Unpopular Opinions You Hold About Web Series/Reviewers

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

You all know the ropes by now. And by web series, I basically mean any kind of series on the web, whether they be independently produced videos videos by internet reviewers or more elaborate productions that are available either for free or for a fee.

I mostly just watch internet reviewers, so that's what a majority of my opinions will be about:

-The Nostalgia Critic's funniest reviews also happen to be his shortest ones. Extending them out to 20-30 minutes just for the sake of it forces him to put a lot of filler in his videos which really only drags out the few good jokes he has to be few and far in-between.

-The fact that none of the high-profile game reviewers have done any sort of tribute video to Ninja Gaiden Black is a travesty.

-James Rolfe's movie reviews and Board James videos are more entertaining to watch than his AVGN episodes.

-David A. Rose's series, The DVD Shelf Movie Reviews, is currently the best review show on the internet because he focuses on what makes movies interesting and exciting to watch in the first place by making all of his reviews positive, while also doing a shit-ton of research and going into detail about the history and background of each of the movies that he reviews.

-Lindsay (the Nostalgia Chick) has some of the most insightful videos on TGWTG, but she fails to actually catch my interest in most of what she talks aout.

-Welshy, before he recently retired, mostly talked about movies I could never stand, but somehow managed to go so in-depth with his reviews that I was actually interested in watching his videos anyways just to see what he had to say about them and how he defended them.

-I can't stand most angry reviewers or purely negative reviews in general, yet their videos seem to be the most popular. I'm more interested in hearing what's good about movies rather than seeing someone complain about movies that I know are bad, even if its just for humorous reasons (because the whole style has gotten stale and isn't really funny, anymore).

-I absolutely hate how so many people seem to think of Mr. Plinkett's reviews and opinions on the criteria for a good movie as some sort of unwritten cinema-law. First off, most of what he says is meant to be humorous and a lot of people take it way too seriously. Second of all, while there is definite truth to a lot of his opinions, he's still just a guy with opinions and its not wrong to disagree with him on some aspects of what makes a movie good. Now, as for Mr. Plinkett himself, I have no problem with him, and he's currently the best "negative" reviewer that I've seen, mostly because I can get his sense of humor without feeling like he's taking things too seriously for his own good, and thus he doesn't come off like a hard-ass, but rather as a guy pretending to be hard-ass for laughs (something that most reviewers of this sort seem to forget to do). I just can't stand most fans of the guy.

-I'm not a fan of JesuOtaku's new focus of videos. I personally preferred her old review style. Yes, I know it was hard work for her, but the work she put into it was why it was so interesting in the first place.

[Silverstar]

I too prefer short internet reviews. I'm glad that Doug Walker has brought the Nostalgia Critic back, and while some of his newer reviews are indeed funny and insightful, the fact that they're all long now kind of works against them for me. I tend to prefer Doug's commentaries and Sibling Rivalries with Rob to the NC reviews. I wish Doug would do some more commercial reviews.

On that note, I'm not a fan of heavy story arcs in reviews. One of my favorite online reviewers is Linkara, but I have to admit that the story arcs and sagas he frequently incorporates into his reviews bore me. I tend to prefer reviewers like Phelous, Obscurus Lupa and JonTron who either don't care about stories or just don't take themselves that seriously. The only story-heavy online commentator that I really like is the Game Overthinker, aka MovieBob, 'cause his stuff is so silly you have to just kind of chuckle at it, and he doesn't drag his stories out for too long.

And I also tend to stay away from overly angry reviewers. Too many people think (or thought at one time) that all you have to do is be angry, rant about something and curse like a sailor on shore leave and they'll be the next AVGN or Nostalgia Critic. Again, I prefer the smart or wacky reviewers who do their own thing rather than just screaming and dropping a bunch of 'F' bombs about stuff they hate.

I don't like Let's Plays. There, I said it. To be fair, the idea behind them isn't bad, and some of them, like 2 Best Friends Play and Retsuprae (guys who make videos riffing on Let's Plays) can be funny, but many of them feel the need to go through the entire game, which just gets boring after a while. I can only watch someone playing through a game or snarking on someone playing a game badly for so long before it gets old. I'd probably enjoy Let's Plays more if they were condensed to say, 10 or 15 minutes each.

[Daxdiv]

I can't watch a JesuOkatu video for my life. I can understand that she knows her shit and all, but her rambling on for multiple minutes just to make her point just bores me to the point that I forgot what she was talking about in the first place.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

As far as JO goes, I never found her to be too ramble-heavy with her earlier reviews, but she did start picking up that bad habit in later videos of her, and her more recent stuff is full of it, which just shows how much better it is to make a planned out and well-edited review. I do still love to see her "top (insert number) lists," though, as those tend to have the least amount of rambling from her and remain more focused, being that she only has a limited amount of time to talk about each entry before moving onto the next one.

