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[kicker]

I tried to separate them by style (y system has x required hours and you have to comment, etc) that's why gaming forums are lumped together under forums*

I'm not asking which system is better, exactly, just which you've found most useful.
A shitty system that allows users to review bomb easily could still be the most useful to you
edit: can't believe I forgot to add reddit to the poll (even though it's technically a forum, I think it's unique enough to be separated)

 

[keraj37]

Here on gaf

 

[winjer]

I always look at user reviews. Both on Steam and on other forums.

Most gaming journalists are too incompetent or corrupt, to be trusted.

 

[The Cockatrice]

I dont buy games based on anyone. Most of my purchases are on steam, if I dont like it or its a bad port, refund it and thats it. If its on a shitty platform like Sony PS5 and I cant refund well...thats life..we all have regrets. There were times ages ago where I kept buying stuff because they had overwhelmingly positive reviews and I kept refunding so much, reached like 8 or 10 in a month that even steam told me to chill the fuck down.

BUT if I were to pick opinions I guess I'd still go with steam when it comes to shit ports at least. No one else is going to lay it to the fucking devs like steam user reviews when the port is bad. People cry about bombing but fuck that, bomb that shit. Lazy ports should receive no excuse. Dont trust metacritic, especially not gaf, youtube comments are even worse. I dunno, just watch a youtuber like Karak and see what he has to say. Hes reviews are more unique because I can easily tell if I'll agree or not with his opinions. Also I like it when some talks about not just story/gameplay but tech/performance/audio/level design as they are as equally important.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Steam. Right there on the store page, shows both overall reviews and recent ones (very useful in the age of early accesses and patches), every user needs to own or to have played the game, has anti-review bomb system that still informs you of the review bomb, its designed in a way (recommend/not recommend) that takes into account the user is most interested in bringing the overall score up or down rather than giving a genuine grade.

 

[Robb]

Unless it can be verified the users actually own the product “user” reviews are the most worthless metric imaginable.

So Steam for me.

 

[GymWolf]

Gameplay videos of any kind, i can judge a game by myself.

I only watch reviews to have some spefìc details like enemy variety, weapon variety, how long a game is, but sometimes they get even that wrong so they are not really trustworthy.

 

[Mephisto40]

I don't generally need somebody else to tell me whether I'll like a game or not tbh

It's becoming glaringly obvious which games are going to be shit or not months before release most of the time

 

[GamesDontSuck]

Mixture for me. But only up to a certain point.

Promotional trailers gets me interested in a game. Opinions posted on here and other places let's me gauge what's the general over all opinion on it, whilst game reviews I want them short and sweet. 5 minutes etc.

I want to know enough but I don't want to spoil the experience for myself.

For me it's very akin to movies. Trailers make me interested but I don't want to watch every trailer. Like imagine if empire strikes back came out today and you watch a YouTube review and someone says "so later in the movie its revealed darth vader is lukes father" .... dang. I wanted to experience that moment myself.

 

[Topher]

Steam reviews because it has the most advanced filtering system there is.

 

[ClanOfNone]

Steam reviews are great, it's generally pretty easy to separate the wheat from the chaff just by reading the first few lines. I've read reviews from randos on Steam that were 100 times more informative and better written than most "professional" reviewers.
YouTube has become an excellent source as well. I've found a couple of content creators that vibe well with my tastes and found some real gaming gems because of them.

 

[kicker]

Here on gaf

Dont trust metacritic, especially not gaf,

Difference of opinions is beautiful

I dont buy games based on anyone

Gameplay videos of any kind, i can judge a game by myself.

I don't generally need somebody else to tell me whether I'll like a game or not tbh

It's becoming glaringly obvious which games are going to be shit or not months before release most of the time

I don't know about you, but I don't think the point of user reviews is to immediately tell you whether a game is worth buying. Or at least I don't use them that way.

Isn't it more that any individual critic review is, in the end, just one person's mostly informed opinion, and that having a good chunk of user reviews can tell you for example that "hey, based on these random 50 people there's a good chance the game has bugs in this particular section, doesn't let you rebind your keys and takes up 45gb after downloading instead of the 20gb they put on the store page".
More specific stuff like that you can only get from user reviews, in my experience.

Steam reviews because it has the most advanced filtering system there is.

Unless it can be verified the users actually own the product “user” reviews are the most worthless metric imaginable.

So Steam for me.

Steam. Right there on the store page, shows both overall reviews and recent ones (very useful in the age of early accesses and patches), every user needs to own or to have played the game, has anti-review bomb system that still informs you of the review bomb, its designed in a way (recommend/not recommend) that takes into account the user is most interested in bringing the overall score up or down rather than giving a genuine grade.

