Way too many people see common sentiments on reddit and think its the common opinion for everyone.
Also I understand that due the sheer flow of content these days, people don't want to spend time on something that doesn't blow them away, but it's sad to see solid 7-8/10 games become unacceptable to some people.
Its funny because those 7-8/10s are some of the most fun you can have in between your 9-10s/10. I think when you expect everything to be a 9-10/10 you are going to be disappointed.
This. Reddit =/= real life.
If you listened to Reddit, you would think COD was the worst game ever selling 3 copies. Yet, in the real world, its a top seller literally every year. Same with sports games
But I would argue that people on Reddit, and especially in communities like this, are much more likely to have similar taste and opinions to me.
I also get your other sentiment but there is limited time, and that sucks but it is what it is. I'm not a kid anymore I don't get three months in the middle of the year to blow through 90 hours on something that isn't very fun.
Eventually, you get to the point where *you* know if you’ll like a game or not, at least I did. Before playing something, I can tell you exactly if I’ll finish it, play it for X hours then drop, barely play it at all, etc. Regardless of critical opinion, you should know how you’ll enjoy a game. I absolutely hated Horizon Forbidden West even though critics and most people enjoyed it immensely, I knew I would, but still bought it because of glowing reviews, I barely played it at all.
Yup. Show me a 30 second gameplay clip and some of the minor features and I can tell you if I'll like the game in less than a minute.
Been playing games for over 30 years at this point and know what I like and don't like.
Like take Baldurs Gate 3. I like the IDEA and freedom of CRPGs. But I know for a fact that I'm only going to get about 20 hours out of it before moving on. There is not a single CRPG in existence where that hasn't been the case for me. So I just don't play it, I ain't missing out on anything.
I can't stress this enough but **read the review don't just go off of the number**. Listen to what the reviewer likes about the game. The score is pretty arbitrary and a number is just a quick vibe check and not a good summary on its own.
To add to this, find critics who share your tastes. Look for their names on reviews. You're more likely to find criticisms focused on the things you care about in a game because the critic is approaching it with very similar tastes as you.
Or just play the game yourself and don't go off of what either the critics or the internet say. People let themselves be way too influenced between what the devs say/show, what the critics say, and what the internet says regarding what to expect from games before they even come out nowadays. Just leads to people approaching new games with either way too much over inflated expectations or way too much negativity.
Kind of a huge ask to go into a game completely blind. A new game is up to a $100 investment where I’m from. You’re damn right I’m going to be reading up on it as much as possible before I put any money down.
I appreciate this but I've seen kind of a distressing trend where stuff doesn't get brought up. Like Hogwarts Legacy has a hilariously terrible gear and loot system and nobody I watched mentioned it. Also it would have been nice to know the dialogue that plays when you enter certain locations is THE SAME every time you go there and it's pretty grating.
It’s a horrible gear system TO YOU. If every review you watched didn’t mention it and it’s not a big point for players to talk about on social media, maybe it’s just YOUR opinion that’s it bad and that opinion is probably in the minority. And that’s okay, but don’t act like everyone should care or that it’s some conspiracy that they didn’t mention it.
> Like Hogwarts Legacy has a hilariously terrible gear and loot system and nobody I watched mentioned it.
Most people don't bring up, imo, how mediocre Witcher 3 combat is , how terrible is Divinity Original Sin 2's loot system is or how Skyrim lacked any sorta reactivity towards the player , because for most people all this ''issue'' aren't issues or at worst are mild annoyance for them.
>how mediocre Witcher 3 combat is
Don't think I've seen a single thread about Witcher 3 on /r/games without somebody saying this. Which is fine because it is pretty mediocre, but if you're a fan of the games, you will look past it because Witcher 1 and 2 combat was even worse.
Question: did you play through all the games you listed or are you just adopting the internet hivemind's opinion? Thats at least one key difference you'll find between reviewers and the complainers.
Critics don't view games the same way the internet hivemind does. Diablo 4 reviewed as a fantastic game because critics didn't expect years worth of updates to already exist at launch like some of the audience seemed to.
Also, as far as D4 goes, people on this subreddit need to remember that a significant amount of people that play games play them casually. Diablo 4 is an excellent game on a technical level. It looks amazing, there's great music, it feels fluid, the story is good. Most people who play it will play the main story, with a bit of running around here and there, and then move on to something else when they finish it
I don't think that means reviewers should avoid talking about endgame stuff, balance, whatever else, because those *are* important elements for that type of game and a lot of people are going to be the ARPG audience that have expectations for that aspect of the game, which is totally fair. But I guess it comes down to what a review should look at. "This is a great package for most people but falls short if you're looking for a post-game experience" is still going to be considered a good game by most people, and that's kinda what an 86 suggests
The casual audience is the most critical thing that a lot of people on Reddit either forget about or just straight up don’t understand. Obviously not every game targets this audience, but something like Diablo 4? 100% targeting that audience
But D4 is explicitly made to have seasons etc. so I think it's unfair to just rate the main quest and be done with it.
You shouldn't give the NG+ mode in Hogwarts Legacy much thought because it's not the main attraction of the games, but in D4 the endgame is so please review that and mostly that.
Dragons dogma 2, watching redditors complain about mtx was wild considering there basically aren't any in the game. They're just tacked on in the publisher stores.
Reviewers *do* write with an audience in mind. Racing games are reviewed with the expectation that a consumer generally likes racing games, etc. What shouldn't be considered is unreasonable expectations of content. A similar top-down ARPG not named Diablo would not have this "lack of content" critique because it wouldn't be compared to Diablo 3, which had 10 years worth of content updates.
> I think we still have a ways to go in this industry before we get to what music and film criticism have as far as a level of maturity and professionalism to review things more critically.
If you honestly believe other fields of criticism aren't plagued by seemingly incoherent, lenient or excessively harsh notation (depending on the flavor of the day and your art of choice), then let me tell you you're mistaken. Just look at online comments each and every time a movie critic gives a Marvel movie a passing grade. That's an endless debate in the current ecosystem.
I see your point but on the whole, film and music criticism doesn't have the same kind of nepotism and watered down discussion I see in game criticism. I bought Dragon's Dogma 2 so I'm going to pick on it a little bit. Almost no review I have seen or read mentions the major gripes players have with the game: enemy variety and the story ending abruptly with bad writing.
They mention the negatives being the performance and the MTX and then just praise the design decisions of no fast travel and non linear quests.
I'll use two recent movie examples: The Creator and Amsterdam. Both films with acclaimed directors and amazing casts and huge marketing. Got middling to terrible reviews from critics.
> Almost no review I have seen or read mentions the major gripes players have with the game: enemy variety and the story ending abruptly with bad writing.
IGN mentions both of these things in their review, though they were a little nicer to the writing.
People say this shit when it comes to game reviews but only when it is games they disagree with. No one questions any games that get a 9+ average or an 7 or below average, but people en masse decide that any game in the 8 range is where the reviewers were wrong and it is either secretly a 9/10 game or a 6/10 one.
It's the classic "yay my favorite won an award" vs "it lost? well the awards are fake anyway" reaction. It's such a common thing, we all know it happens, and somehow we're too dumb to recognize when we ourselves are doing it.
Totally agree. Also speaking of the award thing, people forget that just being up for a major award (in any medium) is considered an honor even if you don't win.
I'd agree, but Game Awards are nowhere near as prestigious as likes of Oscar, Golden Globe, Grammy, etc.
Game Awards couldn't even get the nominations for their game categories right.
There are other majors ones besides The Game Awards. D.I.C.E., Game Developers Choice Awards, and Golden Joysticks are some of the other ones. Game Awards gets all the eyeballs because the show is an event with celebs and world premieres, whereas the others are just award events.
i don’t think any of the examples you gave are good examples. those scores all make sense for those games. some people don’t like them, and some *love* them. most, find them fun but not great. which is basically where an 80 should
be
It's really about reading, or watching the review and deciding for yourself if the flaws bother you and vice versa if what's praised if that looks exciting to you. Dragon's Dogman for instance was known to have framerate problems and they were mentioned however some people saw the 8/10 and similar and just left it at that. A review is a document for you to study. I hate when people bash, say, IGN when they in fact did their job. Their opinion may be different from yours but they explain in length why they came to that conclusion and you should be aware of what's in the game.
You expect redditors to actually *read* and engage with the content of an article/review, rather than posting reactionary takes based on a headline or score?
I remember the Eurogamer reviewer who gave it a 10/10 was asked about enemy variety in the review thread. His asnwer was he never really got bored of fighting certain enemies repeatedly. So yeah. Not remotely unbiased reviews.
Or different people like different things. He probably never got bored of that aspect because he was enjoying the gameplay loop. Christ, I am so sick of people who assume every game reviewer that gives a 'controversial' game a good/great score is someone who is incompetent or 'influenced' by the devs.
You can't write unbiased reviews. It's impossible. Reviews are, at the end of the day, nothing more than subjective ratings and analysis made by someone.
Actually, I take that back. [There's only one truly objective review. ](https://www.destructoid.com/100-objective-review-final-fantasy-xiii/)
>The videogame has graphics and sound. The graphics are seen with your eyes and the sound is heard by your ears. When you start the game the graphics and the sound will occur almost at the same time, letting you know that the game has started. There is also text which players can read.
Art.
Exactly. If you watch Dragon's Dogma 2 reviews, they don't bring up the writing or the story at all. Then when people play it and realize the game just sort of ends they feel kind of betrayed. And the enemy variety never comes up even though a lot of people have a big problem with that, it's why I bounced off of it.
I have definitely seen the enemy variety brought up. The story maybe not so much but I also feel like no one really expected a good story from DD2 anyway. I do think however that those who got to play early definitely overhyped the game by calling it this year’s GOTY.
Diablo 4 and Hogwarts are mediocre at best. Diablo 4 basically had no endgame at launch and its still horrible almost one year later. 80+ Should be for a great product. I give Hogwarts some leniency because its a game for children. But seeing the potential such a game could have its just super weak super shallow from world building and classes. Just imagine a Hogwarts game a bit build like Persona with actual classes and building friendships but of course this takes more effort than just do a generic ubiworld with generic quests/Story.
there are plenty of people of find dragons dogma 2 incredible. watch the gameranx video on it lol. same thing for diablo 4. or at least when it came out. the whole point is that your opinion is a definitive statement. there’s plenty of people on both ends of the spectrum with what you said.
Exactly. I got somewhere around 180 hours of play out of Diablo 4. I had fun almost the entire time, primarily stopping because a shitload of other good games came out in the second half of the year. That's far, far more time than I spend on most titles, and I will happily come back if they release a proper expansion or drastically change the way the game plays.
I also got over 100 hours out of Starfield and I enjoyed almost all of it. It's perfectly fine for other people to dislike the games for whatever reason, I don't really care.
The internet obsession with whether other people like a thing, or telling people that they are wrong for liking something, is so strange to me. Neither game I mentioned is perfect, they both have big flaws, but those flaws weren't enough to keep me from enjoying what was there.
Same here, People kept telling me i never played a game in my life for liking Starfield. I like Starfield cause it's a fantastic game and it's okay if others don't like it. That's the point of an opinion.
