Huh, I think I haven’t thought about this hard enough, as I’m a Patient Gamer… But I think Reddit and Lemmy are good sources for this :)

My gaming backlog hasn’t quite made it out of the 2000s. At this point there are years of consensus on most of these games and I prioritise on vibe

ACG Reviews: https://youtube.com/@ACGreviews
Gameranx (Before you buy series)
Random yt channels specializing in the genre/series while searching for reviews.

I like patient gamer communities, since I can get a fan consensus, a lot of hype or hate has died down, and there’s been some time to work out the kinks and send out updates.

I’ll be honest, I just look at the steam store page for the game. If the initial impression from the images is good, and it’s a genre I want to play right now, I watch one or two of the videos and read a few top reviews. Then I just go for it. I don’t watch streams or anything. I am usually perusing indie games so it’s at most like $20 on the line, not the end of the world if I hate it, or if it needs a few years of patches to feel worth playing.

Scrolling through Steam, Eurogamer and Edge magazine.

Worth A Buy on YouTube is very honest. He’s funny and cynical, a bit like Total Biscuit used to be.

He’s one of the few I trust now for an honest review. Would highly recommend him as he’s also incredibly entertaining.

I’d say find a youtuber or streamer who has similar tastes to you and follow them. Personally, I follow SkillUp and ACG.

You can also check out OpenCritic for a review aggregator.

Let’s Game it Out.

If you can break a game as badly as he does and it still looks fun to play, it’s probably something I’m going to like.

Interesting to see all replies! I’m curious to find new sources as well. I usually go through a set of bookmarks to sites such as eurogamer, kotaku, pcgamesN, ign (sorry for that), as well as checking reddit and lemmy.

I always look for let’s play series by 2-3 different YouTubers (1-2 episodes) before I decide if the game is for me. Scores are meaningless if I am not interested in that genre or specific gameplay mechanics

I don’t think I’ve ever really liked the way Metacritic does it. GameRankings was my go-to for years (RIP), but I’ve preferred OpenCritic for review aggregating since they started up.

There’s a lot of churn in video games criticism right now, and this year in particular highlighted some issues I have with how some outlets are doing things with their reviews. Things like rushing to press without finishing games (even just 20 hours in some cases), and omitted technical performance/bug discussion. I was enjoying The Washington Post’s game section but that got shut down. Eurogamer and Gamespot were previous favorites of mine, but they seem to have changed their criticism style and I’m not a fan of what either are doing.

I do have some PC outlets I still like (PC Gamer and Rock, Paper, Shotgun for anyone else reading), but I can’t say I have an outstanding favorite otherwise at the moment. I pretty much just browse OpenCritic and pick out reviews at the extreme ends of the score spread and some random ones in the middle at this point.

I try to do the patient gamer thing too, as I’m always happier with games that have been polished (and they are cheaper). The threads in those communities are great for finding games. The Fediverse has one at !patientgamers@sh.itjust.works although it’s still not super active yet.

I usually like to watch before you buy on YouTube . And see what moist critical has to say about it.

I dont value reviews at all, I instead just look up streams / LPs of the games and decide if I want to play them after half an hour or so. Sometimes i’ll scrub through if its a slow start and not like a story-focused game.

For podcasts I highly recommend Into the Aether. They only bring games they like to the show and it’s a super chill and positive show that feels like chatting with friends who are really into vidya games. The episodes are quite long but great to listen to.