Jim & Yahtzee's Rhymedown Spectacular: Whine Out Of Ten

[balladbird]

 

[balladbird]

I'm not sure how to delete a post, so I could only clear the comment. I didn't intend to leave a spammish attack.

 

[Doom-Slayer]

I have to say, the problem is not reviews or whining fans, it's that the the scoring system doesn't work. What is the difference between a 8.0 and a 9.0? No really, that is a legitimate question. The problem is that an "average" isn't a 5.0, but somewhere between 7.0-8.0. But, Sterling, have you ever thought you might try another ranking system? Maybe let "technical perfect" or close to technical perfect" just be a 5.0,and letting the rest be on artistic merit (narrative and aesthetic design).

Personally, I find Yahtzee's method of reviewing to be the most informative: Avoid numbers and ranks and stick to summarizing the central gameplay elements, the mood, the difficulty curve, and the writing (if applicable).

To be fair though, there was like... 2 pages of actual review before the score that the Escapist gave, is not like they just came out with bulletpoints and a score out of 5.

Way I see it the score is a bonus, theres ALREADY a full review to be read, and if you cant be bothered reading, the score is there for you.

I always find it strange when people complain about review scores when they are used to compliment a review, they arent the whole review.

 

[DragonDai]

Best RDS in a LONG time (not that the others were bad, just that this one was amazing). Seriously. Thank god for Jim and Yahtzee both.

 

[Strazdas]

I didnt expect seeing Yatzee do a piece on Ludoridiculous namingdense, especially after Jim already done one on Jimquisiting. BUt he executed it brilliantly as always.

As far as Jims piece goes, remmeber back in 2011 Jim made a Jimquisition about hating rating 8 called "Hate out of ten"? At the end he jokingly asked if we are going to hate 9 next. And now we did. Internet always find a way to be idiots. Though to be honest escapists review felt more like "i am too adult for this" rather than actual review.
But to be honest it does seem to be the highest rated metacritic game of all time [http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/all?view=condensed&sort=desc]. Though strangely users seems to disagree.

Personally, I think that ratings should be less like school grades (i.e. a 7 is just a "passing" average game, and anything from 6 on down is either a D or an F) and more like Angry Joe's ratings - he actually makes a 5/10 for a completely average game, with 6-7/10 having just enough interesting ideas to stand above the pack, 8-10/10 being the varying degrees of awesomeness that awesome games are (meaning no fanboys flipping the fuck out when their fav-game gets a 9/10 - at least, in theory), and only leaving the 4-1/10 for "the REALLY bad games you shouldn't waste your time with".

not sure about your schools but back when i was in school (granted, 5 years ago) the passing score was 5. but i agree. 5 should be average iof averages.
Id rather agree with IGN rating scale (note that its scale not anything else im talking about here) which goes like this:
10.0 - Masterpiece
9.0-9.9 - Amazing
8.0-8.9 - Great
7.0-7.9 - Good
6.0-6.9 - Okay
5.0-5.9 - Mediocre
4.0-4.9 - Bad
3.0-3.9 - Awful
2.0-2.9 - Painful
1.0-1.9 - Unbearable
0-0.9 - Disaster

YOu can see explanations and examples here [http://www.ign.com/wikis/ign/Game_Reviews]

Ranting against the just plain stupid is like trying to stop the tide.

I present to you: MOSE Project
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOSE_Project

Yes, you can stop tides.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

One of the best ones, though I say Jim won (for the first time in my book).

 

[Thanatos2k]

I wonder if Yahtzee was talking about GTA5, because that game doesn't have a ludonarrative dissonance problem. The story is about greedy psychopaths, so is the sandbox gameplay.

Yahtzee's point is that most "ludonarrative dissonance" is caused by the player, not the story. But no one seems to want to talk about that...

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

When the heck did Lundonarrative Dissonance become a thing? I'd never heard the phrase until Jim mentioned it. Well I understood the concept, that the story narrative is at odds with the characters other actions in game. But wasn't the phrase "The story narrative is at odds with the characters other actions in game" good enough? Why did someone think we needed a new phrase that sounds more like something from an out of touch hipster's review of a new style of music and trying to pretend he totally understands it?

And Jim, I totally dig the sinister under-lighting. It totally gives off the "now gather round and listen to this spooky story" vibe.

The tv tropes page "gameplay and story segregation" (it's against the internet laws to link tvtropes) existed for something like 4 years before anyone came up with that stupid word. I don't really see what was wrong with it.

I think people just like things that have fancy names that make them sound all intellectual so that they can feel a false sense of superiority like they know something complicated. It's really not. It's not really even a problem most of the time. I hadn't noticed it in a single game I ever played until people pointed it out. It was just kind of how games worked.

 

[HalfTangible]

Ludonarrative dissonance is when someone starts singing 'Disco Stick' during their reading of Nevermore.

Also, you two are both awesome.

 

[Balkan]

I wonder if Yahtzee was talking about GTA5, because that game doesn't have a ludonarrative dissonance problem. The story is about greedy psychopaths, so is the sandbox gameplay.