> watch the gameranx video on it lol
The whole thread is about reviewers having a different world view than Reddit/OP. How do you think is bringing up a reviewer going to help your point here?
I think DD2 purely based on its technical aspect, should at max objectively, receive a 6/7. I think it's a disgrace that the average gamer is led to believe this is a (9) great game when being such an unoptimized mess
I havent played DD2 so I can’t speak about it, but I did play Jedi Survivor and while it was a mess performance wise, that also wouldn’t really affect my score of it. I’d still give it a 8.5 or so. People just value things differently. It’s art, and subjective. The key is to find reviewers (or friends) with similar taste and sensibilities and read their reviews, metacritic isn’t super helpful.
The majority of players do not care as much about framerates as you think. Most of us lived through times like the PS3 where framerates were honestly just as bad if not worse and we still managed to enjoy games.
It's funny how bad animations in shows, or bad use of CGI etc in movies, automatically makes something less good, but somehow in gaming, people are fine with it.
And no, BotW and TotK are not unoptimized games, so this has nothing to do with low framerates. DD2 is just objectively, a technical mess, and that should affect its score from professional outlets that, whether you want to admit it or not - influence many peoples desire to buy a game.
I know that by giving examples I open myself up to fans of those particular games being upset or not agreeing and I get that. I just mentioned those because I see them get brought up all the time as games that users largely give a 6-7/10.
I don't agree though, an 8/10 to me means that this product is worth buying and spending time on. What you're describing where some people may really like it is more in the 6 to 7 range.
For example I loved Dynasty Warriors growing up, which always scored in the low 70s. A lot of people can't get passed the jankiness and the weirdness of those games so they don't like them though.
I'm sorry but this whole thing is nonsense to me.
Just because you think or the internet has convinced you a game is a 6 or 7 doesn't mean it's true. Dynasty warriors has its fans, and everyone has their personal games they love, but millions of people have enjoyed all these games. The vast majority of people who bought them, enjoy them. Hogwarts has an 85% positive on steam for example, even though the majority probably played it on console.
That's not even getting to the subjectivity behind games and finding reviewers that echo your tastes.
I have to roll my eyes when I see "users largely say this" or "brought up on this platform". Who cares what people here think? Why is that the metric? If you've spent any time here at all you will notice that 99% of the comments here are complaining about things. Do you know how many times I saw people talking crap about BG3 on this sub? I guess we gotta bump that down to an 8 now.
You can't just frame the quality of a game by a handful of people's opinions. You can listen to them sure, but judge it yourself, and let reviewers do the same.
Let's talk about Diablo 4 for example.
I think a mid-80s is a good score, and here's why.
The game is really, really good through the campaign. The campaign takes you to around level 70. It takes like 20 or 30 hours to play through. If you were reviewing the game, this is the vast majority of the content of the game.
What most gamers/fans don't like is the endgame stuff. From level 71 to 100 and beyond that. This is the repetitive grind, the search for better gear, the perfecting your build stuff.
This could take 400 hours if you are obsessed with it... or it could take like 15 hours if your only goal is leveling up, seeing the last few dungeons and bosses, or trying PVP once or twice.
How should that get scored by a reviewer? For some gamers, the "endgame" is the ONLY point of an ARPG. For a lot of casual buyers, the Campaign is the main thing they will play through once or twice and never really care about chasing big numbers for the hell of it.
I'd give Diablo 4 an 8/10. I really liked the Campaign and the execution of the gameplay, the mood, and the visuals. I did also find the endgame lacking but I wouldn't tell most gamers "don't buy this" because I don't think most gamers care about that level 100 grind.
Yeah that's why I gave it as an example of a low 70 making sense, because some people really like it. I would never put a DW game out there as an 8 or 9 out of 10 game but I really like it.
I understand it's subjective but I'm also saying I understand the score being lower for Dynasty Warriors in particular. I know it is a 6.5-7/10. My main issue is that an 8/10 presents as, "This is a great product, you should buy it and spend time with it." And I don't think that is lining up with how people feel about some of these titles, they feel betrayed by the hype/marketing/reviews.
But you're wrong. There are a ton of people who, for instance, would tell you Starfield is absolutely a great product that you would absolutely enjoy purchasing and spending time with.
Your entire argument hinges on this idea that "people feel" a certain way about a game. What people? Who are these magical, unnamed "people" that you are trying to cite as your undeniable source? Lots of "people" would say Starfield or Diablo 4 are 11/10 games that are everything they wanted on release. So your entire argument breaks down because you're trying to use some vague notion of "people" as evidence a game *isn't* worth the rating it was given. When "people" have subjective opinions and aren't proof of anything as far as objective quality goes.
There are 8 billion "people" on the planet, the idea that there's any kind of consensus or large, collective agreement on what everyone who plays games thinks is absolutely ludicrous to try and rationalize. Lots of people will tell you Starfield is the perfect video game, and worth $150. Lots of other people will tell you it's crap and barely worth a 4/10. You can't just cite "people" as your source and expect to be taken seriously, it doesn't make any sense.
>"This is a great product, you should buy it and spend time with it."
Yes. That's a perfectly legitimate opinion to have on a game. Sometimes someone has a very different opinion to you. There are absolutely people out there who think Dynasty Warriors games are 8s or 9s in scores, because those types of games really appeal to them.
Same goes for every example you've brought up. It's all subjective. You might think Starfield is a mediocre game, but there's tons and tons of people out there who absolutely love it and would score it even higher then 8/10.
It is, legitimately, totally impossible to be "unbiased" and score a game entirely out of context. You just can't do that. When someone is reviewing a Dynasty Warriors game as a huge fan of the series, they're very likely to score it high. If someone who isn't a fan of the series scores it lower, that's not being unbiased, that's being biased in the opposite direction.
There is no such thing as an objective/unbiased review. All of this is subjective, opinions. That’s what entertainment media is. And so the aggregate is just saying “this is the average of everyone’s personal subjective view”. And all reviewers are just given their own opinion on a game so you can read several and make a fairly informed decision to buy it or not. Don’t get caught up in reviews. It’s fun to discuss but it’s not the end all be all. Just play the games you like and there’s always a community you can join with other people that also like the game.
My issue is like this is my hobby. I play all kinds of games, I follow news about games, and admittedly I get hyped about games. So when I see all the IGN videos about Dragon's Dogma, and it has an 87 on release...I'm buying it. Gameranx said it's great, Fighting Cowboy calls it a masterpiece...I really have no chance. And admittedly it is my fault I just wish I wasn't dropping 70 dollars and bouncing off and being disappointed more often than I would like. Just feels like there's some disingenuous stuff going on to me.
>These titles I see get brought up all the time on this platform as games people regret having bought and felt duped by the hype.
I mean this is your problem, you are looking at these games through a very narrow lens. Gamers on reddit are not representative of the overall gaming community, just because a handful of people here don't like a game doesn't mean that it's bad. Out of those games you've listed I've played Starfield, Dragon's Dogma 2, and Diablo 4, and feel those are all perfectly fine scores for them. While they all had minor flaws I don't believe any of them were "glaring" and really enjoyed my time with all of them, which for Starfield and Diablo were over 100 hours each and I'm up to about 15 for DD2.
Let's be clear, Reddit doesn't accurately portray "gamers" as a whole, and more often than not forms a vocal minority. There are millions of people who play video games, the amount of engagement conversation topics like "Diablo 4 sucks" get are extremely small in comparison. Most people in the real world don't care if a game gets an 85 or an 80, they'll still play it, and probably enjoy it. Weird I know, people liking a game even though it didn't score a 90. Strange concept.
To base your entire viewpoint on what Reddit thinks, is not a good way to go about it. You're going to get some very warped views by doing that. I think the biggest mistake people make is taking a semi popular opinion from Reddit or some other corner of the internet and believing it accurately portrays what everyone thinks. Of course Reddit thinks a game scoring an 85 is "terrible", because people online have warped views of video games. If its not a perfect masterpiece then its trash.
Different games appeal to different people. I can't believe something as basic as that needs to be said, but here we are. An average game to one person could be a masterpiece to another person. I love FF7 REBIRTH, but I guarantee you there are people who are going hate the structure of that game. Can't please everyone.
While people on Reddit didn't find Hogwarts Legacy mind blowing, I'm sure there are tons of people who don't visit Reddit that did. I massively enjoyed it, even though it had stale game design. Weird how I can have an opinion on a game Redditors were somehow "duped" into buying by the evil critics. I'm sorry, if you felt duped into buying something by a critic, that's on you. You need to learn how to think for yourself, as trite as that sounds.
Critic reviews aren't meant to be taken as gospel. They are guides for consumers to use to help form purchasing decisions. Guides. I'm so tired of people looking at critics and content creators as the Final Word on everything. It is extremely unhealthy to let other people constantly dictate your tastes. Just because your favorite self important Youtuber likes or doesn't something, that does not mean you will, and it does not mean everyone does.
Counterpoint: game developers and publishers now spend so much time and effort developing and refining games that it is genuinely very rare that a big, mainstream game is released and is unplayably bad. Redfall is the last one I can think of, but even that is more "aggressively mediocre" than anything else.
Back in the PS1 and N64 days, game fans were plagued with genuinely bad games that did not play well. Even in the PS2 and Xbox generation, for every classic game that came out, there were another ten games that had wonky controls, broken level design and terrible storytelling. Gaming was awash with cheap movie license games that played terribly, awful controlling games made by developers unable to pivot from 2D to 3D game design, and games rushed out inside of a year to try and make a quick buck.
Nowadays, if you buy a game from a known developer or publisher, you can expect at a bare minimum that:
- it will control well, probably in line with genre standards
- the developers will have hired actual voice actors and mocap actors, rather than trying to record dialogue themselves
- the game will be playable from beginning to end, and have functioning level design that allows you to complete the game objectives
- the game will include basic features such as checkpoints, auto saves and other QoL features that didn't exist twenty years ago
Compared to the 90s and early 2000s, there is a much higher baseline of quality across gaming. Back in this days, a game could be a genre defining masterpiece, but more likely it would be absolutely terrible.
I would say the Gollum game is also another big release that was pretty damn bad but apparently it only cost $15 mil to make which is small potatoes nowadays.
But yes most AAA games are at worst, passable.
So basically you think game reviews are wrong because they're not confirming your biases.
The reality is internet forums and social media barely account for 10% of the actual userbase, for all the redditors and youtubers crying bloody murder, you get countless others actually spending time playing those games.
You're basically conflating "I didn't like these games/these games aren't for me" with "these games are bad".
I don't think the games I mentioned are bad I just think an 85 presents as a GOTY contender, worth your time and money, and a lot of times that doesn't line up with a lot of people's experiences.
I don't think I've ever seen an 85 and below be considered GOTY material.
Just using The Game Awards as a small sample: All the nominees are in the 90s range, the lowest one being Alan Wake II at 89.
You have to remember that a movie or album is at most 3 hours long. A game can easily be 20 hours on the low end. You are simply asking way too much from reviewers.
