Halo 4 shows why review scores need to go: a pictorial examination
By Tim Colwill on November 6, 2012 at 8:27 pm
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This is why one should not live on the Internet. You tend to get a warped idea of how to communicate with fellow humans.
Is there an alternate to review score?
It’s what’s wrong with the world.
Also, brilliant collage haha.
Ah wow…. now to make the story complete mix in some of those publisher deals if the games gets X on metacritic articles. Face to the palm.
Not really, but people really not to understand the concept of different strokes for different folks. For instance in the film industry it’s accepted that different people are going to enjoy different types of films. It’s essential that reviewers recognise this as well though, especially for games with big passionate online communities such as MMO’s DOTA-likes and AAA FPS.
The difficulties inherent in attempting to quantify “fun” for anyone other than yourself. Numbers, however, are never fun.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with review scores, there’s just something inherently wrong with the people who write them.
Film critics get by just fine with 5 stars to play with, and while you won’t agree with every rating you sure as hell won’t see 4′s and 5′s everywhere you look. Game reviewers just need to get a grip and use the full range afforded to them rather than “on a scale of 8.9-10.0″
Metacritic has too much power. Destruction of review numbers are a must, but it’s not going to happen any time soon.
Never liked Halo, CoD got dull after MW1.
Most entertainment these franchises have given me in 5 years is laughing at the fanbois crying.
Also an 8 is a great score, so, whatever.
Interesting. I am a fan of scores for each aspect of the game e.g. gameplay, story, graphics, music etc rather than a single score to sum up the entire game. Also I don’t think one should give a single score for both SP and MP. Separate them.
colsey,
No score. :D
No score. :D
That works better. >_<
I’m enjoying it.
There’s my review.
I don’t care what you think. I’m enjoying it.
5/10 to me is a great score, its your average game. This world is filled with average games
I’ve never played a 10/10 game.
Some of the best games i’ve ever played i would consider a 7 or 8/10 because they could have always tried harder.
I agree with the above comment on reviewers needing to use the full spectrum. ratings should be 1-5 aswell like movies. that way it doesnt seem like a 3 is that bad.
lol console kids at there best, halo is gay and has been since poxbox came out. flame me all you like console noobs but not a fuck was or will be given
kano69,
O_o
I honestly find the ‘negatively focused’ reviews way more helpful, like the zero punctuation ones.
Pointing out all the infuriating features is much more helpful, because thats what really ruins fun. If you can read/watch a negatively focused review and go “yep, i can put up with all that” then your very likely going to have fun with a game.
And obviously, these reviews definitely dont work with any sort of numbered score system. All about highlighting specific crap features.
3/5=6/10 but doesn’t 3/5 sound a lot better than 6/10? Review scores need to move to a star system.
So I’m gonna go ahead and ask: is anyone here familiar with Edmund Husserl / The Crisis in European Sciences?
There needs to be a universal review score system. I personally think websites that give both pros and cons, as well as a score — out of ten — for individual qualities (sound, gameplay, visuals, et cetera), are giving their audience a clear guide as to why this game is what they say it is.
Just saying…
I much prefer a summary of the good & bad like GON have now. I try not to be bothered by review scores, anything above a 5/10 is still worth looking at for me.
vencha88,
Shhh. Don’t feed the subhumans.
Anyway, this is why I prefer GoN’s scoring system. What is important are the good points and the bad points. After my playthrough, I found I wholly agreed with the review that was given, and enjoyed my co-op play immensely. It was, simply put, a good game. Its not hard to simply trust in that.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, love the pic.
The best alternative to a review score is no review score.
The 10 point review scale is flawed at best, at worst it allows reviewers to insert their bias. The 5 point integer based review scale is far better.
Let me explain…
1 out of 5 . . .
Rental at best, will likely not even satisfy a fan of the series / genre.
2 out of 5 . . .
Bad game that will only satisfy the fan of the series / genre.
3 out of 5 . . .
OK game, has some issues or lacks polish, but not bad overall.
4 out of 5 . . .
Good game, may have some issues but don’t mar the experience too bad.
5 out of 5 . . .
Great game, only minor issues, good polish and will likely satisfy gamers that are not fans of the series or genre.
When you have a 10 point review scale it just muddies the waters. When IGN gives Killzone 2 a 9 and Halo 3 a 10, it’s bias.
The 10 point review scale fails because most games receive a 6 or 7 out of 10. An average game should receive about 5 out of 10, but 5 is reserved for “crap”. We have a score between 1 and 6 that basically says crap and only 8-10 that says “good buy”.
The reviews for MOH were terrible which seems to be sour grapes for EA running late with the review copies. MOH isn’t that terrible really. LOL
Most of the issues the gaming public has with the gaming media (including this website) is that we are very piss poor consumers. If you see bad reviews stop reading that guys reviews. Send a letter to the editor, do something, for most gamers there is a moment of outrage and then its just business as usual.
