Reviewers jumping on the hype train

[NPC009]

I'm not going to go to every site and look at their scoring system. My point is that most sites actually score games based on 5 being average like IGN and GameSpot (the 2 biggest review sites). However, how they actually score games is where 7/10 is average. No other medium scores its art where 7/10 is average because that's a bad system. Then, you're only left with 7-10 being used for above average which causes everything to get bunched together.

Yes, score inflation is an issue. Good thing there are alternatives to the sites that suffer from it. Go there. Seriously. Go to the sites with the reviewers that do a good job and support them.

I didn't get the "averages" mixed up. Every game scoring above average is a problem. You pretty much look at review scores to see how awesome a game is instead if it's bad or good. Shooter B is getting an 83 so it's a bit less awesome than Shooter A that just came out and got an 88.

You're reading too much into those scores. Unless both games were reviewed by the same reviewer there's a good chance that 5 point difference means nothing. You know how those scores come to be? "Hmm, this is something in the 80-90 region. 86 feels good. Let's go with 86."

If you don't like this kind of silly scoring, go to sites that don't do it.

You're saying almost every AAA game is above average? Do you seriously believe that? The mathematical chances of that happening alone are basically impossible. The only AAA game I can recall scoring below average is Aliens: Colonial Marines and it was scored just slightly below average.

1. Again with the maths? This is not maths.
2. Your understanding of maths is not very good, is it?

Since triple A titles make up only a very small part of the industry it's actually not all that unlikely most of these games are above average even in a mathematical sense.

But again, this is not about maths! When is comes to reviews 'average' means something like 'unimpressive', noit 50% of the games out there are worse than this and 50% of them are better.

Money doesn't make games that much easier to make enjoyable. STALKER didn't have a AAA budget and has the best AI still in a shooter. I bought Resonance of Fate on release, which came out the same day as FFXIII, and it has a better battle system and much lower budget. It doesn't take that much money to make an enjoyable game. A lot of AAA money goes to marketing and voice acting.

No, it doesn't take much money to make something good, but it certainly helps.

Look, if you're the type of person who is more into smaller games with a bit of quirk, I get that. I'm like that, too. But that doesn't mean that the games you don't like are necessarily bad or that you should dislike them for getting more attention than your favourites. That behaviour is very childish.

Games that focus on storytelling, character development, etc. still get basically the same scores like many RPGs (FFXIII, Mass Effect [all positive reviews], etc.) and games like The TellTale games and Heavy Rain. Heavy Rain has more critics liking it (93%) compared to Guardians of the Galaxy (90%).

Yes, but there aren't many reviewers or gamers that care beyond 'OMG, it has a story!" and "It made me feel things and therefore it is amazing." Things like writing styles and narrative structures don't recieve much attention in game reviews. Most game critics are not equiped to review a game like that, and most gamers don't care they aren't.

I'm just focusing on AAA games for a reason to a show a point on how they're all basically rated the same. I realize there's a VERY FEW games out there that do get a variance of review scores, but those are very few and far between. I don't think I've seen a movie not have at least one reviewer not like it.

Then stop focusing on triple A. Volume wise it's just a small part of the industry, not exactly representative of gaming as a whole. These games aim for a broad appeal and are made by skilled people. It's not wonder most of them are well-liked.

I played Uncharted 2 and loved it. However, just based on controls and MP, there's no way I'd even score it an 89, which is the lowest review. I'm asking for criticism to happen, not low scores just for the sake of low scores. You might say that MP isn't Uncharted's selling point and I'd agree but MP is there and even if you weight the MP quality for only 10% of the game, the MP just being average already puts the score at a 95. I'm being as generous as possible by letting MP only be 10% of the game and saying its average (when it was bad) and even then a 96 overall would be impossible.

From a reviewers perspective you're going at it wrong. We (atleast, the majority of us) rate the game as an experience. Uncharted 2 singleplayer is the most important part of the game and if it's extremely enjoyable the game is very likely to recieve high marks. We don't deduct points for things that could have been better but don't bring the overall experience down. A lackluster MP attached to an amazing singeplayer experience will (or atleast, should!) by most be viewed as a dumb extra players can safely ignore.

Good example would be Spec Ops: The Line. The developer focused on the SP experience, because they had this story they wanted to tell. Publisher pushed for a multiplayer mode anyway, despite that not being what the game was about. Developer included an at best servicable MP to appease the publisher and that was it. Many reviewers picked up on that and focused on the campaign instead. Some didn't even mention MP.

So find a reviewer that is annoyed by everything you're annoyed by and you should be set.

I just said that's impossible in the video game medium due to lack of actual criticism. And thanks for ignoring all my valid points like you spend most of your time doing X in a game, X is executed below average, yet game still scores a 90+ (makes no sense).

Here's a radical idea: if you can't find anyone to agree with you, maybe you're the problem, not them

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Look at the Metacritic entry for 'Dragon Age: Inquistion'; it's blindingly obvious that it's being red-bombed and it's almost impossible to tell which ones are legitimate and which are troll votes.

Is it? I'd say that - from reading thte reviews and my own experience of the game - that it's actually a case of pro-reviewers ignoring a lot of flaws which user reviews highlight.

The difference between what the pros say and what the users say is quite astounding. Don't think the critics are bias? Well remember this little beauty.......

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/reviews/8701-Dragon-Age-II-Review

Sorry, but "A pinnacle of role-playing games" for DA:2? Don't tell me that these critics are being genuine.

They're either being paid, or aren't critical enough.

That's one review. Let's look at an average of reviews for DA:II
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dragon-age-ii

82%, that means that, on average, professionals think DA:II was about four fifths good and one fifth bad. Which is pretty accurate. DA:II WAS a great game for the vast majority of it, with just a few major cock-ups.

Now lets look at the user average for it: 44%
That's total bullshit. There is absolutely no way that DA:II was more bad than good, anyone who says it was it either not a fan of that type of RPG or looked at the flaws first and refused to acknowledge the positives.
And that's an average which means there's a whole load of users putting up 0s and 1s just to bomb the rating.[/]

I'm sorry but I don't buy it.

Firstly I genuinely hated playing through DA:2, and found it more bad than good. I personally rated it 4/10.

But that's opinion, we all have a different one and it's all subjective.

What gets me with some of the pro reviews, and leads me to believe they're either being paid off or aren't critics enough, are the positive comments regards aspects of the game which have been largely panned elsewhere. - e.g. The graphics, the area, etc.

What it all boils down to is that those reviewing the game, and certainly the collective pro reviews, are too far detched from user opinion to be given much credability.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Look at the Metacritic entry for 'Dragon Age: Inquistion'; it's blindingly obvious that it's being red-bombed and it's almost impossible to tell which ones are legitimate and which are troll votes.

Is it? I'd say that - from reading thte reviews and my own experience of the game - that it's actually a case of pro-reviewers ignoring a lot of flaws which user reviews highlight.

The difference between what the pros say and what the users say is quite astounding. Don't think the critics are bias? Well remember this little beauty.......

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/reviews/8701-Dragon-Age-II-Review

Sorry, but "A pinnacle of role-playing games" for DA:2? Don't tell me that these critics are being genuine.

They're either being paid, or aren't critical enough.

Yeah, but I still think my point is valid; all it takes is a few dishonest votes to skew the numbers. Anything on Metacritic should be taken with a touch of salt.

Yeah that's fair enough. I think overall fanboys and bombboys balance each other out, but I do find user scores reflect my feelings on a game more than pro scores on the whole.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Yes, score inflation is an issue. Good thing there are alternatives to the sites that suffer from it. Go there. Seriously. Go to the sites with the reviewers that do a good job and support them.

I'm talking about game criticism as a whole, not a site-by-site analysis. It hurts the medium to have such a lack of actual criticism.

You're reading too much into those scores. Unless both games were reviewed by the same reviewer there's a good chance that 5 point difference means nothing. You know how those scores come to be? "Hmm, this is something in the 80-90 region. 86 feels good. Let's go with 86."

If you don't like this kind of silly scoring, go to sites that don't do it.

I was talking about the overall score of a game, not a single review. Again, reviewing as a whole, not just single reviews.

1. Again with the maths? This is not maths.
2. Your understanding of maths is not very good, is it?

Since triple A titles make up only a very small part of the industry it's actually not all that unlikely most of these games are above average even in a mathematical sense.

But again, this is not about maths! When is comes to reviews 'average' means something like 'unimpressive', noit 50% of the games out there are worse than this and 50% of them are better.

Again, my math is good (actually really great). I'm not asking for half the games to be below average and half to be above average. All AAA games being above average is a mathematical impossibility (not due to wanting a 50/50 spread) just due the probability of every AAA game being above average in quality.

No, it doesn't take much money to make something good, but it certainly helps.

Look, if you're the type of person who is more into smaller games with a bit of quirk, I get that. I'm like that, too. But that doesn't mean that the games you don't like are necessarily bad or that you should dislike them for getting more attention than your favourites. That behaviour is very childish.