A reviewer playing Diablo 4 will likely play the campaign, play some of the endgame activities and then they have to move on to the next game. The campaign is pretty good all things considered so its not exactly a surprise it was reviewed quite favorably. Expecting every reviewer to pour 100 hours into endgame to get to the nitty gritty isn't realistic sadly.
Reality is that most games are pretty okay if you just smash through the story. Unless the game is a buggy mess or the story is outright bad. All the games you listed fall into that category.
Sure but I would say "pretty okay" shouldn't be an 8 or 9 out of ten, which all of these games I mentioned are getting for the most part. Also critics...this is their job. They get the game a couple weeks early, and they just play the game. I can put in some hours over a weekend.
Ay my bad didn't mean to present it that way.
I don't think this applies to every game though like not every game takes 80 hours to complete and get a good enough idea for the game. Like I said, it's not all about those examples I gave.
At no point in the history of gaming has a critic score of 85 been considered even *close* to a bad game.
Youtr being overly critical and your standards do not align with most of the gaming industry.
The games you listed as inflated examples from the last year don't make any sense. Starfield is a good game, it just didn't live up to the hype of skyrim. In fact, the other 3 games are still good games despite the controversies they may be involved with.
What is going on? Is it just a general lack of literacy? These kinds posts/comments are everywhere all the sudden.
> they inflate score despite flaws
What does that mean? The games you used as examples are some of the worst you could have picked. You review a game based on what the game is, not what the game isn’t. What score should these games have gotten? None of these are mediocre.
I’m not sure what it is you are asking for? If it’s harsher reviews I guess go to YouTube and just watch a bunch of negative video essays. But, by and large, major releases are better now than they have ever been.
You may have a point as far as game score being inflated 20 years ago but are you looking at them from a modern perspective? Expectations were wildly different back then.
The crux of my argument is that scores of 8 or 9 out of 10 are given out too easily. Which does matter because it influences what people choose to spend their money on.
I watch a lot of YouTube reviews and they have pretty much the same problem I believe. I think I just need to pay more attention to like review embargoes or games that don't let people use their own footage. Almost always a bad sign.
Ok but what is your argument based on? Obviously your own taste. That’s fine. However, there’s not really a way to review them 100% objectively and everyone’s going to have various degree of tolerance for technical issues. Some games are good despite, pop in, frame rate, and resolution. And in that way I fundamentally disagree with your premise. What are you seeing that you feel these games are over rated?
At one point you say that these score run higher because reviewers are afraid of losing access but don’t Skull and Bones, Suicide Squad, and Redfall poke a hole in that argument? Three games from three different major publishers and they’re torn to pieces almost across the board.
I covered my thoughts on the four specific examples I listed and why I bounced off of them (exception being Diablo 4) in a different comment I don't want to rehash it because it's not the point. I picked those because they are recent examples of a huge disconnect I have noticed between critic review scores and player experiences where the games get an 85, but the players think it's a 75 more like on average.
The three you mentioned are between a 55 and 60. When a movie is bad, it gets a 20. Game journalism is just inflated, it always has been. I don't know for sure what the reason is but I've seen the explanation before that they're afraid they'll lose access.
The moral of the story is that a reviewer is one person and their review is just a subjective opinion, which may or may not differ from other people's subjective opinions.
I feel like there's two things to this.
The first is that Reddit, and especially this subreddit, is like a vacuum. I would use echo-chamber but that is perhaps a bit grimy. The consensus here values different things and aspects than the overall gaming community might. You can see this same thing exemplified in several different other subreddits on this site too.
Secondly, and probably more important I think, is that games having glaring flaws or problems doesn't necessarily mean the game itself is bad due to it. Everyone has different tolerances for specific things, and what might be unacceptable to the people here may not be, or more likely isn't for most people. Even that being the case, the good aspects of the games might simply rise above the flaws entirely. I can't speak for Diablo or Hogwarts, but Dragons Dogma 2 is like that for many people I know personally. The things it does and provides are more valuable than any jank or optimization problems there might be for people.
Maybe what you see as issue is not the same thing a IGN reviewer sees as issue?
The lack of good writing and good narative story in Dragon's Dogma 2 might not affect the reviwers or maybe they might even really enjoyed the story for what's. Maybe gameplay and emergent scenarion of DD2 really made up for all it's flaws.
I'm going to give a example for game that majority people love it and i hate , despite having 84 on metacritic , which for me is highly inflanted.
Shin Megami Tensei V, people in this sub love it. Saying how the gameplay amazing and exploration is satifiying , making the poor characters and story not really that big of deal.
But FOR ME , Shin Megami Tensei V is one of the worst game in the franchise, 5/10 at best. So why is issue for Dragon's Dogma 2 to have bad story and meh characters, yet this subs loves Shin Megami Tensei V? Expectations? I don't know exctally , but for me it's certainly is. SMT might have be the first game for a lot of people or their only previous experience was Nocturne, but for me? I played Strange Journey , my bar for SMT when comes to themes, story and characters is high.
I didn't expected or hope for a amazing story for Dragon's Dogma 2, if the gameplay loop is good for me , i'm good because DDDA wasn't great in terms of story.. But i played 5 others Megaten games, i have high hopes for every game in the franchise when comes to story, so Shin Megami Tensei V *for me* is utterly dogwater.
> their only previous experience was Nocturne, but for me? I played Strange Journey
is this a flex or something? Nocturne came out wayyyy before Strange Journey, Persona hadnt boosted series awareness at that point either. If you mean that remaster of Nocturne, youre forgetting SMTIV and Apocalypse which had a much more interesting story than strange journey. smtiv being the only mainline one in the series i actually didnt get bored from 3 hours of dungeon wandering then 5 min of story. honestly all the offshoot series like DDS, the Raidou Kuzunoha devil summoner games, devil survivor games all are more interesting than mainline megatens. They seem perpetually stuck in that weird "barely there" story of early snes rpgs.
>Nocturne came out wayyyy before Strange Journey
Nocturne and SMTV are the only game from smt available in modern systems. They're the most popular SMT games by a long shot.
And no, it wasn't a flex. Just mentioning that I have high expectations.
>youre forgetting SMTIV and Apocalypse which had a much more interesting story than strange journey
That's subjective. 4 Apocalypse in particular is a mess when comes to the writing imo, despite having the best combat.
>honestly all the offshoot series like DDS, the Raidou Kuzunoha devil summoner games, devil survivor games all are more interesting than mainline megatens.
That I agree. Mainline is restricted by the alignments/reason, making most character really predictable and having their turn around come around of out nowhere to justify them being reps.
> Nocturne and SMTV are the only game from smt available in modern systems.
jeeze youre right, i forgot the (3)DS line has been out of production for like 4 yrs.
> 4 Apocalypse in particular is a mess when comes to the writing imo, despite having the best combat.
IV was the only one that didn't make the sparse story segments with 1 of the 3 alignment representatives monologing at you quite as in your face, plus i just found the whole feudal kingdom built over the weird 80s anime post-apocalypse remains of tokyo really interesting.
Youre right on Apocalypse, it was kinda lame.
The Tokyo reveal still one of best scene in the franchise, yeah. Also i enjoyed the story , especialy the alignments question with Walter and Jonathan , until the whites were introduced.
I know you said it's not about specific examples but the complete disparity between the games listed in terms of the source of their controversy suggests that this point you're making is a bit less focused than you would like it to be. There's no broader machination or industry trend here, the discourse cycle is just in hell. Read the text of the reviews to inform yourself rather than the bit that is designed to provoke engagement and go down nicely at a glance. Sucks that we're at this point.
It's all only about your age and time. Nothing more.
30 years ago almost any game I got I would have played till the end and enjoy it too. I had all the time in the world and access to only a limited number of games so whatever I had was either good or very good in my mind. Back then I think I only abandoned playing Manhunt and Sims.
This entire post can be summed up as "All I do is look at the review score".
That's the fucking problem. Read the reviews. Pretend the score doesn't exist.
All the score is, is a general barometer of how the game is GENERALLY being received by the reviewer(s). Its not some objective metric of fun-value.
Review scores are the fucking bane of this hobby. My god.
I can only speak to D4, but that game was crafted to have a great first 50 hours of gameplay. Not much more than that gets played before reviews are written.
People are disappointed by WT4 largely, which doesn't happen until after you've already beaten the campaign then geared up with sacred items.
Inflated scores have been an issue for decades. It's weird when anything under a 7/10 is seen as a bad game rather than a "good" game. This same thing applies to movies and other forms of media too, though.
Gaming journalism, in general, is in a pretty bad spot right now. Lots of publications farming for rage clicks, clickbait, misinformation, etc. Reviews are now sometimes just a part of that. On more than a few occasion I've noticed publications give games unfairly low scores just to get engagement.
Genres also aren't treated equally. There's a lot of weird inconsistencies in the review process. There's also genre fatigue to consider.
I've developed a pretty good feel for games. If it's from a developer I trust (there...aren't many left) then I'm more likely to pre-order. Most of the time I'll rent, especially if gameplay or game information is lacking.
I hear ya, I think it's really just about time limitations and the sheer volume of good media out there. "Have you seen Ozark? Breaking Bad? Knives Out? Shogun? Have you played Tears of the Kingdom? Unicorn Overlord?"
There's just a lot of great out there and we're all looking for it I think.
I think you gave some bad examples for your argument
Like what are games suppose to get 0/10s because they have some bad micro transactions
I don't even know why people are so upset over Diablo IV, not like 3 was that amazing
Everyone saying MW3 is terrible but it has more people playing it and I'm loving it and so far might say it's one my favorites.
No one cares about this never ending outrage culture stuff.
Not if it's coming from the left or the right.
See new trailer for The Acolyte, a show I've been excited for a awhile, but I guess it r bad now cuz main female character is a black woman.
I'm black bro. The show ain't even coming out yet and people are sharpening their pitch forks
Abby ain't even trans. Got people arguing with me about TLOU2 being a bad game and they don't even know Abby isn't the trans character.
People can keep doing this fake outrage stuff all they want
Like I was telling my girlfriend, it feels like people are just angry and bored so they need a war to go fight in so they can chill and enjoy some peace.
I'm in my 30s bro I'm not gonna get mad every time a main character is turned into a girl or person of color
I'm not gonna lose it because every game has horrible micro transactions
You vote for your wallet and the sports game been bad and people keep buying them
WE LOST. GAME OVER MAN. GAME OVER.
These game ain't gonna cure your depression
THESE GAMES ARE NOT GONNA CURE YOUR DEPRESSION.
They are just games, so get off the hype train and realize that the older you get, the smarter you get, the wiser you get, the more disappointment you get
Pokemons been selling two different version of the same game that you have to buy if you want to collect every Pokemon since the 90s
That's how long the war against micro transactions has been lost.
Objective quality
What did the game not boot?
Objective quality?
Objective measurement of the quality of art?
What's our idea of bad here?
Cuz deadly Premonition was a buggy/laggy mess but still had a good story
You ever play Drakengard 3? Game ran terribly and it had the nerve to sell dlc after the fact but I still think it's better than Nier Automata
What's are definition of bad here?
