to this day much because we don't seem to be able to move past this stuff. For this script I watched an AlphaOmegaSin video that did not make the cut, but it was really a good example of this. In this ten year old video he uses the "Can't spell ignorant without IGN"-joke and it just confirmed so hard to us that this rather silly attitude towards professional reviewers have not moved an inch in an entire decade. Get some new material, right?
Sorry for the ramble, glad to have you here friend. Hope you enjoyed the video~
@@Transparencyboo It is, but I find that it's often worth making things like that explicit. It's more an addition to your point than a counterpoint. It's honestly about framing -- being right is still good; that's why you should change your position when it turns out you're not. The problem is when you can't admit that you're human and sometimes make mistakes. We're making the same point, but I think the way I phrased it places people's focus more effectively where it needs to be than the much more common formulation you used. Of course, your mileage may vary.
Also, no need to apologize to me of all people for rambling. And I loved the video, as always, of course.
Fair, it makes perfect sense. Can't believe we did not see it ourselves, haha. But I suppose you get a bit stuck in your own videos at times. Even when people proof read things gets through anyway. Hopefully people get what we are actually saying here, haha. Thanks anyway :)
A wonderful video! And well presented. I'd go as far as to say that trying to crunch any video game experience into one numeric score can be pretty unconstructive in the first place, and that applies to other media as well.
I do wonder why so many people identifying as gamers - fans of video games - seem so uninterested in spending a minute thinking about what games, experiences, opinions or reviews are. Maybe it ties into how gamers want video games to be recognized as a legit medium but also reject any critical media analysis with "it's just a game bro why you gotta turn it political". It's an interesting corner in our cultural landscape.
Hälsningar från Finland :)))
Hey, thank you! We agree, most of the time numeric scores is a weird way to evaluate games, and it clearly just invites people to make comparisons that don't even make any sense. There is so much stuff going on with gaming culture that it is hard to pin point just one reason for all of it, but that what you said probably plays at least some part.
Hälsningar tillbaka från Sverige~
little story time:
Fire Emblem warriors piqued my interest so i searched for some video reviews, ended up watching around 4 of them and then put the game on my wishlist thinking something like: "eh, ill get it on sale later". Few weeks later i played the hyrule warriors calamity demo and it wasn't to my taste, later that day i rewatched those reviews and then some and decided to leave it on my wishlist but put it lower on my priorities. A week later i came to the simple realization that I just can't be arsed to grind that much. Saved me a bunch of money
The Warriors games can be mindless fun at times, but they are usually not more than that from our experience. Usually just a bunch of alternative universe shennanigans where you play characters you rarely get to play. The original Hyrule Warriors for example had so many weird character choices , like the bug princess from Twilight Princess. Kiki played one of the One Piece Warriors games, and she seemed to enjoy it at least partially, but the way it just skimmed through the story was kind of silly, haha.
came for darkfry's line 😍
It is a really good line! Thanks for checking in!
Can't believe I didn't watch this sooner. I've had the topic in the back of my mind for a while, resurfacing every now and again when videos that document the history of certain games and their communities portray them as oversimplified, monolithic entities; bold claims like "it was worse than the beta", "the real fans saw through their tricks", "it has no place in modern game design", etc. with little substance to back them up.
Gosh, this was refreshing.
Finally got around to watching this. Great work, as always. Stellar, even.
Your point about gaming conglomerates not being individuals is exactly why I don't follow sites like IGN and GameSpot for reviews. I think they're good for metrics upon a game's release, as the collectives do indicate a certain level of quality. However, I find that we're best served as consumers if we find reviewers (meaning individuals) that we tend to agree with and then follow their lead.
There's a lot of nuance to this discussion, and you both did a phenomenal job with another incredible piece of work. ☺
Your intro sequences are always really cool!
Alicia is really proud of them, they're among her greatest joys when making a video!
How did you manage to get Christopher Walken as a guest reader? Nice
He came to us.
I said hey my friends at Transparency wanted to use you for a VO. So, he signed right up.
@@Arcadology Such a cool guy!
I love this objective appraisal of the bad situation!
Very objective, yes.
