The morons are at it again (ME3 review bombing)

[Sangnz]

With the release of ME3 I thought I would have a peek on metacritic to see how it was going and read some initial thoughts.
Lo and behold it is being bombed with negative reviews, just from the few I looked at most of them were obviously from people who haven't played it or people who just have an axe to grind.

Why do people insist on pulling this sort of moronic crap?

 

[Zhukov]

I would be annoyed or disappointed by this, but come on, it was to be expected. There was no way this wasn't going to happen.

...

Y'know, it's funny. A lot of people are always accusing reviewers of being hacks who either take bribes or give good reviews to ensure favourable relations with publishers and access to early review copies.

But look how the gaming public acts when given a mouthpiece to share their own reviews. Childishness and entitlement abounds.

Personally, I place more legitimacy on the opinions of the supposed corporate whores.

 

[way2sl0w]

lol. Revenge for MW3?

by the way look for 'From Ashes' DLC review score. It's even worse.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

Big shocker, some people are petty

 

[NerfedFalcon]

As I recall, exactly the same thing happened on Amazon to the book of that woman who spoke against Mass Effect 1 on Fox News, and when asked if she'd played it she scoffed and said 'no'. Hell hath no fury like gamers scorned.

At least until Popular But "Ruined" Franchise 3 comes out.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well their "let's hustle them for money like never before" business model might have something to do with it, or everyone just missed their coffee.

 

[Therumancer]

With the release of ME3 I thought I would have a peek on metacritic to see how it was going and read some initial thoughts.
Lo and behold it is being bombed with negative reviews, just from the few I looked at most of them were obviously from people who haven't played it or people who just have an axe to grind.

Why do people insist on pulling this sort of moronic crap?

At the same token I think people who put a game up on a pedestel are just as bad, when it comes to people who disagree with them.

A point to consider is that a lot of people have doubtlessly had this game and played it before now via piracy and such and were waiting until release to put up reviews and comment.

On top of this, and more importantly, Mass Effect 3's PC version seems to have some serious problems. While my copy is still en-route from Amazon, my dad purchused his from Gamestop and upon installing it ran into an error saying that the game wasn't compadible with the 64 bit tech in Windows 7. He contacted EA tech support and chatted with one of their guys who said that Mass Effect 3 was not compadible with the current version of the Origin software. Thinking he had to upgrade my dad went to the DL site and found that he's running the most recent version of Origin availible.

I can't say how many people are having this problem, or if others have gotten it to run, but it seems like the CS Reps definatly knew what was going on, and there doesn't seem to actually be a fix or anything out there.

No offense intended, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of very POed people gave the game a bad review for this reason, and to be honest "I paid $60 for a game that won't run at all" is a pretty valid reason for saying it's a crappy product. Even as a temporary problem this is pretty inexcusable.

I mentioned this as a warning in the ME3 review here on The Escapist, just so people will wait a bit if they have problems, because as I said, it seems like EA CS is at least aware of the problem and presumably what he meant was that they are working on a new version/update to Origin to deal with the problem. I'd expect this to be fixed in a day or two tops, but it's still a pretty good reason for people to be miffed.

Not all masses of bad reviews are unjustified trolling.

 

[putowtin]

I've seen a couple of critics give the game 10/10 but lets face it, critics can (and have been) swayed by other factors:
the publisher (ahh EA!)
the hulabaloo of the marketing campaign (their lauching games into space!?!)
previous games in the series, and/or there weak points (planet scanning!)

and the personal feelings of the critic at the time of writing:
wife/ girlfriend run off with the post man, cat's been run over, milks sour.

Now none of these things should affect what should be a non bias review, but hey! at the end of the day, critics are human too!

 

[Dandark]

Can't say I am surprised. As petty as it is I find that I am kind of pleased at this although really, who bases purchases on metacritic?

 

[Andy Shandy]

When the likes of Portal 2 got Metabombed last year for some stupid reason (I think it was many DLC costumes or something), I can't say that I'm particularly surprised that Mass Effect 3, what with all the press about it (good or bad), got the same treatment. Doesn't exactly scream out "maturity" but I can't say I'm shocked by it.

