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.
Wow Paul really let loose with that last episode. I agree with him that I’m tired of the whole Gamergate drama.
I am hesitant to get into the whole SJW issue since it’s a sensitive topic. Suffice to say that they generally are a oversensitive, zealous and fanatical crusaders looking for a fight where there is none or “Making a mountain out of a mole hill”.
A good example that doesn’t relate to Gamergate is the recent landing of a satellite on a comet by Dr. Matt Taylor. Not only did he mange the amazing task of getting the satellite to hit it’s target but we have amazing scientific data from that satellite. The next best thing to finding actual life forms, we found molecules, building blocks of life. We could be able to soon prove that life exists out in space, but what do we focus on? His fucking shirt. He’s wearing a shirt, with women (not naked) on it, made by his female friend as a birthday present, and he wore it to show his appreciation. Instead he was bullied into thinking that his shirt was a bigger grievous sin then his history making accomplishment.
So way to go SJW you’ve claimed another victory and shown why Alien life shouldn’t visit our planet.
@QotW; I’m not sure when the first digital purchase I made was. Probably going to go with the Wii and buying old NES games on it. Then Minecraft, PSn games, Xbox and Steam/GoG on computer. It started as a trickle and turned into a landslide of just getting Digital only. I love not having to worry about physical media getting damaged or lost.