Who Reviews the Reviewers?

We live in a very interesting time.  There is no doubt that the widespread access of the internet coupled with high-speed connections has really changed things.  Remember when Time magazine declared all of us to be the "Person of the Year"?  It was because with the rise in popularity of social networks and user generated content, the face of entertainment and global interactions shifted.  It seemed like we all could be a little more connected with others around the globe, even if it was just via a computer screen.  I'm using some lofty language here, but I'm not convinced this all was a good thing.  Now any yahoo with a webcam can post some nonsense on YouTube and pretend that they're now a celebrity.  Anyone with a keyboard can start a blog and act like their opinions matter.  Heck, I'm doing that right now!  See?  Yet those things don't really bug me.  You want to write a blog about cucumbers or post your crappy cover of a Green Day song on YouTube?  God bless you, you go right on ahead and do it.  Someone somewhere might get some enjoyment out of it.  No, the real problem comes with user reviews.

I understand and support the concept of user ratings and reviews.  It could be useful to gather information on whether or not people enjoyed a product or found it useful.  And if something is just plain junk, well you would want to know that too.  I admit that once in a while I will turn to the user reviews to try and glean some sort of info on whether or not a product is worth my money.  But opinions are so subjective on many things, so that most of these reviews end up being useless.  iTunes tends to suffer the most from this, as music is one of the most subjective items out there.  How can you know if a review is helpful if you don't know the musical tastes of the reviewer?  For example, you have people who hate country music who decide they're going to give a Tim McGraw album one or zero stars.  Well of course they're going to rate it low!  They hate country!  That review is worthless to anyone who wants to gauge if this is a quality country album.  If the reviewer straight up says, 'this is crap and all country is crap rap is the only legit art form 2pac lives1!!!!!!!11', well you know you can throw that out the window, but it's still a waste of time for the buyer. 

Video games have their own blend of insanity as well.  All too often, fanboys will use user reviews as a weapon in the "console wars".  360 or PS3 fanboys will overhype the merits of their console exclusives and wag them in the face of their foes, as if that makes the other system somehow weakened.  Or even worse, they will review games that they don't even own just to try and skew the ratings one way or another, and hope that they impact sales in some way.  Yeah, these people are childish jerks.  But rather than sit here and complain, how about I roll with it.  I mean, you can already review the reviews (which is silly enough if you think about it) by saying if they're helpful or not.  I'm going to take it one step further an analyze these reviews and see just how unhelpful they can be.  It's kind of similar to the Mr. Period strips on Penny Arcade, if you're familiar with those at all.  And no, I don't harbor any illusions that this might fix or change anything.  I just figure this will be more fun than whining about this stupid stuff.

So let's start with the world of movies.  Specifically with the highest grossing film of all time: Avatar.  This is a film that some people are very opinionated about.  One such person is Nick "THE CHAMP".  Let's see what he had to say on Amazon.com:

I'll keep this short and sweet. Dont buy this movie. It is incredibly overhyped. I rushed out and bought it on the release date influenced by reviews and word of mouth. Lets just say i didnt even finish the movie. I suffered through about 2 hours of horrible acting and corny storytelling. Sigorney Weaver chain smoking in every scene and acting like an old hag?! I mean common, please! Pathetic I was extremely disappointed and its clear to me that Jim Cameron has some very powerful influential friends. Most of the reviews ive watched raved about how great this movie is. It just goes to show ya that money talks as Cameron clearly hired marketing agencys to provide positive reviews in order to increase sales. If your going to suffer through the 3 hours of uninteresting plot and horrible acting at least dont fork out 20+ to buy this garbage. Rent it and see for yourself

OK, "THE CHAMP", you start out well enough there.  "Don't buy this movie" is definitely a strong start, so continue on and tell us why this is a bad deal for the money.  And you start to do so!  You thought the acting was horrible and the story was corny.  Fair enough.  Please go on and give some examples of why.  "Sigorney Weaver chain smoking in every scene and acting like an old hag?! I mean common, please!"  Wait, what?  "I mean common, please"?  What does that mean?  Do you mean "come on"?  Maybe he was reviewing this on his iPhone or something?  Or are you saying that it is too common to be smoking, and therefore is an uninspired method?  Nah, that's giving this guy too much credit.  From having seen the movie three time now, I can say his complaints about miss Weaver strike me as odd.  Yeah, she smokes a lot.  That's bad acting?  How?  Do you watch Casablanca and just go off when Bogart lights up?  "God, he's smoking again!  What a hack!!"  And you must hang around some interesting old hags if her performance evoked that reaction, Nick.  So all the old hags you know are scientists who are bitter at their corporate overlords who overlook their research in favor of rocks in the ground.

Ah, but his true colors come out next, as he abandons any pretence of a review and instead delves into conspiracy theories.  Pathetic I was extremely disappointed and its clear to me that Jim Cameron has some very powerful influential friends.  Ooh, burn! He called him Jim instead of James!  Take that Mr. Hollywood!  It just goes to show ya that money talks as Cameron clearly hired marketing agencys to provide positive reviews in order to increase sales.  Yes, this is a classic tactic by bitter people.  They claim that money must have changed hands, cause that's the only way someone could have an opinion other than their own.  This is an easy indicator of whether or not you can disregard a review.  In this case, you can throw The Champ's opinion right out the door.