I'm not asking for the games I don't like to be rated poorly. I'm asking for criticism of all games. The games I love should have reviewers not like them because everyone has different tastes. I don't really care if a game is AAA or indie or whatever, I'm asking for differing opinions on all games across the board. It's not about me wanting to see the games I like having a higher score than the games I don't like.

Yes, but there aren't many reviewers or gamers that care beyond 'OMG, it has a story!" and "It made me feel things and therefore it is amazing." Things like writing styles and narrative structures don't recieve much attention in game reviews. Most game critics are not equiped to review a game like that, and most gamers don't care they aren't.

Game critics may not be able to analyze story and characters like a film critic but they do know quality (at least in their opinion) from shit. You're acting like game critics haven't experienced good writing in other mediums like movies, TV, books, etc. Everyone has a handle on what they feel is good writing, good story, interesting characters, etc. Games are no different and should be criticized if the writing isn't good especially in a game where much of the enjoyment of the game is due to story and characters like a Heavy Rain or an RPG. One of the biggest problems in the industry is the low quality of the writing due to not many good writers being in the medium and just due to how games are developed (gameplay/levels first, writing second). This aspect should be heavily criticized and its not.

Then stop focusing on triple A. Volume wise it's just a small part of the industry, not exactly representative of gaming as a whole. These games aim for a broad appeal and are made by skilled people. It's not wonder most of them are well-liked.

It demonstrates everything wrong with game reviews. You just said it's no wonder MOST of them are well-liked. But ALL of them are rated as good by reviewers.

From a reviewers perspective you're going at it wrong. We (atleast, the majority of us) rate the game as an experience. Uncharted 2 singleplayer is the most important part of the game and if it's extremely enjoyable the game is very likely to recieve high marks. We don't deduct points for things that could have been better but don't bring the overall experience down. A lackluster MP attached to an amazing singeplayer experience will (or atleast, should!) by most be viewed as a dumb extra players can safely ignore.

Good example would be Spec Ops: The Line. The developer focused on the SP experience, because they had this story they wanted to tell. Publisher pushed for a multiplayer mode anyway, despite that not being what the game was about. Developer included an at best servicable MP to appease the publisher and that was it. Many reviewers picked up on that and focused on the campaign instead. Some didn't even mention MP.

I was being as generous as possible with Uncharted 2 only weighing the MP as 10% of the game's score. Naughty Dog put effort into Uncharted 2's MP (and Uncharted 3), it's not just there to be marked as a checkbox of a required feature. Naughty Dog kept up with trying to balance the MP longer than even a COD or BF is supported nowadays. Uncharted and Spec Ops aren't the same in that regard. Uncharted's MP is something that many Uncharted players do look forward to so I think it's more than fair to have 10% of the game's score to be the MP, I'd say 25% going towards MP would be fair for Uncharted.

And another good example is Spec Ops because there is not one negative review for that game, which is about story (so more variance should be expected in its reviews already). I tried playing the demo of that and the shooting was well-below average so I didn't even finish the demo. Spec Ops is a GAME and it is a SHOOTER, it should have good shooting to be a good game. I realize a lot of enjoyment people had with Spec Ops was the story, but I can get good story from other mediums and not have to put up with bad gameplay to get it. Why suffer through bad gameplay to get to the good stuff? Why isn't the game criticized a lot more for that?

 

[chikusho]

There are quite alot of games out there that has been bad in my opinion, but for some reason got good or even great rating from reviewers with different tastes.

There, I fixed it for you. There's no mystery here.

 

[NPC009]

I'm talking about game criticism as a whole, not a site-by-site analysis. It hurts the medium to have such a lack of actual criticism.

I was talking about the overall score of a game, not a single review. Again, reviewing as a whole, not just single reviews.

You are talking about things that do not matter. This is not a matter of numbers, it's a matter of people having opinions and that silly trend of expressing those opinions in numbers.

Again, my math is good (actually really great). I'm not asking for half the games to be below average and half to be above average. All AAA games being above average is a mathematical impossibility (not due to wanting a 50/50 spread) just due the probability of every AAA game being above average in quality.

This has nothing to do with maths! AAA is simply a name for high budget games with high expectations attached. Most of these games manage to live up to a good part of those expectations. Imagine that, good games being called good because they're good. The odd ones out are games such as Colonial Marines, which looked very promising but failed to deliver. There's a few of those every year, though most don't succeed in failing as well as CM did.

I'm not asking for the games I don't like to be rated poorly. I'm asking for criticism of all games. The games I love should have reviewers not like them because everyone has different tastes. I don't really care if a game is AAA or indie or whatever, I'm asking for differing opinions on all games across the board. It's not about me wanting to see the games I like having a higher score than the games I don't like.

And sometimes there's a consensus. That happens. Reviewers going out of their way to dislike something is not something we should aim for.

Game critics may not be able to analyze story and characters like a film critic but they do know quality (at least in their opinion) from shit. You're acting like game critics haven't experienced good writing in other mediums like movies, TV, books, etc. Everyone has a handle on what they feel is good writing, good story, interesting characters, etc. Games are no different and should be criticized if the writing isn't good especially in a game where much of the enjoyment of the game is due to story and characters like a Heavy Rain or an RPG. One of the biggest problems in the industry is the low quality of the writing due to not many good writers being in the medium and just due to how games are developed (gameplay/levels first, writing second). This aspect should be heavily criticized and its not.

Look, I also want better criticism of aspects such as storytelling, but you also have to consider what the readers seem to want. Most seem to want an entertaining game and don't worry to much about writing. Most reviewers write for most gamers. That's something to keep in mind.

But let's move on to something different for a bit: why should everything be heavily critised? A game is not the sum of its faults or virtues. It is the game as a whole; the overall experience it offers, that matters. But it is as if you want games to be torn apart. I don't think that is helpful at all. A highly critical review has about as much value as one that is not nearly critical enough.

It demonstrates everything wrong with game reviews. You just said it's no wonder MOST of them are well-liked. But ALL of them are rated as good by reviewers.

I don't get where you get 'all' from. There are always a few that were just too disappointing.

I was being as generous as possible with Uncharted 2 only weighing the MP as 10% of the game's score. Naughty Dog put effort into Uncharted 2's MP (and Uncharted 3), it's not just there to be marked as a checkbox of a required feature. Naughty Dog kept up with trying to balance the MP longer than even a COD or BF is supported nowadays. Uncharted and Spec Ops aren't the same in that regard. Uncharted's MP is something that many Uncharted players do look forward to so I think it's more than fair to have 10% of the game's score to be the MP, I'd say 25% going towards MP would be fair for Uncharted.

You're bringing maths into game scores again. That's a really silly way to look at it and if you keep that up, you'll find yourself never agreeing with them. You're the one using the scores wrong.

Some reviewers consider multiplayer important, others do not. That is reflected in the scores. If you want diversity, you should say they should all dedicate part of the score to the MP part of the game.

And another good example is Spec Ops because there is not one negative review for that game, which is about story (so more variance should be expected in its reviews already). I tried playing the demo of that and the shooting was well-below average so I didn't even finish the demo. Spec Ops is a GAME and it is a SHOOTER, it should have good shooting to be a good game. I realize a lot of enjoyment people had with Spec Ops was the story, but I can get good story from other mediums and not have to put up with bad gameplay to get it. Why suffer through bad gameplay to get to the good stuff? Why isn't the game criticized a lot more for that?

There are plenty of mixed reviews, but you want to see the game be torn apart, don't you? If you can't fine anyone who agrees with you on that, I'd say that is your problem, not that of the industry.

Also, have you ever considered that story and gameplay do not have to be seperate? It is possible to tell a story through gameplay. Gameplay can be used to illustrate developments (think of Ico guiding Yorda through the castle, or the way the robed figure is able to move about in Journey, especially in the last leg of the journey) or can be intentionally made to clash with the story in order to emphasize certain themes or messages (Spec Ops: The Line manages to do this to a degree).

 

[Pseudonym]

I encourage people to look at the metacritic user reviews for a game called out of the park baseball 2007 for the pc.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/out-of-the-park-baseball-2007/critic-reviews

To sum up the story: out of the park baseball 2007 is a video game, a few video game critics reviewed it and were very impressed. So much so that they rated it an average of 96/100. (so mostly 5-star or 10/10 reviews) This average is based on five reviews. Because of this the game appears at a very high spot in metacritics list of best rated games of all time and it is tied to halflife 1&2, the orange box and bioshock as one of the five best PC games of all time. Now I haven't played this game so I'll suspend judgement but I understand it might raise some eyebrows. The reaction in the user reviews was included the following.

Worthy of 6/10, but rating as 0 to counter the BS going on here. Your review must be at least 150 characters long. Your review must be at least 150 characters long.

A sports game like this getting tied for the greatest video games of all time??? with Bioshock and Half Life? Are you serious? What on earth happened here?

It's hard to understand how it is possible for a sports simulator of a game only enjoyed by less than 3% of the world population to be considered one of the best videogames of all times. That is why most people find it insulting seeing it all the way up there. Most of the people on this planet simply don't care about baseball in any shape or form, simple as that. A game with only 5 reviews shouldn't even be shown in the list unless you specifically search for it. The solution would be to simply include the amount of reviews into rating calculation like it's done on imdb.

