ObjectiveGameReviews.com - A Subtle Journey of Discovery

[Merus]

But why the zeal? Why is this the only right way to talk about a game, and everything else must be destroyed?

 

Because he is wrong.

 

That sounds flippant, but it's really not: he cannot conceive of anyone else's perspective on this issue, which means he has never allowed his own position to be challenged.

[subbes]

Or he's on the Autism spectrum.

[Blambo]

just discovered this site

 

you are doing god's work

[BadHat]

This piece Patrick just linked to in the latest Worth Reading is absurdly relevant. Someone named Chris (not the same guy, sadly) berates a review of Beyond: Two Souls for not being objective enough. The reviewer responds by creating a satirical "objective" review in a similar style to objectivegamereviews. Chris complains that the reviewer is mocking people who want fact-based reviews rather than "opinion pieces." The reviewer challenges Chris to write his own review for B:TS. Chris complies.

 

http://errornotfound.org/2014/01/24/objection-the-ballad-of-crimsonwing69/

 

I had to skip ahead at some point during the interview because he was getting far too long-winded, but it's a pretty fascinating read. Like other Chris, his version of objectivity consists mostly of going into far too much detail and citing as many examples as possible to back up his assessment of the game, then claiming that it's rooted in fact despite how evident his subjectivity is. He claims that reviewers should be bound by credibility according to their adherence to fact-based analysis, instead of trying to persuade people with opinions, which sullies the hard work developers put into their games by turning away potential customers. His solution to this is to claim that, for instance, Skyrim is a "true 10 out of 10 game" despite personally finding it boring. He literally could have read his own review, purchased the game based on the objective recommendation, and still not felt his purchase was worthwhile. This leaves me wondering - who the fuck are objective reviews even for? What are these people actually trying to accomplish, besides asserting their own value-based judgments as more in line with unbiased, untainted fact?

 

The writer's mock review contains a really choice quote at the end which sums up pretty much everything I feel about the actual utility of "objective" reviews in far less words than I've already put in here:

 

My review exists purely to give a reasonable breakdown of what is unassailable about Beyond: Two Souls. I accomplish this by telling the majority of people what they want to hear.

[TychoCelchuuu]

One of the interesting things about that Chris guy is how often he uses the phrase "in no way." One of my goals for Objective Game Reviews is to write all the reviews in an 'authoritative,' objective sounding "voice," and I do it because I have in mind people like that Chris who think there are ways to review games, things they expect to see in an objective review that pisses them off when it isn't there. That's one of the reasons I think the site is so successful as a satire: the reviews don't tip their hand at all because they stick to a weird, overly clinical use of language. Chris, though, departs from this for his objective review, because as an aspiring game journalist he's also really worried about being a good writer, and a lot of people think "good writing" means loading up with descriptive adjectives and pat cliches in precisely the way Chris does when he writes his review. That's one of the ultimate jokes of Objective Game Reviews - my reviews (our reviews, really) read differently from what someone like Chris would write because we're doing our best to highlight the gulf between what we do and what an actual legitimate game reviewer does. Chris tries to bridge that gap because he thinks he can do what a real game reviewer does but also be objective, and the result is the train wreck that we get from him.

In other news, someone who sent me a review code of their iOS game to review also told me that my review of Analogue: A Hate Story sold them on the game. That felt pretty good.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Also, which screenshot would you pick for a Far Cry 2 review? A screenshot highlighting the majesty of the desert or a screenshot driving home the brutality and embodiment driven immersion of the game?

[osmosisch]

The second, for sure.

[Erkki]

The first. The desert is objectively more present.

[Lu]

Both! It's the only right answer.

[TychoCelchuuu]

I can't figure out a way to make "both" work.

edit: So I guess "stage 2" is also off to a splendid start. Both companies that I reached out to for review copies (the Strike Vector devs and the Luxuria Superbia devs) gave me codes, plus a third newly released game (Hamster Drop) sent me a code out of the blue. The Strike Vector review has gone up, I think I'll publish the Luxuria Superbia one tomorrow, I'm working through the backlog of codes for older games that people have sent me, and I just sent out another round of review code requests.

The site had almost 80 thousand visitors in January, 55 thousand of which came from the day Kotaku linked us and the next day (we went offline as soon as Kotaku linked us and it took me a while to get it back online, so that could've been even higher) and the twitter account is past 300 followers. We've got 60 reviews published, including three by peopele who aren't me. The site made $.04 today from ads, which is up one cent from yesterday. So, I'd say for a review site that's one month old and has been posting reviews for a bunch of old games and oh yeah it's all a huge joke, things are going pretty well.

