It's a sad day when 81% isn't considered a good review score. Red Steel 2 has been getting some damn impressive reviews, not least in spite of how dire the original game was, but Ubisoft Paris isn't satisfied. Despite getting great review scores over the 8/10 range, the game's developer is slightly pleased, but is far from thrilled, with a score range is will only call "acceptable."

"Let’s start here: if you clicked that Metacritic link back there, you know that (as of this writing) our average rating is hanging out at a solid 81%," says Jason Vandenberghe. "Anyone in the industry will tell you: that doesn’t suck, but it ain’t the bestest ever. It’s the kind of number you need to be in the running for serious sales, and given the nature of the market we are releasing into, etc, blah blah blah, it’s pretty darn acceptable, but of course you always hope for more.

"It’s what Metacritic calls “generally favorable reviews”, but it’s closer to “mixed” than we’d prefer."

Really, Ubisoft? I mean, really? This, right here, encapsulates the problems with this industry and reviews in general, where nobody is satisfied unless they're being rewarded with 10/10 for everything. We've gotten to a very worrying point where game fanboys and publishers alike will be satisfied by nothing less than perfect scores. It's a damaging, spoiled attitude to have and it's not something that should be encouraged. 

There are ten points in most review scoring systems and barely any of them get used enough. At least Red Steel 2 didn't get a 4.5.

http://www.destructoid.com/ubisoft-complains-over-red-steel-2-s-81-metacritic-score-169225.phtml

The guys are financially and emotionally invested in the game, it's clear they poured their hearts into it. I think we can cut them some slack for hoping for better reviews.

This is like a week old

81% a weak score? how so? back in the early days 81% was considered out of this world. But today you need at least 90% to have a good game :$ I'm confused.

Well, according to Ubisoft themselves they'll be pleased with just 500k (their financial projections), and 81% certainly warrants 500k if we choose to believe that sales and reviews correlate at all, and then take into account that this is Ubisoft on the Wii, where they've got a piss-poor metacritic game that'll probably be their best-selling game on the platform.

what makes them so different from all the other developers though?

lots of developers put their heart and soul in games and they don't sell or get much scores.

Nothing wrong with them hoping for better scores. There would be a problem if they pressured people to get better scores. That didn't happen, so I don't see why his own wish for better scores should be blown up like this.

This If a game is in the 70's I thought that still ment good. 80's is great and 90's are breakthru's

i guess they where expecting more lol, i never look at Metacritic anyway i find that site to be dumb.. Ubisoft should follow my league lol

Did I say it was different from other developers?

It's not like they're saying the reviewers were biased and they should have scored higher, it's just that it's not as good as they had hoped for. What in the world is wrong with that? As for 81% not being considered a particularly high score, we can blame review inflation for that.