Halo Reach Perfect 10! WTF?

[ALuckyChance]

The thing is, a perfect 10 is supposed to indicate, well, perfect.

Actually, if you look at IGN UK's review chart 10/10 is not "Perfect" it's "Masterful." Most review sources that use a numeric rating scale don't consider a 5/5, 10/10, etc. "perfect" as there would pretty much never be anything that received such a score.

I stand corrected then. I still believe my argument still works, however, as the story clearly isn't 'masterful.'

The Masterful designation is given for the entire game as a whole, not for the story. All games that are often named as "Masterful" (or even perfect or classic) have notable flaws that keep them from perfection but don't lower the impact of the experience as a whole. Of course, your personal results will vary as opinions always do.

Well, in my opinion...

A story is a very important part of the game. When the story happens to be mediocre, the quality of the game declines. It makes sense - at least for me - for a masterful game to be as close to perfect as possible in every category

 

[Dexiro]

Eh what're you gonna do. Of course the game isn't a perfect 10 but they get paid more to say that ;D

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Has anyone here actually played it?

Then shut up.

 

[John Funk]

Having just beat the campaign, it's easily the best campaign (and the best-told story) of the Halo franchise. Make of that what you will.

Wait, you guys get early copies? I didn't know that The Escapist was that well known in the industry. O_O

OP: Dude, who cares? It's Halo, just because the writing sucks doesn't mean it's not good. This isn't BioShock for f*cks' sake.

...Uh, yeah. Multiple millions of unique monthly visitors.

Having just beat the campaign, it's easily the best campaign (and the best-told story) of the Halo franchise. Make of that what you will.

I say it's a 9 or 8. After all a perfect ten means it's pefect and if the story is complete stock then that's a big enough hole to prevent perfection.

Actually, a ten shouldn't mean literally perfect - without flaw. It should just mean that it's masterfully done.

That's why we use stars, honestly. People interpret someone giving a game a 10 as saying it is utterly and completely without flaw. Us giving a game five stars, on the other hand? Sure, it's technically the same thing, but if you see a game get 5/5 stars, you don't think "oh, it must be perfect 100%," you just think "damn, that must be a superb game."

Besides, even if the characters ARE fairly stock, they're likable enough, and the story is well told for all its cliches. I'm not going to spoil Tuesday's review, but it was the first time a Halo game felt genuinely emotional

 

[Eipok Kruden]

Extraneous media should not be the crutch for bad storytelling in a game.

What? I don't get it... How is it 'extraneous'? Halo 2-5 aren't meant to be story driven campaign-centered journeys into the human psyche. They aren't Bioshock or Mass Effect or Fallout. They're fun shooters with polished gameplay and huge amounts of features. Their stories exist as fun ways to drive the single-player campaigns for the everyone who isn't a huge Halo fan. For everyone who IS a Halo fan, they provide lots of insight into the Halo universe as a whole.

The Halo games are designed to stand on their own as GAMES. You can play them without getting invested in the story. If you want to actually get into the story instead of just playing the campaign, you are expected to delve more deeply into the expanded universe by way of books, comics, short stories, short films, etc... I don't understand why you're expecting the stories of the Halo games to stand by themselves as deep character driven sci-fi masterpieces when they aren't intended to.

 

[StriderShinryu]

The thing is, a perfect 10 is supposed to indicate, well, perfect.

Actually, if you look at IGN UK's review chart 10/10 is not "Perfect" it's "Masterful." Most review sources that use a numeric rating scale don't consider a 5/5, 10/10, etc. "perfect" as there would pretty much never be anything that received such a score.

I stand corrected then. I still believe my argument still works, however, as the story clearly isn't 'masterful.'

The Masterful designation is given for the entire game as a whole, not for the story. All games that are often named as "Masterful" (or even perfect or classic) have notable flaws that keep them from perfection but don't lower the impact of the experience as a whole. Of course, your personal results will vary as opinions always do.

Well, in my opinion...

A story is a very important part of the game. When the story happens to be mediocre, the quality of the game declines. It makes sense - at least for me - for a masterful game to be as close to perfect as possible in every category

I certainly see where you're coming from, but in that case I hope you also exclude titles like, just to name a few, the Zelda games, many of the Metroid games, all of the Mario games, etc. from the list of games you consider "Masterful."

 

[GuerrillaClock]

Oh, we're back to this again. Perfect score does not equal perfect game, for fucks sake. I love how fanboys and haters alike point to a 10/10 score as some sort of affirmation when a critic dares to go against them. "haha, 10/10 WTF! their just owned by M$!!!11one!"

10/10 does not mean faultless game, it means a game that is really, really, really good, and since Reach isn't out yet, and every review going rates it very highly as well, I'm going to assume that is the case.

Basically, the review said that the story wasn't quite the sweeping, Platoon-esque war epic that people were hoping for, but this is inconsequential when weighed up against the incredibly fun gameplay and mind-boggling suite of multiplayer options.

 

[Evil_Weevil]

OK, I couldnt give two shi'ts what score the game got, it could have gotten 1/10 and I wouldn't have cared, because its a review and for all the reasons given above, we cannot trust reviews.

NO, instead I was trying to draw attention to the shocking (to me) fact that a significant aspect of the game has been sidestepped in the awarding of this arbitrary score, not the score itself

 

[The Austin]

Having just beat the campaign, it's easily the best campaign (and the best-told story) of the Halo franchise. Make of that what you will.

