I have been reading many reviews as of late, especially since I have started reviewing more games for this blog. I suppose it is just a means of trying to improve my writing based on styles of other professionals in that space. Its not like I'm trying to do it for a living, my job is a programmer through and through. However, I do like to read good reviews, and I love to play video games, thus this site.
My problem is with reviews of older games. Especially ones from gen 2 and 3 of video game systems. You know, NES, Genesis, Super Nintendo... I have noticed that games reviewed from these genres are overly harsh if they are reviewed anytime since 2000 and on.
#1 reason for this, poor graphics... DUDE! These games were made in the late 80's to early 90's, give these guys a break. I think a review should be subjective based on the system/era that it is being reviewed for. Castlevania for the NES is not going to compare to Castlevania for the NDS... its just not going to happen. Applications like Photoshop were not as good or didn't even exist back then. I'm sure many of these games were either done using raw pixel manipulation or using applications like MS Paint. Also, most of the guys doing art back then were not artists, most of them were programmers, nerdy computer scientists that loved making video games.
#2 Nostalgic impression over hyping actual game play mechanics. Many people are deathly attached to the feeling a game gave them when they played them the first time when they were a kid. Now going back and playing these older games, many people are like "WOW, that game was not very good. The jumping is choppy, movement is sluggish, and oh man, the screen flickered on me while I was playing it."
I think people need to keep in mind that these systems were not that fast, and people putting effort into optimizing their game for the system did a good job most of the time. Granted, compared to other games of the same genera, if the game was slow then say it was slow. I'm just saying, do not compare that systems frame rates/control responsiveness to today's games. Remember that nostalgic feeling you had as a kid and put yourself back into the same mind set you had back then. I think this is great advice for anyone playing an older game of their childhood, I think you will be less disappointed by your child hood favorites if you do this.
#3 Do not review a game less harshly because of the effects of #1 and #2. I know this seems counter-intuitive to the general sense of my article, but I see this a lot too. Just because you love a game, and you realize that the hardware is older, game play mechanics were not as refined due to iterations of a franchise and genera, do not let this affect your review. Again, keep in mind the era that you are reviewing for. Do not give Zelda: A Link to the Past a 10 out of 10 just because it is your favorite game of all time, be critical of things such as game play mechanics, color schemes (which i think were sometimes poorly picked for this title), and sound, just keep them relative to the space in which they should be reviewed.
Look at things like Game Informers Then and Now sections and see how games rated back in the day they were created compared to where they are now. I think most of the time Game Informer does a decent job of reviewing older titles, but they are even a bit overly harsh or under critical at times. Realize how far games have come from then till now, it is actually quite amazing how far the industry has progressed in a mere 25 years.
The reason I bring this up is that many reviewers fall into these pitfalls, myself included at times. Yet as a gaming fan, and one who has not played EVERY good old game out there, I do read reviews to try and judge where to spend my precious gaming hours, and I would hate to miss a great older game that I have never experienced before, simply because I was turned off by some reviewer who thought that Need For Speed Hot Pursuit should be like Need For Speed Shift in terms of quality of AI, handling performance of vehicles, music quality, and visual representation of cars/levels. Now if you said that it didn't hold a flame to Grand Turismo as far as realism of the vehicles, yet it held a nice charm when it came to car customization and simply had fun game play experience, not to mention the El Nino (which was an awesome video game car imho), then I would respect that and would find a review of this nature a bit more informative.
Now on the other hand, I totally think that past games can be used as reference in a new games review. If your new iteration of a franchise sucks compared to your past successes, that's a problem. Games are suppose to get better with each iteration, if they don't, do not ruin your franchise with some crap. Shame on the developers for allowing your publisher to push you into running your franchise name through the mud just so they can line their pockets with money that is garnered by your fans loyalty (I'm looking at you Will Wright/EA).
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