All of the above. The need to be on good terms with publishers & developers in order to get access to the news stories their readers want is a major problem. Also, Critics don't spend enough time with games. They need to have a review out on release day, which often leaves only a few hours with any given game. Not long enough to recognize how bad the problem really is if, say, the plot of a game never goes anywhere, or if it just starts lazily reusing level maps or the like (to pick on the escapist's DAII review).
Poll: Critics, how can they get it so wrong (not on all occasions but)?
- Thread starter IKWerewolf
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Thank you, this is too true.TheKasp said:
Fans make bad critics. There are games I would have given a perfect score, while maybe deserving a 7/10. Lots of people will enjoy a game, but find a problem that causes them to give it a 0/10. I have also seen reviews from consumers stating nothing wrong, every adjective used to describe it was great or excellent. Score landed on 3/5.
Now another issue on the consumer side is the fact that we are really petty at times. A Memory of Light was released in January and the eBook version is coming next week. Because of this it got several 1 star ratings on Amazon. People who haven't read the book gives it negative reviews. This is a problem with pretty much every Call of Duty game and I suspect a lot of SimCity's negative reviews are because of annoyance over its DRM rather than the game's quality. Some of those reviews are likely written by people who haven't purchased it, some of it are from people who are having trouble playing it, some reviews are too low because it's not as good as SimCity 4, some reviews are too high.
Look at the Metacritic for SimCity, there are more positive reviews than mixed and the majority are on low. We are either high or low. The middle doesn't exist when we review.
Another problem is that games have set the bar of a good game at 7.5/10. Anything below that is crap and not worth looking into. That's a problem on the critics' side, but it pales in comparison.
There are of course prepaid review scores too. IGN getting a huge amount of money from advertising Kane and Lynch 2 couldn't post the honest review of the game where it was clear that it sucked.
In conclusion, critic scores and fan scores are different for a variety of reasons.
I don't know if one side is better than the other but fans have to pay for their games and critics don't. When you drop 60 bucks on a game you are more likely to like it just because you don't want to feel like you wasted your money. When your job is to look at each game and have no monetary attachment to any game critics see things different than the fans do.
Gamers are emotional about games, however a critic isn't going to give a legitimate review about a game or series they are in dire love with and will give it a 10/10 no matter how bad it is. Critics also don't rate games on their attachment to the storyline, which is why ME3 has such a drastic difference between fan reaction and critic reaction.
I think critics should be used to judge the quality of the gameplay and mechanics, including the writing and structure of the story but not the story itself. Fans should be up to judge the story and emotion of the game.
Even though the Call of Duty games are the same crap every year, if you had never played a modern military FPS, CoD is probably a pretty good game, which is what critics have to view each game they review as, they cannot try and compare games because that isn't considered professional.
Gamers are emotional about games, however a critic isn't going to give a legitimate review about a game or series they are in dire love with and will give it a 10/10 no matter how bad it is. Critics also don't rate games on their attachment to the storyline, which is why ME3 has such a drastic difference between fan reaction and critic reaction.
I think critics should be used to judge the quality of the gameplay and mechanics, including the writing and structure of the story but not the story itself. Fans should be up to judge the story and emotion of the game.
Even though the Call of Duty games are the same crap every year, if you had never played a modern military FPS, CoD is probably a pretty good game, which is what critics have to view each game they review as, they cannot try and compare games because that isn't considered professional.
When they don't mention glitches you have to wonder if they didn't have them/ see them. Lets face it sometimes they have a game for a day before they h ave to put out their review, lets face it do they have the chance to play all of a game before reviewing it.the hidden eagle said:
And Mass Effect 3 is quite possibly the worst I have ever seen the whole fan vs critic row. You had critics that did'nt review games getting involved!
Numerical or Percental Scores in Games are for idiots who are unable to form an impression based on opinions presented to them.
You can not apply a numerical value to something like a game, wich may not be the sum of it's individual parts. Same with Music or Movies. Yet everyone tries.
"The Walking Dead" (Adventure) for example, on pure Gameplay terms, is at best mediocre, and the shooting and sneaking is basically worse than in "The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct". Yet it's writing and it's presentation merit a higher rating. There is no way to give an objective numerical rating, no matter how you try to approach it, you pull a meaningless number out of your ass.
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As for actual written reviews...
Critics tend to play more games, as in a lot more, and most importantly, they tend to play the best games and the games that are so awful that no gamer in this community would even touch them just "for fun". With that in mind, plus their subjective opinion, plus their personal preferences, plus their (hopefully) sense of journalistic integrity that prohibits them from endlessly bitching about games they don't like or grown tired of (after all, say what you will, on an objective level there hasn't been a really bad Call of Duty Game for a long time, regardless on how tired and repetitive the games seem in the larger context), its obvious that they view games differently than a guy who plays 2 or 5 or 10 or 20 or 50 games a year and pays hard cash for it.
You can not apply a numerical value to something like a game, wich may not be the sum of it's individual parts. Same with Music or Movies. Yet everyone tries.
"The Walking Dead" (Adventure) for example, on pure Gameplay terms, is at best mediocre, and the shooting and sneaking is basically worse than in "The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct". Yet it's writing and it's presentation merit a higher rating. There is no way to give an objective numerical rating, no matter how you try to approach it, you pull a meaningless number out of your ass.
---
As for actual written reviews...
Critics tend to play more games, as in a lot more, and most importantly, they tend to play the best games and the games that are so awful that no gamer in this community would even touch them just "for fun". With that in mind, plus their subjective opinion, plus their personal preferences, plus their (hopefully) sense of journalistic integrity that prohibits them from endlessly bitching about games they don't like or grown tired of (after all, say what you will, on an objective level there hasn't been a really bad Call of Duty Game for a long time, regardless on how tired and repetitive the games seem in the larger context), its obvious that they view games differently than a guy who plays 2 or 5 or 10 or 20 or 50 games a year and pays hard cash for it.
That's a 5 star system. Which you can then convert to a numerical value. For example, I gave Modern Warfare a 1/5 which would translate to about 20%, Or Assassin's Creed 3 2.5/5 which would convert to 50%. If a critic releases his system of scoring and stays relatively consistent then his basis for his numerical judgements become more clear. Destructoid posts their score system so that it's clear and precise what each value means, and they also state the reasons for retaining the ten point scale. I myself posted a video explaining my ratings system and my reasons for giving them out.Abomination said:
Find some critics you can trust is all, all we are here for is to try and ensure that you don't waste time you'll end up regretting down the line, after all, your time is the most valuable thing you possess.
Just because a reviewer has different opinions to the general public, doesn't mean they're wrong. That's how opinions work.
Admittedly some places like IGN and Gamespot are probably just getting paid by the publishers or something (not always, but sometimes).
Admittedly some places like IGN and Gamespot are probably just getting paid by the publishers or something (not always, but sometimes).
Ooh, I have the answer to it. Here's the real reason:
The internet is full of angry people, and they only go to Metacritic when they're angry and want to downvote a game.
The internet is full of angry people, and they only go to Metacritic when they're angry and want to downvote a game.