[This episode has been re-uploaded due to technical issues]
This week’s is pretty short, featuring a Sonic the Hedgehog and Halo discussion before delving into what’s okay and what’s not okay with in-game advertisements. The Gaming Flashback for this episode is the tripping Journey.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
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.
Gaming Podcast celebrates another major milestone, this time on February 2 — so expect some Groundhog Day jokes. This month has no Gaming Flashback, but there’s a lot of show in this sexcentennial podcast.
Let us know what you think on our official Facebook page here.
While full PlayStation Network service is expected to return by May 31, Eurogamer is reporting that an internal Sony source is promising that online matchmaking will be up “in a few days”.
SCE corporate communications director Patrick Seybold would not confirm this, only stating:
“We’re working to get the network back on as soon as we can.”
An unnamed PlayStation Europe community manager has confirmed that Sony is prioritizing online play, and getting online matchmaking up as soon as possible.
According to a tweet from Musterbuster:
“Once again, 31st May is the date for FULL restoration of PSN services. Restoration is phased. Online gaming will return BEFORE May 31st.”
We’ll keep following the story as it happens. Soon, PS3 gamers will finally be able to hack enemies to pieces with Kratos online in Mortal Kombat.