I don't like Let's Plays. There, I said it. To be fair, the idea behind them isn't bad, and some of them, like 2 Best Friends Play and Retsuprae (guys who make videos riffing on Let's Plays) can be funny, but many of them feel the need to go through the entire game, which just gets boring after a while. I can only watch someone playing through a game or snarking on someone playing a game badly for so long before it gets old. I'd probably enjoy Let's Plays more if they were condensed to say, 10 or 15 minutes each.

I'm usually not a fan of LP's, either, as most of them are just sloppily put together by people who aren't good at making interesting commentary on whatever game it is they are playing. There are 2 exceptions to this rule for me, though, and those are ProtonJonSA and Clement, both of whom tend to do pretty entertaining LPs of games that I either like or that I haven't played but still interest me. Every other LP that I've seen pretty much puts me to sleep, though.

What I do actually really like to see, though, is video game walk-throughs with commentary from experts at the game (which by default means tackling the game on its hardest available difficulty and/or settings). Those are both useful to watch if I want guidance on advanced tactics in a game that I like, and they are also interesting when the commentary is both insightful and interesting to listen to. Some people confuse these types of videos as being the same thing as an LP, but they couldn't be more different, and IMO these types of videos are more meaningful, anyways. I like stuff like RC Master's or Mythic Tyrant's Halo runs (with various challenges added to them on top of the fact that they play everything on Legendary difficulty). I also like Seraphim17's various videos for games that I like, though I mostly have only seen his DMC gameplay videos, though.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Many blip reviewers seem to confuse review with recap.

[Goldstar]

I don't care for the Happy Video Game Nerd (Derrick Alexander)'s game reviews because I find his particular approach to be too straight forward and somewhat boring. I find the HVGN to be informative, but not entertaining. Yet, at the same time, I can't fault him for trying to do something other than just being another angry gamer, of which there have been too many of. Thankfully, the AVGN wanna be is a type of video review that seems to be on the decline.

CR! (Chad Rocco)'s videos are entertaining when it's a topic that interests me. His "Familiar Faces" reviews are pretty fun, although I don't pay much attention to his game related stuff, unless it's a game that I possess at least some scant knowledge of.

[Foggle]

The only internet video reviewer I actually like at this point is Mark from Classic Game Room. (And Dave from the older episodes.)

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Another unpopular opinion of mine is that I can't stand most of Doug Walker's analytical reviews (the ones that he does as himself, not his editorials as the NC, which are for the most part pretty decent). His Disneycember stuff just pissed me off more than anything else, and in general the guy isn't really very good an analyzing a work as much as it is just trying to find fancy ways to give off his opinions about something while trying to seem like he's an expert or high authority on the matter. It pisses me off because sometimes he seems so sure of himself when he criticize something he doesn't like in a movie or series but can be dead wrong about it at times, and obviously he doesn't care about the accuracy of his information or analysis. I've seen him do this with his look at The Lion King and on all the stuff he says about the Harry Potter series in general.

And believe me, I'm not just saying this because he has said bad stuff about movies that I like. Even when he reviews something that I haven't seen or even better yet have seen but don't care for myself, he still gives off his negative opinions of something in a way that just makes him seem like he's being a film-snob more than a legitimate critic. That's just the way I perceive his serious reviews, anyways.

I don't care for the Happy Video Game Nerd (Derrick Alexander)'s game reviews because I find his particular approach to be too straight forward and somewhat boring. I find the HVGN to be informative, but not entertaining. Yet, at the same time, I can't fault him for trying to do something other than just being another angry gamer, of which there have been too many of. Thankfully, the AVGN wanna be is a type of video review that seems to be on the decline.

Honestly, I never knew he was a popular reviewer to begin with.

As for his actual reviews, I think that whether one finds them interesting or not has more to do with whether or not they have interest in the obscure games that he talks about. I love discovering hidden gems, so most of his reviews are right up my alley, especially his horror-themed ones. That said, my problem with Derek is that for a guy who's all positive about the games that he loves, he can be irritatingly biased at times at the games he looks down on. I'm still a bit pissed about him saying that the PS2 Shinobi game sucks without giving any reasoning whatsoever on why he thinks that.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Oh, here's another one that I can't believe I forgot:

I absolutely CAN'T STAND Bennett the Sage's reviews, PARTICULARLY his video game reviews (though his anime reviews suck too, IMO). Let me clarify that I have absolutely nothing against the guy as a person. For one thing, I don't know him, and for another, I make it a point not to actually let something as trivial as conflict of opinions let me judge a person for who they are. That said, I have to point out that his opinions on gaming almost entirely encompass EVERYTHING that I can't stand about the thought-process of modern gamers. Most of the stuff that he looks for in games are stuff that I either don't care for, am not impressed with, or just flat-out DON'T want to see in good games (games that I consider good, anyways). And a lot of the stuff that he detests and criticizes about games that he doesn't like are just his personal distaste more than anything objectively bad, most of the time. I know this because he tends to criticize a lot of things that I actually like about games. He also puts story over gameplay, which is the ultimate difference between what he looks for in gaming and what I care about. I play games because I want to play a game, not because I want an interactive movie (or in many cases, its not even that as much as a sad imitation of a movie).

