IGN Review: Wii Sports Resort. Right in the middle

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

BMaker11 said:

Kenryoku_Maxis said:

silentmac said:

Kenryoku_Maxis said:

silentmac said:

@Kenryoku

What are you talking about? IGN is one of the most Wii friendly gaming publications there is. Are you saying you think that Gamespot, 1up, Giantbomb, Game Informer, Game Pro etc. are less Wii friendly?

Hell, even Gametrailers and Nintendo Power are more critical of Wii games than IGN most of the time.

 

Personally, I think IGN is well balanced.  There are some areas where Nintendo is unparalleled but there are plenty of others where they are lagging behind the industry.

I would definitely disagree.  Look at their reviews of games aside from 'major' titles (aka Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros).  You'll be hard pressed to find a game over 8.5.  The majority of the games they review over that number are Virtual Console games that everyone knows are good.  And they throw a LOT of opinions around.  Mostly pinging the system and its 'innovation'.  But there's been some times when they even cite games on the 360 as examples (clearly showing that they are comparing Wii games to 360 games).

Ok well what site or magazine is less biased than IGN then?  I have seen a ton of people complain that they are too lenient on Wii games...

They score third party games that are geared toward their reader's demographic pretty high IMO..  For instance:

The Conduit 8.6

Mad World 9.0

Okami 9.0

Zack & Wiki 9.0

RE4: 9.0

PES 2k8 8.6

etc.

Most people instantly give Nintendo first party titles 9.0 or better and sometimes this is deserved and sometimes it isn't.  Now most sites also tend to over rate games if they have great visual on the HD consoles as well...

I agree they could be more subjective with their reviews but honestly they are far more Wii friendly than just about any other gaming publication.

Exactly.  Wii games 'that are geared toward their reader's demographic'.  In other words, they upscore the games they think the readers like and ignore/downscore the others.  Now yes, there's some blatant anti-Nintendo sites out there.  But IGN isn't without its faults and bias is my main point.  And on the whole, I'm someone who thinks you shouldn't listen to a reviewer to be your judge of wither to buy a game anyway.  With so many forms of media, previews and youtube/gametrailers now adays, there's no need to read a 2-4 page bias and opinionated summary of a game (which the reviewer never finished in the first place).

So....because WSR is geared toward the "casuals" and not the "reader's demographic", and since WSR is probably really fun for the "casuals"...this game should be rate 90 or higher? I think that's what you're trying to say....and that would mean all the CRAP (I mean the literal crap on the system, like Game Party) on the Wii should be rated extremely high, because those games target the "casuals" and are really fun to them (why else did Carnival Games sell like 3 million?), and not the "reader's demographic".

Do you see the fault in that logic? There has to be some standard, otherwise Mario and Sonic should be scored in league with MGS4 and Bioshock. You can't call "bias" just because they scored differently than how you feel....or I'll say that all review sites are PS3 biased because they scored Haze low. Haze wasn't a game for "gamers", it was game for people who only enjoy FPSs with broken controls and what we would consider cheesy storylines. To those people, that game was a 10/10, so if you didn't score it that way, you are biased

 

No, I was not trying to say any of the stuff you just thought I was trying to say.  Re-read it.  All I was saying is they upscore games they think are going to be popular with their core readers or are going to be major releases.  And for games that don't get large marketing buzz or aren't popular on their site, its a mixed bag wither the people at IGN give it much attention or an accurate score.  Because they really don't have to give a game like 'Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection' the same amount of playtime and scrutiny as 'Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn'.  Though the downside to spending less time on the 'lesser' game is a less accurate review, which is noticeable.

Also, it has nothing to do with saying a game like 'Reel Fishing Challenge' should be as high as 'Mario Galaxy'.  Obviously These games are quite different in quality and each game needs to be looked at separately.

Now in some ways, the people at IGN have gotten a little better.  But they are still brazenly opinionated.  Who can forget Matt and co basically sitting on their podcast making fun of WiiMusic before it came out.  But they still have clear issues with many of Nintendos products, which causes a problem when you are trying to write reviews and information on Nintendo products.  And there's other problems, such as Bozon, who seems to compare every RPG to three of his favorite RPGs from the past.  Yet they make him do most of the RPG reviews (I wonder why a lot of the RPG scores for DS/Wii seem lower than expected...).  And these views get into their reviews.