As I said in my other post I would imagine that this "reviewer" does not enjoy RPGs and the specific play mechanics intrinsic to that genre. This would cause him to not enjoy the game, thus not finishing it and giving it a bad score.

"   This is just really stupid reasoning at work. Would you really expect someone to play 100 hours or so of Oblivion before finishing it? No. That's impossible. You normally beat the main story, and play a few sidemissions, playing up to 15 hours. That should give you the experience needed to review it.     
 
The analogy of a movie review is also incredibly wrong. A movie is two, maybe three hours long. Not one hundred hours. "

" @klownboots:

As I said in my other post I would imagine that this "reviewer" does not enjoy RPGs and the specific play mechanics intrinsic to that genre. This would cause him to not enjoy the game, thus not finishing it and giving it a bad score.

Except that the very first sentence of the review is "I was a huge fan of the original Kingdom Hearts."  Just sayin' "

I just don't see what the problem is... You think if he had played 20 hours, 30 hours and finished the game, he would have had a change of heart and really liked the game?

 @MurderByDeath  
I suppose my complaint is more of a general one. I am kind of sweeping several things together that may or may not apply to this specific review. essentially I feel a lot of these sites throw up reviews using people who do not have the type of "understand" it takes to review specific styles of games. It would be like me reviewing rhythm based, games I simple do not enjoy... at all.
 
So yeah, sorry if my posts are a bit to generalized and go off on random tangents. I will keep it more on topic and specific to this review.

" @Hailinel: If you have to put up with crap for 95% of a game in order to get to that last 5% that isn't crap, it's not a good game.

" @Asurastrike: if they didn't finish the game then it wasn't very good. "

I gotta side with the "nothing wrong" crowd. If you enjoyed the game and are now angry with the review, then the review wasn't for you. You obviously would have read many of his complaints and decided you really wouldn't mind the game's negatives. But to say that playing past 11 hours would suddendly make the game a well worth it product in his mind is silly. I never finished Lost Odyssey. I made it to the fourth disc and decided enough was enough. Unless God emerged from my 360 and bestowed upon me the meaning of life, I doubt that fourth disc would have saved it for me. Sure, if someone asked my opinion of the game I'd mention that I never made it through the final disc, but I would still stand by a stance that I wholeheartedly believe the game was a poor product. 
 
If we'd like to argue that its his job to finish games, I'd have to disagree here as well. It is his job to make a well informed opinion on the quality of the game to help guide those interested in purchasing it, not to help those who've already purchased the game feel more confident of their purchase or feed the flames of hate wars against the reviewed series. If the man could not stand the game eleven hours into it then I'm willing to make a wager that the last half wouldn't have done much to change his mind. Not many games open up into a completely different experience halfway through. If the mechanics bored you from the beginning, they most likely will not evolve much towards the end. Starcraft doesn't turn into an Madden style alien football game in the last three missions. It's an RTS with the same mechanics from beginning to end. Heck, to make things more relatable, Kingdom Hearts I and II didn't change much throughout its narrative. If someone had problems with it in the first half, they most definitely wouldn't have suddenly grown to love it 12 hours in.

"  @MurderByDeath   I suppose my complaint is more of a general one. I am kind of sweeping several things together that may or may not apply to this specific review. essentially I feel a lot of these sites throw up reviews using people who do not have the type of "understand" it takes to review specific styles of games.

I kind of got the feeling this thread (before I got here) turned into a more general statement/arguement about reviews. I apologize if my statements detracted from the topic. I will cease my discussion as I have apparently led us all down a completely different path (albeit a path worth discussing).

" To paraphrase Old Man Murray: if you read the first fifty or hundred pages of a book and it sucks, you're not going to keep reading it.  Likewise, even if a game suddenly becomes good after the first eight hours, why should that matter if those eight hours are god-the-fuck-awful?  The guy did what he should have done: he fully admitted to not finishing the game, yet was able to adequately defend his position and reasoning for doing so in a way that showed that he was fully educated on the mechanics of the game and had seen enough to know that he seeing any more wouldn't change his opinion.  You may not agree with his opinion or even what he did, but that seems pretty fair to me. "

" @bonbolapti said:

" @Asurastrike: if they didn't finish the game then it wasn't very good. "

That's not necessarily true. The person in question might've not finished it due to time constraints, laziness, because he just doesn't like the RPG genre, or some other obscure reason. I've heard other people say that the game is good from just the five to six hours they've put in so far. Regardless, I'm still not interested because I know I won't enjoy another Kingdom Hearts game as much as another Mass Effect. "

"So... I just started playing Modern Warfare 2. It feels just like CoD4...
 
