510°

As their acclaimed JRPG gets review-bombed, indie publisher calls on Metacritic to do more

Chained Echoes is getting slammed, and its devs have no idea why - Calling on Metacritic to do more.

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gamesradar.com
BrainSyphoned741d ago

Who doesn't have anything bad to write in these blank reviews and would benefit from sympathy sales?

blackblades741d ago

I still say they should just get rid of the user score. They are untrustworthy of both good and bad review and honestly user reviews arent even a review. Of course tie it with the psn/xb account would be better.

lodossrage741d ago

The problem is there's no exact science on the matter.

Remember, user scores came to be because people didn't trust mainstream scores. With people admitting to getting gifts, swag, access, etc for favorable reviews. And on the flip side, any group of fanboys can user score bomb a game for the pettiest of reasons, or even no reason at all.

That's why when I buy my games, the only review I count on is my own. If I think the game is good, I'll keep playing it. If I feel it's crap, I won't finish it. Trust nobody but yourself, only YOU know what you like and dislike

shinoff2183741d ago

Perfectly said. I count on myself when it comes to buying games, I usually don't let myself down.

blackblades741d ago

Right, the only thing count is your own opinion. Demos, your own research and judgement. Its just how this site is portraying things. If you had a business you don't want some bs crap going on with reviews on either side.

gold_drake740d ago (Edited 740d ago )

people are still gettin swag etc for a certain given scores,in alot of cases. they're just bound by contract.

i was given a nintendo first party game to review and was reminded to give it a "atleast above avarage score", to ensure that they give us stuff for contests or giveaways and to ensure future review copies. so yeh.

but i absolutely agree, i go out of my way to look at games myself and dont consider reviews

DarXyde740d ago

We do live in an age of technology where we can very often see things for ourselves. PlayStation has a great thing going with Share Play, which I think is an excellent way to test drive a full game. Also, we do have video reviews which is a far more objective assessment of things like visuals, frame rate, etc than reading about it. That's something I can say about the reviews of Demon's Souls back on PS3: I recall some written review mentioning the terrible frame rate, yet other reviews were making the game sound awesome. That one review seemed like a truth teller of sorts and it sounded like a deal breaker to me. Fortunately, one of the earlier clips showed the Valley of Defilement and I just remember thinking "that's aggressive... But I think I can manage". Sure enough, I've beaten that game so much that I've played with every starting class at least 3 times and level capped one save file.

My point is reviews—professional or otherwise— can be problematic, though we have means of verifying the claims made and see if it's within our personal tolerances. For example, reviews mentioning Redfall and its bugs can be verified with a quick trip to YouTube. I'll say this though: this strategy would be dangerous for a game that's very narrative like The Last of Us Part II because you can't really get at reviewer grievances about the story without spoilers.

senorfartcushion740d ago

Football commentary is my go-to comparison to “reviewing”, not for criticism. Criticism is pointing out a writer’s mistakes and/ or breaking down the logic of the art.

I.e Gear score doesn’t matter if the endgame doesn’t allow enemies to follow your level as you gain XP. Having a golden shotgun with 200 combat points means nothing when you’re in the area with level 1-10 enemies.

Criticism and reviewing are very different things reviewing is something anyone can do, like football commentary, there’s nothing stopping your drunk uncle at Thanksgiving from shouting player names and commenting on their “form.”

MWH740d ago

Sometimes friends make good recommendations. some of the best games i played were recommended by my friends which at first i didn't like, and mocked even, only to kiss the forhead of the one who recommended it later. Some reviewers too are still trustworthy, like the guys at Digital Foundry, and there was a very good guy at Gamespot but he left a long time ago.

+ Show (3) more repliesLast reply 740d ago
Lore740d ago

Are you joking? User scores are always more accurate than the critic score except when it’s being review bombed.

blackblades740d ago (Edited 740d ago )

Na, user score can blindly lift the score with perfect scores so not always. Some use just a couple words like "The game is good"/ the game horrible" to a couple/few sentences. They arent even that detailed, like a short opinion and not a review. At least main stream actual review has info that the player can use to make the judegment to get the game. I wouldnt trust metecritic but steam on the other hand I look at there user experience time to time then metecritic

franwex740d ago

Absolutely not in my experience.

FinalFantasyFanatic740d ago

I take both into account, sometimes you get blind fanboys of crappy games, but you get pro reviewers who want to push a narrative or they've been paid to give a good review (sometimes the truth lies somewhere in the middle). Unfortunately, it's not always obvious where the truth lies unless you can play the game, either via a friend or via a demo.

CrimsonWing69740d ago (Edited 740d ago )

Like hell they are. People review bomb games due to console wars and other petty sh*t. Just as fanboys can give perfect scores.

