Halo 4 gets a 2/10...

[Carlos Storm]

I'll definitely rent it.

:O................ sweet mother of jesus you can still do that? WHERE???

 

[Woodsey]

Can you give an example of a game this critic rates highly? It might show something about their standards and expectations

Go to his review page and organise them by rating.

OT: I think it's Tom Chick's opinion. His tastes don't tend to match up to more mainstream tastes - besides which, he employs the full breadth of his scoring table (and it's 1 out of 5, I don't know why you've translated it to 2 out of 10). That makes him more useful to people like me and less useful to people who like Halo.

So... what's the problem?

Stop throwing a fit over someone else's fucking opinion. My experience with the Halo series would lead me to score it a 1/5, I think they're shit. Guess how much that affects what people who like the series think of it? Oh, that's right. Fuck all.

And if someone tries to kick up a fuss about him dragging the Metacritic average down so help me I will strangle you.

 

[bladester1]

Oh and yes A.I.s have lifespans, this is a thing. This isn't something 343 pulled out of their rears, A.I. decay and rampancy have been a part of the Halo universe for years now.

What's this lifespan thing? I haven't played Halo since 2 so maybe I don't remember but lifespans sound interesting.

OT: The cynic in me would agree he's just trolling for hits. Unless the game doesn't function I don't think a 2/10 is really ever justified, even for games I hate.

In the first halo book they state that Smart AI's have a life span of 7 years before they corrupt their memory crystal, aka, they think themselves to death. Dumb AI's don't have this issue.

 

[Mikeyfell]

See, this is precisely why no review should have a score at the end.
The reviewer should simply speak their piece and let the reader decide for them selves how much their praises or condemnations mean.

By tacking a numerical value on the end of a review people end up criticizing that instead of reading the review. Mostly because no two people care the same way about all of gaming's different aspects.

For example the main thing that irks me about Halo 4 is that they changed composers so the score isn't as good. How many arbitrary numbers is that worth? -1? -2? -8? +1? Nobody feels the same way.

At least we can all agree that iron sights don't belong in Halo 4 (Most of us anyway) but this guy seems to have some valid points (Some valid points, not a lot) But you guys are throwing a shit storm over the degree to which they bothered him (Her? whoever) instead of taking the criticisms at face value.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Firstly, I've no idea who the hell Tom Chick is, nor do I particularly care that you view him as a tenured video game critic. It really doesn't matter how long you've been around, he could have been the very first reviewer in history and that wouldn't change my opinion on him being a sensationalist, since this is the first time I've ever seen a review of his ever. The simple fact being that if he didn't rate it so low as he did I'd still not know who he is (much like a large number of people in this very thread, so that helps support that thought as well).

I don't THINK he's tenured. That's not an opinion. He's been around forever. I guess I could quote Rock Paper Shotgun...

When Deus Ex debuted back in 2000 it was showered with universal critical kudos. Well? almost universal critical kudos. The exception was Tom Chick, now one of the most respected American games journalists currently writing about the medium, who gave it a sub-50% mark.

...but as their perspective on the man differs from your own knee-jerk reaction to a single review, I imagine you're going to hand-wave their opinion as well. That's what we do, right? Any opinion that differs from ours, we just reject it offhand! What is this garbage? People think differently from me? It's a fucking outrage!

Secondly, don't you dare call me a hypocrite just because I don't think somebody being contrarian is worthy of praise...

Uh...whatever gave you THAT idea? I find the fact he's deliberately contrarian ANNOYING AS HELL. If you read past the fact that I think your confirmation bias is hilarious and didn't immediately go into super defensive mode, you'd have noticed that I do not like Tom Chick.

You seem to be under the impression that you somehow know that this opinion of his is actually his opinion.

I am often given to understand that opinions are opinions, yes. What else would they be? Pomegranates?

How are you so certain that he isn't just trolling for views?

Because he doesn't need to? It's almost like saying Roger Ebert gave a bad review because he needs to troll for hits to make a living.

My mind has been made up.

Yes, I'm sure it is. That's a point of pride, no doubt. Your ability to have your mind "made up" based entirely on an outraged reaction to a tiny piece of information without any context, or knowledge of the individual in question. Well done. You'll fit right in here.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

...Seriously? What the fuck is going on here.

Are we so insecure about this one fucking game, that we have to keep making threads any time someone posts a review we don't agree with? I don't even... when did gaming become this desperate, that any journalist who we disagree with must instantly become some sort of self-serving egotistical attention whore troll?

Look, let's clear a few things up. The reviewer did not give Halo a 2 out of 10. That's a numerical impossibility, considering that he didn't use a ten point scale. He used a five point scale, and gave it the bottom star. That's it. Not only that, but he gave plenty of other reasons why he didn't like the game. The OP is being deliberately misrepresentative of the reasoning.

