Gaming critics...

I legitimately, honestly, genuinely don't get this. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End releases, and everybody trips over themselves to give the game a 10. That's fine- I personally don't think the game is worth a 10, but if someone were to tell me they thought it was, I wouldn't argue the point with them much, I'd just assume they got more out of the things the game did well than I did.

So far, so good then- but then the end of the year rolls around, and none of these critics who were gushing over themselves calling Uncharted 4 the next evolution of storytelling in videogames, and other equally hyperbolic crap, are willing to award the damn game with the Game of the Year award- a lot won't even nominate it. Gamespot, IGN, Eurogamer, The Game Awards, you name it- Uncharted 4 apparently doesn't deserve a Game of the Year from any of them.

I'm not here to argue that it does- personally, I won't award it the award myself either (it's not even the best console game I have played this year). I don't actually care if Uncharted 4 gets an award or not, I do care about consistency- if these guys were willing to award Uncharted 4 with the highest scores, to the extent that Uncharted 4 is currently the highest rated game of the generation (tied for it anyway), then why not follow through on that? They clearly thought Uncharted 4 was a game that was something special- why hesitate to give it top honors? Giving the game top scores, but not awarding it implies dishonesty- either critics are being dishonest with their awards now, or they were dishonest when they awarded the game a 10, hyping themselves up into a frenzy and ignoring all its faults.

Which is it? And in either case, can we really trust critics in this case?

Because they aren't getting any money from marketing anymore. Gotta look out for Acti right now.

Critics are full of shit.

Not the good kind that helps potatoes, metaphorical shit.

Gaming critics get carried away with hype, there's nothing new there. For the most part gaming critics are not any different to regular gamers, except for the fact they're hired to report on games. As with anyone they get caught up in the hype and when these games release they gush like crazy, which leads to an increase in scores. Look at GTAIV, whilst in some cases is insanely impressive for it's time, has a number of flaws that shouldn't have been overlooked such as shoddy framerates, yet the game has an aggregate of 98.

In the end review scores and many written reviews for that matter are complete trash.

We can't. Especially those writing for Gamingbolt. Hell, I've pulled the same shit, myself. I'm sure there are games I went mental over earlier last year, but forgot about nearing the end.

And I also loved AC3 at some point in my life. But I'm sure some sites get paid a bit of money or something. As if that doesn't happen.

It's summer blockbuster mentality hype - something Sony, to their credit, do very well. You'd wonder how many times you can pull that off with a $60 product, though, before the market gets weary. I hear their movie division's not doing so well.

Since when have 10/10's always won GOTY?

Especially on Gamespot, GOTY has never been determined by the highest scoring game.

Well for me the game wasn't great. These sites also knew that the game was not deserving of the score and at the end of the year they clearly showed that. This makes the whole rating system nothing but a useless numeric value.

@freedomfreak said:

@charizard1605 said:

can we really trust critics in this case?

We can't. Especially those writing for Gamingbolt. Hell, I've pulled the same shit, myself. I'm sure there are games I went mental over earlier last year, but forgot about nearing the end.

And I also loved AC3 at some point in my life. But I'm sure some sites get paid a bit of money or something. As if that doesn't happen.

AC3 is much better than AC2. AC2 did suck and probably one of the most overrated game of last generation.

black flag is best.

@freedomfreak said:

@charizard1605 said:

can we really trust critics in this case?

We can't. Especially those writing for Gamingbolt. Hell, I've pulled the same shit, myself. I'm sure there are games I went mental over earlier last year, but forgot about nearing the end.

And I also loved AC3 at some point in my life. But I'm sure some sites get paid a bit of money or something. As if that doesn't happen.

burn

They're all bad.

Except for maybe Tom Chick

Loving the AC3 praise.

Because game critics are amateur and get carried away by the hype. Because editorial quality and professionalism in non existent. Because click bait rules supreme.

To their defence it's also true that a score is given by one person and a goty by a team. But that's where the editor should step in and defend the name of the publication by making sure a 10 is a special thing.

@freedomfreak said:

@charizard1605 said:

can we really trust critics in this case?

We can't. Especially those writing for Gamingbolt. Hell, I've pulled the same shit, myself. I'm sure there are games I went mental over earlier last year, but forgot about nearing the end.

And I also loved AC3 at some point in my life. But I'm sure some sites get paid a bit of money or something. As if that doesn't happen.

