Didn't he attack my credibility first? When games like Too Human and Ninja Gaiden II are supposed to get 90's and they wind up with a 65 (which is Too Human's average score and not just a single score as he points out for Disgaea 3 -- a game that has an average score of 78 and its score should be higher than that because 1UP gave the game a B- and anybody that has ever gone to school knows that a B- is in the 80 to 83 range, not the 67 which is what Metacritic translated that B- into. Disgaea 3's Metacritic score really needs to have 14 points added to it. This same thing happened with Resistance 2. 1UP gave Resistance 2 a B+ and Metacritic said that equaled an 80, but of course anyone that has ever gone to school knows that a B+ is an 88 or an 89). Or in the case of NG II I find that disappointing when one considers the expectations that were placed on the games and in comparison to what 360 fans tried to persuade others with their forum posts would be the true values of the games and the reasons to buy a 360 for them
Now to be honest, I really didn't know what to expect from Banjo 2. I thought it could be a sleeper hit if score a 90+. However, so far it hasn't come close to that. It's current Metacritic average is 79. The publication that Zen points out that gives it an A- must have seen more in it than some of the other publications. And, since Rare hasn't done anything truly spectacular in years and years and no one said Banjo was going to be the greatest game of all time, I don't know if Banjo could be said to be a disappointment like Ninja Gaiden II. It would probably be a disappointment when compared to N64 era Rare games (the two Banjo games on the N64 have a 90 and a 92 Metacritic average). Banjo could even be surpassing everyone's expectations. But when you put it in a genre called engineering platformers with Little Big Planet, Banjo with its Metacritic score of 79 doesn't seem in any way to be approaching Little Big Planet with its 95 average in any way as far as overall quality is concerned.
Now let's talk about Fable II and Valkyria. Fable II has been one of the most hyped games of the last five years. However, at the end of the day, it only winds up with a Game Rankings score of 89.4. Even though there have been a lot of people saying that it was going to be one of the greatest rpgs ever made. On the other hand, how many people had really even heard of Valkyria Chronicles before this past E3? Maybe if you read such high quality videogame magazine as Play magazine has a long tradition of following Japanese games which ran an article on Valkyria earlier this year when they reviewed the Japanese version and said it was, "proof that the heart of the Dreamcast era still beats in Sega's Japanese HQ and they praised it much more than the two disappointing strategy rpgs that Atlus brought to the 360 this year or maybe if you had noticed a bit later in the year that IGN gave Valkyria Chronicles their best strategy game of E3 award; then you would have had high expectations for that game; but really that would have been the only way. Valkyria and Fable II aren't in the same genre, so comparing them as Zen does is like comparing apples to oranges. Anyway, the very hyped Fable II winds up with a Metacritic score of 89.4 (not quite a 90 as Zen always claims and the relatively unknown Valkyria has an 86.4. It looks like the hyped game is better, but not by much. Valkyria though has even been given higher scores than Fable II at a number of places and since I prefer strategy rpgs and Fable II as far as I can tell doesn't seem to have much of a coherent story, then I would personally consider Valkyria to be the game that I would rather purchase and that hasd nothing to do with which system the game is on. Althyough Zen's constant talk about Fable II makes it seem as if he really only prefers that game since it is on the 360.
Now he wants to accuse me of jumping from source to source, but there's nothing wrong with that. Have you ever written a research report? You use different sources to support your conclusions. And if you've ever been to church, you notice that preachers very often use different sources from the Bible to support the arguments they put forth in their sermons, and much the same thing is done in courts of law.
