Gamereactors editor in chief "I was blasted over Uncharted 2 review" + review scores
- Thread starter darkwings
- Start date
Bullet82SWE
Banned
Meh, this guy is a fuckin retard (Petter that is)
When he claimed that Need for speed shift had better physics than Forza 3 i knew he was a fuckin tool.
When he claimed that Need for speed shift had better physics than Forza 3 i knew he was a fuckin tool.
fortified_concept
Banned
theignoramus said:
Not surprising. Threads like these are a glorious opportunity for DCharlie.
Dr Bad Dude PHD
Banned
You forgot that FFVIII has the best story of all time.Segata Sanshiro said:
Safe Bet said:
Are you agreeing with Drek that a game reviewer should review games based on what he thinks his audience will think of the game, while ignoring his own opinion?
Earlier, you said that you thought reviews should be more than just personal opinion. But what else can a reviewer add that is in any way honest? The way I see it, a well-written game review basically is a standardized sort of editorial on the quality of a particular game, and what sets a reviewer apart from, say, a blogger is their ability to present their opinion in a way that gives the reader a sense of why they felt the way they did, while still giving people with other tastes a sense of what the game offers.
A review can't really encompass another person's perspective, and any review that attempts to do that really has to be, in some way, dishonest, because the only thing the writer can be certain of is their own views on the game. Reviews with an eye towards objectivity have to value the objective characteristics of a game more (things like length and production values) than how they personally feel, because those objective things are the only aspects of the game they can be certain all audiences will experience equally.
Maybe my bias is showing here, but I'd take a review like this incredibly subjective review over a review like this that's written for a site that (at least at the time) explicitly scored games as a sum of objective parts any day.
CadetMahoney
Member
Prior to a big budget/hyped games release, exclusive reviews give (near) perfect scores and then, say, Eurogamer give it a 7 or 8 once the review embargo has lifted and there's a shitstorm. I don't want to homogeneity in review scores, considering how they're set up now with exclusive reviews giving perfect scores and embargoes on other reviews. I prefer ppl to be honest in their opinions.sonicmj1 said:
I think a reviewer should always keep the game's audience in mind when doing a review.sonicmj1 said:
I hate puzzle games.
Is it fair for me to rate all puzzle games 0?
No because as an informed critic I know there are gamers who like to play them.
So I must ask myself, what do gamers who like puzzle games like about puzzle games and does the puzzle game I'm reviewing meet/surpass those gamers' expectations.
You review games for the audience not for yourself.
This ofcourse is when speaking of BUYER reviews aimed towards helping gamers make buying decisions not EDITORIAL reviews such as those done by Yathzee.
The problem is, most writers know nobody gives a fuck about their personal opinion (relatively speaking) so they tie it too strongly to the one thing they have...
Their contribution to Metacritic.
Also know as a score.....
The thing is that Gamereactor here in Sweden are some kind of Xbots.
They have a mailbox everyone can read and when they get "PS3 vs Xbox 360-questions" they always respond positive about the 360 och negative about the PS3.
For example:
One guy asked about if he where going to buy a 360 or PS3 for christmas.
GR responds: BUY THE 360, IT'S ALOT BETTER, BUY IT.
They gave Uncharted 2 an 8 because the review for Halo: ODST came out the same month and they have always given Halo-series a 10 but ODST got an 8.
I don't really think they wanted to give a higher score to a PS3-exclusive than to a Halo 360-exclusive game. That's why everybody in Swedish forums got so pissed.
They have a mailbox everyone can read and when they get "PS3 vs Xbox 360-questions" they always respond positive about the 360 och negative about the PS3.
For example:
One guy asked about if he where going to buy a 360 or PS3 for christmas.
GR responds: BUY THE 360, IT'S ALOT BETTER, BUY IT.
They gave Uncharted 2 an 8 because the review for Halo: ODST came out the same month and they have always given Halo-series a 10 but ODST got an 8.
I don't really think they wanted to give a higher score to a PS3-exclusive than to a Halo 360-exclusive game. That's why everybody in Swedish forums got so pissed.
Safe Bet said:
If you don't like puzzle games, why are you reviewing them?
I mean, if you don't like a puzzle game, even if you keep your audience in mind, how can you rate it fairly by their standards? How can you assess what makes a puzzle game good for them? If you don't enjoy the gameplay of all puzzle games, how do you distinguish the good from the bad?
