The day IGN gave The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition an 8.5/10 and both Twisted Metal and Starhawk 9's out of 10 I lost all respect for them.
The Witcher 2 holds an 88 metascore by the way, TW and SH are both in the 70's zone. I mean seriously, in what world is Twisted Metal better than The Witcher??
This news does not suprise me in the least. Shame on you IGN and all the rest of the sites that take bribes from SONY, Microsoft, Nintendo, Activision, EA and all the other powerful publishers.
a sad world my friend. few games are better than the witcher 2, game is a 9.5 in my book. graphics are top notch, gameplay is amazing, story is outstanding, i think the only thing that game could be knocked for is the story can be hard to follow if you dont read the journals and are unfamiliar with the first. but do those things and you will be fine. game is sex.
tied in first as the best game this gen with dark souls. of course these are just my opinions
also the way around this is too actually read the review. if the games features and type of gameplay/genre appeal to you, chances are you should pick it up. if not disregard the fact that its a ten and move on. example, fifa gets 9's across the board but im not a soccer guy so i would never get it. same with gran turismo or forza ( i like racing but not racing sims, id pick up burnout, nfs, or mariokart though )
Aren't review sites just opinions...So IGN enjoyed Twisted Metal as much as the Witcher 2. I'm not defending them but who gives a fuck. Opinion isn't going to hurt you unless you let it.
The funny thing is something that allot of fanboys are gonna be shocked to hear, Sony is also noted to have done this they threatened Gamespot after they gave RAC FTOD a 7.5. If I was to go on Imdb or Rottentomatoes or even metacritic and see a movie rated a 7.5 I would think it's a damn great movie but, for gaming standards apparently a 7.5 is mediocre. I remember reading, I cant remember whether it was EA or Capcom, but one of them tried to prevent reviews of a game that scored less than an 8 from being released... wtf
My thought EXACTLY. If I'm considering seeing a movie and it currently holds a 75% or Rotten Tomatoes, you bet your ass I'll gladly go see it. But like you said, a 7.5 for a game is a death sentence. The review system for games is incredibly broken.
Side note, I loved FTOD. I thought it was one of the best Ratchet and Clank games in the series.
Not really the Transformer series are huge money makers, that doesn't stop high profile critics from giving the films horrible reviews, and im talking 3's 4's 2's out of 10.
It was always there , people just wanna pretend it wasnt and wear nostalgia tinted glasses . Favoritism toward the most hype titles , glaring omissions , factual errors , and not even the excuse back then that games would be patched and fixed .
It wasnt even well hidden , i clearly remember reviewers giving raving critics to juggernaut , only to sneakily admit a month or two later in a review for a different title from the same genre , that they basically didnt enjoyed the game that much .
I would dare say it was even more rampant , since back then people cared much more about gaming reviews' opinions , and didnt always have videos and trailers .
It's not a surprise many people care more about an aggregated style kind of global score like metacritics (wich i still find to be rubbish) , they dont trust any particular site or magazine
say whatever you feel Baka, i'm not about to argue with you.. but one fact remains, things were better yesterday than today.. with and without the "tinted glasses".
Except it's not a fact :p . My old pile of dirty game magazines suggest otherwise . If anything changed is the among of review and reviewers , and at last and not least the possibility of getting an opinion on our own with videos , especially for games that usually never had coverages or more than a screenshot and tiny paragraph .
Yeah but in other cases, if some site gave a game slighty lower score, many "gamers" call them biased and "hits whores", its really goes both ways. Its seems like no one wants honest reviews...
People need to educate themselves first and trust reviews from big establishments like IGN, Gamespot or Gametrailer. There are tons of promotional stuff like demos, trailers, video playthroughs, followed by demos and lately, "hour one" previews where people play the game for the first hour or so.
To all the people claiming this isn't the way the industry should work, I'd say: wake up. Media outlets (especially online) need to generate revenue in order to pay their bills. Money comes from advertisers who are, surprise, surprise, game companies. I am not saying they should be biased like Gamespot with Kane and lynch, though they should at least try to mimic the reality of the product (in the case of Resident Evil 6, the game clearly sucked yet they were still calling it awesome).
There should always be a balance. A good reviewer can do both justice by mentioning the flaws and cons about the game and let the public decide. In order to keep his/hers objectivity and credibility, said reviewer must be fairly honest. Opinions are opinions after all, though going against the current when it is all too obvious, is the very definition of one self's own credible crucifiction.
This is very old news to N4G users, I think most of us have known for a while that publishers are influencing review scores and preview coverage.
Some games are so hyped that anything below 8.5 is virtually impossible.
The one game that got away with review score murder (and failed consumers) was Gears 2. I love the Gears series but Gears 2 MP was completely buggy and broken for over a year, I couldn't even get into games half of the time and when I did, it was still a mess.
So that means Resident Evil 6 isn't as bad as you may think. Capcom just decided not to pay off these journalists.
The most popular games out there get 10s and 100s when in reality they are just 7s and 70s.
Luckily I myself never rely on reviews for my purchase decisions. I rely on videos and features/gameplay and if I'm lucky I'll be able to try out a demo.
