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Veknoid_Outcast on 11 February 2017
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pokoko said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:

Out of curiousity...for the folks who think critics will give Zelda a free pass because of name recognition, do you think this happens with all big-name releases? All first-party releases like Halo and Uncharted? All Nintendo games?

I think it happens less with connected, story-driven games because they have to top one another.  Uncharted 3 had to live up to Uncharted 2, for example.  When you have games like GTA and Zelda, which are many years apart and aren't direct sequels, then I think there is less of a compulsion to compare them as closely to the previous entry.  Direct sequels have to walk a fine line where they get criticized for changing too much and for not changing enough.  Story-driven franchises generally outrun their initial premise, as well, so later entries have a very difficult task in making people care again.

However, I would include Uncharted in with that "fear" factor I talked about, and probably TLoU 2.  When there is overwhelming love for a franchise, I think some of the big, high-traffic websites can be reluctant to rock the boat.  What will happen if the Meta for BotW is 95 and IGN gives it an 85?  Threads will pop up all over the internet bashing IGN for being haters and demanding that people never go there again.  It would absolutely happen at VGC.  I'll never forget that utterly pathetic display by some fans over a Pokemon score, which honestly embarrassed me as gamer.

GTA4 will always be a perfect example of that for me.  It was just not as good as reviewers scored it.  The hype was so massive, though, that I think it influenced the scores it was given.  

So maybe score inflation is related more to hype than anything else? I suppose I could see that, critics getting carried away with expectations. But surely that could cut the other way? Remember how Killzone was hyped as a Halo killer? Those lofty expectations set it up for negative reviews. Watch Dogs and Destiny suffered similar fates.

I guess the bigger question is do we trust video game publications at all? Are all review scores influenced by unreasonable expectations of fans on one side and publishers on the other? Are critics given the freedom to express their true feelings on a game? Are they even trained adequately to do so?

When we start down this rabbit hole it gets pretty depressing...