Most games are only judged by what console they come out on now. Look at any exclusive title and see the massive contrast in user scores.
Games with big differences between magazine reviews and user reviews.
- Thread starter outcast_within
- Start date
Recommended Videos
First of all, Gerstmann, in my opinion, was a much weaker reviewer than Alex Navarro. With that said, I don't think he sucked and I'm not justifying the actions taken by Eidos. However, his video review was a tad awful even if the rating was alright.AxCx said:
Also, most other gaming sites also bashed Kane & Lynch (undeservedly, I must say), Gerstmann is not exacly special.
I remember reading magazine reviews , They always seem to be very biased e.g. They all considered GTA the game of the year and always used it to compare to other games.
Another one was when magazine in particular give Saint's row 2 a 1/10 , soley due the fact they liked GTA more, Seriously ? Saint's Row 2 was decent game when I played it.
I think the only reviews you can trust are from http://www.giantbomb.com/
Thier rating system is very simple and fair. (then again I've only seen 4 reviews from them so don't take my word for it)
Another one was when magazine in particular give Saint's row 2 a 1/10 , soley due the fact they liked GTA more, Seriously ? Saint's Row 2 was decent game when I played it.
I think the only reviews you can trust are from http://www.giantbomb.com/
Thier rating system is very simple and fair. (then again I've only seen 4 reviews from them so don't take my word for it)
I think that rating difference can be used on any game with DRM. Reviewers dont punish a game to harshly for it. Users on the other hand will rate it a 0 if it has DRM anywhere near it, and throw off user ranking system.
(i am not saying drm 0 ranking is bad, im just saying it messes with actual game review average.)
(i am not saying drm 0 ranking is bad, im just saying it messes with actual game review average.)
My favourite metacritic user review for MW2:
"Tom Rose gave it a0:
Game fails to even achieve what the box claims it can do. Expect hackers to always whip your arse. Hosting, realtime play, and characters can all be hacked to the benefit of the hacker. Expect to be blown out of the water by a 45 year old nakid fat computer programmer with nothing better to do but show how steam security and this game just all out fail."
Not bitter then. He must play against different people than me as I rarely get my ass handed to me.
Fans tend to polarise, you get massive scores and low scores and nothing inbetween. Either they love the game and it can do no wrong or small things wind people up (DRM, no dedicated servers, map glitches, etc) and they give it a 1, or in Tom Rose's case a 0.
User reviews are not worth the paper they are written on for "overall score". Read a hand full of poor, middling and high reviews then make a judgement.
I also feel that some games are different depending on how much time you spend with them. A games journalist won't get any longer than a week at best with a title, that effects their view. I enjoyed GTAIV for the first few days but then put it down and never picked it up again bored. Never finished it.
It gets a 6 from me where as it got 9s and 10s everywhere. I think a lot of it is based on play time.
"Tom Rose gave it a0:
Game fails to even achieve what the box claims it can do. Expect hackers to always whip your arse. Hosting, realtime play, and characters can all be hacked to the benefit of the hacker. Expect to be blown out of the water by a 45 year old nakid fat computer programmer with nothing better to do but show how steam security and this game just all out fail."
Not bitter then. He must play against different people than me as I rarely get my ass handed to me.
Fans tend to polarise, you get massive scores and low scores and nothing inbetween. Either they love the game and it can do no wrong or small things wind people up (DRM, no dedicated servers, map glitches, etc) and they give it a 1, or in Tom Rose's case a 0.
User reviews are not worth the paper they are written on for "overall score". Read a hand full of poor, middling and high reviews then make a judgement.
I also feel that some games are different depending on how much time you spend with them. A games journalist won't get any longer than a week at best with a title, that effects their view. I enjoyed GTAIV for the first few days but then put it down and never picked it up again bored. Never finished it.
It gets a 6 from me where as it got 9s and 10s everywhere. I think a lot of it is based on play time.
The main games that I see differences in are with the Dynasty Warriors games. Most critics only give those games about 5-6, while most of the user reviews end up being around 8-9, and I haven't played a bad Dynasty Warriors game yet, so I'm going with the fans being right on this one.
That's because reviewers are (a lot of the time) forced to give a higher score than they feel. Remember the Kane & Lynch fiasco? The only reviews I really read these days are those of my close peers and that of OutOfEight.info - oh, and by looking at games that i've enjoyed and seeing what the people that liked it liked. Doing things this way has never left me wanting.
Gamespot gives the Monster Hunter games shitty ratings all teh time but the user scores show how good it is, their employees wouldn't know a good game if it kicked them in the face.
Ubisoft's games always get high scores from the media, even the ones that are hated by most gamers.
Far Cry 2, Prince of Persia 2008, Ass Creed 1... all flawed games that pissed the majority of the community who bought them, yet all high scorers.
Of course, it has been proven that Ubi bribe and threaten critics when it comes to reviews, and I will never again buy one of their games after the DRM fiasco.
Fuck that company.
Far Cry 2, Prince of Persia 2008, Ass Creed 1... all flawed games that pissed the majority of the community who bought them, yet all high scorers.
Of course, it has been proven that Ubi bribe and threaten critics when it comes to reviews, and I will never again buy one of their games after the DRM fiasco.
Fuck that company.
Not to defend Ubisoft here, they are indeed on my shit list at the moment, but I think quite a few game companies do this.MiracleOfSound said:
It's why I generally prefer user reviews to magazine reviews. I don't believe magazines when they say they are "Independent." Far too many games get 9's these days. The whole video game review system needs an overhaul in my opinion.
True, they were probably the unlucky ones who got called out on it.meganmeave said:
I agree, way too many games get glowing 'this game is god!' reviews that don't even address the multitudes of issues in them.
I read a review of ME2 that didn't mention planet scanning. Honestly.
Really? That magazine must have gotten a mineral DLC or something. That just can't even be overlooked, even accidentally.MiracleOfSound said:
I used to subscribe to three gaming magazines. When 90% of the games they reviewed had a 7 or higher, I had to stop my subscriptions. I don't know why they even bother with a 10 point scale anymore.
GTA 4, got perfect reviews from a lot of people and still has a Metacritic of 98, user score is 74. Don't get me wrong its not a bad game per say, but its not great. Most people that I know that have played it said it was from o.k. to good, and is one of the few games I still call bs on there is no reason for why a game like that should have gotten that high a score. Not even some of the best games that have come out this generation of consoles had such high reviews.