Them not giving review copies out makes sense now, apparently the PC port of dishonored 2 is buggy.

[Worgen]

Ok, then how would you review games? You say gta5 is only worth a 5, what do you base that on? What makes a game worthy of a high score. Cause right now it just sounds like you're saying they aren't reviewing games right since you don't agree with the score.

One of the most basic aspects that reviewers have no concept of is AVERAGE. Average is 5/10, not 7/10, and average is NOT BAD. Something like Uncharted's shooting is average for example.

Another thing reviewers are completely horrible at properly criticizing is writing. You shouldn't give passes to average and even bad writing just because video games have always struggled with writing. There's just very few good writers working in the industry and that's a huge problem for the medium. Good writing can elevate lots of games, especially RPGs. Just think about how lesser of an experience the Portals would be without the their great writing. When you get into the 9+/10 territory when you put a score on a game, that's basically as good as that game could possibly be (as there should only be nitpicks when you get there). But how many games that have scored in the 9+ and even 8+ territory could have been so much better with great writing that they didn't even come close to having? Say a game scored a 9.2 with just OK writing. If that game had really great writing, it scores maybe a 9.4. How does that make sense? Great writing only enhances the experience 0.2 points? Most games should be rated with the same criticisms as movies for the story, characters, etc. (which we never see, not even in RPGs) and then of course for the game part. Look at Metal Gear Solid 4 sitting at a 94 on Metacritic, the game is at least half story and cutscenes thus the writing will greatly affect how much you enjoyed the game. If you thought the writing sucked (which many hate Kojima's writing), how would you give the game a 7 or higher even if you loved the gameplay? And yet not one negative or mixed review for MGS4. Now, I loved MGS4 because I eat up Kojima's B-movie writing, but I'm sure there's tons of gamers and many reviewers that don't. I wouldn't have any issue with MGS4 scoring all over the place from review to review due people's differing opinions on the writing alone. But we don't see that in video game criticism at all.

Now to GTAV. I wrote that whole paragraph about writing in video games because 1) video game writing is pretty shit (with no reviewers really calling it out) and 2) I HATE HATE HATE Dan Houser's writing. Whether it's GTAV, RDR, or Max Payne 3, I just cannot stand his writing. Yahtzee pointed out quite a few issues with the writing in his Zero Punctuation of GTAV and I don't really feel like writing a bunch of reasons why I hate the writing. I'll just say if Dan Houser was writing for movies or TV, I 100% feel he would get torn apart by just about every critic for basically being a hack. I also don't feel the game portion of GTAV is that much better than average either. There's some feel about the controls that I just don't like in all Rockstar games, the aiming doesn't feel right, movement feels off, etc. Just climbing over a fence in GTA is so slow and mechanical. I find the missions in the GTA games to be horrible, they're so linear. What's the point of having an open world when you have linear missions? Most missions are just going to Point B to shoot a bunch of spawned enemies with average, at best, shooting mechanics. Yahtzee talked about that in his review as well. Mercenaries (the 1st one) ruined many open world games like GTA for me because the missions were truly open ended and I saw the light so-to-speak. Watch Dogs, for example, completely out does GTAV in controls and mission quality. There isn't really much GTAV does that is above average besides the world, the graphics, and the polish.

I don't get how GTAV merits a 97 AVERAGE score when there is so much you can criticize about the game. I can see there being reviewers (and gamers) that do indeed love GTA but all of them loving it so much that it averages a 97 is quite literally impossible. You can't even get a group of people to agree on pizza toppings let alone a much bigger group agreeing that any work of art is near perfect. No other medium has works of art that average a freaking 97 score and video games have MORE elements to them. It's just really insane at how different video game reviews are to any other medium. I'm saying video games are reviewed improperly not because I don't agree with the score, but because I think it's rather impossible for 50+ critics to basically come done to a "consensus" of how good a work of art is; there 1 review for GTAV on PS3 that is not within 90-100. List any piece of art from any other medium that is scored anything like that.

It sounds like you're trying to mostly judge games based on writing. But the problem with that is that games are much more than just their writing, plus game writing tends to be kinda ehh for the most part. I can only think of a handful of games that really have fantastic writing and most of those are pretty recent. Like, I love the story of Breath of Fire 2, but the writing is really stilted and awkward since the translation was done on the cheap. I didn't find any issues with the writing in gta5. I did't think it was bad, but it can't hold a candle to something like Undertale. That doesn't mean that gta has bad writing, just that its not as good as something that is literally made of gold.