 

[sifffffff]

Not all masses of bad reviews are unjustified trolling.

If they're a 0 out of 10 review for a game that was just released and should take more than a day to complete yes they are. Don't try to defend these assclowns. No defense exists for them besides their dad should have hugged them more.

 

[Thoric485]

This is the direct result of gaming media blatantly lying in its readers' faces - DA2, SW:TOR, now ME3.

Same reason that vagina-owning BioWare writer's twitter got bombed - people are very frustrated with BioWare's decisions, feel they're being shushed in every venue EA controls, so they go full out in the ones they don't.

None of this would be happening if EA's products just got the mediocre review scores they deserved.

 

[Zantos]

lol. Revenge for MW3?

by the way look for 'From Ashes' DLC review score. It's even worse.

I'd say it's more likely it's the same people. "We managed to piss people off trolling that game, lets do it again! This is far better than having friends!"

This is why we can't have nice things. Customer reviews are a great idea that let you see what other people thought, and then someone finds some way to ruin it. Maybe they aren't all trolls, maybe some of them really think that it deserves a zero, but seriously. What. The fuck. Is this. Shit?

Well it was such a bad day at school today because my mom gave me left over spaghetti for lunch today at school and to make matters worse it was inspection day and my knickers weren't in tip top shape but I endured all of this because I couldn't wait to go home and play Mass Effect 3 cause my mom told me she'd get it for me while I was in school. When I got home and started playing ME3 I was entirely bored and found myself puking up my spaghetti onto the floor when I saw some of the horrible dialogue and choices

 

[C2Ultima]

I'm not one for day one DLC, but only an idiot would use that as a reflection for the rest of the game. This has happened with Portal 2, now it's Bioware's turn.

I'm wondering if this is just becoming a "thing" to do with hugely anticipated games.

Seriously though, explain to me the reviews I've read that say "Well, the game is actually really good, but it's got day one DLC! 0/10"

Edit: Actually, after reading a few more of them, I'm actually glad for the ones that point out that their only problem is with the Day 1 DLC, because all the others have some hilariously contrived 'reasons' as to why they dislike the game. From these 'reviews' it's quite easy to tell that they aren't lying, and have definitely played the game before rating it.

Most of the contrived reasons they present are limited to how it was "dumbed down for COD players" or how the homosexual relationships are "forced on you".

Mind you, all those perfect 10s placed to counterbalance the garbage aren't very helpful either. They've got good intentions, but it might just be better to simply ignore all user reviews on Metacritic.

I suggest avoiding all the bile of the Metacritic reviews, unless you enjoy misanthropy.

 

[wooty]

Ive not really been following this mess, but is the day one dlc optional?

If people are getting pissed off over something that is optional, kind of the same vein as the gay dialogue choices, then............actually I cant think of anything clever or witty so I'll just leave it at "what?, why?"

Are people actually that bored these days?

 

[Atmos Duality]

This is an example of how fundamentally flawed review scores are to begin with.

If it's that easy to skew the numbers in aggregate, then we should probably stop paying attention to scores on reviews entirely and focus on details within the reviews themselves.

 

[Staskala]

Why do people insist on pulling this sort of moronic crap?

Have you even played the game?
A lot of the choices Bioware made are incredibly polarizing and even die-hard ME fans will seriously flip their shit over, say, the endings or the "Ashley make-over", to say it without spoiling anything.
This kind of out lash was to be expected. Not to say that most people don't do it just for shits and giggles, obviously.

By the way, funny how you complain about the 0's but not about the 10/10s who also haven't played the game but go "Voted a 10 just to level out a few of the zeros, even though I haven't played". Neither side can claim to be more mature here. I will never get why people seriously care about user scores or numeric scores in general.

Edit: Also, just look at the "professional" scores. Where's the one representing people who had serious problems with the game? Those who would rate it "just" an 8/10? When people feel misrepresented they will simply take matters into their own hands. At least on the internet.