Are Game Reviewers unable to Review Wii Games?

[Bodhesatva]

twesterm said:

soccerdrew17 said:
disagree

the reviews are reviewing for a full experience. they will say if they think the game play is awesome. if you like the review content than you will like the game probably.

what game is better, wii play or resistance? hands down the better overall game is resistance. it has a more full experience. that is not saying that what wii sports does is bad, it could mean that wii sports does its few things really well.

do story, gameplay, audio, graphics, and extras determine the game? yes, all of them. missing one part brings down the game as a whole, but it might not affect the actual experience. dinging it for not fulfilling all of them is the right thing to do. if you dont like the score read the review and than complain about the reasons.

If Resistance is better how come it didn't win any award (besides best PS3 game)? Not trying to get into any kind of argument about that game but it was a rushed piece of crap. It was buggy beyond belief, it had no style whatsoever, and it was completely uninspired.

Yes, story, gameplay, audio, can all help make a game (pardon me, but I don't have a clue what you mean by extras) great but they don't all need all of them. Take Tetris for example. The game has no story whatsoever but it's one of the greatest games ever made. Ever heard of Pac-Man? No story there. I guess you can also discount any sports game while we're at it.

I know what you're saying though, the sports games suck. Well, what about Final Fantasy VI? Many people think of that game as the best game in the series and a good people think of it as the best game ever. Why would thy think that? The gameplay in that game is terrible. The character skills are broken and leveling is work.

 

I know you don't want to accept it, but Wii Sports is an amazing game. It's that plain and simple. Yes, it doesn't have the best graphics ever (who cares, games were good before 1997), the audio isn't something that will blow you away, it's simple, but it's fun and that's what matters. Another thing that matters is that it opened up gaming to countless amounts of people. I don't know how many people after playing or even seeing Wii Sports decided they needed a Wii because it was so much fun.

With Resistance, I have a buddy that was taking the Insomniac design test, bought a PS3 for Resistance, returned the PS3 the next week and didn't bother with the test because he was so disgusted with the game. Does that sound like a good game? No. The reasons it got high scores were simply because there was nothing else and OMG!! it pushes so many poly's!!!

 

/rant

Rather than get tied up in such an flame-worthy argument, twester, how about we say this: Critics gave Resistance an average rating of 8.6, while users gave it an 8.4. Critics gave Wii Sports an average rating of 7.6, while users gave it a 9.1. This means that critics gave Resistance a 1.0 edge over Wii Sports, while users gave Wii sports a .7 edge over Resistance. That's a total disparity of 1.7 points, which is enormous. Or, put differently: critics soundly preferred Resistance, while players soundly preferred Wii Sports. There's a disconnect between players and critics there. Theoretically, critics are intended to represent the views of the people; their value to us is as a barometer to help us make choices about which game to play, which movie to see, which restaraunt to eat at.

I'm going to give another example from Restaraunt criticism, because I think it's appropriate. Back in the 50s and before, Restaraunt criticism was based on the exquisite nature of the decor and the food, which is a euphimism for saying that fancy restaraunts automatically got better scores. It doesn't seem like a bad idea on the surface, until you start thinking of specific examples; restaraunts that serve food that is fancy, expensive, and poorly cooked would -- by definition -- get better scores than joints that are simple, cheap, but tasty and well done. A bad "fancy" restaraunt would always, always get a better review than the bestest little hot dog stand in the entire world. Obviously, that's a problem; critics were operating under the assumption that everyone wanted to eat at the fanciest restaraunts available, all the time. There was no way any hot dog stand or burger joint or deli could possibly be worth anyone's time. Ever. This was clearly unrealistic, and in the 70s, several food critics pioneered a new critical method, by which each restaraunt was judged by its purpose, not by its relative sophistication. Is a restaraunt trying to be simple, cheap, and tasty? Then that's the basis upon which it is judged. Today, this is basically how every food critic operates. I think a similar transition will take place within video games; simplistic games with low end graphics aren't automatically worse than games with super awesome graphics and really complicated controls. They certainly can be worse, but they don't have to be. These games are trying to do something very different, and they have to be judged accordingly.