You know, I am actually glad you bring this up, because Assassin's Creed 3 was the point when I realized my own tendency to do so myself. Like everyone else, I got carried away by the AC3 hype, gave it a super high score, and then later realized, 'yo what the f*ck, that shit is embarrassing.' Ever since then, I have made a concerted effort to moderate my own assessments of games somewhat, to ask myself, 'if I were to look back at this six months later, would I still feel this way?' That, and Skyward Sword the year before it, made me rethink how I get swept up by hype for games.

On the whole, I think I have succeeded with this- honestly, the fact that we have to dig back to a review that is approaching five years old to find an inconsistency in my opinion is heartening to me, because it does demonstrate that I've done a better job of keeping my opinions reined in in the so called 'honeymoon period' since.

But that inconsistency that I see in other critics' opinions is what troubles me- I have no issue with critics getting carried away with hype, they are, as someone else pointed out in this thread, only people, too, and I do it all the time myself. My question is- why not be consistent in your overhype, then? At least I've made an effort to do so since AC3. I'm just trying to figure out why we always get at least one game every year that gets super high scores, and then a cold shoulder when the time comes for awards (Mass Effect 3, Dark Souls 2, Fallout 4, Uncharted 4 and so on).

@freedomfreak said:

@charizard1605 said:

can we really trust critics in this case?

We can't. Especially those writing for Gamingbolt. Hell, I've pulled the same shit, myself. I'm sure there are games I went mental over earlier last year, but forgot about nearing the end.

And I also loved AC3 at some point in my life. But I'm sure some sites get paid a bit of money or something. As if that doesn't happen.

Lol this for real? Poor char exposed.

@ghosts4ever said:

@freedomfreak said:

@charizard1605 said:

can we really trust critics in this case?

We can't. Especially those writing for Gamingbolt. Hell, I've pulled the same shit, myself. I'm sure there are games I went mental over earlier last year, but forgot about nearing the end.

And I also loved AC3 at some point in my life. But I'm sure some sites get paid a bit of money or something. As if that doesn't happen.

AC3 is much better than AC2. AC2 did suck and probably one of the most overrated game of last generation.

black flag is best.

Calling Black Flag a good Assassin's Creed game is ridiculous. Whatever legacy the first 3 games built disappeared after Revelations. Assassin's Creed 3 felt stale and the plot was a drag. The world was also very aware of the player and never had it's own novelty like the earlier games. Connor was boring af. Assassins's Creed 4 was just a pirate game...and it's extremely open nature constantly exposed how flawed the stealth mechanics were. A mechanic that should have been changed/improved right after the Ezio trilogy.

The best Assassin's Creed games were the first three.

Brotherhood being my favourite.

@acp_45 said:

@ghosts4ever said:

@freedomfreak said:

@charizard1605 said:

can we really trust critics in this case?

We can't. Especially those writing for Gamingbolt. Hell, I've pulled the same shit, myself. I'm sure there are games I went mental over earlier last year, but forgot about nearing the end.

And I also loved AC3 at some point in my life. But I'm sure some sites get paid a bit of money or something. As if that doesn't happen.

AC3 is much better than AC2. AC2 did suck and probably one of the most overrated game of last generation.

black flag is best.

Calling Black Flag a good Assassin's Creed game is ridiculous. Whatever legacy the first 3 games built disappeared after Revelations. Assassin's Creed 3 felt stale and the plot was a drag. The world was also very aware of the player and never had it's own novelty like the earlier games. Connor was boring af. Assassins's Creed 4 was just a pirate game...and it's extremely open nature constantly exposed how flawed the stealth mechanics were. A mechanic that should have been changed/improved right after the Ezio trilogy.

The best Assassin's Creed games were the first three.

Brotherhood being my favourite.

Black Flag is great, and the second or third best playing game in the series. That said, it is a pretty terrible Assassin's Creed game, so if that is what you were going for, then yes, I do agree with what you were saying.

Assassins Creed 2 is simply Assassins Creed 1 expanded. Absolutely no issues fixed. Same block land city. Very poor gameplay. Counter = god mode/stealth = pointless

Assassins Creed 3 instead focuses more on being an adventure game trying to tell a very ambitious and mature story from multiple viewpoints. It doesn't remove the issues but instead distracts from them.

It's incredibly baffling why the younger users praised Assassins Creed 2, I guess you just need a mature mind to appreciate 3.

@acp_45 said:

@ghosts4ever said:

@freedomfreak said:

@charizard1605 said:

can we really trust critics in this case?