Wait, you guys get early copies? I didn't know that The Escapist was that well known in the industry. O_O

OP: Dude, who cares? It's Halo, just because the writing sucks doesn't mean it's not good. This isn't BioShock for f*cks' sake.

...Uh, yeah. Multiple millions of unique monthly visitors.

So I don't have to worry about you guys going out of business? HUZZAH!

So anyway, back to the OP: Who buys Halo for writing, blah, blah, blah. Also, Halo has FORGE MODE. THE REAL REASON PEOPLE PLAY HALO.

 

[greenflash]

really i think there should be no 10/10 games because if you reach (pun)the top how can you make your games better?

 

[Apocalypse Tank]

The "I hate Halo" bandwagon has been jumped onto by too many people.
It's been a great franchise and nowhere near as bad as some people claim it to be.

I am pleased all these haters are getting angry

(haters gonna hate)

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Pretty much every big name title will get a perfect score from at least one reviewer... And Halo brings out the ignorance of people, apparently. If you like it, you are a fanboy and if you don't you are a "hater" that just hates it because that is the "cool thing to do".

 

[greenflash]

So... what have we learnt?

That the reviewer is a fanboi.

But in all honesty, the game HAS to have some good parts to get that score. I could overlook Starcraft 2's lackluster plot in favor of the gameplay, so Reach might also be appealing to me.

[sub]i wish a pc version will come out[/sub]

let me geuss... you did not read the back story and books and other stuff on the site

 

[Eipok Kruden]

Actually, a ten shouldn't mean literally perfect - without flaw. It should just mean that it's masterfully done.

That's why we use stars, honestly. People interpret someone giving a game a 10 as saying it is utterly and completely without flaw. Us giving a game five stars, on the other hand? Sure, it's technically the same thing, but if you see a game get 5/5 stars, you don't think "oh, it must be perfect 100%," you just think "damn, that must be a superb game."

Besides, even if the characters ARE fairly stock, they're likable enough, and the story is well told for all its cliches. I'm not going to spoil Tuesday's review, but it was the first time a Halo game felt genuinely emotional

That's something I never understood. Why people take a 5/5 to mean something different than a 10/10. How is a 5/5 "Masterfully well done; A must play" while a 10/10 is "Absolutely perfect in every imaginable way. Nothing wrong can possibly be said about it. Best thing ever. Made by the hands of God himself. Should be worshiped by every man, woman, and child on the planet. Bow down before its glory."? Do you know what drives people to see 5/5 as different than 10/10? I mean, sites even say in their 'review score breakdown' or whatever they call it that 10/10 doesn't actually mean "perfect".

 

[Nukey]

This is why I don't listen to IGN.

 

[Danpascooch]

SNIP

While it's been "in" to hate on Halo recently, the games are actually of very high quality, and the story is at worst adequate.

There's a reason it's so popular.

 

[Evil_Weevil]

So... what have we learnt?

1. That in future I should not start threads with provocative titles if I want to have a serious discussion

2. The internet is never the best place to have these serious discussions

3. I was almost certainly an idiot for disregarding points 1+2

 

[CJ1145]

Dude. Completely agreeable statement, and very well thought out. Gotta say, it's crap like this that pushed me away from Halo in the first place. Also, the Godfather IS good, but can we stop using it as the "be all-end all" of movie perfection?

You're saying that other people liking it pushed you away from Halo? THAT is WTF worthy. This is just critics being critics. Don't get so up in arms people. You're making it sound like this is Halo's fault. It is not. It's IGN's stop misplacing the blame on Halo like everybody tries to on this forum.

 

[ALuckyChance]

The thing is, a perfect 10 is supposed to indicate, well, perfect.

Actually, if you look at IGN UK's review chart 10/10 is not "Perfect" it's "Masterful." Most review sources that use a numeric rating scale don't consider a 5/5, 10/10, etc. "perfect" as there would pretty much never be anything that received such a score.

I stand corrected then. I still believe my argument still works, however, as the story clearly isn't 'masterful.'

The Masterful designation is given for the entire game as a whole, not for the story. All games that are often named as "Masterful" (or even perfect or classic) have notable flaws that keep them from perfection but don't lower the impact of the experience as a whole. Of course, your personal results will vary as opinions always do.

Well, in my opinion...

A story is a very important part of the game. When the story happens to be mediocre, the quality of the game declines. It makes sense - at least for me - for a masterful game to be as close to perfect as possible in every category

I certainly see where you're coming from, but in that case I hope you also exclude titles like, just to name a few, the Zelda games, many of the Metroid games, all of the Mario games, etc. from the list of games you consider "Masterful."

Which is why I don't consider the games as a whole to be masterful. Some parts of the games are, surely, but not all of them.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

What's strange is how they can criticize it, but still give it a perfect score. If it's not a perfect game, it doesn't deserve a perfect score. Even my favorite game of all time, Resident Evil 4, has issues. I could say "well, it wasn't trying to be heavy on the story" but that's still an issue and therefore I cannot give it a perfect score. Even Professor Layton and the Curious Village has some awkward puzzle delivery. That's an issue. It's close to perfect, but it's not perfect. Don't give a 10/10 to a game that doesn't deserve it.

But then again, I'm an extremely harsh critic.