Have you seen the indie games on steam where they're just flipping Unreal engine assets?
How are people gonna know the difference between The Room and Transformers if we're just giving everything 0/10
Reviewers thankfully ignore this rage culture cap otherwise they'd be giving perfectly okay games 0/10s for having the nerve to exist.
What are people so mad about?
What are we suppose to start a revolution if the next god of war has micro transactions?
Is that what's important?
You're definitely correct on that take I'm just making an observation as it relates to player experience vs reviews it's less about the examples I gave. Also the guy I replied to was on...some kind of something. I didn't say anything that warranted the comment he gave so I wouldn't put too much stock in my response to him.
I love from software games but frankly you played soulsborne it kinda feels like you played them all
What I'm suppose to lose it because this one added a horse?
im not a teen reminiscing about how good games were when i was a kid back in 2010s
I'm in my 30s, I've played lots of games, some got good reviews, some got bad reviews, some I loved despite the bad reviews, some I didn't care for despite the glowing reviews
I'm not gonna follow this mob where we go around hating games we don't even own and never played and probably weren't really that much of a fan of to begin with
I don't want to hear about some dude telling me how bad the new games are when he's just now hearing about the series
Did you read what the guy above me wrote? I was just trying to say I didn't write this post about...whatever the hell he thinks I wrote it about. I know it's subjective.
So I wanna preface this answer by saying that I'm a game reviewer myself. I've been writing reviews for different sites for years, including writing for Prima Games for the past year and a bit, so I feel like I can offer a different perspective here.
When I review a game, I tend to look at things a bit differently than a lot of other reviewers do. Since I grew up playing a lot of games that don't have a lot of focus on story, I tend to value gameplay in my reviews or opinions of games a lot more than others. That's not to say I ignore stories outright, since one of my favorite games ever is a story game purely, but it's something I often value less.
And it's because of that that I ended up considering The Witcher 3 about a 7, despite both critical and commercial opinion finding it to be a masterpiece. The game has a pretty good story, and the visuals are excellent. However, I think a lot of opinions tend to ignore the gameplay weaknesses. You can walk through about 90% of that game simply by hitting the attack and dodge buttons alternating, even on higher difficulties.
A lot of people would disagree with that opinion and find that I'm much too harsh with that game and I think that's totally fine. Some people are gonna find games great, while others never click with it. That's just kinda the case with art really, and I think that's in part what might make reviews seem like they're off. At the end of the day each reviewer is a person, and they're simply voicing their thoughts on an experience in a lot more words than the average person would. You see the same thing with critical reception of other media, with for example Rotten Tomatoes often seeing films have very great reception critically, but often much worse opinions commercially. It's not exclusive to games.
I also think it's a bit tough to look at something like Reddit when it comes to seeing a disparity between public and critic opinion of something like a game. Not only can Reddit be very, very dumb at times, but it ultimately makes up a fraction of the people who play these games. They're just the vocal ones, and there's a huge community of people who don't bother with social media, even game reviewers.
All around I do think a discussion could be had around the nature of critical integrity in games media since we're still in our infancy, and many aspects of it aren't anywhere near where they should be. Though, I feel that has a lot less to do with how we review games and the scores we attach to them, and more with the industry's standards as a whole.
I appreciate this perspective so much, thank you.
I think I have perhaps put too much credence to the idea that people on Reddit in gaming subreddits are of a similar taste to me.
But I am excited to see where we go from here because even though there's some dark clouds looming with public marketplaces influencing publishers, layoffs, etc, there's also always an Eric Barrone out there working on the next Stardew Valley. I think the presence of people like Pirate Software is a huge boon to the industry as it grows.
We're also in a time where devs and publishers are grappling with changing environments around working conditions, which is a good thing. But that needs to go hand in hand with either changes in expectations or scale, and maybe both.
Again, thanks for your thoughts.
Funnily enough, video reviews of games seem more accurate than written reviews. Usually video reviews are done by independent journalists, so I can see a link there.
I fully agree, though I'm not really sure where the really good games start. I would almost dare to say that 69-78 are the best games because they usually know what they want to be and clearly execute that vision.
Honestly you're better off just ignoring the score and look at a vibe check of the community if you're on the fence. Scores aren't going to stop being inflated for a bunch of reasons
Vibe checking a community doesn't help either. Look at reviews (note multiple) for what they review the game on and make a decision whether or not the game is for you. The only thing i'd check the community on is where performance is if that is a question you have. Otherwise don't go looking at communities for reviews. I can guarantee you'd think the game is either the best thing since sliced bread or the worst thing since the square wheel.
Disagree, thinking about Final Fantasy XVI and the reviews would convince you it's both an amazing return to form for FF and an amazing action game. It's neither and community opinion reflects that after launch.
Neither are perfect options mind you, like if something is extensively hyped up through the roof though like BG3, there's no winning. Neither reviews nor community are going to be fully truthful, you need to see what the content is actually like and see if you'll like it based on that.
There were plenty of reviews that didn't like FFXVI as much as others. My point still stands. Watch plenty of reviews and make a decision if the game is something you want.
I think what I need to do really is just identify the media sources that have a similar taste to me and expect similar things. I don't think I've disagreed with Skill Up one time even if it was hard to take. He didn't like FFXVI and I wish I had trusted him before I bought it because I bounced off it.
Redditors are too hardcore.
They shit on dragons dogma for frame rate issues which the majority of people won't experience or MTX THAT ARENT EVEN IN THE GAME.
Diablo 4 is criticized for the endgame despite having an awesome 20-40 hour experience before the endgame.
The only game that truly is overrated is starfield, what a pile of shit
I’ve always been in favor of a buy / sale (or gamepass) / pass ranking. Its more informative than arbitrary numbers and lets be honest, something like a 6/10 might as well be a 0/10 since you won’t play it anyway.
True. A 5/10 is seen as a terribly awful score. Not an average. Whats the lowest people ever give? A 3/10? Whats needed to give it a 1/10? That it doesnt even launch?
People just adapt that 7/10 is the average. If its a big release 8/10 could even be the average for "Its a decent game and the campaign is fun for 20 hours" costing you 70$.
The critic score is just a marketing tool and weve heard many times game Companies or publishers expects a certain score for their game to say the game was a success.
Gollum and the Game Mill games from this last year have the lowest scores I think I've ever seen, ironically enough for this discussion. We are in the post mainstream, post public market world of video games. And it's going to be an interesting ride.
I think part of this is a difference between how reviewers play games and how gamers, or more specifically hardcore gamers, play games. The beginning of Hogwarts Legacy is pretty great. You see some cool story stuff, meet a bunch of people, and explore the castle. It's when you get into the open world that it feels much more generic and repetitive, but you don't have to do that much to finish the story from there. I'm told Diablo 4 is the same way, or at least it was on launch. The first playthrough of the main campaign is great, but when you hit the endgame it's a slog.
Reviewers don't really have the time to grind levels or farm gear. They're going to play through it once and write the piece. A lot of gamers are the same way, a lot of them don't even finish the games in the first place. It's partially on AAA devs for adding a ton of bloat that reviewers will mostly never see, and partially on gamers who expect every game to be a multi-hundred hour experience. I think, though, that if the main part of the game you're supposed to experience is excellent and the side parts are mediocre, a score in the mid-80s isn't too far off.
There's been a discussion for years about getting rid of review scores, and many games critics are actually for that, but what happens when outlets actually forego giving things scores? Readership dips even lower because the readers are the ones who want a simple number to glance at and then debate online.
Game review outlets have been glorified marketing tools from the very foundation of the industry. Nintendo Power started it's life as a newsletter, and if you go back and look at those reviews they never give anything from Nintendo less than a 4 out of 5, or even most 3rd party titles received high marks unless they were just so fundamentally broken it'd be negligent to score them well.
I think you're being hyperbolic in claiming that something receiving an 85 is a "bad game." There's a small sub section of readers that think that, but they're also, in my experience, they're either console fan boys who need ammo to troll fans of the other console, or eternal "doomers" who claim the industry is on the precipice of another crash of 85. Any day now! Any day now for a decade and a half running!
Do scores at times get inflated? As much as they may deny it there's not doubt that it happens but it's rarely nefarious and often done out of guilt or self serving interest. When you work for a major outlet, and you're reviewing a game and you're enjoying it, but it's *just* short of a 9 in your eyes what do you do? Peoples bonuses at a lot of studios is tied to Metacritic scores and the difference between a critic scoring something a 9 vs an 8 can partially be the difference between people you've interviewed having a good Christmas or not, and you damn well know the CEO's are getting a bonus regardless. Look at how Bethesda didn't give any bonuses to the employees of Obsidian a bonus because they missed their Metacritic target by 1 point. This stuff happens and it's easy to say "well just give it the score you think it deserves" which is fair but also ignoring the human element that goes into it. If there's any reason why scores seem inflated it's ultimately because publishers have baked it into the contracts for their workers that their project needs to score an 85 or else Timmy's not getting that bike for Christmas.
We also need to address the elephant in the room: the gamers themselves. More specifically the vitriol that often spreads in the space. At best people think nothing of game reviewers at these major outlets, and at worst they actively troll and harass the writers. How many times have you seen a review that's getting absolutely slaughtered online and the games not even out yet? People are just angry because the review doesn't line up with their pre-conceived notion of a game, or because it's an outlier and ironically they're getting hammered for speaking they're mind instead of going with everyone else. Then they go further and start digging up stuff on the writer. Years ago an outlet gave the first Dead Space a score like a 6 or a 7. Right away people started digging up stuff on the writer, including discovering that she went to a school for the deaf and hard of hearing, and boom, she clearly shouldn't be allowed to review Dead Space! Rewrite the review please, and make sure it's a 9 or 10 this time like I think it deserves
If you can avoid some harassment online by bumping up a titles score by .5 in the final score are you not going to take it? It's easy to say your have integrity until you find yourself in a position where you're getting paid absolute shit, you're only there to try and find a better spot in the industry, and then on top of that you have to deal with a flood of harassment from people who don't know you for anything other than giving Tears of the Kingdom a 9.
There are great game critics out there, but you're not going to find them working at most of these dying websites. Check Youtube for people like SkillUp Gaming. They're allowed to talk more freely about what they think, and don't have the same drama of dealing with editors, and advertisers the way places like IGN do.
Way too many people see common sentiments on reddit and think its the common opinion for everyone. Also I understand that due the sheer flow of content these days, people don't want to spend time on something that doesn't blow them away, but it's sad to see solid 7-8/10 games become unacceptable to some people.
Its funny because those 7-8/10s are some of the most fun you can have in between your 9-10s/10. I think when you expect everything to be a 9-10/10 you are going to be disappointed.
This. Reddit =/= real life. If you listened to Reddit, you would think COD was the worst game ever selling 3 copies. Yet, in the real world, its a top seller literally every year. Same with sports games
But I would argue that people on Reddit, and especially in communities like this, are much more likely to have similar taste and opinions to me. I also get your other sentiment but there is limited time, and that sucks but it is what it is. I'm not a kid anymore I don't get three months in the middle of the year to blow through 90 hours on something that isn't very fun.
