As a Wii owner, I don’t tend to hang around on Metacritic all that much…well actually not at all for a long time. All those red boxes hurt my eyes and the numbers depressed me. It was the sort of feeling I might get if I wandered into a biker bar by mistake; nice place for them but it’s no place for me.
Well I dropped in for an overdue visit and my oh my, they’ve changed the old place. In the whole “What’s New for Wii” column there were only two little red boxes and more green than I’ve seen lately, at least in my wallet.
What’s up with this?? I decided to do some amateur stats and see if the Wii was beginning to close the gap a bit. I decided to look at only box games, not WiiWare/Arcade/Network simply because I don’t know what criteria determines who gets on, although my impression is all three consoles would gain more than lose. Anyway here’s what I got from the three “Whats New for” columns.
|
Console |
# of Games |
Highest Score |
Lowest Score |
Average Score |
|
Xbox 360 |
35 |
85 (x2) |
25 |
68.3 |
|
PS 3 |
30 |
90 |
21 |
69.7 |
|
Wii |
32 |
88 |
36 |
71.2 |
I was thrilled to see my favorite console come in first but more importantly, the fact that there is less than 3 points separating all three consoles shows a more balanced, competitive and mature industry.
The game lists are stillvery different, and that’s a good thing, but how did they fare looking at the five games that appeared on all three platforms?
|
Game |
Xbox 360 |
PS 3 |
Wii |
|
Tiger Woods PGA 10 |
81 |
83 |
88 |
|
XMen Origins: Wolverine |
74 |
73 |
53 |
|
Guitar Hero Metallica |
84 |
87 |
85 |
|
PES 2009 |
74 |
75 |
85 |
|
Trivial Pursuits |
66 |
68 |
68 |
It is surprising that the Wii stood up so well to its more powerful rivals but it is amazing that it won for SPORTS!! With these results and all the fitness programs, is the Wii becoming the console of jocks?
And although I’m sure no one was going to, before we are treated to a long winded explanation of how the Wii is judged on a different and easier scale since it can never compete head to head…… That person might want to actually read the reviews for Tiger Woods and PES 2009 because most of the reviews go out of their way to say that the Wii version is the best version.
What importance does this have? As fanboy bait, not a great deal. Reviews are still just another person’s opinion and shouldn’t take any pleasure out of how you like to play your favorite games. The average score for each console will rise and fall according to what gets published, not what you care about. You probably give as much of a rat’s ass that Leisure Suit Larry gave an unintentionally literal meaning to Box Office Bust, as I do about Major Minor or Ready 2 Rumble since I’m way too old for kazoos and if I crave boxing, Punch Out is my choice.
It does mean that we are seeing excellent games on all consoles and that publishers are learning what works and what doesn’t. Good games written to take advantage of a console’s strengths work, crappy ports don’t. It also means that crying in your beer that you can’t write a good game for a particular console is proven to be the nonsense it always was. And it means that the Wii is no longer just a machine for playing Nintendo games because this excellent showing only includes 6 (20%) 1st person titles and while the Nintendo games were all solid games, they weren’t even the highest scoring.
I think this is good news for everybody ……. except maybe rabid fanboys and I can live with that.
