Breath of the Wild, perfect scores, and framerate

[Mnementh]

pokoko said:

Mnementh said:

Let's face it: our enjoyment of games is subjective. It always is. You can conclude that some games are objectively terrible, but on the other end of the scale is no objectivity. I wasn't unhappy with Jim Sterlings review, I always said in the thread, that I thought his opinion acceptable (while I feel differently) and his points valid. Also his score was OK, a 7/10 is fine.

Secondly there is this perception of 10/10 as perfection. This really bugs me. This is like saying: we can use numbers from 1 to 10, but we don't use the ten. That's bull. The ten is a valid score. As no game is perfect it means the flaws don't destroy the enjoyment.

Overall I think the issue is similar to ME:A face-animations. While it might look strange in places, most people care more for other things.

Our enjoyment of a game might be subjective but it's generally grounded by objective parameters.  Controls, camera functionality, frame-rate--there are any number of criteria that can be rated and compared to other games.  When I look at a review, I want the technical side to be considered as well because I'm the only one who can decide what does and does not detract from my experience.  The reviewer saying, "oh, but I don't care about X, I only care about Y," makes the article about the reviewer as much as it is about the game.

That's why many people, when they read a review of something, they're looking for as much objective information as possible, so they can apply it to their own list of likes and dislikes.  Reviews, in my opinion, should describe both sides of the coin.  They aren't simply an editorial or a tech analysis, they're a reflection of both.

I agree that the writer should mention in the review all the things noticeable. People have different opinions and like different things, which is why they value different things. If the reviewer mentions framerate hiccups but says it doesn't take away from the enjoyment the reader can decide if he values it the same way.

The german site I read (Golem) does not give an numerical at all at it's reviews, but only a text with a textual description and a conclusion. Even better, the reviewers often answer to questions in the forum to the article. They concluded that the occasional framerate hiccups were there (they measured it) but framerate always recovered and for their feeling didn't influence the enjoyment. For ME: Andromeda they noticed the problems of the facial animations and also said they could break immersion for a moment, but also said they were not common and overall took not much away from the enjoyment. I think the missing score is great so people are forced to read the text and even better is that they react to readers writing in the forum.