Which gaming website for unbiased unpaid reviews?

[Daedius]

Meta Critique to get a view from all sides I guess.

[Tech614]

Do not feel sorry for me at all. There might be trolls there who give 0s and 1s there for the sake of it but the consensus of game quality is generally accurate. I bought a few games looking at the user reviews and comments there and none have disappointed. On the other hand, people that listen to those "official reviews" are the mindless ones who will regret buying

Those "mindless" people are actually reading a real review not looking at some fake score with no verification process in place for it. Which one is mindless again?

[WintersLegion]

How high are you? A review doesn't require some professionalism just honesty.

Try steam, reddit, or idk this place called mmo-champion where the users are brutally honest and review shit all the time

Steam isn't necessarily honest. I remember when steam first brought out paid mods for Fallout 4 not only did the players give Fallout 4 itself a bad review because of it but they also went and review bombed Skyrim which had nothing to do with the paid mods. GTAV was also review bombed because Take Two Interactive sent a cease and desist order to OpenIV which was allowing people to mod the online portion of GTAV not just the single player.

[Tziva]

Granted, it's been a long time since I actually read one, but iirc IGN's reviews themselves were usually okay, it was the "score" they gave it that was always insane.

"This game was kinda boring, the controls are fiddly, some parts are challenging but some parts are too easy, the soundtrack is good - 9.7/10"

Not sure if that is still the case, but you could get some actual useful/accurate data from the text itself as long as you complete disregarded their number scale, which seems to go from 9.5 to 10 only.

[Axxil]

Reddit is the only place you'll find the most unbiased opinions.

[lockybalboa]

Those "mindless" people are actually reading a real review not looking at some fake score with no verification process in place for it. Which one is mindless again?

Like I've said those distorters form the minority. You just need to filter accordingly to get a good picture. User reviews are much more trustworthy than what those scumbag "critics" say. Are you really suggesting that we should take counsel from those "official" reviews instead? Are you new to this? Don't you know how corrupt they are? Don't you know how IGN or most official game reviewers these days work? They just give high scores to big titles from big companies to avoid offending them to prevent early access denied to them. Crap games like Fifa get 80+ scores every year. Just imagine that.


"Real review" my arse.

[Afrospinach]

User reviews are much more trustworthy than what those scumbag "critics" say.

Not really. There have been plenty of sheeple review bombing games over stupid shit.

[vitor210]

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

steam comment section

[Dug]

No such thing as unbiased game reviews. You cannot objectively review a game it's impossible

[scelero]

Review it yourself. Find all the footage. Hell, torrent it and see if you like it. if you do, buy it. It's what I've done my whole life. Demos used to be a thing but not really anymore.

The whole 'if you torrent it, you wont buy it' isn't true.

[DarkAmbient]

I like Jim Sterling, because he often picks up on a lot of the negative details that other reviewers don't mention.

[lockybalboa]

Not really. There have been plenty of sheeple review bombing games over stupid shit.

Those distorters generally form the minority, and they are not numerous enough to affect the accurate gauge of game quality. But then again if a game is so shite that many people give it 0s and 1s to really skew things then you know things are bad. And of course at the end of it all you'll have to see for yourself whether the game's genre and gameplay suits you or not, that is the most important thing.

[Cæli]

none. every "professional" review is always biased by the reviewer, based on his own tastes and definition of video game.

pick people with the same tastes as you or similar, and check their reviews.

also don't ignore games that get bad reviews, check screenshots and stuff.

user based ratings can work surprisingly well to give an idea and make "rankings". the best I know of (called senscritique) have a secret algorithm that tries to get rid of user bias which tends to be overly passionate or overly negative when giving a review...so you don't end up with games like BFA with a ridiculous rating of 3.8/10, it's not the best expansion but it doesn't deserve less then 5/10 when you're objective and zoom out to check other games.

it's french though
more active than gamefaqs, which is now deserted, alas

[Rennadrel]

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.

Gerstman is a biased scrub regardless of whether or not he was paid for reviews. He's been a blatant shill for Sony and Microsoft for as long as I can remember and hasn't had any credibility for the better part of 15 years or more, as far as I am concerned.

If I've learned anything, it's to trust no reviewer in particular, but to just do the research. There's zero ethics in gaming journalism (actually, this seems to be the case in traditional journalism now too) and the lack of transparency has become fairly obvious.

[Edge-]

That's great and all but that requires me to have extensive knowledge about IGN's staff.

Not at all. It just requires that you acknowledge that IGN has different people working for them, who are not a hive-mind because you know...we're all people, and that they may not all share the same view.

