Funny how you bring this up since Kotaku's pre-release review of Halo 3 did exactly that...

Personally I don't think reviewers should be able to use cheats.

You're getting paid to play games and write about them. Play them. Like a normal person would.

I think it should always be noted if there were any special ways of getting passed a puzzle or any hard part of a game so we can weigh the score for ourselves with that in mind and so we can prepare ourselves for that particular part of the game.

Anyone remember that rant that Gabe from Penny Arcade went on about video game reviews and how they're not worth anything? I can't find it.

not cheating isn't 'holding yourself to a higher standard', unless you believe that you are still a 13 year old kid, and somehow, completing a video game is a test which needs to be passed in order to affirm your own worth.

Games are for playing. Cheating is an irrelevant concept. It has no moral weight applied to this circumstance. Now... if someone you are playing with *feels* cheated...whether they are or not, you may have some actual moral consequences to deal with. But manipulating an environment which is completely artificial anyway is not grist for the ethical mill.

I want a review based on the experience I'll be having a typical player. Unless the reviewer plays and reviews that games as would a typical player, then their review irrelevant to me.

I don't think you really have a choice as a professional reviewer. Do you honestly believe a company will pay someone to play just 2 games in an entire week and that be all that they do? There are only 40 hours in a work week, then you start paying overtime, dealing with this and that ...

You can't really clump game reviews with other types of media ...

No. They should not. A reviewer is playing a game to evaluate its quality. When you use cheats, you're using certain exploits in the game that wasn't intended by the designer to be used. The cheats will make the game easier, but the reviewers job isn't to complete the game; its to review it.

@BD: Here's something that'll probably come as a shock... normal people cheat. A lot.

@deathbunny:
I don´t think thawt the point here is anything related to moral or achievments, but if the reviewer should have the 100% game experience in order to review it instrad of using a "go to the last stage" cheat without even playing the game.

@Aethyr: Nevermind: [www.penny-arcade.com]

@MrBionic: We shouldn't even be calling it cheating! You're not cheating unless you're playing Warez!

I wish I COULD cheat. Most of the games don't even have cheats anymore. Sure, you shouldn't get any achievement scores then, but I loved using a trainer or cheats when I was still a PC gamer and just wanted to see the next level or enjoy the story without any twitch gaming.

Cheating in multiplayer is a very bad idea, though. But in my own time, in single player, there shouldn't be any problems.

Well I can see the reason for cheating. Who has 20+ hours to spend reviewing a single game. If you are going to get paid a few grand for reviewing the game sure, but likely you need to blow past trouble spots in order to get onto the next review. Have to be realistic. I don't support cheating, but I can see the reason for it.

Depends. I think they can cheat, and just say "It has hard puzzles". Hard enough for me to cheat! You dirty scum bags >:(

@deathbunny: That's a great point as well.

@BD: wait, normal people have never (for instance) no clipped through a stupidly hard puzzle, or used a cheat to get past exceedingly hard part? I have nothing against it, but would like it noted that XYZ part was very challenging.

@MrBionic:
says who? you? I would like to see a chart.

if it´s based on personal experiences and my tons of friends, not even 10% of them knows what gameshark is and not even 5% of them uses gamefaqs or other stuff..

the majority of (or if you prefer, "normal") people don´t even play much games, and those who does, aren´t addicted freaks like you or me.

Thought this meant something else. For example, just moments ago I was in the drug store reading GamePro's review of DMC4. They don't mention Dante's controls, and he goes off about how Gloria is "The best new female character ever." Anybody who's bothered to even get halfway through the game would know what's wrong with that statement.

Let's all have a moment of silence for strategy guide writers.

Id hate to be a game reviewer, especially for a magazine. Having to rush through a game to meet deadlines for issue release etc, would just ruin most of the enjoyment of the game for me.

@deathbunny: Thats not the point.

The question is whether or not the reviewer can give an accurate representation of the content of a game if they did not experience that content in the way it was intended.

On the subject you brought up, whether or not cheating at a game is ethical or not, as far as I'm concerned comes down to: Are other people being cheated?

If you play a game by yourself and cheat, who cares.
But if you are playing a multiplayer game and your cheating has a negative effect on the play experience of another person, then your cheating is indefensibly "wrong".

@Wyld: In the context of all the posts, I was speaking specifically of video game players.. and I can say with a heck of a lot of confidence that a good majority of casual "normal" video game players use FAQs, hints, tips, cheats, et al. in a good number of the games they play.