We can't. Especially those writing for Gamingbolt. Hell, I've pulled the same shit, myself. I'm sure there are games I went mental over earlier last year, but forgot about nearing the end.

And I also loved AC3 at some point in my life. But I'm sure some sites get paid a bit of money or something. As if that doesn't happen.

AC3 is much better than AC2. AC2 did suck and probably one of the most overrated game of last generation.

black flag is best.

Calling Black Flag a good Assassin's Creed game is ridiculous. Whatever legacy the first 3 games built disappeared after Revelations. Assassin's Creed 3 felt stale and the plot was a drag. The world was also very aware of the player and never had it's own novelty like the earlier games. Connor was boring af. Assassins's Creed 4 was just a pirate game...and it's extremely open nature constantly exposed how flawed the stealth mechanics were. A mechanic that should have been changed/improved right after the Ezio trilogy.

The best Assassin's Creed games were the first three.

Brotherhood being my favourite.

Black flag is only decent Assassins creed game.

FIrst 3 games absolutely suck. so are later games.

now ubisoft is taking 3 years to develop new AC game. unless its major change in series. i wont be interested in it.

@charizard1605 said:

@acp_45 said:

@ghosts4ever said:

@freedomfreak said:

@charizard1605 said:

can we really trust critics in this case?

We can't. Especially those writing for Gamingbolt. Hell, I've pulled the same shit, myself. I'm sure there are games I went mental over earlier last year, but forgot about nearing the end.

And I also loved AC3 at some point in my life. But I'm sure some sites get paid a bit of money or something. As if that doesn't happen.

AC3 is much better than AC2. AC2 did suck and probably one of the most overrated game of last generation.

black flag is best.

Calling Black Flag a good Assassin's Creed game is ridiculous. Whatever legacy the first 3 games built disappeared after Revelations. Assassin's Creed 3 felt stale and the plot was a drag. The world was also very aware of the player and never had it's own novelty like the earlier games. Connor was boring af. Assassins's Creed 4 was just a pirate game...and it's extremely open nature constantly exposed how flawed the stealth mechanics were. A mechanic that should have been changed/improved right after the Ezio trilogy.

The best Assassin's Creed games were the first three.

Brotherhood being my favourite.

Black Flag is great, and the second or third best playing game in the series. That said, it is a pretty terrible Assassin's Creed game, so if that is what you were going for, then yes, I do agree with what you were saying.

Just a frustration I have with 4. Regardless of how good the game was... I was disappointed.

@acp_45: Sure, I can agree with that. Ubisoft didn't even put a band aid on the series' issues with 4, they just tried to distract us with other stuff (which to their credit worked).

Of course, after Black Flag, the entire house of cards came down.

@ghosts4ever: I agree. Black Flag was the best.

tbh, Haythem kenway should have been protagonist rather than secondary villain and maing connor as terrible protagonist.

He is much better character than Ezio.

This, just because one person gave it a 10, dont mean everyone feels that way. GOTY is voted on by a very large base. And overall i agree, Overwatch is amazing and is still obsessed over today. Its same reason Splatoon won best online and shooter of the year even though it scored lower than others from certain reviewers. But when you get a bunch of different diverse reviewers, you get a different picture.

Right, but it's not just about 10/10s- general sentiment around Uncharted 4 was absurdly positive when the game launched, and now it's... not? People are just indifferent to it? What happened?

@charizard1605: My guess is its online wasnt good, and it was a short quicky. I remember it was like a couple weeks and no one was talking about it. Same thing kinda happened to Halo 5, so maybe lack of innovation, im not sure.

It definitely had no lasting appeal, absolutely. It came and went. But it's not just Uncharted 4, either- what about games like Fallout 4? Mass Effect 3? Dark Souls 2? Bayonetta 2? These were all games that did have longevity, lasting appeal, and super high scores- and they still lost out in their respective years?

@charizard1605: Yeah, my only guess is lack of innovation or freshness. A lack of overall appeal. Its hard to say.

Actually yeah, I suppose that is right, they all share that in common in a sense- and I guess the games they lost out too were certainly more 'innovative' (The Walking Dead, Journey, The Witcher 3, Shadow of Mordor), so you may be on to something there.

Critics have lost their credibility these days. Don't trust any of them. Everyone should judge on their own, if it's a goty for you then it shouldn't matter what others think.

@ghosts4ever said:

@acp_45 said:

@ghosts4ever said:

@freedomfreak said:

@charizard1605 said:

can we really trust critics in this case?

