Worgen said:
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.