miz1q2w3e said:
i'm not talking about "any game" here, were talking about top games of the industry and an 8 is a bad score for such games. and i explained what I meant by top games and how that is determined, no one objected to the definition of that phrase. @highlighted: exactly my point, nobody likes the same stuff, and some people dislike things for no reason, should that opinion effect other people if it isn't rightly justified? like i said in other posts, i don't like shooters therefore i won't like Halo.. etc is that enough of a reason for me to diss the game? i think not... and i can just as easily make up any reason i wanted for "justifying" my opinion like when that 3/10 rating said "I found the orientation of Galaxy to be disorienting and uncomfortable" where only part of the levels in mario galaxy were round and you could easily tell that from any video/trailer of the game... does that justify a 3 from a suposedly objective person? quality has to account for something... apply that to people who prefer a certain company, console or franchise, maybe they prefer a certain genre or whatever... all i'm saying is that it happens, i have no doubt about that. I didn't mean a particualar group of people or place though, sorry if you got that message. |
I've read and understood every post :)
The reason i said every game is because that's what i mean. I don't care how good a game is, 100% of people can't agree that a game is worth a 10/10 or 9/10 or whatever.
What you are talking about is selection bias. Only people who are fans of a particular genre should review a game and people who aren't shouldn't spoil the fun for everyone else. I mean that's a nice idea but what about people who don't know if they like the genre or what about games that straddle genres? What about games that appeal to a wide range or people, are they destined to get lower scores because not everyone who reviews the game is necessarily a fan of the genre?
This is why reading a review should be more important than just the score. If you were reviewing a FPS for me for example and you gave it a 7/10 but stated that you generally aren't a big FPS fan, it gives me a context in which to consider the review and then i can choose to look elsewhere for other opinions from people who are perhaps more likeminded. GT have said they value innovation and some people have called bull or said innovation isn't important to them. OK, if that is the way you think then don't consider their reviews. This is why i feel people lean on Metacritic and the like too much, finding someone who reviews games in a manner similar to your own way of thinking will serve you much better.
If, however, you are taking an online poll or conducting some kind of meta review then ALL scores should be counted, regardless. Why? Because you are speaking to all potential consumers of the game, not just the fanboys that are going to buy the game regardless. Our friendly neighbourhood Xbot wants to know from the point of other Xbots how good U2 really is, to know if it's worth buying a PS3. He knows that all Sony fanboys/Sony sites are going to wax lyrical but they are looking at it from a different point of view than him. In that context, one Xbot giving U2 an 8, might be enough to convince another that the game is in fact awesome.
In all this of course quality does have a major role but lets draw a comparison with music. Let's say i went to a Pavaroti concert (difficult i know under the circumstances) I don't care how good a singer he is he's not getting a ten out of ten from me. Why, because i don't like his style of music, it's just not for me. That doesn't stop me acknowledging the talent that he has (had) and of course that should have an influence on the score that i give his concert, let's say i give him a 7. When, however, i write a review for the concert i would state that i am not and was never a fan and all of a sudden, that 7 score now looks pretty good.
What we are witnessing at the moment is analogous to me calling someone biased or an idiot for liking/not liking a certain band, music or movie. Score inflation is rampant in the industry at the moment and regardless of the reason, complaints about a 9.3 are ridiculous. Perhaps awarding a 9.8 to GTA in the first place was equally ridiculous but then fanboys were pretty happy at the time because it put GTA above Mario Galaxy. Now that a platform exclusive is comparing unfavourably, it's become a problem again. Even if we propose that the GTA IV score was an error in the first place, should we now be bound by that and be forced to score any game that's better than it 9.9 or 10. What happens for the games that come out later that are EVEN better? Suddenly we have no ability to discriminate between the best games just because at one point people were giving out inflated scores, it has to stop somewhere or at the least we have to concede that the elusive 10/10 is a moving target and since the release of the aforementioned games, the goalpost has moved.
In the end I am strongly of the opinion that it's all motivated by fanboy ridiculousness and not offense at the integrity and consistency of the review process as some claim. People have to be allowed to have opinion in any forum where opinions are asked for. We have the right to be smart enough to decide whether to value their opinion or not.
My longest post ever, to commemorate becoming a VGchartz Pro.
