Hope this isnt a new trend

[kashell]

You could of just waited for a review. Most games today are not even worth buying day one anyway.

I can't speak for others, but I never read (much less trust) "professional" reviews. I put more weight into word of mouth from close friends and other gamers. Also, I know my taste in games and a "professional" reviewer's attempt at humor and biting wit isn't going to persuade or dissuade me from picking something up.

Also (again), I think that if there's a game you want to play then it's absolutely worth picking up on day one.

[burningdoom]

As was pointed out to me recently: Reviewers have a different outlook than the rest of us, too. Their job is to constantly play video games day-in and day-out. So they're gonna notice stuff that the rest of us might overlook. They're going to notice the same cliches a lot sooner than the rest of us might. So something that might seem like an important moment in the game to us, the critics may think, "Been there, done that, boring."

So I don't listen to professional reviewers, either. I usually look at fan reviews on Metacritic or Amazon and gauge their responses.

[kamikazekeeg]

I usually browse critic reviews, just to get the overall picture on something.  If most critics are trashing a game, good chance it's not a very good game.  If they are all praising something, I then want to a little extra work into whether it would be as good to me.  Then from there, I listen to a few youtubers I have on twitter or through their videos that I like, that I take into consideration.  Fan reviews I avoid because it's hard to gauge things too well with a bunch of randoms talking about it.  Some are just all to eager to trash something because of one little aspect.  I'll browse some once in awhile, but its usually all over the place

If you just spread out reviews and impressions from multiple people, it's usually easy enough to figure out if something is what you like.  I usually know if I'm gonna like a game by the time I get it.  It's not super often that I find a dud.  I think the only one I've had so far recently was Xenoblade Chronicles X.

[dreama1]

I usually browse critic reviews, just to get the overall picture on something.  If most critics are trashing a game, good chance it's not a very good game.  If they are all praising something, I then want to a little extra work into whether it would be as good to me.  Then from there, I listen to a few youtubers I have on twitter or through their videos that I like, that I take into consideration.  Fan reviews I avoid because it's hard to gauge things too well with a bunch of randoms talking about it.  Some are just all to eager to trash something because of one little aspect.  I'll browse some once in awhile, but its usually all over the place

If you just spread out reviews and impressions from multiple people, it's usually easy enough to figure out if something is what you like.  I usually know if I'm gonna like a game by the time I get it.  It's not super often that I find a dud.  I think the only one I've had so far recently was Xenoblade Chronicles X.

You thought Xenoblade was shit?

[kamikazekeeg]

I usually browse critic reviews, just to get the overall picture on something.  If most critics are trashing a game, good chance it's not a very good game.  If they are all praising something, I then want to a little extra work into whether it would be as good to me.  Then from there, I listen to a few youtubers I have on twitter or through their videos that I like, that I take into consideration.  Fan reviews I avoid because it's hard to gauge things too well with a bunch of randoms talking about it.  Some are just all to eager to trash something because of one little aspect.  I'll browse some once in awhile, but its usually all over the place

If you just spread out reviews and impressions from multiple people, it's usually easy enough to figure out if something is what you like.  I usually know if I'm gonna like a game by the time I get it.  It's not super often that I find a dud.  I think the only one I've had so far recently was Xenoblade Chronicles X.

You thought Xenoblade was shit?

I thought it was a dud, not shit.  I liked the setting, I liked when cutscenes happened (which was not often enough), the story was interesting, but my god is it a boring game.  All the combat, gear, and missions give you so much to unlock, level, or customize yourself with, but after awhile, the combat just turns into sort of a mindless slog and all those dozens of abilities and classes you can get feel kinda pointless and I just don't see much need for it all.  Then you get a Skell which is like a 10 or 20 level boost, and seemingly makes anything you did before pointless, because why go on foot any longer?  There's other stuff too, but generally after 40 hours of playing and still having like 4 or 5 chapters left in the games story, and it once again stopped progress to force me to do side stuff and grind for the next how ever many hours, I had no real interest in continuing on.  Just felt like a game that had too much to do and not a whole lot of real depth to it.

[burningdoom]

I didn't like Xenoblade Chronicles X (never played the original). It just felt like there was too much going on to keep track of, and I felt overwhelmed by it all.

[dreama1]

I usually browse critic reviews, just to get the overall picture on something.  If most critics are trashing a game, good chance it's not a very good game.  If they are all praising something, I then want to a little extra work into whether it would be as good to me.  Then from there, I listen to a few youtubers I have on twitter or through their videos that I like, that I take into consideration.  Fan reviews I avoid because it's hard to gauge things too well with a bunch of randoms talking about it.  Some are just all to eager to trash something because of one little aspect.  I'll browse some once in awhile, but its usually all over the place

If you just spread out reviews and impressions from multiple people, it's usually easy enough to figure out if something is what you like.  I usually know if I'm gonna like a game by the time I get it.  It's not super often that I find a dud.  I think the only one I've had so far recently was Xenoblade Chronicles X.

You thought Xenoblade was shit?

I thought it was a dud, not shit.  I liked the setting, I liked when cutscenes happened (which was not often enough), the story was interesting, but my god is it a boring game.  All the combat, gear, and missions give you so much to unlock, level, or customize yourself with, but after awhile, the combat just turns into sort of a mindless slog and all those dozens of abilities and classes you can get feel kinda pointless and I just don't see much need for it all.  Then you get a Skell which is like a 10 or 20 level boost, and seemingly makes anything you did before pointless, because why go on foot any longer?  There's other stuff too, but generally after 40 hours of playing and still having like 4 or 5 chapters left in the games story, and it once again stopped progress to force me to do side stuff and grind for the next how ever many hours, I had no real interest in continuing on.  Just felt like a game that had too much to do and not a whole lot of real depth to it.