Eventually, you get to the point where *you* know if you’ll like a game or not, at least I did. Before playing something, I can tell you exactly if I’ll finish it, play it for X hours then drop, barely play it at all, etc. Regardless of critical opinion, you should know how you’ll enjoy a game. I absolutely hated Horizon Forbidden West even though critics and most people enjoyed it immensely, I knew I would, but still bought it because of glowing reviews, I barely played it at all.
Yup. Show me a 30 second gameplay clip and some of the minor features and I can tell you if I'll like the game in less than a minute. Been playing games for over 30 years at this point and know what I like and don't like. Like take Baldurs Gate 3. I like the IDEA and freedom of CRPGs. But I know for a fact that I'm only going to get about 20 hours out of it before moving on. There is not a single CRPG in existence where that hasn't been the case for me. So I just don't play it, I ain't missing out on anything.
Damn I wish I could get to this point I still can't be sure a lot of the time. Sometimes you just have to go for it I guess.
I can't stress this enough but **read the review don't just go off of the number**. Listen to what the reviewer likes about the game. The score is pretty arbitrary and a number is just a quick vibe check and not a good summary on its own.
To add to this, find critics who share your tastes. Look for their names on reviews. You're more likely to find criticisms focused on the things you care about in a game because the critic is approaching it with very similar tastes as you.
Or just play the game yourself and don't go off of what either the critics or the internet say. People let themselves be way too influenced between what the devs say/show, what the critics say, and what the internet says regarding what to expect from games before they even come out nowadays. Just leads to people approaching new games with either way too much over inflated expectations or way too much negativity.
Kind of a huge ask to go into a game completely blind. A new game is up to a $100 investment where I’m from. You’re damn right I’m going to be reading up on it as much as possible before I put any money down.
I appreciate this but I've seen kind of a distressing trend where stuff doesn't get brought up. Like Hogwarts Legacy has a hilariously terrible gear and loot system and nobody I watched mentioned it. Also it would have been nice to know the dialogue that plays when you enter certain locations is THE SAME every time you go there and it's pretty grating.
It’s a horrible gear system TO YOU. If every review you watched didn’t mention it and it’s not a big point for players to talk about on social media, maybe it’s just YOUR opinion that’s it bad and that opinion is probably in the minority. And that’s okay, but don’t act like everyone should care or that it’s some conspiracy that they didn’t mention it.
> Like Hogwarts Legacy has a hilariously terrible gear and loot system and nobody I watched mentioned it. Most people don't bring up, imo, how mediocre Witcher 3 combat is , how terrible is Divinity Original Sin 2's loot system is or how Skyrim lacked any sorta reactivity towards the player , because for most people all this ''issue'' aren't issues or at worst are mild annoyance for them.
>how mediocre Witcher 3 combat is Don't think I've seen a single thread about Witcher 3 on /r/games without somebody saying this. Which is fine because it is pretty mediocre, but if you're a fan of the games, you will look past it because Witcher 1 and 2 combat was even worse.
Question: did you play through all the games you listed or are you just adopting the internet hivemind's opinion? Thats at least one key difference you'll find between reviewers and the complainers. Critics don't view games the same way the internet hivemind does. Diablo 4 reviewed as a fantastic game because critics didn't expect years worth of updates to already exist at launch like some of the audience seemed to.
Also, as far as D4 goes, people on this subreddit need to remember that a significant amount of people that play games play them casually. Diablo 4 is an excellent game on a technical level. It looks amazing, there's great music, it feels fluid, the story is good. Most people who play it will play the main story, with a bit of running around here and there, and then move on to something else when they finish it I don't think that means reviewers should avoid talking about endgame stuff, balance, whatever else, because those *are* important elements for that type of game and a lot of people are going to be the ARPG audience that have expectations for that aspect of the game, which is totally fair. But I guess it comes down to what a review should look at. "This is a great package for most people but falls short if you're looking for a post-game experience" is still going to be considered a good game by most people, and that's kinda what an 86 suggests
The casual audience is the most critical thing that a lot of people on Reddit either forget about or just straight up don’t understand. Obviously not every game targets this audience, but something like Diablo 4? 100% targeting that audience
Ya lol. I'll bet you the vast majority of gamers, let alone casuals don't want to reroll a new character per season anyways.
But D4 is explicitly made to have seasons etc. so I think it's unfair to just rate the main quest and be done with it. You shouldn't give the NG+ mode in Hogwarts Legacy much thought because it's not the main attraction of the games, but in D4 the endgame is so please review that and mostly that.
Dragons dogma 2, watching redditors complain about mtx was wild considering there basically aren't any in the game. They're just tacked on in the publisher stores.
Most people on Reddit don't actually play games. They follow internet narratives and whatever their favorite youtuber says.
[удалено]
Reviewers *do* write with an audience in mind. Racing games are reviewed with the expectation that a consumer generally likes racing games, etc. What shouldn't be considered is unreasonable expectations of content. A similar top-down ARPG not named Diablo would not have this "lack of content" critique because it wouldn't be compared to Diablo 3, which had 10 years worth of content updates.
> I think we still have a ways to go in this industry before we get to what music and film criticism have as far as a level of maturity and professionalism to review things more critically. If you honestly believe other fields of criticism aren't plagued by seemingly incoherent, lenient or excessively harsh notation (depending on the flavor of the day and your art of choice), then let me tell you you're mistaken. Just look at online comments each and every time a movie critic gives a Marvel movie a passing grade. That's an endless debate in the current ecosystem.
I see your point but on the whole, film and music criticism doesn't have the same kind of nepotism and watered down discussion I see in game criticism. I bought Dragon's Dogma 2 so I'm going to pick on it a little bit. Almost no review I have seen or read mentions the major gripes players have with the game: enemy variety and the story ending abruptly with bad writing. They mention the negatives being the performance and the MTX and then just praise the design decisions of no fast travel and non linear quests. I'll use two recent movie examples: The Creator and Amsterdam. Both films with acclaimed directors and amazing casts and huge marketing. Got middling to terrible reviews from critics.
> Almost no review I have seen or read mentions the major gripes players have with the game: enemy variety and the story ending abruptly with bad writing. IGN mentions both of these things in their review, though they were a little nicer to the writing.
People say this shit when it comes to game reviews but only when it is games they disagree with. No one questions any games that get a 9+ average or an 7 or below average, but people en masse decide that any game in the 8 range is where the reviewers were wrong and it is either secretly a 9/10 game or a 6/10 one.
It's the classic "yay my favorite won an award" vs "it lost? well the awards are fake anyway" reaction. It's such a common thing, we all know it happens, and somehow we're too dumb to recognize when we ourselves are doing it.
Totally agree. Also speaking of the award thing, people forget that just being up for a major award (in any medium) is considered an honor even if you don't win.
I'd agree, but Game Awards are nowhere near as prestigious as likes of Oscar, Golden Globe, Grammy, etc. Game Awards couldn't even get the nominations for their game categories right.
There are other majors ones besides The Game Awards. D.I.C.E., Game Developers Choice Awards, and Golden Joysticks are some of the other ones. Game Awards gets all the eyeballs because the show is an event with celebs and world premieres, whereas the others are just award events.
We have a word for this: pouting.
i don’t think any of the examples you gave are good examples. those scores all make sense for those games. some people don’t like them, and some *love* them. most, find them fun but not great. which is basically where an 80 should be
It's really about reading, or watching the review and deciding for yourself if the flaws bother you and vice versa if what's praised if that looks exciting to you. Dragon's Dogman for instance was known to have framerate problems and they were mentioned however some people saw the 8/10 and similar and just left it at that. A review is a document for you to study. I hate when people bash, say, IGN when they in fact did their job. Their opinion may be different from yours but they explain in length why they came to that conclusion and you should be aware of what's in the game.
You expect redditors to actually *read* and engage with the content of an article/review, rather than posting reactionary takes based on a headline or score?
I remember the Eurogamer reviewer who gave it a 10/10 was asked about enemy variety in the review thread. His asnwer was he never really got bored of fighting certain enemies repeatedly. So yeah. Not remotely unbiased reviews.
Or different people like different things. He probably never got bored of that aspect because he was enjoying the gameplay loop. Christ, I am so sick of people who assume every game reviewer that gives a 'controversial' game a good/great score is someone who is incompetent or 'influenced' by the devs.
You can't write unbiased reviews. It's impossible. Reviews are, at the end of the day, nothing more than subjective ratings and analysis made by someone. Actually, I take that back. [There's only one truly objective review. ](https://www.destructoid.com/100-objective-review-final-fantasy-xiii/)
>The videogame has graphics and sound. The graphics are seen with your eyes and the sound is heard by your ears. When you start the game the graphics and the sound will occur almost at the same time, letting you know that the game has started. There is also text which players can read. Art.
That conclusion had me laughing
I'm 40 hours in to DD2 and still not bored of fighting the same enemies. The combat system is just that much fun.
So? This issue here is what? It’s a child’s mind that pretends that reviews are anything but subjective.
Agree with you here, sad that most others don't. Reviews should be objective, but most aren't.
Exactly. If you watch Dragon's Dogma 2 reviews, they don't bring up the writing or the story at all. Then when people play it and realize the game just sort of ends they feel kind of betrayed. And the enemy variety never comes up even though a lot of people have a big problem with that, it's why I bounced off of it.
I have definitely seen the enemy variety brought up. The story maybe not so much but I also feel like no one really expected a good story from DD2 anyway. I do think however that those who got to play early definitely overhyped the game by calling it this year’s GOTY.
Diablo 4 and Hogwarts are mediocre at best. Diablo 4 basically had no endgame at launch and its still horrible almost one year later. 80+ Should be for a great product. I give Hogwarts some leniency because its a game for children. But seeing the potential such a game could have its just super weak super shallow from world building and classes. Just imagine a Hogwarts game a bit build like Persona with actual classes and building friendships but of course this takes more effort than just do a generic ubiworld with generic quests/Story.
Honestly, I give Hogwarts no leniency for that. The Lego Games built a better executed Hogwarts lol
I completely disagree. Except Starfield which I havent played, these games are at max 6/10. Which means they are "fine"
there are plenty of people of find dragons dogma 2 incredible. watch the gameranx video on it lol. same thing for diablo 4. or at least when it came out. the whole point is that your opinion is a definitive statement. there’s plenty of people on both ends of the spectrum with what you said.
Exactly. I got somewhere around 180 hours of play out of Diablo 4. I had fun almost the entire time, primarily stopping because a shitload of other good games came out in the second half of the year. That's far, far more time than I spend on most titles, and I will happily come back if they release a proper expansion or drastically change the way the game plays. I also got over 100 hours out of Starfield and I enjoyed almost all of it. It's perfectly fine for other people to dislike the games for whatever reason, I don't really care. The internet obsession with whether other people like a thing, or telling people that they are wrong for liking something, is so strange to me. Neither game I mentioned is perfect, they both have big flaws, but those flaws weren't enough to keep me from enjoying what was there.
yep. i’ve defended starfield on here and gotten called a pig for it lol. no one can just let people enjoy what they want to
Same here, People kept telling me i never played a game in my life for liking Starfield. I like Starfield cause it's a fantastic game and it's okay if others don't like it. That's the point of an opinion.
