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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Enough with Metacritic!

arcelonious said:
I don't think that there is anything majorly wrong with the Metacritic system. The website is essentially trying to provide a means for people to become more informed about entertainment before spending money. It's not perfect, as they sometimes include websites that don't have in-depth review criteria (e.g., some review systems are simply based on like, dislike, or hate, rather than more elaborate criteria such as design or technical performance), as well as review sites with more elaborate review criteria not included, but for the most part, it can usually give an individual a decent perspective on a particular game.

The problem is with how people use the data. Using metacritic to help you make a decision about purchasing a game that you are unsure of is a good way of using the site. However, using metacritic to fuel internet forum arguments, or as a way to hurt a company is when it gets ugly, but that issue is more on the people that use metacritic in that manner, rather than the site.

For myself, I tend to only use metacritic when I'm unsure about a purchase. For example, I'll look up a particular game that I'm debating on whether or not I should purchase, and read a few glowing, mixed, and negative reviews (typically from sites that I've come to respect) before coming to a decision. In contrast, I try my hardest not to look at metacritic and reviews of a game that I know I will purchase beforehand, because I don't want to prime myself of any positive or negative elements in the game. I also avoid user reviews, because more often than not, metacritic users tend to rate games in order to influence a game's mean (resulting in extreme scores, particularly on the negative side), rather than honestly rating a game according to a particular set of criteria.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Metacritic itself is a problem or that people shouldn't use it to help them make decisions. I'm saying that I don't think we should be using Metacritic to replace any real debate about one game being better/worse than another.



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People only get annoyed when a game they like does not succeed on metacritic. Metacritic is actually pretty accurate most of the time what people will think of that game.




       

Normando said:
sales2099 said:
The LBP 1 and Uncharted 2 metacritic rants bother me (yes I still get those).

However the system, not perfect, is the best system we got.

"Someone might like CODBlOPS: Declasified more than Uncharted 2, or Halo 4 and that's 100% valid"

That sentence is upsetting. This is why we use metacritic. Those people are wrong, their opinions are wrong, their tastes in gaming are wrong, and its every bodies job to tell them that they are wrong and play better games for their own good even if they dont see it themselves.


It's not the best we've got. If you wanted to argue with someone over how bad Declasified is you could talk about how it looks terrible, and plays like ass. Simple talking about other peoples opinions about the game isn't a valid way to go about it.

Its simple, yet detailed. Popular games get dozens upon dozens of reviews. Thats a ton of opinions to draw upon. Each having its own review to justify.

It is the best we got because its easy to throw a number at someone. Your method involves a long and boring debate, lecturing someone on your own opinion about a game.



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yeah this is actually true and it's sad that there are lots of people that blindly trust review scores. I personally don't even read full reviews anymore because all they do is point out every little flaw in a game, so when i finally play the game I am like expecting to see the flaw that some guy pointed, a flaw that otherwise I wouldn't even notice.
It's better to read users thoughts on the game where they tell you why they enjoyed it, and see if it's something that you think you will like



I agree that metacritic should not be used as proof that one game is better than another. However, I do view metacritic as a valuable tool for looking at a consensus opinion on a game and it could be used as proof of why more people 'might' like it more.

Personally I tend to care more about what IGN says then what metacritic says, but I will look at both.



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sales2099 said:
Normando said:
sales2099 said:
The LBP 1 and Uncharted 2 metacritic rants bother me (yes I still get those).

However the system, not perfect, is the best system we got.

"Someone might like CODBlOPS: Declasified more than Uncharted 2, or Halo 4 and that's 100% valid"

That sentence is upsetting. This is why we use metacritic. Those people are wrong, their opinions are wrong, their tastes in gaming are wrong, and its every bodies job to tell them that they are wrong and play better games for their own good even if they dont see it themselves.


It's not the best we've got. If you wanted to argue with someone over how bad Declasified is you could talk about how it looks terrible, and plays like ass. Simple talking about other peoples opinions about the game isn't a valid way to go about it.

Its simple, yet detailed. Popular games get dozens upon dozens of reviews. Thats a ton of opinions to draw upon. Each having its own review to justify.

It is the best we got because its easy to throw a number at someone. Your method involves a long and boring debate, lecturing someone on your own opinion about a game.

That's a piss poor excuse. It's the best because you can't take the time or effort to form an intelligent argument? You obviously don't get the whole point of comparing game quality...



Metacritic and Gamerankings are pretty good tools for very rough comparisons between games, but they are not particularly good at more fine-grained comparisons ...



Metacritic is a fun site to use and it's entertaining to see what kind of scores certain games got. However, I do not try to use metacritic as a way to measure the actual quality of a game. A whole lot of ports get lower scores than the original, especially if nothing changed. In an unbiased review, both would receive the same score. Reason? It's the same game, you can't say the quality of a port is lower because it's the same. I even see ports that get nothing but slight improvements and the score still is lower. This expectation is also what ruins the scores.

It's not like when they port a game that they're trying to sell you a new IP. You should be expecting the exact same game. Not MORE. Giving more is a bonus that should RAISE the score (unless the bonus detracts from the overall game itself).