Steam reviews are great, it's generally pretty easy to separate the wheat from the chaff just by reading the first few lines. I've read reviews from randos on Steam that were 100 times more informative and better written than most "professional" reviewers.
YouTube has become an excellent source as well. I've found a couple of content creators that vibe well with my tastes and found some real gaming gems because of them.

Steam has the most options and requirements, sure, but it also seems to have by far the most joke reviews of any of the others.
I think It's a good problem because it means enough people are encouraged to review that people just choose to do it on a whim, steam even asks for reviews after you've played for a while.
The issue is that joke reviews are pushed waaaay too high, and I don't know whether there's even a way to filter them out. For every game with a decent amount of reviews in the initial amount they show you, you're likely to get 30 - 50% of them being variations of 'I jumped on a dog. 10/10'. I get that it's jokes but I don't think any other site has that problem.

I mean, I agree steam is the best by sheer volume of useful options, but it also has a unique problem that can be kind of annoying.

just watch a youtuber like Karak Karak and see what he has to say

Oh, is that karak from acg? Nice. Didn't know he was a member

 

[PC Gamer]

I don't care what other people think, I watch gameplay videos and make my own decision.

 

[Topher]

Steam has the most options and requirements, sure, but it also seems to have by far the most joke reviews of any of the others.
I think It's a good problem because it means enough people are encouraged to review that people just choose to do it on a whim, steam even asks for reviews after you've played for a while.
The issue is that joke reviews are pushed waaaay too high, and I don't know whether there's even a way to filter them out. For every game with a decent amount of reviews in the initial amount they show you, you're likely to get 30 - 50% of them being variations of 'I jumped on a dog. 10/10'. I get that it's jokes but I don't think any other site has that problem.

I mean, I agree steam is the best by sheer volume of useful options, but it also has a unique problem that can be kind of annoying.

The fact that I can filter on how long the reviewer has played the game alone makes the Steam system superior. That in itself will filter out most of the joke reviews, but even then joke reviews are not prevalent enough to have a massive impact.

 

[ClanOfNone]

If you're an rpg fan, Mortismal Gaming is a great channel on YouTube. I think he's got over 100 reviews now, new releases and classic stuff. Dude is a machine, he 100%'s every game before posting his reviews.

 

[Gamerguy84]

Nowhere I do my own research which doesn't take long. Once in a while reddit but they are to overly positive about.anything.

Warriors are everywhere in every little crack they can yell from, which is pathetic in itself.

 

[kicker]

Nowhere I do my own research which doesn't take long

I don't care what other people think, I watch gameplay videos and make my own decision

"I don't know about you, but I don't think the point of user reviews is to immediately tell you whether a game is worth buying. Or at least I don't use them that way.

Isn't it more that any individual critic review is, in the end, just one person's mostly informed opinion, and that having a good chunk of user reviews can tell you for example that "hey, based on these random 50 people there's a good chance the game has bugs in this particular section, doesn't let you rebind your keys and takes up 45gb after downloading instead of the 20gb they put on the store page"?
More specific stuff like that you can only get from user reviews, in my experience." I'm mostly talking about PC reviews too

The fact that I can filter on how long the reviewer has played the game alone makes the Steam system superior. That in itself will filter out most of the joke reviews, but even then joke reviews are not prevalent enough to have a massive impact.

I don't know, I see them take up around 30 - 50% of most upfront user reviews of games I check. And the playtime thing might work, but there are still those 1200hrs playtime reviews that just go 'game sux but played past 2 hrs so can't refund' jokes. Maybe I'm just more annoyed by them so my memory is exaggerating it

 

[nkarafo]

In forums, because i can ask for opinions/facts about specific things.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Steam has the most options and requirements, sure, but it also seems to have by far the most joke reviews of any of the others.
I think It's a good problem because it means enough people are encouraged to review that people just choose to do it on a whim, steam even asks for reviews after you've played for a while.
The issue is that joke reviews are pushed waaaay too high, and I don't know whether there's even a way to filter them out. For every game with a decent amount of reviews in the initial amount they show you, you're likely to get 30 - 50% of them being variations of 'I jumped on a dog. 10/10'. I get that it's jokes but I don't think any other site has that problem.

Joke reviews are fine, barely no one looks at a positive user reviews to form opinions on a game, all that matters is that X % out of Y people gave that game a thumbs up.

What matters is whats written on bad reviews, especially when a game gets lower scores. Almost always they outline technical problems that official one-man reviews don't cover, and those do tend to get pushed up by other users.