Oh one more thing. I like that now that Halo 4 has low review scores NOW something has to be done about reviews LOL. :) Cracks me up how obviously partisan gamers are.
I give this article a 7 out of 10.
To quote Yahtzee, “I don’t believe in scores because I don’t think a complex opinion can be represented numerically”.
Well I got my copy last night. Must admit they’ve done a great job to get the visuals and smooth gameplay with such dated hardware. I’m enjoying the game quite a bit, but it has it’s quirks. For one, lack of keyboard and mouse :P That damn controller sucks haaaarrrd.
I don’t understand why it’s not on PC though. The game adores giving you panoramic views and wowing you with imagery, yet I’m left with the thought of “Imagine how amazing this would look with a top end gaming rig”
Ahh well I would have thought Microsoft would have kept with PC as well. I mean come on.. it’s Microsoft!
The problem is the review scores have a scale from 1 to 10 or 1 to 100 or whatever. The first 50% of that scale is never used, because no one ever releases games that are so bad they don’t get a passing mark. It’s as though people are trying to make a universal measure that can be applied to any game at any point in time. Which is pointless. A game that got 10/10 when it was released may only be a 7/10 if reviewed 4 years later. A 10/10 score just means the game is as much or more fun than all the other games that have come out in the past year(s)
5 star system if you MUST have a scoring system. I prefer GON’s take on it now to be honest, the good, the bad etc (sometimes the ugly if it’s warranted ;) ).
As has been re-iterated a bajillionty times in the thread alone, the first half of a 1-10/1-100 scale isn’t used anyway. I remember seeing one game get a 34 or something in PC PowerPlay when I was a kid. Outside of that magazine I never saw the game again. On a 1-5 scale (or 5 star scale) that can still be given a 0 :P
Get rid of them anyway, tell me what the game is about, what’s good and bad and I’ll have already worked out whether I’m going to give it a crack or not! Oh wait, GON already is :P
nacimota hit the nail on the head (well Yahtzee did). To give a game a numerical score is kinda pointless. I do remember a gaming mag ages ago that used to have 5 scores out of ten and the final score was an average of them. One for sound, gfx, gameplay, something else and Bias. They stated they had a bias towards a game in their scoring. Something I found rather refreshing at the time, but then I was about 15-16 :D
Game reviews are opinions,nothing more and metacritic is broken.
No, the game is pretty awful. The MP is salvageable but the SP was atrocious.
But you touch on an interesting point – that perception by readers that 40 or so outlets (with no connection or collusion with one another) would all “trash” a game because of some arbitrary reason.
I’ve gone through and viewed several store pages on steam of several games I quite enjoyed and was somewhat surprised to see a 45-50 metacritic number; that was of-course before I shook myself out of the “IGN” indoctrinated trance of thinking that 50/100 is “bad” rather then average or middle of the road like it should be.
Never had a use for arbitrary numbers myself, I’ll just play a demo or watch a Total Biscuit WTF is..? Vid to see how shonky or not the PC port is if applicable and how it stands up to my personal tastes.
A wild flood of enraged Halo fan boys appears. Its super effective.
But it does not work either. Every game that has been reviewed with the new system has about the same amount of pros and cons and if you did not have time to peruse the article itself and just read the pros and cons it really is not indication of whether the game is worth playing.
GoN needs a pros and cons section and then some OTHER indicator whether this is worth a play.
I can think of a stack of really crap titles that would look pretty decent if you summed it up with a pros and cons table…
That’s called the review, read them.
If you don’t have time to read a review before spending $50 – $80 on a game, then I don’t think you’re really caring what final score/indicator is attached.
^^^^^^^^^^^^This
They need to get rid of the “equal pros and cons” idea though. If a game has more than three pros, list them! Likewise if a game has more or less than 3 cons, list them :D
Some of our reviews have vastly more pros than cons, and vice versa! For example my Dishonored review is hugely weighted towards pros, and my Orcs and Men review is distressingly negative :)
Biggest problem I have with reviews is that most reviewers aren’t critical of most games from big companies because they usually want to stay in said company’s good graces for free games and previews .etc
Particularly over games that are sequels in a franchise.
They should be judged not only on their own merits but by comparison to what they really bring over the game that came before it.
eg: BF3 Vs BFBC2 or BF2.
what did BF3 really add that was new? not much, in fact it lost some things like the level of destructibility.
Many people, IMO, are far too often not critical of mediocrity.
Our review of MOH: Warfighter was especially damning, and it was made by EA, one of the largest publishers in the world.
I really hate reading these sort of statements, since they are not only patently untrue but they lump us all into the same boat of illegitimacy.
See what we need is a review system, that reviews the reviews.
Oh Gosh Yes!
Matty, how did it come to be that we agree wholeheartedly on a single subject :P…
pinothyj,
We can call it, metacritic’s metacritic :P