And no, it's not a condemnation. I use them quite often myself, and most of the people I know that play games (and I know a lot), use them as well. The FAQ/hint/tip/cheat sites wouldn't *exist* if people didn't use them, and frequently.

@Wyld: Granted, but my impression is that, fundamentally, they're saying you must experience the game as it was (supposedly) intended, and you can't experience it as any-other-user. There is no intention in art, only the experience of the people with your game. If someone skips your content, then they skip your content--it's already completely unfeasible for a typical review to encompass all of a game's content. Nobody is claiming that somebody needed to squeeze every drop of sap out of Morrowind in order to develop an opinion about it. By the same token, being unable to access some part which interests you, due to time constraints makes for a review which is, overall, worse.

The argument about picking and choosing content, in my mind, makes itself. That is a feature of each reviewer, and no standard can realistically be applied. What is at work, here, is that cheating is a hot-button issue for people who have somehow become trapped in the concept of reality that bad designers are attempting to shove down our collective throats. The endless refrain of 'is it fun' and 'gameplay' have been an empty rhetorical basis for the perpetuation of mindless gaming conceits that hold the entire medium back. Why are there 'lives' in SM:Galaxy? Why is there a versus mode where you can make it impossible for each other to play in Guitar Hero III? Why are there time limits, and limited flight, and one-shot special powers that are interesting and exciting, but barely ever come into play? This all circles this issue of trying to apply a godlike-morality to the designer of a game--whereby, if a *designer* says you must kill 20 guys to open a door, the moral thing is to repeat the experience until you are successful.

And this, to me, is insane.

@BD: But if the cheats are in the game naturally, then that IS what many normal people would do. I'm personally not terribly skilled at most games, but I still appreciate them just like anyone else. I wouldn't want someone to tell me I can't review Starcraft just because I have to cheat through a whole third of the game. I can still use the parts I DIDN'T cheat on to assess the mechanics and mission design, while cheating lets me critique the story and other non-gameplay areas.

As for how MUCH of a game a reviewer should play... I'd say most of it. For RPGs or Action-Adventure and whatnot, a reviewers should play enough sidequests to make an accurate assessment of the sidequests as a whole. Suppose he/she played, say... 10 sidequests. 5 of them were fun, 5 were not-so-fun. Also, the reviewer notices that most of the sidequests he DIDN'T do (or maybe just started, but didn't finish) seem to follow the same sort of patter as the 5 he did like and the 5 he didn't. If, because of this, the reviewer writes in the review that "about half of the sidequests are fun," and then elaborates on what was and wasn't fun, then I'd say the reviewer did his job just fine.

Unfortunately, if I wrote reviews, I wouldn't care what people thought about this. They have a deadline to meet, and unless they are way off in some aspect of the review nobody will ever know...so they'll continue to to cheat up to the point they think they may get busted for it.

I'm a fan of the old PS1 game, Alien Resurrection, it was incredibly atmospheric, crap-your-pants scary, and with PS2 texture smoothing on looked like it belonged on next gen hardware. It broadly got very poor reviews. In ever review I read which berated the game, they took issues with flaws that nobody would ever see unless they cheated. For instance, clipping through a xenomorph when it attacks at close range. It only took 2 hits from a xenomorph to kill you, they'd never get close enough to clip through you unless you had invincibility turned on.

Shameful that a good game got such a bad rep from lazy reviewers who decided to play a game designed to scare the crap out of you, using a mode which meant you couldn't die. These were big name sites too.

They shouldn't cheat. They should do what other gamers would: reach the point where a game becomes seemingly impossible to beat, and complain about it. If there is a stupidly hard challenge that most people are going to be unable to clear, I don't want you to cheat to pass it, I want to hear that it's there. That's what reviews are for: find out what's good and bad about a game. If you can't reach the end by skill alone, say so! I'll gladly take the review that can't reach the end of the game over a review that carelessly cheats to continue, thus skewing the actual review and/or score.

Question: Does any Game Critic play the game to the end before reviewing?

Answer: Most likely not due to time restrictions.

I don't see cheating as a big issue, as long as it's in-game cheats (& not the usage of Action Replay or other outside cheating methods) since most players will find them out.

Most game critic critics (ie, US) usually accept this hidden fact without much notice... so why are be bothering to look at this?

I would prefer that they don't cheat, so as their views on the game aren't skewed in any way but also if they need to cheat to be able to go on with the game, then I would like them to state that in the review. I don't think a review isn't worth anything I think the number rating is worthless and you need to read their experience with the game and see if you would agree with it.

@deathbunny: Clearly what is required is for the reviewer to make transparent their methods of reviewing.