This video was truly great. This objective mentality we have towards reviews is quite frankly ridiculous and I'm glad you shed some light to it. I must however remind you that a lot of Sonic fans do not hate ign for their low scores but rather their claims like "Sonic fans want to have sex with big the cat", which are downright insults that should in fact be taken seriously
We are quite aware of the Big the Cat thing, so it is not meant to be us sweeping it under the rug. It is quite clearly there after all. And the people having issue with that we are absolutely fine with, it was a stupid joke that could make people upset. However we would say that they are quite different from the quite loud crowd who really laser focused on the "Sonic was never good" aspect. We hope it was clear that we wanted to focus on them rather than those who have fair criticism of what was being said. :)
Also, if you are new here we love Sonic too, we made an entire video about the boy after all, so it has not been lost on us how the mentality surrounding Sonic sometimes get a bit too personal for some. Sonic fans are neat, that is all~
@@Transparencyboo I understand. Thanks for clarifying! There's no shame in disliking Sonic and critizing it, but glad we share a taste :)
@@undergalaxy775 No problem at all, friend! :)
I love this video so much. It says a lot of things I've been thinking about saying for awhile now. Great work!
Glad to be able to put it into words and that you enjoyed them words
This is always an amusing topic to hear about. Great video!
Thanks, friend. Glad you liked it! :)
Sonic mania plus getting lower score than sonic mania could also make sense if the review is like "I don't think the extra features are worth the complete re release of the game" and buying it again
Wow this video went from cute jucika vibes to HowToBasic vibes pretty darn fast
Our videos are full of surprises!
oh to be a VMU cradled by a purring cat
Living the dream that little device is.
I loved your editing choices on this :)
Thanks friend! :)
Your videos are absolutely phenomenal! I cannot believe how high your production quality is compared to the size of your channel. Y'all deserve at LEAST 500k
So we have heard. The youtube game is hard, luckily we have people supporting us on Patreon and by sharing our stuff, which makes it a heck of a lot easier. Maybe we'll get somewhere eventually, lol
A fantastic, thorough, and nuanced coverage of passionate fan's common biases and their effect on the entire industry. Thank you.
Yes! This was the perfect companion video to the last one I watched
Didn't think about that before, but yes, you're right. They fit pretty well together.
A game i loved that everyone else seems to hate is actually mass effect andromeda! It has such charming character writing, which honestly is all i need from a bioware game lol.
This was such a lovely video on a topic close to my heart. I do book reviews and iften times i read positive reviews of books ive hated to try to understand their view and get really heated, which just proves ive still got a lot of chilling out to do. In my defense, i also never actually comment on anything, just fume privately. Ah well, cest la vie and we should respect each others tastes
Also slightly unrelated, but i got so emotional hearing jim sterling being referred to by the they them pronouns. Ive been a fan of theirs for years and have also been having some non-binary feels and hearing such a casual acknowledgement is making me teary eyed on this fine evening, so thank you for that
Have been following Jim since the Destructoid days, so you might say that we know of them, haha. :)
This truly is one of the reviews of all time
It sure is.
I’ve fallen into this trap in the past. This video was very valuable and well done. Thanks
Thank you too!
Fantastic video, how am I only seeing this now.
Small fish in a big pond basically, haha. Glad you found your way here though :)
Found this through Pam of "Cannot Be Tamed": great presentation and simple good quality content. Kudos!
Thanks Josh, you truly are sweet!
Another great video. And I saw one of your other comments about being a bit bored by traditional reviews sometimes, and yeah that’s happened to me, I’ve started spending less time reading/watching them outside of a quick glance at a few reviews before making a big blind purchase.
I used to watch a lot of reviews on anime before deciding what to watch years ago when I first started actively seeking new anime to watch, but after a while I just kind of often end up watching a few episodes myself, or if it’s a movie just the whole thing, without really looking at reviews, since even if it’s a review by a good critic, I might just end up disagreeing anyway. Plus yeah outside of using them to decide on a purchase, videos/articles that embrace their subjectivity and talk about themes or are just framed in a way other than “performance, art style, music, pacing”, etc. are generally more interesting to watch/read for me at the moment.
Not that reviews can’t be helpful or well-written or entertaining, just like I think you mentioned in the video, I think it’s more interesting the more it focuses on their personal feelings about what they’re talking about, how it affected them, the circumstances they played/watched/read it in, etc.
