Jimquisition: Hate Out Of Ten

[Tim Chuma]

Kids today, in my day we had to to wait for the game reviews magazines to arrive by boat from England when they were already three months old and we were glad for it. To contact the magazine you had to send a letter in the mail and it MAY be printed six months later.

A more valuable exercise is to actually see some of the review scores from the then popular Mean Machines magazine published in the UK
http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/

The lowest review score I saw in the magazine was 9% and they even advertised it on the front of the magazine:
http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/review/300/road-fighter.php

"Appalling, ruinous, awful, dire, hideous, tragic, frightful and ghastly are just some of the words you could use to accurately describe this festering catastrophe of a shambling mockery of a sick parody of a game cartridge. I quite honestly haven't seen a game so fantastically bad for many, many years, and the only ones I recollect being as disgustingly rubbish as this were old computer budget games that cost £1.99 each. This pustulent title costs ten times more! What's wrong with it? Well, apart from the game being unbelievably simple - there were better and more complex race games than this on the VCS in 1979 - it's also very badly designed and incredibly frustrating. The fuel limit is extremely tight, and one mistake is all you need to bring up the game over message! This is irksome enough on the early levels, but later on it's so annoying it makes you want to smash the cartridge up with anger! Heaping several more generous helpings of irritation is a totally rubbish control method. There's no inertia on the car, the brakes are hopeless and unless you've got astonishingly amazing mega-reflexes, it's almost impossible to avoid crashing into a blue car if it's on your side of the road when it comes onto the screen. Even if you remove the gameplay, there are no redeeming features. As you can see from the screenshots, the graphics are a woeful joke, with infantile sprites, brain-dead backdrops and no animation on the cars. And if you think it looks bad, wait until your hear the sad, booming cacophony of naff effects and chronic, wheezing, inept tunes. Ugh! It's definitely Black Armband day for Nintendo owners everywhere."
- Julian Rignall (Jazza) still reviews games in the US.

This was the highest score I saw in the magazine (98%):
http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/review/279/super-mario-world.php


Here's some other ones to laugh at
http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/review/131/days-of-thunder.php

"What a dire excuse for entertainment! This really stinks and is about as playable as something that's not playable at all. The speedo reads 150 mph, but the car feels like it's being pushed by a couple of arthritic OAPs. With no gears to change, an incredibly simplistic course and no crowd, Days of Thunder has all the tense atmosphere of an episode of Eastenders. The only thing I liked about the game was the introductory sequence, but that's hardly enough to make it worth the asking price. I don't know what Mindscape were playing at when they decided to release this, but if you want to play something good then avoid this like the plague."

http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/review/169/shadowgate.php
" Aaaaaaaaaaggh! I hate this game. It's so-o-o-o frustrating I want to smash it up and then set all the pieces alight. "Playing" it involves struggling to solve puzzles that are made completely obscure by the hopelessly crap commands menu. Making progress even more annoying is the ultra-slow cursor, which moves like a slow-motion crippled slug in a sea of molasses. Another very irritating factor is that during the game there's never any warning of impending death - you're just dumped out of the game in seconds if you make one wrong move. And since it's very easy to make a simple mistake and die, you have to keep saving the game every ten seconds, which gets very tedious. Even the biggest adventure fans will find this a frustrating bore."

And people are complaining about 8/10 scores, man-up and grow a pair. Modern Warfare 3 just made the news for making more money in a week than Batman Returns, some of us grew up playing crap games and still want to know if they are crap.

 

[geizr]

Here's a qualitative rating system used by the site boardgamegeek.com which tries to describe the willingness of a person to play the game given a choice, combined with its "addictive" qualities:

10 - Outstanding. Always want to play and expect this will never change.
9 - Excellent game. Always want to play it.
8 - Very good game. I like to play. Probably I'll suggest it and will never turn down a game.
7 - Good game, usually willing to play.
6 - Ok game, some fun or challenge at least, will play sporadically if in the right mood.
5 - Average game, slightly boring, take it or leave it.
4 - Not so good, it doesn't get me but could be talked into it on occasion.
3 - Likely won't play this again although could be convinced. Bad.
2 - Extremely annoying game, won't play this ever again.
1 - Defies description of a game. You won't catch me dead playing this. Clearly broken.

Within the site's community, a rating of 8+ is a guaranteed purchase. 7+ indicates a game that would be a surefire rent for fans of a game's particular genre. High sixes would be entertained if the price point was lowered / game wasn't purchased by the player. Anything from 6.25 on down would be largely passed on if there were other better alternatives. Ratings of 4 or less are more accusations of shoddy publishing/development more than anything else.

And really, critic valuations do come down to how much bang you're getting for your buck.