Kyizen740d ago

Always and Except shouldn't be used in the same sentence 😕

Linefix740d ago

Always? Sure about that? The user scores are full of blind fanboys and trolls. Can't trust them, sorry.

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 740d ago
REDDURT740d ago

How dare people have an opinion that is not sanctioned by the media.

blackblades740d ago (Edited 740d ago )

Shut up foo, you missed what i said

staticall740d ago

@blackblades
You can use Opencritic, it doesn't have user scores or reviews. And that's the reason why i'm not using it.

In this particular case, at least, according to original twitter thread, this have happened because of lack of spanish language and the dev have noticed it now. And this whole "bombing" did happen 6 months after the release. Someone, IMO, overreacted. And they used this attention to advertise something else.

Of course, i agree, some reviews are not even reviews (like the "there are too many positive/negative reviews, so i'm trying to even things out" kind, hate them; or "game sucks/amazing" without explanation crowd) and can be disregarded. Some just troll and want to see the world burn. But there are good reviews too - people are explaining what they love/hate, explaining the controversy and stuff. Those are very helpful.

What should happen, imo, is people should just stop giving too much credability to Metacritic and Opencritic (and alike) and use their score as some sort of metric of success (like Bethesda did with Fallout: New Vegas to screw over Obsidian).
First, they give Metacritic ammo and then act surprised when other people start using it to their advantage. And 'cause big publishers are trying to censor it, i think, it's a good tactic (because i don't see any other way to affect them, not buying doesn't work anymore, market is too big).

I don't trust most of the review sites, because big publishers are in good relations with review sites and invite them to exclusive pre-launch events, give them interviews, free games, good gifts, etc ('member duffel bag situation for Fallout 76? You know, when paying customers got a shitty bag but journos got a good ones for free?). That clouds their judgement, they're afraid to lose free things, so they don't critique much in their reviews.
Regular users are mostly safe from this.

P. S.: You can easily create new Xbox/PSN accounts. I have like 5 PSN accounts (thanks to DLC being tied to region). That wouldn't help anything, in my opinion. Trolls can easily create burner accounts en-masse and use them.

ChasterMies740d ago

I agree with this and I often leave user reviews on Metacritic. Maybe have some users vetted before they can post review. Maybe have a waiting period so we don’t see so many reactionary 10/10 and 0/10 that people post to adjust the user score.

babadivad740d ago

Nothing is more untrustworthy than professional reviewers.

Christopher740d ago

I wish Xbox and PSN allowed reviews by people who own and have played games for a specific amount of time or got at least the first achievement/trophy and those were made public. Then metacritic and others could just import those scores by game. Would be more accurate. Want to troll? Pay to play.

blackblades740d ago

I would say 50% mark also ps5 shows the hours you played so the amount of hours could work. The site owner doesnt care apparently after all these years.

victorMaje740d ago

This is the way. Achievement/Trophy based reviews.

@blackblades
50% mark makes sense too but should be secondary, don’t forget one could just leave the game running which would increase hours played.

Mr_cheese740d ago

Perhaps the answer would be to link an account such as steam, psn, live so that it can verify that you've played the game before reviewing it

gunnerforlife740d ago

And critic reviews aren't trust worthy either, they've either been given loads of goodies by the devs or company or have an agenda of their own! Just look at the divide between critic and the average Joe reviews!! Worlds apart!! Especially in the movie industry the agendas are insane by the so called professional critics!! And it's slowly sipping into the gaming industry! Thankfully the hardcore fan base still had a strong hold in the gaming scene and we won't let sh1t like that slide.

blackblades740d ago

I never said they were trustworthy I believe. That's the problem with people on here. Movie critics are the worse they mostly give a lot of things a bad rating when I think its good. At times I do agree with them cause somtimes some things are bad.

+ Show (6) more repliesLast reply 740d ago
Tapani741d ago

That is simply horrible! The game is one of the best games, if not the best game of last year. Play this! Forget the bugged and rigged system of review bombing, just buy it and support Matthias and his team. These guys are superb!! We need to fight this stuff as a community, because small indie devs are the ones who least deserve this type of mistreatment.

thorstein740d ago

This is the best comment on this whole story. This game is worth every penny. Such a great story, mechanics, etc.

Oh, and one of those rare launches that wasn't a bug ridden mess.

just_looken740d ago

just watching gameplay for shovel knight players that like that style of art and throwback this is a goty for sure.

Just like a atomic heart i am enjoying playing it but everyone is harassing me calling me a russia supporter even got death threats probably will now on here because i admitted to playing that game.

jznrpg741d ago (Edited 741d ago )

User reviews are screwed for obvious reason and so are “professional” reviews because of money that companies throw around in many ways.

