Feedback -- May NPD Results & The Effects of Reviews

steveo3242391

I can say that I do think the study was accurate, but I have some comments about my style of picking
out games to play. I'll start with games that get low scores, but I played and thought were good, and
up to amazing.

One recently was Alien Vs Predator. My roomate loved the old game for PC and rented this game. He liked the multiplayer, but found the singleplayer to not be so good. The reviews for this game
were pretty bleak, but I thought the singleplayer was good when I played it one after the other.

Modern Warfare's campaigns are said to be the decent at best, but when I played from COD 4, to MW2, the story was very good, and at the end of MW2, I saw the entire thing play out like a great movie.

As for Bioshock 2, I thought that a lot of reviewers got it wrong. I loved the first one (beat it
twice), and I thought the second's story wasn't as good as the first ones (but hey that would be very
difficult), but I still thought it was a strong story. Everyone was saying that the story was not too
good, so multiple times throughout my playthrough I thought it would end on a cliffhanger or something, but it didn't and I had a warm ending. I loved that game, and in terms of score average, I would give it a bit below Bioshock 1, and hey, IT'S MORE RAPTURE.

Now for Assassin's Creed. This part is especially for you guys at G4. The first was good, but it was
very repetitive, and got old, but the combat was nice and kept it going. AC2 was very good, a lot
better than the first but you guys gave it a 4/5, but the first one 5/5. I remember this striking a lot
of controversy, but Adam just told the people to read the reviews and see the difference (The study
revolves on game scores so I guess reading reviews is out of bounds here). The second one had a very good story, as opposed to the first one where you did the same thing for each guy you killed. Plus in the second one, you got to do many more things, like manage your own mansion.

I played Uncharted 2 and loved the game for the gameplay visuals, combat, and collecting. The story was very good with twists and turn, but I thought the betrayals were similar to the first and was like,
"well, not too surprised to see that happening". It just needed saying, but the game should still
receive a perfect score.

There is one game I haven't payed which got pretty mediocre game scores and that is Metro 2033. I love the post-apocalyptic game atmosphere, and a lot of things I saw about it was bugs, bugs, bugs. I do hate them bugs, but with patches (which I'm not sure if there have been any) could fix this. The
atmosphere will drive me in, and am hoping this game will be very good.

Now to why I don't pick some games. I look at what the reviewer tells me in his or her videos about the
game. Not going to lie here, but for most games I just watch the video review, or look at pros/cons if
there is no vid. Some major releases, like Mass Effect 2, I read, but with games I was never even
considering to play, I don't read or watch the video because they don't appeal to me - like many Wii
games was Pre-ordered! With I guess Metro 2033 as an exception (I can't think of another off the top of
my head, but I'm sure it's there) If a game has serious problems, I won't pick it up or even Gamefly
it, because I consider myself a hardcore gamer who loves great gaming, and yes unfortunately likes
trophies/acheveiments ---> I R Loser.

Speaking of those trophies, I played Terminator Salvation. 12 Trophies all gold, and the game was
terrible, just like the reviews said. *all who play it, do EARN the 12 trophies by the way.

Lastly, Geoffrey made a good point about how movies get bad reviews yet people go and see them, so I guess movies contradict this study, and show that scores aren't everthing, but are still a factor. He
also said he knows people who play all the games that come out, and for normal people, that isn't
possible, so we need to be eclectic with our choices.

AND QUESTION FOR ADAM: Are you upset at this whole situation because most people just look at the scores and pros/cons, and they don't actually read the reviews, or should people really try out a game first instead of saying it's bad because or thses reviews?