A community poll about reviews in the Games Beaten thread.

[Exhuminator]

I actually get really annoyed at a lot of YouTube reviews. They often take way too long to get to the point. Too much prologue and not enough review. /They reviewed stuff and got to the point.

Well said, and this is what I'm talking about. I get annoyed with game reviews by some authors (I'm talking generally here, not just particular RB authors) that spend too much time over-explaining or fluffing their reviews, leaving the core points that matter drowned a sea of self indulgent white noise.

A long review is okay if it needs to explain examples thoroughly to contextualize important points. It's not okay when it's telling me stuff that is obviously self explanatory, or waxing hyperbolic about totally subjective elements. And worst of all, redundantly stating things over and over which have already been explained earlier in the review. I won't waste my time reading such amateur hour reviews of that nature.

[alienjesus]

A review without any subjective elements isn't a review, it's a synopsis. Reviews should be subjective, it's in their very nature.

I'll happily take a bunch of images too, they're often better to get a grasp of the basic gameplay elements than a paragraph of text would be.

Expect me to continue posting long reviews with subjective opinions and lots of images guys

P.S. I don't plan of ditching my animated avatar either.

[marurun]

I think the key is that the length needs to be appropriate to the game. Some game reviews need to be longer than others. But I don't think reviewing games is a wholly different thing from reviewing movies, or music, or even cars or blenders. A review is an opinion, but on the other hand it is meant to be helpful and informative to others. So you have to include objective content about the game and subjective information placed in a sufficient context to allow people to relate so that subjective content. Subjective content that doesn't help inform others is largely pointless in a review. It ends up being navel gazing.

[marurun]

I just have an ad filter on my iPhone that blocks 3rd-party GIF files. It does wonders for my browsing experience. There is no GIF out there that is so important that if I don't see if my day will be ruined.

[Ack]

There is no GIF out there that is so important that if I don't see if my day will be ruined.

Not even Orson Welles clapping or Michael Jackson eating popcorn?

[Exhuminator]

A review is an opinion, but on the other hand it is meant to be helpful and informative to others. So you have to include objective content about the game and subjective information placed in a sufficient context to allow people to relate so that subjective content. Subjective content that doesn't help inform others is largely pointless in a review. It ends up being navel gazing.

All of this is exactly what I was going to say. You said it well.

P.S. I don't plan of ditching my animated avatar either.

I forgot you even had one, because I blocked it so long ago. I'm not saying animated avatars are -wrong- people, I just don't like them personally is all.

[Xeogred]

Without pictures, I doubt I would bother to read or be potentially "sold" on any game. Some users here are frankly putting up like new HCG101 article-quality posts and it's amazing. If you're still on AOL dial up, it's time to relocate.

And yeah it's easy to block animated avatars. I've done that myself.

[Xeogred]

Good job not addressing the actual criticism there and instead making up your own.

HG101 articles generally have a better text to pic ratio and an actual layout with a sidebar for more pics, which is a lot less distracting and bloating.

"I don't like images and can't find summaries" is all I got out of the last page from you. Can't help that.

But thank you. I tried really hard with my post above there that exudes effort.

[dsheinem]

Ok and can you point to where I say that it's because I'm on dial up? Yes, you can learn basic english and not being a douche for no reason.

you mad bro?

chillax: spill no anger over an online video game forum.

I tend to try to do concise 1 paragraph reviews most of the time. Then a couple of times a year at most, I’ll do a super in-depth thing. I think people read both *shrug*?

[ElkinFencer10]

If you don't like long reviews with images, about this thread? That's kind of our thing in this thread.