At the moment Yahtzee is the only games journalist who I trust about anything. Please enlighten me about other games journalists who deliver reliable criticism.

You trust Yahtzee to give "reliable" criticism? You sir are a fool.

now why on gods green earth would yahtzee be reliable?

Yahtzee trustworthy...hilarious yes, but trustworthy - no.

I trust Gametrailers and occasionally IGN.

it's simple, you can't trust any single one. They're all more or less corrupt one way or another. So here's what you do:

A) google.
B) (insert game name here) metascore.

you'll get all the reviews on the web averaged out to one score #/100.

Yahtzee is a guy with a swell hat who's paid quite well to make even the good games look awful (everything I gathered from today's video suggests he actually LIKED Fallout 3), which on the one hand makes his praise of Portal stand out and on the other hand means if you're using his reviews to make buying decisions, the only games you'd own would be Prince of Persia, Portal, Thief 2, Silent Hill, and System Shock 2.

SimuLord:
Yahtzee is a guy with a swell hat who's paid quite well to make even the good games look awful (everything I gathered from today's video suggests he actually LIKED Fallout 3), which on the one hand makes his praise of Portal stand out and on the other hand means if you're using his reviews to make buying decisions, the only games you'd own would be Prince of Persia, Portal, Thief 2, Silent Hill, and System Shock 2.

hey hey, you forgot Clear Sky! he said it was 'Deeply compelling' 'it hurts us because it loves us'

I like Game Informer, I don't know about anyone else here on the Escapist but I like their reviews.

I just got the newest issue with Halo 3 Recon for the cover story, and it's a pretty good magazine.

Some of their jokes are kind of lame though.

I don't trust any journalists, per say, but there are a few from Gamesradar that tend to have my ear on some games, or other instances. Only because my tastes towards games happen to be pretty close to what theirs are.

Penny Arcade loves videogames as much as you do, they have yet to stear me wrong with one of their recommendations. All of The Escapist reviewers are pretty good as well, Susan Arendt's reviews of Fable 2 and LPB are fairly accurate in regards to my experiences with the games and Russ Pitt's review of Fallout 3 does convey a fairly accurate description of the title.

Lets not forget, Yahtzee is FAMOUS because he's caustic, not because he's affable. He's like Ebert, trust that when he says a game is good, it's good, but his personal tastes severly effect what he considers to be a bad game and he tends to rip them apart. Then again, ALL journalists are biased by their own tastes, you're best bet is to pay attention to the individual reviewer and see how close their tastes are to what you like/don't like. If both you and a reviewer have the same "Best Games Ever" superstar tagteam lineup, chances are if they call a game good, you will like it.

Also, use Metacritic, it's a good gauge.

I usually trust Gametrailers and IGN and find the Eurogamer is generally more detailed than IGN, although not always.

I have to admit though that my confidence in Gametrailers took a significant knock after watching the latest episode of the "Bonus Round"; not so much the reliability of their reviews but the possibility of subliminal bias towards the Xbox 360.

When doing an episode concerning the consoles' online service they chose three journalists, all of whom admitted to not actively using the PSN.

Michael Pachter claimed that Sony's free service "hurts them", as it encourages "the biggest turds in the world", to "trash talk and get in your way". In contrast he was fine with the situation on Xbox live considering griefers are "paying for the privilege".
In a brilliant moment of dramatic irony he dismissed the number of people playing games on the PSN as "tiny ... not even 1 million", while the accompanying video showed a piece of news from another website, dated May 28th, announcing over 1 million PSN users solely in Japan.

I think the part of the video that hurt the most was when the host started inferring that one reason people aren't getting the PS3 for online services is that "you have all your friends on Xbox, that's where your friends are". Pachter followed this up by claiming that "Microsoft have created a club and you want to be a member of that club because the people you want to hang out with are at that club.

All this was said during the time they were supposed to be commenting on how Sony could improve their service.

Sorry that I've gone off on a bit of a rant here but I was that profoundly affected by what I thought to be a reasonably balanced site making such a poor job of remaining fair, or even on topic, regarding current state of affairs.

Non are really. Do what I do and just read the text and don't look at numbers. There have been plenty of games I loved that got a 7 or equivalent score. You can tell much more about a game though body of text than
Graphics 8.4
Gameplay 8.7
Sound 7.1
multiplayer 8.9

Oh yeah, Gametrailers usually knows their shit, but they don't do many reviews.

Amnestic:
You trust Yahtzee to give "reliable" criticism? You sir are a fool.

Richard Groovy Pants:
Yahtzee trustworthy? What?

Syphonz:
now why on gods green earth would yahtzee be reliable?

I agree with these three very sexy men.

