Just recently a certain big game review outlet started breaking certain reviews into specific sections for different game modes/ types. Two recent examples would be Call of Duty: Black Ops IV (I refuse to write IIII), and Battlefield: V. Each was given separate reviews, Multiplayer, Zombies, and Blackout for COD, and Single player and Multiplayer for Battlefield. This raised a lot of negative comments on the videos, a lot of which I agree with, but not for entirely the same reasons.
Let me just say this first: There is no point in separating parts of a review if you cannot purchase those individual parts. COD comes as a package with those three main modes, and while each will certainly have positive and negative aspects that don't apply to the others, there is no benefit it just looking at each in isolation. That said, I think this is just a weird step that kind of goes in the right direction for how reviews are done because even in single reviews, for the most part, each primary mode is given a spotlight of sorts. A traditional review would look at things like story, game play, graphics, sound, multiplayer, and so on, sometimes with certain parts mixed together. Each part is important, and I don't disagree with the fact that a mode like zombies in COD does need specific focus and attention that doesn't completely overlap with the other modes. Basic game play, graphics, and things like that will probably be more or less consistent across all the modes a game has, so that specific section would focus on what makes it different, what works, what doesn't, how enjoyable it is, and anything else unique it brings to the complete package. The key term there being "package." So far, each mode being reviewed separately is being scored as if it stood alone when they do not. Yes, they are giving an overall score as well, but if a game got a perfect score for it's single player but had an awful multiplayer component, that's just being disingenuous to anyone who doesn't know to seek out separate reviews for the same game. Even for people who do, is there that much value in seeing each part rated separately? Scores in general are something I've already spoken about, so I won't repeat my ideology on it again here, but more and more outlets do seem be moving away from a scoring system entirely. Putting in more scores just dilutes our ability to relate to what the review actually thought about the game.
Except that it gets even worse. Not only are these individual reviews made, scored, and published stand alone, but they are being done by separate reviewers. Now, I actually kind of like the idea of multiple people reviewing the same game, even though I know how unrealistic it is in terms of time, money, and resources, but giving different people individual sections of a game to review is beyond ridiculous. Any sense of consistency goes out the window. What if one person found the shooting boring and lacking any good sense of feedback, while the other thought it was the pinnacle of the genre? Or what if the mechanics were at odds with the story, which wouldn't apply to multiplayer? Those kinds of things would sway both scores and even further dilute the message readers/ viewers got.
There is a tiny, muddled, silver lining in this though. Each piece of a review has been about the length of a normal review, which means that those who actually consume each part get a more fleshed out review than they otherwise would (excluding the whole multiple reviewer issue). Longer reviews are not necessarily better, but The 5-7 minute video reviews that most major outlets put out can certainly be lacking, so getting more would be a benefit in most cases. However, the issues already described obfuscate this minor advantage to the point it might as well not exist.
Reviewing a game in pieces is like reviewing each color of Skittles in a bag individually. Yeah, each one is technically different, people will like some more than others, but you're not buying just one color. You get the bag, all colors included whether you like them or not, and a review should do it's best to convey the good and bad as clearly as possible. Split reviews provide less context, and when its hard enough to find a reviewer who's opinions line up with your own, this just makes the entire review industry even less useful to consumers.
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