Reviewing the reviews

Games reviews, previews and information is everywhere so its hard not to come across. Games are becoming more popular which there are more people finding ways to make money from them like journalism. I don't go out of my way to read people's opinions online because there are just too many people doing it these days. I don't know them, where they are from or the games they like, so how can I put their opinions into context. I do buy and read some gaming magazines however. I still don't know the people writing for the magazines but I'd hope they were at least more informed and experienced.

I think one of the main problems with writing about games is everyone has different views and different motives. I don't know if the magazines or people online are being truthful, purposefully positive/negative or have other preferences which change the way they view something. That's true for everyone anywhere and if that stopped things being written nothing would ever get published, online or off. We could hope people in stronger positions would be more likely to be honest and fair, but we just don't know.

I've been a reader of PC Gamer for many years and enjoy the magazine. I don't really take issue with the things that are written but they don't really influence the way I buy games anyway. I like to read reviews etc because I like to read about games and I like to have a difference of opinion to others. I like to discuss and argue points about games, I think it adds to the enjoyment of them. I also like buying magazines because I like to see all the new previews of games, these tend to be the biggest games from the biggest companies, some could call this unfair but what do you expect? No one is going to dedicate the majority of a magazine to games no one has really heard of and leave out the bigger titles. it wouldn't sell.


I don't buy magazines or watch online reviews because I really want to know what the game is going to be like for me. Only me playing the game myself is going to tell me if I like it or not. I just need to see enough of the game to get an idea of if I think I'll like it, but thats still just an idea. I've bought games and then found out they sucked, everyone does it and its not necessarily on purpose. Sometimes we just don't enjoy games like we thought we would, but other people might of loved it. Reviews and similar texts are always just going to be people's opinions on what they thought of games. They might be completely different to your own views.

I think its good practise for people to right about games and what they think about them, some people might be lying but theres nothing we can do about that. if enough is shown/written about games we should all be able to develop an impression of the game and if we'll like it ourselves. How can anyone expect new games journalism or anything to ever be any different. Everything is always going to have a biased opinion in it one way or another because no one is completely neutral for different reasons. What matters is what we each take away from the reviews and how much we want to believe.