 

[L*][*N*K]

I think after almost 30 years of gaming it is easy to make choices, there are series and developers that I am always on the lookout for and every once in a while an indie game or sleeper hit makes its presence known in the industry so I grab that as well, my point is I don't wait for reviews to make an inform decision, I know what Tears of the Kingdom will be like regardless of how IGN or Metacritic users will feel about it

 

[TheGodfather07]

Don't care for reviews but if I did, it would be somewhere that can verify the user actually owns the game. Especially for exclusive games that can attract lots of trolls

 

[RoboFu]

From your mom!! …. Oooooohhhh!!!!!


It’s too early …

 

[UnNamed]

I look at the mirror.

 

[22:22:22]

NeoGAF

 

[PanzerCute]

Dont really use any to buy a game, but I love ACG's reviews on Youtube.

 

[kicker]

From your mom!! …. Oooooohhhh!!!!!

Her review of Robofu:
"game didn't come up, crashed after 10 seconds of foreplay, 1/10, refunded, valve please fix"

Joke reviews are fine, barely no one looks at a positive user reviews to form opinions on a game, all that matters is that X % out of Y people gave that game a thumbs up.

What matters is whats written on bad reviews, especially when a game gets lower scores. Almost always they outline technical problems that official one-man reviews don't cover, and those do tend to get pushed up by other users.

I think the chances of getting a breakdown on why a person thinks a game is recommended or not are about the same on a positive review as they are on a negative review. To be fair I have no data to back that, I'm going based on memory vibes.
And if you go to the average steam page of a game, you get a good mix of positive and negative, I don't know exactly how reviews get pushed up but there's usually a good mix. If you look only at negative reviews, sure you won't get joke reviews, but then you'll also only get negative reviews, instead of a mix to give you context.

The long breakdowns on steam that usually have specific pros and cons aren't all automatically negative reviews, for example. I think steam is great but they really need a way to filter out joke reviews if that's even possible

 

[MagnesD3]

Metacritic, Forums, YouTube, I look for common scores or for websites I've trusted in the past.

 

[Dick Jones]

Steam if multiplatform as you need to own the fucking thing. The rest is taking people at their word they own it when giving a positive or negative review

 

[BlackTron]

Steam.

 

[Spyxos]

I would say Youtube Reviews. Skillup and 2-3 others very often correspond with my taste, there I can orient myself roughly. Youtube comments I ignore however to 99%.

Steam reviews I've never looked into, even though I've been using Steam for 17 years and i mostly ignore Metacritic.

Can you add Youtube Reviews?

 

[Sethbacca]

Your best bet is to find some reviewers that you generally agree with on other games and follow them.

 

[GermanZepp]

i ask to friends or here.

 

[DaciaJC]

Steam has by far the most robust user review system in the industry. It's still not without its issues, mind, but it's still better than any alternative review collator.

 

[mrmustard]

Uncommented gameplay videos on Youtube.

 

[Rush2112]

Yeah steam reviews are EXTREMELY useful: “I ate a pizza while petting a kangaroo. 10/10 game would eat pizza and pet a kangaroo again.” Also every single game with cringeworthy anime tropes is positively reviewed on steam. If you see an anime looking game on steam and it has “mixed” reviews, they fucked up.

 

[Bonfires Down]

Metacritic. I quickly get an idea of where the game ranks along with pros and cons.

Steam reviews are also useful but there is a tendency to review bomb even for minor or unrelated issues.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Only thing I trust is gamepass.

Download and see for yourself.

Eg I never enjoyed Elder Scrolls series. But recently, absolutely loved Fallout 3. After that, tried Skyrim. Meh, didn't enjoy it.

So, you never know.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Her review of Robofu:
"game didn't come up, crashed after 10 seconds of foreplay, 1/10, refunded, valve please fix"


I think the chances of getting a breakdown on why a person thinks a game is recommended or not are about the same on a positive review as they are on a negative review. To be fair I have no data to back that, I'm going based on memory vibes.
And if you go to the average steam page of a game, you get a good mix of positive and negative, I don't know exactly how reviews get pushed up but there's usually a good mix. If you look only at negative reviews, sure you won't get joke reviews, but then you'll also only get negative reviews, instead of a mix to give you context.

I think you need to understand the context in which people are looking at these reviews. As i said, no one really uses user reviews to form opinions, they're merely a last bastion to determine whether you're getting that game right now or not.

Say you like cyberpunk and visual novels. You go to VA-11 Hall-a store page after hearing about the game and sees overwhelmingly positive reviews, you'll most likely get that. If instead you saw mixed, ypu'd read a bunch of negative reviews to see whats wrong with it, think twice before making a purchase.