There are a lot of problems with games being reviewed by people who don't enjoy their genre. But if that's going to happen, I'd think an honest, (negative) and comprehensive review is more helpful to a reader than a review that attempts a perspective that the reviewer doesn't share. People who aren't into the genre will understand your perspective. People who are into the genre will realize that the game is of that genre, will know what the game brings, and will (hopefully) acknowledge that you don't like the game because it isn't your thing.
That doesn't happen, because people get up in arms about Metacritic scores and so forth, but I think such a stance would make reviews more helpful as buyer's guides, not less.
learnedhand
Member
Objectively measuring entertainment, or art, or fun has been an issue since the first caveman crapped on a rock and called it a masterpiece. You can quantify technical proficiency in framerate and pixels, but gauging emotional impact (excitement, fear, fun) depends greatly on what the player brings to the table. But even within that uncertainty, there are commonalities of human experience that relate to age, maturity, intelligence, economic, and familial factors.
Consider Heavy Rain. Now, it's not a game for everyone, but as an older gamer, a father with a family, some of the situations in that game directly confront some of my worse fears. My emotional reaction was much greater than I would expect of someone in their teens or twenties with no kids. I know it is often criticized, but in this respect I think Metacritic can be useful in averaging a broad swath of sensibilities.
It's the same with movies. We are more emotionally attached to art that reflects our own circumstance. When I was a kid,a white middle-class high school student, I thought Fast Times at Ridgemont High was the greatest movie of our time. And to me, it was. Your tastes change over time with age and experience. Now, Father of the Bride can make me tear up. (yeah, so what...... screw you!:lol ) I'm just hopeful that there are enough older gamers to support these more mature narratives.
Best advice is to know the games you already like, find a reviewer who agrees, and follow their opinions going forward. Critics should be true to their opinions, but understand and expect to be called out by others who honestly disagree. This guy needs to toughen the fuck up.
Consider Heavy Rain. Now, it's not a game for everyone, but as an older gamer, a father with a family, some of the situations in that game directly confront some of my worse fears. My emotional reaction was much greater than I would expect of someone in their teens or twenties with no kids. I know it is often criticized, but in this respect I think Metacritic can be useful in averaging a broad swath of sensibilities.
It's the same with movies. We are more emotionally attached to art that reflects our own circumstance. When I was a kid,a white middle-class high school student, I thought Fast Times at Ridgemont High was the greatest movie of our time. And to me, it was. Your tastes change over time with age and experience. Now, Father of the Bride can make me tear up. (yeah, so what...... screw you!:lol ) I'm just hopeful that there are enough older gamers to support these more mature narratives.
Best advice is to know the games you already like, find a reviewer who agrees, and follow their opinions going forward. Critics should be true to their opinions, but understand and expect to be called out by others who honestly disagree. This guy needs to toughen the fuck up.
DCharlie
And even i am moderately surprised
what is the over/under on you not reading a single fucking post i made?
Then again, you are supping from Sonys cock on a minute by minute basis so you having any coherent thoughts of your own are highly unlikely. But we've known this for quite some time, so there you go.
quick recap AGAIN : U2 (My personal GAME OF THE YEAR 2009) is brilliant, but i have the ability to process that other people DON'T like it as much as me. It doesn't matter to me, it's STILL my game of the year. One of my favourite games EVER infact.
But hey... what a GREAT OPPORTUNITY if you DONT FUCKING BOTHER reading what i posted!
By being a good critic.sonicmj1 said:
You should be able to discern what is good or bad about a game and what about it makes people like to play it, despite genre.*
FFS
That should be like Pro Critic 101.
IE
If I was a good critic I would have predicted the desire of the audience** for the Wii.
Oh..
Wait...
I did predict the "Blue Ocean" philosophy but MY PERSONAL OPINION (read: my bias, my desire to influence the industry, my personal tastes, etc... ) of Nintendo kept me from predicting their success.
I should have been able to separate emotion from logic to better serve my audience.
This is what I think...
This is what I hope...
Etc.
* within reason ofcourse
* who the audience is a subject itself
You write for your audience.Safe Bet said:
Is it the game's audience or is it your audience?
Are you writing a review to aid the general masses in finding something they will enjoy floating amongst the sea of shit or are you writing an academic/peer critique to stand time tested within the halls of history?
Yahtzee is a perfect example:
He gets away with what he does because we all know its his unadulterated personal opinion.
