I would be more than happy if they stopped doing reviews altogether and just did more videos and podcasts. Doesn't matter what they call their features or how varied the length, as long as it's unscripted, kinda informative and at least somewhat amusing/funny, then I will check it out. Reviews have long been obsolete for me, and I've felt this way for many years now, (long before Jeff started to question them, and even before GB existed). I think it's absolutely fine for the staff to do write-ups about stuff when they actually feel compelled to write something that is worthwhile and/or didn't fit in a video or podcast format, but the outdated notion of 'we must have a review up of every major game on release day!' means absolutely nothing to me.
Are Quick Looks becoming too much like reviews?
@BabyChooChoo: Holy shit you were right.
There's still a lot of good Quick Looks, but Quick Looks like the Rock Band Blitz one are just not very entertaining. That one in particular was just a massive verbal information dump, and ended up turning me off the game more than just watching Ryan play the damn thing.
@Tygerbite said:
10 to 20 minutes of a couple of guys fumbling through a game they've never played before doesn't really tell me a whole lot about it.
It does tell me a whole lot, because that's an accurate experience of what it's like playing the game. If they skip past 5 hours of shit to show me the "good part" of a game, that doesn't help me figure out if it's something I want to spend time on. I'd rather see the bad parts I have to get through.
@Ares42 said:
"A picture is worth a thousand words".
Ever since GB revolutionized the reviewer industry with QLs it has been iterated on by loads of people, which has come back and influenced GB too. Unfortunately what they (unknowingly) did was warp the industry into an infotainment industry (yes, I feel dirty for using that word). People don't come to these sites for information anymore, they come for entertainment. This is why you're seeing a steady decline in importance of traditional reviews, they are not entertaining. With that in mind QLs are easily the best replacement to reviews. The standard review still has a place, but not on enthuisast websites. It is just straight up inadequate at satisfying that audience.
Basically what you're talking about is the good old "Internet destroyed print" debacle. Traditionally gaming review sites operated as web-shells for a print magazine. That is no longer the case. Web coverage is something completely different and therefore it has to leave it's print traditions behind. If you go check out some of the newer gaming sites out there now they are just all-video. People have just gotten too used to being entertained on the internet, wherever they go.
As someone who's been reviewing music professionally since 2009, I feel like I have a slightly unique perspective on your post, both because I'm a critic and because music is an entirely different animal than games. Ironically, I found that the situation you describe is much closer to the music industry than the games industry, and yet completely inaccurate by claiming "enthusiasts" don't want to read a standard review. In my line of work, the enthusiast is all we have, and even then we're working within the confines of understanding our contribution to the dialogue is just a counterpoint or unplanned agreement with the reader's premeditated ideas. Something like 80% of the comments I get on a given record, even obscure ones like this year's Mohn album, are rooted in agreement or disagreement rather than anticipation or disappointment; my reviews act as something for the reader to have a discussion with, not necessarily to learn from.
I feel that this is what an enthusiast of any medium has always looked for; movie buffs still look to critics for their views just to see if they missed something or were "right" about a piece of symbolism or shot technique, music buffs still look to reviews for confirmation of their social currency (as this is more and more what popular, and popularized underground, music amounts to) and game buffs still look to reviews to see if anyone found the parts they loved and hated equally as adorable/despicable. "Enthusiasts" would never turn their back on the written word, given the trust the writer, if only because it's another piece of the complex mental puzzle they're trying to weave. I'd wager someone who's only casually interested in a game is much less likely to watch, say, a Quick Look, Endurance Run or Let's Play than someone who finds the idea of video games fundamentally engaging. If you committed yourself to the entirety of GiantBomb's Deadly Premonition series, it's highly likely you're open to reading a review or ten, if only because you want more thoughts about games.
On the other end, I came to GiantBomb (and finally dropped a monthly subscription fee on myself last night) mainly due to the Quick Looks, the match of humor with an extended look at games I had an interest (or even no interest, in the case of Wipeout and dozens of other games) in. I even enjoy the sports Quick Looks, even as I shake my head furiously at the staff's lack of understanding (mainly because it opens my eyes to how inaccessible my favorite series, NBA 2K, is absolutely inaccessible to the average casual sports fan). But I never take them as the gospel, because they're not presented to be; even when the context is informative, like Dishonored, you're not given the sense that these guys really want to sell you on a game, just show it to you. And awful games like Harry Potter or Deadly Premonition can look really entertaining and fun to play just because these guys are having such a good time filming themselves playing it. But they don't replace the definitive comment on what these games are...