Gameplay tends to feature much higher in review scores then writing. Partly because most reviewers come from a time when you would still encounter games that just played really badly, for the most part that's a thing of the past with a few exceptions like the last starfox game. Games play pretty well now but reviewers still remember when they didn't, so they arent comparing them to the current world, they are comparing them to all the other games they have played and any reviewer worth his salt will have played a few games that just controlled like shit.

The review score thing has always been an issue and its mostly publishers fault, not reviewers. With a movie you can go to a midnight showing or something if you don't get a critics screening but its much harder to play a 20 hour game and get a timely review out. Reviewers are really dependent on game companies to get reviews out in a timely manner. If a publisher hasn't liked the scores it got in the past then it might hold off on sending out those early copies to certain reviewers, which costs them since most of the hits on a review will be before it comes out. So publishers can bully reviewers for higher scores.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

It sounds like you're trying to mostly judge games based on writing. But the problem with that is that games are much more than just their writing, plus game writing tends to be kinda ehh for the most part. I can only think of a handful of games that really have fantastic writing and most of those are pretty recent. Like, I love the story of Breath of Fire 2, but the writing is really stilted and awkward since the translation was done on the cheap. I didn't find any issues with the writing in gta5. I did't think it was bad, but it can't hold a candle to something like Undertale. That doesn't mean that gta has bad writing, just that its not as good as something that is literally made of gold.

Gameplay tends to feature much higher in review scores then writing. Partly because most reviewers come from a time when you would still encounter games that just played really badly, for the most part that's a thing of the past with a few exceptions like the last starfox game. Games play pretty well now but reviewers still remember when they didn't, so they arent comparing them to the current world, they are comparing them to all the other games they have played and any reviewer worth his salt will have played a few games that just controlled like shit.

The review score thing has always been an issue and its mostly publishers fault, not reviewers. With a movie you can go to a midnight showing or something if you don't get a critics screening but its much harder to play a 20 hour game and get a timely review out. Reviewers are really dependent on game companies to get reviews out in a timely manner. If a publisher hasn't liked the scores it got in the past then it might hold off on sending out those early copies to certain reviewers, which costs them since most of the hits on a review will be before it comes out. So publishers can bully reviewers for higher scores.

I'm not all saying to judge games mostly on writing, but writing has to be a larger part of the review score. It's not OK that game writing tends to be just "ehh" like you mentioned. Writing is so behind all other mediums, it's not even funny. Some games don't have any writing or very little, which is fine, and thus writing shouldn't really be part of the review then. Like I mentioned MGS4, at least half that game is cutscenes so I'd say about half the score should be how entertained the reviewer was with the story, characters, dialogue, etc. Without Portal 2's humor, the game would be quite a bit less enjoyable; it's still a good puzzle game on its own, but the writing has to elevate Portal 2 at least 1 or 2 points (on a 10 point scale) vs if it had just standard video game writing. A lot of people play RPGs, especially JRPGs, for the story and characters and if those aspects aren't good, the game isn't nearly as enjoyable. And then you have games like TellTale's games which are basically as good as the writing is so writing should be like 90% of the score. I totally agree for most games, gameplay is most important and the review score should be weighted as such.

Like I said before, reviewers don't understand what AVERAGE is. The 3rd-person shooting from Uncharted or GTAV is much better than say Syphon Filter or Winback, but that doesn't make the shooting about average because it's better than 3rd-person shooters from generations ago. AVERAGE is something that is constantly changing and the present AVERAGE is how does XYZ FPS compare to other current FPSs, not FPSs from generations ago. Also, what's wrong with just not liking a perfectly functional mechanic? Say a reviewer doesn't like how cover mechanics in 3rd-person shooters make the games play too much like whack-a-mole, that's a very legit complaint. Hell, I thought regen health was stupid back when The Getaway (remember that game with like no HUD whatsoever?) did it for like the first time, and I think it's still stupid. Board games are rated with quite a variance in score and they are all game without any writing.