While that is a very good system, it still suffers a fundamental problem that some people seem to forget about reviews in general. CONTEXT. Any given score depends both on the preferences of the person reviewing it and on the historical situation in which the review is made. A person who simply does not like a particular genre, style, aesthetic, motif, etc. within a game will tend to give a game a low score, while someone who is more infatuated with those same elements will tend to give a game a much higher score.

Many games that were seen as 10/10 or near 10/10 in times past would be hard pressed to garner more than a 7 or 8 out of 10. This is because our tastes and expectations change over time. Some things that we liked at one point, we may no longer like at some other point, and some things we didn't like at one point, we come to like at some other point. This is simply the variability of human personality as we live and grow(up).

There is a contingent that have forgotten or failed to understand that reviews, for the reasons above, are not universal and absolute. They fail to understand that one has to read a review carefully and put into proper context before making judgements on the score itself, and, even then, the only expectation that can be made is one of consistency. The singular review score, itself, is only at best a zeroth-order approximated summary of the entire review opinion, meaning that it loses all the nuances that greatly affect the judgement of whether the game will actually appeal to any particular person.

Even more so, this contingent have not matured, mentally and emotionally, sufficiently to understand that these reviews are not in any way detrimental to their own ability to enjoy the game. In other words, who cares that someone else doesn't like the same things? It is completely unreasonable and unrealistic to expect others to have the same preferences as oneself(I remarked in another post that the single biggest contributor to all the issues in the video game industry is unreasonable or unrealizable expectations).

This leads into a more general problem that I've come to notice in the more developed parts of the world.

Much of society, in the more developed parts of the world, have, in my opinion, become very entitled and self-important over the years(in the olden days, we would call this "being spoiled"). Thanks to the many modern conveniences and technological advancements that have been made, we have lost the need to struggle for survival and, as a result, have lost our perspective of reality. The concept of "chose your battles carefully" has a very deep meaning in this regard, because one does not want to waste precious energy and incur unnecessary risk of harm by engaging in a battle that is of little worth to one's actual survival or well-being. However, in today's modern society with its myriad conveniences and technologies, we are flush with energy(comparatively, on a per capita basis to just 100 years ago) and a sense of safety and security(again, compared to times far past) that we no longer feel it necessary to measure our battles and, instead, wage war against everything that displeases us for even the slightest whim of reason. We've become a civilization of spoiled brats.

As Jim has said, and as a number before him have said, in so many words, folks just need to grow the fuck up and get over themselves.

 

[Worgen]

I can only remember one review that really pissed me off and it wasn't the number that it got, it was one of the things the review mentioned, it said that the game had bad graphics, specifically it said this game had bad graphics

That is a shot from kings bounty: the armored princess, the only way you can say that is bad graphics is if your so shallow you need every little fucken thing to be bump mapped out the ass.

looks like warcraft 3
i kind of want to play it.
hmmmmmm

I loved the game but it doesn't play like an rts, it plays more like the heroes of might and magic series (although I guess the might and magic series plays more like it since I think the original kings bounty came out first... I know what can settle this, to the wikipedia!!.................... yeah, it sounds like kings bounty was first) I guess the best way to show it is to just post a vid you can find the games on steam or gog.com for cheap, I would suggest getting kingsbounty the legend and then crossworlds (I think cross worlds includes armored princess which is the 2nd game).

damn you
onto my wishlist thise goes ^^
my wallets gonna die this xmas sale

Thought you might like a heads up, kings bounty the legend is on sale on gog.com for 4 bucks this weekend.
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/king%E2%80%99s_bounty_the_legend

 

[goliath6711]

This is why, as a critic of comic books and manga, I refuse to assign a numbered score. Besides it being unnecessary and prone to undermining a complex opinion, scores can so easily become inflated beyond normal proportions. After all, scores are merely an arbitrary metric for quantifying an opinion a critic has for a particular work. Arbirary and subjective.

There's a critic out there by the name Angry Joe (at Blistered Thumbs, check him out) whose scoring system actually makes 5 out of ten an average game. And that was such a breath of fresh air. It means there can be greater stratas of good, and a Perfect 10/10 (something I don't think he's given yet) is a pretty big deal.

Critics that use scores, you need to put your foot down and start being more critical. And stop handing out 10s like they're coupons for an extra burger with an order of fries and a drink at Whataburger. Tens mean that the game is perfect, and goes well beyond the call of duty when it comes to being a fun, engaging, and enriching experience. If you're going to use a score, make sure it matters.

Angry Joe actually did give Red Dead Redemption a 10/10, but he gave what I consider the best explanation as to why. He said that it wasn't because the game didn't have any flaws, it was that the game as a whole was so great that when the flaws came up, he didn't care about them. And when you think about it, that's really what anyone's take on perfection really is.

