ViewtifulJC
Banned
You should go look at RE6 metacritic every once and awhile. Bad game, bad reviews.
Halo 4: Review Thread
- Thread starter Vire
- Start date
You should go look at RE6 metacritic every once and awhile. Bad game, bad reviews.
Congratulations on completely missing the point of what I wrote.
diffusionx
Gold Member
Well that sounds dumb to me. I've been reading Chick reviews for probably close to 15 years now. I think the guy has earned a Metacritic slot, but that's just me.
Yea, I agree totally.
Well that's the dumbest thing I have read today.
Eh, honestly I'd compare a game review with a blu-ray or DVD review, not the film itself. Games pack a lot more content outside of their single player experience. Enough content that I would say warrants an objective review of the game's feature set and "complete package."
It's easy to say Halo plays like more Halo, but when a game gives you a full fledged map editor, a multiplayer mode, single player, and a second weekly campaign, the wealth of content alone makes it hard for me to warrant a hypothetical 1/5 review. And sure, lets say all of this content is crap and should the game still be given any merit if all of it's extra content is pure crap? Sure, but I highly doubt this is the case with Halo 4.
It's easy to say Halo plays like more Halo, but when a game gives you a full fledged map editor, a multiplayer mode, single player, and a second weekly campaign, the wealth of content alone makes it hard for me to warrant a hypothetical 1/5 review. And sure, lets say all of this content is crap and should the game still be given any merit if all of it's extra content is pure crap? Sure, but I highly doubt this is the case with Halo 4.
Then you shouldn't give it a 1/5 on your hypothetical review site.
Sure. I'll just simply say that what I meant by it is that the reviews that give the game a 1/5 (not a 5,6, or 7) seem to me to be nothing more than an attention grab.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
Game reviews are essentially software reviews. Reviewers are using a large portion of the scale to inform the reader that the execution is competent enough for the software to be fit for its intended purpose.
Aggrotek
Member
Let's put this in perspective here: http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/halo-reach
More of the critic reviews are starting to read like the user reviews.
To one reviewer, yes.
Aggrotek
Member
I'm sorry but in a purely technical sense this is far from accurate.
Goldenroad
Member
The Darkness 2 was perfection. Everything else must strive to live up to it, except for SSX, which is equally perfect. I like this guy. He must be on GAF.
I haven't played Halo so no idea but I see no mention of technical aspects in Toms review for either game.
That guy's allowed to have opinions, regardless of how dumb I perceive them. I do understand your point though. Really seems like that guy's just trying to get clicks.
Aggrotek
Member
But those are things that should be taken into account when reviewing a video game. Halo 4 looks and sounds absolutely amazing. Not to mention it has an insane amount of replayability. These are things that consumers are interested in, knowing whether a game is worth purchasing or not.
Oh trust me I totally get this. I was merely stating my position in terms of technical performance and the like. Not anything as subjective as whether he liked it or not.
Cool. Too bad it's boring and terrible to play. (To one guy anyway)
"This game is boring and lame but has good graphics - 4/5!" Really? Lol.
Why would you want to replay a game that is a chore to play through even once?
You seem to understand that reviews are inherently subjective. Great. A professional reviewer should also be able to make an objective observation of "This game offers a plethora of post-game content made to extend the user's experience and add to replayability. To fans of the series, this could be very welcome as the content is rich, if you are like me however and find Halo to be as stale and boring as the last one, they won't offer you much." Oh wow, I was able to cover objectivity and my own subjective view. Weird.
Edit: Key word: Value.
Why would he speak for other people? The review is his own.
Hargenx
Member
This is nothing...
Uncharted 3: 40/100
Brink: 80/100
CoD: BO: 80/100
This guy is a totally mess. LOL
Hey, bro. I can sell you a literal mountain of shit for just 5 bucks. PM me.
I mean, I know it's poop, and a whole lot of it, but if you happen to like that kind of stuff, there's some real Value in here.
Reviews like that are worthless to anyone who doesn't share the exact same taste.
A decent game critic should be a little more insightful.
Aggrotek
Member
This is a bit ridiculous. I mean you can tell when a game has absolutely NOTHING to offer. Halo 4 is not one of these titles.
The whole fucking point of a review is to provide as many consumers with an overall objective opinion on what the game has to offer. Granted, not everyone will like the game, but just because you don't like it doesn't merit a low number/bad review. There are other things to take into account.
I disagree with him on most reviews but I don't feel the need to have my tastes or purchases stroked by mindless children who give bad games an 8 at worst. I appreciate his opinion and his always reasonable complaints. He has a unique perspective on pretty much every review. The kids who get blinded by the scores generally can't parse his written review anyway though.
Aggrotek
Member
I have avoided his review of Halo 4 because I am told there is a spoiler in it. I am waiting to read it until I have finished the campaign for myself.