A good game ? Maybe. A game that deserves to be the 2nd best game ever made ? Certainly not. Just because of 5 critic reviews, this game is overrated."

One point awarded for probably being a good sport SIM. Nine deducted for being worthless for the rest of us that want to play a game and have fun.

I simply cannot understand why this should be even close to the top 100 in an all time list of PC games.

I would also like to point to a user review I randomly found by looking at the user reviews for Metroid Prime.

No I cannot say good-bye Halo you stupid moron, where is the multiplayer Biznotch. Wheres the game of the year award. The game is incredible but nothing compared to the classics like Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, or Halo. But really the only problem with this game is that the controls are wierd, but since the Gamecube controller is not designed for FPS I congratulate nintedo on the effort. Great Game, the zero is just to get the attention of the itiot who said it was better than Halo.

Now the point I want to make here is: amongst user reviews there are reviews and scores given not even based on the merits of the game but based on the fact that it is a game in a certain genre or that giving a low score gets attention or brings down the average score. These people don't even feel like they should hide their bad intentions. Their reviews are utterly useless to anyone trying to find out whether this game is for them. They add nothing to the commentary on video games. So they have no value as art criticism neither as consumer guides. These just seem like fanboys of halflife and halo and people who don't like sports games hating on something they in some cases haven't even played and in some cases they have played it and they don't even think it is as bad as the score they are giving it indicates. So though some user reviews are useful, some others are horribly bad and written with bad intentions. Because of that I refuse to take the average score of them seriously at all. That aside, the average score of a game being high tells me other people liked it. I could still hate it. This is why I read and listen to reviews and don't just read the scores. I might even look up some gameplay footage. That way I can make an educated guess about whether the game is for me. Or if I just want interesting commentary about a game I already know I don't even bother with the score. If you really care about the average score on metacritic, I'd like to ask you why? And to be frank: though professional reviews have some problems as well they are still well above metacritic user reviews in my book.

 

[vledleR]

As we enter further into the age of the online connectivity, it gets harder for the gaming press to make accurate game reviews. It's one thing to create a controlled online environment for a few dozen journos, it's another thing altogether when you have millions of people trying, and often failing, to access key portions of an online game.

One of the few reasons I'm trying not to buy day 1 anymore, all too often reviewers are just way off mark, and unfortunately, sometimes it's of no fault of their own.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

You are talking about things that do not matter. This is not a matter of numbers, it's a matter of people having opinions and that silly trend of expressing those opinions in numbers.

Reviewers aren't expressing their true opinions (most of the time). It's not about the numbers in the end, it's about true opinions. Numbers just symbolize those opinions, I have no issue with criticism in other mediums.

This has nothing to do with maths! AAA is simply a name for high budget games with high expectations attached. Most of these games manage to live up to a good part of those expectations. Imagine that, good games being called good because they're good. The odd ones out are games such as Colonial Marines, which looked very promising but failed to deliver. There's a few of those every year, though most don't succeed in failing as well as CM did.

There are not a few AAA games that fail every year with regards to review scores. The only one I can even recall in like 10 years is Aliens:CM, and again, that was rated as JUST below average. The probability of everything being good from wherever is basically a mathematical impossibility. It's impossible for all AAA games to be good or all indie games to be good or all games published by EA to be good. It's impossible for all horror movies or superhero movies to be good as well, it just doesn't happen. It's not really a math thing, it's more of a history and human thing saying that has never happened before because humans make mistakes all the time.

And sometimes there's a consensus. That happens. Reviewers going out of their way to dislike something is not something we should aim for.

Exactly, SOMETIMES there's a consensus, not an overwhelming majority of the time.

Look, I also want better criticism of aspects such as storytelling, but you also have to consider what the readers seem to want. Most seem to want an entertaining game and don't worry to much about writing. Most reviewers write for most gamers. That's something to keep in mind.

But let's move on to something different for a bit: why should everything be heavily critised? A game is not the sum of its faults or virtues. It is the game as a whole; the overall experience it offers, that matters. But it is as if you want games to be torn apart. I don't think that is helpful at all. A highly critical review has about as much value as one that is not nearly critical enough.

The readers want true opinions from a reviewer. Movie reviewers do just fine not pandering to the lowest common denominator; Transformers gets tossed under the bus for being shit regardless of whether most of the general public likes those movies. The score of a game has become too important to the game's industry (even to gamers themselves). It's commonplace for a developer getting a bonus for a game reaching a certain score on Metacritic whereas a movie studio couldn't give a shit about how well a movie scored on RottenTomatoes.

You're bringing maths into game scores again. That's a really silly way to look at it and if you keep that up, you'll find yourself never agreeing with them. You're the one using the scores wrong.

Some reviewers consider multiplayer important, others do not. That is reflected in the scores. If you want diversity, you should say they should all dedicate part of the score to the MP part of the game.

You're again putting too much importance into my math, I'm using math more as an example than anything. I'm not saying Uncharted SHOULD be scored where MP weighs 25% (it's just that I would weigh it that way); I'm saying that MP is part of the game and should be part of the review score regardless if the reviewer feels it should be 1% or 99% of the score. It's part of the game and needs to be part of the score; how big a part is up to the each and every reviewer. That's just another reason why you should see more variance in scores because every reviewer is going to weigh MP differently. Yet the lowest score for Uncharted 2 is an 89. If your favorite TV show has a shitty episode, that episode is part of the show and it should factor into your final score you'd give that TV show.

There are plenty of mixed reviews, but you want to see the game be torn apart, don't you? If you can't fine anyone who agrees with you on that, I'd say that is your problem, not that of the industry.

Also, have you ever considered that story and gameplay do not have to be seperate? It is possible to tell a story through gameplay. Gameplay can be used to illustrate developments (think of Ico guiding Yorda through the castle, or the way the robed figure is able to move about in Journey, especially in the last leg of the journey) or can be intentionally made to clash with the story in order to emphasize certain themes or messages (Spec Ops: The Line manages to do this to a degree).

Asking for a below average review does not equal tearing apart the game, it just means below average. Below average is not the end of the world.

You're saying that Specs Ops shooting was purposefully bad in the shooting department for story purposes? That may be your opinion and opinions of others as well but not everyone. Thus, there should be some reviewers who felt the shooting was just bad because it was bad so there should be negative reviewers for the game as well. My opinion is that there's no reason for bad gameplay (Journey nor ICO have bad gameplay). Of course, you don't want to glamorize shooting and make it all flashy due to the themes of Spec Ops, but you can do that without making the shooting bad. It's not like Naughty Dog made the shooting worse when playing as Ellie in The Last of Us and the game succeeds in Ellie's character development exactly where the latest Tomb Raider failed with Lara Croft's character development.

 

[Evilsausage]

Answer to BloatedGuppy


1. Ohh so the reason can only be because of those damn people down voting things without a valid reason.
So was Diablo 3 a great game? To some maybe, but there was a large playerbase that didn't like it. Not just for its issues at launch.
Btw not all games get down voted on Meta, take Path of Exile for example which also is a ARPG. It actually got lower rating by the professional reviews then D3 and RoS. Yet it has higher user score then D3 and RoS.
If you combine the sugercoated professional reviews with the tad too angry user reviews i think you get a pretty fair score. About 6.5 for D3 and 7.5 for RoS.

2. No the sales drop wasn't that big. In Ratio to D3-RoS drop it was much smaller.
Blizzard has a very loyal fanbase and is a big name in the industry so ofc it will sell. But Diablo 3 sold 6.5 million copies the first week while Ros sold 2,7 million. Thats about 65% less.

3. Hehe true sometimes i go Swenglish.Two p in flop there
I never said the 3.9 user review was fair, just that it showed a different side that wasn't so fantastic about the game. Btw do you think 8.9 is a fair avrage rating?
Im sure D3 pleased some, I heard it was quite nice on consoles and the simplifed system probably suited new players to the genre.
But you have to remember that it was one of the most anticipated game of all time. Something it could not nearly live up to.
Seen many threads on the internet mentioning what a dissapointment it was. Even Forbes listed it as one of the most dissapointing games of 2012.
Main developer quit after making a fool out of himself, many famous streamers leave and stuff like Auction house gets removed after many complaints. So yeah I think its quite accurate to compare it with the Phantom Menace. It might have sold well but it did dissapoint many Diablo fans.

4. The options where limited yes but they where there. In BC I played a shockadin with spell dmg gear and not a standard holy build. Still i got past 2200 in rating in the arena
There where options and people could have been given even more of them.
Atm atleast the mage talent tree (if you can call it that) is filled with lousy skills and few you must pick. There is also less skills, less stat variations on items etc.

I have done a couple Heroics and no it isn't really hard. Nothing like BCs heroics before they nerfed it.
So far i have progressed through normal instances and Heroic without a single CC needed. The only wipe was when a tank went full retard. Yeah im sure there is challange at Mythic but its will just be same area now a third time with more people. Its already kinda boring doing things doing over and over.