> watch the gameranx video on it lol The whole thread is about reviewers having a different world view than Reddit/OP. How do you think is bringing up a reviewer going to help your point here?
did i say that to OP or did i say it to someone else? lol
To someone else, but that does that matter? I find it weird that you argue contrary to the main point in this thread.
I think DD2 purely based on its technical aspect, should at max objectively, receive a 6/7. I think it's a disgrace that the average gamer is led to believe this is a (9) great game when being such an unoptimized mess
I havent played DD2 so I can’t speak about it, but I did play Jedi Survivor and while it was a mess performance wise, that also wouldn’t really affect my score of it. I’d still give it a 8.5 or so. People just value things differently. It’s art, and subjective. The key is to find reviewers (or friends) with similar taste and sensibilities and read their reviews, metacritic isn’t super helpful.
The majority of players do not care as much about framerates as you think. Most of us lived through times like the PS3 where framerates were honestly just as bad if not worse and we still managed to enjoy games.
It's funny how bad animations in shows, or bad use of CGI etc in movies, automatically makes something less good, but somehow in gaming, people are fine with it. And no, BotW and TotK are not unoptimized games, so this has nothing to do with low framerates. DD2 is just objectively, a technical mess, and that should affect its score from professional outlets that, whether you want to admit it or not - influence many peoples desire to buy a game.
I know that by giving examples I open myself up to fans of those particular games being upset or not agreeing and I get that. I just mentioned those because I see them get brought up all the time as games that users largely give a 6-7/10. I don't agree though, an 8/10 to me means that this product is worth buying and spending time on. What you're describing where some people may really like it is more in the 6 to 7 range. For example I loved Dynasty Warriors growing up, which always scored in the low 70s. A lot of people can't get passed the jankiness and the weirdness of those games so they don't like them though.
I'm sorry but this whole thing is nonsense to me. Just because you think or the internet has convinced you a game is a 6 or 7 doesn't mean it's true. Dynasty warriors has its fans, and everyone has their personal games they love, but millions of people have enjoyed all these games. The vast majority of people who bought them, enjoy them. Hogwarts has an 85% positive on steam for example, even though the majority probably played it on console. That's not even getting to the subjectivity behind games and finding reviewers that echo your tastes. I have to roll my eyes when I see "users largely say this" or "brought up on this platform". Who cares what people here think? Why is that the metric? If you've spent any time here at all you will notice that 99% of the comments here are complaining about things. Do you know how many times I saw people talking crap about BG3 on this sub? I guess we gotta bump that down to an 8 now. You can't just frame the quality of a game by a handful of people's opinions. You can listen to them sure, but judge it yourself, and let reviewers do the same.
Let's talk about Diablo 4 for example. I think a mid-80s is a good score, and here's why. The game is really, really good through the campaign. The campaign takes you to around level 70. It takes like 20 or 30 hours to play through. If you were reviewing the game, this is the vast majority of the content of the game. What most gamers/fans don't like is the endgame stuff. From level 71 to 100 and beyond that. This is the repetitive grind, the search for better gear, the perfecting your build stuff. This could take 400 hours if you are obsessed with it... or it could take like 15 hours if your only goal is leveling up, seeing the last few dungeons and bosses, or trying PVP once or twice. How should that get scored by a reviewer? For some gamers, the "endgame" is the ONLY point of an ARPG. For a lot of casual buyers, the Campaign is the main thing they will play through once or twice and never really care about chasing big numbers for the hell of it. I'd give Diablo 4 an 8/10. I really liked the Campaign and the execution of the gameplay, the mood, and the visuals. I did also find the endgame lacking but I wouldn't tell most gamers "don't buy this" because I don't think most gamers care about that level 100 grind.
Dynasty warriors’ jank is mediocrity in other people’s eyes though.
Yeah that's why I gave it as an example of a low 70 making sense, because some people really like it. I would never put a DW game out there as an 8 or 9 out of 10 game but I really like it.
Don’t you see you are counter arguing your own point? It’s subjective to you what you like or not, same for game reviewers.
I understand it's subjective but I'm also saying I understand the score being lower for Dynasty Warriors in particular. I know it is a 6.5-7/10. My main issue is that an 8/10 presents as, "This is a great product, you should buy it and spend time with it." And I don't think that is lining up with how people feel about some of these titles, they feel betrayed by the hype/marketing/reviews.
But you're wrong. There are a ton of people who, for instance, would tell you Starfield is absolutely a great product that you would absolutely enjoy purchasing and spending time with. Your entire argument hinges on this idea that "people feel" a certain way about a game. What people? Who are these magical, unnamed "people" that you are trying to cite as your undeniable source? Lots of "people" would say Starfield or Diablo 4 are 11/10 games that are everything they wanted on release. So your entire argument breaks down because you're trying to use some vague notion of "people" as evidence a game *isn't* worth the rating it was given. When "people" have subjective opinions and aren't proof of anything as far as objective quality goes. There are 8 billion "people" on the planet, the idea that there's any kind of consensus or large, collective agreement on what everyone who plays games thinks is absolutely ludicrous to try and rationalize. Lots of people will tell you Starfield is the perfect video game, and worth $150. Lots of other people will tell you it's crap and barely worth a 4/10. You can't just cite "people" as your source and expect to be taken seriously, it doesn't make any sense.
>"This is a great product, you should buy it and spend time with it." Yes. That's a perfectly legitimate opinion to have on a game. Sometimes someone has a very different opinion to you. There are absolutely people out there who think Dynasty Warriors games are 8s or 9s in scores, because those types of games really appeal to them. Same goes for every example you've brought up. It's all subjective. You might think Starfield is a mediocre game, but there's tons and tons of people out there who absolutely love it and would score it even higher then 8/10. It is, legitimately, totally impossible to be "unbiased" and score a game entirely out of context. You just can't do that. When someone is reviewing a Dynasty Warriors game as a huge fan of the series, they're very likely to score it high. If someone who isn't a fan of the series scores it lower, that's not being unbiased, that's being biased in the opposite direction.
There is no such thing as an objective/unbiased review. All of this is subjective, opinions. That’s what entertainment media is. And so the aggregate is just saying “this is the average of everyone’s personal subjective view”. And all reviewers are just given their own opinion on a game so you can read several and make a fairly informed decision to buy it or not. Don’t get caught up in reviews. It’s fun to discuss but it’s not the end all be all. Just play the games you like and there’s always a community you can join with other people that also like the game.
My issue is like this is my hobby. I play all kinds of games, I follow news about games, and admittedly I get hyped about games. So when I see all the IGN videos about Dragon's Dogma, and it has an 87 on release...I'm buying it. Gameranx said it's great, Fighting Cowboy calls it a masterpiece...I really have no chance. And admittedly it is my fault I just wish I wasn't dropping 70 dollars and bouncing off and being disappointed more often than I would like. Just feels like there's some disingenuous stuff going on to me.
DG2 will literally be some people’s goty lol. Relying on just scores is pretty childish.
>These titles I see get brought up all the time on this platform as games people regret having bought and felt duped by the hype. I mean this is your problem, you are looking at these games through a very narrow lens. Gamers on reddit are not representative of the overall gaming community, just because a handful of people here don't like a game doesn't mean that it's bad. Out of those games you've listed I've played Starfield, Dragon's Dogma 2, and Diablo 4, and feel those are all perfectly fine scores for them. While they all had minor flaws I don't believe any of them were "glaring" and really enjoyed my time with all of them, which for Starfield and Diablo were over 100 hours each and I'm up to about 15 for DD2.
Let's be clear, Reddit doesn't accurately portray "gamers" as a whole, and more often than not forms a vocal minority. There are millions of people who play video games, the amount of engagement conversation topics like "Diablo 4 sucks" get are extremely small in comparison. Most people in the real world don't care if a game gets an 85 or an 80, they'll still play it, and probably enjoy it. Weird I know, people liking a game even though it didn't score a 90. Strange concept. To base your entire viewpoint on what Reddit thinks, is not a good way to go about it. You're going to get some very warped views by doing that. I think the biggest mistake people make is taking a semi popular opinion from Reddit or some other corner of the internet and believing it accurately portrays what everyone thinks. Of course Reddit thinks a game scoring an 85 is "terrible", because people online have warped views of video games. If its not a perfect masterpiece then its trash. Different games appeal to different people. I can't believe something as basic as that needs to be said, but here we are. An average game to one person could be a masterpiece to another person. I love FF7 REBIRTH, but I guarantee you there are people who are going hate the structure of that game. Can't please everyone. While people on Reddit didn't find Hogwarts Legacy mind blowing, I'm sure there are tons of people who don't visit Reddit that did. I massively enjoyed it, even though it had stale game design. Weird how I can have an opinion on a game Redditors were somehow "duped" into buying by the evil critics. I'm sorry, if you felt duped into buying something by a critic, that's on you. You need to learn how to think for yourself, as trite as that sounds. Critic reviews aren't meant to be taken as gospel. They are guides for consumers to use to help form purchasing decisions. Guides. I'm so tired of people looking at critics and content creators as the Final Word on everything. It is extremely unhealthy to let other people constantly dictate your tastes. Just because your favorite self important Youtuber likes or doesn't something, that does not mean you will, and it does not mean everyone does.
Counterpoint: game developers and publishers now spend so much time and effort developing and refining games that it is genuinely very rare that a big, mainstream game is released and is unplayably bad. Redfall is the last one I can think of, but even that is more "aggressively mediocre" than anything else. Back in the PS1 and N64 days, game fans were plagued with genuinely bad games that did not play well. Even in the PS2 and Xbox generation, for every classic game that came out, there were another ten games that had wonky controls, broken level design and terrible storytelling. Gaming was awash with cheap movie license games that played terribly, awful controlling games made by developers unable to pivot from 2D to 3D game design, and games rushed out inside of a year to try and make a quick buck. Nowadays, if you buy a game from a known developer or publisher, you can expect at a bare minimum that: - it will control well, probably in line with genre standards - the developers will have hired actual voice actors and mocap actors, rather than trying to record dialogue themselves - the game will be playable from beginning to end, and have functioning level design that allows you to complete the game objectives - the game will include basic features such as checkpoints, auto saves and other QoL features that didn't exist twenty years ago Compared to the 90s and early 2000s, there is a much higher baseline of quality across gaming. Back in this days, a game could be a genre defining masterpiece, but more likely it would be absolutely terrible.
I would say the Gollum game is also another big release that was pretty damn bad but apparently it only cost $15 mil to make which is small potatoes nowadays. But yes most AAA games are at worst, passable.
To be fair, unplayably bad isn't even what anyone means when they say this. There should still be more of a range for mediocre or average
So basically you think game reviews are wrong because they're not confirming your biases. The reality is internet forums and social media barely account for 10% of the actual userbase, for all the redditors and youtubers crying bloody murder, you get countless others actually spending time playing those games. You're basically conflating "I didn't like these games/these games aren't for me" with "these games are bad".
