Can You Tell If You Will Enjoy A Game Or Not Without Playing It?

DarthMol

DarthMol

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"Can You Tell If You Will Enjoy A Game Or Not Without Playing It?"

This question was posed in the Thief review thread and there was a bit of interesting discussion around it. I feel that the topic deserves further input and would be interesting to get some opinions from more people.

From my point of view - I believe you can get a pretty good idea of whether or not you'll enjoy a game by watching gameplay vids, reading reviews etc. but there is still a gap between seeing what a game is like and actually playing it. There have been games where the gameplay looked great and enjoyable, the reviews painted a good picture of it but when I actually started playing the game... meh. I certainly experienced this with Borderlands.

Conversely, there are games that don't look too great (graphics, art style), gameplay vids don't really get you excited but when you actually give it a try you find that you really enjoy the game. This is especially true for games that are different from the ones you usually play. People often write off a genre because they've never even tried playing the games.

I have some more opinions but this should be enough to get the conversation rolling.
 
I think you can get a fair idea from reviews, gameplay vids, and hearing what other peoples' opinions are who have played the game, but you can never know for sure until you actually play it yourself.

Fortunately, you can often download a demo and have a go before you buy.
 
I can usually tell from trailers/hands-on previews whether I will enjoy a game, and this is usually what I base my pre-orders on. Seldom have I received my purchase and been disappointed. It comes down to a few things for me: Interesting art style/graphics (doesn't necessarily need to be realistic), intriguing storyline, interesting characters and fun gameplay.
 
My view on Thief is pretty much the same as what I had to say in that Thief thread. I will enjoy Thief no matter what because its a game I have been waiting very long for. And its an all time favorite. Reviews won't deter me from playing it.

On this specific question however, reviews, users who play/played, gameplay videos etc. give you a general idea of what the game will be like. But we're all different okes, and we like different strokes. So you won't know if you actually like a game until you actually have hands-on time with it.

The same can be said about movie reviews. One movie critic can say bad things about a movie, and another movie critic can say better things (or even great things) about the movie. But you as an individual won't know if you like the movie until you actually watch it yourself.
 
I also think you can get a good general idea of whether or not you will enjoy a game from watching vids, reading reviews etc. but I also think you will never know for sure until you try it for yourself. I do, however, strongly feel you cannot judge how good or bad a game is from just this info. You need to play it for yourself to make that call. The proof is in the pudding after all. I don't think a game necessarily has to be "good" in order to enjoy it. E.g. Neverdead. It's a pretty terrible game and it has a lot of issues but I still enjoyed playing it. The same can be said for Rambo. It's horrible, bit I really enjoyed the little bit I played of it and if it was in an arcade I would probably play it a lot. I would, however, never buy the game to play on my PC/console at home.
 
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matt said:
Fortunately, you can often download a demo and have a go before you buy.
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Unfortunately these are not as prevalent as they used to be, although in some ways the "open betas" have taken the place as demos. I think the publishers tend to prefer betas in that if things aren't good or polished then they have the fallback of saying "Well it is a beta after all"
 
I think in this day and age if you get conned into buying a turd, it's largely your own fault. Come on. We have more information available to us before a game's release than ever before. You're not going to get a 100% accurate view on whether you'll like the game or not, but if you know your own standards and you know what games you generally enjoy, it shouldn't be a problem. I hold fast that if you can't make a decision based on watching a reviewer actually play the game before release, which happens very often nowadays, you're more than likely the kind of person who has to touch the iron to see if it will burn you.

Even Aliens Colonial Marines had people streaming gameplay before release, and yet somehow people were surprised when the game released and turned out to be a turd.
 
I think you can tell. Maybe not 100% of the time, but enough to stop you from making a bad decision. Unfortunately not all the time, I believe the bugs in the new simcity became visible after a few hours of playing when the illusion of complexity was revealed. On the other hand learning that the only mechanics in Airport Simulator are to drive the support vehicles to the plane and back (not even operating some of the interesting vehicles) Just drive there and back is enough to stop you from buying that game.
 
