| Grampy said: Since I do not seem to be able to communicate why I believe that there is something wrong with X-Play scoring here is a chart that should help. This shows the difference between the X-Play score and the MetaCritic Average for 15 recent games on each console. The list was gathered from the MetaCritic list of recent and current games sorted alphabetically. The number fifteen is based on the fact that it was all the Wii reviews available. Interestingly, 15 only got to the "N"s in both the PS3 and Xbox360 meaning that review twice as many games on each of the HD consoles as they do on the Wii. As you can see there is a HUGE fricking difference in the pattern of scores. You can also note that their 5 point system is NOT the problem because they manage to almost always get within 10 pts of the average for all games except Wii games that they dislike. These get the big dump. This is my last word on the topic because anyone that can look at this and not see a problem obviously lives in a parallel universe. If it looks OK to you, FINE, just keep taking the medication. |
Take a look at the graph I posted. The trend lines for the X-Play stars converted to a 100 point score versus the Metacritic average for the same game follows the same general pattern. Then take a closer look at the actual Metacritic score verus X-Play score. Here is what you will notice. For games rated 1-Star by X-Play, the Metacritic average ranges between 33 and 57 and averages about 45, so the games rated 1 star by X-Play will fall around 25 points below the Metacritic average. Similarly the games rated 2 stars will fall around 16 points below Metacritc average. Games rated 3 stars will be 7 points below Meacritic average. Games rated 4 stars will be right at Metacritic average. Games rated 5 stars will actually be about 10 points above the Metacritic average. All of this is true regardless of the system the game is on. In fact to most accurately convert the X-Play star rating to a Metacritic average, the following formula should be used.
Expected Metacritic Average = (X-Play Star Rating) x 11.25 + 33.75
The past six months were dominated by holiday 2008 releases. XBox360, and PS3 actually released a lot of their main games during this timeframe, so those are the games that X-Play reviewed and gave them 3-5 stars in general. Games in this range are expected to be scored right around the Metacritic average. During this holiday season, almost no shovelware (1-2 star games) was released on the HD sytems, so there are no dots that fall way below Metacritic average.
The Wii release schedule during this timeframe was quite a bit different. We got some high quality games which explains the upper group of dots, and then we got several shovelware releases which explains the lower group of dots. I have never played Tenchu (and probably won't have time to play it ever), so I can't comment on how accurate the 2 star rating is by X-Play. But realize that 2 star rating form X-Play represents an expected Metacritic average of 56 and not 40 as you are assuming. This is exactly where Tenchu Z on the XBox360 is at right now. If you think the Wii game is better than the XBox360 game and could be a Metacritic average 68 game, it should have had a 3 star rating from X-Play. It's possible the game falls short of that mark and taking everyone else's opinion into account, the Metacritic score will settle around a 64. In this case either a 2 or 3 star rating from X-Play is fully justifiable. You can see bias where you want to. I just see data and patterns.
