After reading the reviews for Titanfall and Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes I noticed two things. One, it got alot of unfair high scores it didn't really deserve, and two I only knew that because it was said in the reviews I did read or listen to. I have stopped looking at professional game reviews and never noticed. I am drawn to fan made videos and articles about games since most of them are honest and unlike the big companies, aren't bought out by the AAA game companies. I won't name any since everyone is a fan or hater of each reviewer and don't want to cause a flame war. Just want to say that we live in an age where the most anticipated games are crowd funded, indie games got all the originality, and the published reviews are becoming less noticed.


Internet really does make it all a more free society.

Pro reviewers have been biased for years and years and is really nothing new. Video game journalism is too tightly weaved within the industry with high review scores being bought and not earned. Just look at the Kane & Lynch debacle with Gamespot as an example of how close publishers are to the reviewers.

Ya they've all been bought out for years and its sad. And sure amateur reviewers can be bought out just as easily but many of them aren't and you can just tell when the ARE bought out. Look at how they have to plug the damn product! Easy to tell a phony when its fan made.

quiet opposite.

easier to buyout ign, eurogamer than people whose sole income comes from something like youtube.

haven't read professional review in 4 years. pretty much since Alpha Protocol fiasco. Before than for past 5 years i've been reading a professional review maybe once a month

I've found that Metacritic can be a good source for reviews. It compiles professional reviews from critics as well as user reviews, which anyone can write. Usually the user reviews are the ones that are more honest.

When a game gets my attention but I am unsure what to expect, I come to Metacritic and scroll through amateur mediocre reviews (5-7). These usually help me to discover what is the game about and what are its strong points and issues.

Sometimes I read pro reviews in Czech gaming mag I subscribed to for its excessive interviews and articles about a certain phenomenon. I also visit British Eurogamer frequently but read reviews there only rarely out of curiousity after I finished the game; reading flame wars under it is my main draw :).

The core reason why I do so is because professional reviews have become very vague, non-specific and manage to spoil the in-game moments in the process at the same time. Plus, the popular trend to complain about a lack of diversive portfolio but then giving 9/10 to the game which is an embodiment of what the reviewer was baffled about.

honest stupidity is all there is to user reviews.Giving out 0's and 10's like it 's candy on halloween.

How to do judge an unfair high score?

You kind of sound like what my young cousins would call a "Butt hurt fan boy".

It's never going to be perfect on there. I usually ignore the extreme reviews and only pay attention to the "in-between" reviews.

Only a small handful of games deserve a 0 or a 10. Plus its not always the score, but the descriptions. Some gave Ground Zeroes low scores but still said it was good, just a misleading ploy since its basically the prologue part in most of the Metal Gear Solid games sold seperately.

Simplest way is to have someone you've followed for a while and know the tastes of. That way if they praise something highly because of something they value higher than you, you'll know, or if they denigrate something because of some specific thing that irritates them more than others, you'd also know, and if they sell out and start shilling for some substandard game, you'd definitely know it!

I recently started watching Angry Joe's reviews and I must say I find them really refreshing and honest, especially the recent MGS V: Ground Zeroes one where he called it like it is which is essentially a paid demo or a prologue which we used to get for free packed with other games in the olden days. He gave it a 5/10 not because the game is bad but the value for money is pathetic in terms of actual content in the so called "Full Game".

I don't trust any one review, I gather information.
The professionals tend to review very specific genres and give skewed reviews and everybody on the internet is a douche (*WINK*) and tend to give out 1s and 10s based on fanboi-ism, wanting attention or some other terrible reason.
In the end I'd rather spend a little time on information gathering and decide myself if I want to give something a chance or not.

I don't trust reviews in general regardless of whether 'professional' or amateur. So I wait until a game rides out of the gates of history into legend, then I'll buy it. Cheaper that way, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ILqbD6XXkA