Episode 421: Pursuit of Happiness

This week’s episode morphs from a discussion about abusive workplace practices to pharmaceutical company practices. Otherwise, it’s just a discussion about the games people play and the people who play them. Also, a bunch of pop culture discussion.

This week’s news includes:

  • GameStop to launch video game publishing division
  • Sources leak potential Nintendo NX and controller specs online
  • Nintendo’s cloud-like patent approved
  • Ark: Survival Evolved lawsuit settled

The Question of the Week, “What games are you looking forward to this coming Summer?”

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Users Pwn MetaCritic Review SubmissionsUsers Pwn MetaCritic Review Submissions

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.

Episode 762: Silksong SilksongEpisode 762: Silksong Silksong

There’s a Silksong in the air, with lots of SIlksong. But despite the Silksong, we have other non-Silksong stuff, including Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage closed beta kicking off on September 11.

The news includes:

  • Hollow Knight: Silksong causes server chaos on Xbox, Steam, and Nintendo as platforms grind to a halt
  • 42,000 Pokémon TCG Phantasmal Flames products have been swiped by a scalper group
  • Former PS5 console exclusive, Helldivers 2, now tops Xbox sales chart as Sony continues to dabble with its multi-platform strategy

Let us know what you think.

TD Gaming Podcast 110: Early ReleaseTD Gaming Podcast 110: Early Release

It’s almost a two gaming podcast week as we’re releasing this episode “wicked early” — sorry, we’re from New England. Derrick’s heading off to Germany on business and we’d hate to miss a week because of the trip, so here you go. This week we flash back to Pac-Man, cover some gaming history on Disney Interactive Studio and plow through some game news:

This week we’re asking the listeners the question, do you believe Microsoft will be successful opening a retail chain? We also handle a few user comments including one regarding Don’s rapping career or lack of a career.