I had an interesting conversation with a colleague (who I won't mention out of respect) this evening about game reviews and how much a reviewer has to play what they perceive as a bad game before they throw in the towel and write a review. To my way of thinking you should try, to the best of your ability, to play that game as far as you can, barring a show stopping bug or design flaw that prevents you from continuing.

So if a game is awful, are reviewers allowed to say at some point "hey I wouldn't play this game anymore than I have to and you shouldn't either" or should they do the heavy lifting and play it to the end? My thought on doing that is that it is wrong and it makes it difficult for an editor to know whether that person was truly playing an awful game or was just being lazy.

As much as I loathe playing crappy games, I take the responsibility of reviewing any game very seriously. After all, times are hard right now and wasting your money on anything sucks, let alone on some middling, crappy piece of software. On the other hand, there are men and women that pour their hearts and souls into developing these games and we have an obligation to  give them a fair and honest critique of their work.

I know where I stand, but what do you think as a fellow reviewer or as a consumer?

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Just had an interesting chat with a good PR friend of mine. This individual has been having an ongoing battle with the marketing folks about review scores: How are they arrived at, what goes into a score, why can't PR people control the press (?!?!), etc. Then the topic of price came up. Does that factor into it? Interesting question.

My answer? It depends. If you get a game for $20 and spend 15 hours on it and enjoy it, you probably think it was worth the money. But buy a $60 game and finish it in 15 hours, it probably had better be some of the best gameplay in your life to make it worth the money. In that case, price is definitely a factor and should be factored into a review, especially in Crispy's format of Buy, Try or Fry. Also, is the game an expansion? How much is added to the game for the amount of money you had to lay out?

By the same token, the Wii is viewed more as a family console. Most Wii games run no more than $49. In this case, your target audience should come into play. Is this game worth a trip to the movies for a family of four? Or is it a more serious franchise aimed at the more intense gamer? And along those lines, are PS3 and 360 games that are aimed at families or younger kids worth $50-$60 just because they were developed on a higher end platform? I think those questions need to be asked and weight given to them when playing the game and determining enjoyment value.

So my advice to my PR friend was to tell the marketing people that price definitely should play a factor in review scores, and they do when I look at games. Enjoyment level definitely scales depending on how hard your wallet is affected.

What's your take? Should price be a factor?