If the reader knows the general process used to evaluate the game then they can come to their own conclusions as to whether the reviewers experiences reflect how the reader will play the game.

This will also allow readers some means to select which reviewers are properly catering to their interests.

If a player goes through a game with a guide and a list of cheat codes, then he knows the most accurate review, as far as hes concerned, would be from the reviewer with the same process.

On the other hand, someone who trudges through the game on the hardest settings and without any previous knowledge of what to expect, could seek a reviewer who's process is more to that reader's tastes.

For my part, as long as a reviewer is honest about how they played the game (including the shortcuts/hints/cheats they may have used, and for what reason they used them), then it's anything goes.

Then again, I only see reviews as a way to find out what the basic feel of a game is going to be. I *NEVER* use reviews as an end-all, be-all. A game can get a 1, I'll still try it if the content and feel of it is something I think I'd enjoy.. so if a reviewer has skipped some stuff but has said why he/she skipped it, that's all that is needed.

In the end, I do think this a a judgment call that we should be able to trust proper journalists to make, but I do think that reviewers should at least be significantly more hesitant to shortcut their play experience. Players do do those things, but how it effects the enjoyment and perceived quality of the game depends on the game and the player, and that subtlety should not be thrown around lightly.

I could easily forgive a reviewer of Oblivion for not even completing the main quest, but I'd disregard any reviewer who didn't play through most of the side quests in Mass effect. It's a judgment call.

Why is this question even be asked? The real question we should be asking is why do so many people give a crap what IGN or 1UP says about a game?

personally, i think that if the reviewer cheats, he/she should ALSO play it normally and maybe comment on both versions. If they were to play only one however, I'd prefer them not to cheat. I'd also prefer them to not be tools like Gamespot and actually call folks out for bad games - but hey, I'm living in some dream world.

@iamnotdryad: And the Win.

Yep. If someone is a good writer, like Eric Wolpaw, I care about what he writes. But that doesn't mean I like Serious Sam. Or Nolf.

each to his own, i will only read the reviews that show my games in a good light though, ill leave the rest up to them.
(the message here is "PLEASE ME")

I think, just like the post says, reviewers should say that they cheated at some point to get further in the game. There are some points where you probably don't know at the first moment what to do and use cheats, but if you say in the end "Well, the game is way to easy" and you used cheats, no one knows it. Maybe that kind of puzzles are hard to descover for anyone who doesn't want to use them, espeacaly when there are so many FAQs around in the net that can help you. Myself for that part use "often" pages like gamefaqs.com, but only then, when I don't know what to do. (still in the end it is even for myself something like "OMG I should have thought of that before")

Everyone cheats at one game or another. It just seems that reviewers should try the puzzle/problem multiple times/days if necessary, before cheating. It'd be nice if they also noted what parts they did skip/cheat on, to show areas of difficulty.

I like to cheat a lot. I admit it. I just love having the powers of a god. So I can't really say anything about cheating reviewers except, "what was the cheat you used?".

What's that game in the picture?

(Also, reviewers have to cheat in order to review games fast enough for the game's release. Unless releases are held back for the reviewers to play the games or gamers are patient enough to wait for reviews before buying games, this is an issue that can't be solved.)

Along the same lines, would you have to finish the game to give it a review? I don't think so, you can pretty much judge a game overall rather well within a few hours if not minutes.

For a professional reviewer, finishing a game would be a huge plus though. But is it really feasible to push anyone to complete games like Ninja Gaiden or a FF game without cheats for their opinions to have merit? I feel that "cheats" should be viewed more as a tool to efficiently explore the game.

Sure, using "cheats" isn't how you are meant to play the game, but a reviewer reviews it's not the same thing as playing a game.

@DaveKap: Early releases for reviewers, or "close to completion" version of the game. But still not enough time I think.

No, game critics should not cheat. It's not an accurate review if the critic only experienced abridged or greatly altered gameplay. Would you trust a film critic who only saw the 15 minute version of a 2 hour film? Would you trust a book critic if he was only skimming through the chapters between the first and the last? Would a music critic's review be considered accurate if he only listened to the samples heard on Amazon.com? If you answered Yes to any of these questions, you clearly are missing the point of the experience that's supposed to be critiqued.

