| Mail |
You might also like: WoW Insider, Massively, and more

Reader Comments (123)

Posted: Sep 30th 2009 3:32PM Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
Fantastic post and an interesting perspective I hadn't thought about until you brought it up. A 5 point (star - whatever) scale doesn't lend itself very well to precision and seems completely generic. The only way I can see it working the same way a 100 point scale works is if they gave fractional points or stars. For example, instead of a blanket 3/5 stars maybe something like 3.25 or 3.50 stars/points out of 5.00. But, they would be smart to go to the 100 point scale because it gives them more room for interpretation.

Man I agree with you 100%

A 5 point professional review scale is pure laziness.
Reply

Posted: Sep 30th 2009 3:41PM TwistedBishop said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
Or maybe they're used to give a ballpark estimation of a game review, where the real content comes from reading the damn review. But that wouldn't suit so many barely-literate fanboy agendas. They need their 0.1s to war over.

Reply

Posted: Sep 30th 2009 3:50PM Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
A strongly written review and a precise review scale aren't mutually exclusive. You can have both.
Reply

Posted: Sep 30th 2009 4:07PM TwistedBishop said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
So your determination of high journalism is adding in an extra three digits? It's an argument which makes no sense.

1010102982737462816383817272361546456156165161561866156198156891456861916057679844.14919811980198154981649814981489194918273712874947382619818281080012

Gimme my Pulitzer!
Reply

Posted: Oct 1st 2009 8:10AM (Unverified) said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
I'm trying to work out if you're being sarcastic or not. But i can't. Good job.

On the off chance that you arent: 100% rating systems are crazy and are the bane of the videogame industry. The sooner everyone moves to a reasonable 5 star system like every other industry the better.

If the reviewer is doing his job then the contents of the review will tell me if I'LL like it. Because the review will point out the good and bad points, and i can match them to my tastes. Attaching a score at the end just tells me an arbitrary number about how the reviewer enjoyed it... which is irrellevant.

the best games review site, bar none, is RPS. And they don't even attach a score.
Reply

Posted: Oct 1st 2009 8:44AM Finito said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
@Guibs
Your problem is your fixation on the score and trying to convert it into a 0/100 mindset. Yes, various games that all scored 3/5 may not be equal in quality, but it doesn't matter. Most sites using this scale show it at the beginning of the review, instead of the end (see 2 examples above). The score shows an oversimplification of what the reviewer generally thought of the game as a sort of preview in preparation of the important thing; the review.

You got it backwards, the nuance lies in the review itself, and how the hell is that open to interpretation? The reviewer explains why he likes the game. You should not even be comparing game scores, because that is always going to be flawed.

@Johnnynumber5
There is no such thing thing as a precise scale. It's all subjective. There is no way a reviewer can accurately and objectively score something like graphics. For example, I think Killzone 2 and Gears aren't pretty, because I don't like brown or gray. A strongly written review is full of opinions, and thus the scale you later demand can never be precise.
Reply

Posted: Sep 30th 2009 3:31PM (Unverified) said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
We should all be shot for taking this long to spot the fact that the title of the article is screwed up.

Metarview? What?

Posted: Sep 30th 2009 3:40PM MonkeyMan322 said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
aww man.. i totally missed it.. good eyes Tom
Reply

Posted: Sep 30th 2009 3:46PM (Unverified) said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
I love how for most reviewers, certain genres can never achieve really good review scores (light-gun, shoot-em-up, "kiddie" anything). But derivitive action and sports games are still fair game to max the review chart.

Posted: Sep 30th 2009 3:54PM Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
Reviews are supposed to be subjective and as such everyone has inhernet bias built into them for one reason or another. I think you are generalizing here because of what the one review said about light gun games. You have to give the reviewer credit for letting that be known in the review so people can take it into consideration.
Reply

Posted: Sep 30th 2009 3:58PM Matrixxxx said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
Man I wish I liked rail shooters , this does look impressive but I lose interest when I can't have full movement control. I tried to play the new Doom game on my IPOD Touch but after a half hour I got bored, but the game is really well done..I give Carmack a lot of credit. I may still rent this and try and get into it. RE:DC will be out soon too and that's another rail shooter that I may have to rent.

Posted: Sep 30th 2009 4:48PM MaxShrek said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
whoaw, the scores range from 60 to 100, that's a huge gap!

Posted: Sep 30th 2009 5:47PM arkweld said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
You only really need a three point review system.

Buy it.
Rent it.
Point and laugh.

Posted: Sep 30th 2009 6:27PM (Unverified) said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
So why aren't people yelling "100/100? NO GAME IS PERFECCTTT" like they did about Uncharted?

Posted: Oct 1st 2009 1:48AM CaramelZappa said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
Because it's not perfect, just as perfect as a wii game could get?
Reply

Posted: Oct 1st 2009 3:46AM (Unverified) said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
I guess you missed the hilarious Uncharted clusterfuck, though. It was getting 10/10's and 5/5's which, in metascore, translated to 100/100. This led to a ton of people in comments shitting their pants about how it's not a perfect game and shouldn't get a perfect score and blahgbaksldhasd

It was awful and I think it's funny that since they aren't having the same response here it just proves they're horrible fanboys.
Reply

Posted: Sep 30th 2009 6:46PM benheck said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
I'm glad this game turned out well, but reviews aside, nobody on the Wii is going to buy it anyway, so look for a Natal or PS Wand port next year.

Posted: Sep 30th 2009 9:01PM ructus said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
I don't understand the stigma of "light gun games" isn't the light gun just like a mouse? Its a pointer, a cursor, except you have to move you whole arm to aim it, so what?

Posted: Oct 1st 2009 12:09AM arkweld said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
Light guns don't ruin games.

People making them ruin games.
Reply

Posted: Oct 1st 2009 1:44AM mocax said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
what's with the screaming woman fetish going on here?

Posted: Oct 1st 2009 8:14AM (Unverified) said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
Wouldn't it make more sense for metacritic to convert reviews INTO a five point score???

It'd be much more flexible and forgiving of all the different rating systems different sites use. Plus, a 4 stars average rating would be much more useful than a 72.3% average rating.

Posted: Oct 1st 2009 9:41AM Erluti said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report
I never questioned the math. I'm just saying "losing something in translation" is counter-productive if we are trying to determine an aggregate review value.

And what you say sounds good on paper, but what objective way can we grade gameplay? Sound? Graphics? Controls?
Do you want a technical review? One that doesn't mention fun but says rather, "When pressing up on the controller, the character jumped every time - 5/5 points. When pressing left on the controller, the character moved left most of the time - 4/5. Controls: 9/10"
Really though, what is the objective scale for "Replayability"? FF7 had no replayability to me whatsoever, and I know people who've played it through in the 10s of times.
What about Space Giraffe? That games graphics were well-done, didn't drop frames or screw the color on my tv, and accomplished what the designer wanted artistically. I found them repulsive at best. How do I rate/convey that on our objective scale?

My point is that entertainment is subjective in it's very nature. People can dislike a game even if it has a metacritic score of 100%. Just because there might be a review that breaks a game down to a thousand point scale in 30 categories, doesn't make that reviewers opinion a fact. And so to present reviews like they are objectively score-able is a lie.

Posted: Oct 14th 2009 12:47AM (Unverified) said

  • 2 hearts
  • Report

Featured Stories

Engadget

Engadget

TUAW

TUAW

Massively

Massively

WoW

WoW