5/5."

I fully agree with you. Sure, it might say something if the reviewer didn't finish the game (ie. it was that bad) BUT it's his damn job to finish and then review the game. If he doesn't and just goes ahead and reviews it I personally wouldn't pay any attention to it because he loses all credibility if he can't even play the game the whole way through (because usually when you review something you should be familiar with the entire portion of whatever it is that you're reviewing).
 
I wouldn't care too much about this review anyways; it's gay gamer, a stupid ideologically charged website where fags can espouse their "gay rights". That's pretty far from a game site if you ask me.

" To paraphrase Old Man Murray: if you read the first fifty or hundred pages of a book and it sucks, you're not going to keep reading it.  Likewise, even if a game suddenly becomes good after the first eight hours, why should that matter if those eight hours are god-the-fuck-awful?  The guy did what he should have done: he fully admitted to not finishing the game, yet was able to adequately defend his position and reasoning for doing so in a way that showed that he was fully educated on the mechanics of the game and had seen enough to know that he seeing any more wouldn't change his opinion.  You may not agree with his opinion or even what he did, but that seems pretty fair to me. "

A paid game reviewer has an obligation to finish at least the main story of a game like Kingdom Hearts if they are going to put a score on it. Otherwise they are no better than any random asshole who posts a review on his blog after only playing a couple of hours.
 
Also, Gay Gamer? I have nothing personal against gay people, but I find that kind of compartmentalizing to be a little messed up. You are gay and you like to play video games? Here is a special site just for people like you, as if normal reviewing websites weren't enough.

So you dont like the reviews or site because it is run by homosexuals?  For shame sir.

" "So... I just started playing Modern Warfare 2. It feels just like CoD4... 5/5." "

" @JJWeatherman said:

" @Hailinel: If you have to put up with crap for 95% of a game in order to get to that last 5% that isn't crap, it's not a good game.

yeah but when you're getting paid to review games the rules change.   I want the reviewer to tell me how crap the ENTIRE game is so just in case i am the type of person that would enjoy that last 5% i would know "

" @luce said:

" @JJWeatherman said:

" @Hailinel: If you have to put up with crap for 95% of a game in order to get to that last 5% that isn't crap, it's not a good game.

yeah but when you're getting paid to review games the rules change.   I want the reviewer to tell me how crap the ENTIRE game is so just in case i am the type of person that would enjoy that last 5% i would know "

I don't see what's wrong with a 4/10 if most of the game sucks. It's not like they gave it a 1 or 2. Besides it's not like they claimed to finish the game. They clearly stated that they tried pretty hard to finish the game and that they were a huge fan of the previous games. A 4 sounds about right. "

" @Ertard said:

"   This is just really stupid reasoning at work. Would you really expect someone to play 100 hours or so of Oblivion before finishing it? No. That's impossible. You normally beat the main story, and play a few sidemissions, playing up to 15 hours. That should give you the experience needed to review it.     
 
The analogy of a movie review is also incredibly wrong. A movie is two, maybe three hours long. Not one hundred hours. "

I believe the main issue here is that the "main story" was not completed. The comparison of this game to Oblivion is just as wrong as comparing a review of a movie to a game. The amount of time played is not really the issue with this review, it is the fact that the review "gave up" due to various reasons, that to me, seem to indicate his lack of enjoyment in that style of game play. "

" @JJWeatherman said:

" @Hailinel: If you have to put up with crap for 95% of a game in order to get to that last 5% that isn't crap, it's not a good game.

yeah but when you're getting paid to review games the rules change.   I want the reviewer to tell me how crap the ENTIRE game is so just in case i am the type of person that would enjoy that last 5% i would know "

Where are you getting this "rule of reviewing" from?

" So because it has a review you disagree with, it is a website you do not recommend it?

If you're just playing a game for fun, yes you can give up whenever and it doesn't matter. But if you're reviewing an RPG because it's your job, you can't just give up after 11 hours and render a verdict. If the game is so intolerable that you can't play it for more than a dozen hours, give the game to someone else and just blog your opinions. The GayGamer reviewer shouldn't have reviewed the game if he was unable to play a significant portion of the game.