5. I never said I had solid facts behind it to begin with. I just said it lacked good content and wouldn't be surprised if the rumor was true.

6. Funny how you defend the professional reviewers as long they praise the game even though most of them haven't gotten near end game content. But im not allowed to criticize what I have seen so far.

7. Mages are trash, probably the worst they have ever been in WoWs history. Really bad survivabilty and horrible damage. Let me guess im not allowed to say that, since I don't have the full arena set? Look up the mage forum and see how satisfied they are.

8. I have nothing against hard Pvp content. But if the pvp in itself isn't that fun due to less skills, insane health pools and a bad class i see no reason to do it. I might later with some better gear. But right now its too little about skill and too much about what class you have.


9. I listed one thing as sucky. The Garrison which is the only new big feature. Lack of freedom to decorate it, horrible companion system which can be compared to farmville. The garrison pretty much ruined the professions and the game has gotten even less social.

I listed several things that was new and fresh back when Burning crusade came. It did introduce alot of good things. In WoD there sure isn't much we haven't seen similarly done many times before. Thats why WoD is lazy
But your free to list any major new features i might have missed. Good luck with that btw

10. Truth is I did not run all end game raids in vanilla and BC. Or grind exalted rep with all factions. Most people don't do it, many don't even raid at all.
But at that time there where atleast alot that felt new. Is it really to greedy to ask for something more new and refreshing end game on the fifth expansion?
I also doubt mythic and highmaul would blow my socks off.

11. Once again never said user reviews are better. But most games with a low user score usually is flawed in some way. Something the majority of professional reviews rarely bring up.
Its not like many professional reviewers is bias either. Many work with hyping big titles before its release and then gettig to travel and meet the developers. Ofc its gonna be very hard for them to give it a low score.

12.
Most people who read reviews of a game they haven't played yet, so it is really hard to tell if its a fair review or not.
In D3s case very few professional reviewers brought up its major flaws.
Going through professional reviews doesn't give a honest rating just like user reviews also have its flaws.

13. I don't think anyone base their buy on one user review. People know user reviews are ofted crude, even if the rating often is exadgerated its combined rating tells us if a game isn't as perfect as the professional reviews wants us to belive.

 

[Spearmaster]

I'm going to say that reviewers should, as a courtesy to their viewers/readers, disclose the rough percentage of game content they completed for review or at least their time played. That would be a way for consumers to be more informed about how much of the game the review actually applies. That way when a reviewer gives a game a sterling 9.5/10 with only 15% of the game played we would probably be able to discern for our selves whether its "hype" or not.

To be honest I think every AAA title is hyped just for virtue of being a AAA title, its not all the reviewers fault either, fans of studios and franchises have to bear some of the blame here, as well as the studios themselves.

As a side note I have found in the last few years that many games have become more front loaded when it comes to quality, almost like the developers know reviewers are are only going to play the first 10 or so hours before writing their review. Maybe its just me...

 

[Sarge034]

Avarage means different things in different context. A mathematical 'avarage' is different from the 'average' as used in colloquial language (where it can mean anything from 'mediocre' to 'unremarkable'). Please don't make a fool out of yourself by confusing the two.

And while even the colloquial avarage certainly shifts there are no means (or reasons!) to measure that shift, because these numbers have no actual value. The only thing they to is summarize the feelings of the reviewer.

I was reading through enjoying the civil, intelligent conversation between you and runic knight and then I saw this. Do the two definitions really differ so much? In math an average is literally the dead center of all values, and in colloquial language average is used to describe a thing that is neither good nor bad, one might say it was in the middle. They both serve to convey the thing, whatever it is, is in the middle. /semantics But I will hop on the train saying "7" seems to actually mean "5".

But I do have a question for you. How would you feel about doing away with numbers all together? I personally want to hear a review that is both objective AND subjective. I want the reviewer to tear into the technical aspects of a game and then tell me what they personally thought about the game. I don't think they have to be mutually exclusive and it solves a lot of the "problems" we're dealing with now. For example, most games use the "A" button (whatever it is on your preferred input device) as the catch all button. I had issues in ME3 mp, Shadows of Mordor, and the two AC games I've played with "miss clicks". Actions being preformed when I wanted something else to happen. While in Sunset Overdrive I didn't have that issue somehow. Were I reviewing those games I would say something to the effect that the system worked but could sometimes cause unwanted actions to be preformed (the objective bit), and then go on to say that these "miss clicks" personally didn't cause anything larger than a minor inconvenience for me but did result in my dying a few times (the subjective bit). That way the problem is stated, my opinion is known, and the reader could draw their own conclusion as to if it would be a problem for them. I personally know a few people who can not tolerate dying because of an issue on the game's end so they'd know what they were in for if nothing else.

Capatcha "do unto others" I do love a civil discussion!

 

[NPC009]

Reviewers aren't expressing their true opinions (most of the time). It's not about the numbers in the end, it's about true opinions. Numbers just symbolize those opinions, I have no issue with criticism in other mediums.

And how do you recognise an opinion that's not true? Is it's an opinion that is very different from yours?

What I'm gathering from your posts is that you want reviewers to have stronger opinions. Not just saying 'This is a bad game, you probably shouldn't buy it' but go all the way to 'this is a bad game, it is an insult to gaming and gamers!' Sure, it's fun to see people like Yahtzee verbally destroy games, but I don't think it should be the standard. Even bad game tend to have atleast some merits and we should acknowlegde those. If every starts tearing disappointing games a new one things will just seem much worse than they actually are. Not very helpful.

This seem to be a good moment to go back to Spec Ops for a bit. I personally didn't think the mechanics or gameplay as a whole were bad. Underwhelming would be a good word fot it, but aside from a few difficult patches the game wasn't frustrating to play. I'd say the gameplay was good enough for what it was trying to do: support the story. That's why most reviewers didn't have much of an issue with it. Heck, if I recall correctly atleast several reviewers called the gameplay a bit too fun and wondered if being punished for enjoying shooting enemies was harming or hurting the message the game was trying to send.

There are not a few AAA games that fail every year with regards to review scores. The only one I can even recall in like 10 years is Aliens:CM, and again, that was rated as JUST below average. The probability of everything being good from wherever is basically a mathematical impossibility. It's impossible for all AAA games to be good or all indie games to be good or all games published by EA to be good. It's impossible for all horror movies or superhero movies to be good as well, it just doesn't happen. It's not really a math thing, it's more of a history and human thing saying that has never happened before because humans make mistakes all the time.

That's strange. Most high profile titles I checked get atleast both positive and mixed reviews. And while you do find negative reviews among the ones written by users, most of those red scores seem to be 0s given out of spite. For example, 1/3 of the negative user reviews for Watch Dogs give a 0. There are also some 1s and 2s that seem to be written by otherwise perfectly reasonable people who wanted to adjust the overall score to something they would have given in the game outside of Metacritic.

Anyway, you should not forget what triple A actually means: a game with a high budget made by experienced people. The term came into use in the nineties to distinguish high profile titles from shovelware, cheaply made licensed game and other practices gamers and serious developers weren't proud or fond of. Games were triple A because they rated highly.

What changed was that developers, publishers, journalists and even gamers in general started calling games triple A based solely on expectations. Most games still managed to deliver, but you see duds here and there. Keep in mind that this is a fairly recent change. If I'd had to pinpoint a period, I'd say a little after the PS3 and Xbox 360 launched. Is it really that surprising to most triple A games are good games?

The readers want true opinions from a reviewer. Movie reviewers do just fine not pandering to the lowest common denominator; Transformers gets tossed under the bus for being shit regardless of whether most of the general public likes those movies.

I think that's the divide we are starting to see now: many people still want games just to be fun. They may even get annoyed by or angry at games that aspire to be a little more than pure entertainment. On the other hand there seems to be a growing group of gamers and critics who want games to be more than fun. They appreciate games like Gone Home for trying something new and may even find the original price acceptable.

The score of a game has become too important to the game's industry (even to gamers themselves). It's commonplace for a developer getting a bonus for a game reaching a certain score on Metacritic whereas a movie studio couldn't give a shit about how well a movie scored on RottenTomatoes.

I absolutely agree with you there. Back when Metacritic and Gamerankings were fairly new, I saw the sites as great services to consumers. Finding a varity of reviews of for a particular game had never been so easy! Sadly several groups started valuing the aggregate scores too. Consumers looking only at the score instead of the reviews, and publishers handing out bonuses to developers that achieved scores consumers liked.

I'm saying that MP is part of the game and should be part of the review score regardless if the reviewer feels it should be 1% or 99% of the score. It's part of the game and needs to be part of the score; how big a part is up to the each and every reviewer. That's just another reason why you should see more variance in scores because every reviewer is going to weigh MP differently. Yet the lowest score for Uncharted 2 is an 89. If your favorite TV show has a shitty episode, that episode is part of the show and it should factor into your final score you'd give that TV show.