Excellent!!! I think the practice of asking "what is *really* being said here" is incredibly valuable for everyday life
What I really appreciate is when people talking about games are able to go into depth about *why* they feel a certain way about different aspects of the game, enough so that it's possible for someone to read a positive review and say "this game isn't for me" or a negative review saying "that actually sounds like something I might enjoy" or at least have the idea that they want a second (or 3rd, 4th, etc) opinion
Like it's not always going to be that simple but I do find it really interesting and gives me what feels like a decent understanding of what to expect
"what is really being said" is a question to live by, haha. Anyway, we think review scores are mostly trash, they don't really help a lot. A text speaks for itself and let's the reader come to the important conclusions.
@@TransparencybooI agree on both counts- I suppose the point is numbers can be used to average what everyone thinks and guage the overall reception of a game?? But even that is a stretch because the numbers don't really have much meaning and I don't think "many ppl thought this game was 9" is a good way to judge "you would like it" or even compare it to trends over time because the numbers don't really mean anything without context
@@felixc543 Yeah, it is pretty arbitrary. And not really all that helpful. Question is how much review scores by themselves swing people to purchase something. Should see if there is some study on that.
Absolutely loved the vid all the way through
Sincerely, the 100% objective reviewer
Thanks! Glad you liked it so much! :)
Ironic that this video tells us that things can't be objectively good or bad over footage of Dogmeat, an objectively good boy. (/j, of course)
Hehe, some would say that him swimming in the air is bad, others would certainly disagree!
jeez, i couldn't wait to get out of class to watch this
Right here to save ya!
I liked when Pelaaja magazine in Finland had column about "7/10 games". They may not as "polished", but they do something super well, that makes you love them. I can kind of say that about my daily grind game, Warframe.
It has amazing movement! Unique world! Charming characters! But on the other hand it has quite questionable mission design, considering what you could do. Lots of introduced ideas, that were never followed up on. Very high barrier of entry, where you have to reach certain treshold, before it really opens up on you.
But I still love it. Would even consider it one of my all time favourites.
In the end, I consider reviews as kind of a "guidelines". Even though someone may love the game and I can see why, when I play, I experience it differently.
This is part why review scores are completely useless. It is hard to quantify or evaluate what a game deserves when what games are so very different, and what makes them good is too. The text can speak for itself in the end.
@@Transparencyboo I actually disagree with this. When it comes to reviewers who have ambivalent thoughts on a game, it can be hard to tell whether they actually think it's worth your time or not until they put some kind of scale on it - whether that's a list of pros or cons or a summary or a number, it defeats the point of a review if it's too vague. It's not necessary to have some numerical score, and when it's ridiculously finely grained (like a a rating with 3+ significant figures) it stops being useful, but as a basic barometer of quality, it can have value.
@@theMoporter I don't think we necessarily disagree that much from what I can tell. Altough a good reviewer should probably be able to formulate themselves well enough to make it clear what they think is good or bad, and all that jazz. You could for sure have a final verdict kind of deal without arbitrary numbers, like you said by using pros and cons - maybe a seal of approval or some kind of recommendation right? That is probably even more direct and useful, especially considering how the numerical review scores often get interpreted.
This is a great dive into the trend of "objective reviews". Your writing and presentation are always on point, it's baffling to me that you have
commenting to please the algorithm
Me too!
Video game reviews is not the only type of media being poisoned by these kinds of ideas, im fairly used to the tech review scene on youtube, where reviewers are being shamed left and right for being "biased" to a certain company or brand. My favorite case of this is Linus Tech Tips, regularly they get flack for reviews of products. Like when Linus reviewed samsungs new flagship earlier this year, and people "called him out" for being unfair to it and ontop of that being "Paid by apple or something to give samsung bad reviews". Which is very comedic considering he is to this day still using a samsung phone from 2018 due to him "feeling" that the design is better. He has stated multiple times that he does not get attached to any kind of company: "The only thing companies want from you is your money, and you should never believe they care about *you*". If people wanted "objective" tech product reviews, they can stare their eyes out on numbers of how fast something is, but at the end of the day, these numbers does not tell how the experience using a product will be, without subjective experiences and thoughts how could people try to figure out what is best for them? Hope this was not to much of a ramble, its 11:20 pm here and I should go to bed lol.