The reason Tom Chick gave Halo 1 star out of 5 isn't because of the Mammoth Gun, or the fact that enemies have Tron lines. You'd have to be a complete idiot to read the review as such. The reason he scored H4 so low is because, as far as he's concerned, the game does absolutely nothing that earlier games in the series haven't already done. The new weapons are just laser versions of existing weapons (something I and many others pointed out when the E3 demo was first shown) and the new enemies are derivative and uninspired.

It's amazing- if you actually read the review, he actually gives reasons why he doesn't like the game. And those reasons are why he scored the game so low. In fact, if you squint your eyes, it's almost like the score follows on naturally from the review itself. Amazing!

At the end of this day, the guy has an opinion. He gets paid to express that opinion. If you don't like it, nobody is forcing you to read it. If you're truly the type of person to get so worked up about one negative review, when gaming journalism is currently in dire need of more criticism, then you are exactly the sort of gamer reinforcing negative sterotypes about gaming. The insecure, loud types who cannot even bear the thought that someone might think differently to them. It's gamers like this who are killing integrity in gaming journalism, and it's gamers like this who are responsible for the piles of trash that are sites like IGN.

In short, grow the fuck up, and put your big boy pants on.

Thanks for that. I endorse this opinion, which is a reflection of mine. Were you a reviewer, I might peruse future reviews you wrote, based on this concurrence of our perspectives.

 

[TecnoMonkey]

When I first knew about this score I immediately thought of one reviewer, Tom Chick from Quarter to Three, I absolutely despise the guy, he gave two of my favorite games ever, Deus Ex and Journey, mediocre scores, he also gave Uncharted 3, a game which I like (but not enough to become a favorite) a 4/10. WHY does someone like him work in this industry, the man knows nothing about videogames!

First I thought he was a Sony hater, but then he gave Gears 3 and negative score and now of course Halo 4, two games that I will never play but I can see how good they are, two games that I know are not to be rated below a 7.

 

[Radoh]

Firstly, I've no idea who the hell Tom Chick is, nor do I particularly care that you view him as a tenured video game critic. It really doesn't matter how long you've been around, he could have been the very first reviewer in history and that wouldn't change my opinion on him being a sensationalist, since this is the first time I've ever seen a review of his ever. The simple fact being that if he didn't rate it so low as he did I'd still not know who he is (much like a large number of people in this very thread, so that helps support that thought as well).

I don't THINK he's tenured. That's not an opinion. He's been around forever. I guess I could quote Rock Paper Shotgun...

When Deus Ex debuted back in 2000 it was showered with universal critical kudos. Well? almost universal critical kudos. The exception was Tom Chick, now one of the most respected American games journalists currently writing about the medium, who gave it a sub-50% mark.

...but as their perspective on the man differs from your own knee-jerk reaction to a single review, I imagine you're going to hand-wave their opinion as well. That's what we do, right? Any opinion that differs from ours, we just reject it offhand! What is this garbage? People think differently from me? It's a fucking outrage!

And then let's start with this shall we? I don't have an opinion on Halo Four. I've not played it, I have no real interest in playing it, but as it stands I've seen a total of one incredibly negative review for it: This one.
You are operating under the assumption that I went into this thread looking at the title and going "What? No! Halo Four is the Perfect game! They must learn of this post-haste!" When in reality I went here to see who it is that holds the sole negative that has been forwarded unto me. After reading this review I've made up my mind that he is less crass than Razorfist, but doing the same thing as him and has been ignored because of it.

Secondly, don't you dare call me a hypocrite just because I don't think somebody being contrarian is worthy of praise...

Uh...whatever gave you THAT idea? I find the fact he's deliberately contrarian ANNOYING AS HELL. If you read past the fact that I think your confirmation bias is hilarious and didn't immediately go into super defensive mode, you'd have noticed that I do not like Tom Chick.

I did notice that, but for some reason you mark that as relevant to the discussion at hand.
It is not.
You see, you called me a hypocrite for me saying that he's just some guy I will take to ignoring based off of reasons already gone over, and that somehow marks me as saying one thing but doing another, and as such I did react negatively to your insult.

How are you so certain that he isn't just trolling for views?

Because he doesn't need to? It's almost like saying Roger Ebert gave a bad review because he needs to troll for hits to make a living.

You can say that as much as you want and it still does not change the fact that I don't know him from a hole in the ground. If he's so relevant and such a big name, then why have I never heard of him before? I don't claim to know everyone of relevance in the world, but when someone points to a random yabbo and says he's important, I have a difficulty believing it until there's actual proof of his importance.

My mind has been made up.