On the other hand, if you don't like visual novels, no amount of user reviews would ever convince you to play or even look at the game.

The long breakdowns on steam that usually have specific pros and cons aren't all automatically negative reviews, for example. I think steam is great but they really need a way to filter out joke reviews if that's even possible

Users can mark a review as "funny", not sure if you can filter based on that tho.

 

[kicker]

I would say Youtube Reviews. Skillup and 2-3 others very often correspond with my taste, there I can orient myself roughly. Youtube comments I ignore however to 99%.

Steam reviews I've never looked into, even though I've been using Steam for 17 years and i mostly ignore Metacritic.

Your best bet is to find some reviewers that you generally agree with on other games and follow them.

Uncommented gameplay videos on Youtube.

Thing is, I'm asking only about user reviews. For specific reasons apart from deciding whether a game is good or not, I think youtube reviews or gameplay videos are a completely different thing like I mentioned here

any individual critic review is, in the end, just one person's mostly informed opinion, and having a good chunk of user reviews can tell you about issues a game has. for example that "hey, based on these random 50 people there's a good chance the game has bugs in this particular section, doesn't let you rebind your keys and takes up 45gb after downloading instead of the 20gb they put on the store page"
More specific stuff like that you can only get from user reviews, in my experience

A reviewer might mention that people seem to be having issues with a game, but that video could be outdated in a few hours. user reviews will almost always be up to date because there are so many of them

 

[Imtjnotu]

normally just watch gameplay before release and base my own opinion

 

[Spyxos]

Thing is, I'm asking only about user reviews. For specific reasons apart from deciding whether a game is good or not, I think youtube reviews or gameplay videos are a completely different thing like I mentioned here

A reviewer might mention that people seem to be having issues with a game, but that video could be outdated in a few hours. user reviews will almost always be up to date because there are so many of them

I usually ignore user reviews. I might look in to see what the general mood is, but I don't really care about their opinions on YouTube or Reddit, Metacritic, Steam.

 

[01011001]

nowhere...

 

[LostDonkey]

I don't really pay attention to any review, but if there's one person I gravitate towards it's Worth A Buy on YouTube.


One and only.

 

[Stuart360]

Steam reviess because if a game is really good, they will tell you. And if a game is really bad, they certainly will tell you lol.

Having aid that, i find Steam reviews more helpful for technical problems with a game, or if the developers have been scumbags about somehting, because again users will certainly let you know when that happens.

 

[kicker]

I think you need to understand the context in which people are looking at these reviews. As i said, no one really uses user reviews to form opinions, they're merely a last bastion to determine whether you're getting that game right now or not.

Say you like cyberpunk and visual novels. You go to VA-11 Hall-a store page after hearing about the game and sees overwhelmingly positive reviews, you'll most likely get that. If instead you saw mixed, ypu'd read a bunch of negative reviews to see whats wrong with it, think twice before making a purchase.
On the other hand, if you don't like visual novels, no amount of user reviews would ever convince you to play or even look at the game.

I'm not really talking about using user reviews to inform you whether or not you'll like a game. That's just one use, and most of the time I make up my mind but check user reviews for common technical issues or general gameplay limitations (for example, somerville on pc does not support keyboard and mouse, but I only found out because I decided to check user reviews first)
or, like I mentioned in another post

having a good chunk of user reviews can tell you for example that "hey, based on these random 50 people there's a good chance the game has bugs in this particular section, doesn't let you rebind your keys and takes up 45gb after downloading instead of the 20gb they put on the store page

Users can mark a review as "funny", not sure if you can filter based on that tho.

Yeah, that funny option next to the awards or whatever they are is another weird function. We can mark reviews as funny but I don't think we can filter based on that. If we could, it would solve my main issue with steam reviews

 

[kicker]

I usually ignore user reviews. I might look in to see what the general mood is, but I don't really care about their opinions on YouTube or Reddit, Metacritic, Steam.

That's fair

 

[ahtlas7]

Steam reviews, gaf suggestions, word of mouth, Skill Up (the only gaming YouTuber I watch atm)

 

[Impotaku]

40+ years of gaming experience has trained me to easily figure out games that are ones I’d enjoy I don’t need anyone to tell me what I might like or not. Can easily tell from a trailer or gameplay vid if it’s something I’m going to enjoy.

 

[Putonahappyface]

Here on gaf

Dont trust metacritic, especially not gaf, youtube comments are even worse.

 

[Laptop1991]

Certain Youtube gamer's, not the comment's, the ones i trust show me the game and issues on the screen, i couldn't choose an option.