What's the most important thing in a review?

Yes IGN, Gamespot etc all talk about graphics, multiplayer, controlls and whatnot but what is the most important thing?

Is it how fun a game is to play? How it makes you feel?

What would you want from a review?

Story and length. Graphics come last for me.

If it is a multiplayer game like bf then its how much the game relies on teamplay.

Gameplay is the most important thing. Next will be story and graphics.

most important part is a true opinion of the game from the reviewer and hopefully they can ignore pressure from hype and give it a true opinion. I seen so many that are cut and paste careful reviews and are pointless to read.

Just write about what works or doesn't work, regardless of what part of the game you're talking about. If you're having fun or suffering, explain why that is.

I agree. And honesty about how much the game entertained you. I'm capable of taking this information and deciding for myself if the things that bugged the reviewer would also bug me. None of this "WHAAAT!?!? THIS IS TOTALLY A 10 BECAUSE I LOVE IT!" stuff. I just want them to tell me what worked for them and what didn't in as much detail as possible. If I wind up liking it more than they did, that's fine - at least they gave me the chance to chew over what happened to bug them.

It needs to be the reasonable justification of their opinion. In a review there could be a "5 out of 10." The 5 is their opinion. One character in the entire review. "5 out of 10" has two more character than Graphics.

A review is about why the person think the game the way he does while being reasonable.

I would want an honest assessment of game play, and have it backed up with examples or some other type of explanation. Players enjoy a huge variety of play styles and just need to know if that particular game marks off their check list. Honesty and integrity in a review gives a lot of credence to both the reviewer and the game.

Anything and everything about the game.

Your question is misleading. The most important thing in a review is the summary paragraph. The most important thing in a game is the gameplay.

The person knows what there talking about and not getting paid on what to say

The objective elements of the game.

How buggy is it? Do all of the features work as advertised? How does it run? How much content is there in the game? What's the native resolution of the game, and is there anti-aliasing? What's the length of the load times? Are the cutscenes skippable?

Next most important thing is addressing subjective elements and necessary comparisons. Does this game offer a lot of value for the money relative to other games in the same genre? How do the graphics stack up against recently released titles? Is a game suffering from too much presentation or too little presentation? How much time is wasted on filler content (doing boring or mundane activity)?

You know a review is bad when it doesn't address these key elements. Unfortunately, a ton of Gamespot reviews manage to go off and random tangents without addressing the things people actually need and want to know. It seems they're much more concerned with their style and writing, specifically writing it in a way that has to justify how much fun they had with the game. We've even had a history of reviewers on this site giving justifying their review scores for political reasons, which is pretty much as tasteless as it can possibly get in the realm of reviewing.

A smarter review would even address gifts that were given with the review-copy of the game (gift-boxes or money), anticipation of DLC and that potential of that DLC's impact on the base game, and the likelihood of necessary patches being released in a timely fashion given the developer's history of game launches.

So the review must have your opinion?

@wiouds: should be anyone's that played the game and being not told what to say to make money

@praze88 said:

But one of the most common thing said about reviews is that they were bought.

@wiouds: that's true but it's the company making people saying good things about the game so people buy it than they play it and there like wow this is shit

Just be honest what platform version is the best, go into full detail on gameplay, what was the fun part, and graphics, DLC, and MP should come last when just focusing on the single player. Most importantly, no whining why it sucks, but just point out the flaws.

1) Describing what the developers set out to do with the game, 2) telling the reader whether or not they succeeded, and 3) drawing parallels with other similar games, so the reader may know if he will enjoy the game and if it's worth the asking price.

Everything else is window dressing, and any review not containing the three elements above is pointless.

• What is the game (premise, objective)?
• How well designed are the game mechanics (complexity is not the sole determining factor of quality)?
• Does this game run well (how much of an issue are any bugs)?
• After that, is it reasonable to recommend this game based on fun factor (Asking if a person who is not reviewing might enjoy this)?

These should be addressed in a review because they are fundamental aspects of any good game. My final bullet point in this comment does not disregard single player experiences.

A review is meant to explain whether something was enjoyable or not and why.

So the most important part of a review would be what ever the most important part of the thing they're reviewing is.

In my review I try to point the most important thing for a game. How well it work, how the new technology is, how the graphics, sound are good. I think that a good review come with a score and with a list of the good points of the game and the bad points of the game. Finally, is it worth your cash is another very important point.

This. There's always going to be a huge element of subjectivity there, and people are allowed to disagree. But your ultimate judgements are either opinion or fact. If they're just opinions, then you need to justify how you came to that opinion. And if it's fact (as in, "this game is OBJECTIVELY horrible, and anyone who disagrees is flat out factually wrong"), then you damn sure need to justify your position.

In either case, I think it's less about the final judgement (whether the game is good or bad) and more about providing a rational and informed justification for how you arrived at that particular judgement. Then, even if you vehemently disagree with the reviewer's final judgement, at least they've adequately explained how they arrived at that judgement and you can hopefully see things from another perspective. Still doesn't mean that you will (or should) agree, but at least you UNDERSTAND their position. And that's an important part of any kind of mature discussion.

Facts about the game, and the reviewers experiences playing the game.

I'm not fussed as long as it's honest and free from third party influence.

The most important thing in a review is Information about how the game actually works....

What if the thing reviewed is an entry into a scientific journal?

Well then ignore the first sentence.

Alright. I was just checking.

This is exactly what I look for as well. Everyone always seems so focused on graphics alone. I'm sure like many of you have all seen incredible graphics in some games, but the game play, story, characters, etc. are absolutely horrendous! It happens more often than I would like to admit. I personally don't even play online games anymore because they have all become the exact same thing over and over again. Hopefully some of the newer games being released this year will help this.

knowing the reviewer which is why this site sucks as it now has a bunch of faceless reviewers most of whom have the writing skills of a ten year old.

with petit and mc shae you knew what you where getting even if i rarely agreed with them.

I don't like the current review structure. Every 'gaming site' should have multiple reviews of the same game by multiple people with varying tastes. That way you can see the same game through multiple opinions and not be stuck with just one guy who likes the game too much/doesn't like it at all/finds it average. Like say if it's a review for an RPG you can get 4 different people with varying tastes in the genre from liking it a lot to not having played one at all. And then there should be a tech review for people who are more interested in details regarding graphics and performance, like Digital Foundry does.

After all, you read up a review because you want to know how the game'll appeal to your tastes and the more varied opinions you know of said game, the better you can gauge it for yourself and decide if it's worth your money.

@drflyntcoal: Famitsu has 4 reviewers for one game and adds the score.

That the reviewer is someone who at least likes what the game is supposed to be about, so they don't criticise the game for what they perceive to be flaws when really it's just a game not suited to what they want to play. I'm not a fan of sport games and if I reviewed fifa then I'd probably complain about how boring it is. Far better to have someone who actually likes football games review it.