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.
This week we’re talking about pre-owned video games and ask the question, do you buy new or do you buy used? Do you sell your games? We answer some listener comments and hit on a few hot topics:
@PS4 did have always on DRM, camera, but Sony changed it at E3
😀 If this is true, then damn it, the customer still has some power. I guess not being the first to present the product is not entirely bad.
@ Xbox One’s capabilities
It’s easy to mess up specs. I mean the sales guy don’t know tech mumbo jumbo. So yeah …
Now, I’d go and say that even at the initial estimated bandwidth the difference should not be that big.
Read – write simultaneously? That’s a pretty good thing. In theory that can double the effectiveness of the hardware (at least in some instances), as opposed when having to do them sequentially.
Still … PS4 looks a bit more attractive. Dunno why, maybe because of the initial fiasco of the XBox one.
Now, on compatibility: wasn’t supposed Win 8 to play also XBox 360 games? Does this mean that XBOne will play 360 games?
@Xbox One getting Unity support to aid indie developers
Hmm … interesting. Still, XBLA was not all sunshine and rainbows:
http://www.xblafans.com/jon-blow-and-team-meat-done-with-xbox-64672.html
So what gives? Ok, the link above is from March, but still. If this isn’t confusing, I don’t know what is. Team Meat? Your reply on this recent development?
@Star Citizen asset cost for ships “anywhere from $35,000 to $150,000”
Holly f*ckin’ shit! No, just … no. Jonah has a very good point, it could be that those polygons won’t be visible at lower settings.
Further more, I think that in the heat of the action, you probably won’t notice the extra details anyway.
Hey! I missed last week’s episode so let’s get going now!
First of all, Insomniac did not develop Infamous. It was Sucker Punch and they’re also doing Infamous: Second Son now. They’re still with Sony.
@PS4 DRM – This is highly doubtful to me. Am I supposed to believe that a multi-billion dollar company changes their policy and the entire E3 presentation within a couple of hours because of what the competitor did? No way. Jack Tretton of Sony was a guest on Up At Noon on IGN this week and that’s basically what he said. That the presentation we saw at E3 was what it was always supposed to be. There were no changes made after Microsoft’s conference. The game sharing Youtube video, that’s a different story 😉
@XBone capabilities – that’s a funny mistake to made but still might have happened. I don’t think all the technical stuff really matters to an ordinary customer. I still believe that the price and the unfavorable media coverage that Microsoft got after E3 will be the deciding factor. Those people who show more interest, like you and me, already decided which console they will go with. I’m not starting my Xbox adventure with this one.
@XBone running Win8 apps – I wonder how long this will hold up. I can see people developing apps that somehow hack the console the way people accessed the OS on PS3 in the early days. The more closed the system is, the safer it is. That’s why I’m not a huge fan of all the social interaction that the new generation brings. We’ll see how this develops.
@QWOP – Jonah! Play QWOP now! This game is what hell is all about. This could be an instrument of torture – “if you don’t run at least 10 meters you’re not getting your food!”. Parenting tip #436
@E3 impressions – I’ve been going through the list of games and it’s really hard to choose. I’m going to focus on Sony games, since that’s the console I’m going for. Can I still say The Last of Us? 🙂 Technically, it was release AFTER E3 so it should count. I love this game and I’m afraid to read Jordan’s review… You OBVIOUSLY don’t get it 😛
If I have to choose something in the future, I’m still very intrigued by Beyond: Two Souls. They showed some new stuff about this game and now I have no idea how it will pan out. I’m a little worried that Mr. Cage & co. want to do too much with this title. I loved Heavy Rain and I want to go back to this game some day and if the storytelling is as good in Beyond, it will be amazing.
Most intriguing next-gen game? I think I’ll go for Infamous: Second Son. I really enjoyed the first two games, I platinumed both of them and it’s going to be interesting do see what they do with the franchise post-Cole.
And also, in case you missed it, Jordan especially, since he has a Vita, Dead Nation is coming to the handheld! The game was an amazing PSN title. Sure, it’s another zombie apocalypse game, but it was so much fun. It had a co-op mode and you could go through the whole game in 2-3 hours if you made a speed run. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
Now I’m wondering whether I should cash in my Bioshock Infinite contest victory to get a T-shirt or should I wait for some next-gen games since they will be region-free… 😉