What's With Wii's Low Review Scores?

[Bodhesatva]

pearljammer said:
@Bod
"Okay, I'll try to explain this one more time, because it's apparent that you still don't understand. "
I hate when people repeatedly make the same argument with the assumption that the other is wrong and accept that they just don't 'get it'. I agree with Edouble. Not because I haven't read Aristotle or Bloom, because I have (necessary for a teaching philosophy course), but because I fundamentally believe that many respected gaming journalists (obviously not all - and, although I like him, I think Travers may have been a bad example) do not base their reviews on personal preference of genre. Nintendogs, especially, was a good example. As is the warioware. But, of course, it would only take one example to debunk your theory. no?

It's not an assumption, it's a firm belief based on how he responded. I repeated myself multiple times, and his responses remained oblique to the topic at hand. I hate hitting my head against a wall, so I left.

Nintendogs is a fantastic example for my case: its reviews were good but not great here. In comparison, Famitsu gave the game a 40/40 score in Japan. EGM in particular ridiculed this score on 1up yours many moons ago, as evidence of Famitsu's lax standards. It is now, as many know, the best selling game not on PC in the last decade (perhaps also including PC, as its difficult to tell without hard figures), and has almost singlehandedly given birth to a new genre and been critical to the DS's domination of the female demographic.

More important, the "casual" catch all -- which double objected to and I agree with -- is such a broad term that one can make any sort of claim about it. Rhythm games, for example, are clearly accepted by the mainstream gaming press; mini-game collections clearly are not, as not a single one has ever scored above an 83, with most much lower, despite extreme popularity and years of genre honing. I could also site the fact that many enthusiast press outlets have ridiculed the genre as a whole, but without immediate links at hand (most have been offhand comments on podcasts)

Again, I'll simply repeat what Dan Hsu, executive editor of EGM, had to say about Wii Play, because I think it's the most explicit example:

"Play is for people who don't really play games, and as someone who really does, that's a problem."

This explicitly states that he's reviewing games by his own standard, and not by the standards of the intended audience. Score comparisons shouldn't even have been necessary, although they are an easy and tangible way to reinforce my position -- here is the executive editor of the second largest game magazine explicitly stating that he's reviewing the game from his own perspective.

There are, of course, other quotes (looking through the Wii Sports reviews immediately gives several blurbs about how the game isn't deep enough and "hardcore" gamers won't like it), but the message is clear: these reviewers are reviewing titles based on personal perspective and preference.