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rajendra82 on 30 March 2010
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griffinA said:
rajendra82 said:
griffinA said:
rajendra82 said:
The reason so many WiiWare games show up the top 20 is because of relative lack of good games worth a full retail price on the system.

There's plenty of games on the Wii worth buying that fall outside of the top 20. Or are you the type of person who only buys what metacritic tells you to?

That's not what I am saying at all.  A retail game has to provide more value, because it costs three times as much.  Retail games that don't bank on nostalgia have to provide value by having an involved singleplayer campaign, amazing multiplayer modes, or a highly cinematic experience, or they will necessarily suffer in the scores department.  These same factors are generally much more irrelevant for a downloadable game which can get away with being short and simple.  Wii retail games typically have lacked the elements that give them a high value when compared to the downloadable games on WiiWare.  I am not saying that lower scores means not worth buying.  What I am saying is that getting less for your money means lower scores.  If you still want to buy the retail game knowing this, go ahead.

But theres some problems with this theory that good score = good value. Madworld, a six hour single-player only game, is one of the highest scored games.  Then, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, a very long game with multiple endings, is well outside the top 20. So then I would argue your getting "less for your money" of you bought Madworld over Muramasa. Trying to sum up what ALL reviewers are looking for is a fruitless task as all reviewers enjoy different things.

 

Also, I disagree that games need any of those three criteria you mentioned (especially a "highly cinematic experience") to be good.

1.  Madworld and Muramasa are both at 81 on Metacritic.  One is not one of the most acclaimed games, while the other way out of top 20 like you think.  I am sure the reviewers docked a few points from MadWorld for being only 6 hours long (which is awefully close to a WiiWare game length IMHO), and probably gave Muramasa a point or two for being lengthy and involved.  There has to be other factors why neither cracked the top 20.  I haven't played either, so I won't speculate.

2. I am only trying to make sense of the review scores, not come up with a list of games to buy for me or anyone.  I personally am enjoying the heck out of Darksiders nowadays.  This is not the most highly rated game around, but I prefer it over some of the other higher rated games.  But I know why it scored the way it did (too similar to some other games, no nostalgia factor being a new IP, no multiplayer to extend play time).  I enjoy it and chose to buy it for what it is, but that alone does not make the review system broken or useless.  The reviews and scores told me about what to expect, and I was fine with that.