Should Giant Bomb keep doing reviews?

I voted yes since the available options aren't exactly nuanced but my real answer is that sure I'd love for them to keep writing reviews but I have no need for them to put out a review for every game they cover. I pretty much agree with a lot of what Jeff said on the bombcast two weeks ago but if you think about it, even back when GB was doing more regular reviews it still wasn't like they were covering everything, not even all 'major' releases as it were. Reviews in GB have always struck me as a thing the reviewer wanted to write and it seems like that hasn't changed and that seems fine to me.

i think an interesting game of the year addition/alternative would be to review games as a group. maybe come up with a list of 20 good games, but instead of arguing the rankings, they try to get a consensus on how many stars each game deserves. it's basically more loose rankings since there can be several top games, if we count 5 stars as the equivalent of that, instead of arbitrarily saying one is somehow better than the other. then they could select a winner as usual, or maybe they could even scrap selecting a single game of the year and just go with declaring the 5 star games as the games of the year.

Might be nice if they had a place where they kept the star ratings of every game they played, but no, I haven't read a full review in years.

@sicamore: The problem with that is that you're lucky if 2 people finish the same game nowadays. I guess with all these GaaS-games everyone can play a few rounds and have a reasonable opinion about it, but as soon as they venture into a singleplayer thing, everyone plays something different.

The five-star rating system still has worth.

The issue for me is that they think the same about games as every other American media reviewer. There's not much point with them making reviews because they don't add anything new, they don't add a new perspective on a game, it's the same as everyone else's. Gaming media, especially American, is a monoculture. It's one reason I prefer watching gameplay videos rather than read or watch reviews.

To me GiantBomb is all about their gameplay videos, that's what I associate with them.

Nope, spend that time doing a feature on the game instead.

@onemanarmyy: i don't envision these as traditional reviews. games like invisible inc. and stardew valley barely make the top 10 even though only one person finished them. the equivalent of that would be if only one person felt strongly about and finished a game, instead of 5 stars, it would be brought down to 4 or maybe even 3 because everyone else fell off it or weren't convinced by the arguments. earning a 5 star score would be a bigger deal than it is now.

they actually already write a mini review in the game of the year article so they could just also do that for the rest of their top games.

The decreasing frequency of reviews at GB has been a source of disappointment for me for some time now. A few-minute talk during a podcast or UPF doesn't come close to filling the space a fully thought-out review occupies.

One of the biggest concerns Jeff noted during the recent podcast where he expressed his concerns about the future of reviews stuck out to me. Reviews becoming obsolete due to the constantly changing nature of some games is a problem, for sure. You publish your review and three weeks later the developer rolls out a massive patch that renders most of your review worthless, but hasn't every single review become irrelevant at some point? The adjectives reviewers use to describe gameplay/systems/mechanics/etc mean different things than they used to. What used to be considered intuitive twenty years ago can be seen as fucking arcane today. Something that felt precise now feels sluggish. The tactile sensations of firing a gun that used to be exciting now feel muted, and on and on.

Maybe the answer to this issue with reviews is that the type of game that updates regularly just shouldn't be reviewed, but that doesn't mean that reviews no longer have a place. H1Z1 Auto-Royale is probably going to change pretty dramatically over the course of 2018; a write-up of where that game is in May probably won't be that useful in November, but is something like the next Tomb Raider game going to be that different several months after it's release? What about the Ni No Kuni 2, Vampyr, or A Way Out?

I'm confident that the crew will figure out what to do here and will continue to see success in the coming years, I just hope that whatever GB is in the coming years still has reviews.

I voted yes because I enjoy reading what the the Bombduders think about a game in a more long-form way but yes it's probably not a producive use of their time when it comes to site traffic.

I like reading reviews. I don't think one review a week would be too onerous a task split between all the staff of Giant Bomb.

It would be nice if they did reviews if it encouraged them to finish more games but since they only review a few games they liked or a few big games they found disappointing a year they're kinda pointless now.

I think Giant Bomb should keep doing reviews for games they are interested in reviewing; much like the current system. So basically, keep the status quo.

To add to this, I think reviews absolutely have a important part to play when the hype curve is at its peak, even if that means reviewing a game months before its official 1.0 release (a la PUBG). Every review will become outdated and irrelevant eventually, but masses will still be searching for trustworthy opinion(s) on a game when interest is at its maximum, and site traffic will surely justify the effort made. I also enjoyed video reviews as a companion piece, as it made 'big' games feel more like an event worth engaging in--plus the additional production flair made for a refreshing, more professional contrast to the mostly unedited content the site offered (you might even say unprofessional! Ugh). I came to GB initially for its unique slant on journalism, not the personality-centric/unqualified commentary the site is largely cultivating now with the new hires (although the original team have always been endlessly entertaining on film), and have consequently been going elsewhere for professional opinions and overviews more and more frequently in recent years.