Well, that's a negative view.  How about we look at someone who loved it?  Like Amazon user Dan Dezio "drummer21290":

This storyline is much like what the government is really doing, also I wouldn't doubt technology like this actually exist because they have similar things. Being someone who meditates and has Outer body experiences I can tell that much of this movie is actually possible. Consciousness has a major roll in everything. This place the Avatars live in could have been where we are now if we took our gifts and used them to there potential. This truly is an amazing movie. And I don't even watch tv anymore at all because everything is totally irrelevant. But I'd spend countless dollars on the best sound system and tv just to watch this one movie. AMAZING!!!

...Do I even need to say anything? Really? I'd say this one speaks for itself.

Well let's leap over to the world of video games. God of War III has been one of the highest profile console exclusives for the PS3 this year, so we're bound to get some real gems out of this one. First on the positive side, here's Adventure Fan:

BEST GOD OF WAR GAME / BEST PS3 GAME

SONY, we who are about to play, Salute You. For taking a legendary amount of badassedness, and cramming it all in one game. No one else in the market is giving us naked 1080p nipples, just because it's sexy funny. Another game maker would have taken the Greek Mythology idea and given us a PG-13 experience with casual puzzles and no blood. But GOD OF WAR became HARDCORE. You could have dumbed it down like Halo to get super mass market sales... But you stayed true to your Ambition. Because you made this game with your balls, I'm buying it NEW, at LAUNCH, with MONEY. Please accept my cold hard cash, and my thanks. GOD3 is another reason why I'm a Playstation fan-for-life.  

HARDCORE FANTASTIC ONE-OF-A-KIND EXPERIENCE!

OK, aside from the overall ridiculous tone of this one, there are a couple of key things we can draw from this to reach a pretty clear conclusion about Adventure Fan. The biggest clue is of course: GOD3 is another reason why I'm a Playstation fan-for-life. And then of course there's this great sentence: You could have dumbed it down like Halo to get super mass market sales. Get it yet? Yup, PS3 fanboy. Another great lead is: No one else in the market is giving us naked 1080p nipples. Yes, it is high def nipples that will win your precious console war. And he's going to buy it with MONEY! Finally, we can move away from the barter system! Yes, I know he's referring to the fact that video game developers hate the used game market (and piracy of course), but he still sounds like an idiot. So based on this review, Adventure Fan, you apparently love this game because it has nipples and is HARDCORE. Sold! Seriously, at least explain why you think it is a HARDCORE FANTASTIC ONE-OF-A-KIND EXPERIENCE! Oh, and good point about game developers backing away from Mature rated games. Yeah, nobody is making those today. And those who are aren't making any money...

Let's get away from that nonsense and look at the people who hated the game. I actually loved it, so I'm interested in seeing what people would find to gripe about. Well here's gerald "bird" to help me out:

I was among the first to pick up this game, went @ it with Titan difficulty, but there's a guitar hero puzzle that pple like us feel decieved by. i mean there's no work around. santa monica release an update to remove this stupid puzzle that belongs in another game, otherwise its one star from me.

...Really? That one puzzle? That lasts for like, maybe three minutes? That ruined it for you, huh? Wow. Well, if you despise rythym games that much, then old gerald's review might just help you out. No work around. Good Lord. B. Knight "kanighit" please tell me you've got some better criticism than that. Hook a brother up!

This game would be great if it were playable. When pressing R1 to open chests it acts like it isn't being held. The double jump doesn't work. I initially thought it was my controller, tried another. Same result and looked online, a plethora of people are having this issue. Playstation had no answers. When I called they said that the number to contact God of War III, was their number but it wasn't anything they had a solution to. Ridiculous and disapointing. I recommend against buying this until that is fixed.

Latest patch has fixed my glitch, I still drop a star due to this initial problem combined with it being not as good as Uncharted 2 in my opinion

Man...OK, not being able to play the game properly sucks. I would be mad too. But look at that last sentence. Latest patch has fixed my glitch, I still drop a star due to this initial problem combined with it being not as good as Uncharted 2 in my opinion. He gave it one star. Did he mean to change the score when he updated to review and not tell us? Cause if not being as good as Uncharted 2 is worthy of a one star rating, then the entirety of the video game market must be just god awful for "kanighit". I mean, Uncharted 2 is pretty good, you know? And they are completely different types of games! You cannot compare a brawling action game to a thrid person shooter/platformer. It doesn't work like that. Not for review purposes, at least.

Man, these people are nuts. Yet I feel like this exercise has been cathartic. I may have to do more of these. After all, we are in the age of user ratings and reviews, so why not review the reviewers? It just means I'm being progressive. Maybe Time magazine will even declare me Man of the Year. Again. You know, cause technically I already won it back when we all did. Boy, that still seems like a cop out...