Yes, I'm sure it is. That's a point of pride, no doubt. Your ability to have your mind "made up" based entirely on an outraged reaction to a tiny piece of information without any context, or knowledge of the individual in question. Well done. You'll fit right in here.

And there you go taking what I said out of context, you'll fit right in here.
I said that in retort to you telling us to "Make up our fucking minds" on what we want from game reviewers, but then put forward some bullshit choice which I chose to ignore out of the sheer stupidity of it.

Keep telling me how important he is for as long as you want, it will not change that I find him incredibly unimportant.

 

[Warachia]

Oh gee, 1 reviewer gives a game a bad score. The end of the world is near!

I don't look at game reviews anymore; I haven't for years. Because the reviewers can not be trusted. There are mostly unprofessional, biased and sometimes even corrupt. There are a few exceptions, mostly the independent reviewers, e.g. hobbyist.

The only people who are overreacting are people like you who don't bother to read a forum before commenting.
They are discussing a review, they are not crying or whining about it, they are looking at the points he made and giving their opinions on these points, since when was that taboo? Looking at the later posts, it seems to be a little hijacked by people who think an opinion can't be discussed.

 

[Chrinik]

Okay...Halo 4 got nothing new...it introduces the forerunners, finally giving a face to that mysterious race that apparently made everything and then died to contain the flood.

AIs have a lifespan is only really new for people who didn´t spend any time with the story at all...All AIs have a lifespan, just like your friggin MP-3 player won´t last forever. Also it´s meant to prevent AIs from litterally "living forever" and turning into Shodan and GlaDos...with this system, you can just wait until they die. Problem solved...

But to be fair, if he doesn´t like it, why should I care? Litterally NO REVIEWER liked Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor, and everyone trashed it for the controls...incidentally watching them play made me realize why. They press the reload button to jump and wonder why it doesn´t work comparatively...Or, in other words, they use completely wrong hand gestures and then wonder why Kinect wasn´t patched to include mind-reading yet.
And I still love the game. I think it´s an amazing military like experience, that has put alot of effort into their characters, gameplay features and little stuff like your crew feeling alive (when not repeating themselfs over and over XD).
And, having no Kinect experience before it and actually taking the risk to buy it with the game, I was suprised that everyone, telling me I need a big room that´s well lit was wrong...

So fuck reviewers...they give their opinion of a game, and you can use that to decide if you want the game, or if you don´t want it, or if you simply wait.
I tend to read multiple reviews and if the complaints are in my eyes not valid or won´t bother me, then I´ll get it regardless of the score.

 

[Monsterfurby]

Shouldn't - in any sane society - "nothing new compared to the previous decent/good games" be exactly a 5/10? You know, as in "delivers precisely what was promised, but does not excel or disappoint in any major way"?

 

[archabaddon]

Not that I'm a Halo player or even a fan, but generally reviews like this are created just for the shock value. Not that we shouldn't look at games critically, but I doubt that the game is really that poor to merit a 2/10 rating. I could, for example, potentially compare it to Duke Nukem Forever, which would almost certainly have a lower rating, therefor meaning that this game should be rated higher than DNF.

That being said, IMPO I think the genre and series are going stale, so I don't think it would deserve perfect marks either. The gameplay probably isn't ground-breaking, it probably won't innovate the industry or set the bar higher, etc. That doesn't mean it won't be a good game, just not one that deserves a 10/10.

But without having played it, I can't say what the score should be exactly, just somewhere probably in the middle; perhaps 6/10 or 7/10? It would probably depend on how good other elements of the game are, such as a compelling story or the quality of PvP.

 

[Ranorak]

Why is this anything new?

People give extreme low scores to good games all the time.

I mean, if it's not buyable hats, it's Ironsight.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

Anyway, what do my fellow Escapists think about the review.

I think you should wait the 24 hours for the game to be released so you can get a good idea of what the general gaming population believes about the game. I mean, this is going to go one of two ways. Either the game is good and this guy will be called a troll or it will be awful and this guy will be considered the only reviewer who wasn't "Bought out" by Microsoft's money.

Honestly, its the same old song and dance.

 

[wadark]

Subjective review is subjective. I'm sure Yahtzee will have some choice words for Halo 4 next week, but it doesn't mean its bad. Everyone has an equal opinion, which is why sales drive development more than reviews.

 

[Jesse Billingsley]

Halo 3 was a sham. I haven't picked it up since. Tried to once, then I went back to playing Armored Core an hour later.

I'm waiting for the walkthroughs to come out, see if I like the gameplay, and get it in December with Reach because I actually enjoyed it's campaign

 

[Pharsalus]

Haven't played it but if it just sucks a 4 would seem more appropriate. 2 is the rating of a broken or fundamentally flawed game.