‘Tis the season for gamers to blow all of their money on the massive amount of AAA games that have recently or will be out very soon. Unfortunately, many people don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend to purchase every single game that will come out, so tough choices will have to be made. One will have to pick Far cry 4 over Assassins Creed Unity, or Dragon Age: Inquisition over Call of Duty Advanced Warfare. Some gamers will never purchase multiple AAA titles a year, or they will have wait to purchase a game when it goes on sale, like on Boxing Day. How people often make the decision about which game to purchase will often come down to two factors, being fans of a series, and the review score. Many people, especially those who have been burned with pre ordering games such as Aliens Colonial Marines will wait to see a review score before purchasing a game.
So with the review score playing such an important role, I would like to pose a question to you. Should game websites post updated review scores? For example, many of the recent AAA titles have had launch issues and serious bugs that can ruin your gaming experience and the scores are reflected in that. Some outlets has given Halo: Master Chief Collection a weak score because of the issue that game had at launch, the same goes for Assassins Creed Unity which has various bugs, among other problems, and the overall score reflects that. Therefore, should sites update their reviews when these issues are fixed or content is added that improves the game? One of my favourite games of all time is Fallout: New Vegas, and although it got solid reviews it has various bug issues that was listed as a con and reflected in the overall scores. Overtime these issues where fixed and for someone purchasing the game for the first time on a Steam sale right now may not run into the issues that the reviewer did and enjoy their experience more for it. With Christmas coming up many people will be getting a game as a gift, a game that has had a month or so to work out all the kinks and which may be a very different experience than the release version of the game.
Now this idea is of course extremely difficult to complete with various amounts of games to review on a consistent basis and only so little time. Of course the core gameplay is often not changed in an update of a game, if you are not a fan of the Assassins Creed combat then a bug fix by Ubisoft is not going to change that. Also, in my ideal world games sites would have standalone review scores for a modded version of a game like Fallout: New Vegas or Skyrim, with the very best mods that the Nexus has to offer. Yes, maybe an unreasonable request, but nonetheless interesting I think. Then there is the issue with MMO review scores and giving an updated review score for a game like Destiny.
The issues of updated reviews I think is still interesting for the gamer who is waiting for all the bugs in a game that they have read about in reviews to be fixed or who will be getting a game for Christmas a month or so after the release. So what do you think of the updated review idea? Should a review be changed after bugs are fixed or content is added?