Game Review Scales

This is one of my first posts ever on this forum and I apologize if this topic has been discussed before, but I wanted to get an idea from people about what they thought of game review sites and Metacritic ratings etc.

I've found over the last several years that there is very little integrity in game reviews I and get really frustrated by how bad the information is that we get from sites like Gamespot, IGN (the worst of them all) etc...

I remember getting really excited about SPORE when it came out and seeing all the rave reviews (I think IGN gave it a 9.0 or 9.5), but when I bought the actual game, it was on of the most shallow, dumbed down and ugly games I've ever played. The only redeeming qualities it had were the creation tools, but what's the point if it's no fun to actually play the game???

It seems like the reviewers use a scale from 7.5-10 for most titles and only the most broken pieces of crap score anything lower than that. ODST sold for full price and got a 9.0 from Gamespot. Empire Total War was a broken mess on release and it got an 8.5. It's got to the point where I don't even get excited when a game scores a 9.0 or a 10 now.

The only other place I can think of where this sort of scale is used is maybe early highschool or grade school where you don't want to destroy the egos of all the dumb kids in your class.

A 9/10 should be for rare titles that blow existing titles out of the water or revolutionize. Halo 1 would have been a good example. Rome: Total War is another one for the strategy genre. Why is it that so many forgettable and mediocre titles score so highly and why do people get so upset when a reviewer scores it below an 8/10??

On a bell curve a 5/10 is an 'average' game. A 7.5 or 8.5 would be a pretty good game. 9.0+ should be reserved for something remarkable.

Anyways, that's my opinion. Wouldn't this make individual reviews so much more meaningful and distinguishable? What do you fine people think?

You're right and I already do that. I find the actual reviews to be largely garbage (Tom's I like sometimes actually though). Even the user reviews, however, are guilty of the same thing and often have even less credibility. The average score on the user reviews is less based on actual fair reviews of the game, and more on passionate fans or haters who want to see the score go up or down. I also have a sneaking suspicion that publishers have fake reviewers go on and post 10's for that very reason alone.

I find I have to sift through dozens of user reviews to find ones that are actually fair and reasonable and it would be so much easier if the pros would actually take their job seriously and with integrity.

At least Gamespot has been in the proces of transitioning to using their full scale. Many games have been getting more appropriate ratings using the fuller spectrum of the scale lately. Still a ways to go, but its good to see at least.

What it should be :

1 - 3 Bad

4 Below Average

5 Average

6 Above Average

7 - 8 Good

9 Great

10 Excellent

What it is to people on GS :

1 - 6 Terrible

7 - 8 Decent/Average

9 Good

10 Game of the year

if a game is a household name then its going to get good reviews, no matter how terrible it is i don't go by reviews anymore if a game looks interesting i head to youtube look at some gameplay vids, then head to wikipedia see whose developing it and how they are developing it, it never steered me wrong yet

The problem with game review is that there is some much that need to be cover and they are so many type of games out there that one person can not like all of them. Scaling is as much base on what the person wants from the game. I see review that a person only want fast pace games and will call any game that has a slower pace ans being bad or broken.

You're right and I already do that. I find the actual reviews to be largely garbage (Tom's I like sometimes actually though). Even the user reviews, however, are guilty of the same thing and often have even less credibility. The average score on the user reviews is less based on actual fair reviews of the game, and more on passionate fans or haters who want to see the score go up or down. I also have a sneaking suspicion that publishers have fake reviewers go on and post 10's for that very reason alone.

I find I have to sift through dozens of user reviews to find ones that are actually fair and reasonable and it would be so much easier if the pros would actually take their job seriously and with integrity.

Abberon

The reason you have to sift through a lot of user reviews is because too many of them are 1-paragraph jobs with zero substance to them.

If there was an easier way to find them, you'd be much better off reading the reviews of the users who have earned the Top 500 or Top 100 Reviewer Emblems from Gamespot.

Just ignore all reviews of the press and you'll be fine. Trust me. I try to find reviews on gamespot, amazon or somewhere else where USERreviews are made. I usually read reviews of the press only to find out again and again that they're either advertisement (ads are lame and to be ignored) or completely useless. Worst reviews here on Gamespot for example Suikoden 2 got like a 7, Legend of Dragoon the same, Tales of Destiny 4.9 (!!), especially JRPGs are the best example why you shouldnt listen to gamespot or others, but I could go on forever. Deadly Premonition scored a 2 on IGN, Destructoid gave Ass Creed 2 a 4.5 while giving Deadly Premonition a 10 (can you imagine what I did when I saw that? yes, leaving the site).

Need more examples? FarCry 2 (you can argue about that), Advent Rising (seriously, the first sentence of the review indicates that the review is useless - "its not worth your time" you really really say that only if the game is completely broken or bad like Superman 64. 6.3 while users give it a 8.0), LostWinds (5.5 while users gave it a 8.2)

I'll say it again - just ignore the press and read user reviews. Not all users are gods, but there are some reviews that are very informative and not "xyz is a good game because i liked it end of story" reviews, you know what i mean.

If games like LostWinds score much lower than big budget games like FarCry 2 or Prince of Persia titles, you know something isnt right. Heck, even Kingdom under Fire Circle of Doom scored a 6 which is higher than the above mentioned LostWinds.

Also, review scores are much less important than your taste. The more games you buy, the more you know what you like and therefore you can judge better by reading an informative review.

And youre right that a game that has the name "Halo" on it will at least score a 9 if not higher. Microsoft's games in general can't be given a bad score. Or are there any with a bad one?