Hmm, I tend to use metacritic, although I have a read of some of the reviews they take scores from. I go for gamespy and gamespot first, although there is no logical reason behind this whatsoever...

The Iron Ninja:

Amnestic:
You trust Yahtzee to give "reliable" criticism? You sir are a fool.

Richard Groovy Pants:
Yahtzee trustworthy? What?

Syphonz:
now why on gods green earth would yahtzee be reliable?

I agree with these three very sexy men.

I'd originally intended to go on a rant about how everyone's biased and thus no one is reliable at all. I decided a snide comment about Yahtzee was more snappy though.

I usually agree with the reviews on Gametrailers.. Plus, gotta love HD video reviews.

PedroSteckecilo:
Then again, ALL journalists are biased by their own tastes, you're best bet is to pay attention to the individual reviewer and see how close their tastes are to what you like/don't like. If both you and a reviewer have the same "Best Games Ever" superstar tagteam lineup, chances are if they call a game good, you will like it.

This is why I tend to trust the word of Jason Ocampo at IGN (formerly of Gamespot before the Gerstmann exodus) and Dave "Fargo" Kosak at Gamespy.

Incidentally, there is a corollary to your "superstar tag team" rule; if a reviewer hates certain elements of a genre that you love, he will be the south pole on your buying compass. Allen Rausch at Gamespy is like this for me whenever he discusses city-building games; his niggling annoyances are my "depth" and if he gives a game a 3-star review it's a near mortal lock I'm going to have it in my Top 25 Ever list at some point.

The only trustworthy thing you can find about a game is an FAQ page that talks about the type of game it is and its features.

Decide for yourself.

Trust no-one...especialy yhatzee.

I love how so many people put on their pretentious hats, hop on their high horses and are quick to discredit yahtzee because the way he reviews is funny.

Ready for a shock? Comedy is one of the most effective ways to get a message across uncensored.

Jon Stewart's Daily Show is a more reliable source of information than Fox News, or the crushing majority of the "news media" to be entirely honest.

Care for a bigger shock? Yahtzee's a more reliable source of info than almost any other gaming site out there.

Why? Because while Yahtzee is payed by The Escapist to go buy a game and review it - end of story-, most gaming magazines/websites rely on companies sending them previews and demos to evaluate and general public acceptance to sell their magazines. This means they have to be nice, and politically correct more often than not.

What does that mean you ask? Well, for instances the "4-point-rating-system" phenomenon, or games that suck a gigantic pile of shit being labeled as "mediocre". These magazines and websites will focus mostly on the good things, because they HAVE to, and slightly mention the bad things except in the really bad cases.

You'll very rarely see one of these magazines honestly say "well, you know what? The combat in this game was a piece of shit and I didn't have the slightest bit of fun playing it. Don't buy it. Do yourself a favor. You'd be better off buying a gun to kill yourself with.". What you end up with is a bunch of flowery comments and trying to compare which of the games is "less good".

Yahtzee doesn't have this, Yahtzee does the opposite, because he CAN. Yahtzee will straight up tell you "I hated the guts out of the camera system and I hope it burns in hell watching it's mother get raped by Satan himself.". Yahtzee does what's actually important by pointing out the BAD and good things alike.

Wanna fault him for anything? Fault him for giving his audience way too much credit. He actually expects the majority of people to understand a good review should be something based on the reviewer's educated personal opinion of the game, without half-assed numbers at the end, just a "I liked this, this and this because of this, and I hated this, this and this because of this".

I'm sorry, but most people just aren't this smart. I'm reminded of it everytime I see those ignorant "IF YOU GO BY YAHTZEE YOU ONLY BUY [5 names]!!" comments. He recommends a shitload of games, but he only gives that metaphorical "shiny golden star" to a select few, and he does trash a good amount of other games. The way it should be.

I could go on forever, but yeah, you get the point... I hope.

I mostly agree, although there is one thing I do disagree on. Yahtzee doesn't really mention positives of games; he spends all his time taking apart the flaws. In fact, I'd go so far to say that his most objective reviews are of the games that he really likes; he points out the flaws and then says why he doesn't feel they ruin the game; with most other game reviews (bioshock, HL2 ep2, etc), he spends most of his time attacking it and still states that he enjoys it, giving a few brief points to explain why.

(I hope that makes sense... )

I love how so many people put on their pretentious hats, hop on their high horses and are quick to discredit yahtzee because the way he reviews is funny.

That's not why I discredit him at all. The title of this thread is "Which games journalists are trustworthy apart from Yahtzee". The OP then proceeds to state that Yahtzee delivers "reliable criticism." To which I take an opposing view. Yahtzee delivers criticism but as with every single reviewer out there without fail it is biased criticism. As such, he is neither trustworthy nor reliable, same as with every other critic/reviewer. The only person you can trust to tell you whether a game is good or not is yourself.

