GS sometimes reviews games without playing them?

Battlefield 4 review ignores the faults of the singleplayer campaign and gives the game a good score because it focuses on the strengths of its good multiplayer. Killzone Shadow Fall review focuses on the faults of the singleplayer campaign and ignores the strengths of its good multiplayer. and gives it a lesser score.

Based on general public opinion and review reception, many people would argue that Battlefield 4's campaign is shoehorned in and barely qualifies as a worthwhile singleplayer experience, whereas Killzone's SP campaign had many strengths and interesting sections (even though it is flawed, it isn't nearly as throw-away as BF 4's SP). But let's take an objective look at this instead: most people can't even seem to play BF4. Check their forums and it's an endless bout of people yelling at DICE to fix the game (on just about every platform). Conquest on PS4 is completely broken and according to many people it has been broken since beta and DICE never bothered to fix it. The minority are the people not experiencing problems.

Furthermore, BF4's multiplayer is severely limited on the PS3/360 versions compared to PC/Next-gen yet that seems to have no impact on their platform's review scores.

I'm not even a reviewer and all this stuff is plainly obvious to me, so why isn't it plainly obvious to the people that are paid to do it for a living? How can they ignore so many significant problems with one game and focus so much on minor problems for other games? It makes absolutely no sense. The exact stuff that consumers should be warned about is being glossed over...but why?

Maybe because the reviewers didn't see those as major problems? Because, you know -- reviews are subjective and always have been?

Makes sense.

Battlefield is primarily a multiplayer series, so the faults of the singleplayer aren't a big deal - nobody plays it for the campaign.

As for Killzone, I gather that has always been marketed as a singleplayer experience first and foremost (and I've never heard of anyone buying a Playstation console for online shooters), so any faults in the singleplayer will be a big deal.

"Reviewer never played the game" = "Reviewer disagrees with me"

^ I think this...

If the game doesn't work for anybody, why would it work for the reviewer?

Do you guys know the difference between subjectivity and objectivity? Clearly you don't, I suggest you guys look it up. It's a shame we're 3 posts in and not a single person here knows what subjectivity is. A broken game is a broken game - there is no opinion about it LOL

Do you have any proof that Killzone is more marketed as SP experience than Battlefield? Both aspects of both games appear to have been equally marketed to me...

Why weight the game's score based on its marketing and why not just review all games consistently? The developers didn't market the game, did they? ...

What means subjecterivity?

And these are the results. People shouldn't have to keep an excel spreadsheet to track down the personal tastes of every reviewer on the planet.

It may have to do with reviewers having a limited amount of time in which they can critique a game. It's the start of new generation of consoles, and there are a lot of games coming out. It's not a good excuse, but it's the only one I can think of given the circumstances. They may focus on one aspect of the game they think is the main draw rather than having something that may seem like an objective list to review their games. Due to the time constraints, they may not have the time to judge each game fairly or to acknowledge every positive or negative a game may have. If that is the case,GS, or any other professional game site should have been able to anticipate this and hired more staff. And I think ad revenue might have something to with the nature of a games are reviewed, though that's not a nice thing to say.

To be honest it's been a really long time since I've given any credence to any reviews published this, or rather the last, generation. Game reviewers have become too subjective for my taste, they can completely ignore any fault a game may have simply because they liked it. That's not to say reviewers are not entitled to have opinions, but they are being paid to critique a game not to write about if they liked it or not. Reviewers should be held to a higher standard because this is their job, and simply stating that they can be subjective removes the responsibility they have to correct their mistakes.

Simple solution: don't pay attention to the reviews community, get a Gamefly account, and rely on trusted forum feedback instead. It isn't mandated that you read or watch professional reviews.

I am so tired of listening to whining every time a game review comes out that someone doesn't agree with. I know. I'm a Sonic fan! You know how much that fanbase love to cry out "criticz r biazed!!" every time a Sonic game doesn't get a good review? Heck when a game gets good reviews, users turn around and complain that the game reviewers were "bought off" like in the case of Super Mario 3D World's IGN review. Those who swore off Nintendo for life can't understand how a Mario game that didn't have a flashy trailer and next gen visuals got a 9.6. And of course GTAV which got a 9 from Gamespot but for some reason, that wasn't good enough for the community who wanted perfect 10. And of course now all the PS4 and Xbox One early adopters mad because their "killer exclusives" weren't getting the amazing scores they were hoping when they spent $400-$500 (or more) for new hardware.