If a publisher doesn't release a game demo, it is that much more likely they are paying off for good reviews. Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, Battlefield...all these don't have game demos at launch and they score pretty high. They want you to fall for the hype instead of judging it for yourself.
The community does not police themselves and there's no regulation. It's the reason why there is no such thing as gaming "Journalism". You see, when real Journalist do something wrong, they're usually fired (unless you work for Fox News). When you print something that's not accurate, you pay. Not in games "journalism"...
These "journalists" can say whatever they want or do whatever they want and the only time they're held accountable is when they do things like giving Kane and Lynch the s***y score it deserves.
Of course these people are paid off. When you're sponsored by the very companies who's products you grade...yeah...of course there's dishonesty. Kinda reminds of extortion rackets except publishers willingly play ball...
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The Witcher 2 holds an 88 metascore by the way, TW and SH are both in the 70's zone. I mean seriously, in what world is Twisted Metal better than The Witcher??
This news does not suprise me in the least. Shame on you IGN and all the rest of the sites that take bribes from SONY, Microsoft, Nintendo, Activision, EA and all the other powerful publishers.
tied in first as the best game this gen with dark souls. of course these are just my opinions
also the way around this is too actually read the review. if the games features and type of gameplay/genre appeal to you, chances are you should pick it up. if not disregard the fact that its a ten and move on. example, fifa gets 9's across the board but im not a soccer guy so i would never get it. same with gran turismo or forza ( i like racing but not racing sims, id pick up burnout, nfs, or mariokart though )
If I was to go on Imdb or Rottentomatoes or even metacritic and see a movie rated a 7.5 I would think it's a damn great movie but, for gaming standards apparently a 7.5 is mediocre. I remember reading, I cant remember whether it was EA or Capcom, but one of them tried to prevent reviews of a game that scored less than an 8 from being released... wtf
Side note, I loved FTOD. I thought it was one of the best Ratchet and Clank games in the series.
Halo ODST, Gamespot/IGN gave it a ()'s for an Expansion, helping it get to an 83 overall.
So what are all you complaining gamers gonna do? Nothing?
You should Boycott reviews, that's why I have an Adam Sessler Avatar, because he was the only VG journalist I ever trusted.
You realise that, right?
This was right at the time when MS was pushing so hard for people to believe Kinect was for core gamers.
I actually haven't gone back to Joystiq after that, it was just so obvious that they were on the take.
It wasnt even well hidden , i clearly remember reviewers giving raving critics to juggernaut , only to sneakily admit a month or two later in a review for a different title from the same genre , that they basically didnt enjoyed the game that much .
I would dare say it was even more rampant , since back then people cared much more about gaming reviews' opinions , and didnt always have videos and trailers .
It's not a surprise many people care more about an aggregated style kind of global score like metacritics (wich i still find to be rubbish) , they dont trust any particular site or magazine
Mmmmm..... steak
To all the people claiming this isn't the way the industry should work, I'd say: wake up. Media outlets (especially online) need to generate revenue in order to pay their bills. Money comes from advertisers who are, surprise, surprise, game companies. I am not saying they should be biased like Gamespot with Kane and lynch, though they should at least try to mimic the reality of the product (in the case of Resident Evil 6, the game clearly sucked yet they were still calling it awesome).
There should always be a balance. A good reviewer can do both justice by mentioning the flaws and cons about the game and let the public decide. In order to keep his/hers objectivity and credibility, said reviewer must be fairly honest. Opinions are opinions after all, though going against the current when it is all too obvious, is the very definition of one self's own credible crucifiction.
Some games are so hyped that anything below 8.5 is virtually impossible.
The one game that got away with review score murder (and failed consumers) was Gears 2. I love the Gears series but Gears 2 MP was completely buggy and broken for over a year, I couldn't even get into games half of the time and when I did, it was still a mess.
Not one reviewer mentioned the MP problems.
The most popular games out there get 10s and 100s when in reality they are just 7s and 70s.
Luckily I myself never rely on reviews for my purchase decisions. I rely on videos and features/gameplay and if I'm lucky I'll be able to try out a demo.
If a publisher doesn't release a game demo, it is that much more likely they are paying off for good reviews. Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, Battlefield...all these don't have game demos at launch and they score pretty high. They want you to fall for the hype instead of judging it for yourself.
These "journalists" can say whatever they want or do whatever they want and the only time they're held accountable is when they do things like giving Kane and Lynch the s***y score it deserves.
Of course these people are paid off. When you're sponsored by the very companies who's products you grade...yeah...of course there's dishonesty. Kinda reminds of extortion rackets except publishers willingly play ball...
* Also explains why they consider 8/10 " GREAT"
Pathetic really.
The only way to be sure is to read as many reviews as possible.
* IGN
* Gamespot
* RPG Gamer
* Gamefaqs
* N4G
* Any other site that specialized in reviews
I like to read at least 10-15 reviews before I purchase a game.
Unless it's something like : black ops 2, halo 4, AC3....games I know I'm going to purchase regardless.
Customer reviews matter more to me than "professional" reviews.
They may bitch more than needed, but at least they aren't getting paid to say how they feel.