When Game Review Criteria Hits the Floor Hard

April 27th, 2008

wii fit workoutIt wasn’t too long ago that I posted up my opinions about game reviews and my great frustrations with them. I want to talk more about this issue at a later date but for now though I would like to further substantiate the previous article with a final conclusion, courtesy of IGN.

Before I start I want to share a little bit of context. When it comes to standardize, routine video game news and reviews I am subscribed to two sites to provide me with such content. They are IGN and for a wider, more down to earth scope Video Games Blogger. I am aware of such issues with IGN and fortunately I can filter out there content worthy of my time from another paid DS review or hyped up preview. Despite this there is a certain authority about IGN that I am bound to which I ought to ditch sometime. So if any of you readers have any suggestions then fire away.

In anycase, since I have an Australian IP address, IGN sees fit to send me all of their Australian (brought to you by Cam Shea!) and UK based content which is fair enough. The following is a review of Wii Fit which I would like to briefly analyze.

I genuinely have no beef with IGN, they are fine and this is by no means an attack at the site or their reviews. What is presented here, is as I see it a good example of a common problem within the industry. With that in mind, lets dance:

My Previous Article

Wii Fit IGN UK Review

If you want to skim though then just focus on the intro and conclusion as that is where the meaty bits lie.

If you have read my previous article and then the review you should be able to very easily pick up on the connections. The reviewer, self admiringly has a hard time dealing with the fact that he is reviewing Wii Fit under the requirements of a video game review. He doesn’t even consider Wii Fit to be a video game! There is a great misunderstanding of audiences going on here which is why the reviewer is so dumbfounded. Instead of continuing on and deeply analyzing why this review is so problematic (which would just be a whole bunch of regurgitation anyways). I want to leave this with you readers and let you think about what this represents. Here are a few quotes which I find most interesting:

“Despite certain similarities, this isn’t a game and standard review criteria aren’t going to have much sway here.”“Admittedly, nothing here really pushes the Wii to its limit”

“But such is the hard life of your videogame reviewer. Still, for the sake of completion, let’s break the whole thing down into its component parts and slap a great big number on the end anyway. Actually, sod it, it’s going to get an 8.0. Anything else you want to know? Then read on.”

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