Of course, it's not the fault of the critics for having to resort to such things. They have to breeze through games because of these deadlines ahead of them. That's why I don't trust reviews. I read about No More Heroes having very redundant gameplay (along with a boring overworld), but I didn't play the game in one sitting. I spaced it out over the course of a week and a half, playing at realistic time intervals, and I loved the game. Didn't get bored with it for a second. But a reviewer doesn't get this sort of experience. The point of a review is to get the "gist" of the play experience. To me, that's just bullshit. Games are a medium that above all else is about experience (since that interactive experience is what it has over other mediums), and giving me the "gist" of it is as far from accurate as one can get.

Of course, if you're wondering if I've ever cheated while playing a video game, the answer is Of course! Mega Man 3 was really hard as an eight year-old.

That's one of things that I hate about reviews at time. Often times the critic doesn't have time to take in the game enjoy the experience. And a lot of game (RPGs) don't get a fair shake because of their length and lets face it a lot of the best game moment will come later on.

A reviewer should fit a few basic criteria:
1. No cheats employed during first 'review' play through of the game.
2. Game is played on standard difficulty utilizing standard caontrols, then adjust if required.
3. Be a fan of the genre the game is.

@sadkermit: So... hardcore, non-adaptive, and a fanboy?

I wouldn't completely disagree with that, but I'm just saying what I'm reading. And I'm not too sure about the idea of playing games as is out of the box. I think that part of exploring the game is also playing the game at different difficulty to see if it's a good game for noobs or a great game for the hardcore.

I don't actually care wether they cheat or not right now, I'd actually like them to be fair with games to begin with. Most times their opinion and score they give to a game is too dependant on their tastes, and most of us gamers don't have the same preferences as them. Some of us like RPGs and won't complain about it being slower paced than FPSs. And most reviewers re doing that right now.

To be fair I dont think a good game review changes depending on wether the reviewer managed to finish the game or not. Honestly I can get a good idea of wether I would enjoy the game or not with just the first... I dont know... two hour tops. I mean, if I find a game boring for THAT long I doubt I will continue playing it. The only thing a reviewer can tell me having played the whole game is the whole storyline and dificulty. And the end of the story I would like to find out for myself. And the dificulty will not change the game for me, if its a good game if it is difficult wont make it worse or anything.

So the only real thing I would like on a review is a good, objective insight about the gameplay and an introduction to the rest (story and so on). Because I can decide if I like a game or not, I don't need a "game expert" to tell me what game is good and what game is bad.

I've just completed Shadow of the Colossus. However, I wouldn't have done without cheating. I got to a Colossus I just could not figure out. [I won't go into detail for the sake of spoilers, not that anyone here will want to play a 3 year old game if they haven't already]. I literally spent an hour in the same smallish area trying to figure it out. Eventually, I turned to Gamefaqs because I could not see any possible way to progress, and really wanted to enjoy the whole game. It turned out, as it always seems to, that the answer was very easy. If I was a professional reviewer, I don't think it would have been wrong to cheat in order to see the whole game through, especially as the fault was with me rather than the game. Reviewers aren't infallible, and so I don't think mild 'cheating' is wrong.

I say cheating and such is ok. But what Id like to see personally is less of them doing "dick comparisons" with other games. Since its just occuring too fucking much.

Plus when you do that all objectivity of a review goes right out the window.

Review something for what it is, not what you think it should be like.

Too many folks nowdays seem to be disappointed when its not a "insert title" killer, if you know what I mean.

I totally agree though with the cheats at some point like for example a game like persona 3 can take 100 hours to complete, and thats still for example semi rushing through the game using a guide book.

I don't think those who demand that the reviewer play the game absolutely straightforward are being entirely fair. While I understand the concept, there are these things called "deadlines", which in many cases make it virtually impossible to make enough progress in a game to make a valid judgement.

I'll be honest: when I'm approaching deadlines on reviews, I cheat in the interest of seeing content I might not have reached otherwise--contrary to popular believe, I am not the most amazingly perfect gamer on the face of the earth, and when I'm reviewing hard, exceptionally complex, or downright broken, I may not see very much of a game before I have to call it and press forward. I'll read spoilers and FAQs, watch videos, so on and so forth.

This is not to say I come right into the game and set up the wanker modes; I always give it the best shot I can outright and pure, but in the interests of time there just isn't always the ability to play it straight. There's a certain amount of content I need to see before I can say I've experienced enough of the game to make a call on things like plot and characterization. If that requires cheating after a number of hours playing pure, then so be it.

To be fair though, I'd never fire up a game and cheat from the start. That would bias the entire experience. But I'm not above it. If this somehow makes me less qualified or somesuch to review, then I'll hang up me gloves and move on.

@Linnard: There is always someone who can say what I want to say, but better.
On this matter, Linnard has.

