I went to school for journalism. I know about deadlines, and I know what kind of a monster deadline they have to face, where they're "reporting" involves 5 hours sitting on their ass in their office. Seriously, compared to what actual news people have to do, gaming journos have it fucking easy. There's no excuse other than a budget for not giving these games, and more importantly,
the writing the time it deserves. If a company can't allow a reviewer more than an hour with a game before they ask them to review, the problem isn't the fact they have to review games. The problem is the constraints they're operating under.
And seriously, look at Gamespy. These guys spend hours online researching memes from the past, finding pictures and throwing together junk humor articles. Can you honestly tell me that time couldn't be spent really treating video games like they're worth playing seriously and writing seriously about?
Every review is subjective, and there's really no way to be subjective of a game, apart from the very basic mechanical elements - game engine, graphics (but even then comes the problem of style - some people prefer simplistic and stylized graphics, other - detailed realistic stuff and so on), controls. Everything else, the stuff we as gamers care about - game play, atmosphere, emotions evoked, plot, dialogue - every single one of these elements is subjective. And consequently every attempt to evaluate these elements is suitably subjective.
Not to get heated, but....BS. Everything is subjective, even the facts. That's the first thing you learn about modern media. You can't use the excuse that everything has a subjective interpretation stop you from doing the work. And in fact, it doesn't. It's not really a defense. Plus, there are PLENTY of factual elements that they can describe. They have the luxury over real journalists of being allowed to have an opinion.....so why not put some meat on the bones of that opinion?
I'll admit my bias. I'm a reader. I like reading. I like consuming information that way. I know I'm in the minority there when it comes to modern media. But, still, every journo has to deal with the subjectivity problem, even the ones that deal purely in "facts." Gaming journos are not an exception.
The problem, to me, is that they take all the liberties that the media is afforded without any of the underlying principles to guide them. So to me, Yahtzee is like a big punch in the face. Not only does he say fuck it to professionalism, not only are his "reviews" as slanted as they are infotainment, but many people think HE'S doing it the right way. If you criticize a gaming journo for the lack of journalism in their work, all the controls and scruples and stuff, they'll say "Oh we're a different kind of media." In the same breath they'll ask you put the same stock in what they say as people that work to a far higher standard of quality.*
*Yes, even today's mass media is working at a higher standard than gaming journos.
A game reviewer can not trully give an indepth game review because they review game"s" not a game. Think of how long you would have to play Dwarf Fortress to see even half of the creatures in game. How could a reviewer even start to comment on Dwarf Fortress unless they not only play the game a little but look at the rest of everything to it?
Way to pick the game that bears absolutely no relation to anything reviewers deal with.