Yes. And I thought Reach was an awesome game.

Defnitly cod. shouldn't get any 9 or 9+ ever at this rate.

Pick any big franchise from any publisher and you'll see this.

Of course, there will be people saying that their precious franchise XYZ is always great and no game from it is overrated, but that's just rose tinted glasses speaking.

Yes, MGS2 being the perfect example (sorry Wright ).

I also think the opposite is possible, like with FFXIII.

do you mean median or the average score? I hardly ever see anyone using the median, always nice to see someone who knows their statistics terms lol.

Duh. Not just popular franchise names either. Games that appeal to reviewer will always have them justifying giving a score it doesn't deserve. Then we have great games that the developed obviously wanted no business playing.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/09/11/double-dragon-neon-review

This reviewer wanted to play something else. He saw his co worker get the next AAA garbage and just took it out this game.

I'm constantly saying that people overrate games because of the franchise rather than the game, but rather than journalists reviewing based on what they feel the game is rated, I also think they review a game based on the assumption the gamer would rate it. Final Fantasy 13 for example. Many reviewers wouldn't rate it as high as they did for both of the reasons above, and what proves it especially is when some of those same sites bashed the game sometime after the high review scores.

I think rather than do legitimate reviews, journalists rate games based on internet expectations because it'll get their sites more clicks. Most gamers overrate the franchises. Journalists will normally overrate the franchise because they expect the fanbase to do the same.  Lords of Shadow 2 is a game most reviewers rated poorly because they expected people to hate on it with all the hate about Lords of Shadow being from a different developer.  A whole two point difference between the Metascore and User Score.  58 on the PC.

I meant median, but the average is fine too. I just used median to represent the basic central point of Reach's scores, which is 91 or 92.

That's probably the most I've talked about statistics since college :P

brendude13 said: Yes, MGS2 being the perfect example (sorry Wright ). I also think the opposite is possible, like with FFXIII.

MGS2 is another interesting case. I've always thought the reviews were informed by the huge amount of hype before the game, and not necessarily the quality of the franchise. Although I guess those two go hand in hand.

It seems like many critics have backed down from their initial high scores in the years since 2001.

Oh yeah. Some people inflate scores for the established franchises they know and are afraid of giving big names poor scores. But there are also people who intentionally give big titles slightly lower scores almost as bait, and also people who underrate big titles due to high expectations from the franchise rather than the quality of the game. So I'm not sure where it balances out. Probably on average a little higher than it should be.

GTA is probably the biggest culprit of franchise hype overscoring. Four was an offender and five maybe followed suit. Dunno, I haven't touched it.

Bioshock Infinite. Though I can't really tell if it's because it's Bioshock or simply because it looks and sounds "artsy" that it is a bit inflated over a game like Dishonored.

Halo could be one. If it didn't have the name a game like Reach/ODST would probably not get top scores.

Naughty Dog as a brand might be getting there.

Zelda's probably inflated. I'm not sure how the entire reviewing community can on average love those games as much as I do.

In general I'm a bit confused how anything at all gets a 95+ average amongst critics. I feel like there should never be that sort of consensus and if there is it's because people are all riding a train of some sort.