The first episode of 2014 is now out, as Jonah Falcon, Jordan Lund and Dan Quick recap the major news of 2014.
The news includes:
Also, some Listener Feedback, and the Questions of the Week, “What was the biggest event of 2013? What was your favorite game?”
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’s episode has heated arguments between Jordan and Jonah, as this new podcast runs a little long. However, there are tons of news items to make up for the lack of a new show last week.
The news items include:
The contest continues – just mention what your favorite game from the 2000’s was – and a winner will be announced next week.
Another short episode, because really, summer game news is typically slow. A lot of interesting stuff this week, however.
All this and Listener Feedback.
Great Episode guys, sorry to hear you had laryngitis your a real trooper for going on with the show. Hope you got plenty of rest and hot tea after the show.
I bought quite a lot of games from both GoG and Steam Christmas sale and I really should get to playing them. Like Dan I have been mostly playing minecraft and Civ 5. However my wife got me the Zelda: A link between worlds special edition 3ds so I have been playing the hell out of that.
Have to admit the bosses are a bit easy and that’s probably due to the “haven’t we done this already?” I mean it’s the same exact place as A Link to the Past. The only only difference is a merging into the walls mechanic and the Roovio giving you all the major tools in the begining of the game (he rents them and sells them later, but still you get them all.) That does take away from the exploring and the thrill of finding these tools. Much like you wold in the past Zelda games and even Metroid as well. The feel of building your character up is always something I’ve loved.
My family has also been collectively playing the Animal Crossing New Leaf together. Since I bought it for my wife she’s the mayor. It is a fun game to play together building and affecting the town together. So I’m pretty happy with our choice to get 3DS systems.
I have to admit that I’m surprised EA would donate all proceeds to charity and give them credit for doing something good.
I never understand the definition that is being used to say PC Gaming is dead. To me dead is something NO ONE is using anymore, not just a niche or minority, of which I don’t even think is really the case. I am grateful to the success that has been happening thanks to Kickstarter Games. Clearly it shows that there is still a demand and PC gaming, and other Genre’s of games are not in fact dead. Stuff like zip drives are dead not PC gaming.
I think people need a better term like PC gaming being in a slump but not dead. I have voted with my wallet as Dan mentioned, I’ve backed games on their not just for the games themselves but for the principle message of that I am tired of these AAA FPS games. Clearly not buying them was not enough and going to Kickstarter I can get the games *I* want to play. Like Pillar’s of Eternity, Shadow Run returns, Shadowgate, Project Phoenix, Obduction, Space Venture, Hero-U, the new Ultima game, Tides of Numerra, and so on.
That’s what’s been dissapointing when I would look on PSN or Xbox Live and the majority of choices are just FPS, sports and a few “adventure” games. I waited YEARS for Sony to make GOOD RPG games. There hasn’t been a really good Final Fantasy game since FF9.
As for Microsoft’s token RPG, the Fable series is to me what Mystic quest is to the Final Fantasy series. I’m a hardcore RPG gamer and I feel like I’ve been scorned by all three of the Major console companies.
*gets off soapbox*
Speaking of stagnant Nintendo, they should have worked more on some of their underused IPs like more Icarus games.
@QOTW: I would have to say the SimCity fiasco was the biggest event. My favorite 2013 game would have to be GTA V. It was a great story and fun game play. 2014 though I know will be a different story as Pillar’s of Eternity should be coming out this year.