But what if that one lowpoint isn't low enough to justify a lower score (from the reviewer's point of view)? I've seen it happen.

Actually, I've got an example. When Tetris appeared in the 3DS VC I wasn't thrilled. Old-school Gameboy Tetris is nice on it's own, but I grew up playing the multiplayer and they had left it out of the VC release. As a result the game felt very lacking; half of it was gone! Most of my fellow (who never played the multiplayer much) disagreed: the clever mechanics and legacy of the game were enough to hand out one of the highest score we could give.

Would you say the other reviewers' opinions weren't 'true'? They considered the value of the MP and came to the conclusion that its absence had no effect on the value of the game. Isn't the fact that they did take it into consideration enough?

Asking for a below average review does not equal tearing apart the game, it just means below average. Below average is not the end of the world.

But many people do treat it as such. I can't blame reviewers for wanting to take a more moderate stance on things. Again, this has something to do with their frame of reference as well. When Superman 64 and those quick buck early access Steam disasters (very poorly put together and unplayable games that barely offer anything in terms of content) are 1s, it doesn't feel right to give something like Final Fantasy XIII or Watch Dogs a 4. While these games were (major) disappointments, they're still fully playable games with some good ideas that were decently executed. (Against tougher bosses Final Fantasy XIII's battlesystem is a thing of beauty, instead of micromanaging each individual character you guide the flow of battle with timing and insight. Too bad the system rarely gets a chance to shine during all those regular encounters...)

 

[NPC009]

I was reading through enjoying the civil, intelligent conversation between you and runic knight and then I saw this. Do the two definitions really differ so much? In math an average is literally the dead center of all values, and in colloquial language average is used to describe a thing that is neither good nor bad, one might say it was in the middle. They both serve to convey the thing, whatever it is, is in the middle. /semantics But I will hop on the train saying "7" seems to actually mean "5".

From my experience they do. I think that when people imagine gaming scores, they imagine them following a sort of bell curve. Think normal distribution. When they pick up a random game the changes of that game being above or below avarage are about equal. It's what the numbers tempt us to do: numbers are logical, they make sense.

Of course, in reality it doesn't work quite like that, because:
- Magazines and websites focus on reviewing games most gamers are interested in. Gamers become interested in games because they look good. As a result we see more positive than negative scores. (They're cherry picking, you could say)
- Grading scales vary from site to site. I've seen sites that use an academic scale were 55% = F. As a result they have many reviews with a score of 70% or higher.

So even if you put all those numbers together you won't get a lovely logical bell curve. All those numbers are and will ever be are numbers that sort of mean words.

But I do have a question for you. How would you feel about doing away with numbers all together?

I'm not against numbers, but I do feel many are using them wrong.

Scores can be very helpful when looking for different opinions on one subject. We live in an age were there is more information than time, so we don't want to waste our time reading (or skimming through) reviews that have nothing new to offer. That's where sites like Metacritic can come in. Find the game and read reviews with a variety of scores. I think that would be a good way of using them. But instead people are attaching extreme amounts of value to them, especially to the aggregate scores. Publishers withholding (often essential) bonuses to developers or even trying to pressure journalists, gamers trying to manipulate the aggregate score instead of giving scores that reflect their own opinion, silly voting wars... It's a mess.

It would be hard for sites to step away from numbers now, though. They need the traffic Metacritic and Gamerankings generate. Stop attaching numbers to reviews and they'll become much harder to find.

So I think that it's best to use scoring systems that are simply, clean and transparant. So no bullshit with decimals or weird percentages, but something simple like a scale of 1-10 or 1-5 stars. Of course there needs to be a page that explain in detail what those numbers mean, sites should make sure that page is easy to find for readers. Personally, I also like a quick summary of the review to supplement the score. Like I said, many readers want to know if a review is worth reading before they read it, something like a little summary or some bullet points could be very helpful.

I personally want to hear a review that is both objective AND subjective. I want the reviewer to tear into the technical aspects of a game and then tell me what they personally thought about the game. I don't think they have to be mutually exclusive and it solves a lot of the "problems" we're dealing with now.

That's what I aim for when I write a review. There's not enough room on a page (500-600 words in most magazines) to go into every detail, but I always try to provide examples of what does and doesn't work. And I try to explain why I did or didn't like the game. That could be something more abstract than how the game works. Monster Hunter for example. While controls are responsive, they're also quite complex and in some cases the controllers/handheld systems doesn't have enough buttons to allow for comfortable play (like having to hold your hand like a claw to control both camera and movement). They can also be insanely rewarding games to play. It feels great when you use perfectly aimed attacks to finally bring your a tough monster, craft your newely gained materials into a powerful weapon or piece of armour, and actually see the result on your character. If I can convey that sense of excitement to the reader, I think I did a pretty good job

From my experience these are also the reviewers most readers find most helpful. I review a lot of niche games in unusual genres. I know the subject matter will be new to many and I have to take that into account. Take the Etrian Odyssey series. Explaining that it's a dungeon crawler with various classes is just half the review. Many readers won't have the frame of referance needed to put that info to good use. They'll lose interest and go read about something else, forgetting about Etrian Odyssey. But if I can explain the thrill of exploring the labyrinth using maps you draw yourself, people will keep reading and maybe even say: "It's not something I'd normally play, but I want to try this sometime."

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

And how do you recognise an opinion that's not true? Is it's an opinion that is very different from yours?

What I'm gathering from your posts is that you want reviewers to have stronger opinions. Not just saying 'This is a bad game, you probably shouldn't buy it' but go all the way to 'this is a bad game, it is an insult to gaming and gamers!' Sure, it's fun to see people like Yahtzee verbally destroy games, but I don't think it should be the standard. Even bad game tend to have atleast some merits and we should acknowlegde those. If every starts tearing disappointing games a new one things will just seem much worse than they actually are. Not very helpful.

This seem to be a good moment to go back to Spec Ops for a bit. I personally didn't think the mechanics or gameplay as a whole were bad. Underwhelming would be a good word fot it, but aside from a few difficult patches the game wasn't frustrating to play. I'd say the gameplay was good enough for what it was trying to do: support the story. That's why most reviewers didn't have much of an issue with it. Heck, if I recall correctly atleast several reviewers called the gameplay a bit too fun and wondered if being punished for enjoying shooting enemies was harming or hurting the message the game was trying to send.

When you go to IGN see a 9.0 and immediately know GameSpot's review is going to be basically an 8.5 since GameSpot is generally 0.5 lower than IGN is when I know the numbers representing the reviewers' opinions aren't true opinions. People don't agree with each other on anything nearly as much as game reviewers agree with each other, like I said it has much more to do with human nature than math, I merely use math to represent how different games are scored compared to say movies. Just among friends as well as fellow Escapists here, opinions of games vary greatly. I know my friends are disliking/liking games for valid reasons, same with most Escapists. Basically, I'm not even recognizing those user reviews that are 0s, 1s, 10s on Metacritic so I'm not at all saying there's something wrong because there's quite a big difference between the Metacritic score and user score. Although I do feel there is quite a difference between gamers and game reviewers and how each do feel about a game. I bet you'd get quite a different average user score of a game here on the Escapist vs professional review average where no one here would be review bombing the user score. I do think that is an issue because I do feel gamers want more criticism and probably most gamers no longer even look at review scores because they know how messed up the whole thing is. I find great value in movie reviews whereas I find no value in professional game reviews (outside a very select few reviewers).

I don't know where you get that I wanna see games thrown under the bus with scathing reviews because I don't unless it is merited. Giving a game a 4/10 shouldn't seem like the game is horrible. Of course, a 4/10 review currently would make someone think the game is pure garbage and that's a problem reviewers have made themselves. Yahtzee mainly "destroys" games for humor purposes. When he actually does talk about gameplay, his criticism is usually valid. You have to kinda read between the lines of a Yahtzee review (because it's not really a review); if he hates on a game for everything other than gameplay, then the game is probably good. For example, his Uncharted 2 review is very negative but shows up as one of the better games of the year (in an Extra Punctuation column [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/extra-punctuation/7003-Best-of-2009.2]). I actually think Yahtzee would be a great reviewer if he did real reviews.

There's plenty of variance in a gameplay being "bad" as well. I only tried playing the demo of Spec Ops and found the shooting to be below average and not worth my time, not that the gameplay was unplayable or frustrating. Technically, then the shooting would be bad in my opinion. It wasn't bad to the degree it was horrible and needs to be torn apart, it was merely below average bad. Again, my opinion is that I can get the good parts of Spec Ops from other mediums minus the below average gamaplay, so why should I play Spec Ops then? Of course, that doesn't mean I think every review should be below 5 either; hell, I didn't even play the game. It depends on how much the story and gameplay are weighted by each reviewer. Is the story so good that it carries the "bad" gameplay and makes the game overall good? Every reviewer will have a different take on that.

That's strange. Most high profile titles I checked get atleast both positive and mixed reviews. And while you do find negative reviews among the ones written by users, most of those red scores seem to be 0s given out of spite. For example, 1/3 of the negative user reviews for Watch Dogs give a 0. There are also some 1s and 2s that seem to be written by otherwise perfectly reasonable people who wanted to adjust the overall score to something they would have given in the game outside of Metacritic.

