Back in the days when ENWorld was young, I used to rely very heavily on TechTV's X-Play for all of my gaming review needs. I pretty much look to the early days of X-Play as the pinnacle of game reviews for 3 key reasons:
1) The individual reviews accurately covered both the positive an negative aspects of each video game. It covered the initial reaction, game length playability, and replayability of games. It discussed games in terms of their own genre, commenting on whether it would be suitable for hardcore fans or more casual gamers. It was not afraid to pan high profile companies.
2) I enjoyed the humor, and was in tune with it's cultural references.
3) It's x/5 star rating system was used very accurately to describe how a game performed overall, compared to all others (1 was the lowest, 3 average, and 5 the highest). The reviewers had a large knowledge base of games, and were very capable of judging what was truly "innovative" or "smooth" or "high quality graphics" compared to the rest of the market. The most important part of this system was the cold, hard truth that a vast majority of games deserve a 3/5. As a long time gamer, I believe that X-Play is the first game reviewer I ever read/watched that understood the fact that, in the long run, almost all games that you play will be simply average, and not overly memorable as good or bad. It takes something very significant to make a game stand out enough to even merit a 4, and a 5 was a rare and beautiful gem that might change the history of gaming, get you addicted for hours, or simply make you stand back and marvel at the awesomeness. Likewise, a 2 was a very flawed game, and a 1 was almost unplayable.
Over the last four or more years, X-Play has slipped dramatically in its ethos as a competent game reviewer. It started with more generic reviews, and has culmanated with their current state of being where 9/15 games in the last month have gotten a 4/5 rating. It spends way too much time focusing on developers and previews. The show itself has changed format so dramatically that it is now practically Attack of the Show Part 2, and is pretty much unwatchable.
And so I ask you: where can a guy go these days to get a decent review of video games? Many major publications are puppets for the production companies, and I have yet to find one that I consider accurate on a regular basis. Fan-based sites are full of fanboys, haters, idiots, and infants who skew the data and make their ratings too unreliable. What websites, organizations, TV shows, or magazines can you recommend to me that will meet the criteria 1 and 3 above? If you had to occasionally but a game without renting and testing it first, who would you trust for accurate information on it?
1) The individual reviews accurately covered both the positive an negative aspects of each video game. It covered the initial reaction, game length playability, and replayability of games. It discussed games in terms of their own genre, commenting on whether it would be suitable for hardcore fans or more casual gamers. It was not afraid to pan high profile companies.
2) I enjoyed the humor, and was in tune with it's cultural references.
3) It's x/5 star rating system was used very accurately to describe how a game performed overall, compared to all others (1 was the lowest, 3 average, and 5 the highest). The reviewers had a large knowledge base of games, and were very capable of judging what was truly "innovative" or "smooth" or "high quality graphics" compared to the rest of the market. The most important part of this system was the cold, hard truth that a vast majority of games deserve a 3/5. As a long time gamer, I believe that X-Play is the first game reviewer I ever read/watched that understood the fact that, in the long run, almost all games that you play will be simply average, and not overly memorable as good or bad. It takes something very significant to make a game stand out enough to even merit a 4, and a 5 was a rare and beautiful gem that might change the history of gaming, get you addicted for hours, or simply make you stand back and marvel at the awesomeness. Likewise, a 2 was a very flawed game, and a 1 was almost unplayable.
Over the last four or more years, X-Play has slipped dramatically in its ethos as a competent game reviewer. It started with more generic reviews, and has culmanated with their current state of being where 9/15 games in the last month have gotten a 4/5 rating. It spends way too much time focusing on developers and previews. The show itself has changed format so dramatically that it is now practically Attack of the Show Part 2, and is pretty much unwatchable.
And so I ask you: where can a guy go these days to get a decent review of video games? Many major publications are puppets for the production companies, and I have yet to find one that I consider accurate on a regular basis. Fan-based sites are full of fanboys, haters, idiots, and infants who skew the data and make their ratings too unreliable. What websites, organizations, TV shows, or magazines can you recommend to me that will meet the criteria 1 and 3 above? If you had to occasionally but a game without renting and testing it first, who would you trust for accurate information on it?