Do Reviewers Need to Finish Video Games Before Reviewing Them?

If there's going to be a stupid numbered score at the end of the review, I do believe the critic should finish the product if it's possible. If not, don't score it and explain why in the critique. I think it would make for a compelling read even without the click-baity number score.

This why I love Giant Bomb. They don't follow the old, tired standard of forced reviews.

Anyway, great insights in this thread already. Keep it up!

As far as Crash re-release specifically, maybe let go of your need to review every game if you don't' want to play through a remaster to see it through.

Again, simple answer but a game reviewer debate will rage around every solution but the simple answer.

Nothing says they have to do anything. I mean, I'd probably expect them to, but I guess they can pull a Wolpaw if it makes sense.

Why do reviews even exist anymore?

I'm sure reviewers would prefer to finish all the games they review, but there are a lot of games releasing these days and only so many hours in the day. Persona 5, for example, is a 120 hour game. That's three full work weeks before you even start typing. Three full weeks without covering anything else.

It's a shame, of course, because there are great games like Nier, that clearly would have gotten higher scores if reviewers finished them. However, game reviews are done in the real world, not some ideal reality where you can get extra time by just trying harder. If sites want to have reviews of every major release, some corners are inevitably going to get cut.

Pretty much sums up my thoughts. It's all about whether you're putting out a "review" (which is a conclusive piece at the time you write it) or something else that comes with fewer expectations.

The unsatisfying answer to every question like this is.... IT DEPENDS. If the game is totally broken or just puts you so far off that you don't wanna play it anymore then of course you don't have to play all the way through. In most other cases I would expect the reviewer to play all the way through or at the very least state very clearly how much they played and why they didn't finish. I don't see why this is controversial.

This is basically how I feel on this one. I would also add that, personally, I'm reading reviews less often than I used too. I get a general consensus of the game from scores, impressions, videos, etc. and then I'll figure out where I'll go from there. I'll find myself going back to a review after I've finished a game to see what others said. Or there's the scenario of me really wanting to check out a review or a piece on a game because "X" person wrote it, and I'm more interested in their take overall. Again, personally, I don't think it's such a big thing.

I come down on the side of: you don't need to finish a game to have an opinion on it, but you do need to finish a game to give it any kind of score. Voted yes on the poll because I consider reviews to be the latter.

That works for both a place like Giant Bomb where I'm here for the opinions, and a thing like Metacritic where I'm looking for some consensus.

No. I've walked out of movies and told my friends they were bad so I left, and I've stopped playing a game and done the same thing. It's a review. It's one person's opinion. If they say "I thought the game was bad so I stopped playing" vs "I finished this game and it was bad and I wished I'd stopped playing" is there a functional difference? Not really. The positive case is similar too: 80% of a great game with a shit end is probably still worth playing. FFXV's original chapter 13 was bad but it didn't tarnish the game so much as to make anyone who would have recommended it up to chapter 12 change their mind.

You're free to not trust a review based on an incomplete playthrough or look elsewhere, but ultimately it doesn't really matter. As is always the answer to Internet rage, everyone should probably chill out.

No. If a game is aggressively broken I don't blame a reviewer for saying fuck this and quitting after due diligence decided by the site. Most games yes, but not every game and not every site

This is basically how I feel. If you want to give 'impressions' or a 'judgement' on a game then do whatever, but if you're calling your thing a review and/or putting a score/verdict on it then you'd better have finished it.

We all know people don't need to finish games to be able to form a solid opinion of them, but when I come to a review there's an expectancy there that the reviewer has seen the credits.

this.

Agreed. I wouldn't accept a movie or book review from someone who never bothered to finish watching or reading, so why would I accept a game review from someone who never finished playing.

There are subjective exceptions to this, of course. I wouldn't expect someone to get to the center of the universe to review No Man's Sky, for example. I wouldn't expect someone to get every goal on a collection of digital pinball tables. But for most games that have a beginning, middle, and an end? Yeah, you should play until the credits roll. It's fine if you don't, but then don't put a score on the game.