Anyway, you should not forget what triple A actually means: a game with a high budget made by experienced people. The term came into use in the nineties to distinguish high profile titles from shovelware, cheaply made licensed game and other practices gamers and serious developers weren't proud or fond of. Games were triple A because they rated highly.

What changed was that developers, publishers, journalists and even gamers in general started calling games triple A based solely on expectations. Most games still managed to deliver, but you see duds here and there. Keep in mind that this is a fairly recent change. If I'd had to pinpoint a period, I'd say a little after the PS3 and Xbox 360 launched. Is it really that surprising to most triple A games are good games?

Like I said above, I'm not at all even recognizing those kind of user reviewers just hating the game or thinking the game is 10/10 perfect. I'm not comparing the user score with the Metacritic score. I'm mainly comparing professional game scores with professional review scores of other mediums to signify the huge difference.

I think AAA started as a marketing buzz term and just ended up becoming commonplace. Games are not AAA because they are rated highly, it's because they have big budgets. If say Destiny got even more panned and was reviewed as bad, it would still be a AAA game because of its budget. Some may even say Destiny was reviewed as bad due to how people feel about 6 and 7 review scores.

I don't have a problem with AAA games having more good games than say non-AAA games. The problem is that they are all rated as good (with a very very rare occasional exception). Even Duke Nukem Forever is above 50 overall score.

I think that's the divide we are starting to see now: many people still want games just to be fun. They may even get annoyed by or angry at games that aspire to be a little more than pure entertainment. On the other hand there seems to be a growing group of gamers and critics who want games to be more than fun. They appreciate games like Gone Home for trying something new and may even find the original price acceptable.

Entertainment should be enjoyable. With any other medium, there are the works that are "fun" and the works that aspire to be more than just fun. Film has plenty of fun, popcorn movies. It's not like fun games are going to go away, fun sells in games, movies, etc. Every medium should have works that aspire to be more than just fun, but that doesn't mean every work has to be "arty" and have a message. I appreciate both kinds equally I feel as sometimes you're in the mood for something just fun and other times you want more substance, something fun can have a good deal of substance as well, they aren't mutually exclusive.

I absolutely agree with you there. Back when Metacritic and Gamerankings were fairly new, I saw the sites as great services to consumers. Finding a varity of reviews of for a particular game had never been so easy! Sadly several groups started valuing the aggregate scores too. Consumers looking only at the score instead of the reviews, and publishers handing out bonuses to developers that achieved scores consumers liked.

I feel there was more review variance just from EGM's 3-person review system way back than there is now with over 50 reviews of a game.

But what if that one lowpoint isn't low enough to justify a lower score (from the reviewer's point of view)? I've seen it happen.

Actually, I've got an example. When Tetris appeared in the 3DS VC I wasn't thrilled. Old-school Gameboy Tetris is nice on it's own, but I grew up playing the multiplayer and they had left it out of the VC release. As a result the game felt very lacking; half of it was gone! Most of my fellow (who never played the multiplayer much) disagreed: the clever mechanics and legacy of the game were enough to hand out one of the highest score we could give.

Would you say the other reviewers' opinions weren't 'true'? They considered the value of the MP and came to the conclusion that its absence had no effect on the value of the game. Isn't the fact that they did take it into consideration enough?

I think comparing a new game with multiplayer with a re-release of a game missing its multiplayer is 2 different things. If it's part of the game, it has to factor into the score no matter how little or how big. Now with a re-release missing a feature is different territory. Of course, it should be mentioned in the review but whether it should affect the score is another thing since it isn't actually part of the game (even though it was before).

Asking for a below average review does not equal tearing apart the game, it just means below average. Below average is not the end of the world.

But many people do treat it as such. I can't blame reviewers for wanting to take a more moderate stance on things. Again, this has something to do with their frame of reference as well. When Superman 64 and those quick buck early access Steam disasters (very poorly put together and unplayable games that barely offer anything in terms of content) are 1s, it doesn't feel right to give something like Final Fantasy XIII or Watch Dogs a 4. While these games were (major) disappointments, they're still fully playable games with some good ideas that were decently executed. (Against tougher bosses Final Fantasy XIII's battlesystem is a thing of beauty, instead of micromanaging each individual character you guide the flow of battle with timing and insight. Too bad the system rarely gets a chance to shine during all those regular encounters...)

People would treat a below average review (below a 5) as tearing the game apart because of game reviewers themselves. Most people already feel any game below an 8 is not worth playing due to score inflation. Whereas people don't immediately write off a movie that gets a rotten rating on RottenTomatoes. That's why quite a few people thought Jim Sterling just gave negative reviews to get views and I believe even Metacritic didn't put his reviews up for a time. I still don't get why Watch Dogs was a disappointment (outside of graphics), it's basically 3rd-person FarCry, which is better than GTA IMO. I think there was more hate for FFXIII for story/characters and the fact the game takes so long to "get good". I haven't played it myself (I haven't liked a single FF game though) but I definitely read stuff saying it doesn't get good until 20 hours or so in. Just from watching my friend play it, the battle system seems better than most FF games as I hate standard FF turn-based combat.

 

[Sarge034]

... Of course, in reality it doesn't work quite like that, because:
- Magazines and websites focus on reviewing games most gamers are interested in. Gamers become interested in games because they look good. As a result we see more positive than negative scores. (They're cherry picking, you could say)
- Grading scales vary from site to site. I've seen sites that use an academic scale were 55% = F. As a result they have many reviews with a score of 70% or higher.

So even if you put all those numbers together you won't get a lovely logical bell curve. All those numbers are and will ever be are numbers that sort of mean words.

Ah, I think that's where many reviewers/publications and readers have a disconnect. I can't speak for everyone, but everyone I've personally spoken to doesn't want a bell curve. They want a "static system" of measurement and to just let games fall where they will. 1 being an unplayable and unredeemable pile of shit, 10 being the game is literally delivered to you by the hand of god, and 5 being in the middle. If we try to use the bell curve system then games will only continue to receive higher and higher scores because, let's face it, Ride To Hell was shit but it was nicer looking shit than the same quality shit produced two console gens ago.

I'm not against numbers, but I do feel many are using them wrong.

My issue with numbers is that it's gotten to the point they have no meaning. It's a personal review without context. I mean that's the only way I can justify games like Destiny and Titanfall receiving such high numeric reviews and then seeing so many issues brought up in the written article. I don't know, perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to go back to grading the game in categories. IE; story, music, graphics, controls, and enjoyment. Because at least then those two games could have been better rated. Graphics and controls are 9/10 no doubt, but story... not so much.

That's what I aim for when I write a review. There's not enough room on a page (500-600 words in most magazines) to go into every detail, but I always try to provide examples of what does and doesn't work. And I try to explain why I did or didn't like the game. That could be something more abstract than how the game works. Monster Hunter for example. While controls are responsive, they're also quite complex and in some cases the controllers/handheld systems doesn't have enough buttons to allow for comfortable play (like having to hold your hand like a claw to control both camera and movement). They can also be insanely rewarding games to play. It feels great when you use perfectly aimed attacks to finally bring your a tough monster, craft your newely gained materials into a powerful weapon or piece of armour, and actually see the result on your character. If I can convey that sense of excitement to the reader, I think I did a pretty good job

From my experience these are also the reviewers most readers find most helpful. I review a lot of niche games in unusual genres. I know the subject matter will be new to many and I have to take that into account. Take the Etrian Odyssey series. Explaining that it's a dungeon crawler with various classes is just half the review. Many readers won't have the frame of referance needed to put that info to good use. They'll lose interest and go read about something else, forgetting about Etrian Odyssey. But if I can explain the thrill of exploring the labyrinth using maps you draw yourself, people will keep reading and maybe even say: "It's not something I'd normally play, but I want to try this sometime."

Those are some of the best review so thanks for doing what you can! I will say I usually watch Jim Sterling's reviews because he usually tries to give things a fair shake while also not being afraid to call out bullshit where it is. And ZP is great for knowing all the flaws a game has because if Yahtzee doesn't talk about it you can assume it was average or good.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to respond. Insight is never a bad thing.

 

[NPC009]

When you go to IGN see a 9.0 and immediately know GameSpot's review is going to be basically an 8.5 since GameSpot is generally 0.5 lower than IGN is when I know the numbers representing the reviewers' opinions aren't true opinions. People don't agree with each other on anything nearly as much as game reviewers agree with each other, like I said it has much more to do with human nature than math, I merely use math to represent how different games are scored compared to say movies. Just among friends as well as fellow Escapists here, opinions of games vary greatly. I know my friends are disliking/liking games for valid reasons, same with most Escapists.

I feel there was more review variance just from EGM's 3-person review system way back than there is now with over 50 reviews of a game.