I have no idea where this notion that a website needed to be some kind of hive-mind and share all the same opinions came from, it's patently ludicrous to the extreme.

If there's a lack of consistency from the staff then your reviews are worthless.

No, they're not at all. That just means that your staff have different opinions. Reviews aren't done by the entire staff, they never have been. They're done by one (or a few) people. They also give a snapshot of the reviewers view of the game at the time, which can change over the years.

If someone on camera contradicts what another person says on camera from the same hive-mind then good bye.

They're not a hive mind. They're individuals with different opinions, no different than you'd see on any content creator channel with multiple people involved.

You expecting them to be a hive-mine is your problem because you have unreasonable expectations and believe. That's not an IGN, or any other outlet, problem.

[Pony Soldier]

For my gaming reviews I like to watch Angry Joe on Youtube. I always thought he did the best reviews because he covers both the good and bad things about the game and most of the time I agree with his scores. He also has the best scoring system too. Very simple and easy to understand. The only thing with him is that he doesn't do as many gaming reviews as he used to because of all the other stuff he does on his channel.

If you want gaming reviews I wouldn't rely on one site. Just go to Youtube and look up the different people with reviews on the game you're looking for. Just avoid IGN because it's no exaggeration when people say they are shit reviewers. I recommend going with the lesser known channels as they're usually the ones with the more detailed reviews.

[therealbowser]

I just use Metacritic as a way of determining the average. There will always be biased reviews--for or against the product--but at least you can negate some of that.

As for individual critics? Everyone is going to be at least somewhat biased. You can't avoid it. Just pick a critic that has views similar to yours, and that you know doesn't get paid off. I don't think most are affected by that, but if it bothers you, consider which ones get the most free content or money from developers.

[Tech614]

Crap games like Fifa get 80+ scores every year.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/09/19/fifa-20-review

Wrong. Now if you want to actually start using facts in your discussion we can continue this but you seem to just be talking non sense. And yes, the reviewer writing a full review on the game should be taken more serious then "herp durrr 0/10 cause EA conned me into spending $1000 on UT packs" reviews on metacritic user score. Taking metacritic user scores serious is insane.

[Vash The Stampede]

Not at all. It just requires that you acknowledge that IGN has different people working for them, who are not a hive-mind because you know...we're all people, and that they may not all share the same view.

Hold up there! Are you saying you work for IGN? That would explain a lot.

I have no idea where this notion that a website needed to be some kind of hive-mind and share all the same opinions came from, it's patently ludicrous to the extreme.

You keep repeating this hive-mind word like having a group of people review games isn't inherently disjointed? Dunkey made a very good point in that having too many people work together to form an opinion on games is confusing for the viewer. This is why it's better to stick to a person and not to a group because you never know what you're going to get. Especially when those people don't work with each other so they don't sound like idiots.

No, they're not at all. That just means that your staff have different opinions. Reviews aren't done by the entire staff, they never have been. They're done by one (or a few) people. They also give a snapshot of the reviewers view of the game at the time, which can change over the years.

Then those people need to be better distinguished from each other so I know who I'm listening too. But companies like IGN won't let you because you become the brand icon, and not IGN. A Dunkey review isn't a YouTube review, as well as a AngryJoe review isn't a YouTube review. An Edge review on IGN is going to be an IGN review. You have no voice.

They're not a hive mind. They're individuals with different opinions, no different than you'd see on any content creator channel with multiple people involved.

Get enough people contradicting each other and my head will spin.

You expecting them to be a hive-mine is your problem because you have unreasonable expectations and believe. That's not an IGN, or any other outlet, problem.

IGN who? If I'm not looking at IGN reviews then it'll be your problem soon enough. Or maybe you want to end up like Kotaku? Sorry, I mean to say Kotaku who?

[lockybalboa]

https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/09/19/fifa-20-review

Wrong. Now if you want to actually start using facts in your discussion we can continue this but you seem to just be talking non sense. And yes, the reviewer writing a full review on the game should be taken more serious then "herp durrr 0/10 cause EA conned me into spending $1000 on UT packs" reviews on metacritic user score. Taking metacritic user scores serious is insane.

LMAO taking IGN reviews seriously is pure stupidity then. Are you an IGN employee or something? Htf can someone be so shameless to defend such a corrupted organisation. Don't you know they fire journalists just because they give neutral reviews that doesn't please their "clients". Oh and sometimes they do fire people for the right reasons. Take a look at this lol. Imagine defending IGN LMAO. You're something dude.