Yahtzee 'tells it like it is'? No, he tells it like it is to him.

Amnestic:

I love how so many people put on their pretentious hats, hop on their high horses and are quick to discredit yahtzee because the way he reviews is funny.

That's not why I discredit him at all. The title of this thread is "Which games journalists are trustworthy apart from Yahtzee". The OP then proceeds to state that Yahtzee delivers "reliable criticism." To which I take an opposing view. Yahtzee delivers criticism but as with every single reviewer out there without fail it is biased criticism. As such, he is neither trustworthy nor reliable, same as with every other critic/reviewer. The only person you can trust to tell you whether a game is good or not is yourself.

Yahtzee 'tells it like it is'? No, he tells it like it is to him.

A reliable reviewer is a reviewer that gives his honest impression of a game. One that's not heavily "embellished" due to peer pressure or because it has to meet some unwritten quota of political correctness. Yahtzee delivers that.

Yeah, all opinions are subjective. We know. Want a cake? But here's the catch: a review should never be the deciding factor in you buying a game or not just because of the reviewer gave it a certain score or thumbs up/down. A review should let you know what someone else liked and disliked in the game and why, so you can have a better idea of whether or not your opinion might be similar.

When a reviewer says "this game is a 9.7/10! GO BUY IT!" it means NOTHING. It's merely an indicator of a poor review. When a review says "The combat in this Final Fantasy game was bad because it was like all other FF games!" it tells you something: "Do you like FF combat in previous editions? Yes? Then this should be good. No? Then you probably won't like this one either."

Caliostro:

Amnestic:

I love how so many people put on their pretentious hats, hop on their high horses and are quick to discredit yahtzee because the way he reviews is funny.

That's not why I discredit him at all. The title of this thread is "Which games journalists are trustworthy apart from Yahtzee". The OP then proceeds to state that Yahtzee delivers "reliable criticism." To which I take an opposing view. Yahtzee delivers criticism but as with every single reviewer out there without fail it is biased criticism. As such, he is neither trustworthy nor reliable, same as with every other critic/reviewer. The only person you can trust to tell you whether a game is good or not is yourself.

Yahtzee 'tells it like it is'? No, he tells it like it is to him.

A reliable reviewer is a reviewer that gives his honest impression of a game. One that's not heavily "embellished" due to peer pressure or because it has to meet some unwritten quota of political correctness. Yahtzee delivers that.

Yeah, all opinions are subjective. We know. Want a cake? But here's the catch: a review should never be the deciding factor in you buying a game or not just because of the reviewer gave it a certain score or thumbs up/down. A review should let you know what someone else liked and disliked in the game and why, so you can have a better idea of whether or not your opinion might be similar.

When a reviewer says "this game is a 9.7/10! GO BUY IT!" it means NOTHING. It's merely an indicator of a poor review. When a review says "The combat in this Final Fantasy game was bad because it was like all other FF games!" it tells you something: "Do you like FF combat in previous editions? Yes? Then this should be good. No? Then you probably won't like this one either."

Do you know that Yahtzee delivers that? How do you know that he's not being told to give some extra criticism to a game to generate a bit more flow traffic for the Escapist? Or that a game developer slipped him a few hundred Australian dollars to embellish a few extra points of their game?

You don't, the only thing you have to go on is some ridiculous trust you've placed in some guy you've never met and the word of said guy you've never met. For all you and I know he could be as corrupt as Gamespot. He attracts people with bile and has the freedom to occasionally remark on points he enjoys, as such he has more than enough freedom to take the money and never get caught out, no?

You have no bloody idea if "Yahtzee delivers that", and nor do I. Nor do I have any evidence or idea that he does not. The point is that the possibility exists and thus:
He is not reliable.

TheNecroswanson:
I trust myself and the ability to rent a game rather then outright purchasing it.

A smart person, well after all the other tosh on here it's nice to know someone has more than just the two braincells.

Scores mean nothing, kiddies, remember that.

I can give a score! I ken review!

Although whoever said about all journalists being biased, totally right. Anything for the money.

Amnestic:

Caliostro:

Amnestic:

I love how so many people put on their pretentious hats, hop on their high horses and are quick to discredit yahtzee because the way he reviews is funny.

That's not why I discredit him at all. The title of this thread is "Which games journalists are trustworthy apart from Yahtzee". The OP then proceeds to state that Yahtzee delivers "reliable criticism." To which I take an opposing view. Yahtzee delivers criticism but as with every single reviewer out there without fail it is biased criticism. As such, he is neither trustworthy nor reliable, same as with every other critic/reviewer. The only person you can trust to tell you whether a game is good or not is yourself.