Reviewers are often only assigned games they have some affinity with. Readers like reading reviews from people who know what they're are talking about, so editors are reluctant to hand a FPS to JRPG Gal or an old-school point & click adventure to Action Dude. Reviewers end up focusing on readers with the same affinity, leaving gamers looking to leave their comfortzone underrepresented.

That's one of the reasons why I like magazines and sites that offer 'second opinions'. Sadly, there are tons of logistic and financial problems getting in the way of such set-up. For instance, in the olden days reviewers would play games at the office. It was easy to ask a coworker to plop down on the sofa and give the new piece of software a whirl. Nowadays many of us work from home and home may be hundreds of miles away from the office. Plus, mags/website often get only one review copy.

Now, could say: invest in extra copies then! Well, that's too expensive. And it's not just those extra copies that have to be paid for. Many reviewers are freelancers and we do want (and need!) to get paid for every bit of work we do. Websites simply don't have the cash to pay for all those extra reviews.

I think AAA started as a marketing buzz term and just ended up becoming commonplace. Games are not AAA because they are rated highly, it's because they have big budgets. If say Destiny got even more panned and was reviewed as bad, it would still be a AAA game because of its budget. Some may even say Destiny was reviewed as bad due to how people feel about 6 and 7 review scores.

I don't have a problem with AAA games having more good games than say non-AAA games. The problem is that they are all rated as good (with a very very rare occasional exception). Even Duke Nukem Forever is above 50 overall score.

If we only considered the most recent meaning of the term, you would be correct, but triple A did mean 'great game' once.

As for 50~ being good, again: grading scales and frame of reference. In/on the magazines and sites I write for anything under a 60 usually means "Better stay away from this one unless you're absolutely certain this is your kind of game."

I don't know where you get that I wanna see games thrown under the bus with scathing reviews because I don't unless it is merited. Giving a game a 4/10 shouldn't seem like the game is horrible. Of course, a 4/10 review currently would make someone think the game is pure garbage and that's a problem reviewers have made themselves.

While I asbotely agree everyone should use the full grading scale and not just the positive part, we should save part of it to grade the varying shades of bad.

I think it's reasonable to say anything under a 5 usually isn't worth your time and money. Not just now, but also in an ideal setting were the whole scale is being used.

There's plenty of variance in a gameplay being "bad" as well. I only tried playing the demo of Spec Ops and found the shooting to be below average and not worth my time, not that the gameplay was unplayable or frustrating. Technically, then the shooting would be bad in my opinion. It wasn't bad to the degree it was horrible and needs to be torn apart, it was merely below average bad. Again, my opinion is that I can get the good parts of Spec Ops from other mediums minus the below average gamaplay, so why should I play Spec Ops then? Of course, that doesn't mean I think every review should be below 5 either; hell, I didn't even play the game. It depends on how much the story and gameplay are weighted by each reviewer. Is the story so good that it carries the "bad" gameplay and makes the game overall good? Every reviewer will have a different take on that.

To each his own, but if you ever get an urge to fully play Spec Ops: The Line, it should be because gameplay, story and themes come together in a way that wouldn't be possible in any other medium

Entertainment should be enjoyable. With any other medium, there are the works that are "fun" and the works that aspire to be more than just fun. Film has plenty of fun, popcorn movies. It's not like fun games are going to go away, fun sells in games, movies, etc. Every medium should have works that aspire to be more than just fun, but that doesn't mean every work has to be "arty" and have a message. I appreciate both kinds equally I feel as sometimes you're in the mood for something just fun and other times you want more substance, something fun can have a good deal of substance as well, they aren't mutually exclusive.

I think we agree on this. Problem is, there isn't much of a balance yet between 'art' and 'fun' and how we, both regular gamers and professional reviewers, appreciate them. I'm sure this will sort itself out in the future, and it will be interesting to see exactly how that will happen.

I think comparing a new game with multiplayer with a re-release of a game missing its multiplayer is 2 different things. If it's part of the game, it has to factor into the score no matter how little or how big. Now with a re-release missing a feature is different territory. Of course, it should be mentioned in the review but whether it should affect the score is another thing since it isn't actually part of the game (even though it was before).

No, I think they're pretty similar. It's not uncommon for games to be rated not just based on what they are, but also one what the user thinks they should have been. "It would have been better if..." Sounds familiar, right? I try to avoid it as much as possible, but absence can be a flaw. Or atleast feel like one. At the same time, something present that doesn't distract or add from or to the game may be safely ignored. It all depends on the user.

People would treat a below average review (below a 5) as tearing the game apart because of game reviewers themselves. Most people already feel any game below an 8 is not worth playing due to score inflation. Whereas people don't immediately write off a movie that gets a rotten rating on RottenTomatoes. That's why quite a few people thought Jim Sterling just gave negative reviews to get views and I believe even Metacritic didn't put his reviews up for a time.

I think it's unfair to place the blame solely on reviewers. We're the ones getting flack from readers for giving games scores they feel are too low, even when they haven't played the game yet.

I also think comparing movies and games is often like comparing apples and oranges. Both require a different level of investment. For instance, a typical new game costs anywhere between $20-$60 and most are atleast five hours long. Cinema tickets are much cheaper and most movies are less than two hours in length. If you wait long enough and you won't have to worry about the price difference anymore, but the games will still ask you for those 5+ hours. And unlike movies, you can't passively wait until they're over.

I still don't get why Watch Dogs was a disappointment (outside of graphics), it's basically 3rd-person FarCry, which is better than GTA IMO. I think there was more hate for FFXIII for story/characters and the fact the game takes so long to "get good". I haven't played it myself (I haven't liked a single FF game though) but I definitely read stuff saying it doesn't get good until 20 hours or so in. Just from watching my friend play it, the battle system seems better than most FF games as I hate standard FF turn-based combat.

Watch Dogs: people were upset because the game didn't live up to ridicuously high expectations. They were hoping for something truly spectacular and got a regular good (or great even) game instead.

Final Fantasy XIII: Lots of jokes about the game playing itself when it came out. Criticisms of the story and characters were mostly valid, though. The game focuses a lot on making things look cool but its all quite superficial.

 

[NPC009]

Ah, I think that's where many reviewers/publications and readers have a disconnect. I can't speak for everyone, but everyone I've personally spoken to doesn't want a bell curve. They want a "static system" of measurement and to just let games fall where they will. 1 being an unplayable and unredeemable pile of shit, 10 being the game is literally delivered to you by the hand of god, and 5 being in the middle. If we try to use the bell curve system then games will only continue to receive higher and higher scores because, let's face it, Ride To Hell was shit but it was nicer looking shit than the same quality shit produced two console gens ago.

Maybe it's just my mathemathical tendencies, but when I imagine 'let them fall where they will' I imagine the bean machine/Galton board ^_^'

And hey, bell curves can be adjusted. For instance: the avarage IQ is being kept at 100 despite people getting smarter.

My issue with numbers is that it's gotten to the point they have no meaning. It's a personal review without context. I mean that's the only way I can justify games like Destiny and Titanfall receiving such high numeric reviews and then seeing so many issues brought up in the written article. I don't know, perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to go back to grading the game in categories. IE; story, music, graphics, controls, and enjoyment. Because at least then those two games could have been better rated. Graphics and controls are 9/10 no doubt, but story... not so much.

Systems like that have their own weaknesses. They portray games as being the sum of several aspects instead of the whole product it is. Another problem is that not all aspects are equally important in every game (you don't play Tetris for its story or a visual novel for its gameplay), which may result in subscores that don't reflect the overall quality of the game. Lastly, there may not be a clear line between two aspects. For instance, in a rhythm game the music could be seen as part of the gameplay.

Those are some of the best review so thanks for doing what you can! I will say I usually watch Jim Sterling's reviews because he usually tries to give things a fair shake while also not being afraid to call out bullshit where it is. And ZP is great for knowing all the flaws a game has because if Yahtzee doesn't talk about it you can assume it was average or good.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to respond. Insight is never a bad thing.

One 'thank you' for the compliment and another for keeping this discussion civil and interesting. I hope you are enjoying it as much as I am

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Reviewers are often only assigned games they have some affinity with. Readers like reading reviews from people who know what they're are talking about, so editors are reluctant to hand a FPS to JRPG Gal or an old-school point & click adventure to Action Dude. Reviewers end up focusing on readers with the same affinity, leaving gamers looking to leave their comfortzone underrepresented.

That's one of the reasons why I like magazines and sites that offer 'second opinions'. Sadly, there are tons of logistic and financial problems getting in the way of such set-up. For instance, in the olden days reviewers would play games at the office. It was easy to ask a coworker to plop down on the sofa and give the new piece of software a whirl. Nowadays many of us work from home and home may be hundreds of miles away from the office. Plus, mags/website often get only one review copy.

Now, could say: invest in extra copies then! Well, that's too expensive. And it's not just those extra copies that have to be paid for. Many reviewers are freelancers and we do want (and need!) to get paid for every bit of work we do. Websites simply don't have the cash to pay for all those extra reviews.