 

[goliath6711]

I don't particularly make a habit of watching this guy's videos or trying to give him too much attention, but the headline for this one got to me...

Let me guess, he's bitching about people "reacting negatively" to his awesome reviews, when he is widely known as the ultimate review troll, systematically giving either the highest or the lowest score on the Metacritic scale to try and force "controversy" and get more hits for his page, the latest attempt for this for instance being Battlefield 3 e.g.:

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/battlefield-3/critic-reviews?dist=positive

Notice how the entire first page of the comments being mostly his "followers" do nothing else than post pictures of people eating pop-corn and waiting for the "inevitable shitstorm" (which in that case never came, it was more people eloquently discussing the game and telling him why he is wrong and to "sod off" instead)

Some other examples from the past:
"Negative":

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/assassins-creed-ii/critic-reviews?dist=negative
http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/kane-lynch-2-dog-days/critic-reviews?dist=negative
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/final-fantasy-xiii/critic-reviews?dist=negative
http://www.metacritic.com/game/wii/sonic-colors/critic-reviews?dist=negative

"Positive" e.g. giving games a 100 or similar:
http://www.metacritic.com/game/wii/kirbys-return-to-dreamland/critic-reviews?dist=positive
http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/deadly-premonition
http://www.metacritic.com/game/psp/undead-knights/critic-reviews?dist=positive

etc.

Jim Sterling taking a "high horse" on this issue given his obvious "troll/getting hits" reviews and past is as ridiculous as can be, he is probably the last person on the planet that should be allowed to seeing as the only thing he is seeking is attention and respectively more hits/money and doesn't possess a fibre of integrity...

It's only more saddening to see how many people are falling for this based on the Comments...

If you hear a profound statement that you truly believe in and want to use as a mantra to follow in your own life, does it really matter where that statement came from?

Does a statement about having the ability to do something and using that ability responsibly lose its meaning when it came from a comic book about a guy in red and blue tights?

Does judging a person's complete life by examining both the positive and negative aspects to reach an ultimate conclusion not mean anything when it was said on a cartoon about robots that change into animals?

So even if you believe that this is just a ploy to gain attention, does that mean that the point itself about reviews is suddenly invalid?

 

[The Lugz]

i think people really need to get over themselves and realize 10 is a perfectly valid score for a game, so is 5 and 1
AND get over the idea that 10 doesn't necessarily mean 'perfect' but could be
'the best that game could have been'
if you use the same 7-9 score for everything the scale is too small to be expressive.

if i had a rating system i'd go down to the microscopic scale and rate out of 1000
and start at 500 ( average )
so you'd have to actively have more things wrong with your game than right to go below 500.

then add or subtract score depending how the game pleased or annoyed me
for example having quick time events:

let's rate some games on my system for the lols..
( comments beyond this point are for hyperbolic purposes only,
and should be treated as such. )

so, cod,

basically gets 774/1000 ( oh look a 7.7 heh.. )
( crappy net code makes the multi-player a nightmare, rehash of every game before it, but it makes up for it by being well optimised, running smooth graphically and having very good shooting elements and ui ( it's core 'shootery' game-play is good. ))

skyrim basically gets 863/1000
( lost allot due to it's ui, and several bugs / crashes and a few instances of slow sloppy code, and dragon skeletons glitching out and following me around the place.. )
massive world, pretty well optimised and so much content it would take years to fully appreciate it ( and it's pretty, did i mention that? ) plus the modding community is already a buzz theory-crafting whole new game modes, such as dragon mounts, dragon sieges on towns ect.
i hope some of that comes to pass!

rage would be a 362/1000
basically a punt in the wrong direction for bad art, bad gun-play ( it's core mechanic ), terrible graphical optimisation, though it is hd.. when it works.

minecraft would have to be a 946/1000
why?
it's a block building game, and despite a few bugs..( which is why it didn't quite get 950+ ) you build blocks, it also represents extreme value for money entertainment ( it got allot of points for this.. ) wise as you can build almost limitlessly for a reasonable price, and there's multi-player and an enormous modding community to back it up unlimitedly
it's the simplest purest game-play of any category



Two worlds
would simply get 110 points out of 1000 for actually working, and you can play it.. i guess.
and mostly gets marked down for being a blatant and terrible horrid looking, horrid sounding, horrid to use clone of something that was actually quite good.
( perhaps a malformed, evil Satan twin ) of oblivion


you see how my rating system is at-least 20% more awesomer than anyone else's ?
thought so.