Yahtzee 'tells it like it is'? No, he tells it like it is to him.

A reliable reviewer is a reviewer that gives his honest impression of a game. One that's not heavily "embellished" due to peer pressure or because it has to meet some unwritten quota of political correctness. Yahtzee delivers that.

Yeah, all opinions are subjective. We know. Want a cake? But here's the catch: a review should never be the deciding factor in you buying a game or not just because of the reviewer gave it a certain score or thumbs up/down. A review should let you know what someone else liked and disliked in the game and why, so you can have a better idea of whether or not your opinion might be similar.

When a reviewer says "this game is a 9.7/10! GO BUY IT!" it means NOTHING. It's merely an indicator of a poor review. When a review says "The combat in this Final Fantasy game was bad because it was like all other FF games!" it tells you something: "Do you like FF combat in previous editions? Yes? Then this should be good. No? Then you probably won't like this one either."

Do you know that Yahtzee delivers that? How do you know that he's not being told to give some extra criticism to a game to generate a bit more flow traffic for the Escapist? Or that a game developer slipped him a few hundred Australian dollars to embellish a few extra points of their game?

You don't, the only thing you have to go on is some ridiculous trust you've placed in some guy you've never met and the word of said guy you've never met. For all you and I know he could be as corrupt as Gamespot. He attracts people with bile and has the freedom to occasionally remark on points he enjoys, as such he has more than enough freedom to take the money and never get caught out, no?

You have no bloody idea if "Yahtzee delivers that", and nor do I. Nor do I have any evidence or idea that he does not. The point is that the possibility exists and thus:
He is not reliable.

OH SNAP! I completly agree. Can't argue with that.

Hearthing:

Although whoever said about all journalists being biased, totally right. Anything for the money.

What if they aren't making any money like the Escapist Guest Reviewers or the indie journos?

Amnestic:

Do you know that Yahtzee delivers that? How do you know that he's not being told to give some extra criticism to a game to generate a bit more flow traffic for the Escapist? Or that a game developer slipped him a few hundred Australian dollars to embellish a few extra points of their game?

You don't, the only thing you have to go on is some ridiculous trust you've placed in some guy you've never met and the word of said guy you've never met. For all you and I know he could be as corrupt as Gamespot. He attracts people with bile and has the freedom to occasionally remark on points he enjoys, as such he has more than enough freedom to take the money and never get caught out, no?

You have no bloody idea if "Yahtzee delivers that", and nor do I. Nor do I have any evidence or idea that he does not. The point is that the possibility exists and thus:
He is not reliable.

Think about it like this: Yahtzee you're not sure whether or not is "dirty", almost every other game magazine and website, you KNOW they are. Besides, have you listened to his reviews...? Or just trolling because you're bored? "Yes Yahtzee? This is Blizzard's CEO... We'd like to pay you a large sum to not trash our game as badly...."-abbawha?

I have actually played a few of the games he reviewed, and he was spot on. I actually listen to what he says and think whether it makes sense or not based on personal experience... I know it sounds complicated, but try to...

I'd ask if you bothered to read the rest of my post, but clearly you didn't, so here ya go:

Yeah, all opinions are subjective. We know. Want a cake? But here's the catch: a review should never be the deciding factor in you buying a game or not just because of the reviewer gave it a certain score or thumbs up/down. A review should let you know what someone else liked and disliked in the game and why, so you can have a better idea of whether or not your opinion might be similar.

When a reviewer says "this game is a 9.7/10! GO BUY IT!" it means NOTHING. It's merely an indicator of a poor review. When a review says "The combat in this Final Fantasy game was bad because it was like all other FF games!" it tells you something: "Do you like FF combat in previous editions? Yes? Then this should be good. No? Then you probably won't like this one either."

There ya go.

I don't really trust most of the big reviewers too much as they tend to be easily swayed by money. I vaguely recall that there was a reviewer not so long ago who got sacked because he gave a bad review to a game being advertised in his magazine.

I enjoy watching a little gaming podcast on youtube called NoobToob. It's just two guys, Tobin and Yuzo, who review three or four games once a week and post their views on youtube. Because they are independent and only get money from donations they receive through their forum site, they don't bullshit or play up big games simply because of the anticipation or hype. I gotta say I agree with a hell of a lot of what they have to say as well. At the end of each game discussion they also give a simple thumbs down, thumbs up rental or thumbs up buy to whether they think it's worth getting, which although a little over simplistic, is often what most people want to hear. They are also usually funny as hell and definitely worth checking out as most of you probably haven't heard of them before.