Video game reviews can kiss my ass

I've had it with game reviewers. I literally can't stand it any more. I've tried so hard to read reviews and believe that I am getting an informed, unbiased analysis of a game. But after reading review after review criticizing the game "Ninety-Nine Nights" for what I consider to be petty and shallow reasons, I've come to the conclusion that game reviews are jaded, arrogant, spoiled, snobbish, and many times just whiny. For example:

"The action starts out completely mindless and wears even thinner as time goes on."
-Gamespot

"Ninety-Nine Nights is a game that is hard to get immersed in and even harder to enjoy."
-IGN.com

"Some irritating design decisions, combined with horrible voice acting and the generally repetitious nature of the action, results in a game with limited appeal for a mass audience."
-1UP.com

The reason I find these types of comments worthless is they seem to come from someone who hasn't spent more than a few hours with a game. That's not enough to give a proper review man! That like taking a new car out for a test drive, and 1/3 of the way through you just stop and say "Ok, I'm going to write a review of this entire car after driving it for 30 min."

I like to believe that they take their time and first flip through the manual to see if there's anything important in there. Is there background story? Character histories? Hey what a concept! Game manuals used to have tons of story and background stuff in there. So if you wanted the complete experience, you had to RTFM!!! Games have moved away from this, but sometimes time and budget constraints force game designers to set up the story and give background on the characters by writing it in the manual rather than making extra cinematics or cut-scenes. "Homeworld" was an excellent example of this. In addition to a rich and deep storyline, there was literally a novella in the manual on the history of the game universe.

The problem is most game reviewers want/need to crank out a review after a few hours of playing the game. They don't have the time or the patience to delve more deeply into a game to try and understand it. They just jump in, start playing and if they don't "get it" within a few minutes, the score suffers and they claim it has a "weak" story. For example, in the game "Ninety-Nine Nights" (N3), one of the main characters Inphyy is lost in the woods and suddenly sees a vision of her older brother, which then chastises her, calling her evil and a coward and that she'll be damned for her actions on the battlefield (on the previous mission she kills enemy civilians during the battle). On it's own, this scene doesn't make much sense and seems out of place. But if you read the manual section about her character, you'll find out that while she puts on a strong exterior, her intense adoration of her brother coupled with being only 17, shows that she is quite fragile and immature.

But this kind of depth is almost unilaterally ignored by the game reviewers because it is not handed to you by the game. Since this is the more modern approach to gaming, it is something that is expected and when a game takes an old-school approach like N3, people complain. True, a game that does nothing to advance the story is grounds for a poor review but not taking the time to understand what is going on before passing judgment is irresponsible at best. I mean everyone has had the experience where you didn't understand a movie the first time, but when it dawns on you realize how much better the movie was.

Bah, I could go on but I still haven't finished N3 yet, so I can't in good conscience continue thrashing the game reviews before I have experienced the entire game myself. But I expect it will be similar. Bottom line: Take any game review with a very large grain of salt. Hell take it with a whole salt lick.