Anyway, to avoid rambling further, I appreciate the Quick Looks and the Bombcast for their honesty, because you can't hide flaws during a live taping. And though I've defended the written word quite a lot in this post, I can't ignore that I've felt like written reviews for video games have been mostly dead weight for a long, long time. Heavy Rain and the Uncharted games are ones I always point to, especially the former; I can't imagine if these guys did an Endurance Run of the game today they'd love it at all, let alone be able to avoid making fun of it constantly less than an hour into the game. Seeing that game get a bunch of praise on this site, which is generally brutally honest, continues to help me draw into question the legitimacy of written reviews when so many games are overpraised for simply being pretty and competent. Heavy Rain was a story-driven game and it's story was absolute drivel - until game reviewers can bring themselves to acknowledge that much when games like that come around, or when games like Uncharted promise epic adventure only to become murder simulators for no reason other than extending gameplay, it's hard to accept written word reviews as absolutely valuable.
But as a written word reviewer in a dying industry myself, it's hard to argue for anything other than reform.
i think them including their opinions of the game to be a positive thing, not a negative.
@CatsAkimbo said:
@Tygerbite said:
10 to 20 minutes of a couple of guys fumbling through a game they've never played before doesn't really tell me a whole lot about it.It does tell me a whole lot, because that's an accurate experience of what it's like playing the game. If they skip past 5 hours of shit to show me the "good part" of a game, that doesn't help me figure out if it's something I want to spend time on. I'd rather see the bad parts I have to get through
But then you get to the part where the person driving (Ryan and Brad are especially guilty of this) skips through the part where it tells you how to play the game or similarly ignores a piece of UI or the environment that clearly tells them what to do. There's something to be said for a game not explaining itself well, but there is another thing to be said for the player not wanting to read the explanation in the first place. In the battle between Quick Looks where they have no idea what the hell they're doing and ones where they sit at the menu for 5 minutes trying to explain everything, I would rather watch 5 minutes of preamble and 30 minutes of them doing stuff than 35 minutes of them clearly not knowing what they're doing. Both are bad, but one is preferable to the other.
@CatsAkimbo said:
@Tygerbite said:
10 to 20 minutes of a couple of guys fumbling through a game they've never played before doesn't really tell me a whole lot about it.It does tell me a whole lot, because that's an accurate experience of what it's like playing the game. If they skip past 5 hours of shit to show me the "good part" of a game, that doesn't help me figure out if it's something I want to spend time on. I'd rather see the bad parts I have to get through.
I don't think it's wholly accurate though. They are talking whilst playing a game, so they aren't fully paying attention and often miss obvious things that a player wouldn't if they were committing their full attention to the game. There are exceptions of course. But there have been quick looks where they make the game look worse than it actually is because they weren't paying attention. So those bad parts might not be bad parts at all. A quick look, at best, is an accurate representation of the first 30 minutes of a game, but not the whole game. And no, just because a game doesn't reveal it's deck of cards in the first half hour, that doesn't make it a bad game and you can't make a judgement based on that.
^^^ See: the current sports QL thread. They're playing games and calling them trash because they don't know how, or want to learn how, to play them. You just get the feeling this would never happen with something like a Resident Evil 6 these days, where Brad and Patrick played many, many hours of the game before doing the Quick Look so they could be sure of their statements. Quick Looks are all for entertainment, there's no good use in forgetting that, but they aren't supposed to represent much other than how the game plays if you aren't paying total attention, or are in too much of a hurry to learn/execute all the nuances of the game.
Sorry for butchering your post, but...
@Nodima said:
"Enthusiasts" would never turn their back on the written word, given the trust the writer, if only because it's another piece of the complex mental puzzle they're trying to weave. I'd wager someone who's only casually interested in a game is much less likely to watch, say, a Quick Look, Endurance Run or Let's Play than someone who finds the idea of video games fundamentally engaging.
This was sorta my point. An enthusiast that visits this site is willing (and wants) to sit down and watch a 30-45 minute long video about a game, even if they don't particularly enjoy the game. Casual gamers that's just interested in some barebone info about the game however will be much more satisfied with a short written review they can read in 5 minutes.
@Nodima said:
But I never take them as the gospel, because they're not presented to be; even when the context is informative, like Dishonored, you're not given the sense that these guys really want to sell you on a game, just show it to you.
