Biased about the 3DS? An Analysis of Ten Review Sites

[pokoko]

MDMAlliance said:

Jim Sterling (used to be at Destructoid) definitely gave really low scores.  Kid Icarus: Uprising and Mario Kart 7 from Destructoid are his reviews.  They are much lower than just 10 points lower than the average.  

If I didn't already know about that, I would say that those scores are surprising, especially since the reason MK7 got a 5 from Jim is because he thinks the formula didn't change much (as if it ever had with any of the other Mario Kart games).  The reason KI: U got a 5 from Jim is because he didn't like the controls, therefore it's suddenly a bad game.

In my opinion, this just shows how bad ratings are in general, but Jim Sterlings reviews are definitely outliers.

Speaking as someone who used to visit Destructoid every day, Sterling's review scores are worthless.  They often did not match the text whatsoever and sometimes they felt like pure spite.  Even with a review you might agree with, sometimes you're like "WTF" at the end when you see the numbers.  I remember when he gave Killzone 3 a 10, a game that struggled badly with online problems in the beta, then he gave another game a super low score for ... that's right, online problems in the beta.  Sterling's scores should be ignored.

Destructoid is also an example of how different writers on the same website can have much different scores.  I'm a fan of Dale North and thought he often gave very fair reviews for handheld games, scores that were not critical from the start simply because the games where on handheld consoles, while I wouldn't trust a Jim Sterling review of plain bread.  That's why I don't judge by publication, I judge by writer.