The Wrongfully Hated

Resident Evil 6, which was just released in October this year, is the latest in the line of wrongfully scrutinized video games. Just like Duke Nukem Forever and Sonic The Hedgehog before it the majority of gamers and so-called professional reviewers are panning it; describing it as the worst instalment of the main series. While this could be true, that does not mean whatsoever that it is a bad game. It's different, but the series has been on this path for a while; turning into an action game. The problem I have with this is that these bad reviews are given not because of the game itself, but situations around it that sometimes have nothing to do with the game itself.

Let's get some back story here. Capcom was getting a lot of good press over the fact they let the fans be heavily involved with the development of Megaman Legends 3 in 2011. They had a forum where fans could discuss and contribute ideas, and weigh in on what the developers posted for the fans to see. A fair amount was changed in the development process for the fans, and all was going well; that is until Capcom announced Megaman Legend 3 had been cancelled on July 18th 2011. This caused an uproar in the gaming community with a lot of fans swearing to boycott anything Capcom ever were to release in the future. This is when the illogical hate rose to a boiling point for all things Capcom. Also during this time, Resident Evil 6 was announced to be in development and would be released in 2012. Plans to boycott the game by outraged fans began to pop up, though they never really took off.

When Resident Evil 6 was released and the reviews started popping up I was not surprised of the ratings given to the game. While I usually desperately try to stay away from reviews until I try a game for myself, my curiosity got the better of me. Initial reviews came in and they were very low, such as: Destructoid giving it a 3/10 and G4 and joystiq giving it a 2.5/5. One would think from these ratings that it is a bad game. After that, more reviews came in; 39/40 from Famitsu magazine, 4.5/5 from Gamespot and 9/10 from PSM. This seems confusing does it not? At first glance you may just think: “Oh its just the varying opinions of reviewers”. A closer glance reveals something else: that misplaced hate I was talking about. Another game that shares this oddity of such a variety of review ratings is another Capcom game: Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City. Now this just sounds like a conspiracy doesn't it?

Before Resident Evil 6, the game that had misplaced hate was Duke Nukem Forever. The reviews were also quite varied for this game, but in general much lower scores. Before that, it was Sonic The Hedgehog games. Most of them really. There is a noticeable discrepancy in all of these game's reviews. With games like Halo or Call of Duty the reviews all seem to be pretty much the same; Top scores across the board. Then you have games where its evenly reviewed at a low rating like Medal of Honor Warfighter. But then where do games like Resident Evil 6, Duke Nukem Forever and Sonic The Hedgehog fit into? These games can't even be called average games because of the extremes of the different ratings. Hence my thought: The reviews are compromised by outside influence.

A game should be measured on the core elements: game play, technical achievements within the game and audio. Another key element in a review is asking yourself; What did the developer try to achieve in making this game? And did the developer achieve their goal? While all of this is taken into account, it needs to also be backed up with facts. A very important thing I seem to not see in these “professional” review sites. Many of the gamers and reviewers seem to not play through the game they are reviewing. Whether they have the time or not doesn’t matter, they need to do the game justice with a good review, be it a bad rating or a good rating. The thing that bugs me the most with reviews is the focus on things that have nothing to do with the core game like downloadable content. This should not effect the game's rating whatsoever and it's insulting when it does. The dismissal of the good points of a game in favour of bad is just plain lying, and is inexcusable in a professional atmosphere.

A lot of other people only judge from a downloaded demo of a game, which in most cases isn't a full and accurate portrayal of a game. In the case of Brutal Legend, the demo lacked a key game play changing feature(the strategy game aspects) that in a sense makes the game extremely different from the demo. While the demo of Resident Evil 6 really shows off the action aspects of the game, it does not however delve deep into the storyline or the elements fans of the series love such as the creepy atmosphere and puzzles.

I've noticed a lot of reviewers are given games that are not in the genre they prefer. An accurate review cannot be given by someone who does not know the game's genre, the game's history or what the developers are trying to achieve with their game. Someone who reviews Resident Evil 6 should be someone who heavily loves the series and the genre. This person would be the most qualified to do the review as he or she would know exactly what to look for and knows what they want from the game. Someone who likes strategy games obviously might not like Resident Evil 6 as it is in a completely different genre of game. A good comparison of this is reviewers in the music industry. A copy of the new Lady Gaga CD will not be given to the Death Metal reviewer, it will be given to the pop reviewer.

What can be done? Not much if these horribly unprofessional reviewers are still given jobs. The best thing we can do as gamers is to do our best to ignore reviews and get out there and try the games we want to try, without any outside influence from critics before we check out what others think. The gaming industry in general is still in its infancy compared to movies and especially music, so maybe one day the reviewers will grow up as well and we'll have a Roger Ebert of video games. Until then we'll be stuck with people who knock off 2 points because they don't like the company who made the game.