I expect a review variance on a say FPS even if all the reviewers were hardcore FPS players. I think the hardcore players are even harder on "their" games than other players. The opening post of this thread was about Diablo 3. I very much doubt the hardcore Diablo player community would end up rating Diablo 3 at 88. Like I said, most of the time people disagree with each other.

As for 50~ being good, again: grading scales and frame of reference. In/on the magazines and sites I write for anything under a 60 usually means "Better stay away from this one unless you're absolutely certain this is your kind of game."

And, that's one of the problems. No other medium scores its art on that scale. Only schools use that system because students should know more than half the content to pass. A doctor only knowing half his studies would be a bad doctor, not an average doctor.

I think it's reasonable to say anything under a 5 usually isn't worth your time and money. Not just now, but also in an ideal setting were the whole scale is being used.

I agree. I'm not really asking for games to have a nice 50/50 split of good and bad scores either. A few reviewers may feel like a game isn't worth your time while most reviewers felt it was worth there time thus the average would be well over a 5. It's the complete absence negative reviews. I'm sure many reviewers felt FFXIII was probably not worth its time and below average RPG, yet only Jim Sterling's negative review exists. You even said FFXIII has plenty of flaws, an 83 doesn't really convey that at all.

To each his own, but if you ever get an urge to fully play Spec Ops: The Line, it should be because gameplay, story and themes come together in a way that wouldn't be possible in any other medium

I may, as I can play it for free (PS+) but my backlog has several more games that I want to play more, not to mention trying to keep up with new releases as well.

I think we agree on this. Problem is, there isn't much of a balance yet between 'art' and 'fun' and how we, both regular gamers and professional reviewers, appreciate them. I'm sure this will sort itself out in the future, and it will be interesting to see exactly how that will happen.

I think the medium mainly needs better writing for this to happen. There's no reason you can't have a gripping story in a shooter.

No, I think they're pretty similar. It's not uncommon for games to be rated not just based on what they are, but also one what the user thinks they should have been. "It would have been better if..." Sounds familiar, right? I try to avoid it as much as possible, but absence can be a flaw. Or atleast feel like one. At the same time, something present that doesn't distract or add from or to the game may be safely ignored. It all depends on the user.

I wasn't saying absence can't be a flaw. My one friend definitely would've found Dragon's Dogma a better game (same for me) with 4-player co-op even though it's not part of the game as it would've been awesome and fit into the game perfectly. I still feel if it's in the game, it should count towards the overall score even if you want to weigh it at 1% and basically ignore it. Uncharted does try to deliver a good multiplayer experience though, it's not just tacked on just to be there. Even the Uncharted 2 demo was a co-op demo. So I definitely feel Uncharted's overall score should have decent weight to the MP. I don't have an issue with the single player and MP being reviewed separately though as they can easily be seen as 2 different games because MP is a very different beast than single player most often.

I think it's unfair to place the blame solely on reviewers. We're the ones getting flack from readers for giving games scores they feel are too low, even when they haven't played the game yet.

I also think comparing movies and games is often like comparing apples and oranges. Both require a different level of investment. For instance, a typical new game costs anywhere between $20-$60 and most are atleast five hours long. Cinema tickets are much cheaper and most movies are less than two hours in length. If you wait long enough and you won't have to worry about the price difference anymore, but the games will still ask you for those 5+ hours. And unlike movies, you can't passively wait until they're over.

I do think it is mainly the reviewers' fault for scores becoming so inflated. I don't remember so much talk about scores when they were lower, I don't recall readers asking for higher scores then. Now, I definitely think the current problem is also due to gamers obsessing over scores, but I do think reviewers laid the foundation for this to happen.

I know movies and games are different beasts. People just don't agree nearly as often on anything as game reviewers agree with each other. No other medium has criticism anywhere close to games. A TV show can easily end up taking up more time than a game or a series of books as well.

Final Fantasy XIII: Lots of jokes about the game playing itself when it came out. Criticisms of the story and characters were mostly valid, though. The game focuses a lot on making things look cool but its all quite superficial.

My feeling on FF is that it always could play itself. Put the gambit system from FFXII into any previous FF game and it would play itself. To me, that means the turn-based combat isn't strategic enough to be good. If a few if-then-else statements (the gambits) is all it takes for the game to play itself, it was never strategic to begin with. Bad turn-based combat makes me feel like I'm using a computer program (constantly in menus) instead of playing a game. Yes, Lightning is below 25% health, I know she needs a heal; I don't see why automating that is so bad.

 

[NPC009]

I expect a review variance on a say FPS even if all the reviewers were hardcore FPS players. I think the hardcore players are even harder on "their" games than other players. The opening post of this thread was about Diablo 3. I very much doubt the hardcore Diablo player community would end up rating Diablo 3 at 88. Like I said, most of the time people disagree with each other.

I don't know. From my experience reviewers with similar tastes rate games in similar ways. Also, the hardcore games of certain games in particular are often the odd ducks. They'll spend hundreds of hours on a game and stumble on the smallest details most players won't notice.

And, that's one of the problems. No other medium scores its art on that scale. Only schools use that system because students should know more than half the content to pass. A doctor only knowing half his studies would be a bad doctor, not an average doctor.

Most mediums don't have fans that care about intricate rating systems, they'll just use simple systems like 1-5 stars, where 3 stars will still mean average.

As for you other example, that doesn't quite work. In school they are students. The ones who are good enough go on to be doctors, the bad ones who failed their exams do not.

I agree. I'm not really asking for games to have a nice 50/50 split of good and bad scores either. A few reviewers may feel like a game isn't worth your time while most reviewers felt it was worth there time thus the average would be well over a 5. It's the complete absence negative reviews. I'm sure many reviewers felt FFXIII was probably not worth its time and below average RPG, yet only Jim Sterling's negative review exists. You even said FFXIII has plenty of flaws, an 83 doesn't really convey that at all.

I too think people were a bit too easily impressed by that game, but in the case of Final Fantasy XIII it may have had a lot to do with the context. While there were other Japanese RPG available when Final Fantasy XIII was released, it was Final Fantasy XIII that showed that the genre could compete in the big league. The game felt very next-gen, which was something people had been waiting for for years.

On the other, while many critisms are valid, Final Fantasy XIII did do many things right and I'm not surprised most reviewers enjoyed the game as much as they did.

I may, as I can play it for free (PS+) but my backlog has several more games that I want to play more, not to mention trying to keep up with new releases as well.

For what it's worth: isn't very long (I completed it in 8 hours or so and I'm not all that great at shooters) and even if you end up disliking it, you'll have played an interesting example of storytelling in games.

I think the medium mainly needs better writing for this to happen. There's no reason you can't have a gripping story in a shooter.

Very true. Though developers of shooters have it rough (many publishers would love their title to usurp CoD's throne), I'm sure we'll see more examples of shooters with strong stories in the future. It's just a matter of time, especially now that the triple A industry is struggling.

I wasn't saying absence can't be a flaw. My one friend definitely would've found Dragon's Dogma a better game (same for me) with 4-player co-op even though it's not part of the game as it would've been awesome and fit into the game perfectly. I still feel if it's in the game, it should count towards the overall score even if you want to weigh it at 1% and basically ignore it. Uncharted does try to deliver a good multiplayer experience though, it's not just tacked on just to be there. Even the Uncharted 2 demo was a co-op demo. So I definitely feel Uncharted's overall score should have decent weight to the MP. I don't have an issue with the single player and MP being reviewed separately though as they can easily be seen as 2 different games because MP is a very different beast than single player most often.

That's a good point. The MP and SP can be extremely different, different to the point where gamers but it for either the one or the other. I guess that in the case of Uncharted reviewers were impressed regardless of the MP and that this shaped their reviews and scores, because I have seen reviews of other games in which the MP weighed more heavily. Spec Ops: The Line would be one of them.

I do think it is mainly the reviewers' fault for scores becoming so inflated. I don't remember so much talk about scores when they were lower, I don't recall readers asking for higher scores then. Now, I definitely think the current problem is also due to gamers obsessing over scores, but I do think reviewers laid the foundation for this to happen.

The discussions were much lighter back when the internet wasn't much of a thing, but even back then I saw letters in magazines written by gamers who disagreed with scores. I remember one magazine having a page for reader reviews. The advent of aggregator sites certainly escalated things, though.

I know movies and games are different beasts. People just don't agree nearly as often on anything as game reviewers agree with each other. No other medium has criticism anywhere close to games. A TV show can easily end up taking up more time than a game or a series of books as well.

I think this is partly because of how industries are structured. At the rate games come out, it's practically impossible to keep up with the major releases, let alone keep an eye on smaller and indie titles as well. So, for better or worse, reviewers specialise, meaning the same types of people will review the same games again and again. It's much easier for a film critic to view nearly every big release and even try some independent and foreign movies on the side.

As for tv shows, I think rating these is still fairly new. Sure, they've had little blurbs in tv guides since forever, but it's only been since the introduction of dvd boxsets that reviewing entire series became a thing. It seems to early to review those reviews.

I want to move this discussion further along by asking you: how would you improve gaming journalism while keeping in mind the (very) limited resources of websites and magazines?