Again a very interesting in-depth video essay about an always relevant topic in my subjective opinion 😁😊
Truly never ends being topical.
"Good is a point of view"- Chancellor Palpatine
So I finished watching the video. Have some more thoughts.
The two things any good review has, I'd say:
1. Intersubjectivity, or an expressed opinion/interpretation that invites empathy, and gets you to imagine how your opinion might compare or contrast.
2. Canonization, being some cultural history that explains how relevant a game is today, and whether we should preserve it for future Sentient Fungus People archeologists.
Book tip: Angela Nagle's work on how a bunch of these calls for 'objective reviews' got hijacked and provably used as a social engineering testing ground, by the same people who'd then start putting rightwing populists in power in the second half of the 2010's. I can't say much more about that, apparently, since youtube censors mentions of the movement involved in this?
Finally you comment is here, haha. Glad we got to read it, and thanks for the tip!
I'm in general agreement with the main thesis of the video, a video game review is not a mere description of a game but one informed and expanded upon by the reviewer's appraisal of their play with it and thus is ultimately "subjective". That said, I think it could've maybe benefited from an explicit differentiation at the start between the notions of value-judgement (such as is the case of aesthetic judgements) and opinion (which is often ambiguously used in everyday language, sometimes as synonymous to value-judgement, sometimes as meaning a perhaps not justified held belief in opposition to knowledge or fact) just to avoid confusion, as well as a some general remarks on what is to be understood by objective and subjective. I get that people not actually having an idea of what an objective review would be is one of the arguments of the video and that actually defining the two terms would be a minefield (seeing as there are countless text debating this matter with no real agreement), but a non-exhaustive comment on whether we are to understand objectiveness as some sort of absolute or more simply as intersubjectivity could've been interesting, seeing as in the latter case there could be an argument for agreement with expected norms being an intersubjectively ascertainable question and thus in some sense objective. In response, one could then point out that we expect much more of a review than a statement regarding whether the game is competent in following established trends, revealing that a strictly objective evaluation of a game, even if such a thing were possible, would ultimately be undesirable, uninformative even, in similar manner to the remarks late into the video when Sterling's ironic review is mentioned.
On an unrelated note, I suspect aesthetic "objectivism" (I'm not entire sure this label is actually used within academic discussion) is not that fringe of a notion within academic philosophy (even if it certainly was a lot more common in the past than nowadays).
5:09 Cat! I spotted it! 8.5/10
PS: This ties in with your "Unplayable Games" Video really well, although I watched them in the wrong order. :D This is only my second Transparency video, but I must say, your intros are top notch! Btw What is a "bubsy"? :P
Yeah, it kind of spawned from some thoughts we had after making this one. We thought it was kind of neat to explore those aspects a bit further. Hopefully they work in the wrong order too, haha.
And thanks, we do put some effort into the intros. Some are more special than others, but we always have fun trying to come up with things for them. Can be hard to make something cool every time, but at least we try.
Also, Bubsy is a kind of bad mascot character from the 90s era. The 3D game is really quite notorious for being absolutely awful, haha.
@@Transparencyboo They do work in this order, yes. ;)
And I know Bubsy. ;) I thnk from the AVGN.
@@Judasziege Great! We try to make them not too dependant on each other. And Bubsy is a treasure, we should appreciate him~
The most objective video game review site: Wikipedia
Also, cool use of Croc Legend of the Gobbos music!
Thanks for noticing, we were very excited about getting to use that music!
Excellent video on a topic that causes much frustration and many headaches when trying to talk about games with the type of people who comment on IGNs game reviews, lol
Reviews really are subjective. There's no getting around that. A few years ago I read a review of "Shantae and the Pirates Curse" some time after beating it. I was curious what the reviewer had to say. Almost every single point the reviewer pointed out as something negative was something that was core to my enjoyment of the game. People like different things!
I found the section where you discuss standards very interesting (I have heard about the review of Alien Resurrection before and I find it very amusing). I'm currently doing a study on queer game design as part of my game dev education and it centers a lot on examining standards, questioning them, and designing outside the space the standards define. Games that break standards aren't neccessarily bad - they're just different. And being different is how you innovate, and express stories that have no space in the normative design space we've come to expect from these standards.