In most cases, yes you need to play it through to Credit roll to give a fair and thorough professional opinion. And I'm sad to hear some reviewers don't think one of the more basic criteria of their job is necessary.

There are exceptions (broken games, games without a natural end like Tetris, games so terrible that they can't be redeemed by later acts, games so difficult that the reviewer couldn't finish despite their best efforts) but if a reviewer doesn't finish the game, then how are we to know how seriously to take their opinion? Or how far they got for that matter?

Besides a lot of games introduce new mechanics at the end or have significant final boss fight.

nah. if you have a fully formed opinion based on your experience, and you express that honestly, i don't have a need for you to see credits. it's probably helpful to be upfront about how much you completed though...that way your audience knows what you're basing your opinion off of.

This thread really does beg the question of what do reviewers even think their jobs are anymore? If a review is purely subjective, doesn't require the reviewer to finish the game and there's no skill or expertise required to be employed to review video games then what differentiates them from a forum goer who decided to spill their opinion out on the forums?

Reviewers are doing a fantastic job of justifying Bethesda's review copy policy with these viewpoints they're expressing.

Absolutely nothing. Ease of access to technology and distribution means anyone with an internet connection and a personality can feasibly make a living doing this independently. Just like magazines were phased out in favor of video content, now traditional video game coverage businesses are probably on risky footing with all the Twitch and YouTube people that have blown up and are still gaining momentum. Now we're even at a point where the traditional coverage people can still schedule interviews and stuff at events, but streamers are actually part of them. From marketing's perspective, why deal with a company when you can hit up one guy to be an "influencer" who has a couple hundred thousand subscribers? Giant Bomb seems like they're relatively safe for now because they have CBS backing, an established viewership, and are still trying to keep evolving, but I would be extremely hesitant looking for a career in this field through traditional means.

At least finish the story mode or just ad a thing that you didn't complete the game. But then don't give it a high score if you walk out a movie theater it's because you didn't like the movie same can be said with videogames.

@kevin_cogneto said:

There it is.

My knee jerk reaction is to say that - yes - reviewers need to absolutely finish a game to review it. But then you get special cases where a game has obvious problems that can't be redeemed by the most amazing ending known to all mankind. People will argue otherwise (see also: Final Fantasy XIII gets better after the 20 hour tutorial) but I think we're all fairly going to agree that Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing doesn't need to be completed to give it a crap score.

However, those games with glaring flaws are exceptions. A blanket statement of "Its 2017, you don't need to finish video games to review them" is dumb, even if paraphrased. Good games need to be completed to see if the ending falls apart (see also: Mass Effect 3). I fail to see what the year has to do with it.

@bocckob: Yea I definitely feel that way too, my more pertinent question was what do the reviewers themselves think their jobs are? Every time a reviewer addresses criticism of how they perform their work they brush it off as a bunch of rampant fans being hysterical (which is commonly the case) but that always has a silver lining of an actual issue that's getting glazed over. To me it comes across as making a series of excuses to justify getting paid to do a job however you please rather than actually trying to evolve how you deliver reviews to make them more meaningful.

Because people still like to read and talk about them? And because of that they generate page clicks?

Clearly you can get information and purchasing advice about a game from many other places, but people still like to see 'capital R' Reviews from established outlets.

Anyone remember @brad's review of FFXIII? It was an interesting journey to say the least but also kind of insane.

Regardless, I in no way expect reviewers to "finish" a game since people can barely agree on what even finishing a game means these days. Games as a whole to me have become too diverse to fit the binary of being finished/not finished therefor I can not demand a reviewer "finish" a game to leave their impression.
Games are a confusing but beautiful world where Shovel Knight, Thomas Was Alone, Persona 4, Mario Maker, Dark Souls, Her Story, The Witcher, Night in the Woods, Stellaris: Utopia, Deadly Premonition and Minecraft can all exist in the same space and yet be so vastly different that we all hate each other for liking the wrong one. To me the games I just mentioned are all 5/5 but for very, very different reasons, and some of those games I probably didn't "finish".

