I wasn't talking about now. I was specifically talking about the last year or even the last months before the good announcements came when people would use both arguments to suit their needs at the time. It was directed towards Grampy's comment that Metacritic has been unfair in the past with Wii games, which contradicts the other age old argument that the third party developers weren't trying.

Interesting enough, sometimes reviewers were overly hard on Wii versions of games, but most of it is the quality of the games are improving a lot. I mean if the reviewers were slamming Wii games so much then SMG wouldn't be the highest rated game this gen.

rofl.. redheaded stepchild

it is an interesting turn of events in regards to the review scores of 3rd party games.. i think if anything, the quality of games are just getting better

Onyxmeth, it could have very well been both cases. There might have actually been some.....gasp....good games!...on the wii in the past few years, and those were the ones people were mad about reviewers rating low (I believe MP3 got this but I'm not sure).

Of course there was also a slew of horrible games as well. =P

Anyways I wasn't ever a part of the topic you're talking about, so I don't know for sure how it all worked out.

I wasn't talking about first party games, strictly third party. It's not meant to represent every single game either, but games on all consoles sometimes get shafted when they don't deserve it. The Wii is no special case and I don't believe it was ever a red headed stepchild. I, as do other people in this thread, simply think the third party support has gotten better and hence we have better review averages. No foul play involved.

Is there a contradiction? You're limiting your scope to third parties, while many of the people you're referring to had no such limits. Thus, many of those folks will point to titles like Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and other first-and-second party games that are a huge hit with the masses, but which are outright ridiculed by the traditional gaming community.

Well there is one game I remember, SSX blur. That game integrated motion control better than almost any wii game so far, and I absolutely loved it. I also remember multiple review sites rating it low because it was too hard or "broken" in their minds, after playing it for like 2 minutes. Actually, now that I think about it, there were many poor reviews on many sites over games simply because the reviewer didn't understand the basic concept of motion control. Then there's the docking of points for "not including conventional control scheme".

I think you picked a very odd time to make this particular argument. I don't think anyone ever dismissed Madden, Tiger Woods or Guitar Hero as half assed games. They are have been very successful IPs on all platforms. There is no evidence that the Wii has any particular advantage on Guitar Hero but it has done well. The first time Madden and Tiger Woods have made a serious effort to build a version for the Wii with All Play, the scores and the sales show an immediate and dramatic increase.

I would say that this supports the argument that when developers quit shoveling poor quality ports to a platform that is fundamentally different and make versions for the platform from the ground up suddenly the competition is tighter on a more level playing field.

For example the critic from Cheat Code Central (not a particularly Wii biased site) said:

“By far the most exciting aspect of Tiger Woods 09 is the Wii-specific control. It's executed wonderfully and after playing with the Wii Remote, it's going to be hard to go back to the traditional analog-stick control schemes.”

“it's nice to see a game that really takes advantage of the system's capabilities and provides a genuinely immersive, satisfying control experience. The Wii Remote gives you an awesome amount of control over your swing and employs nearly one-to-one reflection on-screen of your actions with the remote (imagine what they'll be able to do with MotionPlus!)”

So I’m not trying to have a damn thing both ways. I think, these results support what a lot of us have been saying all along. If that point is apparently lost on you, I’m sure it will not be on game developers.

I was limiting my scope because the topic itself is limited in scope. Grampy is specifically speaking on third party titles and to further limit the scope multiplatform third party titles. I actually am a stern defender of Wii Sports and do think it got shafted, same as Mario Kart Wii. Then again, I also think Kameo and Lost Odyssey got equally as shafted on the 360. These things happen on all consoles and they happen all the time, not just on the Wii.

However there have been the arguments in the past where third party multiplatforms on Wii got lower scores and people screamed bias. Then when it's convenient in another case, those same people will scream that these same developers put their time and effort into the HD consoles and not the Wii. My point was it doesn't work both ways. Games in the OP's example, like Madden, simply were better made games on the HD consoles in the past. This happens to be the first year EA gave their all to create a well made Wii Madden experience and the scores have changed accordingly with the added effort.

I'm not sure what you think is lost on me since everything you just said is exactly what i've been saying in this topic. Nice job reiterating my stance on the issue though.

@wfz-I never put much effort into the SSX Blur reviews so I can't comment on it, but it's probably either bias or simply franchise overload. The same thing happened with Tony Hawk. It never got fundamentally worse, it just didn't improve enough to warrant good scores any longer. However, a lot of games got shafted in reviews during the Wii launch cycle, because reviewers had no clue back then, so I do agree it was probably straight bias. Wii Sports scores were a fucking travesty, so I'm sure that mistake could have been made twice.