@BD: Btw if i gave you a copy of a NIS game and told you I need a review by tommorow, would you be able to do it?

Now you see why cheats are necessary for some titles?

Granted the problem not only lies with the reviewer but the publisher of those said reviews also. Since the internet is such a fast paced information beast that news needs to be out faster than before, causing serious cuts to time given to review titles.

Yes I know there are review copies that are sent out before hand, but still with the amount of games out there and how some are more complex than others compounded with shorter deadlines you are left with one big cluster fuck of a timesink.

@Witzbold:

QFMFT.

p.s. Can I have your babies?

Hmm... interesting comments thus far. Sometimes, I feel that reviews that are not objective should have reasons behind them. If a reviewer is saying that GameA is too easy, but "cheated" their way though with godmode, then he/she should absolutely state how he/she got to that conclusion. Reviews should state at least how the game was played in addition to the standard review so that readers know where the review is coming from. If a reviewer didn't have time to complete the game, he/she should also state that. How do readers know to trust a review if they don't know if a game was played for 50 hours or 5 min?

Cheating's okay and sometimes warranted (See Witzbold's comment on NIS games). I just think that readers should be made aware of it.

@emuc64: Totally agree with you there.

"is galloping through a game at a blinding pace good for anyone, reviewers especially?" Hell no. You know what made me laugh? The fact that people had reviews of Oblivion up the day it was released. It takes a good 30 hours to even get started in that game. Hell, it took me almost 80 hours to finish leveling my best character, and I've only barely begun doing any quests with him. I'm at over 100 hours, and the games just getting started. It just goes to show that you can't write traditional reviews of some games.

@gamadaya: Well it goes back to my original statement about in a sense reviewers are forced to rush through things due to time restrictions put on them by the upper folks who need everything "yesterday" if you know what I mean.

If we really are to see change, its gotta change from the top which it wont since the internet causes mass competitions for speed and whoever can release the media people crave first in a sense wins over more folks. Well for the larger named sites anyways that have the already constant flow of traffic.

I agree with what you say, but at the same time the harsh reality is that I dont think we will be seeing fair and balanced reviews anytime soon. :x

My biggest pissoff which falls into this "trap" would have been most of the reviews of the Monster Hunter series.

I have weird thing against using cheats in games. Been like that since I was a kid. I even used to yell at my cousin for turning on the big head cheat in NBA Jam :(

While i fully realize that reviewers are under time constraints, the fact they aren't playing the game under the same conditions kind of invalidates their opinion.

It's actually the reason why I don't even bother reading reviews these days.

I don't want to hear the opinion of someone who had to rush through the game, isn't a fan of the genre, wasn't intrested in the game, and may have cheated. It's a worthless opinion in my book.

Well it depends on how what you consider cheating.

Would I turn on godmode when I have to review a FPS, heck no because as mentioned before is destroys the integrity of the game.

How ever I too turned to gamefaqs when I had to review SOTC, and as mentioned above I was making it too hard as well when the solution was far easier. It was something I would have gotten eventually but I didn't do it due to frustration . It was a time issue as well. Did I mention it in my review, no. They way I see it most people are aware of the resources the net offers. It's their choice.

Considering the entire point of any game is to be entertaining (whether it's a 40+ hour epic with philosophical quandries at every turn or whack-a-mole with guns,) there's no way in hell people who are paid and forced to right reviews, with or without a deadline, can wholly be trusted.

Being forced to play a game, in any way, obfuscates the natural experience one would have with it.

Like Witzebold said right thar, it's not a system that's going to change. It's just up to readers to try and comb reviews for facts and not opinions. The more objective, the better.

(Hell, sometimes the worst scored games are the most fun just because of personal preferences.)

To me it seems as if it's a matter of context. Which game are you reviewing and what are the important points of that game? For an RPG there are generally two major points of interest: the combat system and the story. Most RPGs clock in at around 40 hours. I don't mind terribly if someone skips past areas to advance the story if they have a solid feel for how the combat system works. If they can convey those two points then the review is solid for me. Platformers like the Mario games are more about solid controls, some puzzles and the overall platformer experience. If someone doesn't get every single star but still sees overall the whole game I'm fine with that as long as they convey how it delivers on the main points: control, puzzles, and platforming. Some games are too long to be feasibly reviewed in their entirety. You know the general format of quests in GTA, or Mario etc, you don't need to do them all if you can comment on the main point. If a reviewer cheats to get through Portal or some other game that is relatively low on playing hours there's something to be said there. It's important to know (and for reviewers to convey) the context in which the game was played. Assassin's creed got poor reviews because the game was "redundant", yet it was one of the best (IMO) games of 2007 (which is saying something). At the time it was reviewed many reviewers were rushing through due to Mass Effect and Mario Galaxy coming out at the same time. If a reviewer were to skip chunks of it (not doing pickpocket missions etc) and explain that they were rushed for time due to Mass Effect and Mario Galaxy I wouldn't have heartburn over it. If they convey the context in which they are playing the game and what they are looking at as they play then the review of the game will have succeeded.