I'm pro-review, because I think the traditions of games journalism are still relevant--they can live alongside the more modern slant some outlets have taken in reaction to the rise of video sharing platforms and 'content creators'. The problem is, there isn't really anyone working at GB who could take up the mantle of a dedicated reviewer and ease the workload of Brad, Jeff, Alex and, to a lesser extent, Dan--I would take a review from Abby or Ben with a grain of salt, for example, because they're personalities, not journalists. I'm sure both of them are capable of writing a passable review, but you can't pull decades of accumulated respect and experience out of a hat, nor attempt to rebrand both as hardened writers company-side without devaluing the stock of the medium.

Yeah, I love hearing from my fave duders

What if instead of every game getting reviewed, something we know won't happen, we see more staff do a write up of a paragraph or two of their thoughts on the game? It sounds like people aren't even looking for full on purchasing decisions as much as they are a quick, easy way to find out a staff members opinions on a game. It probably would be rather neat to go to a "staff thoughts" page on a game, and see a paragraph or two written the staff members that played the game in question to see some overall site thoughts on it.

Ultimately though that is what everyones individual game of the year lists end up being to a degree. Although only for games they enjoyed usually so there is that.

I vote yes.

I like reading them but I feel like it's more an exposure thing. Reviews are easy to share and digest. Other media can use them and sites like metacritic. This can attract new visitors who wouldn't see the Bombcast opinions (or perhaps don't like the podcasts). Brad suggested doing a sort supercut of peoples comments in place of a review but I feel editing that together across the two podcasts and UPF and stuff would be as much work as writing a review. Plus reviews are easy to archive and retrieve, which wasn't something I had considered but Brad made that point unintentionally by referencing a review he wrote at Gamespot some ten years ago, could he have done that if everything were audio/visual? Unlikely.

If they kept doing them, I'd rather they use just 2-3 paragraphs. The rest of it should be Bombcast and Quick Looks.

I wish they would do more reviews; I like game reviews written by them. I don't think they should do it if they only do one once a month though, seems like a weird waste of time to do it half assed.

I think written formal reviews can do a better job in articulating the experience you can have from a game than a quick look. One example is the RE7 quick look which didn't really show Dan's glowing enthusiasm for it, whereas the written review certainly did, which is what convinced me to buy the game and it was one of my top games of the year.

Meh..

Imo, the merit of one particular person's opinion on a game is highly circumstantial(even if its from people I like). Also reviews spoil the fuck outta everything, including game systems and mechanics(lately I enjoy discovering those for myself). I know what I like. I just need to know if the general consensus on a game is positive or negative(metacritic).

It's been a long time since I've read a review as anything other than a post-op of a game I finished.

I enjoy reading them, but I understand time/money wise they might not be the best use of time.

Yes. I still like reviews for bigger static games (horizon zero Dawn, ass creed, call of duty). It's less useful for live games like destiny.

@newfangled: Jeff is a personality, too. This entire site is literally built on personality.

I still like the reviews a lot, it's a lot more convenient than having to dig through the podcast/quick look etc to find the bottom line opinion. It's a lot of my time to basically consumer hours of audio/video content just to gauge if someone likes the game or not. I like the podcasts, but I've fallen off of them because it's hard to scoop 4+ hours out of my week to listen to them.

That being said I don't need reviews to be huge drawn out affairs, even just a score and few paragraphs would be enough for me. Maybe through a link to where the reviewer talks more in depth about in the podcast or something.

And if their concern is about having to finish the game before scoring it, I'd be fine with (review in progress) type Impressions short blog posted to the reviewer's personal account where they give a preliminary score that isn't submitted to Metacritic etc. Something you could write and edit in 30-60 minutes. Then if they decide to finish the game, they could just tweak that, altering the score if need be, and post it as an official review.

Yes but in video format. I truly miss video reviews. They haven't made one since Skyward Sword, which was 7 years ago. I don't mind them switching to videos as I'm not much of a reader; it's more engaging and easy for me. GiantBomb should revive video reviews but this time simplify it by using only their voices and video captures like Easy Allies and GameSpot. Reviewing in front of the camera is no longer needed.

Yes and like person above me, mostly in video format. Something like Previously Recorded -format would work well. In it, two hacks discuss the game and at points game play is shown to illustrate the points. Mainly it is just conversation where most of the time one hack makes arguments for or against the game and the other hack asks clarifying question and offers insights from different perspective. So more like discussion why the game is Garfield or not-Grafield.

I would like to see more written content other than reviews. It would be cool if there were columns again, like Austin had his weekly thing and the guest columns.

Maybe some of the dudders would like to get back into working their writting chops, like Alex and Brad.

I really wish they would do more tbh

Please keep writing reviews! @staff

Scored reviews are lame. Metacritic is lame. The best reviews out there are zero punctuation that doesn't even bother to score them. I get way more out of their discussion on the bombcast. The only problem with that is that those discussions are buried in 3 and half hours of other talk. Who even cares if a game gets a certain number of stars. Those that do care are often more of the problem anyway.

I'd rather they kept doing reviews in some new format that works for them rather than dropping reviews all together.