Hell, nowadays people don't even need to play the game at all to form an opinion. ;)

The Crash remaster is a weird special case, but the general tweaks they made to movement and physics had specific consequences on later levels. Because of changes to collision detection some later levels became a lot harder and required more specific jumps. If a reviewer only plays half a game and reviews it that review is not valuable and in the worst case misleading for the reader. If the last half of the game was either great or terrible then that should impact the review and could be what makes me go from wait to not buy or buy right away. Saying they only finished half the game is fine and can then ignore that review, but admitting you did a bad job is a not and excuse for doing a bad job. If a reviewer wants me to read their reviews and respect their opinions then I expect them to put in the work to make sure that opinion is based on the whole experience and not just until they decided they knew enough to evaluate the whole game based on part of it.

Another thing is Metacritic. Whether you like it or hate it it`s important and a lot of people makes decisions based on Metacritic. Your review of half the game contributes to the aggravate score and a blurb is used on the page. Gamespots Crash review says nothing about him having finished only half the game. When I first read that quote around release I assumed he had played the whole game.

Edit: I went back and read Peter Brown`s review. I might be blind, but I can`t find the part where he says he only played half the game.

O Soon these Chinese review bots will shit out reviews and we all will be saved......

No, alot of review scores get skewed because most of the time games are reviewed by people with a vested interest who generally like the genre or liked a previous game. Having more wide ranging opinions always helps the meta greatly even if a person is completely soured on game which is more likely to happen if its not their thing its still a valuable opinion.

Having everybody lord over a game or echo the same thoughts isn't very helpful. Jim Sterling going against the grain with his BotW will help alot more people.

I answered no, but an important caveat is that the review should make clear how much of the game was completed. And depending on the game, not completing could just mean it's a bad review.

The reviewer could also hate the first third of Nier, force themselves to play the rest, and still hate the rest of the game. What happens then?

I say ridiculous with the notion being that it should be mandatory to finish a game before a review. I read the OP, but I'm not so sure you finished reading my post with my examples. Either way I think you're taking game reviews too seriously. As @mike said, they're pretty irrelevant in this day and age (although unlike Mike I do enjoy reading a review), and the review score at the end of the day is meaningless to consumers (its a crappy marketing tool). All that matters is what you think and what information you want take on board from someone whose opinion you trust. If you can't trust someone's review on a game because they didn't finish it then I don't know man...read only the reviews from people that do <shrug>.

Review copies are not always sent out so far in advance. Some are like days before release. Nintendo are meant to be pretty good though, they sometimes give a month a two from what I've heard. As for your second point, yeah its not perfect, but nothing is, even reviewing after completing a game. There's pro's and con's to both. I just don't care for reviews that much nor do I often buy games on day one. Usually the information creeps out about those things you mentioned with regards to Bravely Default within a week of release anyways so if the review misses that information, then for me, nothing is lost.

The main motivation to take reviews with scores seriously is that we know publishers, for better or worse, use them to make business decisions. This happened with with the infamous Fallout New Vegas bonus scandal and most recently with the canceling of the Mass Effect Andromeda single-player DLC. From Jason Screier's article:

When the mock reviews came in for Mass Effect: Andromeda, BioWare’s leads were relieved—the Metacritic was expected to be in the low-to-mid-80s, according to two sources. Although Andromeda’s developers knew the game wasn’t perfect, they were fine with a score like that. ...When the Metacritic score finally settled, Mass Effect: Andromeda wound up with a 70 (on PS4, where it has the most reviews), far lower than those who had seen the mock reviews expected. The results were catastrophic for BioWare Montreal.

I feel like the question should be "play through the campaign" instead of finish. Either that or have HUGE asterisk connected to it, as there are plenty of games that are either very hard to define an end to, or have game-changing end goals that require a ton of dedication. Examples would be something like FTL, where I would say beating the boss once isn't really enough to make a great judgement on the game, or MMOs where reviewing with or without raiding experience is a massive difference.

