2019 is slowly coming to a close, and the guys start wondering about what awaits in 2020, as some truly exciting titles await.
This week’s news items include:
Let us know what you think.
Gaming Podcast is back after a week off, as Jordan talks about playing games on his brand-new PlayStation 4, while Jonah is anxious and worried about the Xbox One launch this week.
There’s also a ton of news this week, including:
And the Question of the Week: “What was the best budget game you ever bought?”
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.
The guys talk about Skate Story is finally releasing in December, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is getting a New Game+ mode and some new duds in a free update, Might and Magic: Olden Era is delayed to 2026, a Minecraft Movie sequel is coming in July 23, 2027, and Cities: Skylines 2‘s big Bridges and Ports expansion is finally almost here.
News includes:
Let us know what you think.
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