I stopped paying attention to reviews when Alfred Hitchcock died without an Oscar.

The best thing to do it is play it yourself. Reviews aren't what they used to be. Too many games get padded scores because of hype and too many games get less than stellar scores because of lack of hype.

Ok i don't need to read through most of these hate posts here. Oh the Wii reviewers are biased. And the stop crying people just dont like Wii games, get over it.

Neither of thoes two are the point.

IMHO and MHO only its not that people are biased but i think most reviwers just don't get the Wii or just don't share the same tastes as Wii owners. It's just that simple.

I'm not saying that Wii games pwnz joo face. Or Wii gamez r teh suxxor. I'm just saying that reviews can't be taken at face value. You need to find reviewers that share your tastes. Or, in the case of a Wii fan like myself, just don't bother with reviews at all. Because for me most reviewers reviewing Wii games just don't see in thoes games what I and many other Wii gamers do.

My solution was gamefly. I now never buy a game without renting it first and im glad i did. I was about to buy GoW3 for my PS3 and rented it first. Its a fantastic game but it had zero replay for me and it was pretty short. Now if I went on reviews alone that would have been a day 1 perchase. And $60 gone.

See that definately doesn't work for me. Here is a list in order of what I would pay for them (I would say down to SMGalaxy I would pay high end price for them (£40), down to F12009 I would be willing to pay the low end full price for them (£30) then down to Excite Truck budget price (£20) Wii play and Geometry Wars £10 and Madworld is worth a fiver) the numbers are the metacritic scores they gained... they don't exactly follow much of a pattern.

Mario Kart Wii - 82

Endless Ocean: Blue World - 76

Endless Ocean - 72

Wii Sports - 76

Resident Evil 4 Wii - 91

Battalion Wars II - 75

TLoZ: Twilight Princess - 95

Super Mario Galaxy - 97

Metroid Prime 3 - 91

SSX Blur - 74

No More Heroes - 83

The Conduit - 69

F1 2009 - 70

Okami - 90

Zack & Wiki - 87

Tiger Woods PGA tour 10 - 88

Deadly Creatures - 72

Excite Truck - 72

Wii Play - 58

Geometry Wars Galaxies - 80

Madworld - 81

Wow! I didn't know it was such a huge issue. I usually get 8 replies on my posts!!

Well, from what I have read, I have the feeling that I am doing the right thing going for user reviews or my own guts. You guys are right, there is no right or wrong games out there, only games that are for you or not.

The thing that gets to me is that a perfectly playable game, like Final Fantasy Crystal Bearers, might not get a sequel or will get poorer sales because of the negative reviews. But anyway you look at it, it is a fun game. I read somewhere that the big boss takes a look on Metacritic and is happy with an 85 or a 90, and he will look at this figure, plus sales, to see if the game was a success.

Weird because some different games, that are not mainstream, are FANTASTIC but get average Metacritic scores. The most important example, for me, is Endless Ocean Blue World. I think this game is pure perfection. I have logged in over 60 hours of playtime. But it is not a shooter or it is not pure action, so it got a 76 score. And that's the problem, for me, it would be a 95.

Meh, I stopped caring about 'professional' reviews a long time ago. Then again, it's not always wise to go by fanpeople's opinion either, 'cos then you might end up buying rubbish like Little King's Story and such, while you'd have been better off if you hadn't. Of course that's my personal opinion, I'm just saying, reviews are opinions and opinions are personal. You know best which games you enjoy so I say always go by your own judgment.

Ok ok ok i give up. I keep hearing about this game called endless ocean and it sounds sooooo boring i never think about it much. But you my friend have put me over the edge. Its officially on my radar and im ganna look into it on youtube. If that peaks my interest it goes on gamefly. If I like it after renting it enough its a buy...

Thats how I make my perchase decisions. Word of moulth > Watch vids/do research ( And yes that does include some reviews although I take them with a grain of salt ) > Gamefly > Buy....If it passes each fase it gets bought.

I agree that you should play what you enjoy, but there are some problems here some of which are the gamers fault. Namely the attitude that 50 is awful, and that it is an egregious offense that a perfectly fun game could ever fall below a 7.5. I have Indiana Jones on Wii (a friend got it for me for some reason), that game is justifiably a mediocre blah game.

It can be fun, it can by all means be enjoyed, it's a relatively competent action adventure title. But you put that game next to something like Uncharted 2 which I'm sure has some metacritic rating in the 90s (to lazy to check), and the difference between the two is absurdly vast. The graphics obviously, but also the control is tighter, more responsive and better thought out than the furious left right waggling on Indy, the story is better crafted, the acting a billion times better, the level design meticulously thought out, The sound design phenomenal, the camera work fantastic, amazing set pieces, the amount of time effort and care that went into uncharted 2 compared to Indy is insane. Indy is an enjoyable, nothing special, middle of the road action adventure game.

So where is the problem? The problem isn't that reviewers give games like indy or CB 5s and 6s but that gamers consider anything that falls below a 7.5 as garbage. The OP said "I know it is NOT a masterpiece, but I would give it a 7 out of 10. In fact, I think any game I finish to the end deserves at least that much." Now lets think about that statement for a second. That means that any game that manages to hold his attention til the end warrants at least a 7, or rather that he will only play "7" rated games all the way to the end. A 6 is not worth playing til the end, a 5, good god, should be avoided at all costs. 7 is the baseline for quality, anything below it sucks to bad to be finished. The problem is that gamers only respond to games that fall in a 3 point radius.

Indy is a mediocre game in all regards, playable, enjoyable, incredibly mediocre. Crystal Bearers was an unfocused mess, shallow combat, lots of minigames, but with a ton of polish and care taken with it. 5s and 6s are not out of line for those games, it's just that gamers refuse to play anything below a 7, and thusly anything below a 7 must be crap. And this topic is just this wierd grinding of gears in the brain trying to comprehend this bizarre contradiction. A game below a 7 can't be enjoyed.....but I'm enjoying these games that aren't 7s........soooo....it's the reviewers messing things up!! These really are 7 games and....and.....it's anti-wii bias!!! That must be it because I'm enjoying this and 5s and 6s are crap!!!

I don't care that much for the numers at end of reviews, I've been gaming long enough to know what I do and don't like, and what I look for in a game. But seriously, if you're complaining that not enough games are getting 7s, and that any game you can tolerate until the end deserves at LEAST a 7, then you have to admit that gamers expectations of review scores are a big part of the problem, and not just "ant-wii bias".

Ah, another soul on the road to enlightenment. Well done.

glad to hear it, keep on playing.

if everyone only played the games that reviewers praised you are missing out.