Personal bias in reviews?

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If you're reviewing a game, how much of your personal opinion should be put in, and how much should be "just the facts"? I ask because I just read a review of Bloodborne on an independant video game critic's website, and he gave it a D. The way he reviewed it made it clear he wasn't playing it right. He says he wasn't able to shoot anything, which means he wasn't locking on to the enemies. He said the mobs were overwhelming him, which meant he was diving into them instead of drawing them out and killing them one by one. It sounds like he went in trying to play it like Devil May Cry or something, which is a one way ticket to getting unmercifully slaughtered.

I can accept people won't like a game like Bloodborne, because there are very valid reasons it might not be for everyone. I also respect his right to review any game any way he wants, since it's his website. But at the same time, I don't feel like it's fair for reviewers to review games that they are playing the wrong way, especially if you explicitly state that you're playing it wrong in the review. Like, there's a difference between a game being bad, and it just not being made with you as the target audience. I don't like sports games, so I'm not going to tell people that Madden is terrible just because I, personally, wouldn't enjoy it. I also wouldn't boot up Chrono Trigger and get mad when it doesn't play like A Link to the Past. So, that brings up the conundrum: what's more important? Letting reviewers do and say whatever they want, or demanding an accurate and reasonable judgement of what they're reviewing?

One problem with reviews is bias, yes. It's very hard to find a review that's COMPLETELY void of bias.

But beyond that though, you often have reviewers that are basically shoved into games that they otherwise really wouldnt touch.

For example, I do reviews on a site myself now, but none of us that write for the place are explicitly told what we must review, we get a loooong list of possibilities and choose from that. This works out alot better in avoiding bias issues. Like, Bloodborne and Dark Souls, I'd never review those: I hated both due to the controls and general slowness, yet I can see why others might like them, but that immediate hate means I couldnt review it objectively. Same with RPGs, a genre that could put me to sleep. No point in even trying, with those. Not to mention, if I was doing reviews of those games, I'd be going into the review writing process probably in a not-so-good mood as a result of being forced to tolerate them long enough to do a review. So instead I stick to things like roguelikes and other genres that I like.

But I suspect that alot of reviewers out there dont have that level of freedom in what they can do... particularly if they're ONLY reviewing "major" games, as major releases are sllllooooooowwwwwww. As in, the rate at which new ones come out. Very.... very slow. So there's never that many to pick from (particularly during certain times of the year).... which is provided that they even get to choose at all (many are assigned games to review, from what I am told, which makes sense considering that some games need to be priority in order to generate profit for the related site/whatever). So you get reviewers stuck doing games that they dont want to in the first place, or games that arent cut out for their skillset, stuff like that. Unfortunately, you cant do much about that and it will *always* taint the review, as you saw.

Really the best thing any reader/viewer can do is get reviews from multiple sources, or simply watch gameplay videos instead. Looking to just one reviewer is never a good idea when making purchasing decisions.

If a review is "just the facts", it's not even a review. Critical analysis is an essential part of it. There's no full objectivity as to whether a game is good or bad - it can be generally either, but not 100%, so naturally there's going to be a lot of personal opinions in a review. Maybe even bias.

I make game review videos on YouTube, and I know what I'm talking about here. The last game I did a video on was The Binding of Isaac - a game I have a love/hate relationship with, while most people praise it to high heavens. The thing is I'm in a way biased against randomly generated levels in video games, and The Binding of Isaac was the start of it. That said, though, the game does have its own charm for me.

As far as the dude's review of Bloodborne goes, though, I do think he wasn't being entirely fair to the game. I feel that you need to familiarize yourself with the game's core gameplay mechanics at the very least before starting to analyze it critically. And it looks as though the dude didn't familiarize himself with them. So I don't think the D is entirely justified.

Well, since he's on his own, he chooses what games he wants to review and which ones he doesn't all on his own. and he reviews classic games as well, so he's not limited to the current gens. He even discussed this in his forums, and it didn't sound like he understood the game there either. Although, you want to know something funny? I wrote the guest review for Dark Souls for his site (gave it an A), and the uproar for the differences in scores was kind of amusing.

I mean, I still follow his reviews. He's a good critic. This one just never sat right with me.


Here's his review, if anyone wants to read it: http://videogamecritic.com/ps4al.htm?e=80217#rev4551

Oh, it's that guy. I've seen his reviews before. Eh... frankly I've always had the impression that he doesnt actually spend much time with alot of the games that he reviews. They seem more like "quick impressions" than reviews (which might explain why they're so short). Or at least he's using a review style that moreso fits the older, simpler games he does, which I very strongly suspect is his actual focus, in terms of what he likes. I mean, you cant take something like Maze Craze on the 2600, which I see he recently reviewed, and make multi-page write-up of it, after all.

Reviews are inherently biased.
Judging a game based on your own ability is a bit of a pitfall ("too much monsters", "lack of aim-assist", "puzzles too hard"), but your preferences can and will be part of the final opinion.

This is why you should select reviewers that handle that kind of games more often, as liking the genre will lead to a more objective review.