No one comes to him for help on deciding buying a game.
They come to either pour water or fire on his flavor of the week.
They come to either agree or disagree with HIM.
The game itself is almost meaningless except as a vehicle of discussion.
In reality, its his larger opinions on design, plot, art, etc.. people debate.
/rambling
Safe Bet said:
I don't think I disagree with you there, to be honest. The question is just how heavily that drives a review. When you have to assign numerical ratings, that issue is forced to the forefront.
Discussions about this aspect of review philosophy can't help but remind me of Game Informer's review of Paper Mario 2 (a 7), a score they justified because they believed their audience wouldn't like the game's cutesy look. Their assumptions about the taste of their audience led to a dishonest review that didn't serve people well, and couldn't even necessarily be understood to reflect the reviewer's own opinion.
I think it makes more sense to give a game whatever score you believe it deserves subjectively, even if you aren't confident that will reflect your audience's tastes. Ideally, the text content of your review will make the important things clear, and express what is good about the game, what's bad about the game, why people might enjoy it, and why you felt the way you felt. The score will show where you stand as a reviewer, and the text will give people information to put that score in the context of their own tastes and make an informed decision, both about your review and about the product itself.
It's important for reviewers to make the objective strengths and weaknesses of a title clear, but I think it's dangerous to take the subjective too far out of the reviewing equation. A subjective review may have flaws, but at least it should provide enough information to make it obvious to the reader where the reviewer's taste stands in relation to their own. A review that attempts to be objective is much less likely to do that, and I honestly don't trust any reviewer to produce a number that somehow sums up their entire audience's tastes, when the audience will, by necessity, have different tastes.
Foxtastical
Member
Yeah, let's review games for the audience. Great idea. Then we can keep getting games being reviewed like Uncharted 2, GTA4 and MW2 where all the reviews are glowing and are 9 or 10s. I mean, Uncharted 2 was created for an audience, and if we review the game for that audience, I mean, how wouldn't they love it. Fans of the genre love this new entry in this genre. Awesome, I can't wait to read 35 reviews saying the same thing.Safe Bet said:
Then comes along a JRPG gamer or some newer casual gamer looking for a cool game, sees the insanely high scores for Uncharted 2 and MW2, buys them and is horribly disappointed.
Sounds awesome!
Edit: I remember when I was younger, and I really tried defending the idea behind a more objective approach to reviewing movies, games, music, etc. I remember thinking how there had to be these "objectively good" things out there in order to separate the good from the bad. Then you grow up and realize how illogical, stupid and silly it is.
Objectivity in reviewing is something that insecure people want. If you're not confident in yourself, what might make you feel better about your opinions? Ah yes, an "objective" fact proclaiming your favorite game to be the best!
Safe Bet, you want consumer reports on video games not game criticism. Do you know what criticism is when in reference to an artistic medium is? It's not what you think it is. Games criticism comes from literary criticism which is really just literary theory or for our purpose, game theory. Too many of you just want a list of feature, technical achievements/flaws and then a comparison against an industry benchmark. If that is what you want go create your morning star of video games website. That's not what I think will improve game criticism, I like the fact that the reviewer reviewed the game within how he sees the action/adventure genre, he incorporated how the genre has moved this generation (on the consoles) and applied criticism to the game and what the game represents. He didn't even DISLIKE the game. He LIKED it.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Lackmus said:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=20258990&postcount=804
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=20259480&postcount=818
Do you see GAF? Do you see?
Safe Bet said:
So Transformers 2 and Pirates 3 should be at roughly 100% on rotten tomatoes then, got it.
I really think that metacritic should switch over to an RT system instead of a "mean of scores" system. If they just marked reviews as "positive" and "negative", more reviewers would be more likely to use the whole scale (where anything 1-5 = negative, 6-10 = positive), and we'd have an odd situation where hundreds of games a year are ranked at 100%. It would bring the whole system down.
fortified_concept
Banned
DCharlie said:
Oh I read what you posted. It's your usual schtick of controlling the hype for Sony games (it's the predictable "it's good but not that good, you're acting like an overexcited fan(boy)" DCharlie patented schtick) and defending anyone who's bashing them or being negative towards them.
Neuromancer
Member
There is an objective review system, the 'start to crate,' or Crate Review System (CRS).Foxtastical said:
It really works
http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/40.html
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Neuromancer said:
Goldeneye had crates in the first level.
