Is 7/10 a low score to give Killzone 2?

[Uncompetative]

Edge magazine recently published a review of Killzone 2. I felt it was quite balanced. They admired it's "immaculate craft", enjoyed its multiplayer, yet had to mark it down a little because its "imagination... barely exists."

Is Edge being elitist, or is it getting flamed by a lot of ignorant PS3 fanboys who have only played the demo?

Are people not even reading Edge, but looking at metacritic and thinking that all reviews are based on the same rating scheme? It is reasonable to compare most as their exclusives are secured by guaranteeing favorable reviews, artificially rating all of their numeric scores upward so that 5/10 no longer means "average". In this company Edge appears to be giving games low scores out of spite (or to retain the mystique of an elitist intelligentsia). This isn't their intention at all and I wonder whether they should remove their score from metacritic to avoid future false comparisons, or remove numerical ratings from their reviews (as they now appear to be meaningless as wildly differing opinions in this thread have demonstrated).

Maybe they could award stars, like the Michelin Restaurant Guide, so, assuming 5/10 is "average" and the following mapping applies:

* - 8/10
** - 9/10
*** - 10/10

I don't want to know whether a game gets 2/10 or 3/10, if it gets no stars I'll probably not get it at all. Anything that is rated below 8/10 has at least one major flaw that spoils the experience. So, Killzone 2 wouldn't get any stars at all and you'd be forced to read the review to see what faults it had; perhaps concluding that you would still buy it because you really only wanted the Multiplayer aspect.

 

[SmugFrog]

I miss the days when game reviews were more like:

7 = a good game, that needed polish.
8 = a very enjoyable game, polished to a shine
9 = an outstanding game that you wouldn't be able to put down
10 = the "perfect game"

It seems like 10s are handed out so freely these days. It bugs me when I pick up a "10" game and find so many irritations with it - even if I enjoy the game greatly, how can you overlook bugs, control problems, cutscenes that hamper replayability (MGS 4!!!!!), or other potential problems, and then go on to proclaim a game as being perfect? I just don't understand.

When I rate a game for myself (not in a full on review, but on a site where there's a little slider to give you input), it is rare that I give out a 10. If I do, it doesn't mean the game is flawless, but that it is a game I truly enjoy (i.e. Master of Orion II I gave a 10, but it has some horrible bugs and multiplayer is painful for someone not used to it, so I'd give it an 8 in a true review - depsite it being one of my favorite games of all time).

 

[Uncompetative]

I miss the days when game reviews were more like:

7 = a good game, that needed polish.
8 = a very enjoyable game, polished to a shine
9 = an outstanding game that you wouldn't be able to put down
10 = the "perfect game"

...

A simple explanatory sentence, or even a single carefully chosen word would help dispel a lot of the confusion people seem to have.

 

[Axolotl]

Who honestly didn't expect Edge to give K2 a bad review?

They've been relentlessly pushing the 360 for the past two years, arguably more so than Eurogamer.

Is that why they gave Little Big Planet a 10 and also game of the year 2008?

 

[KDR_11k]

A full score doesn't have to mean it's the perfect game, just that it's perfectly enjoyable (always a lot of fun, no real downtime). A percent rating could very well be set up to mean the percentage of the game that's fun.

 

[CallmeMerry]

Well, I'm a PS3 owner and I'm dying to get this game. I was a fan of the original, but by no means do I consider any FPS a fantastic game. If you buy a FPS for a story...you've got issues. The review puts it perfectly.

"Freed of its narrative shackles,‭ ‬Killzone‭ ‬2‭?‬s deathmatches openly celebrate the tight controls‭ (‬jumping now included&#8237‬,‭ ‬hand-made environments and technical beauty of a‭ ‬game that is,‭ ‬almost exclusively,‭ ‬about popping someone in the face or blowing them to kingdom come."

It's an FPS with lots of explosions, lots of gunfire, and is a "technical beauty." Doesn't sound half bad to me. I play(ed) Resistance, played Unreal Tournament 3, played CoD...they're all the same. KZ2, from what it sounds like, realized that an FPS will always be the same. Doesn't sound like they tried to revolutionize the genre, just tried to make you appreciate the beauty of shooting someone in the face and makes you love every minute of it.

 

[samsprinkle]

Games like this tend to get 10's simply because they got da hookup...I think it's refreshing to see a company take them down a notch, while still telling it how it is...

So you're automatically assuming that everyone other than Edge is right simply because they're the ones who say its not good? Brilliant deduction.