I don't recall when video game reviews sorta morphed into this thing we have now where everything scores high and just about every reviewer is within 1.0 of everyone else. I still remember the EGM magazine days (to as recent as the early PS2 days) where 3 people would review every game and you got more variance in opinion and score with just 3 reviews than you get now with 100+ reviews on Metacritic. The industry did operate much better than it does now and I'm not sure what caused the shift exactly. I totally understand that how things are now reviewers are way too dependent on the publishers. I think it's both a gamer and reviewer/publisher issue, gamers care too much about game scores thus publishers don't want low scores. This doesn't exist in other mediums where a Transformers movie will get completely destroyed by critics but moviegoers really don't care about the review score. Hell, I prefer going into a movie I'm interested in seeing without any review information about the movie. Same thing with music, you like an artist and stick with them until you stop liking their music. With video games being functional and playing rather well across the board, I don't see the point in the obsession with review scores. There's a dedicated crowd of gamers that like Rockstar's games (you think people won't buy the next GTA because it scores in the 80s?), same with the next COD or Battlefield (people prefer one, reviews aren't going to change their mind), and same thing with Bethesda games, people buy their games because they like previous Elder Scrolls/Fallouts.

 

[Worgen]

It sounds like you're trying to mostly judge games based on writing. But the problem with that is that games are much more than just their writing, plus game writing tends to be kinda ehh for the most part. I can only think of a handful of games that really have fantastic writing and most of those are pretty recent. Like, I love the story of Breath of Fire 2, but the writing is really stilted and awkward since the translation was done on the cheap. I didn't find any issues with the writing in gta5. I did't think it was bad, but it can't hold a candle to something like Undertale. That doesn't mean that gta has bad writing, just that its not as good as something that is literally made of gold.

Gameplay tends to feature much higher in review scores then writing. Partly because most reviewers come from a time when you would still encounter games that just played really badly, for the most part that's a thing of the past with a few exceptions like the last starfox game. Games play pretty well now but reviewers still remember when they didn't, so they arent comparing them to the current world, they are comparing them to all the other games they have played and any reviewer worth his salt will have played a few games that just controlled like shit.

The review score thing has always been an issue and its mostly publishers fault, not reviewers. With a movie you can go to a midnight showing or something if you don't get a critics screening but its much harder to play a 20 hour game and get a timely review out. Reviewers are really dependent on game companies to get reviews out in a timely manner. If a publisher hasn't liked the scores it got in the past then it might hold off on sending out those early copies to certain reviewers, which costs them since most of the hits on a review will be before it comes out. So publishers can bully reviewers for higher scores.

I'm not all saying to judge games mostly on writing, but writing has to be a larger part of the review score. It's not OK that game writing tends to be just "ehh" like you mentioned. Writing is so behind all other mediums, it's not even funny. Some games don't have any writing or very little, which is fine, and thus writing shouldn't really be part of the review then. Like I mentioned MGS4, at least half that game is cutscenes so I'd say about half the score should be how entertained the reviewer was with the story, characters, dialogue, etc. Without Portal 2's humor, the game would be quite a bit less enjoyable; it's still a good puzzle game on its own, but the writing has to elevate Portal 2 at least 1 or 2 points (on a 10 point scale) vs if it had just standard video game writing. A lot of people play RPGs, especially JRPGs, for the story and characters and if those aspects aren't good, the game isn't nearly as enjoyable. And then you have games like TellTale's games which are basically as good as the writing is so writing should be like 90% of the score. I totally agree for most games, gameplay is most important and the review score should be weighted as such.

Like I said before, reviewers don't understand what AVERAGE is. The 3rd-person shooting from Uncharted or GTAV is much better than say Syphon Filter or Winback, but that doesn't make the shooting about average because it's better than 3rd-person shooters from generations ago. AVERAGE is something that is constantly changing and the present AVERAGE is how does XYZ FPS compare to other current FPSs, not FPSs from generations ago. Also, what's wrong with just not liking a perfectly functional mechanic? Say a reviewer doesn't like how cover mechanics in 3rd-person shooters make the games play too much like whack-a-mole, that's a very legit complaint. Hell, I thought regen health was stupid back when The Getaway (remember that game with like no HUD whatsoever?) did it for like the first time, and I think it's still stupid. Board games are rated with quite a variance in score and they are all game without any writing.

