Do you trust reviews that come out within 5 hours of a game being released? For instance, there are 2 reviews for earthworm jim in the user reviews section, beautifully typed up and very nice. The problem I have is that these reviews came in the same day the game was released. Shouldn't a good reviewer actually take more than a few hours to play a game before writing up a review on it? Maybe I'm missing something here, like folks getting a pre-release copy or something like that. I just don't trust reviews that are based on a few hours of play. What do you think?
Many website owners/representatives get final builds or prerelease final games promo codes a little in advance and then write a review. Reviews from regular members who get the game at release, as long as they know what theyre doing and what to look for in games they dont always need to spend that long to make a review. As far as trusting reviews? I trust most of them the only type of reviewers I dont trust are website represntatives that get 90% of their games for free and then go around trying to campain for higher prices, as if they are pretending to be on the same budget as everyone else, or website represntatives who try to cover up shill decs and even support them. Those type of reviewers are part of a larger scheme than just reviewing.
Did someone say shills?!?!?! Just FYI freedog, we buy nearly all of our games here. Dogmeat a lot of iPhone games you can beat in a few hours.
I guess for me, a lot of the games I review are pinball games and honestly, you can't get a good review for a pinball game after a few mins/hours of play, it literally takes days/weeks to really get the feel for the game and find all of the features. In the end, I suppose it really depends on the game itself and not the reviewer.
This is a big reason why we decided to do ratings for games at the end of the month to see how much we like them after the initial shine wears off of the new release. Although, I think I have a pretty good idea of what the five star games are going to be this month unless something amazing comes out this week.
Earthworm Jim is an old game. Some reviewers could just dust off their articles from 1994, maybe append a critique of the virtual D-pad. Done like dinner.
See to me, that's taking a shortcut and not actually reviewing the game on its current platform. I think a reviewer needs to actually play the game they're reviewing.
Haha no kidding, this also goes to show what an excellent port the game is as well. It really is the same game though, that's the best part about the whole thing. I played through most of it before posting what I wrote on the front page, and starjimstar is right. Gameloft nailed it with this port. The only thing there really is to comment on is the touchscreen controls.
N64 Magazine (in the UK) was the only magazine I've ever read that used to guarantee all games were finished 100% before review. I respected them for that, but I supposed with console games these days there's sometimes just too much content.
most apps are short, so i trust a review for any app that comes quickly the same as one that comes after a while
True for console games which costs 30+ bucks and have a lot more complicated gameplay. But for iPhone where the games are rather simple and cost 2 bucks on an average, it`s really not required. If you take a few weeks to finish a review, then by the time you are done and post a review saying "it` not worth 5 bucks, Avoid it" the game`s quite possibly on sale for 99cents already. Or it comes out with another update fixing all your problems with the game right after you submit the review. Simply doesnt make sense. I consider these review to be first impressions only and thats all I need to decide in case I`m in doubt. If I wait for a couple of weeks then I wont buy it fearing it`ll be on sale very soon. So I dont really think one needs to finish an iPhone game before reviewing it.
I agree it depends on the game. Ports like EWJ are a special case where the bulk of the iPhone reviews should just focus on the changes to the game itself. Also note that Windburn lives in AUS, so he had the game for several hours before the U.S. version hit. arn