Final note - good cat content. Objectively 10/10.
It would be a complete mess if we had to rely on standards all the time, because as you say - breaking away from them is how we innovate. And yes, sometimes that will make the game in question less approacable to people, but we totally think there can be value in it anyway. We are actually thinking about making a video about what we refer to as "unplayable" games, as in games that people for one reason or another have trouble approaching and enjoying to the point where they just can't, haha. We were thinking P.T, Majora's Mask and perhaps even Dark Souls, and by golly wouldn't you know how influential or at the very least important these have been for the evolving video game discourse. They created discussion.
I pose a lot of questions when it comes to games, purely based on objectivity, and I question if that's an incorrect way of thinking. Things I ask are:
1) does the music/score add to any thematic elements
2) do the characters/plot have a full and comprehensive motivation for their actions
And 3) can this be viewed as a whole experience, much in the same way reading a novel would be
I have a lot of games that I love that either fit or don't in this context. For example
1) FF9 fits the bill incredibly well in terms of music and themes
2) For a second compare Kingdom Hearts to Persona. The formers story is riddled with plot holes and large reaches of justification (thanks coded and ddd), while the latter tells a complete story from beginning to end where the characters, world, and personality evolve independently without breaking cohesion.
3) Spiderman ps4 was a huge example of a blunder. The game was quality and the 8 hours I took to 100% it on the hardest difficulty were nice. However, $60 for a 8 hour game just to set up a sequel? Seems like it's markedly inefficient and quite irresponsible of an investment. If, for example, that whole ps4 game was Act 1, and then the doors fly wide open in Act 2 (what would become Miles Morales), then it would be more worthwhile because you get the whole thing. You don't have to wait extra years and get another full priced title
Obviously it's a simplified list but I still feel like these could be incorrect ways of thinking. I love all of these games and maybe my standards aren't necessarily correct
Sup gamers? im late, but i brought cake.
Delicious!
I like Andromeda, even tho everyone thinks its pretty bad. I think its alright as a standalone game, I like the romances and the fighting is smoother than some of the older mass effect games
I think its silly that people are seeking Objective Reviews without Bias. I feel like our education on what bias is is apparently hugely flawed since people think they can cut away all the bias from their lives and somehow become Pure.
The enlightened centrist view that you can be, as you say, pure probably go hand in hand with this. It almost seems that the people who believe themselves to be completely unbiased often are the most biased, haha.
The only truly objective review is a review that does not exist
The objective review is the friends we made along the way.
[sluuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrp]
Delicious mulled wine!
I guess I'm a bit late to the discussion, but after watching this all the way through, I wanted to share my opinion. I used to be one of those reactionary gamers that would fallow the ban wagon and criticize big game companies. This probably stemmed from my love of the fallout games, which, to be honest, has one of the most polarized fan bases, but that's something else entirely.
As I got older, I quit being reactionary, or at least I thought I did. I ended up joining the subreddit r/gamingcirclejerk for a long time. It was (at least at one point) aimed at making fun of those "epic gamers" who would make fun of things like TLOU2 review. I didn't leave it until recently, when I realized it was just as reactionary and biased as the "gamers" it criticized.
I ended up coming to the opinion that I don't care as much about other people's opinions of a game as long as it's something I enjoy. It can be helpful to watch a review before making a purchase, but no reviewer should be taken as gospel. For whatever reason, we place way too much values on opinions of things that ultimately don't matter. If someone doesn't like a game, they can just choose not to play it. If you enjoy a game and think someone has a "wrong opinion" you can just disregard it and keep playing.
Sorry if this is a bit rambly but it's something I wanted to share for a while. Hopefully what I wrote is at least a little helpful to someone or holds some value.
It's all good, it was a nice comment, friend! I think a lot of us have an easier time to be engulfed in being angry about these things when being younger. I suppose you really do get some perspective with age, haha.
You did a good!
Thank.
I think another best case scenario to those looking for "objective" reviews is that they are really looking for "informed" reviews. Or more specifically, informed writing where arguments are made with clear examples from within the text or outside it. It's true that a lot of people just look at the scores, it is also true that good writing in games journalism is still rather hard to find if you don't know where to look and just follow mainstream outlets. The media hype cycle around games doesn't give much for journalists to spend time on games individually, less time spend on games of course also means less time on the writing and research part of their jobs.