Seriously, read the conclusion of the Trine review. It says "overpriced". You'd never read a review of halo or god of war stating it is "overpriced".

ust ignore all reviews of the press and you'll be fine....Microsoft's games in general can't be given a bad score.Andreas2402

I know, it's just the way it works, but being a gamer, it hurts to see unjustified reviews of "smaller" games in contrary to the "bigger" games. It's like they expose the smaller games by focusing too much on the negatives. The bigger games are all reviewed as "they have flaws but dont even mention them its perfect". Hope you see what I mean?

Now that I think about it, I think review sites give the score also depending on what date they get it. If they get it earlier, they'll get more readers and more hits, if they get it later, nobody will read it anyway. If they don't get it automatically and review it sometimes afterwards, dont even bother.

Oh and I think the .5 is basically for the sake of the scoring sheme. if you can score between 1-10, not lower than 1, not higher than 10, the exact middle is 5.5. If you have 5 different scores overall, you need even more diversified scores. My system is

lowest = 1.0

low = 3.0

middle = 5.5

high = 7.5

highest 9.5

5 scores overall, but you need 1.0, 3.125, 5.25, 7.375 and 9.5 which is too much, but .5 is acceptable for the die-hard reviewers.

Great to have someone agree with. Oh and nice user level, DJ Lae x) You must have been something like 5-10 years on the site regularly.

I know, it's just the way it works, but being a gamer, it hurts to see unjustified reviews of "smaller" games in contrary to the "bigger" games. It's like they expose the smaller games by focusing too much on the negatives. The bigger games are all reviewed as "they have flaws but dont even mention them its perfect". Hope you see what I mean?

Andreas2402

There are a lot of reasons the big names get glowing reviews. The first one is to ensure credibility.

Because some games are marketed so well, a large number of people may think the game is the greatest thing since swiss cheese even though they have very limited experience and not many other games to judge by reference. So a lot of the more well-known review sites will automatically give these games higher scores because it will draw more people to their websites.

Another reason is called swag. Reviewers are often sent free games and accessories for their reviews. At some point the person sending it says, 'if you want more...' and then there is a little bit of an obligation to upscale the big boy titles.

The third reason is simple fanboyism. This case is more rare I think, but sometimes reviewers are just plain slanted towards a game. Like for the console only guy, there was no online shooting before Halo 2. Which is completely false, but to the console fan, that is their first experience with it and hence they are slanted with the idea it was some how a mile stone in gaming, when it was really a natural evolution of gameplay, eventually console will adapt something the PC has had for awhile.

Between those three you will find your reasons.

EDIT:

Sometimes these games are legit, but publishers will still try to bribe reviews. Example:

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=27096766&page=0

Ha, yeah, and the next thing that comes to my mind is Atari sueing reviewers for low scores regarding Alone in the Dark.

Dude I so agree with this. Most games should be at a 5, meanings its not bad, its just only buy it if you're a collector/ want to play every good game.

A 9 is what everyone should buy

I agree with you all, I mean look at mw2 man its broken as. Also TCSpore Rulz man just cause you don't have the interlectual ability to play it doesn't make it bad. Cheers!

I totally agree this is actually similar to what my first post was about...of course I made things more complicated than they had to be but, yeah my post was about the inflation of video game scores in this very forum. Compared to movie scores video game scores are a totally different ball game. However I think there is a reason for that now, that I look into it...still not sure if I agree with it, but I've grown accustomed to it and now it doesn't bother me as much. Its pretty simple though video gamers put much more stock into reviews and scores than do movie goers.

Therefore it is more imperative that a game gets a higher and more attractive looking score, so the gaming sites give it this score to keep cozy with the game developers and users. I don't know that many serious gamers who buy a new game, without having at least a general idea of what it has scored whether it be an average of 90-95 or 80-85. Whereas most movie goers have no idea what said movie scored when they go and see it in theaters. There are several factors in play here. A( buying a video game is more of an investment than going to see a movie you're spending $60 compared to $10...and B( I think alot of it also has to do with the demographic.

Gamers are pretty savvy consumers, especially compared to the main stream public, I'm generalizing of course, but can you imagine all of the Ill-informed mothers and daughters going to see a movie like "The Bounty Hunter" (which scored monstrously terrible reviews, a 22 Metascore for those who don't know) and walking in, having the faintest idea that the movie has failed in the eyes of critics, no they are going because its the middle of the week and they don't have anything else to do, so why not see Gerard Butler and Jennifer Anniston attempt to act. Anyway I'm digressing here, but again reviews are a major thing for the gaming industry and thats why games tend to score better reviews.

Visit system wars and see how much emphasis is put on reviews...then you'll understand the pressure to give these games good reviews, although as a final note (I've carried on far to long as I always do) I would like to see the game industry raise its standards for scores and make 0-4 a bad/terrible game a 4-6 mediocre a 6-8 good and a 8-10 phenomenal and absolutely amazing.

The only thing is all major reviewers whether they be internet based or magazine based would have to adopt this new "stingy" rating system as no one would like to see say just a site like Gamespot do it. They give a game a 6.5 and view it as pretty damn good and everyone else is giving it 8.5s and etc.while thinking it is equally as good as Gamespot does...and even so while Gamespot thinks its just as good as everyone else there score does not reflect that and therefore the games Metascore and Gameranking is brought down making the game look in turn...less appealing. So I will end on this, the game industry has kind of boxed itself into a dilemma, it would be great to see them get stingier with scores and ratings, but I just don't see it happening.