A lot of games don't really take that long to beat, even if you aren't rushing. Any Zelda or Mario game is about 10-15 hours if you're a decent gamer that's been around for a while. Assassins Creed, Call of Duty 4, Mass Effect and numerous others are 10 hour games. I think I beat ME in 12 or 13 hours and that's doing all the extra planets. Halo 3 took an evening on Normal difficulty.

I'd assume you're a hardcore gamer if you're reviewing video games for aliving and I can't see many instances where you'd actually have to cheat or skip stuff to get through a game unless it's Oblivion huge.

@P-Flute: Hmm... I think that a lot of readers actually do care about the opinions of the reviewer. May not be completely trusted, but at the very less take note of it. Usually the affect of this is that so many reviews having similar opinions makes it basically an accepted truth.

Thinking about it... a review is almost made up with opinions. It isn't a cold hard fact that one game is written better than another, or that one combat system is worst than another. It's really subjective. But games being an established medium of entertainment, there is a foundation built from previous games to judge current ones on.

Just like any form of art... Holy crap, I think I just proved that video games are a form of art. And we all hate video game critics just like any other critics. Yay!

@BD: But... normal people use cheats. So... you know, in certain circumstances I think it'd only natural for the reviewer to use a cheat so they can progress within a reasonable amount of time to see what else the game has to offer. I'm not condoning the practice, but nothing is so black and white as to say that it's either always or never OK.

Ill take a reviewers word for it but i will play the game and review it myself. If a game is not worth the money to buy it ill be glad that i rented it. there have been many game with bad reviewers that i still liked and that no reviewer has changed my opinion on.

I think cheating is ok, as long as you know your readers would resort to a simular solution the whats the harm, in fact I would rather a reviewer finish a game all the way through instead of being put off by one part.

That being said, I do think a reviewer should hold themselves to a certain standard, having infinite health on a game like GTA for example would obviously effect a review.

But the bottom line is, I dont really care. Ive only ever bought one game based on something I reviewer said and that was becuase the game was very cheap.

I cheat if I like the story but don't like the game (especially game mechanics).

If I was picking a standard for game reviewers it would more likely be in the field of objectivity and independence. Reviewers are doing a job and if they have a good sense of journalistic ethics I feel they can meet their goal by any means necessary. This includes not playing the entire game or cheating.

I think they should cheat if they really, really are stuck- and then only to get to the next level.

I'd rather the reviewer finish the game through cheating rather than not finish at all.

of course many of the reviews we see on many games across all consoles are biased, to really review a game you need at least progress 25% of the full game, 33% would be optimal, and of course play it like without cheats, i played some games that got very bad reviews and at first they where cr@p but then after playing a little more they become good, or at least not that bad, the game that got bad reviews and that wasnt so bad was manhunt2 on the wii, once you dominate the gamplay and controls the game is not bad at all, and im sure many other games in other platforms are like that, i also agree that they should get some help to get some very difficult areas but not the entire game...

The last thing I'm trying to do is sell you game in my reviews. My idea of a review is educate on what to expect. With the prices as they are, I lean on the value attached to that. Put simply "Is it worth it ?"

Sometimes because I'm a fan of the particular genre there may be a bit of bias but I'll still call out any short comings.

I don't really care if they cheat but it really would help if they told you in a review that the game had some puzzles or a boss that may persuade you to cheat.

@gamadaya: Apparently it is in Japan, because I can find used copies of any game within 3 days of the release in shops here, including RPGs.

A few of my ideas:

I think that finishing the game is most important for review purposes, but that includes playing all the main parts that a casual gamer would play. Side quests and unlockables would then be mentioned in the "replayability" discussion. So I've got no problem with using invincibility or god mode, but I think stage skipping is "cheating."

There should be a clear distinction between "reviews" and "impressions." You finish the game and hit all the content a casual gamer would, it's a review. You play it for a couple of hours and spit out some text, it's your impressions.

