Although we’ve found Metacritic a userful resource for game reviews, many folks have gone on a user submission rampage to discredit games that haven’t even launched yet. Their first attack was on LittleBigPlanet followed by Resistance 2, now their hitting Gears of War 2.
While Gears of War 2 has a Metacritic score of 94/100 the user’s have reviewed it to be a 3.5 out of 10, with a bright red box around the user review due to its low nature we’re sure. Although users are free to give their own honest representation of the game from their perspective, Gears of War 2, as of the review dates, hasn’t been released yet – these reviews are bogus.
This style of attack was popularized in Spore, when Amazon got nailed with poor reviews of the game because Spore’s “Draconic” DRM made people angry. However, it’s more reasonable for people to voice their opinion on a known issue with a game; Gears of War 2 review spamming is just mean.
We use Metacritic as guidance when we do our gaming podcast to understand what games are rated in the industry, but we don’t use user reviews as our main guide. There are plenty of folks out there that may utilize these reviews in more seriousness because they may feel journalists reviews are tainted by advertisers or “the man” and want the common gamers opinion.
The common gamer cannot possibility be reviewing Gears of War 2 before the title has arrived. This is bogus. Metacritic has this to say:
“My advice for our faithful users is to focus your attention on the Metascore for this game and not the thousands of user votes, most of which have been submitted before said users have played the game. This is a gaming community, and if people want to stuff the ballot box, there’s not much I can do at this point. When we upgrade the registration requirements for participation on the site in the near future, this type of thing won’t happen. We’ll post the full legitimate user reviews upon the game’s release. As always, thanks for using the site.” (1up)
So, to those looking for holiday gaming gifts, keep this in mind while you start hunting down games you’ll want to buy.
Seeing as I posted my comment late on the previous podcast, and the topic was E3, I’ll just copy and paste it.
Plenty of games have been added to my list of games I want to play, among them are:
-Need for Speed Most Wanted
-Epic Mickey 2
-New Super Mario Bros. U
-Pikmin 3
-Rayman Legends
-Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist
-Tomb Raider
-Watch Dogs
Worst E3 conference was Microsoft, best was Ubisoft. What I don’t get is how many people are “disappointed” by Nintendo’s conference, expecting huge releases such as Zelda, Metroid, F-Zero or even Smash Bros. I think that many people do not understand how long it takes to make the great games Nintendo makes, and expect them to churn them out like Call of Duty. I also think that it’s a smart move by Nintendo, releasing quite a few good titles at launch, and then pace the awesome games one by one for the future. Maybe this way the WiiU won’t run out of first-party games as soon as the Wii did.
2 questions, both for Paul:
So, did you shit your pants when Nintendo announced the WiiU will come out Holiday 2012?
Have you finished Skyward Sword yet?
Jonah, good call on the next level of consoles by the games displayed.
@THQ closes their San Diego Studio, sells the UFC license
It’s cold, hard, business. Sorry for the devs though. 2 mil. sales at a medium price of 20 USD that would give us aprox. 40 mil. USD.
@annual Assassin’s Creed releases funded AC3:
This means that the games are quite good, if they manage to provide a good revenue stream. Kudos to the developers then.
@Vivendi may sell Activision-Blizzard:
Talking about short term thinking … they’re going to sell the powerhouse that got them a truckload of money, without taking into account the possibility that they might build another great game.
Mission Impossible for NES is based on the TV series.
Jordan, you don’t play PC games :O ?!
Had to be the most boring E3 I’ve seen. I only managed to stomach 3 conferences: Microsoft, EA and Nintendo. And I want my 3 hours 43 minutes 57 seconds back.
@Microsoft: I was very surprised when the conference ended after Black Ops. Iwas expecting at least another 30 minutes when Microsoft usually brings out some exciting stuff. But it never happened. A very anti-climatic finish when compared to previous Microsoft conferences.
@EA
OMFG!!! They made sport more realistic than it is in real life. The only way to top that is to stick a joypad up David Beckham’s arse. Why go outside and play ball with friends when you can wall yourself from society and game yourself into a blind comatose stupour.
