Starwars: Episode 1; the Phantom Menace Special Effects: 10/10 |
What exactly earned that 1/10 instead of 0/10?
Guess I should actually contribute to the thread.
Someone, think it may have even been someone here, and if it was I apologize in advance for forgetting your name and if I mess up this example, but someone made a point that some point way back that most restaurant critics reviewed all restaurants of all types with the same set of expectations you’d have of fancy fine dining type.
A small mom/pop burger shop would always be rated lowly compared to some fancy diner. Even if the burger shop had excellent service and the best damn burgers and the fancy restaurant had god-awful food, high prices, and took forever to be waited on. At some point it became clear this didn’t really work.
Just because you’re a small burger shop doesn’t mean you should get marked down for not being high dining, because none of your customers or potential customers were expecting you to. And just because you’re a fancy looking diner you shouldn’t necessarily be marked up for being one when it’s just as possible your food sucks.
Again, sorry if I screwed any part of this up, but point is if you’re going to review anything, you need to approach it with the proper expectations of someone interested in whatever you’re reviewing. I didn’t walk into Hot Fuzz expecting Citizen Kane, I walked into Hot Fuzz expecting a spiritual sequel to Shawn of the Dead. (For the record, very happy with what I got.)
In the case of Carnival Games, I haven’t played it, but from what I’ve read from various customers reviews and such, it seems to generally delivers what it promises. I remember one person saying that same games that pissed him off in Carnival games where the same games that usually pissed him off at a real life Carnival. It also sounds like it doesn’t deliver much beyond that either can be occasionally buggy, but for the people who’d be interested in it as a Carnival game simulator, they'd be satisfied. As a game, I doubt the people who made Carnival Games really were trying to anything beyond that.
Current review set-ups for most forms of Gaming Media just mostly catered to suit a narrow field like-minded individuals. Mostly that might because that same group dominates the gaming scene so much, but as the market continues to expand and that niche becomes smaller there will be more and more need for a wider variety of reviewers.
Best way to start would get off these asinine scoring systems. Like HappySqurriel illustrated, it’d be just weird to see these same arbitrary score set-ups applied to movies, and I’ve said before, I feel these numerical scores are heavily in place to draw attention away from the actual review. (As well as easily appeasing paying advertisers while still actually trying to review something honestly)
1UP’s review of Assassin’s Creed was 7.0, but from what I read, the person who reviewed did generally enjoy it, but was letdown by the tedium and certain ass backwards decisions, but still fairly excited for it’s inevitable sequel. IGN’s video review more or less blasted it, stating it’s beautiful to look at it, but actually playing the game is tiring and uninspired. Their reviewer very strongly warned away from buying the game in favor of renting and stated you might not even want to finish it. Their site gave it a 7.5/7.7 (PS3/360) however.
Ars Technica reviews games as well, but we rarely hear about them because they don’t score games outside their Buy/Rent/Avoid verdict, which they don’t always use anyways. They generally try to explain what’s good for who and avoid getting too caught up in the technical aspects. How good they are at this is debatable, but as general website for techno stuff they’re trying to cater their content for a wider group of people who may be visiting.
And most importantly, does anyone know any first hand online sellers who have Carnival Games in stock? Getting annoying I can’t find it. =P