Look, the fact of the matter is that this game actively made a group of people who are paid to be 360 fanboys say its a great game. If people who are paid by how anti-Ps3 they are say the flaws are negligible, then the flaws are negligible and its a great game.

Cool your jets. I didn't say it was a bad game. I just said it's refreshing to see a overhyped shooter be recognized by reviewers as just that, overhyped. All the media you would have thought that god and chuck norris got together and put this game together...

Something can be highly known and still not be overghyped. Its still not deserving of anything as low as the 7 they gave it, and saying they must be right because they said disagrees with everyone else about something that is well known without having access to said product to know who is right is still kind of dumb.

Just let it go. I don't really care. The game is just another shooter. It looks fun, but not anything over the top. I merely stated, and will again, that games this overhyped often get 10's despite being average(Halo 3). And now someone will attack me for saying that I'll wager. So if you were going to, just stop. Don't touch that keyboard. Do us both a favor and pretend you didn't read this...

 

[I3uster]

I can't believe it when people ***** about good review scores.
"imagination... barely exists."
So its another generic fps. So does it deserve a 10/10? No.

You're once again confusing refined and generic. It has managed to polish all elements to the point where it is the pinnacle of its domain - hence, yes, it does deserve a 10/10

hmmm... why does this remind me of halo fanboys?

You're not quite understanding this point, are you? Okay, an example. While playing through the demo, I noticed that the gas cyclinders required more than one shot to blow up. So I looked at it a bit harder. As I got closer, I heard a hissing noise, and saw a shimmer around the hole, then I saw the cylinder flip. The thing doesn't automatically explode, it actually releases a gas that can be used to propel itself around the room is you shoot in the right place. This is a miniscule aspect that hardly anyone is likely to notice, yet it has been given that sort of focus.

Sooo... uhrm... if a game hasnt got any innovation but has hissing gas leaks, you would give it a 10/10?

You're not quite seeing the difference between example and sole factor, are you? This is one aspect that is indicative of the whole, i.e. all other aspects of the game reflect that same level of detail.

I see the point, but you dont see mine here:
Lets say we make a cake out of cardboard, and instead of using our money to really buy a cake or bake a new innovational cake we just put our money into the looks of the cardboiard cake.

It would look nice, it would have details, but YOU.CANT.EAT.IT.

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

Thats probably one of the dumbest analogies I have ever heard in my life. Here's that anaolgy if it made sense - lets take a recipe for a cake. We follow it to the letter, but we make sure that everything we use is of the highest quality - we get the best flour, the finest eggs, the sweetest sugar, the grandest chocolate, and so on. We don't add anything to the recipe, we just make sure that everything in there is the best. Now, we taste it. How does it taste? Exactly like you'd think it would taste - like the best cake in the world.

BUT THE CAKE IS A LIE!

Sorry. Couldn't help myself.

 

[Inverse Skies]

BUT THE CAKE IS A LIE!

Sorry. Couldn't help myself.

Lol, pretty sure that's the point he's trying to make there

 

[PauL o_O]

Honestly, when I saw this game, I was like, "Oh no... Not another Halo 3!"

Which is why when I see this game, I don't believe any of the reviews, because remember when halo 3 got a 10 out of 10? I didn't like Halo 3 AT ALL. So I probably won't like this game.

 

[Inverse Skies]

From what people tell me of Halo 3, they have less in common than you'd think. People have drawn the parralel that I think is very fitting, that its basically a super refined Call of Duty 6 : Future Warfare.

Killzone is suppossed to make more use of the cover system than anything else, which lies in stark contrast to Halo (and most other FPS's) where you basically run around and strafe the enemy for most of the battles. That would probably be the biggest change in terms on gameplay mechanics

 

[Dudemeister]

I'll still be getting it.

 

[Break]

Thats probably one of the dumbest analogies I have ever heard in my life. Here's that anaolgy if it made sense - lets take a recipe for a cake. We follow it to the letter, but we make sure that everything we use is of the highest quality - we get the best flour, the finest eggs, the sweetest sugar, the grandest chocolate, and so on. We don't add anything to the recipe, we just make sure that everything in there is the best. Now, we taste it. How does it taste? Exactly like you'd think it would taste - like the best cake in the world.

Except it wouldn't taste like the "best cake in the world". It would taste like a very refined ordinary cake. A better recipe would give a better result, even if the ingredients weren't of the same quality. It's about being more than just the sum of its parts.

 

[Albino Ninja]

I view these rating systems differently.
-9-10:must buy
-7-8:rent it first
-5-6:not for everyone
-1-4:AVOID!