I'm really happy Jim's still reviewing. Not just that but his first review is Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus. I'm exited to see what Jim brings to the site although the fact he is starting off with one of my favorite game franchises of all time may mean I may have to rip hm to shreds if he doesn't give it at least a 10/10.(I jest, of course)
What Our Review Scores Mean
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
- Start date
This can't be accurate. There is no game in existence, or that ever will exist, that does not contain a number of elements that aren't to everybody's taste. According to this scale, it's impossible for any game to ever score above four stars.Jimothy Sterling said:
Also, congratulations I guess. Welcome to the world of even more whining and pointless nitpicking of things that were perfectly well understood in the first place.
The trouble with that is that there is a huge sampling bias involved here. The Escapist does not review all games, it reviews a very small subset of games that they think they're readers will have some interest in. The vast majority of low scoring games are crappy shovelware that most people will never even hear of, so they're unlikely to actually be featured on this site, or most others for that matter. Hell, there are games that Metacritic can't find a single review for, and when things I haven't heard of pop up on Steam I quite often find that there are only a few foreign language reviews. This means the average of scores by the Escapist is always going to be much higher than the theoretical average would be if they could review everything.saxman234 said:
Congratulations on this, well deserved, your reviews are always the best, except for Final Fantasy 13, and sympathies to Destructoid for losing you. This is a good objective standard to work toward.
I wonder though, about those games which have a lot of good going for them, and also a lot of things wrong with them. Like say the storytelling and graphical design is masterful but the code is full of bugs. How are they scored? By the good parts? By the bad parts? Some weighted average? Usually it is the holistic sum that ends up coming through. I was just thinking about some games that I really liked but had problems, and sticking rigidly to this scale they probably would have gotten 2.5 stars. Who knows maybe that is what they deserved--still though I would rather play one of those games than your 3 star game.
I wonder though, about those games which have a lot of good going for them, and also a lot of things wrong with them. Like say the storytelling and graphical design is masterful but the code is full of bugs. How are they scored? By the good parts? By the bad parts? Some weighted average? Usually it is the holistic sum that ends up coming through. I was just thinking about some games that I really liked but had problems, and sticking rigidly to this scale they probably would have gotten 2.5 stars. Who knows maybe that is what they deserved--still though I would rather play one of those games than your 3 star game.
Congratulations on the job, Jim. The new scoring system sounds like it will be great. I look forward to reading your reviews!
Just checking, but does anybody else hear Jims voice when reading an article by him? I do the same for MovieBob and Zero P.
I was just reading the score definitions and upon realizing what I was doing, had a little chuckle and checked out some of the other srticles on the site to see if it carried over, to which I can personally say it does.
Also gotta say it's good to know the review side of things will be in good hands.
I was just reading the score definitions and upon realizing what I was doing, had a little chuckle and checked out some of the other srticles on the site to see if it carried over, to which I can personally say it does.
Also gotta say it's good to know the review side of things will be in good hands.