[BadHat]

What about a screenshot of the player staring at a map, or chugging malaria pills. Those are objectively pretty present.

[TychoCelchuuu]

I'm trying to choose between those two! Don't make it harder!

[BadHat]

The first one is more neutral if you're trying to be more straight-laced about the objective slant, but the second one could be kind of funny since it reflects the way you pick and choose specific things to highlight in your reviews, like "you can heal critical damage by initiating an animation chosen semi-randomly from a pool which depict the player rectifying gruesome injuries, such as dislocated elbows or leg-embedded tree branches."

[osmosisch]

the second one could be kind of funny since it reflects the way you pick and choose specific things to highlight in your reviews, like "you can heal critical damage by initiating an animation chosen semi-randomly from a pool which depict the player rectifying gruesome injuries, such as dislocated elbows or leg-embedded tree branches."

Yeah, that was my line of thinking also.

[Bjorn]

The site had almost 80 thousand visitors in January, 55 thousand of which came from the day Kotaku linked us and the next day (we went offline as soon as Kotaku linked us and it took me a while to get it back online, so that could've been even higher) and the twitter account is past 300 followers. We've got 60 reviews published, including three by peopele who aren't me. The site made $.04 today from ads, which is up one cent from yesterday. So, I'd say for a review site that's one month old and has been posting reviews for a bunch of old games and oh yeah it's all a huge joke, things are going pretty well.

 

If you you want to monetize it, long term, there could be an interesting brand of clothing/stuff you could sell.  "Objectively (Something)" would actually be pretty funny and awesome on any number of items.  Probably not going to make you a fortune, but even a few sales a month pay for the hosting/bandwidth. 

[Ben X]

there could be an interesting brand of clothing/stuff you could sell.  "Objectively (Something)" would actually be pretty funny and awesome on any number of items.  

 

The buyer would have to fill in a huge list of obscure details about themselves (longest ever hair length, preferred weather, number of weapons), which then would be entered into the OGR secret objective formula to give that person an objective rating, which would then be the entire design for the item of clothing.

[Erkki]

The buyer would have to fill in a huge list of obscure details about themselves (longest ever hair length, preferred weather, number of weapons), which then would be entered into the OGR secret objective formula to give that person an objective rating, which would then be the entire design for the item of clothing.

[TychoCelchuuu]

So pretty much every indie dev I've reached out to for a review code has responded, which is pretty sweet (with the exception of Double Fine, which is unfortunate because Broken Age is one of the top games that people search for in the site's little search box). I think I want to start contacting bigger companies because AAA game reviews are often funnier (there tends to be more stupid shit to make fun of) and because they're more popular (hooray site traffic) but I'm filled with trepidation about contacting, say, Square Enix and saying "give me a copy of Thief so I can post a review of the old Thief and say 'we reviewed Thief' and then everyone will click on it and be like 'oh' and then I complete the fakeout by posting a review of the new thing" because I have a feeling they'll just ignore me (like Double Fine, which is also the largest company I've contact so far I think). It also doesn't help that I don't know who to send an email to.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Another milestone: the site's first pre-release review code (for Jazzpunk)! I feel like an official reviewer right now. There's an embargo and everything! The embargo is just on video reviews, though, and I haven't thought of a great way to make those without buying a text to speech program to make a robot do the reviews, so it's not really an effective embargo.

[subbes]

Is it an objectively ineffective embargo?

[Ben X]

video reviews, though, and I haven't thought of a great way to make those without buying a text to speech program to make a robot do the reviews

 

Hmmm. You could just do a bunch of utterly random two-second clips compiled together in random order and nothing else. How else could one possible achieve video review objectivity?

[BobbyBesar]

Hmmm. You could just do a bunch of utterly random two-second clips compiled together in random order and nothing else. How else could one possible achieve video review objectivity?

 

You could launch the game, and let it run for 10 minutes without pressing any buttons (user input is subjective!). Just 10 minutes of title screen / attract mode.

[TychoCelchuuu]

I don't know if either of those would garner very many views on YouTube.

[Ben X]

Shill.

[dibs]

I'd like to tentatively put dibs on Puzzle and Dragons (iOS and Android) and The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (PC), if you all please. I'll write them when 1) I'm done with The Witcher and 2) it's not so cold in my house that I can bear to write more than forum posts.

 

I never agreed to this.