What I meant to say was this: I didn't feel that the reviewer "stepped outside of himself" enough. To step outside oneself requires, first and foremost, offering a game the benefit of the doubt and then going forward from there. Allow me to explain. I'll use the reviewer's comments on the 3D nature of the game.
Most of the his complaints were of the 3D environment (in fact, it was fully half of his review). How do I know how long he sat down and tried to get used to it? What if his monitor is poor? What if the game suffered from some weird sort of graphical anomaly on his PC? What if his mouse was bad for that type of game? Is his desk properly configured for playing a game with a lot of mouse movement? Is he color blind? These are things I'll never know, and his review made no indication to me that I needn't worry about such questions.
There are a million questions you have to ask yourself before writing a review: it can't just be
your experience; you have to give a game the benefit of the doubt and put yourself "outside of yourself;" try to see the game from the perspective of others. Maybe other people would enjoy the 3D environment. Maybe other people have better setups for the game. Etc., etc., etc.
It's only when a reviewer cannot in any way, shape, or form see how anyone on any setup could enjoy a design feature that he should trash it. If not anyone, then most people on most setups. This is what I call objective reviewing -- it's not just
your experience and
your opinion; you're attempting to put yourself in the minds and shoes of others.
As for following the word of a fan of the series over professional reviews, that has some merit. However, when many, many review sites agree, the game couldn't have possibly bought out them all. Furthermore,
a game has to be taken on its own merit and not compared to previous games in the series. And take it from me, also a fan of the series since the beginning, it's a good freaking game.
