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Denver, 11:30 PM
Sun Nov 8
19 posts in the last 24 hours
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07:46 PM
It's becoming more and more obvious how professional reviews are purchased and therefore useless.
"Metascores" are becoming obsolete.
Seriously, I purchased Tekken 6 (a game that has received a 80 Metascore) and was horrified by how unpolished and utterly terrible it was (especially since I just picked up Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection off of the PSN and found it a far better game for 1/3 the price).
I miss the days of PC Accelerator Magazine (now extinct because they weren't in anyone's pockets). I miss the "Golden Crackpipe Award" given to developers that made a game so shitty that they must've been smoking crack during the development.
When was the last time we saw a big-publisher-backed/highly marketed game receive a Metascore below 60? I mean Hellgate: London (a game that financially imperiled Namco/Bandai enough to make them pull out of American development) received a bloody 70 Metascore! If that doesn't illustrate how screwed the system is, nothing does.
07:30 PM
Would Ubisoft do this, just for the sake of a better Metacritic rating? Eh, it's not entirely unlikely. The first one was well received by most people, but there was a large minority (myself included) that felt the game was weighed down by a lot of issues.
Even if Assassin's Creed 2 is great, I have no plans to buy it, based solely on how disappointed I was with the first one. I imagine Final Fantasy IX and Metal Gear Solid 3 would have received more sales in much the same way if people weren't disappointed by Final Fantasy VIII and Metal Gear Solid 2. #assassinscreedii
07:36 PM
Of course, high Metacritic scores are the symptom and not the cause- games are good not because Metacritic says so, but because they were made that way. #assassinscreedii
07:47 PM
Anyway, I won't buy a game if it gets a bad score, but I'm comfortable with buying something in my favorite genres if it rates higher than a 75. Otherwise I can wait till it hits the discount rack. $60 is a tad high for mediocrity.
07:51 PM
07:27 PM
07:16 PM
07:12 PM
07:03 PM
I just go to GameTrailers and look at the admittedly great footage. I don't listen to what the review has to say, since half the time they sound like they were paid off (in the case of AAA titles), and a fourth of the time their opinion is just flat out wrong. I only tend to agree with them for a fraction of their reviews, but I keep coming back and watching them because their footage really informs me of whether the game looks good or not.
Slightly off topic, I also buy my games on the cheap now, so if a game turns out to be a stinker at least it won't feel like I wasted a massive amount of cash for it. There's nothing worse than buying an overhyped game praised by practically all reviewers, paying full price for it, taking it home and finding out it's actually mediocre. #assassinscreedii
07:12 PM
07:17 PM
06:39 PM
Where's the proof? #assassinscreedii
06:46 PM
06:46 PM
@DigitalHero: They pulled it on EGM when AC1 came out.
06:48 PM
Where there's smoke there's a fire, I gotta think somebody has to be stupid to make up a story like this and ruin their relationship with a developer/publisher.
If this gets proven, I sure hope heads roll. #assassinscreedii
07:04 PM
Somebody didn't read the article.
In the web-preview of their current issue, the german publication writes:
This entire article is based off of the cover and a paragraph from their website. I'm willing to bet the real issue goes into a little more depth. #assassinscreedii
07:43 PM
07:56 PM
If they didn't get a review copy then no one else would have, this : "We will not give up our independent scores for the sake of a timely review [...] thus we will publish our review in next month's issue" not only seems needless but it's almost like they are overcompensating for the fact.
I dunno. I'll wait until I see some proof first before I get riled up again over another pointless brohaha.
09:12 PM
Seems like an no-win situation for them doesn't it? Of course I'm reasonably certain at least a few comments on this board were made by people on Ubisoft's payroll... #assassinscreedii
09:16 PM
06:32 PM
07:02 PM
I have several poorly reviewed games in my collection that I happened to have enjoyed quite a bit. #assassinscreedii
06:31 PM
06:30 PM
tisk tisk #assassinscreedii
06:26 PM
06:26 PM
This isn't even counting the amount of people who get caught up in the hype, give out great reviews, and then down the track go "Yeah, it's not so great." I'm actually guilty of that myself, and I'm embarrassed to have pieces floating around out there that have been written under the influence of hype.
Having seen how it all works behind the scenes is exactly the reason why I don't trust reviews now. Instead, I just go by YouTube videos and word of mouth. #assassinscreedii
06:59 PM
06:25 PM
Look, it's easy to paint the big guys as bad guys but that sometimes just ain't the case. I've never even heard of the magazine or this blog before just now. And I'm frankly a little pissed I gave them the hits from checking the links.
Back up your stories god dammit. I hate hearsay. All it ever seems to do is generate excitement for no name sites and bash what's probably a not bad game. Maybe it's not a 'sehr gut' or whatever, but unless you can prove it you're just supermarket tabloid bullshit. Far from being the last bastions of journalistic integrity that you're posturing as.
I'll gladly take that back if I have to. #assassinscreedii
07:00 PM
You're accusing them of not backing up the claim because of a thumbnail and a paragraph on Kotaku, based on an online preview of an issue that hasn't been released yet?
I've never even heard of the magazine or this blog before just now.
Are you German? Do you read German magazines? No? That may be why.
Not every foreign publication is going to have Famitsu-style instant recognition.
07:24 PM
Calm the hell down. #assassinscreedii
08:42 PM
Fair enough on the German magazines.
And to be clear, I wasn't really mad at Kotaku here. I was more so mad at this 'wearetheinternetz' blog. And to be fair, I can't even direct it at them. It's this magazine that should be able to back itself up when the time comes.
As it is right now, it's sensationalism and I don't see the basis for it yet. And right now, a lot of posts are gonna be going around about how shit Ubisoft is for doing this.
I get riled up at stories like this. I don't know anyone over at Ubisoft Montreal personally, but I bet they're working their asses off trying to make this thing good. When a story like this starts spreading, there better be good reason for it. I'm all for calling out the industry, but it's gotta be backed upped and much harder to refute. #assassinscreedii
09:03 PM
But this is quite a public allegation, and sure, the editorial direction of other sites is not justification enough for what I do here, but many people are following this. And I do think there's precedent enough for this kind of behavior — maybe not with Ubi — to make the accusation plausible.
I did specify this is a he-said/Ubi-said thing, though. We just haven't heard from Ubi. I think they deserve the benefit of the doubt, because I can't fathom this game can't pull 8.5 to 9.5 on its own. #assassinscreedii
06:25 PM
For the time being, you'll get little, late, or no coverage of the following products: anything Mortal Kombat (they didn't like our reviews), anything from Sony's sports department (ditto), and now, anything from Ubisoft (it seems our coverage of Assassin's Creed was the last straw).
They've pulled this kind of stunt before. Is it really that hard to believe they'd do it again?
06:43 PM
06:20 PM
When the game is released with a 79% rating (even if it sells decently out of the gate and several websites award it a 9.0 out of 10) you have a reason to lay off a bunch of programmers and artists who "weren't doing their job".
Sometimes a low percentage feels right and the game is shit. Personally, I love meta-criticism but not because it gives me a number to put in the bank, but because it gives me one place to read a variety of takes.
But it is not a foolproof scientific indicator of quality. The way publishers are arbitrarily setting meta-critical score benchmarks to judge a developer's success or failure strikes me as lazy and possibly irresponsible.
This, again, is why I love review systems without scores. I'm always amused when gamers come to the end of a particularly eloquent game critique/review and write, "yeah, but what's the score?" As if the critique is impossible to judge without a corresponding letter or number.
We clamor so hard to quantify what we have already qualified. #assassinscreedii
06:50 PM