Matrix Games Forums

That's it in a nutshell.

Everyone for the most part knows how plenty of people think. Their views are therefore often known quanties.

So if a person likes something from a genre they are known to dislike, then that is very interesting, and merits serious contemplation.
Getting me to say anything positive about non turn using computer wargames is very difficult for instance.

If it got them interested, you definitely want to know why.

But a review from an outright outsider with no interest in the area at all, is rarely going to get much of a response.

I would not expect someone to care in the slightest what I had to say on console games for instance.
It would be folly to ask me to review one as well.

I still remember a review in one of the biggest UK gaming magazines that said a particular tank sim was totally unrealistic and that (something like) "it would be more realistic to walk around your garden looking through a piece of pipe".

The review score, 17%. The game ? "Steel Beasts".

I've never trusted a review since.

Reviews are written by reviewers. Perhaps painfully obvious sounding, but needing to be said all the same.

Reviewers are as human as me and you.

The effort needed to write a full detailed review is what separates those of us that write reviews, and those of us that only sit on forums spouting off about games.

I myself have never actually written any formal reviews. That said, my opinions do have only so much worth.

The trick is to make sure an opinion given, whether in a review, or in a quick post on a forum, has any merit in your own opinion.

Never automatically trust any one source till you verify the value of the source.