If LGBTQ is so good, how come there isn't an LGBTQ 2?
We should have been at LGBTQ 3 at this point.
LGBTQ sequels are like Frog Fractions.
Everyone knows about the original but sequels take some exploration to find! ☺️
@@Solinaru This is a good reply. Approved.
in response to your pinned, one of my favorite NES games is Mario 2
Super Mario Bros 2 is rad as heck!
31:01 uh oh
It is almost LIKE WE KNEEEEEW!!
I really hate how people obsess so much over supposed contradictions in review scores. Y'all realize that "IGN" isn't a single person, right? They have hundreds of different staff members. People act like there's one guy named John Metacritic who comes up with every single review score
I just want to say when I want an objective review, it is a review that adheres to the reviewers consistent standard. If they say that a game is bad because it has a vague story (cough cough something of dark souls or other) is always bad but they have previously praised games with a similar method of storytelling, I dislike that as it makes the reviewer unreliable, so even though that isn't the strict definition of objective, I think that's what a lot of people mean when they say they want objective reviews, is that they want each reviewer to adhere to their own standard consistently.
Great video gals!
Thanks, friend!
imagine babyz party could be very good and no one would even know, none of these people even tried it smh
Wild times.
Sonic '06 is a wonderful game!... to watch a speedrun of. 😊
This video is objectively great.
yes.
@@Transparencyboo Dreamcastguy is objectively bad.
@@Singformefriend Be nice to our boy.
Some internet people seem like they just skipped their kindergarten and sesame street classes on How to Talk About Opinions, and How to Like Different Things Than Other People. There's a lot of the basics to explain to these internet angryfolk, before you could even begin to cogently discuss differing interpretations of quality with them.
And let's not even get started on readings of the text. My goodness, if we can't even get past this one hurdle then something like a reading of video games is absolutely out of reach. Try regurgitating lore instead I guess.
@@Transparencyboo Totally. That's the second class most people seem to have skipped; Reading is Not an All-Or-Nothing Game, or, How Architectures of Meaning Set Up Room For Interpretation and Frames Alike.
People either stick to the overt text or dismiss definite meaning altogether. I mean, I don't know any of these 'people' per se, but 'people' should do better. I guess the forums/forms of discussion that we use generates these discourse problems as much as the people and poor media literacy do.
By the way, not sure where that comment went - but I saw you apologizing for "spamming the comments", but gosh darn don't be sorry for engaging. It is fun and interesting to us :) We read all these comments and it is pretty much always delightful. So by all means, please go nuts!
@@Transparencyboo Then allow me to try and remember what I wrote, and repost it : )
No idea why the comment disappeared, it's not even in my profile history anymore..
amazing video
nice
You are nice!
You can't provide an "objective" review in a medium that most people consider art, you just can't. This stuff is just too personal! Yeah there's some bad reviewers out there but it's pretty easy to ignore 'em.
What really bugs me, which you brought up, is when people lose their shit over supposedly "low" scores. Reading a review a game you love (or think you'll love) is silly to begin with, but godforbid people have different opinions on it, or rate it low (6-7 isn't that low!), and all hell breaks loose. People have gotten doxxed, harassment, and threats over this kind of thing, it's ridiculous.
...that said sonic '06 is SUPER bad though I'm sorry
We agree, Sonic 06 is quite the mess. People liking it are pretty cool though :)
Sonic 06 is one of those games that's reaaaaally bad but it provided me with SO many hours of entertainment fun and laughter with my friends that I honestly can't hate it, in fact I kinda love it. Thinking a game is good and liking it are not the same thing, wish more people realized that.
@@Darkfry oh i agree. I watched a couple of youtube folks I like play the game and I got SO much enjoyment out of that. you make a fair point!
@@Transparencyboo oh of course! I wouldn't begrudge someone who likes it
algorithm and love
Okay, I get it's Wario's own fault for getting involved in the industry, but whatever did Waluigi do wrong to get compared to gamers like this. :P
(Anyway, Jucika is precious.)
But I love Billy Hatcher :(
And you should! It's just a silly little joke. After there is no objective way to measure it~
@@Transparencyboo All opinions are subjective... Except "Billy hatcher is good". That is the the one objective opinion that exists in the universe.
