Alan Wake

The way skillup says "Gamers!" at the beginning of his videos makes me want to throw stuff at the TV.
Aside from that he's usually pretty spot on with reviews.

I don’t read reviews anymore, I just read what you guys say, and maybe watch a nextlander or gerstman video.

Can't do video reviews - gives half the fun away.

Still a sad twat who'll only read reviews for games, film and the like.

You could listen to the video review. 

Thing with Remedy's writing is it mostly is quite bad, but they are playing with tropes that excuse it. Max Payne's painful similies are over the top and complete nonsense, in the style of the hard-boiled fiction shown in its graphic novels; Alan Wake is about a subpar, but popular, writer and the plot mimics this; Control is like a Darin Morgan episode of The X-Files.

Maybe it all is just bad writing, but it is certainly plays up its pulp style in a way that I really like.

There's some great writing out there but it tends to be locked into a few specific genres and indie titles. Few and far between, though.

You're dead right, and Max Payne is the one that really works for me - where they just go all in on the pulpy noir style, and it's all the better for it (doesn't Payne himself at one point say so much for being subtle?). 

Anyway, you inspired me to look up some quotes, there are some real beauties:

Collecting evidence had gotten old a few hundred bullets back. I was already so far past the point of no return I couldn't even remember what it looked like when I had passed it.

No minotaur lurked in this labyrinth, but somewhere out there, on the clanking deck of his cargo freighter, the skipper of the Charon was waiting, like the ferryman of the River Styx.

Snow was falling like ashes from post-apocalyptic skies, but that was outside. Things would soon get hot in the Don's restaurant.

It might just be because I'm really picky and have a good idea of if I'll like something by this point but I can't think of the last time I was swayed by a review for a game. I'll see what people make of it on here if it's something I'm interested in, then maybe watch a video review without paying much attention to the voice over, just to get a look at the game. Find most of the popular video reviews (ACG, SkillUp) annoying. Why do they both put the score/verdict in the video title now?

I don't really understand people reading reviews of games they're already playing, usually just to get annoyed about it not getting the score they think it should

I like Skill Up - he's thoughtful and erudite, and even though I don't always agree with his views, I appreciate the manner in which he conveys them.

ACG can be a bit over the top with the wacky, zany, talking-really-fast stuff, but I generally enjoy his content as well.

Give me either of them over, say, Angry Joe any day of the week.

In all honesty, though, I don't tend to base purchasing decisions on reviews anymore; indeed, the more interested I am in a given game, the less likely I am to watch/read a review. Whatever YouTube content I watch is mainly for entertainment purposes.

Nowadays, I put way more stock in what you guys (and Bichii!) say than any other source of internet opinions, although I do respect a small number of traditional reviewers (e.g. Robert Ramsey from Push Square) as well.

Ha, those were the days using the box to take a punt.

I mean the writing in the Max Payne games weren't exactly sophisticated but I guess that was the point with its take on the hard boiled genre so it's a fair criticism. However it was incredibly difficult to get through all the pretentiousness of the EG review which would fail most assessments of what a review is.

Agreed. At the very least, it is interesting and memorable. For most games, particularly AAA games, it is at best perfunctory.

Even when the dialogue is "bad", I think Remedy are doing it with purpose. I can see why that might grate for some, but I love it.

I did read the EG review after seeing the convo here and my issue with it is that it really told me nothing about the game. I’m no wiser on what it is or does after reading than I was before.

The reviewer says that Saga has a “Control-style weapons system” and Alan has “light mechanics”. I think they are the only two references to gameplay in the entire article, and it doesn’t bother to explain what either mean.