The ultimate extremes of my difference in opinion on gaming with Sage can be seen in his Halo: Reach and Batman: Arkham City reviews. He stomped all over Reach without really giving it a fair and detailed review and went gaga over AC, which I personally find to be an insanely overrated game (I do mildly enjoy it, but overall I thought it was a disappointment, personally). Overall, I just don't think there is a single review that the guy has done where I agree with anything he says about it. Well, I did agree with him that NG3 is garbage, but he completely missed the points and reasoning as to why the previous games were great and just what were the worst aspects of 3 to begin with. So, yeah, I just flat-out can't agree with the guy's opinions on anything.

[Foggle]

E-K, have you tried watching any CGR? Mark reviews tons of games, both new and old, mainstream and obscure, and he's almost always positive unless the game just flat out sucks. I wouldn't have played Fear Effect or Tokyo Beat Down without his reviews, which convinced me to pick them up. Plus, he has, like, the exact same taste in games as I do. He's recently started reviewing all the R&C games, which he appears to love, and Vanquish was his favorite game of 2010.

[GaryPotter]

I despise Internet reviewers in general because of their ability to retcon reality.

What AVGN does, and to a lesser extent Nostalgia Critic, is to take something made long before their audience was born and shape what the "correct" opinions of those things should be. I really don't like that.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I disagree that they shape what the correct opinions of those works are. Only complete idiots who can't think for themselves would take these reviews so seriously as to think that whatever is said in those reviews are fact. Both the NC and AVGN are just trying to make humorous videos. I myself have liked quite a few movies that the NC has reviewed and don't agree with his opinion on them. It doesn't mean that I think I should hate them just because he makes fun of it, because at the end of the day I realize that he's just trying to have fun by mocking a movie he thinks is bad. Both Doug Walker and James Rolfe have stated on numerous occasions that there's nothing wrong with other people having different opinions about what they review.

[talonmalon333]

I disagree that they shape what the correct opinions of those works are. Only complete idiots who can't think for themselves would take these reviews so seriously as to think that whatever is said in those reviews are fact. Both the NC and AVGN are just trying to make humorous videos. I myself have liked quite a few movies that the NC has reviewed and don't agree with his opinion on them. It doesn't mean that I think I should hate them just because he makes fun of it, because at the end of the day I realize that he's just tying to have fun by mocking a movie he thinks is bad. Both Doug Walker and James Rolfe have stated on numerous occasions that there's nothing wrong with other people having different opinions about what they review.

This. And on top of that, I do think it's worth noting that Doug and James have stated they actually like some of the things they review negatively.

[TheEclecticDude]

Yeah, Bennett the Sage's anime reviews were OK, as it seemed to be mere riffing of old OVAs. But then he got to End of Eva, which I have to wonder whether or not he truly understood it at al, as it was very scathing of that movie. Then later, his Macross review was the other extreme, being overtly fanboyish about it. Now, I no longer watch his stuff.

[Goldstar]

I disagree that they shape what the correct opinions of those works are. Only complete idiots who can't think for themselves would take these reviews so seriously as to think that whatever is said in those reviews are fact. Both the NC and AVGN are just trying to make humorous videos. I myself have liked quite a few movies that the NC has reviewed and don't agree with his opinion on them. It doesn't mean that I think I should hate them just because he makes fun of it, because at the end of the day I realize that he's just tying to have fun by mocking a movie he thinks is bad. Both Doug Walker and James Rolfe have stated on numerous occasions that there's nothing wrong with other people having different opinions about what they review.

This. And on top of that, I do think it's worth noting that Doug and James have stated they actually like some of the things they review negatively.

Exactly. It's not the Angry Video Game Nerd's or the Nostalgia Critic's reviews or opinions that annoy me. It's the fact that certain people who have no minds of their own hang on their every word and take the opinions of these 2 guys much too seriously. You get people who previously had no opinion or a different opinion about a particular video game or a movie, but then completely changed their tune about it or now suddenly have an opinion about because they saw AVGN or NC riff on it in a video. It's like people who base their opinions on entertainment solely by what the characters on Family Guy have said about them. It's stupid.

If you don't know anything about the game or movie, then you should it check it out for yourself and formulate your own opinion of it instead of just parroting NC's or AVGN's opinions of it. James Rolfe and Doug Walker are just playing characters and the purpose of their videos is first and foremost to entertain.