Which gaming website for unbiased unpaid reviews?

[EternalBany]

People shit on IGN, gamespot, pc, metacritic, pcgamer etc

[Edge-]

Unpaid reviews? Like, by publishers/developers? Pretty much all of them. That doesn't happen.

And for the love of god I'm going to flip a table if someone brings up Jeff Gerstman who wasn't paid for a review.

"Unbiased"? Doesn't exist. Every review has biases built in, it's impossible to be truly "objective". Find sites, editors, or channels who share your views and whose opinions you find informative, valuable, and trustworthy, and stick to them. It's different for everyone, so without a lot more info we can't really point you in a direction.

And Metacritic doesn't review anything. That's a review aggregate.

[Zenfoldor]

Any individual will likely be biased or simply wrong from time to time. When I shop, I prefer aggregate customer or professional reviews to help me make my decisions. It seems that the more reviews I examine, the more likely I am to get an accurate picture of the product I am purchasing.

Edit: To answer the OP, I don't think I can recommend one individual website, because of my above opinion, unless it was metacritic.

[ro9ue]

All I can think of is RIP Totalbiscuit.

[Nefarious Tea]

All I can think of is RIP Totalbiscuit.

Basically. You could always count on John Bain to give a completely honest review of anything, because he was utterly unafraid to call out anyone on their bullshit.

He would absolutely shred both retail and vanilla.

[Onikaroshi]

Best off, don't listen to the numbers, listen to what multiple reviews SAY about the game, if there is features you like or don't like that they bring up, etc. the numbers mean nothing imo (unless is an un-ironic 1 or 0 on a site, that generally means the game doesn't work... like ride to hell)

Also never trust anyone that gives a 0/1 or a 10 without damn good explanation, 10 is basically "perfect there is NOTHING wrong game" that never happens.

[EternalBany]

It's not about the site, it's about the reviewer. Find a few you trust and check them if you're on the fence about a purchase.

I used to like only Kevin VanOrd from gamespot
but he turned into a raving sjw type

[Fixxit the Gnome]

Everyone has biases. There is literally no such thing as an objective review.

I'd recommend to find a few reviewers that align well with your own tastes and use them for guidance. It can also be valuable to follow some people that enjoy games you don't like to see if they offer any other perspective on games you might think you'll enjoy and maybe some new games you wouldn't have tried otherwise.

[Akka]

People shit on IGN, gamespot, pc, metacritic, pcgamer etc

People might shit on Metacritics, but I find that statistics work well and generally, I somewhat agree in a rough way with their USER rating. Not precisely on the rating, but on the overall reception (is it good ? Average ? Disappointing ? Bad ?).
That's still much better than most of "professionnal" reviews, which tend to look like they follow the expected reception instead of having an actual real opinion (famous indie game ? Automatic success ! Big studio release ? Automatic success ! Under-the-radar game ? Average review at best !).

[Vutar]

Yeah, good luck with finding your regressive reviewer.

Easy to find regressive types. They are the ones that think we should be beholden to government to tell us what to do at every turn of our lives. They also tend to think our thoughts and speech should be policed and conform to their own opinions. In other words, most SJWs.

[Gaidax]

Not IGN that's for sure.

[Tziva]

Everyone has touched on the other things so I'll just say this: read multiple reviews and look for consistencies between them. Any one review might not paint the most accurate picture of a game, but if you read four reviews all complaining about the clunky controls, it's safe to assume the controls are unrefined. If everyone lauds the writing, it's probably going to be well done.

It's also pretty important to actually read the reviews rather than just look at the score. Some things you're going to care about to a different degree than the reviewers. A reviewer might mark down a game for something I don't care about, or dismiss something I care strongly about as a minor negative. Some things will be more or less forgivable than others, especially within the context of particular genres. I can forgive uninspired stories in a platformer, but not in a walking sim, for example.

Just use common sense rather than placing total trust in a specific person or site.

[Mysterymask]

One mans bullshit is another mans no big deal....

Everyone is different EVERYONE is HUMAN...I have loved things people have universally hated....the problems with Sword and Shield (for example)...a deal breaker for many people isnt a huge deal to me. Reviews in general especially in games are always going to be biased for that reason...you just gotta find someone that clicks with you or check multiple reviews AND READ THEM/LISTEN TO THEM.....even positive reviews of things might have a glowing review of a feature you might actually not like and its up to you to decide if its worth it

[Afrospinach]

He would absolutely shred both retail and vanilla.

This does not make him a good "unbiased" reviewer lol.

Clue is even in the handle "the cynical brit".

[FelPlague]

All I can think of is RIP Totalbiscuit.

Loved John, miss him so much. But even he could not supress his bias.

Sadly everyone will have a bias, you just gotta get multiple people to counteract that

[Th3Scourge]

Probably just user reviews on metacritic/any other review site.

Do not trust critic reviews since most are paid for/have other interests. Same goes for movie reviews

[MrPaladinGuy]

Digital Foundry, but look at multiple sources.

[callipygoustp]

Is there such a thing? For years now I look at multiples sources before buying a game: review sites, user forums, youtube videos.

[Byleth]

I typically watch youtube videos (on mute) of actual gameplay to figure out if I will like it or not.

[Tech614]

Digital Foundry, but look at multiple sources.

Not a review site, they only cover graphics/performance nothing else.Something can perform well and look great and still be a shit game, something can also perform poorly and look meh but have other redeeming qualities to make it worth playing.