When it comes to hard hitting news on the game industry lets face it blogs just don't cut it. Real reviews with lots of pictures, videos and exclusive interviews with developers are what we want to read about then add our own special sauce and write about the 2nd hand news in our own blogs. When it comes to game sites I've been checking out a few consistantly so I thought I'd put my thoughts down about them.
I've been reading this website for YEARS!!! I must have been reading it for at least a decade and a full member for about 5 years. When it comes to good hard reviews Gamespot can not be beat. They're not as up to date as some of the other review sites and there import reviews are rather weak but on the whole if you could only check one game site out before you made a purchase this is the stop. There video content is a real mixed bag, lately they've become a lot more profressional in presentation but the reviewers themselves in front of camera still need a few acting/drama lessons on how to be in front of the camera. I suppose due to the fact that I've been reading their very critical opinions for a decade, I feel as if they are almost friends and don't mind their somewhat sloppy presentation.
When it comes to content of there reviews they are for the most part bang on, they are a bit slow on reviewing systems that aren't favourites of the hardcore gamer such as Nintendo DS but they've still got the most accurate reviews overall and now that they also seem to run www.gamefaqs.com they really are the one stop site for all hardcore gamers.
These guys I've only been reading a few years and the cool thing about IGN is that they have a bit of everything on there. I guess the best way to put it is a guy's mag like Maxim that heavily focuses on stuff that used to be nerdy. Once upon a time people who played video games and read comic books were losers. After the marketing campaigns of Sony's Playstation and big movie adaptations of everything Marvel suddenly its cool to have been a comic geek who would rather play Final Fantasy Adventure on the Gameboy during lunch break than play baseball.
In terms of game content IGN seems faster than Gamespot and they have more import reviews/ hands on articles which is great for me seeing I live in Hong Kong and I'm constantly battling with the decision to buy Japanese games or American games. On the video content side they are a lot more professional in there presentation but at the same time it doesn't have that same personality you get when you watch Gamespot reviews. They definately update everything a lot faster, I often find reviews popping up a day or two faster than gamespot reviews, and they have a lot of content everything from cars, dvd new releases, movie releases, babes, comics, you name it. The primary focus still remains games, however the one thing I would have to say about there reviews are they are a bit too generous maybe thats why gamespot spends that extra day reviewing a game before releasing the review. I suppose for the casual gamer its a good indication but if your picky like me gamespot reviews are more accurate.
This is the new site I've been checking out a lot. They're going on a completely different angle. Basically everything on there website is downloadable videos. There are NO written reviews so if your going to check out this site you'd better have a swift connection. I only found out through a friend that they are either owned by MTV or affiliated with MTV which would explain the very high polish on all video content. They produce great documentaries on games, check out the 6 part mini documentary, 'Legend of Zelda Retrospective' to see what i mean.
There reviews are a bit wishy washy sometimes they're very accurate then sometimes they're very generous, but its their features such as 'Bonus Round' and 'Gamer 2.0' which has got me hooked on the site. Bonus Round is a round table discussion with important game industry people and sometimes the stuff they talk about is pretty candid. Gamer 2.0 just has a bunch of interesting stories covering gamers in general. I've only been hooked onto this site a few days but once i found this site I was browsing it non-stop, but that was more to see their archeived content.
When it comes to gaming these are the sites I read and my opinion on their content, click on there logos and you should be redirected to the sites so you can read them yourselves (if you don't already) and decide on your own.
Good stuff as per usual, thanks. I do hope this kind of thing gets more exposure.
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