While I don't think "fanboys" should review games with blind devotion, I think they should at least be a fan of the genre or style they are reviewing. how many times have games like Blue Dragon been trashed as being "just another JRPG" when, all along, the game was marketed and sold as "just another JRPG." Of course someone who has no interest in the genre to begin with will most likely not be won over by it. You drop the best FPS in the world in front of me and you'd most likely get a "Meh, another game were you shoot people" reaction out of me. Even better, throw a sports game at me when I think the genre peaked on the NES (Baseball Stars and Tecmo bowl forever, baby!).

I remember reading a Penny Arcade rant about how reviewers were giving Assassin's Creed lackluster scores because their only goal is to rush from point A to point B, finish the game, write a review, then work on the next game.

They don't care about the OVERALL enjoyment a game.

i see plenty of reason to cheat, if i'm having a hard time, not enjoying it, and have decided that enough is enough then i'll cheat and just get past whatever is holding me up.
i play games on 'normal' or 'easy' so that i'm not forever stuck on a difficulty spike. that's not to say i give up easily, but i'm not aversed to cheating if needs must.

get over it, the whole idea that the game's difficulty is perfectly sculpted is daft.
designers and gameplay balancing teams are just as prone to making errors in judgement as anyone else.
so a spike in difficulty can be bad design, so why bother with it?

it's not some moral outrage to cheat.

also, if a reviewer can't get past halfway through the game should he really stop there?! wouldn't make for a good review, whereas if he cheated he could simply say 'yeah, it gets real tough at times'

Seems to me to be a "Catch-22". If the reviewer can play a game to completeness in less than 6 hours, then everyone will pan the game for being too short. If it takes him 20 to 40 hours to complete a game, then it is probably not worth the time he put into it just to review one game.

So I believe that reviewers should be given the choice of cheats that allow them to quickly complete a level once they have gotten the gist of it, and certainly chapter or level selects so that they can go back and refresh their memory of the salient features of a given level. They should be given cheats where they can have infinite health, since dying means in a lot of games that you have to replay a level, which for a reviewer trying to complete the game is pointless.

I believe that reviewers should be given a copy of the game with those types of cheats built-in, and not available in the retail product. Of course, such cheats should be off by default until the reviewer gets a sense of the difficulty of the game, and should only be used to help him advance through the game.

Remember, a reviewer is not playing the game for his enjoyment, but rather to get an overall feel for the game. It is, after all, his livelihood first and foremost.

Reviewers should attempt to play the game without cheats to see how it holds up under normal circumstances, but if it gets tough, and they have a deadline looming I can understand resorting to cheats, but perhaps that should be mentioned in the review. Using cheats can drastically change the experience of a game, and what is a review if not the record of someone's experience with a game?

I don't think there is a hard rule about this; it should be on a per-game basis. For a game with a lot of content, or that lasts a long time, it might be a good idea for the reviewers to perhaps skip ahead a bit to get an idea how the game feels further on. It's a better solution than partial reviews where the reviewer hasn't been gone through half the game.

For instance: Harvest Moon games (especially from the PSX and on). There's an insane amount of stuff a player without help from a FAQ could take months if not years to find out, and pretty important things too.

For relatively short games, where it's not necessary, it should be avoided. For instance, if a reviewer felt it necessary to cheat in Assassin's Creed or Halo 3, I'd be rather concerned.

I wish they'd just not play it so there'd be no review. Kinda pointless since no one really agrees, and it's really rare I read one that raises valid points. It's all just bait for advertisements and or clicks/views.

I am a games reviewer for a magazine and I have to say that I would never consider using cheats when reviewing a game. Granted there is a time constraint when reviewing but ive never had a problem getting through games before deadline. You can get past a first person shooter in a day or two with casual play (like COD4) or allocate driving titles 4-5 days like Burnout Paradise so its not an issue. If the time sounds quicker than usual its just from lots of practice. My personal opinion is using cheats when reviewing is wrong. You have to assume that the readership won't have the cheats and since you are judging things like enemy A.I. becoming stumped and slowed down at a point is a good thing worth commenting.

A tip from the inside: If you want to know if a reviewer made it to the end of a game look for a comment about the ending (if its open to a sequel) it wont tell you if they cheated but at least you know they played through the thing.

A last thing of note: When reviewing a game the major concern is asking will this title be worth hard earned money. If you couldn't justify buying it yourself how could you in good faith recommend it so someone?

That's my 2 cents.

It's cool man, they don't even like games anyway. They're in it for the babes.

there's a difference between maddeningly difficult puzzles and just plain difficult puzzles. I'm sure given enough time you could solve the puzzle but as a reviewer like it or not you're under a time limit. I wouldn't begrudge a reviewer cheating past a particularly long puzzle in say a really puzzle-centric game like Professor Layton.