Indeed you will be able to tell, unless your still very young then its harder since you don't really know what you really like.

Also Indie games where do they fall in since some looks not so great but so much fun to play but its really hard to say if you will or will not like it.
 
Just tought of another example: Ni No Kuni. I HATE JRPG's and I'm not a fan of animation either, wheter it's Pixar, Studio Gibli, Anime etc. I have watched a lot of gameplay videos and read a lot of reviews for this game and while it looks good and got great reviews (from both players and critics) it looked like something I would hate and I never bothered with it. Two days ago a friend of mine borrowed my GTA and brought me Ni No Kuni in return. I told him I am not interesed but he insisted I take it. I eventually decided to try it out (just so I can tell my friend I told him so :p) and boy was I wrong. I LOVE this game. It was hooked within minutes and I will definitely buy my own copy and try to finish it. Even though I still don't like JRPG'S or animation, I was able to look past all that and find a game I really enjoy playing. So while you might be able to tell if you will like something or not, you will not be right all of the time and the only way to know for sure is to play it yourself.

Don't really see how one's age is a factor. Maybe if you are really young, but I'm 29 and I still don't know if I'll like something until I try it for myself. :p
 
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My question:

Can you review a game without playing it? Can you recommend a game to your friends without playing it?

nope nope nope
 
I usually stick to what i know, unless something has received like WOW reviews... Like The Last of Us... I wouldnt normally have picked that up, but the reviews were so amazing I had to see what its all about...

Then there's the likes of Final Fantasy... I will buy a Final Fantasy game regardless... Only time iv felt "burnt" by the francise was with XIII Which im nearly finshed with now, and the only reason i didnt like it was because it was so linear compared to other FF titles, its not a bad game, great story, great to look at, but ye... Thats just me...
 
bradbear117 said:
My question:

Can you review a game without playing it? Can you recommend a game to your friends without playing it?

nope nope nope
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What you can say to a friend is something like, based on the reviews I've read etc, it looks like it's really good, but I haven't tried it myself so I can't say from personal experience.
 
I dunno, I actually hardly look at reviews. I'd rather ask my friends what they thought. There have been a few games where the reviews are so wrong.
 
Of course not. The best you can do is make an educated guess.

I'd rather miss a hidden gem here or there than waste the amount of time and money it would take looking for that gem.
 
bradbear117 said:
My question:

Can you review a game without playing it? Can you recommend a game to your friends without playing it?

nope nope nope
Click to expand...

But you should be able to make a judgement for yourself. Being able to critically analyse information available on a product before you buy it is a vital skill every adult should have, and not only in the gaming industry.
 
I can generally tell if I will enjoy a game just by watching a gameplay video, I know what games I dont like.

Not a fan of turn based games, otherwise I'll usually try anything.
 
Clive Woofer said:
But you should be able to make a judgement for yourself. Being able to critically analyse information available on a product before you buy it is a vital skill every adult should have, and not only in the gaming industry.[/QUOTE

Your judgement is sometimes wrong. Gaming is about gameplay. You cannot tell how a game plays without playing it(wow I keep saying this but a game reviewer plays the game he reviews right? He doesnt watch a gameplay vid and then writes a review)
Lets take Thief for instance. Im super keen for the game to come out. Im a long time fan of the series but....that gameplay video was terribad, boring as heck. The game looked slow and laborious with zero replayability. Im guessing/hoping Im totally wrong but Im not going to know until I play it.
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So you don't think you can get a reasonably good picture of what the gameplay is like by watching a livestream of someone playing the game?
 
Clive Woofer said:
So you don't think you can get a reasonably good picture of what the gameplay is like by watching a livestream of someone playing the game?
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Reasonably good picture to make a judgement call yes, BUT you don't get the full experience.

The guy doing the livestream doesn't play the way you would play the game. The guy doing the livestream might not even be liking what he is playing, but you possibly could.
 
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