Jeff Gerstmann reviews The Conduit (40%)

[silentmac]

WereKitten said:

silentmac said:

^

I have no problem with Edge using the whole scale although their reviews shouldn't be included in Metacritic/Gamerankings because their system doesn't jive with how anybody else scores games but even so this should be about a 6 on their scale...

And yet, maybe the trouble is with how much relevance is given nowadays to metascores.

I prefer seeing them as a useful starting point to actually research different opinions and informations about games I'm interested in. And even then, I'm usually more interested in the actual content than in the grade.

Edit: gee, I see you posted another comment about reviews :)

Anyway, I do agree that it's unfortunate that ratings and meta-ratings can have big effects on the sales, more than actual assessments of games' qualities.

And yet it's a chain of responsibility. Edge gives its grades in a certain way, and its responsiblity is only towards its readers in estabilishing with them a trust relation about their reviews and grades. Then Metacritic aggregates it, but it's in a certain sense a use that is out of the contract that Edge has with its readers. In turn Metacritic does a bit of weighted average voodoo and publishes a meta-rating, but once again its only responsibility is towards its readers in that it always uses the same methodology.

If end consumers or even software publishers use this meta-rating giving it more significance than what the methodology indicates, then in my opinion it's a problem of customer education we're facing, not something wrong with Edge or Metacritic.

I agree but you and I both know there are a ton of people who will only ever consider buying games that are in the top 20 or so titles scored on metacritic/gamerankings for a given console...  We are in the minority because we buy more titles than the average gamer...  This is one reason why I think third parties are having a hard time on the Wii.  For alot of gamers, Mario, Zelda, Smash, Metroid, and Wii Sports are enough and if they want anything else they get another console.  Of course casuals lap up all kinds of shovelware and never ever read any reviews so maybe it all balances out...

I'm not sure Metacritic does any weighting of Edge scores like it does for letter grade scores...  Metacritic's interpretation of 1up score's doesn't make any sense to me...