Girl....your cat is a 10/10!!!!😸
Jucika is our little treasure~
The definition of the word objective (of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
Of course there is no such thing as an objective review of media everyone has their own likes and dislikes it's pretty simple.
Preach!
Except it does exist. If it didn't, schools would be pointless
The not necessarily malicious seekers of the high of constant confirmation bias who demand "objective reviews" give me half a mind to make some The Onion-style site called Objective Reviews in categories of "100% Objective" and "The Objectivest Objective Objectivist Reviews" with such claims as "I can only give this a 7, the lowest possible score, because numbers below 7 simply do not exist." I wonder if anyone were to do this, complete with pages on the site explaining things like "satire" and "what does the word objective mean" would get called "hypocritical" for saying it's not possible for reviews to be objective."
I think there might have existed one at some point, but I could be wrong.
I wouldn't be surprised tbh! At minimum I know The Onion and other satire sites usually have at least 3 categories of topics like cooking so one's bound to have gaming
@@tadghcr2175 otherwise The Objective Review is a good name for a site, lol
@@tadghcr2175 The Onion indeed has a pretty cute Gaming section, that satirizes the kind of articles and stoic style that 'hardcore gamer' culture seems to crave. Not a satire of objective reviews per se, though I think objective reviews often are their own parody anyway.
I never listen/read/watch IGN, Kotaku, Gamespot, Cnet or other similar outlets because their reviews are unhelpful for me to decide whether or not I should buy a certain game. I won't go out of my way to crap on them though, as there is no gain in doing that and I don't' need my opinions validated. I suppose that if IGN continues to exist nowadays, it's because there is a market for their takes and some people find them helpful. The fact that they gave The Last of Us a 10/10 score and labeled it a masterpiece however, only means that I'm not someone who belongs to the market niche they cater to (and that's fine). I'd much rather watch ACG, Fextralife, Neverknowsbest, Cannot be Tamed and Angry Joe for my reviews.
Video games.
Videos game
I give this video a 7.8/10, too much nuance
Fair review.
IGN? I thought they die on 10 Oct 2006 on 10:03 pm. Look like they didn't charge a bit
You cannot kill what can't be killed.
@@Transparencyboo If Naruto anything learn me best way to kill immortal is ignore them until insanity reach them
wow you smart
You're smart!
@@Transparencyboo You're smarter!
Okay you make good point
but you see "10/10 IGN" is funny meme
I think the existence of review copys does mean people would have a bias towards companies giving out said review copies since yknow free games and all
But i mean is that bad? Well I can't tell you and everyone is biased in some way anyway/ the opinion of someone who's been given the game by a company is still I guess completely valid as someone who has not
Which is kind of the point of this video ain't it?
This is why I like metacritic. I don't want to know what ONE person thinks of the game. I want a general consensus from many reviewers. To me that's a better representation of how the people feel about said game. BUT lol... There is some corruption in reviews and sometimes the users get flooded by hard r gamers who will blindly praise a thing or blindly hate a thing based on what their fav youtuber said or some dumb crap like that. So even metacritic might not always be the best thing to help you decide to buy or not buy.
Point is... You should mostly forget about the scores. Just pay attention to what the game is all about. Watch some trailers and game play vids I guess. Then decide FOR YOURSELF lol. Try not to rely too much on a number that reflects a wide variety of opinions.
I've played a lot of games and guess what? I have some unpopular opinions lolz.
I think DooM 2016 kinda sucks lol.
Not a big fan of sonic either lolz. Or sega in general.
Zelda 2 is one of my fav zeldas.
morrowind over skyrim any day.
I think diablo 1 is the best diablo lol.
I think the new hogwarts game is meh.
I hated dark souls at first. Now I love it!
Loved indiana jones the game on snes. Today I hate it! lol
The game I've played the most is halo reach... But is it my fav game or a game that I would call the best game ever made or at least the best one that I've ever played? Not necessarily...
Am I confusing anyone yet? That's the point. This crap is confusing as hail and it's also a never ending vibe check on how we view games. Just play games until you're havin fun lulz. Don't sit around yelling and getting mad like these losers. Waste of time lol.
SpongeBob is better, though lol