We can't. Especially those writing for Gamingbolt. Hell, I've pulled the same shit, myself. I'm sure there are games I went mental over earlier last year, but forgot about nearing the end.

And I also loved AC3 at some point in my life. But I'm sure some sites get paid a bit of money or something. As if that doesn't happen.

AC3 is much better than AC2. AC2 did suck and probably one of the most overrated game of last generation.

black flag is best.

Calling Black Flag a good Assassin's Creed game is ridiculous. Whatever legacy the first 3 games built disappeared after Revelations. Assassin's Creed 3 felt stale and the plot was a drag. The world was also very aware of the player and never had it's own novelty like the earlier games. Connor was boring af. Assassins's Creed 4 was just a pirate game...and it's extremely open nature constantly exposed how flawed the stealth mechanics were. A mechanic that should have been changed/improved right after the Ezio trilogy.

The best Assassin's Creed games were the first three.

Brotherhood being my favourite.

Black flag is only decent Assassins creed game.

FIrst 3 games absolutely suck. so are later games.

now ubisoft is taking 3 years to develop new AC game. unless its major change in series. i wont be interested in it.

Maybe now the first 3 games aren't that good. They definitely don't age well.

Assassin's Creed 4 isn't an "Assassin's Creed" game. That's what I'm getting at... and you of all people should be able to see that with your extreme appetite for authenticity. Black Flag isn't authentic in the sense of it's origin. I developed this terrible habit while playing the game of just dissecting it and not experiencing it...I was very conscious of how it's just not a stealth game but it had stealth mechanics and how it just wasn't a game with any 'Assassin' theme in there at all. Yes, the stealth mechanics in all AC games are bad but back in 2007 all the way till Revelations, I had developed some tolerance for it while also not specifically playing these games for their stealth mechanics. But as soon as these games changed scenes from the streets of a city to the open colonial cities of NA and the Caribbean (I get that they were very true to how those places looked back in the day. The one thing these games never fail to deliver is presenting it's world) the gameplay just got exposed on how lackluster it was.

Conner starts off as a happy boy in his own habitat. When we see him grown up he has become distrusting and detached to a culture alien to him that has only inflicted pain. His idea of good and evil is simplstic and noble like, uncompromising in comparison to his fathers morality and that's ultimately what makes him the better man. He's detached but still emotionally driven, while his father is completely in touch, but emotionally void - the union with his mother being the only point in the game he shows any sign of humanity.

People in gaming are use to very shit characters like Nathan Drake or Solid Snake. A boring hero spouting "oh ah here we go again!" or Solid Snake talking dribble Hideo Kojima typed out in 16000 paragraphs amounting to shit. To them Conners withdrawn and aggressive tone will make him dislikable but to incredibly mature minds who's actually followed the story and understood the character development, they will see what Ubisoft has done is pretty incredible for a video game.

I agree with you here. But I still feel like Connor was boring. The pacing of the game and especially the chore of traveling through ACIII just made every emotional cutscene or moment feel unearned when it happened. It felt like forced drama. While I'm pretty sure the game itself fleshes out it's characters but in sequence I just couldn't care anymore.

Not saying it's perfect, but for example, the romance scene with Haythem Kenway, where you chase her following tracks around, then develop an uneasy alliance with what is tantamount to a passion of the moment romance scene.

At no point to me during that sequence did it feel unnatural, unearned or cringe. I would go as far to argue it's one of the best romance scenes in a game.

Compare that with a game people praise like - Mass Effect. Where you become gay at the drop of a hat and have weird puppet sex. Or Metal Gear Solid with women walking with their tits hanging out.

The way Assassins Creed III done that was classy and execution they didn't even come close to touching as far as I'm concerned. Typically that sort of thing is embarrassing in games just down to how badly executed it is. And that was what? 2012.

The game ending itself though was abit shit, if we are being honest. After dealing with Haythem Kenway it feels like a mop up job for the secondary less interesting villain.

oh not this again ...

I'd like to see more reviews published after a good time with the game. It seems way too many AAA game reviews are published in the honey moon period.

Read up on Battlefield 1s review: One of the main reasons that game got a 9 is for the singleplayer.

But it's actually the multiplayer where that game shines. And Battlefield 1 shines through its multiplayer because of a solid foundation and countless updates from launch up until now... Something the reviewer couldn't possibly have known. So he just gave the game a great score based on a crappy campaign.

That moment when you realize game critics and video game journalism in general are tools to sell you a product and nothing more.

