Rock Paper Shotgun[1] is really good for the most part, co-founded by the writer of The New Games Journalism[2]. Their reviews don't have explicit ratings, which neatly sidesteps the fooforaw over giving things the "wrong" rating. They're on GamerGate's hit list (because somebody's girlfriend allegedly slept with one of their writers), which is another point in their favor. They're PC-specific, though.
Any other good gaming sites out there I should check out?
That's kind of the failure of Deepfreeze - GG wanted to prove that their claims about journos held water, but when they provided and standardized their data it's so off-putting and clinical that it's hard to not dismiss as a little creepy.
The GGers who genuinely thought it was about ethics in journalism were completely missing the point though. I want you to imagine we were talking the defence industry. Imagine it was public knowledge that billions of dollars were being skimmed by defence contractors. Then imagine someone shows up and says “Hey, this guy’s been telling people to go to gun store A and getting $20 store vouchers.” Then imagine that turned out not to be the case.
Now, here’s the point: you could spend the next year meticulously documenting every last store voucher the guy had ever received from gun shops B to Z and still no-one would care, because everyone knows that, even if it was true, it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference in the grand scheme of things. If you then announced that this was part of a larger campaign for “Clarity in Defense Spending” people would conclude that either a) you were truly clueless or b) you had an axe to grind with this guy that was nothing to do with gun store vouchers.
Anyway, that’s what people mean when they say “It was never about ethics in computer game journalism.”
But it's not clinical. It's splitting hairs and in some cases clearly biased against him. They literally call a piece he wrote as "agenda driven" and "proofless" based on their own personal opinion. Also just because someone knows someone doesn't mean that they have a "personal relationship". That's like saying every time one recommended software to their boss they should discuss everyone that they know in the company because you couldn't possibly deliver a valid review of a product if you know someone there. They also don't provide any context, don't provide how many "non-biased" reviews the person has done for contrast, in short, it's nowhere near clinical or data-driven. It's written like a high schooler out to prove to their love interest the reasons that they should drop their current significant other and date them instead.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun also used to run a regular column called Saturday Morning Crapshoot, which covered a lot of old, weird, and less than stellar games. I think they stopped, but the archive is good for a chuckle every now and then
Used to love RPS, before most of its best writers left. Now it's a not particularly exceptional group of writers and the most whinging, entitled EiC/owner I've ever seen. There's nothing quite like seeing John Walker act like a 2 year old in every comments section.
As far as other good outlets, I think Techraptr is the only one I know of that holds water these days. Loved Tom Francis' work at PC Gamer back in the day too, before he left.
Any other good gaming sites out there I should check out?
[1] https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/ [2] http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/assorted-essays/the-n...