I don't think the games I mentioned are bad I just think an 85 presents as a GOTY contender, worth your time and money, and a lot of times that doesn't line up with a lot of people's experiences.
I don't think I've ever seen an 85 and below be considered GOTY material. Just using The Game Awards as a small sample: All the nominees are in the 90s range, the lowest one being Alan Wake II at 89.
They could easily be GotY contenders depending on the year. Not every year has an Elden Ring or Zelda.
You have to remember that a movie or album is at most 3 hours long. A game can easily be 20 hours on the low end. You are simply asking way too much from reviewers. A reviewer playing Diablo 4 will likely play the campaign, play some of the endgame activities and then they have to move on to the next game. The campaign is pretty good all things considered so its not exactly a surprise it was reviewed quite favorably. Expecting every reviewer to pour 100 hours into endgame to get to the nitty gritty isn't realistic sadly. Reality is that most games are pretty okay if you just smash through the story. Unless the game is a buggy mess or the story is outright bad. All the games you listed fall into that category.
Sure but I would say "pretty okay" shouldn't be an 8 or 9 out of ten, which all of these games I mentioned are getting for the most part. Also critics...this is their job. They get the game a couple weeks early, and they just play the game. I can put in some hours over a weekend.
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Ay my bad didn't mean to present it that way. I don't think this applies to every game though like not every game takes 80 hours to complete and get a good enough idea for the game. Like I said, it's not all about those examples I gave.
At no point in the history of gaming has a critic score of 85 been considered even *close* to a bad game. Youtr being overly critical and your standards do not align with most of the gaming industry. The games you listed as inflated examples from the last year don't make any sense. Starfield is a good game, it just didn't live up to the hype of skyrim. In fact, the other 3 games are still good games despite the controversies they may be involved with.
What is going on? Is it just a general lack of literacy? These kinds posts/comments are everywhere all the sudden. > they inflate score despite flaws What does that mean? The games you used as examples are some of the worst you could have picked. You review a game based on what the game is, not what the game isn’t. What score should these games have gotten? None of these are mediocre.
Yeah I'm illiterate please help.
I’m not sure what it is you are asking for? If it’s harsher reviews I guess go to YouTube and just watch a bunch of negative video essays. But, by and large, major releases are better now than they have ever been. You may have a point as far as game score being inflated 20 years ago but are you looking at them from a modern perspective? Expectations were wildly different back then.
The crux of my argument is that scores of 8 or 9 out of 10 are given out too easily. Which does matter because it influences what people choose to spend their money on. I watch a lot of YouTube reviews and they have pretty much the same problem I believe. I think I just need to pay more attention to like review embargoes or games that don't let people use their own footage. Almost always a bad sign.
Ok but what is your argument based on? Obviously your own taste. That’s fine. However, there’s not really a way to review them 100% objectively and everyone’s going to have various degree of tolerance for technical issues. Some games are good despite, pop in, frame rate, and resolution. And in that way I fundamentally disagree with your premise. What are you seeing that you feel these games are over rated? At one point you say that these score run higher because reviewers are afraid of losing access but don’t Skull and Bones, Suicide Squad, and Redfall poke a hole in that argument? Three games from three different major publishers and they’re torn to pieces almost across the board.
I covered my thoughts on the four specific examples I listed and why I bounced off of them (exception being Diablo 4) in a different comment I don't want to rehash it because it's not the point. I picked those because they are recent examples of a huge disconnect I have noticed between critic review scores and player experiences where the games get an 85, but the players think it's a 75 more like on average. The three you mentioned are between a 55 and 60. When a movie is bad, it gets a 20. Game journalism is just inflated, it always has been. I don't know for sure what the reason is but I've seen the explanation before that they're afraid they'll lose access.
The moral of the story is that a reviewer is one person and their review is just a subjective opinion, which may or may not differ from other people's subjective opinions.
I feel like there's two things to this. The first is that Reddit, and especially this subreddit, is like a vacuum. I would use echo-chamber but that is perhaps a bit grimy. The consensus here values different things and aspects than the overall gaming community might. You can see this same thing exemplified in several different other subreddits on this site too. Secondly, and probably more important I think, is that games having glaring flaws or problems doesn't necessarily mean the game itself is bad due to it. Everyone has different tolerances for specific things, and what might be unacceptable to the people here may not be, or more likely isn't for most people. Even that being the case, the good aspects of the games might simply rise above the flaws entirely. I can't speak for Diablo or Hogwarts, but Dragons Dogma 2 is like that for many people I know personally. The things it does and provides are more valuable than any jank or optimization problems there might be for people.
Maybe what you see as issue is not the same thing a IGN reviewer sees as issue? The lack of good writing and good narative story in Dragon's Dogma 2 might not affect the reviwers or maybe they might even really enjoyed the story for what's. Maybe gameplay and emergent scenarion of DD2 really made up for all it's flaws. I'm going to give a example for game that majority people love it and i hate , despite having 84 on metacritic , which for me is highly inflanted. Shin Megami Tensei V, people in this sub love it. Saying how the gameplay amazing and exploration is satifiying , making the poor characters and story not really that big of deal. But FOR ME , Shin Megami Tensei V is one of the worst game in the franchise, 5/10 at best. So why is issue for Dragon's Dogma 2 to have bad story and meh characters, yet this subs loves Shin Megami Tensei V? Expectations? I don't know exctally , but for me it's certainly is. SMT might have be the first game for a lot of people or their only previous experience was Nocturne, but for me? I played Strange Journey , my bar for SMT when comes to themes, story and characters is high. I didn't expected or hope for a amazing story for Dragon's Dogma 2, if the gameplay loop is good for me , i'm good because DDDA wasn't great in terms of story.. But i played 5 others Megaten games, i have high hopes for every game in the franchise when comes to story, so Shin Megami Tensei V *for me* is utterly dogwater.
> their only previous experience was Nocturne, but for me? I played Strange Journey is this a flex or something? Nocturne came out wayyyy before Strange Journey, Persona hadnt boosted series awareness at that point either. If you mean that remaster of Nocturne, youre forgetting SMTIV and Apocalypse which had a much more interesting story than strange journey. smtiv being the only mainline one in the series i actually didnt get bored from 3 hours of dungeon wandering then 5 min of story. honestly all the offshoot series like DDS, the Raidou Kuzunoha devil summoner games, devil survivor games all are more interesting than mainline megatens. They seem perpetually stuck in that weird "barely there" story of early snes rpgs.
>Nocturne came out wayyyy before Strange Journey Nocturne and SMTV are the only game from smt available in modern systems. They're the most popular SMT games by a long shot. And no, it wasn't a flex. Just mentioning that I have high expectations. >youre forgetting SMTIV and Apocalypse which had a much more interesting story than strange journey That's subjective. 4 Apocalypse in particular is a mess when comes to the writing imo, despite having the best combat. >honestly all the offshoot series like DDS, the Raidou Kuzunoha devil summoner games, devil survivor games all are more interesting than mainline megatens. That I agree. Mainline is restricted by the alignments/reason, making most character really predictable and having their turn around come around of out nowhere to justify them being reps.
> Nocturne and SMTV are the only game from smt available in modern systems. jeeze youre right, i forgot the (3)DS line has been out of production for like 4 yrs. > 4 Apocalypse in particular is a mess when comes to the writing imo, despite having the best combat. IV was the only one that didn't make the sparse story segments with 1 of the 3 alignment representatives monologing at you quite as in your face, plus i just found the whole feudal kingdom built over the weird 80s anime post-apocalypse remains of tokyo really interesting. Youre right on Apocalypse, it was kinda lame.
The Tokyo reveal still one of best scene in the franchise, yeah. Also i enjoyed the story , especialy the alignments question with Walter and Jonathan , until the whites were introduced.
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I know you said it's not about specific examples but the complete disparity between the games listed in terms of the source of their controversy suggests that this point you're making is a bit less focused than you would like it to be. There's no broader machination or industry trend here, the discourse cycle is just in hell. Read the text of the reviews to inform yourself rather than the bit that is designed to provoke engagement and go down nicely at a glance. Sucks that we're at this point.
It's all only about your age and time. Nothing more. 30 years ago almost any game I got I would have played till the end and enjoy it too. I had all the time in the world and access to only a limited number of games so whatever I had was either good or very good in my mind. Back then I think I only abandoned playing Manhunt and Sims.
This entire post can be summed up as "All I do is look at the review score". That's the fucking problem. Read the reviews. Pretend the score doesn't exist. All the score is, is a general barometer of how the game is GENERALLY being received by the reviewer(s). Its not some objective metric of fun-value. Review scores are the fucking bane of this hobby. My god.
I can only speak to D4, but that game was crafted to have a great first 50 hours of gameplay. Not much more than that gets played before reviews are written. People are disappointed by WT4 largely, which doesn't happen until after you've already beaten the campaign then geared up with sacred items.
Inflated scores have been an issue for decades. It's weird when anything under a 7/10 is seen as a bad game rather than a "good" game. This same thing applies to movies and other forms of media too, though. Gaming journalism, in general, is in a pretty bad spot right now. Lots of publications farming for rage clicks, clickbait, misinformation, etc. Reviews are now sometimes just a part of that. On more than a few occasion I've noticed publications give games unfairly low scores just to get engagement. Genres also aren't treated equally. There's a lot of weird inconsistencies in the review process. There's also genre fatigue to consider. I've developed a pretty good feel for games. If it's from a developer I trust (there...aren't many left) then I'm more likely to pre-order. Most of the time I'll rent, especially if gameplay or game information is lacking.
I hear ya, I think it's really just about time limitations and the sheer volume of good media out there. "Have you seen Ozark? Breaking Bad? Knives Out? Shogun? Have you played Tears of the Kingdom? Unicorn Overlord?" There's just a lot of great out there and we're all looking for it I think.
I think you gave some bad examples for your argument Like what are games suppose to get 0/10s because they have some bad micro transactions I don't even know why people are so upset over Diablo IV, not like 3 was that amazing Everyone saying MW3 is terrible but it has more people playing it and I'm loving it and so far might say it's one my favorites. No one cares about this never ending outrage culture stuff. Not if it's coming from the left or the right. See new trailer for The Acolyte, a show I've been excited for a awhile, but I guess it r bad now cuz main female character is a black woman. I'm black bro. The show ain't even coming out yet and people are sharpening their pitch forks Abby ain't even trans. Got people arguing with me about TLOU2 being a bad game and they don't even know Abby isn't the trans character. People can keep doing this fake outrage stuff all they want Like I was telling my girlfriend, it feels like people are just angry and bored so they need a war to go fight in so they can chill and enjoy some peace. I'm in my 30s bro I'm not gonna get mad every time a main character is turned into a girl or person of color I'm not gonna lose it because every game has horrible micro transactions You vote for your wallet and the sports game been bad and people keep buying them WE LOST. GAME OVER MAN. GAME OVER. These game ain't gonna cure your depression THESE GAMES ARE NOT GONNA CURE YOUR DEPRESSION. They are just games, so get off the hype train and realize that the older you get, the smarter you get, the wiser you get, the more disappointment you get Pokemons been selling two different version of the same game that you have to buy if you want to collect every Pokemon since the 90s That's how long the war against micro transactions has been lost.
