The gaming review scene can go f--- itself

Graal

Graal

New member
Seriously, the gaming review scene cannot be considered relevant any longer. Not for the past few years. Have a look at these ME3 scores:

IGN 9.5/10
Eurogamer 10/10
GamerZines 98/100

Are you fucking kidding me? 10/10? 98/100, meaning it's 2% away from being perfect? Fuck off. I have no doubt that the game will be excellent, but seriously?

And what's worse? I didn't even have to see the scores to know that that's what the game is going to be getting. It's a highly anticipated game to a critically acclaimed series. How can it not get a high-score based on that criteria alone? Go have a look, every single highly anticipated game that doesn't have glaring issues right off the bat will have similar scores. It might even turn out to be a step down from previous games and it will still get an amazing score.

It's like games are no longer rated according to how good the game is, but instead how much people like the franchise it is set in.

I remember a time when a game received a score based on the sum of its parts and a game had to be really amazing to receive a score above 80%. Nowadays people consider everything under 80% to be a waste of time.
 
I use reviews as a baseline and prefer friend or community recommendations or my own "spidey sense" for a game being worth it. If I am unsure I wait or try out a demo.

Also IGN is the Fox News of the Gaming world their review carry about as much weight as a piece of wood. I tend to trust Edge, Gametrailers a bit more but the final judgement is in playing it.
 
Same here, I don't let inflated scores influence my purchase decision. Anyway regardless of score I already have this game pre-ordered, so I will decide for myself how good or bad the game is once I play it.

Gametrailers review. I don't know the score...

Gamespot review. 9/10
 
Graal said:
/snip

Nowadays people consider everything under 80% to be a waste of time.
Click to expand...

Funnily enough, the games I've enjoyed the most weigh in on the 7 - 8 scale.
It is without a doubt a popularity contest, especially with IGN.
 
What would remedy the situation is doing away with the score system. The pure fact that ratings aren't standardised, and subjective, should be sending off alarm bells for any gamer looking for good critic.

I've been watching Zero Punctuation reviews for some time, and sure it's full of fun stuff and overly critical nonsense, but what he does well is discern 'the bad' very well, which is what a lot of reviewers forego these days.
Also, I just love it how there is no scores - just critical analysis, and at the end of it, you can tell if he liked it or not.

Maybe not exactly what everyone else should be doing, but at least he's doing some things right. Just my two cents.
 
Coheed said:
What would remedy the situation is doing away with the score system.
Click to expand...

That would actually be a really good start. It would force reviewers to actually focus on aspects of the game which are good and bad in their reviews, instead of just rambling a few lines so they can justify their over-inflated score.
 
It's all about page views, people want their views reinforced so they will go read reviews to support this. So a popular franchise will obviously have a lot of people who 'know' the game is going to be great before they even touch it and all they want is for people to tell them how great the game is.

Sure some places are worse than others when it comes to this pandering but it's largely the reason why review scores in general have risen over the last 10 years. It used to be a mediocre game would get a 4-6, and a good/great game would get and 8 or 9. Now mediocre is 7-8 with good, great being 9-10.

Just look at the whole Uncharted 3 story where people went ape shit because someone gave the game an 8, instead of 9 or 10. It boggles the mind.

tldr; scores are stupid.
 
Zero Punctuation is amateur, immature bullshit, as bad as these 'reviewers' who get told to give certain games high scores. I miss the days when an actual review (written in more detail than the shit these days) meant something. These days you will get by better in the gaming life if you rely on word of mouth and demo's rather than entertain the stupids.
 
The media generally has a way of completely destroying the true appearance of things though. Even if a fair reviewer or review system comes along, the moment it becomes accepted or popular the sooner it will implode on itself and become unfair... So in other words, believing any game review is a bad idea... Recommendations ftw
 
On the other side of the spectrum, have you guys seen the movie review scene yet? It's like a minefield. Some consider it to be overly harsh at times. Movies I often consider good might get a 7, maybe an 8 in seldom cases. A stark contrast to the gaming review scene which sees how high they can score everything.
 
And Zero Punctuation on The Escapist?.. wow.. his reviews made me question games i have been playing for years :/ Waaay too overly harsh
 
Graal said:
On the other side of the spectrum, have you guys seen the movie review scene yet? It's like a minefield. Some consider it to be overly harsh at times. Movies I often consider good might get a 7, maybe an 8 in seldom cases. A stark contrast to the gaming review scene which sees how high they can score everything.
Click to expand...

Aye that is one hella weird scene too, now that you mention it. The problem lies with the caliber of reviewer that exists, the kind that is only interested in 1 type of movie and therefore rates everything else outside of that, utter shit. I'm glad I have never taken a movie reviewers view into account because if I had, I would have missed out on a lot by now.
 
Anyone who takes Zero Punctuation seriously needs to have their head examined as their brains may be missing.

Its a satire/parody review. Its purpose is to be entertaining, not informative.
 
Graal said:
Are you fucking kidding me? 10/10? 98/100, meaning it's 2% away from being perfect? Fuck off.
Click to expand...
Hahaha, awesome rant brother :D

I agree, you can't just give everything almost perfect scores all the time, its ridiculous. How is a person meant to get anything out of the review if its always perfect. They've lost their credibility, and now they're cocked, they've set the "standard". If they put their foot down and give a game a proper review and give it 75% or something, then it would be detrimental for the game.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top