Just reaching Gran Pulse isn't the end of the game though. That is when the game opens up and all sidequests and such become available. He was still at least 15+ hours away from the end of the game.

According to his trophy history he stopped at Chapter 11.

Actually he has the trophy under that, so I would guess he stopped in Chapter 12 or so.

Not sure exactly since I am up to chapter 10 and the last trophy I got was the one located right above the last trophy he got on his list.

It looks like he got pretty far based on the achivements.  It's not like he stopped during the first half of the game.

But let me get this straight.  Lets say you start playing a game, where the controls are so bad... you can barely chohesivly control your character.  Do you believe it's the reviewers duty to play through that to complete a game, when he KNOWS the game is going to get a shit review anyway?

After a while if a game is bad enough there is NOTHING that is going to save it.

Again, forgive my ignorance since I don't really visit the compare trophies screen, but it looks like he has a lot of trophies. I can't tell if those one below it or locked or not since I don't really know what to look for but he has 63% of the trophies.

That's 22 of the 35 trophies and when 13 of them look to be story trophies it seems like he could have completed most of the game.

I know in most 360 games you can finish with anywhere from 400-600 points so I would assume trophies would be the same deal.

Kasz216

I think one of the issues they are having with the review is that he even goes out of his way to criticize the games final chapter, which according to his profile he never played.

Also, i'll note Roger EBERT reviews movies he walked out of.

This is one of the most respected movie reviewers in a field of critical review that is MUCH more advanced then Video Games.

In fact... Roger Ebert reviewed Tru Loved... a movie he walked out on.

How long into the movie was he? 8 minutes.

"In some way, a film must seal the deal with us. It must make us willing to watch to the end. Even when a film doesn't do that for me, I keep watching because, if nothing else, I can get evidence for a negative review.

With this film, I believed I had all the ammo I needed, not involving the movie's story, but its competence. It did not seal the deal. It left me with no confidence that it would be able to. If nothing else, I hope the review reflected the stream of consciousness that can take place when a movie loses a viewer's sympathy and goes wrong."

I believe the same holds true for videogames. 

All of the chapters in the game were terrible to him. He does not recommend the game to anyone. A 4 out of 10 seems like a harsh score. But if you rated the main series FF games against each other FFXIII would be at the bottom of the pile. 4 out 10 when rating the FF games against each other would be justified for FFXIII.

FFXIII is the lowest rated FF main series game of all time.

Actually, since pre-SNES FF's weren't rated, the only ratings you can go with are the remakes for GBA/DS/PSP. Both FF, FFII and FFIII have very average scores, much lower than FFXIII.

So no, FFXIII isn't the lowest rated FF main series game :P

 

I don't know if Jim Sterling played through all of FFXIII, but the difference in this case would be that of public disclosure. It's ok if a critic walks out of a movie or if he/she does not complete a game 100%.

But he should inform the reader of what he is reviewing, be it 8 or 80 mintues of a movie, 50% or 95% of a game. That's obviously necessary for the reader to put the review in a context.

Some people hated The Sixth Sense until they saw the end.

I still think it's an obligation for a reviewer to complete the game he's reviewing no matter how bad it is.

Edit: Yeah like Werekitten said, he should then mention what he's reviewing if he didn't complete it.