Isn't this sorta the role of a reviewer though ? Not to sell you on a game, but present it in a non-PR way that allows the user to make a desicion if they would enjoy it or not. And isn't a 45 minute uncut showing of the game being played with commentary that talks about aspects of the game not shown in the video about as perfect as it comes for that purpose ?
@ChosenOne said:
I'm actually kind of disappointed if a QL is not at least 30 minutes, and I'm absolutely ecstatic when they are 40min +. I watch them to be entertained and being informed is secondary.
Same. When I see a Quick Look and it's near an hour long I get super excited. Same as when I see a Bombcast hit the 3 hour mark. When it's a little over 2 hours I get sad.
I can understand where the TS is coming from, but I love longer Quick Looks. I think they are still plenty funny. I think some do come off as sort of "review-ish" especially for the games they don't actually review, but that's not a bad thing in those cases right?
I do also agree with Jeff's idea that reviews need to change. I've always advocated that reviews are pointless (for me personally). I think Quick Looks are the natural evolution, or at least an interesting step in another direction.
I don't see them as reviews at all but standards for the videos have changed and I'm sure they have stats to back up that lengthier videos work. People want to be informed from what they view and also entertained but they've had back lash in the past where whoever is running the QL clearly has no idea what they're doing and its more frustrating to watch than anything else. I can think of a couple of times where a tutorial has been skipped and then a few moments later one of the guys complains that they have no idea what to do and the game doesn't do anything to guide you. At the same time, a clueless QL can be very entertaining. The recent QLs of PES and 2K NBA were both hilarious because of how little they knew but they still went in and showed off a decent amount of what those games had to offer if that's your thing.
@Ares42 said:
Sorry for butchering your post, but...
@Nodima said:
"Enthusiasts" would never turn their back on the written word, given the trust the writer, if only because it's another piece of the complex mental puzzle they're trying to weave. I'd wager someone who's only casually interested in a game is much less likely to watch, say, a Quick Look, Endurance Run or Let's Play than someone who finds the idea of video games fundamentally engaging.
This was sorta my point. An enthusiast that visits this site is willing (and wants) to sit down and watch a 30-45 minute long video about a game, even if they don't particularly enjoy the game. Casual gamers that's just interested in some barebone info about the game however will be much more satisfied with a short written review they can read in 5 minutes.
@Nodima said:
But I never take them as the gospel, because they're not presented to be; even when the context is informative, like Dishonored, you're not given the sense that these guys really want to sell you on a game, just show it to you.
Isn't this sorta the role of a reviewer though ? Not to sell you on a game, but present it in a non-PR way that allows the user to make a desicion if they would enjoy it or not. And isn't a 45 minute uncut showing of the game being played with commentary that talks about aspects of the game not shown in the video about as perfect as it comes for that purpose ?
Sorry, I'm new to these forums so I haven't taken the time to figure out splitting quotes yet. On the first point, I feel we misread each other; you position is that a casual gamer would rather sit around and read an article than turn on a 30 minute video and let it play in the background, glancing at it when something interesting happens? Because I'm very enthusiastic about games but, in the seven years since my college days, have approached them in a very casual manner. GiantBomb renewed my interest in what's going on with games over the past year along with KillScreen and Tom Bissell, but I'm still jaded about a lot of them (I played ME2 & 3 this year and LOVED ME2, was indifferent to ME3, and liked Uncharted 1 & 2 until their final acts, which were terrible) and how sites/magazines cover games as though graphics and "competent" gameplay are fair enough. The Quick Looks that have that feel (such as their ironic features, or the sports QLs) are easier to digest because you get the feel early, and the serious ones like Dishonored or various Call of Duties are easier to tune out because you can tell when they really want you to pay attention. A review, you've got to read it all the way, or you're just cherry picking your favorite points. Casual folks will no doubt do that as with any review (again, I've experienced it first hand having spent three unfortunate years covering Chris Brown and Rihanna) but I don't see someone whose gaming collection amounts to Call of Duty and EA Sports knowing how to find GiantBomb, let alone deciding to watch a 30 minutes of someone else playing a game. That's why most sites still stick to the 1 minute preview formula...no sense angering people that only find pleasure in holding the controller themselves.
