ZenfoldorVGI said:
Whatever your opinion is, it can't change mine. It was a cop-out. Plain and simple. If you want to know how I think it happened, it's simple. The 360/PS3 teams like to compete with each other. They do. This is known. Pretty much across the hall workers, play games together, all this. They know the review scores games are getting at least a day in advance, for the big ones(before the review is completely written, edited, and finalized). R2 and Gears 2 were huge games and they certainly were all excited to know how they tacked up against each other. How it went down: PSEditor: What are you gonna give gears 2? XbEditor: 9.5. You for R2? PSEditor: 9.6, lol. XbEditor: FU dude. /discussion ensues, both teams decide that the games are equally as good as shooters, and non-comparable. Thus, in the interest of continuation on the site, and to prevent the site from appearing biased(which ironically a cop out proves that they are biased), both games were given the generic round 9.5 score. Continuity between scores so close together is important, and I guarntee you that more sites than IGN had continuity discussions about the R2/G2 review scores. Especially ones that round scores to the nearist half, like Gamespot. That's my opinion. Something like that happened. Continuity was considered, and the games were tied, on purpose. It was a cop-out and no amount of explaining, justifying, denying, or excusing can change the fact that both games getting 9.5 is a huge conincidence. The chances of that are 1 in 100. 1, bro, in 1f'n00. One in 100 chance. One chance, in 100. The scores were tied on purpose. Obivously. The coincidence is too huge. IGN doesn't round to halfs. The scores were tied on purpose. obviously. Obvious. There is a 99 in 100 percent chance that I am right. |
So they copped out. Big deal. It's not biased, because both are equally good for their genre. In fact, it's a good thing, because it stopped teh internetz from imploding with "WTF IGN GIVES R2 9.6 AND G2 9.5 IGN R PS3 FANBOYS!" threads and articles.
We then turn towards Gamespot. As you very rightly said, Tools of Destruction completely killed their credibility. Sure, I've disagreed with IGN's reviews before. Quite a bit. I think they've overrated some games, underrated some games. But nothing to the point of Gamespot's completely ridiculous 7.5. And when they wrote that review, they were dead in my eyes. Had they given Ratchet and Clank an 8.5, say, Sony fans would have had no reason to hate them.
But I decided to keep reading their reviews, because despite the fact they were complete morons for that Ratchet and Clank score, they have written quite a few reviews that I agreed with.
But then games kept on releasing, and I disagreed with the scores again and again.
Populous: The Beginning (I was looking back, made in 1998): 7.5. WTF?
BioShock: 9.0. Okay, it wasn't far off, but I mentioned this for another reason. Read on.
Uncharted: 8.0. Oh really?
Assassin's Creed: 9.0. Okay, pause. They give Tools of Destruction a 7.5 and give this disappointing, repetitive mess a 9? An EDITOR's CHOICE? The same score they gave to the masterpiece that was BioShock?
Strike 5, you're out.
Meanwhile, I began to look at IGN, saw their reviews were on average 2x-3x Gamespot's reviews' lengths, saw they still gave Gameplay, Graphics, Presentation, Lasting Appeal, Sound scores, saw they still used the 0.1 scale, discovered they had actually given the large majority of games the ratings that they deserved, and found a new trusted reviewer.
EDIT: What was the Princess review?