I know a lot of us look to game reviews to help us make a purchase because unlike movies, music and TV, $60 is a lot to put down on something that sucks. But at the same time, it seems like they seek out the reviews that "agree" with them. There was a Zelda hater who basically went on Metacritic, found the one mixed review of Zelda from Destructoid and was like "that's the review that's right. The rest are biased!" Sonic fans do the same thing namely seeking out the one moderately positive review and propping it up. Sadly Nintendo Power magazine ended so they have to dig deeper. Like we need good reviews for validation or something.

There's been a lot of high scoring games, I didn't like at all and a lot of medicore games I didn't think were that bad. This is how I do it. If there's a game I really really want, I'm going to get it unless the reviews are downright dismal (like 3s and 4s) and if I still really want to try it, then I'll wait for a price drop. Not to mention we have demos now. Not sure of the reviews? Download a demo. Rent the game. Read user reviews. It's not like you don't have options.

Stop crying about reviews. If you don't like it do your own review don't just attack the author (or even more moronically, their employer).

Well, just off the top of my head...

Battlefield made it big as an online shooter back in the early 00s. The first 3+ games in the series didn't even have proper singleplayer campaigns - you just played the multiplayer maps against the AI. I'd imagine that most of the fans of the series still primarily buy them for the multiplayer mode, so it makes sense to continue weighted the multiplayer more heavily when it comes to review scores - it's the meat of the experience.

Meanwhile, I haven't played any of the Killzone games, so I can only talk about what little I know about the series. People praised Killzone 2 for the AI and death animations, and the only footage I've seen were segments from the singleplayer campaign (particularly...uh, Hellghast politicians making speeches?).

I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about the multiplayer at all, despite there being three prior games in the series...so it sounded like the multiplayer was just tacked on and not the meat of the experience. Hence why I assumed that nobody bought it for the multiplayer (and..again, the Xbox has always seemed like the console of choice for multiplayer shooter fans, given that games like Halo and Gears of War, etc., seem to trounce lesser franchises like Killzone and Resistance in review scores and popularity).

Reviews of multiplayer are almost worthless because A) reviewers don't put much time into the modes and B) they don't play them in real world conditions.

Unless reviewers abandon the pre-release review policy (which works for SP, but not MP) smart gamers who want to learn about a game's MP will visit forums rather than read reviews.

Don't get me started on the subjectivity vs objectivity dichotomy. I suggest you stop using the word objective, because it sends the wrong message. Journalism made the mistake by adopting the term with the meaning "uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices." It's completely untenable in the context of game reviews. No person can judge a game without being influenced by personal prejudices. The fact alone that critics give a value judgement makes the whole idea of objectivity problematic. The quality of a videogame can only partially be assessed by pure observation and in the end these observed aspects are combined with the countless elements that can only be valued through personal experience. If there would have been an actual objective way of reviewing games every single review (including its score) would have been exactly the same. The point is there is no difference between subjectivity and objectivity in game reviews, because there is no objectivity (only different levels of subjectivity). It would be very pretentious to claim someone can actually write an objective review. A score is given based on the overall experience, and if the reviewer thinks a broken game is still a great experience then he will score accordingly.

If you had actually taken an objective look at this issue, you would have listed the facts without insinuating anything or drawing any conclusions (or at least listing multiple conclusions without picking a side). The fact alone that the title of this thread is "GS sometimes reviews games without playing them?" indicates that your entire approach is in fact biased and based on assumptions. The fact is that you know nothing about the precise circumstances in which these games were reviewed. You only have indirect evidence. And you even say "The minority are the people not experiencing problems", without considering that the reviewer might have been part of this minority. And how much of these yelling people you mention are trolls?

You can only speculate about this issue, which is absolutely fine, but don't claim to be objective while doing that.

As to Battlefield 4 , no one mentions the singleplayer campaign because the game isn't reviewed as a single player game but purely as a multiplayer game therefore for some reviewers there is no need to mention the terrible crap they called a single player campaign.

Opposite Killzone is a singleplayer game with a multiplayer element and are reviewed as that.

Some reviews I see lately have that disclaimer saying "That's how I see it" or "For me" or things like that. Then they have this "Try this game out for yourself, you may enjoy it more" or something. Although it might be quite difficult to decide spending your money on something you're unsure of. I guess this is where you see more than one review, not just on GS but on other sites/places as well.

I don't know, people have always praised multiplayer for Killzone 2, 3 and Shadowfall (and it's awesome, BTW) while throwing shade at the single player. I've always loved both, but eh.

However, dismissing single player for Battlefield is entirely appropriate. The mainline series didn't even have a campaign mode until 3. Most players dismiss the single player as EA checking a box on the "feature parity with CoD" list, because that's what it is.