 

[ZenoX969]

Yeah... review scores, and reactions to review scores, have hit it's alltime low. I saw a review of Assassin's Creed Revelations on Gametrailers. It got an overall score of 8.8. Which I consider a very high score. And then I see someone in the comments who has the nerve to say "It should've gotten a 9 at least." It's 0.2 points more!! But just because it had an 8 in it, and not a minimum of 9, the review was wrong?

And it's funny how anything below 8 is now considered 'shit'. I've seen many movies that I enjoyed. But the overall score I would give for them would be around 5-7. Because they might be fun to watch now and then, but they're not quality movies. Like Michael Bay movies for example.

But I hope that, as gaming gets older, it will become more serious. Fairer review scores and no longer an outrage when someone gives a game less than a 9. The problem is the kids and fanboys of the games. They're not fit to rate their own favorite games. Because they're perfect 10's to them. And anything below 10 is an insult.

And last but not least... who cares?! If you like the game, enjoy it.

 

[qeinar]

What the reviewer has written about the game to me is more important than the score that is given. The 10/10 thing i sort of noticed in school years ago where when someone were asked to rate something they like they would give it a 10/10, where that has always for me ment that it was perfect. If i rated things i would rarely ever give a 10/10 which should be the proper way to rate something.

 

[Arfreid]

Is it wrong to rewatch this video only to see Jim rage at the end? It's strangely pleasant.

Oh, and Jim made a fine point. Reviews with score needs to be put in a more objective perspective.

Shouldn't the average be like... 5 or something that?

A 5 out of 10 average? Hmmm... no, at least from my perspective that would be a game that is bad, but not that bad. Playable even, but it goes right back to the store/rental the minute you are done with it.

A 6 out of 10 would be average for me, a game that wasn't so good but it can pass as something memmorable, something you would play again.

 

[Akimoto]

The free-market style of the reviewing games has imploded on itself. It took a Jiminator to point that out to everyone

 

[Evil Smurf]

hmmm I agree with Jim, game reviews often get negative press if they do not say the game is perfect.
Did'n't a Kane and lynch review get the reviewer fired? Also when I looked at reviews for the new Zelda game, they were basically all 10/10 but it is not a perfect game so why was it given such a high review? I have played more enjoyable games, but I admit it is beautiful.

Gahh, I find myself thanking God for Jim

 

[TheUnbeholden]

yea i agree when i see a 7/10 or 8/10 score i think that's a great score maybe i'll try that game. a 10 means perfect, and i get that a game might seem perfect to someone.but still perfection is something humans have been striving for for generations. and suddenly reviewers are popping out 10's like rabbits.

I've never thought of a 10 as perfect, but as a Master Piece. Which is to say that what ever faults it has, are quite minor and don't get in the way of the experience. Perfect implies that there are no faults, and thats simply not true. Every game has faults.

also a 10 doesn't mean 100%, most people round up. So a 9.5 or more would get a 10 in almost every review system.

That said, I still think only a select few games could ever get a 10. You should judge a review site based of the games its given a 10 (make sure to read the review because the score doesn't mean much unless someone can back it up with words)

 

[matt87_50]

lol, that one was extra hilarious because you could see the genuine frustration seeping through

 

[Arppis]

How about having tags: "Buy", "Buy later" or "Don't buy"?

Or just have 3 stars? Would be lot more simpler and gamers wouldn't whine when some game got 1% less of score than other.

 

[Strazdas]

if i troughoutly enjoyed a game ill give it a 10. 10 doesnt mean its perfect, it means i really liked it. and yes sometimes there are games that i would want to rate 11, but there are games that i rate 2/10 as well. 1/10 is very rare for me. however 8 is a great score, people shouldnt complain about it. then again i saw people claim that "7 is too low, must be shit".

 

[r_phix]

This Jimquisition ending deserves a 8/10 !

 

[Danny O'Donnell]

rather than criticise how low or high an '8 out of 10' is, we should be more comprehensive so we have 8.1 or 8.6 rather than just 8.0 and 8.5, it's pendantic as hell but it will feel a lot more natural to those who are satisfied with an 8 or 8.5 yknow

 

[6SteW6]

Jim, you just earned my slowest of claps for this one. Very well said my man!

Honestly though numerical reviews should be done away with, it's opinion. Give me what you liked about my game, give me what you didn't like, I'll read it, play the game and see if I agree. A simple list of pros and cons that's all we need.

Numbers shouldn't be a factor in deciding what game to play, if you are such an uninformed consumer that you need them and only spring for 9's or 10's then get a cheaper hobby.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Excuse me, I have to go find a wall and beat my head against it till I can no longer feel anything. The shear amount of stupidity being reported on here is soul crushing. Fuck! When I was in school and I got an 8/10 on a test I was ecstatic.