Personally, I am finding myself relying less and less on them as time goes by.
It's not for. a lack of accepting differences in opinion or anything like that honestly, but it is more of the fact that the practices that are going on with reviews have started getting worse as time has gone by.
From 2011 to about 2014, I use to rely on Metacritic to see what games were worthwhile and which ones weren't. For that time the reviews seem well worded and fair for the most part, with a few people that were blatantly giving it 0's or 10's for no other reason other they their like or hatred for it.
However, this started to change rapidly and is now at it's worse point ever.
Reviewers can't be trusted because payed reviews have been a thing even in the specified times.
Youtubers/Streamers often spout regurgitated opinions of others without ever playing a game or playing it very little, with the only exception to their own rules being when it will stir up a controversy and get them more click/view. Their followers posting their videos everwhere and acting as if their word is Gospel.
Even players themselves have made it nearly impossible to tell what is a good game and what isn't. Review bombs (both positive ones and negative ones) have skewed scores to extreme levels, and what is worse is there are groups that plan these sorts of things in advance ( a good example currently, there are some that are going to review bomb Borderlands 3 on all platforms the first chance they get).
Now I am to the point where if a new game comes out, instead of looking at reviews, I just rent it to see how things are for myself and have started encouraging others to do the same.
It's not for. a lack of accepting differences in opinion or anything like that honestly, but it is more of the fact that the practices that are going on with reviews have started getting worse as time has gone by.
From 2011 to about 2014, I use to rely on Metacritic to see what games were worthwhile and which ones weren't. For that time the reviews seem well worded and fair for the most part, with a few people that were blatantly giving it 0's or 10's for no other reason other they their like or hatred for it.
However, this started to change rapidly and is now at it's worse point ever.
Reviewers can't be trusted because payed reviews have been a thing even in the specified times.
Youtubers/Streamers often spout regurgitated opinions of others without ever playing a game or playing it very little, with the only exception to their own rules being when it will stir up a controversy and get them more click/view. Their followers posting their videos everwhere and acting as if their word is Gospel.
Even players themselves have made it nearly impossible to tell what is a good game and what isn't. Review bombs (both positive ones and negative ones) have skewed scores to extreme levels, and what is worse is there are groups that plan these sorts of things in advance ( a good example currently, there are some that are going to review bomb Borderlands 3 on all platforms the first chance they get).
Now I am to the point where if a new game comes out, instead of looking at reviews, I just rent it to see how things are for myself and have started encouraging others to do the same.