@gamadaya: You finished leveling a character in 80 hours? I'm 180 in on biggest character, but he's still got two of his major skills to keep leveling before the character's level is maxed. I'm guessing you didn't use athletics, for one. Haha. That skill seems to take by far the longest of any skill in the game to level up. I can't tell you how many times I've run from one end of Cyrodil to the other (not to mention all that time inside dungeons and caves, etc.) and I've *still* got about 30 points to go before it's a 100 skill. Since it's one of my majors, I got at least 3 more levels left in me before my character can't level again. I'm at level 41 right now.

I remember a tv game reviewer who used to show games with cheats on. Any shooters looked as subtle and tactical as Serious Sam.
I saw him running WHILE firing in Operation Flashpoint, for god's sake !

Who gives a damn, subscribe to GameFly or something, play the game yourself and form an opinion on your own. These reviewers are all windbags none of them have the balls to tell you the truth about games.

I don't believe I read a single review stating Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed and Naruto titles were clinched filled monstrosities. At no point did they tell me that NCAA Football for the PS3 was missing half of the PS2 content, I could easily go on but a post should have limits.

@Gouki4u: I like your full disclosure point, but I don't see reviewers having much of an incentive to disclose where they cheated to expedite the review process.

@Zerbrechen: I agree with the last resort proposal because that's what the ordinary gamer would do. I would cheat, go to GameFaqs or hell ask a friend what to do if I am in a particularly nasty patch. But I just begged the question: What is cheating? Any unscrupulous play? Probably for critics, whom we expect to play the game in isolation.

@BD: Succintly put!

Cough: GameSpot.

Reviewers working for say a *zine is under time pressure. He can not just pass his review and say, "Sorry boss, I can't finish this puzzle, so that is all my review." The next thing they'll hear is either, "You're fired!" or "Cheat it if you have to, I want that review tonight! You heard me? TONIGHT!"

But regardless. There are many 'type' of reviews and reviewers AND readers. If you really need a review, you don't just read one, you read a lot of reviews. If you work to earn money, that's what you'll do, coz every dime counts. You read and read and read, and then come up with your own decision if you want that product.

If you used that product and you liked it alot and you don't agree with a reviewer, then write your own! A lot of people will be very interested with your own review.

I am very strict in this sense. Game Reviewers should never do anything that tarnishes their experience. And should try to understand the appeal of a game.

Blowing past a game/ not really playing it/not touching any of the special features is always noticable in the review, and it always taints their judgement.

Anyone cannot put in the effort to do their job properly, should not have their job.

I love No More Heroes, I just finished it this morning :o

The thing about it is that I've been playing over the course of a week and was able to enjoy it. Reviewers don't have much time to play a game, thus they have to use cheats. But if they do cheat they need to state what the puzzle/challenge was about and how the cheat affected it.

@Chaos24783: Sorry, but who do you think puts cheats in the games?

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start wasn't a bug that was exploited by malicious users - it was a cheat deliberately placed in the code by the developers to help the testers play the game.

The only cheats not provided by developers - such as Xploder and Action Replay - often need someone somewhere to have played through the game once to offer level/item cheats, so are useless to reviewers anyway, and that's if they work with the review code or debug machines in the first place.

@Gospel X: I wouldn't romanticise critics of other media if I was you...

A lot of music reviewers listen to the CD once in their office and then write the review due to deadlines.

Likewise books. They sit at a desk and read a book in a single day. Who does that in "real life"?

Movie reviewers may sit in the dark and jot notes, but they use rushes and promo material to help write their reviews afterwards.

This is the actuality of reviewing.

It's as disassociated from the actuality of experiencing the media as a game reviewer is in most cases.

A good reviewer overcomes this, and writes in such a way to make you not realise that they've experienced it differently to the average reader.

Yes, this is a deception, and maybe we should expose the truth of reviewing, but that's a whole huge ethical question modern media needs to face, not just gaming media.

I don't think reviewers need to finish games they review. I think they should spend a minimum amount of time with it. After all, if the game is boring, most people won't finish it either, so it there's really no need for reviewers to finish it to get a feeling of how good the game is.

@L_K_M: Well in a sense if they do finish the game they might see how well the production in a whole paid off. Like whats the point of having a game that starts off good, but in the end turns to shite?

Granted its not a proper full through the game run, but still seeing the endings too can be an important part of a review depending on the game.

If it's so hard that the reviewer cannot obtain a rich understanding of the game, then I have no problem with cheating.