In the end I'd say it comes down to context. It's fine with me if someone reviews COD purely from a multiplayer perspective, as long as they make that clear. If you're gonna review a campaign-focused game though (or that aspect specifically) I'd say you should probably have played through the whole thing. But even then you have certain games like say Shadow or Mordor where I'd be fine with a review like "I didn't really finish the campaign because it was boring, but who cares 'cuz I had a ton of fun playing with the Nemesis system". I've certainly played plenty of games where I ended up finding my own fun in emergent gameplay systems rather than the linear narrative.

Then they can say with confidence and authority that the game is bad. And the reader can trust them and make a fully informed purchasing decision based on the review. Or the other way around the can say with confidence that the whole game is good and stays good throughout.

I vote no, with the caveat that a reviewer is obligated to say clearly if he/she didn't finish a game, and explain why as part of the review.

I'm positive that probably half the reviewers that played Valkyria Revolution gave up due to the difficulty. People didn't use to just give up on the games that they sucked at but they would still penalize them. However it's not like there's anything serious or legitimate about games journalism relative to say a random youtuber reviewing a game; so there aren't really any rules regulating them. Game reviewers value their time above all else; because the more time they have the more poorly written reviews of games they can compose. So if a game is more difficult than expected they bitch about it.

Most readily available example: Bloodrayne Betrayal

I'm starting to get the feeling that there's a factor here which we're all sort of talking around (my original post is on the first page). Specifically, I think our individual views on the importance of review scores and what purpose they serve shape the way we each feel about how reviews should be approached. So, why don't we start expressing our opinions on scores as well as reviews?

To clarify my opinion on review scores, I think the scores themselves are best thought of as a form of clarification. They are there to let you, the audience, fully understand that even though a reviewer picked out a few flaws along the way they still think the game 'deserves' a 5/5. Or perhaps the opposite is true, maybe the reviewer only had a single issue with a game, but they knock a point off to try to really get across just how large of an issue it was for them. This is why I don't like review systems based on decimals or even 10-point systems since it encourages the audience to squabble over the numbers instead of interacting with the content of the review; I still remember the frenzy people worked themselves up into when Jeff dared to give Twilight Princess an 8.9 instead of at least a 9.0 on GameSpot, but that score was a final clarification of a stance which he spent paragraphs upon paragraphs explaining.

I know plenty of people do just want to be able to see a number and be able to make a decision on that alone, but a number is never really enough. The difference between a review and someone saying "this game is bad" is I expect reviewers to give detailed explanations not just of their stance on various aspects of a game, but why they arrived at that stance. In turn, upon learning the reason behind a reviewer's stance, I, as the audience, can determine for myself if my own reasoning aligns with that of the reviewer or if we differ (and differing is fine!). A 'small flaw' in a 5/5 game may be a deal breaker for me after seeing/hearing the reviewer explain it while a 2/5 game 'bogged down by issues' may be an easy sell for me if issues which got under a reviewer's skin aren't the type to bother me much (or maybe I even really like some elements the reviewer hated). I think reviewers still have to be careful with scores, but only because it's so easy for us, the audience, to start trying to view those scores in a vacuum, especially when things like MetaCritic carry weight for consumers. Reviews don't exist to justify scores, scores exist to clarify reviews.

Well, that's my opinion on the matter, but I'm legitimately interested in seeing where others fall on this. So many posts in this thread (including my initial one) bring up score as a factor in determining if a reviewer should finish a game (whatever that means in this era of patches, DLC, and achievements). If we're going to keep bringing up scores, then I think we need to start stating our stances on scores, not in an attempt to come to an agreement on why scores exist and how important (or unimportant) they are, but to get a better understanding of where each of us is coming from on the matter of the reviews themselves.

@rebel_scum: I read your post. I simply don't agree with it, is all. I also think I provided a proper counter to it in my op.

There seems to be a few different approaches that are arising to the question.

