Halo 4 gets a 2/10...

[BloatedGuppy]

If he's popular, fine. He's popular. I'll change my post if it makes you happy.

This is why I don't want to bother with this site anymore. People jump down my throat for the smallest fucking things.

I get defensive because I am sick and fucking tired of it; I'm tired of the passive-aggressive tone everyone loves to sling around here. Lots of White Knights and nitpicking assholes.

If that wasn't your intended tone, then I'm sorry.

You can mock people for getting upset at a dissenting review all you want, they deserve it.

At least my original point survived this mess.

Well here's the thing...half of this ludicrous 9 page thread is angry Halo fanatics attempting to hand wave the guy because he's a "nobody" rather than just accepting that human beings can have differing opinions. I've posted numerous articles and rebuttals demonstrating that this is not the case, and then one post below mine someone will say "Derp derp clearly some nobody trying 2 get hitz 4 his startup website lulz!" and it's making me crazy. You're annoyed with White Knights and nitpickers? I'm annoyed that we can't just establish facts on page one and then discuss those facts. Instead we have to discuss presumptions, and then presumptions about presumptions, and then we end up neck deep in a morass of semantic bickering rather than having any kind of fruitful discourse about the OT. That's why I'm "nitpicking".

PS - When did we start hating white knights, anyway? I remember when white knights were the good guys. Now it's like...terminally unhip to have noble motivations, or something.

PPS - Hey wait a minute, urban dictionary defines white knighting as being entirely gender based behavior! It doesn't even apply here!

 

[TheLiham]

Firefight sucked lets face it and AI's always had a lifetime they just didn't mention it too much in the games because you're busy shooting shit.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I've posted numerous articles and rebuttals demonstrating that this is not the case, and then one post below mine someone will say "Derp derp clearly some nobody trying 2 get hitz 4 his startup website lulz!" and it's making me crazy.

I'd blame the Occam's Razor app everyone runs.
The guy trolling for ad-hits (whether he's already popular or not) is the simplest, and most immediately rational explanation.

It isn't necessarily a CORRECT explanation, but it is one.
Whenever it comes to reviews, especially internet reviews, the easiest and most common route is to immediately go for their credibility and intentions.

That's what I'm taking from this. I do not want to pore over 9 pages of mindless rambling, about something that IMO, SHOULDN'T MATTER IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Halo 4, nay, NO GAME is Helen of fucking Troy here. Her honor doth require no defense.

I'm annoyed that we can't just establish facts on page one and then discuss those facts.

Fair enough. I took a hiatus from these forums because objectivity was basically a lost art.
(not that I was helping anyway)

Incidentally: I have a mathematical function for forum behavior and thread objectivity.

As Page # -> Infinity(P),
Objectivity -> 0

And I have fallen prey to that.

PS - When did we start hating white knights, anyway? I remember when white knights were the good guys. Now it's like...terminally unhip to have noble motivations, or something.

"Noble" has been transforming into "pretentious, singleminded and condescending".
I cannot tell you how many times I've seen people call Extra Credits and Moviebob preachy and condescending when rushing to the defense of a subject.

The problem lies not in intention, but the presentation.

PPS - Hey wait a minute, urban dictionary defines white knighting as being entirely gender based behavior! It doesn't even apply here!

It needs an update. I think we've moved past the Romantic and Elizabethan interpretation of "white knighting" when it's applied to internet behavior.

 

[yourbeliefs]

I could see Yahtzee giving it a grade like that. If he's serious about it, then he didn't like the Halo series to begin with. Really though, if you flat out don't like a game series, you probably shouldn't be reviewing it because you're going to be so biased that you can't really take it seriously.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Oh, wow, what an incredibly daring stunt of promoting someone's well pathological unwarranted self-importance.

To be honest, I don't like the Halo IP much, the most profound emotional responses it ever stirred in me were

a) they bored and annoyed me
b) they entertained me for a grand total of, say, two hours in a competitive environment
c) they made me laugh (I think that was Halo 3, you know, the last in a trilogy of, what, seven games or so and counting...)

So, I don't like Halo 4 and yet I think it deserves somewhere between, say, 74% to maybe 85%, going at it in a decidedly neutral and objective mindset.

Giving it a 2/10 is complete asshattery and should be punished by putting the malfeasant on the
block, where normal people can ridicule him, spit at him or throw moldy vegetables at him.

Captcha: the tribe has spoken.

Oh, wow.

All hail the tribe!

 

[Rutskarn]

A 2/10 score really stands out on Metacritic so my review will get more traffic (oh wait, that's my assumption not his written reasoning)

This is Tom Chick. He's an industry veteran with an idiosyncratic perspective, but "trolling for hits" would be pretty out-of-character--especially since he's been running "Quarter to Three" as a fairly personal, low-profile website for (I believe) about a decade.