" If you're just playing a game for fun, yes you can give up whenever and it doesn't matter. But if you're reviewing an RPG because it's your job, you can't just give up after 11 hours and render a verdict. If the game is so intolerable that you can't play it for more than a dozen hours, give the game to someone else and just blog your opinions. The GayGamer reviewer shouldn't have reviewed the game if he was unable to play a significant portion of the game. "

" @Symphony said:

Where are you getting this "rule of reviewing" from?

What are you talking about?
 
I said "when you're getting paid to review games the rules change" as in "the circumstances are different"  ..and there's nothing evil about wanting reviews to be as thorough as possible. "

" @luce  Maybe it's worth writing that the bad ending is crap but the true ending is good just so the people reading it can have the peace of mind that comes with knowing that.  "

" @Symphony said:

" @luce  Maybe it's worth writing that the bad ending is crap but the true ending is good just so the people reading it can have the peace of mind that comes with knowing that.  "

Isn't a bad ending supposed to be crap? "

" Warning:  Venting to follow.
 
Someone linked me to a review for Kingdom Hearts:  358/2 Days at gaygamer.net.  It's not a website that I normally visit, but.. "

" @luce: Hahaha, that wasn't a wall of hate. I hold no ire towards you, honeybunch. I don't expect people on the forums to read, that would be expecting far too much :) I just don't respect you or your opinion on this matter, that's all, sweetums. But I must thank you for the full disclosure. I now know why you asked that question and didn't answer the one I posed. I could point out that due diligence does not translate to having to complete a game before reporting, but who am I kidding? You wouldn't read such an argument so I'm going to end this here. Bye, snookums. "

" @Hailinel said:

" Warning:  Venting to follow.
 
Someone linked me to a review for Kingdom Hearts:  358/2 Days at gaygamer.net.  It's not a website that I normally visit, but.. "

 Uh, yeah...that's a likely story. "

People who vehemntly deny they're gay are usually gay.
So you should let him call you gay or you are gay.
 
By making this post you have set your sexuality on a new path which cannot be broken. 
*Social Link noise*

Congratulations! :)

" @Lind_L_Taylor said:

" @Hailinel said:

" Warning:  Venting to follow.
 
Someone linked me to a review for Kingdom Hearts:  358/2 Days at gaygamer.net.  It's not a website that I normally visit, but.. "

 Uh, yeah...that's a likely story. "

Are you implying something?  Because I honestly do not go to that website for any reason on a regular basis.  The only reason I even read the review was because it was linked to on another website.  (Yes, I know what you're implying, and no, I'm not gay.  Far from it, in fact.) "

Does anyone else think that this original topic is a great setup for vulgar gay jokes?

" @Hailinel said:

" @Lind_L_Taylor said:

" @Hailinel said:

" Warning:  Venting to follow.
 
Someone linked me to a review for Kingdom Hearts:  358/2 Days at gaygamer.net.  It's not a website that I normally visit, but.. "

 Uh, yeah...that's a likely story. "

Are you implying something?  Because I honestly do not go to that website for any reason on a regular basis.  The only reason I even read the review was because it was linked to on another website.  (Yes, I know what you're implying, and no, I'm not gay.  Far from it, in fact.) "

You're not gay, but you hang out at gaygamer...gay wannabe? "

" People who vehemntly deny they're gay are usually gay.
So you should let him call you gay or you are gay.
 
By making this post you have set your sexuality on a new path which cannot be broken. 
*Social Link noise* Congratulations! :) "

" @Lind_L_Taylor said:

" @Hailinel said:

" @Lind_L_Taylor said:

" @Hailinel said:

" Warning:  Venting to follow.
 
Someone linked me to a review for Kingdom Hearts:  358/2 Days at gaygamer.net.  It's not a website that I normally visit, but.. "

 Uh, yeah...that's a likely story. "

Are you implying something?  Because I honestly do not go to that website for any reason on a regular basis.  The only reason I even read the review was because it was linked to on another website.  (Yes, I know what you're implying, and no, I'm not gay.  Far from it, in fact.) "

You're not gay, but you hang out at gaygamer...gay wannabe? "

You be trollin'.  (Not like that's a new concept for you or anything.)  What makes you think I hang out there? "