1. Reviewers don't need to do anything.

True. Doctors don't need to do do anything either. No one needs to do anything. Its just that there is an implication of integrity and professionality that I feel is present with any job. If you are reviewing something, I assume you've finished what you're reviewing. I don't see why this is such a contentious issue for some people here. As i stated in my op, it is simply a matter of integrity. If you post that you haven't finished the game, then thats great! its just that why would I read it as a review then?

2. Reviews are subjective

I am not arguing that reviews aren't subjective. Im just saying that coupled with the fact that they are subjective and potentially not finishing a game you're reviewing, the final review write-up can wind up being worse than useless: it can be misleading.

3. Reviews are largely useless

This is something that keeps coming up. I agree that they're useless but they're only useless if they focus in on too much subjectivity on the reviewer's part. An example of this is Jeff's hatred of old-timey settings and guns, and thus not enjoying or wanting to play Red Dead. Obviously thats his opinion and thats great that he has it, its just that it holds no value when it comes to making a recommendation on the game.

As a reviewer, I hope you try to get out of your own head as much as possible and into the minds of the reader as much as possible. Otherwise, whats the point of reviews?

4. Reviewers are pressed for time to complete their reviews.

Do your job. Not my problem. Try being a lawyer or a doctor.

By doing this you are ignoring a whole bunch of things like story, music, set pieces etc. that have yet to experience. The only thing you are evaluating is the basic gameplay and objectives and even then your evaluation of that will probably be seriously flawed. Estimating whether something will be fun for x hours (especially when you don`t know how long something is) is not easy. Changes in location, mission design, gameplay etc. are all things that can make or break a game. The basic gameplay might be great, but if nothing changes the game can end up being boring or mediocre core gameplay can be saved by interesting twists in design.

AC1 for example has a repetitive gameplay loop, but does cool stuff with it`s story that elevates it for, but that I would not have seen if I stopped after 3 hours.

I don't care if you do or not, just disclose it. I am a huge proponent of the idea that if the first half of your game is complete trash and the second half is good, that doesn't change the quality of the first. Bad is bad. There are enough good games in the world that I don't need to slog through garbage to find a nugget of quality, especially when it is my hard-earned $60 at stake in most cases.

@katygaga: I don't get why your addressing points I didn't even make in your reply (#2 & 4?). Very strange but anyways, agree to disagree then. I've made my point as you have yours and I'm not about to go around in circles on it.

Pretty sure they could've said with confidence and authority that they didn't like it from the get go and mention that in the review that they couldn't finish the game. Are you a masochist when it comes to video game reviewers? :p

Didn't have time to read everyone's posts, I'm at work. Sorry if this has been said.

The Waypoint gang were discussing the growing trend toward individual voices in criticism vs. institutional reviews. In general, they were fine with whatever experience the critic had with a game as long as it's disclosed to the reader. I agree completely. If you say upfront, "I didn't finish Nier but here's what I think of it..." I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You can take that opinion with whatever grain of salt you wish. I also don't think there's anything wrong with having another opinion or seeking out the opinion of someone who did finish it if that's important to you. There's no dearth of video game voices out there.

but don't you find this impossible ideal of the 'objective review' completely untenable? one man's GOTY can be another man's absolute snooze-fest...have a listen to any of the giant bomb GOTY deliberations as evidence.

at the end of the day, i think the only thing you CAN trust is someone's subjectivity- why would a professional be dishonest about how they feel? and how do you compare something like cuphead's graphical achievements to something like fifa? or thomas was alone for that matter? as games get more diverse and have different aims all the time (tight mechanics vs. empathy stories vs. multiplayer excellence, etc.), the notion of an 'objective' set of criteria becomes increasingly impossible IMHO.

while seeing credits might ensure that the reviewer has had the 'complete' experience- i can't think of any examples of recent games where a lack of total-follow-through would lead to a 'misleading' impression of a game. maaaybe Nier: Automata- but taking jeff's recent experience as example- he says he's bored to tears playing it. were he to write a review saying 'i simply can't get through this game because it's boring,' but then someone else writes 'yeah but oooh man those endings!'...which one is being more honest?