Thanks for the detailed response, I won't buy it then.

[kamikazekeeg]

Thanks for the detailed response, I won't buy it then.

There are people that liked it, I know a few locally, but I was burnt out on the grinding and the constant progress stopping and I don't think there's much real depth to it.  You look at it and go "Man, there's a lot here!", but after a bit, you just don't care about how much is there and wish there was less and better handled.  If they took the game, cut kinda everything in half, including the world, and removed a few things, while putting a better emphasis on the story, characters, and progression, it could've been a much more solid experience than this wannabe MMO it was trying to be.

[necrosexual]

You could of just waited for a review. Most games today are not even worth buying day one anyway.

I can't speak for others, but I never read (much less trust) "professional" reviews. I put more weight into word of mouth from close friends and other gamers. Also, I know my taste in games and a "professional" reviewer's attempt at humor and biting wit isn't going to persuade or dissuade me from picking something up.

Also (again), I think that if there's a game you want to play then it's absolutely worth picking up on day one.

as someone else who plays niche games, tho, i mean, critics are extremely hard on niche jrpg type titles. they trash all kinds of games i fucking love. i remember tales of the abyss got a 6/10 in game informer... it's in my top 10 of all time tho.
pokemon mystery dungeon got a 3/10. i enjoyed that a lot when i had it. i need to rebuy it.

so there's a general distrust of professional reviewers in the niche community. if you prefer AAA titles, not niche ones, then yes, there is far more stock to be placed in a professional review. they aren't as harsh on AAA titles unless those titles really are absolute dogshit.

re: preorder discussion, you guys must not play a lot of niche games because once you get in that dog-eat-dog world, finding the games months after the release is hard as dicks. esp if you prefer brick-and-mortar stores, so you can check out the case and contents before you buy for imperfections... it gets really hard. and gamestop has a horrible tendency to have a game wiped out of their system and reappear much later (devil survivor overclocked, for a long, LONG time, was NOT in their system... it suddenly reappeared tho and now i see it everywhere).

if it's a game like sorcery saga: curse of the curry god... good fucking luck. haven't seen that game in a gamestop since the day it came out. i regret not preordering. same for mind=0. looking them up, two gamestops near me have these games. they are both 11 miles from me... in opposite directions.

gonna go up and preorder 7th dragon code iii tomorrow in fact lmao. because i want that little art book. also, i imagine it's another 'disappeared to the void' game.

anyway, on topic, as for prices dropping fast, if a game is not a vvvv niche jrpg/vis novel, i never buy at full price. it's also why my wii u has like... no games. if the prices don't drop, i probably don't bother. i'll get them when they're being phased out of gamestop and the prices drop to the bottom of the sea. i regret like fuck not grabbing both baiten kaitos titles at gamestop when GCN was phased out. they were $5 a piece. beating the fuck out of myself everyday for it.
but vvv niche titles are worth preordering even if you don't want to play them that very day... chances are, when you want to, you'll be shit outta luck finding them (HDN re;birth 2, for example, i had to drive out 30 miles for. worth it, but still)

it is really hard, tho, because online-only games... the community either
a) will leave you the fuck behind if you jump in late
or
b) will be dead by the time the price drops [which is why it drops]
so it's really hard to gauge how online-only type games will do. unless it's... splatoon, which ofc was going to keep a thriving online, as one of very, very few online titles on the wii u that's worth half a shit. or CoD, which, again, keeps its communities for ages, guaranteed. the sad fact is, tho, is a lot of online-only games are designed to try to force you to play from day 1, they're designed to leave newbies in the dust, to encourage a fuckload of day-1/week-1 sales. because if you buy a game with tiers and upgrades as an integral part of the game three months post-release... well, you're fucking behind from the get-go and it's a lot of grinding and general bullshit to catch back up.

thus why a game like bloodborn, releasing at a bad time, in an flooded genre like MOBA is right now, has seen a fuckload of returns and a price drop...
and also, realistically, one can only play one online game at a time. you have to be pretty dedicated. online games (esp MOBAs) are perfect for those who only pick up a game a month or one every three months. and what game is successful depends on hype and marketing.

edit: shit, i didn't realise i had accidentally clicked page 2.
i'm really sorry for the thread resurrection, gomen gomen.

[tripredacus]

When I am interested in a game, prior to making a buying decision on it, I will look for someone actually playing it. Pro reviews have little value to me, as they are just like a gameplay trailer. I will look on Youtube for some small channel who is doing a review for a game. I don't particularly watch the video footage itself either. I look for the things that I know that I don't like. I pay attention to how the camera is behaving, and how it looks like the controls are reponding. Is the person trying to do something and it isn't working properly? And I listen for specifics such as their reactions to certain things. Camera, controls, if the game freezes, slows down or crashes, any other type of gameplay issues like that. If entirely possible, I will look on Twitch for someone playing the game live. How do they like it. There you are more likely to see actual gameplay compared to a video review. And most importantly, you can ask the player in real time some questions about it.

This is really the best time to be able to find out if you will like a game before you buy it.

And it doesn't really matter if I was really looking forward to a game or a game's concept. There are so many other games to play, its not like you will end up being stuck with nothing to do.