I just buy games that I think I will enjoy. Some devs you know make good games. Some long lasting series I know I will enjoy. Mostly I know what a game I want to play looks like. On rare occasion I get it wrong but I just sell it on eBay but that’s rare these days.

By most accounts this is a good game. I haven’t played it yet waiting for my physical copy.

GhostScholar740d ago

Put it this way, I love jrpgs, but usually I play for 10 hours and move on. I had 80 hours in chained echoes and 100 percented it. The story is great and the game is beautiful. If you have game pass play it right now! If not buy it!

kindi_boy740d ago

aah if you only didn't say gamepass people would have upvoted you instead of downvoting you.

GhostScholar740d ago

You’re correct lol but I’d definitely pay for chained echoes if it wasn’t on game pass. It’s worth the money. I hope for a sequel.

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80°

Epic Games Asks Judge to Force Apple to Unblock Fortnite on iOS

The saga of the legal battle that sees Epic Games fight Apple in the attempt to bring Fortnite back to iOS has just gained another chapter.

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simulationdaily.com
PapaBop5h ago

Damn, I'm going to need to restock my popcorn if this keeps up.

110°

5 Games Leaving Xbox Game Pass at the End of May 2025

The games leaving Game Pass at the end of May 2025 have been revealed, and there's a handul of titles this time around.

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gamersocialclub.ca
170°

Alex Hutchinson on Why Google Stadia Failed and What Cloud Gaming Needs to Succeed

Alex Hutchinson talks about Google Stadia, how Xbox compares, and what cloud gaming needs to move forward.

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clouddosage.com
Goodguy013d ago

Cloud gaming still has too many flaws. Fast stable internet, extra costs/subscription services, not ideal for mobile data and why play over cloud via wifi when you have a console/pc that has no input delay and other issues, why buy a game on a cloud service (will always need online even if it's a single player game) when you can actually own it on console/pc...at the same price. Cloud gaming should only ever stay as an option to gaming and playing your games that you already own. Never as the only option.

Tacoboto2d ago

I disagree, in the sense that the flaws are and have been these same known quantities for some time. You know you need fast and stable internet for the best experience. You know it isn't just free beyond Remote Play. Ownership - you know what ecosystem you're in.

Cloud Gaming is awesome when it's there as the most viable option at the time and works. For me, it was like this morning on my laptop playing Pentiment waiting for my car service to finish. For others it's to quick demo a new game before thinking of hard drive space. Maybe Mac users with gigabit internet want to play GeForce Now and buy a game off Steam only to play it that way.

rayford151d 14h ago

Buddy said whole lot of nothing

isarai2d ago

As long as latency exists, cloud gaming will never thrive no matter how much they advertise that there's low latency or no latency that always ends up being a load of crap

Terry_B2d ago

I will never support cloud gaming.

darthv722d ago (Edited 2d ago )

I quite enjoy cloud streaming now. I find it the quickest way to testing if a game is worth committing download time or even $ to buy it. And using dedicated devices like the portal and gcloud makes it all the better.

But like Goodguy says... it's an option, and not the only one. If people understand that, they may start to appreciate this convenience.

lex-10202d ago

I think Xbox is doing Cloud Streaming right, even if I think its only because they're doing hardware wrong.

By enabling xCloud on The Xbox One and Series S they enable players to buy the cheaper console but play games in better resolutions through xCould.

Take the recent Oblivion release for instance. If you play it locally on a Series S it's rendered at 630P and upscaled using FSR to 1260P with a 30FPS cap.

But if you play it on xCloud on the Series S, it's at 1080P native 60 FPS.

So you can get better performance using xCloud then playing local (on the Series S and Xbox One).

CrimsonWing692d ago

It shouldn’t have required a subscription service. Like do the Steam model and just take the % on software sales or have a sub tier where you pay monthly or annually and get perks.

I’m not opposed to the idea of being able to stream games in the highest quality, but Stadia was so poorly handled it turned into a massive sh*t show.

lex-10202d ago

"It shouldn’t have required a subscription service."

It didn't

"Like do the Steam model and just take the % on software sales or have a sub tier where you pay monthly or annually and get perks."

That's literally what it was. Stadia pro gave 2 free games a month (similar to PS+), 4K visuals, and 5.1 Surround Sound. But if you didn't want to pay you could simply buy the games and play them in 1080P. The core service was free.

But google massively screwed up the marketing which led to people thinking it needed a sub to use.

Eonjay1d 18h ago

Google Stadia failed largely in part because of the massive campaign Microsoft launch against it. It didn't have the massive support of PlayStation, Nintendo, or even Apple to withstand the negativity campaign Microsoft launch against it.

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