(they both are, equally so IMHO).

I am genuinely surprised at how many yes votes there are despite this topic being discussed over and over again in this space.

The conclusion I come to every time is it doesn't matter/it's a case by case basis thing. If you are able to form a full and concise argument of why you liked or hated a game I could care less if you finished the game or not. Reviews do not have to be an exhaustively detailed run through of what a game does througt it's entire run time. If you think that then maybe you are putting too much infuses on reviews and what place they have in modern games discussion.

^ This.

A review is fundamentally about describing your individual experience, giving a score if your outlet does that, and then defending your position in a cogent and easy-to-follow manner. It's about the argument you're making as much if not more than the process you use to get there.

Take this situation out of video games for a minute. Let's say you're reviewing a restaurant. You get there to find that they've misplaced the reservation you had, so you need to wait to be seated. Then the salad is wilted and limp. The medium-rare steak you ordered is charred black and your cocktail is badly mixed. The service is slow and surly. Everything on the menu seems to cost 50% more than it should. Are you really going to wait for desert or are you just going to ask for your check and leave? Personally, I'm getting up and leaving to write my review.

I mean sure - it's possible that the desert is the best damn thing on the planet, and since I didn't stay to try it I can't confirm or deny that in my review. But at the same time I think I have a pretty good idea of what the quality of that dish is going to be based on the rest of my meal. Plus, even if its great, how much of an effect is it really going to have on my review? Maybe a sentence at the end "At least the desert was good'? But the tone and score is probably going to be the same. As long as I'm disclosing that I didn't stay for desert because the rest of the meal was so bad, then I think I've done my job.

It's the same thing with games. If you're having a bad time playing a game, then you're having a bad time. If you're having such a bad time that you want to stop, then you should stop. Forcing yourself to play through the rest of the game just to meet some arbitrary standard of "completeness" is silly. And at a certain point, I would argue that forcing yourself to finish that game actually runs contrary to your job as a reviewer. If your personal experience with the game is "this is so bad I want to stop," then that's your experience and that's fair. Your job then becomes doing a good job of explaining, clearly, that (a) you didn't finish the game and (b) what made the game so bad that you didn't want to complete it.

It's all about disclosure, not completion.

A better example I use earlier in this thread is Nier 1 where I didn`t like the 1st third of that game, but changes in the story and gameplay made me enjoy the rest more. If I had reviewed the game after the first third I would have done a disservice to both myself and my readers. To me the difference between a blogger and a reviewer is professionalism and to me that professionalism involves getting a complete picture of the game before officially evaluating it. Otherwise I can`t trust you and your reviews are useless to me.

But I just stated earlier that I didn`t like Nier 1 at first, but ended up enjoying it because it got better later on. I could have said with confidence that I didn`t like the game, but I would have been wrong. There is also a difference between couldn`t finish and decided not to finish. In a time where reviews are becoming less and less relevant, labeling hot takes as official reviews is not helping the situation.

The review is also supposed to be informative for the reader. The reader might be more tolerant to certain things than the reviewer and would find it useful to know how the quality of the game changes.

@rebel_scum: I was making a general point about the points that have come up so far in this thread. Regardless, I countered your points in my op. So, yeah, agree to disagree :)

Or maybe a game reviewer doesn't call it a review if he didn't finish it? I don't see why that answer doesn't make so much more sense. I really don't get it. Reviews are a thing outside games and it means you are evaluating a whole product.

Don't say you are reviewing the game and don't put a score on it. That's it.

This is actually the correct answer. Reviewers can do what they want, as long as they are honestly disclosed. If they play the first 20 minutes of a JRPG and deem it trash, but say they only played the first 20 minutes, then they can do that. Folks are then free to completely disregard that review, as well they might. There are voices high and low for almost every game now, find the coverage that fits your needs.