@Nintendo
No launch date. No launch price. No launch line up. No information on the Wii U. Will it have proper on-line capabilities? What will be Wii U policy on DLC, DRM, Region Lock, Backwards Compatability, Friend Codes etc… But Oh My Gard it will have Pikmin. And what happened to the 3DS? Why did I even buy this brick? To play Mario game remakes? There is only so many times I can stomp a goomba. I recently purchased Mario Kart 7 and it feels like an expansion pack to the 2006 DS version. In 3D. Was it made by George Lucas? For one, I am looking forward to the arrval of Assasin’s Creed and Mass Effect on the Wii U. I am sick and tired of saving princesses.
@DynamicJul
Recently we have seen critics bashing Nintendo’s golden IP. If I was to tell you 2 years ago that a Zelda game will recieve on average 7 out of 10 from most critics, you would call me insane. But such is the truth. It appears to be that Nintendo’s golden formulas have been over-abused. Pokemon. Zelda. Mario. Each iteration closely builds on the previous one. I stopped playing Pokemon because I am bored of following the same story doing the same things but with 150 new ugly Pokemon. Same can be applied to Zelda. On this E3 people wanted to see something new. They wanted to see how the Wii U will transform classic IPs into modern HD versions. Remember, Nintendo’s own developing studio has next to none experience with HD high performace games. People wanted to see at least a glimpse of what is to come.
Overall, dull E3. I was expecting something more. I just hope more info will be available about the Wii U. It’s my last attempt to go Nintendo. If Wii U fails, I will turncoat to Microsoft for the following eternity. Sick and tired of bricks…
PS: I hope in the next episode you will cover Warren Specter’s comment on ultraviolent games. So that I will get an opportunity to tear that prick apart and re-assemble him the way he shoul be.
@Arthur V
Woah, woah, woah… what are you talking about?
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword – Metacritic score of 93. Where the hell did you get an average of 7 out of 10?
Pokemon Black and White has a metacritic rating of 87.
Mario Kart 7: metacritic score of 85.
Super Mario 3D Land: metacritic score of 90.
As far as critics go, they still all agree that Nintendo makes stellar games with their IPs
By the way, it’s my birthday today.
Happy Birthday DynamicJul. And I got those scores from Gamespot. I have been using Gamespot since 2006 or so. They are sometimes unnecessarily harsh on games but I can see the point they are making regarding Nintendo games. Regardless, I still firmly stand by my point that Nintendo’s press conference was a drag. It could have been way better.
Hate to break this to you, Dynamic, but that game only sold because it had the Zelda title, and Nintendo’s Iwata just made a statement that everyone hated the Wiimote, citing the fact that only 40% of people who owned Zelda actually finished the game thanks to the bad controls.
And that’s coming from Nintendo.
Sorry to post another comment, this will be the last one, but I had to get this out.
First of all, isn’t it kind of the point that it’s a Zelda game? Nintendo has always been about their famous IPs, and that’s why they are constantly being made.
About Iwata saying everyone hated the Wiimote, I’m sure that it is taken way out of context, please provide me a link because I want to read its source. I haven’t heard a lot about people hating the Wiimote, I’m pretty sure there are plenty of people like me who enjoyed playing the game with the MotionPlus.
And lastly, if 40% of people who owned it actually finished it, that is quite good, because nowadays single-player games are rarely finished. It has been found that only 10% of Red Dead Redemption owners played the last mission (http://bit.ly/qXeB45). In a recent survey, taken by IGN users (majority obviously active gamers), only 51% of them always finish single-player games (http://go.ign.com/MdYUey). So yeah, 40% is not a bad number, at all.
No. Quit playing it. Because of the controller. Big difference.
hi guize!!!
no time so…
@QOTW
Watch Dogs
Need MW
and the sad news that next gen consoles will make my PC “useless”… again…
must acquire currency and purchase new PC T-T