I don't recall when video game reviews sorta morphed into this thing we have now where everything scores high and just about every reviewer is within 1.0 of everyone else. I still remember the EGM magazine days (to as recent as the early PS2 days) where 3 people would review every game and you got more variance in opinion and score with just 3 reviews than you get now with 100+ reviews on Metacritic. The industry did operate much better than it does now and I'm not sure what caused the shift exactly. I totally understand that how things are now reviewers are way too dependent on the publishers. I think it's both a gamer and reviewer/publisher issue, gamers care too much about game scores thus publishers don't want low scores. This doesn't exist in other mediums where a Transformers movie will get completely destroyed by critics but moviegoers really don't care about the review score. Hell, I prefer going into a movie I'm interested in seeing without any review information about the movie. Same thing with music, you like an artist and stick with them until you stop liking their music. With video games being functional and playing rather well across the board, I don't see the point in the obsession with review scores. There's a dedicated crowd of gamers that like Rockstar's games (you think people won't buy the next GTA because it scores in the 80s?), same with the next COD or Battlefield (people prefer one, reviews aren't going to change their mind), and same thing with Bethesda games, people buy their games because they like previous Elder Scrolls/Fallouts.

You seem to be ignoring certain games. Fantastic writing can bump up the score an a mediocre game. Look at Spec Ops the Line. The gameplay is bog standard but the story and writing is so good it really bumped it up. Making it a critical darling. In fact, look at undertale, its got decent gameplay but without the phenomenal writing and story it wouldn't be beloved like it is.

The average bar has remained rather stationary and to get a good score you kinda only need a game that plays well and is presented good. As I said, you don't tend to get big games that just fuck something up like you used too. At least, not often, now when a big game fucks up, it fucks up hard, look at the reviews for the pc version of arkham knight. It got savaged for being a buggy mess. The only positive reviews for it look like they were paid for. But the thing is, you see inflated reviews for movies too. Look at toy story 3. I think its the weakest one but its got the highest score. In fact people were pissed when someone gave it a negative review and it didn't have a 100% on rotten tomatoes. The guy who wrote the review got death threats for it.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

You seem to be ignoring certain games. Fantastic writing can bump up the score an a mediocre game. Look at Spec Ops the Line. The gameplay is bog standard but the story and writing is so good it really bumped it up. Making it a critical darling. In fact, look at undertale, its got decent gameplay but without the phenomenal writing and story it wouldn't be beloved like it is.

The average bar has remained rather stationary and to get a good score you kinda only need a game that plays well and is presented good. As I said, you don't tend to get big games that just fuck something up like you used too. At least, not often, now when a big game fucks up, it fucks up hard, look at the reviews for the pc version of arkham knight. It got savaged for being a buggy mess. The only positive reviews for it look like they were paid for. But the thing is, you see inflated reviews for movies too. Look at toy story 3. I think its the weakest one but its got the highest score. In fact people were pissed when someone gave it a negative review and it didn't have a 100% on rotten tomatoes. The guy who wrote the review got death threats for it.

Specs Ops is overcompensation really and ignoring, for the most part, the below par gameplay, which is what you spend most of the time doing. I couldn't even get through the demo of the game because the shooting was not nearly on par with other TPSs. I'm not going to struggle through gameplay to get to the good parts. I choose not to play Spec Ops at all (even when it was free on PS+) because I could spend that time watching a movie or TV show on the same subject matter with most likely even better writing without having to obviously deal with bad gameplay. I'm not disagreeing the writing didn't bump it up (I'm sure it did) but the gameplay already had handicapped it too much that the writing couldn't save it IMO. What you spend most of your time doing in a game should have the greatest weight for a review score. Much like how the Batmobile in Arkham Knight greatly influenced people's ratings and enjoyment of that game due to it being not nearly as enjoyable as the standard Arkham gameplay while being forced to spend so much time in the Batmobile.

Arkham Knight has a 70 review score on PC with only ONE negative review. If that is a game getting "savaged", then there's something majorly wrong with reviews. That sorta proves the only part of the scale actually used is 7-10. Average doesn't stay stationary, that's one of the problems. There's nothing wrong with not liking game mechanics even though they are perfectly functional. Board game reviews are much more variant for example, you have critics saying a board game is great while another says it sucks, you can just not like something because you just didn't like it. That happens in every other medium because no one reviews art as being "objective" besides for game critics. Toy Story 3 is rated (in score) between 1 and 2 on RottenTomatoes at least. I sorta feel most Pixar movies are overrated, I like them and all but they're not that great IMO. And, even though 2 of the Toy Story movies are at 100%, the highest average score is 9.0/10. There's no art in any medium that averages a score in the mid to upper 90s like video games. Also, just imagine if video games had a RottenTomatoes, every game would be 100% fresh!!! Can you see how there's something wrong?