 

[ResonanceGames]

2/10 strikes me as 'needs to have a serious flaw'

Like an unintended instadeath mechanic that lets you walk through walls and clip through to the end boss in the second room.

4/10 or 5/10 is 'lacks innovation'. Like I think was being said here.

Obviously all reviewing is subjective to the user but this seems... a bit like an attention grab.

Why? I don't give every movie extra points just for not having jump cuts, mics in the shots, or other technical issues. Games shouldn't be given free points just for basically functioning.

 

[Staskala]

Oh man, I had almost forgotten how annoying Halo fanboys were.
Seriously, what does it matter to you? If you like the game why would you care if others don't? And always, always the same old, shitty "OMG TEH BIAS" argument.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Oh man, I had almost forgotten how annoying Halo fanboys were.
Seriously, what does it matter to you? If you like the game why would you care if others don't? And always, always the same old, shitty "OMG TEH BIAS" argument.

I'm assuming you didn't read my OP because I made it pretty clear that I have no plans of getting this game since I have not been interested in Halo in quite some time. Is it really wrong to discuss a particularly contrarian review of a video game on a forum that's about video games?
Also, your argument works the same way against you. What does it matter to you what other people talk about? You don't have to click on the link to the thread. I used to feel the same way about Mass Effect 3 ending threads because they've been done to death. Then I realized: "hey, I don't have to click on this and post in it. If I want it to go away, maybe I should just not post in the thread!"

 

[Calcium]

I gave up on this thread when someone seemed to be making the accusations that "people are only disagreeing with the score because they're fanboys that think the game deserves a 10/10." I'm amazed the OP was able to intelligently respond to such remarks.

A reviewer should be able to review what they want. But yes, people should be able to question reviews without being accused of being a fanboy (or a hater).

The scores are a lot less important than the criticism anyway... as suggested in the initial post. Both sides of the argument seem to have neglected this. Well, maybe they haven't completely. As I mentioned, I gave up without reading all replies, but I saw enough to see the fanboy argument was still being used on page 9.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Here's what I do when it comes to critics.

Don't listen to them.

Yes they may have some good points but most are either bought and paid for or they're little retards like this one.

The only critics I put ANY heed to are the ones on the escapist.

 

[Athinira]

objective...review...*sigh*

Objective reviews aren't a myth. It's perfectly possible to detach yourself from your personal bias, and explain how a product works rather than explaining what you feel about it.

If it's a score based review, then the score will obviously be subjective. But the review text doesn't have to be.

 

[Owen Robertson]

You make another game after ending a story arc, you're gonna have a bad time. It';s like French-Frying when you're supposed to Pizza.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

Ok so recently there was a post that pointed out a review of Halo 4 which criticized the game for not having iron sights and not being linear enough. The reviewer gave the game a 7/10 which isn't a bad score, it's just that his complaints seemed ridiculous (my opinion, yours may differ).

Now this reviewer http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2012/11/04/halo-4-is-half-the-game-it-should-be/ has given Halo 4 a 2/10. Which in my mind means the game pretty much has to be broken but he doesn't say anything about it not working. These seem to be his primary reasons for the 2/10 score:
Too much like the past Halo games

Not enough like the past Halo games (yes I'm aware that these first two contradict each other)

You don't get to fire the big gun on the Mammoth

Enemies are Tron like

No scoring system in single-player (I agree with him on this, that's what made Halo 3's campaign so replayable)

AI's having a lifespan

The story is slow, sentimental and too serious

A 2/10 score really stands out on Metacritic so my review will get more traffic (oh wait, that's my assumption not his written reasoning)

Anyway, what do my fellow Escapists think about the review. I myself got a bit of a laugh out of it but a lot of the things he was criticizing I don't personally think are all that bad. I'm not going to get the game anyway because I've only ever really cared about the campaigns in Halo games but I'll definitely rent it.

I don't know if this has been adressed already but Tom Chick does a 5 star scale. Not a 10.

Edit:

It's also worth noting that the scale employed by Chick runs like this: [http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/our-ratings-system/]

Here is the scientific breakdown for the Quarter to Three ratings system.

***** (5 stars)
I loved it

**** (4 stars)
I really liked it

*** (3 stars)
I liked it

** (2 stars)
I didn?t like it

* (1 star)
I hated it

All the people who bang on about it should read that. In this scale a game is not broken with a single star. He just hated it. That's vastly different and shifts the conversation. This is not and never was about an objective analyses of graphics and sound and whatever else boring criteria you people seem to like. This is about how Tom Chick feels about the game.