Baconsammy
Banned
Mark Sanchez is a better QB than Karen Rodgers.
Probably accurate. I watch tons of football and have never even heard of her.
Aggrotek, you are crying about a review and haven't even bothered to read it? Give me a break.
Aggrotek
Member
Which part? The one where I play the role of The Salesman From Shit Mountain, or... whaaa
A review doesn't need to summarize the back-of-the-box features. I assume people can figure out what modes Halo 4 has pretty easily. Like...just read the product description on Amazon.
Especially in a world where hundreds of people are writing reviews of the same game stuff like product descriptions and plot summaries are irrelevant unless they inform the subjective part of the review.
What you are calling the "objective" part of the review doesn't need to be in a review at all. I don't need a movie review to list the running time, the actors and rating unless those figure into the review in a substantive way.
I don't play console FPS games at all. Halo 4 has nothing to offer me.
You seem to be clinging to this notion that because a game is hyped up and has high production value it deserves a good score completely regardless of how fun a reviewer finds it. In that case you don't even need reviewers, you just need an Excel chart with the budget and marketing budget of every game.
The point being that the parts that "don't need to be in the review at all" need to be thought of in the game's overall score.
1/5 is a hyperbolic score and I give it to games like SUPERMAN 64.
Movie reviewers don't mention run time, but they consider it in the movie's pacing. They don't list what actors are already in the movie, but they review their performances.
Bringing it back to movie reviews, since you like the analogy so much. When reviewing a DVD you get the categories of: Movie, Video, Audio, and Extra content. You can get a shit movie and have a great DVD that rounds the overall score to something of a 6 or a 7. It's not that hard to be objective when determining value of content, while still retaining your subjective views.
I hate the Call of Duty series because I find it stale and a little bit of "Been there, done that," but I will not make the incredibly hyperbolic statement that Modern Warfare 3 is a 1/5. I hate it, but it's not Atari's E.T. Pretty simple.
"Oh pfft reviewers these days only using one end of the scale (9-10)" This is the opposite extreme and should criticized in a similar fashion.
The part where you equate the game to the lowest common denominator possible.
It doesn't matter though, this isn't going to end well so I'm out of this review thread. I don't care if you give this game a 5 or a 6, but 1 is a hyperbolic score only asking for hits. I don't see any "reviewer's integrity" in a score like that. It's just being non conformists for the sake of it.
Cool. You'd be good at IGN but shitty at writing interesting reviews.
So let's get this straight: 9/10 is an extreme and hype driven score, but 1/5 is not an extreme and anti-hype driven score? COOL
I didn't say anything about the score.
A DVD review is not a movie review. DVD / Blu-Ray reviews focus on stuff like the transfer quality and special features because the assumption is you can find a dedicated movie review that deals with the movie itself.
For a movie I'm not interested in the value of special features I'm even less interested in is objectively zero.
There is no intrinsic value to a DVD special feature. It's not a lump of platinum, it's a bunch of bits. The value is purely in how appealing it is to me. There's no objective value in entertainment products unless you can melt them down and sell the component material or something. Higher budget and more features is not objective value if those features are bad. And there's no formula that states that 10 bad features has more "objective value" than 1 good one.
Baconsammy
Banned
Doesn't matter. Halo is review proof. The reason to never pay attention to attention whores like Tom Chick is for those majority of games when you need honest feedback instead of just some Internet dipshit trolling for clicks. The same applies to people that just toss out 9s and 10s like candy. Guys that like to like things. Blech. In other words, fuck reviews. Just rent everything.
That kind of review is really not about helping me (or anyone else) to decide, if I disagree with him on most reviews and there's nary an attempt at objectivity. There are plenty of reviews though.
There'll be near a hundred on metacritic so a few nonsense outliers won't do any harm.
There'll be near a hundred on metacritic so a few nonsense outliers won't do any harm.
Neuromancer
Member
It was a Halo review written by a man who doesn't like Halo games, presumably for an audience who doesn't like Halo games. In a weird way there may be some value in that.
If people don't like Halo games they probably know it. If they've never played a Halo game, they're none the wiser for that review.
I don't like train sims, yet wouldn't find value in an equivalent train sim 1/5 dismissal.
Chicks review wasn't dismissive.
Baconsammy
Banned
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Tom Chicks PR rep.
Vampire Baseball
Member
That was only said because they didnt expect a score under 8.5. =P
Seeing some MS people and Ben Kuchera wailing on twitter about how MetaCritic is broken because Chick's 1/5 score made the mean go down. That's how averages work, guys. Unless you have specific evidence a review is somehow illegimate, suck it up and take the good scores with the bad.
Only Bens opinion should matter because he review games for a comic strip.