As for the second point, I'll be more brief. As a reviewer, I definitely ignore the press kits I'm sent (which are easier to ignore because music PRs would never beg a writer to avoid discussing a shocking track or disappointing sequence...they are 100% hype, share as much as you can affairs) but when it comes to games, you have to understand that the opposite is what that genre amounts to many times. You have the bullet points the publisher expects you to hit (unless you'd like to buy copies of their future games yourself for coverage) and the bullet points they'd like you to ignore (see: you play as Raiden in MGS2) that are constrictive to game reviewers in a way they aren't for movie and music reviewers (who can dance around subject matter with general descriptions, whereas games are often relegated to "surprise, your character isn't your character"). So reviewers stick to the mechanics of the game and the graphics, which are often acceptable, but they're unable to explain the overall context of those things in these larger stories (again, I play casually so most of the games I play are presented as grandiose despite most games falling far short of the mark they hope to meet) and so you end up as a homicidal figure posing as a nice guy (Nathan Drake, Niko Bellic, CJ Johnson) or a faceless hub for destruction no one cares about (the Killzone guy, Outland guy, Warhammer Space Marine guy).
Gaming reviews are the unique medium where a writer is truly hamstrung, if only under the threat of being unable to say how they really feel. Isn't this part of the reason GiantBomb was founded in the first place?
I rarely watch the Full quick look anymore because of the length. Heck, I don't even watch any of some of them.
Yeah, you're right, but I happen to prefer them, and agree with Jeff that they're more useful, practical, and, of course, entertaining than traditional reviews. With the way consumable media is these days, I only have so much time to read text, and I'd rather spend it reading something of actual importance and interest to me. Game reviews aren't that anymore, and a QL and Bombcast discussion (compounded with just the straight up review score) is all I need to make up my mind on a game. Plus, so many games are $10-15 now (even big budget 'AAA' games on Steam/Amazon if you just wait a while), so the risk of buying a game I don't like and feeling as though I've wasted money is less.
@Captain_Felafel said:
If the only thing that constitutes as a review is a piece of text or a video that informs the public about the quality of a product, then Quick Looks have, in a lot of ways, filled that role since their inception. Sure the general length of Quick Looks has gone up over time, but they've basically been the same thing since Jeff's first look at Burnout Bikes. I think it's great that you can basically have this piece of content that both serves as a look at what the game actually is and that also facilitates the needs of a more traditional written review.
Quicklooks aren't really reviews to me, but in a lot of ways it will sway if I am interested in the game or not. So technically they are reviews for very certain types of games. I have always thought a game review would be better served without a number attached to it, so quicklooks may be an evolution on that format. Though Jeff has a good point about having the number accompany the review to set the tone of where he was leaning. Personally, I'd love to do away with any score.
@Deusx said:
No.
I always find your opinion so illuminating.
@BestUsernameEver: Man. I don't know. I somehow feel like you shouldn't just base your opinion about a game solely on a quick-look. I think that you should take a quick look into consideration obviously, but there are more factors here than just going "hey. this game looks pretty good at the time of this quick look (or quick look ex). I wanna buy it." I'm using games that you're not too sure about as an example. Games that you've heard about but was never very inclined to take a look at them, things like that. I feel like you could be doing yourself a favor by going "hey, let me check this out for 20 minutes and see what these guys have to say and possibly let it help me form my own opinion on it".
I guess what I'm stubbornly trying to say is that you should let quick looks be quick looks and reviews be reviews.
Considering what Jeff has mentioned about reviews having little purpose, and that sort of thing being better served by quick looks, it is not necessarily a shock that those are becoming a bit more complete.
Mostly I feel like they have been striking a good balance on the more / less serious quick looks. Like a person who is interested in Dishonored/XCOM but maybe wants to know more would like a more in depth approach. But for Pro Evolution Soccer (or Madden) you probably already know whether you are going to make the purchase. So that becomes the opportunity to take a fun only approach and avoids creating a meaningful misrepresentation. Quick Look EX type segments are probably going to continue being prevelant too, and those will probably all try to be even-handed in presentation.
@whatisdelicious: Actually you make a lot of sense. A lot of games get proper QL's of the "I dunno we just got this" variety while others verge on full-blown editorials. And the crew already have the tech in place to support someone just giving you the gist of why you should or should not pick the game up by showing them game's merits and issues.
I like both versions of QL's the long once are just relaxing to see, and usually I will be eating while I see it.
The small QL's are still in the we just got this game lets see what it is, sometimes I like the guys to not know what to do in the game, take for instance the Flight Club, one of the funniest things are when Drew, Vinny and Dave don't have a clue on how to get the plane to take of the ground, it would be boring to see them master a SIM fully. Here I want to seem them mess it up.