Yahtzee's point is that most "ludonarrative dissonance" is caused by the player, not the story. But no one seems to want to talk about that...

Actually, the story points out that the sandbox exists. Trevor is a complete psychopath who does whatever he wants. Michael is somewhat normal whenever the player is not around(when you "shift" into him he often watches movies, hangs out on the beach or just smokes cigarettes.) Franklyn is a greedy youngster who wants things no matter what, in the story he often kills for very small reasons.
Yahtzee's poem seemed to describe the story of GTA V and that's why I thought that he meant that game in particular.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

I think Jim missed the point about the whole gamespot controversy, is not because the 9 out of 10. Is because the reviewer said that the game was, and i quote "Politically muddled and profoundly misogynistic" and that why people are so mad against Her review. Instead of making and objective review of the videogame and judged GTAV on both its merits and failings, she took her review and shove her political agenda on it.

She made some valid criticism like "the characters are sometimes inconsistent". but instead of keeping the review like that aka professional, she had to bring up the "Misogynistic", the problem with the whole "Politically muddled and profoundly misogynistic" is that GTAV is a complete satire of the American Culture and especially of the Hollywood culture.

TL DR: People are not mad because the 9/10, they are mad because she shove political agenda in the review to lower the score of the game instead of valid criticism.

Are some idiots overreacting? Of course, is the internet, people overreact to everything on the internet and send death threads all the time about everything. Get used to it because is not going away.

Perhaps that is a valid criticism? It's not "furthering an agenda" when they take gaming to task on such a pervasive issue, even if it is parody.

It's very possible to become irritated by a character's deplorable traits even if they are played for laughs. A good example of this for myself is Duke Nukem; I know he's a parody of the manly-man macho meathead, but he grated on me to the point that I put the controller down and didn't play the game again. Max Payne irritated me to the point that I wrote a bile-filled article on him that I regret.

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Edit: I realize that I came across as rude here. However the point I am trying to make is that scores have been inflated. 7 should be a good score, but it's not. 9 and 10 have lost meaning because they are being thrown out so often that there's really no surprise if a game scores 10. It puts pressure on game reviewers when anything below 8 is utter crap. The review itself is more important, I agree. We should not treat scores as we do, but we do. It's become a mess and there's really no denying that.

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I don't think you understand me here, because I am not really disagreeing with you. I completely agree. There are tons of games getting high scores that I don't really like. Does the metacritic rating matter? Not at all. Is it a system that we have to live with? Yes, yes it is. It's not supposed to be used like that, but sadly it is. It doesn't matter if GameSpot or Destructoid consider 7/10 good, but flawed when the system they have to work with, Metacritic, thinks otherwise. They give the game 7/10 the game will show up as yellow as in below average. It's bullshit, it shouldn't be like this, but can you really deny that it is like this?

When I visit the store page on Steam I get to see the score from Metacritic. Not from Destructoid, not from GameSpot, Not The Escapist, not IGN. Metacritic. The score that a game gets on Metacritic matters. Not because the score actually gives us any kind of information, but because it shows us the general opinion and because we translate it by Metacritics standards of good and bad. Deny this if you will, it doesn't change much.

I am not sure how much pressure all reviewers have for inflating scores. I don't think any good reviewer will admit that they inflate their scores to meet the public's view. I think we just have differing views on what the problem is. We both agree that Metacritic is not a good system, but I think it is also consumers expecting that every game they are hyped about should get a 9/10 and then get angry when it does not get that. Or worse, they refuse to buy a game they want because it only gets a 7.5 from some reviews even though if they read the text they would find out that the game is everything that they wanted. Maybe there have been more high scores recently, or maybe we just see the high scores since the usual high profile games such as CoD, Mario, Assassins Creed are each time pretty good games (maybe not to my taste but still good to most people/reviewers opinion). I don't know if there is statistics for game review scores over time or if that would even tell us anything useful, maybe games are just getting better and more games do deserve a 9.

I think you've touched on something that I have a real issue with; the audience.

The audience demands that the game get what it deserves. What is that exactly? Is it a damning score or one of absolute praise? I've never seen a COD article that wasn't accused of inflating and deflating the score simultaneously. Either way, the review is bad and they should feel bad.

The higher score seems to be the more popular option, so they do so in the hopes that they will make everyone happy. Then the audience doesn't like the game that much and accuses them of being paid off. The next time, they do the opposite and give a more reasonable score. The audience likes it more than the reviewer and accuses them of throwing a hissy fit for not being paid off.

At no point should the audience ever consider the idea that the reviewer is a human being with their own opinion who is trying to reflect their own experience in an arbitrary numerical value. They must meet the audience's expectations of having a bad score and a good score simultaneously. Otherwise they are paid and not paid and should feel bad.

How is a reviewer supposed to do their job when the audience possesses such a fierce cognitive dissonance and is generally not that pleasant?

Better yet, why does anyone take the internet seriously? I thought it was generally known that the comment sections of YouTube and the like are typically devoid of intelligence and common decency. Remember the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory? It should always be assumed to be in full force.

In case no one has picked up on this, I've read far too many idiotic comment sections and am venting a lot of pent up frustrations.