 

[BaronIveagh]

I could see Yahtzee giving it a grade like that. If he's serious about it, then he didn't like the Halo series to begin with. Really though, if you flat out don't like a game series, you probably shouldn't be reviewing it because you're going to be so biased that you can't really take it seriously.

Conversely, if you absolutely orgasm at the idea of a new game in the series, you probably shouldn't be reviewing it either.

 

[charge52]

objective...review...*sigh*

Objective reviews aren't a myth. It's perfectly possible to detach yourself from your personal bias, and explain how a product works rather than explaining what you feel about it.

If it's a score based review, then the score will obviously be subjective. But the review text doesn't have to be.

The only thing you can be totally objective about is if the sound is clear or muffled, if the graphics are high res or low res, and if the game is stable or not(even that's pushing it because he may have been lucky and experienced few in a buggy game). The problem becomes, you can't justify your score doing that. Imagine if Tom did that, he stated the graphics, sound quality and bugginess, then gave it a 1 out of 5. Truth is you cannot review a title objectively, because it's impossible to justify the score at that point.

I love Mount and Blade warband for example, if I reviewed it normally I would talk about how the combat feels solid and the lack of story actually helps, but someone else may feel the exact opposite, so it's subjective. I would give the game a high score, justified by all the things about the game I said I liked. Objectively however, graphics are outdated, sound design is iffy(good sounds, but very little variation) and it's still pretty buggy(though very few gameplay bugs). If I did that and gave it the same score, no one would understand why I gave it the score I did.

Games must be reviewed subject to a reviewers opinions and biases, because the review text needs to justify the score, not to mention the fact that no one wants to read a review that says nothing about whether or not a game is fun to play.

 

[sunsetspawn]

You make another game after ending a story arc, you're gonna have a bad time. It';s like French-Frying when you're supposed to Pizza.

And Mass Effect is about to French Fry right into a tree.

Though I personally don't care about Halo's story arc too much. The entire game could be devoid of dialog and cinematics so long as I'm killing aliens in surreal environments.

On the other hand, changing the music of a game like Halo could conceivably kill it.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Ok so recently there was a post that pointed out a review of Halo 4 which criticized the game for not having iron sights and not being linear enough. The reviewer gave the game a 7/10 which isn't a bad score, it's just that his complaints seemed ridiculous (my opinion, yours may differ).

Now this reviewer http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2012/11/04/halo-4-is-half-the-game-it-should-be/ has given Halo 4 a 2/10. Which in my mind means the game pretty much has to be broken but he doesn't say anything about it not working. These seem to be his primary reasons for the 2/10 score:
Too much like the past Halo games

Not enough like the past Halo games (yes I'm aware that these first two contradict each other)

You don't get to fire the big gun on the Mammoth

Enemies are Tron like

No scoring system in single-player (I agree with him on this, that's what made Halo 3's campaign so replayable)

AI's having a lifespan

The story is slow, sentimental and too serious

A 2/10 score really stands out on Metacritic so my review will get more traffic (oh wait, that's my assumption not his written reasoning)

Anyway, what do my fellow Escapists think about the review. I myself got a bit of a laugh out of it but a lot of the things he was criticizing I don't personally think are all that bad. I'm not going to get the game anyway because I've only ever really cared about the campaigns in Halo games but I'll definitely rent it.

I don't know if this has been adressed already but Tom Chick does a 5 star scale. Not a 10.

Edit:

It's also worth noting that the scale employed by Chick runs like this: [http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/our-ratings-system/]

Here is the scientific breakdown for the Quarter to Three ratings system.

***** (5 stars)
I loved it

**** (4 stars)
I really liked it

*** (3 stars)
I liked it

** (2 stars)
I didn?t like it

* (1 star)
I hated it

All the people who bang on about it should read that. In this scale a game is not broken with a single star. He just hated it. That's vastly different and shifts the conversation. This is not and never was about an objective analyses of graphics and sound and whatever else boring criteria you people seem to like. This is about how Tom Chick feels about the game.

Hmm. Too be honest. I kind of like his rating system. He hated it (he gave it 1/5 which for some reason I automatically called 2/10 in the thread) which is understandable because you're not going to like every big game that comes out. It just gives a much broader rating spectrum.

 

[dessertmonkeyjk]

Gameplay 6
Visuals 5
Sound 8
Story 4
Overall Score 5.75

Simple.

Now rate Tetris or Super Mario Bros 3 (aguably one of the best games of all time) with that scale.
Did you find the issue?

I made sure I could easily add & remove categories and still get 10. I could even have up to 10 subcategories for each if I like. Here's another example.

Gameplay 8; Mechanics 8 (10)
Visual 6.5; Aesthetic 2.2; Quality 1.8; Other 2.5 (3.3)
Sound 6; Sound Design 4; Music 2 (5)
Overall 6.8