More than one reviewer per site. Other on the staff just might have liked a different game more

Reviewers should restore 10/10 to its stratospheric loft and never ever issue it unless a game is truly deserving and flawless, which is almost never. I've been gaming for several decades now and in my book, there's no game yet that deserved a 10/10.

If indeed a 10/10 is issued, that game better be GOTY.

@charizard1605:

I'm a big fan of UC4 easily one of the best games this year for me. I do think its a bit overrated though, 10 scores were a bit too much. GOTY though shouldn't be about the highest rated game. Games like Overwatch came along and what it did was more deserving than UC4. Getting people to play who normally don't play that type a game, let alone multiplayer was much greater. Not too mention online games evolve makes them harder to score initially. I think most critics concluded on that angle then the score hype or what they thought a particular game might mean for the industry. This is why it shows up in most top 10 list and even a runner up on some sites. Another thing is UC4 is really a known commodity. Sometime its professional to give a nod to games that people might not know, games that you were passionate about that didn't get that hype.

I enjoyed the deliberation process of some of the sites on this. The Giant Bomb one is actually fascinating on this. UC4 didn't even make there top 10 list. It was removed because all of them decided that it was best to represent a game that each member is passionate about then a game that they all know is great. Aside from Jeff of course they were games that were not his thing to begin with.

To conclude GOTY shouldn't be about the highest rated game. How effective the game was for the year should count if not the most important thing. Games have that uniqueness to them. I would cut critics some slack as long as they keep this notion. Goty should be an evolving thing.

Uncharted 4 deserves story of the year, best graphics, best environment etc. It doesn't deserve game of the year because the gameplay is mediocre. I would honestly prefer to watch the cutscenes the have to drag myself to play the wall climbing simulator

^ This.

I called it from day 1. This franchise has milked its only worth (Graphics) and people are starting to look past the day 1 hype and realise there really isn't much in terms of gameplay going for it... now that there are FIVE of them its as repetitive as your typical Ass Creed games as far as I'm concerned.

Isn't GOTY determined by the group as a whole as opposed to just what that one person scored it?

I remember that fiasco over SMG2 not getting GOTY of it's year.

@ghosts4ever: I threw up a little in my mouth reading AC3 was better than AC2...

There is no logic that can explain how you arrived at that comment.

You're right Char, it's ass backwards thinking and it only makes logical sense to give the highest scoring game the GOTY award. It takes the value out of numerical scoring.

That wasn't much of a fiasco? Although yes, it is another example of this. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is the third highest rated game of all time- and yet come GotY, suddenly no one cares?

I think its pretty clear that AAA console games bring huge advertising revenue and other perks, but they also come with a nice shiny coat of paint and if you play it for 4-6 hrs and review it before the novelty wears off you will always tend to score it better.

It also kills me n GS when I see someone review a strategy game or sim game and have 10-20 hrs in it and then give it a review. That's really an incredibly basic leaning curve for nearly all those games.

I've said it before, but I honestly don't believe professional game reviewers opinions are relevant.

Ignoring the possibility of shady deals with publishers, the experience of a professional game reviewer cannot really match up with the experience of one who enjoys video games as a hobby.

The professional reviewer has a deadline and is forced to play through games when they release. They don't have the luxury of time or choice in the matter. I feel their assessment of a game is horribly skewed due to this. I also believe that a game like Uncharted is well suited to the professional reviewer's format. It's a quick, easy romp from point A to point B. The game imprints itself on you rather than requiring much of the player. This might also explain it's deterioration of praise. There wasn't much there.

@blue_hazy-basic Pretty much what you said.

Then there's also the fact that I truly believe that GOTY is an impossible award to give. Every single review site cannot legitimately give out that kind of award because most the members on the board have not played many of the contenders for that spot. Their end choice becomes irrelevant because of this unavoidable flaw.

My only guess is that people's personal goty is different form site scores. Bayonetta 2 is an amazing game, but it not a game that is going to be reaching a lot of people just cause its on wii u and in a niche genre. The score may have been on point for the person who reviewed it, but it wasnt something the majority of the office would pick. I dont know if its they just dont like the genre or didnt play it

The other thing to mention is just the timing. Overwatch had launched later (not by much), but it was getting updating in the core game giving people something to be invested in up to awards season. Uncharted just got MP updates I think, that really people arent going to be buzzing about. Uncharted may have been the better game at launch, but Overwatch was able to string people along longer, especially given how far away they are from awards season

Fallout 4 lost to Witcher 3 so I cant blame them there