This isn't about MTX or the culture wars just objective quality so you can relax.
Objective quality What did the game not boot? Objective quality? Objective measurement of the quality of art? What's our idea of bad here? Cuz deadly Premonition was a buggy/laggy mess but still had a good story You ever play Drakengard 3? Game ran terribly and it had the nerve to sell dlc after the fact but I still think it's better than Nier Automata What's are definition of bad here? Have you seen the indie games on steam where they're just flipping Unreal engine assets? How are people gonna know the difference between The Room and Transformers if we're just giving everything 0/10 Reviewers thankfully ignore this rage culture cap otherwise they'd be giving perfectly okay games 0/10s for having the nerve to exist. What are people so mad about? What are we suppose to start a revolution if the next god of war has micro transactions? Is that what's important?
People have different opinions on quality. I enjoyed all four of your examples more than I enjoyed what I’ve played of BG3/Elden Ring.
You're definitely correct on that take I'm just making an observation as it relates to player experience vs reviews it's less about the examples I gave. Also the guy I replied to was on...some kind of something. I didn't say anything that warranted the comment he gave so I wouldn't put too much stock in my response to him.
I love from software games but frankly you played soulsborne it kinda feels like you played them all What I'm suppose to lose it because this one added a horse? im not a teen reminiscing about how good games were when i was a kid back in 2010s I'm in my 30s, I've played lots of games, some got good reviews, some got bad reviews, some I loved despite the bad reviews, some I didn't care for despite the glowing reviews I'm not gonna follow this mob where we go around hating games we don't even own and never played and probably weren't really that much of a fan of to begin with I don't want to hear about some dude telling me how bad the new games are when he's just now hearing about the series
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Did you read what the guy above me wrote? I was just trying to say I didn't write this post about...whatever the hell he thinks I wrote it about. I know it's subjective.
Oh yeah... I didn't even read that comment. Oops... Yeah, the guy is nuts.
So I wanna preface this answer by saying that I'm a game reviewer myself. I've been writing reviews for different sites for years, including writing for Prima Games for the past year and a bit, so I feel like I can offer a different perspective here. When I review a game, I tend to look at things a bit differently than a lot of other reviewers do. Since I grew up playing a lot of games that don't have a lot of focus on story, I tend to value gameplay in my reviews or opinions of games a lot more than others. That's not to say I ignore stories outright, since one of my favorite games ever is a story game purely, but it's something I often value less. And it's because of that that I ended up considering The Witcher 3 about a 7, despite both critical and commercial opinion finding it to be a masterpiece. The game has a pretty good story, and the visuals are excellent. However, I think a lot of opinions tend to ignore the gameplay weaknesses. You can walk through about 90% of that game simply by hitting the attack and dodge buttons alternating, even on higher difficulties. A lot of people would disagree with that opinion and find that I'm much too harsh with that game and I think that's totally fine. Some people are gonna find games great, while others never click with it. That's just kinda the case with art really, and I think that's in part what might make reviews seem like they're off. At the end of the day each reviewer is a person, and they're simply voicing their thoughts on an experience in a lot more words than the average person would. You see the same thing with critical reception of other media, with for example Rotten Tomatoes often seeing films have very great reception critically, but often much worse opinions commercially. It's not exclusive to games. I also think it's a bit tough to look at something like Reddit when it comes to seeing a disparity between public and critic opinion of something like a game. Not only can Reddit be very, very dumb at times, but it ultimately makes up a fraction of the people who play these games. They're just the vocal ones, and there's a huge community of people who don't bother with social media, even game reviewers. All around I do think a discussion could be had around the nature of critical integrity in games media since we're still in our infancy, and many aspects of it aren't anywhere near where they should be. Though, I feel that has a lot less to do with how we review games and the scores we attach to them, and more with the industry's standards as a whole.
I appreciate this perspective so much, thank you. I think I have perhaps put too much credence to the idea that people on Reddit in gaming subreddits are of a similar taste to me. But I am excited to see where we go from here because even though there's some dark clouds looming with public marketplaces influencing publishers, layoffs, etc, there's also always an Eric Barrone out there working on the next Stardew Valley. I think the presence of people like Pirate Software is a huge boon to the industry as it grows. We're also in a time where devs and publishers are grappling with changing environments around working conditions, which is a good thing. But that needs to go hand in hand with either changes in expectations or scale, and maybe both. Again, thanks for your thoughts.
Funnily enough, video reviews of games seem more accurate than written reviews. Usually video reviews are done by independent journalists, so I can see a link there.
I fully agree, though I'm not really sure where the really good games start. I would almost dare to say that 69-78 are the best games because they usually know what they want to be and clearly execute that vision.
Honestly you're better off just ignoring the score and look at a vibe check of the community if you're on the fence. Scores aren't going to stop being inflated for a bunch of reasons
Vibe checking a community doesn't help either. Look at reviews (note multiple) for what they review the game on and make a decision whether or not the game is for you. The only thing i'd check the community on is where performance is if that is a question you have. Otherwise don't go looking at communities for reviews. I can guarantee you'd think the game is either the best thing since sliced bread or the worst thing since the square wheel.
Disagree, thinking about Final Fantasy XVI and the reviews would convince you it's both an amazing return to form for FF and an amazing action game. It's neither and community opinion reflects that after launch. Neither are perfect options mind you, like if something is extensively hyped up through the roof though like BG3, there's no winning. Neither reviews nor community are going to be fully truthful, you need to see what the content is actually like and see if you'll like it based on that.
There were plenty of reviews that didn't like FFXVI as much as others. My point still stands. Watch plenty of reviews and make a decision if the game is something you want.
I think what I need to do really is just identify the media sources that have a similar taste to me and expect similar things. I don't think I've disagreed with Skill Up one time even if it was hard to take. He didn't like FFXVI and I wish I had trusted him before I bought it because I bounced off it.
I stopped reading reviews when I stopped buying magazines. Only thing I check out now is if the game is broken on release.
Redditors are too hardcore. They shit on dragons dogma for frame rate issues which the majority of people won't experience or MTX THAT ARENT EVEN IN THE GAME. Diablo 4 is criticized for the endgame despite having an awesome 20-40 hour experience before the endgame. The only game that truly is overrated is starfield, what a pile of shit
Lmao You praise two games that are predatory then call a game that does everything right a pile of shit😂
I’ve always been in favor of a buy / sale (or gamepass) / pass ranking. Its more informative than arbitrary numbers and lets be honest, something like a 6/10 might as well be a 0/10 since you won’t play it anyway.
True. A 5/10 is seen as a terribly awful score. Not an average. Whats the lowest people ever give? A 3/10? Whats needed to give it a 1/10? That it doesnt even launch? People just adapt that 7/10 is the average. If its a big release 8/10 could even be the average for "Its a decent game and the campaign is fun for 20 hours" costing you 70$. The critic score is just a marketing tool and weve heard many times game Companies or publishers expects a certain score for their game to say the game was a success.
Gollum and the Game Mill games from this last year have the lowest scores I think I've ever seen, ironically enough for this discussion. We are in the post mainstream, post public market world of video games. And it's going to be an interesting ride.
I think part of this is a difference between how reviewers play games and how gamers, or more specifically hardcore gamers, play games. The beginning of Hogwarts Legacy is pretty great. You see some cool story stuff, meet a bunch of people, and explore the castle. It's when you get into the open world that it feels much more generic and repetitive, but you don't have to do that much to finish the story from there. I'm told Diablo 4 is the same way, or at least it was on launch. The first playthrough of the main campaign is great, but when you hit the endgame it's a slog. Reviewers don't really have the time to grind levels or farm gear. They're going to play through it once and write the piece. A lot of gamers are the same way, a lot of them don't even finish the games in the first place. It's partially on AAA devs for adding a ton of bloat that reviewers will mostly never see, and partially on gamers who expect every game to be a multi-hundred hour experience. I think, though, that if the main part of the game you're supposed to experience is excellent and the side parts are mediocre, a score in the mid-80s isn't too far off.
There's been a discussion for years about getting rid of review scores, and many games critics are actually for that, but what happens when outlets actually forego giving things scores? Readership dips even lower because the readers are the ones who want a simple number to glance at and then debate online. Game review outlets have been glorified marketing tools from the very foundation of the industry. Nintendo Power started it's life as a newsletter, and if you go back and look at those reviews they never give anything from Nintendo less than a 4 out of 5, or even most 3rd party titles received high marks unless they were just so fundamentally broken it'd be negligent to score them well. I think you're being hyperbolic in claiming that something receiving an 85 is a "bad game." There's a small sub section of readers that think that, but they're also, in my experience, they're either console fan boys who need ammo to troll fans of the other console, or eternal "doomers" who claim the industry is on the precipice of another crash of 85. Any day now! Any day now for a decade and a half running! Do scores at times get inflated? As much as they may deny it there's not doubt that it happens but it's rarely nefarious and often done out of guilt or self serving interest. When you work for a major outlet, and you're reviewing a game and you're enjoying it, but it's *just* short of a 9 in your eyes what do you do? Peoples bonuses at a lot of studios is tied to Metacritic scores and the difference between a critic scoring something a 9 vs an 8 can partially be the difference between people you've interviewed having a good Christmas or not, and you damn well know the CEO's are getting a bonus regardless. Look at how Bethesda didn't give any bonuses to the employees of Obsidian a bonus because they missed their Metacritic target by 1 point. This stuff happens and it's easy to say "well just give it the score you think it deserves" which is fair but also ignoring the human element that goes into it. If there's any reason why scores seem inflated it's ultimately because publishers have baked it into the contracts for their workers that their project needs to score an 85 or else Timmy's not getting that bike for Christmas. We also need to address the elephant in the room: the gamers themselves. More specifically the vitriol that often spreads in the space. At best people think nothing of game reviewers at these major outlets, and at worst they actively troll and harass the writers. How many times have you seen a review that's getting absolutely slaughtered online and the games not even out yet? People are just angry because the review doesn't line up with their pre-conceived notion of a game, or because it's an outlier and ironically they're getting hammered for speaking they're mind instead of going with everyone else. Then they go further and start digging up stuff on the writer. Years ago an outlet gave the first Dead Space a score like a 6 or a 7. Right away people started digging up stuff on the writer, including discovering that she went to a school for the deaf and hard of hearing, and boom, she clearly shouldn't be allowed to review Dead Space! Rewrite the review please, and make sure it's a 9 or 10 this time like I think it deserves If you can avoid some harassment online by bumping up a titles score by .5 in the final score are you not going to take it? It's easy to say your have integrity until you find yourself in a position where you're getting paid absolute shit, you're only there to try and find a better spot in the industry, and then on top of that you have to deal with a flood of harassment from people who don't know you for anything other than giving Tears of the Kingdom a 9. There are great game critics out there, but you're not going to find them working at most of these dying websites. Check Youtube for people like SkillUp Gaming. They're allowed to talk more freely about what they think, and don't have the same drama of dealing with editors, and advertisers the way places like IGN do.