BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Gotta love that old rating scale. The better the game, the more 90s kid you become.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Are my rose tinted glasses on or were ""old"" magazine reviews significantly better?
- Thread starter bomblord1
- Start date
Gotta love that old rating scale. The better the game, the more 90s kid you become.
terrisus
Member
Old Nintendo Powers (especially from the start through mid-N64) were incredibly awesome.
Detailed, in-depth looks at games, really showing you what the game was about. You could actually get a feel for games from them.
Now, reviews are basically just "here's what some person thought about this game" or "here's this game judged on a couple of arbitrary attributes" and people skipping over that anyway and just looking at a number at the end.
Detailed, in-depth looks at games, really showing you what the game was about. You could actually get a feel for games from them.
Now, reviews are basically just "here's what some person thought about this game" or "here's this game judged on a couple of arbitrary attributes" and people skipping over that anyway and just looking at a number at the end.
This. Now what all matters are the scores. Abrupt one at that. They know more ave joe wouldn't read the content thats why I said they determine the score first then made up the content.
Sanctuary
Member
Not sure which universe you live in, but Bloodborne is most certainly going to be a crtitical favorite. There's no way it could be as "meh" as Dark Souls 2, which still got extremely favorable reviews all around.
I get that feeling a lot as well. Modern reviews feel empty for lack of a better term. When a game was good I could genuinely feel the excitement eminanting from the writing. I very rarely get that nowadays its usually just a list of features.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
That is some rose colored glasses. The Nintendo Power equivalent in my country was basically a paid ad.
We'll see about that.
The actual Nintendo power was nothing like that
terrisus
Member
Nope, I still read them regularly:
Nice I have a small collection but it only spans about 2 years
terrisus
Member
That's an older picture of them, so it doesn't include a number of years of the recent ones. But, I have every single issue of Nintendo Power (started subscribing with Issue 32/January 1992, and later went back and purchased the earlier ones as well), as well as 6 of the 7 issues of the Fun Club News that came before it (the few times I've come across Fun Club News Issue 1 it's gone for well over $100, and I haven't had the money to spare to get it yet)
Plus obviously a bunch of Player's Guides and such.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
There were parts that came from Nintendo Power, mostly walkthroughts and one or another article. I don't think neither NP and my country magazine were bad (after all, the one from here had were even some coverage of other consoles when there was some sort of remembrance or franchises timelines) but was mostly biased towards Nintendo games or games that were exclusive to them. I remember some painful purchases because that magazine. And seeing some YT videos about old games, seems that we here were not the only ones.
Nintendo Power was in Nintendo's pocket. I was a huge Nintendo fan as a youth, but no one took NP seriously back then. I'd like others my age to chime in. NP was considered a shill mag. I think EGM might have had the best rep for being unbiased. Gamefan was my favorite mag though (shout out to KLee and Nick Rox). They weren't considered to be the best, but they were legit enthusiasts. Even to this day, the few members of GF that I've had the fortune of chatting with were all extremely cool guys. KLee still posts on here, and they were just a bunch of dudes who liked games. They used to be bashed for being too enthusiastic about games, but I far prefer that to excessive negativity. I also think their previews and reviews really reflected the time and effort put into the game. Like these guys really cared about games, and it showed. I miss them. PEACE.
Poimandres
Member
Oh give me a break! I've never bought into a pro/anti Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft media bias, at least not when it comes to reviews. There is no conspiracy.
Bloodborne is all but guaranteed high scores.
terrisus
Member
How old is "your age?"
I'm 32.
Yes, Nintendo Power was a Nintendo product - until 2007, anyway.
And yes, its main purpose was to let people know about games for Nintendo systems (obviously).
But, it was still a great source of information on games.
And far better at getting a feel for what a game was like than most anything since then.
AuthenticM
Member
Jeff Gerstmann said at multiple times that print magazines employed non-serious lazy crass bums who sat on their asses most of the time.
terrisus
Member
Internet writer puts down print writers - news at 11!
ALLseeingEYE
Member
Exactly...Eurogamer has some excellent reviews and editorials as well. It just comes down to the quality of the website or Magazine you are talking about. I generally think that overall, game criticism has matured in a lot of ways. Back in the day, especially in magazines like Gamepro or EGM, the writing quality and general flagrant bias and ignorance in reviews was much more common. Now I find the people reviewing games tend to be more knowledgeable about a specific genre or game type.
For example, there were points in game criticism, where games would widely get panned simply because they were 2D (PS1 era), or because they were from a niche game type like shmups. Now at least, we have tons of low budget indie games getting a ton of widespread recognition.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
He started in a magazine, I think.
Also, he is a veteran and don't usually shit on other collages.
That all games have to be 3D thing really pissed me off back then, many magazines I read where snooty about any game being in 2D anymore, disregarding that most of those 2D games just couldn't be done on the 16-bit consoles. I think its the main reason many sequels got pushed to 3D graphics with no thought as to if it was a good idea. The only magazine I read that really championed 2D games at the time was the official UK Sega Saturn magazine, which of course had a good reason to do so as the Saturn was the 2D powerhouse. I really loved that magazine, not just for giving 2D a chance but for their in depth articles and championing of games they felt were overlooked.
On topic, I don't think things have changed that much, you get good reviews you get bad reviews like we always did. And I feel some are too quick to call good or bad review just because it does or doesn't conform to their opinion.
AuthenticM
Member
Except this is Jeff Gerstmann. He has earned my trust when it comes to industry knowledge. The guy is super professionnal.
terrisus
Member
Internet-based writers decrying the survivability/quality of print writers is a pretty common theme over the past 20 years.
And for most of the past decade it's just been kicking a dead horse.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
Dude... You realize that print is not what it was?
terrisus
Member
Eeeehnhnhnhn!
Gambit 1138
Banned
PSM was always spot on with their reviews in the 90s
JumpJeff84
Member
I'm not only gonna quote you on it, I'm gonna quote your entire post as being idiotic