On the subject of GiantBomb using video medium in a new way than before, well I think that is right although The 1UP show which Patrick also was a part of back in the days of 1UP, also use the whole medium thing in a new way back then from what I had seen before, they would take a 20-30 min or more show with 3-4 games that they would talk about and show gameplay from, it was not so much seeing them actually playing them but more hearing what they had to say, and then seeing examples of it while the talked. Usualy they were a group of 3-4 people sometimes just 2, to talk about the games, but the formula of just a bunch of guys talking about a game was there.
Later when 1 a lot of the people from 1Up got fired, some of them went ahead and made Area5, which continued the formula, unfornunally that project also ended one day, and I'm so sure about what Ryan O'Donell and the other guys are doing today.
GiantBomb then went ahead and changed the formula and perfected it, and added a lot of other things and concepts.
well it already has replaced video reviews.
I don't come to Giantbomb for buying advise, I come because these guys bang out so much video content that makes me laugh it's second to none. I used to even visit other gaming sites just for news but between listening to the bombcast here, rebelfm (most of the time) and having an rss reader that I skim over occasionally I kinda just visit Giantbomb now. In my world Giantbomb is basically the only video game related website that exists, apart from maybe Polygon if that's rad when it launches :)
I've noticed a lot more sites are doing video content, gamespot had done a lot before but now they really crank out stuff like video reviews for almost every god damn game that exists, along with tons of other video shows that go beyond just quick look ex style stuff. previous to giantbomb I'd only really known this long form of gaming video content to be on a site called... shit let me find it. Gamersyde. Some french site that had/has been doing 'the first 10min' type stuff for games for a long time. Quick Looks by no means are set in any format you can rely on, they aren't 'just' the first chunk of time with a game because more often then not they are wildly different lengths or set at various parts in a game, often jumping from one area to another. They are very much what they are titled as now and they come with an underlaying mentality that it's a glance over a game and how it's 'doing' in the mind of the person that's playing it at that time. If they have had the game for a day or so, or more, they often have more of a well developed opinion on various mechanics and that person tends to jump to places in the game to show that off. Hey buddy this level is kinda nasty lemme show you what I mean. Other times they just got the copy for a game that morning, or that very second, and are booting it up as they record.
I go into quick looks happy if I think I'll like the game, but I go into a lot more quick looks than just how many games I think I'll like and definitely have watched and loved dozens and dozens that I KNOW are games I have ZERO interest in, or know I'd hate or even annoy me. Often they aren't even funny because of the game, often they aren't even really funny at all... they are almost always entertaining though.
@Elwood said:
Later when 1 a lot of the people from 1Up got fired, some of them went ahead and made Area5, which continued the formula, unfornunally that project also ended one day, and I'm so sure about what Ryan O'Donell and the other guys are doing today.
Area5 ( http://area5.tv/ ) does stuff, they did some work on an ipad magazine for a while and then did a lot of stuff for CoD commercials and stuff which I think was on EliteTV or whatever that CoD Elite thing is. They are basically a video production house doing stuff you don't hear about cause it's not the 1up show, which WAS very rad and very unique at the time, definitely got my eyes open to the idea of watching internet dudes just talk about games and realizing I kinda enjoy that more than what gaming sites had delivered up until then. matt chandronait from Area5 is almost always on RebelFM if you're into podcasts and you dug his point of view on games before.
You make some interesting points and I think there's something to be said for creating some form of long video review of a game that shows you exactly what you're getting in for. I think quick looks are fine as their own thing, but do you think there is room for a long form video analysis of exactly the same thing as what you do get in a quick look? I'm not sure. Maybe if they only did 'long reviews' of games that they actually review, rather than doing a quicklook.
Are they too long? That's subjective. You think they are and others disagree. I'd disagree as well. I enjoy longer videos and they convey what a game is really about better than any review out there. Sadly, sometimes that doesn't come cross as appealing when those in the game want to heavily explain and show off a title they can barely play...that or they run around in circles for 20 minutes trying windily explain something about the game.
Frankly, there isn't enough time to show off some games in the span of just 15 minutes. That actually does many games a disservice.
Jeff is actually on record thinking that Quick Looks could replace video game reviews. I agree with many others that game reviews are mostly just ways to justify an opinion people have already formed opposed to actually informing them of anything.
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