008Zulu said:
Maybe the Americans gave it bad reviews because they have gotten used to being paid/bribed/threatened-with-firing to give good reviews.
Braid was very well reviewed even by American critics... and considering how relatively little was spent to make the game I'd say it would have been impossible to bribe or put any financial pressure on them.
To be honest it isn't a few bad reviewers that is bringing this game's aggregate score down, only 3 out of 30 reviews gave a score in above 80%, which I consider the threshold of investing 40 quid of my money on unless there is something very special about it.
I don't know why Rebellion are singling out the fact that American critics gave them lowest review scores, since due to the nature of how America makes up the largest market for this game and has a 5x larger population than the UK then most game reviews are going to originate from America. Then it is pretty likely if anybody gives a low review score then it'll be an American publication, same goes for the likelihood of a positive review or likelihood of a normal review score.
Interestingly the PC version is rated quite a bit higher than the 360 version, aggregate 73% to 65%, with higher user ratings as well (PC = 8.1 to XB360 = 7.8). PS3 version rated slightly better than 360 version by not by any significant amount.
I don't have all that much faith in any one review and I won't quibble over 5% either way but I think that maths like mean averages can decipher meaning from the noise, aggregate scores like Metacritic are a very good guide and metascore of 65% should set alarm bells ringing and people should be VERY cautious about buying.
Most of the dozens of games I have played on both consoles and PC I've found have earned a metascore of 80% to 90%, only a handful of the games I actually liked have scored in the mid to high 70% range and even for those games I admit their shortcomings. But I have yet to find a game that is earns a metascore of as low as 65% and is still worth playing let alone worth buying new at launch price.