Neuromancer
Member
That means it was terribleSho_Nuff82 said:
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Neuromancer said:
Guile's stage in Street Fighter 2 had a crate on either side of the level.
Your move.
Foxtastical
Member
Well, I guess SF2 sucks. Ah well.Sho_Nuff82 said:Guile's stage in Street Fighter 2 had a crate on either side of the level.
Your move.
BritBloke916
Member
All the God of War games have crates in the first level.
Ah, apparently they all have Kratos in the first level.
Edit: Sorry. that was really bad.
Ah, apparently they all have Kratos in the first level.
Edit: Sorry. that was really bad.
Zero Tolerance
Banned
darkwings said:
That's the highest score I've seen for this game thus far. I'd love to read that review.
Gamereactor has always favoured the X360 over the PS3.. always.
And they like to start up console flame wars..
just look at this: (just posted on Gamereactor.dk)
http://www.gamereactor.dk/nyheder/77153/Killzone+vs+Gears+of+War/
And they like to start up console flame wars..
just look at this: (just posted on Gamereactor.dk)
http://www.gamereactor.dk/nyheder/77153/Killzone+vs+Gears+of+War/
(translated with Google translate)
infinityBCRT
Member
I'm on the same page as this guy. I will say that MW2 is a bit more just because of it's multiplayer experience (and because you do what your character's job description is). But in general I really dislike extremely linear games where you just kill unlimited enemy soldiers. You should be doing something that makes sense. For Drake, it would be exploring a bunch of ancient ruins and looking for clues to figure out where he needs to go next-- not killing a bunch of armed and dangerous soldiers.Petter Hegewall said:
Which is completely different from helping someone find a game he or she will enjoy.Ulairi said:
Edit:
And speaking of literary criticism...
How niche does something have to become before its considered invalid?
I can't remember the last time anyone gave a fuck about a book critic other than Oprah.
Neuromancer
Member
That game is harder to review because that may not be the first stage you play. It's kind of on a sliding scale. Why are there 2 crates on the ground in front of a fighter jet anyway?Sho_Nuff82 said:Guile's stage in Street Fighter 2 had a crate on either side of the level.
Your move.
No it was terribleBritBloke916 said:
I think the reviewing process, as it stands now, is badly flawed.
As I said in another thread, I wish more magazines/websites would do like GI and Famitsu and have multiple reviewers evaluate one game.
OR at the very least, do not have people who don't really like a genre review a game belonging to that genre. This happens far too often.
IMO they're not really able to appreciate a game's achievements in its very own field, and they end up playing the game with a bad taste in their mouth, which inevitably leads to silly comments which make the fans kick in RAGE mode.
As I said in another thread, I wish more magazines/websites would do like GI and Famitsu and have multiple reviewers evaluate one game.
OR at the very least, do not have people who don't really like a genre review a game belonging to that genre. This happens far too often.
IMO they're not really able to appreciate a game's achievements in its very own field, and they end up playing the game with a bad taste in their mouth, which inevitably leads to silly comments which make the fans kick in RAGE mode.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I don't know. On the sites I review for the only rule I follow is that I do not accept review copies or schwag. It's something I wish the big reviewers would do, but that's not really anything that will ever happen.
Other than that, I can't see how to actually fix the obviously broken review system.
Other than that, I can't see how to actually fix the obviously broken review system.
jim-jam bongs
Member
Drek said:
This wins my award for most breathtaking use of an oxymoron in lieu of an argument.
Safe Bet said:
Totally absurd. I don't play sports games at all, hence I have absolutely no context whatsoever with which to judge FIFA. How can I gauge the level of enjoyment that the average player would get from it when I get none? Do I give it extra points because I assume that someone else reviewing it would enjoy it more? And what if they don't?
I think this whole thing could be resolved if you just pointed out a review that you believe does what you think a review should do.
Oh and about OMM: the only sad thing about Chet and Erik working for Valve is that sometimes they have to say stuff in public that isn't funny. Well, that and the fact that Gabe never let them make Alien vs Sexual Predator.
RustyNails
Member
banwave incoming
Neuromancer
Member
I don't think either of those guys are currently being utilized to their potential. =\jim-jam bongs said:
jim-jam bongs
Member
Neuromancer said:
Hopefully they're hard at work on Portal 2
JoshuaJSlone
Member
Nah, Citizen Kane didn't arrive to accolades and great success.minus_273 said: