Metacritic: mass effect 2 (xbox 360) vs mass effect 2 (pc)

[aragod]

ZenfoldorVGI said:

aragod said:

starcraft said:
It is also entirely possible that a majority of reviewers, like the majority of gamers, prefer to play their hardcore games on televisions with consoles.

Or maybe the exact opposite?

I'm fairly certain, that both PC and consoles have their respective reviewers, who doesn't use the other platform for gaming / reviewing. Or that's atleast how it's been done in most of the biggest critical subjects in the industry.

Also on the topic, yes PC gamers and reviewers have much higher standarts than console gamers / reviewers. When PC game comes out, it's compared to the whole back catalogue in every possible aspect. On the console, you are comparing that game usually only to the back catalogue of that given console, therefore Wii game can get 10/10 in graphics department, while it visualy doesn't hold a candle to crappy multiplatform on HD. The same way Gears of War was a great success on the Xbox, with critically acclaimed graphics, but it floped on PC. PC gamers and reviewers had their standart set much higher.

According to reviewers, this is one of the best PC gamers ever made, 5th in fact, assuming we combine HL2 with ToB, and ignore the fluke baseball game with 5 reviews.

I don't think their standards are much higher, perhaps minutely, and 2 points certainly doesn't prove it, considering we are working with 31 reviews for the PC verses 80 something for the 360. The difference in those scores is statistically insignificant, by which I mean, the PC's score is unpredictable assuming we more than doubled the number of reviews that it currently has, but at the very least, it could fall within 2 points either way off its current score. Doubling review scores is not guarnteed to be a 1:1 ratio for its current score, with 31, the sample size is too low(see the baseball game with 5 reviews).

I wonder if Uncharted 2 would have ranked even higher on PC than Mass Effect 2, since it outscored ME2's console score.

You just can't use metacritic for vague generalizations, because its really spinning numbers, and using them to justify your beliefs when it's convinient.

Lately, imho, the PC's library lately has lacked the high profile SP AAA exclusive games that the consoles get on a fairly regular basis. When a multiplat like this comes a long(once every several years, or even once a decade) thumbing an elitist nose at it, due to snobbery and nostalga is not something I believe PC reviewers or entheusiasts would be willing to do.

So, I disagree with you. I think that PC reviewers are generally intelligent people, and though they might have their biases for games that are console multiplats or even ports, they don't have higher standards, and if they do, their games are due to the rigs they are gaming on, and in this case, the game certainly takes advantage of those rigs.

What I'm hearing is that despite a game taking full advantage of a gaming rig, and being better, it still isn't enough to score as high as an inferior version on a console, because PC gaming is just that much better. I don't think anyone would be that snobbish, number one, and number two, that is an argument for a platform(which has strengths and weaknesses just like all other platforms), and not a game, and arguing for a platform, is by definition, biased. Arguing superiority of one console to another is also considered bias, is it not, because like the PC, each console is an apple to anothers orange. These are not apples to apples comparisons, and claiming they are, is either biased and intentionally misleading, or ignorant and moot.

Either way, when arguing for a platform, individual games mean nothing, and its overall library quality that matters, which lately, seems to have been leaning in favor of the HD twins, due to a relative drought of high-budget AAA exclusive or HD-twin exclusive sp titles on the consoles, in my opinion. Holding on to those old titles as paragons of PC exceptionalism and punishing new games due to that nostalgia might hurt game sales for the review driven smart PC crowd on their favorite platform, which is something reviewers should be smart enough to figure out on their on.

You make some fair poins. And yes, PC gamers are snobbish and biased towards their own platform, dissing consoles as a virus of casual noobines and they are partially right to do that. Just look at what consoles did to the FPS genre? Most of the famous PC FPS series like CoD, Battlefield and now MoH have been dumbed down for consoles. I allways laugh my ass off, when someone is even trying to argue about gamepad vs mouse + keyboard combo. The greastest WRPGs have their back catalogue on PC. There are no good RTS strategy games on consoles (well Halo Wars, but it can't compete with PC RTS games).

On the other hand, Mass Effect is game from BioWare, which is a famous, pro PC RPG developer responsible for one of the greatest game series of all time, Baldur's Gate, so the only bias I can see is the positive one. The PC version of ME2 is also better than Xbox version, so no problem there. But there are games on PC, which didn't make it to the consoles, that ME have to be compared to, one example The Witcher. But there is many many more.

Don't get me wrong, ME2 is my favourite RPG of this gen, and in my top 3 with MGS4 and UC2. I love that game, but it isn't perfect, there were things which could've been made better.