Overrated: The Truth About Videogame Reviews and The Power That They Wield

Videogame reviews have now become so influential that a good or bad score for a piece of software is enough to essentially make or break a game. However, under the surface, a review isn’t necessarily what it seems. Martin Watts, Editor-in-Chief of Bits 'n' Bytes Gaming, explores the videogame review system by highlighting the dark side of the practice, and argues why reform is desperately needed.

[ALFAxD_CENTAURO]

Nice article.

[Agent-86]

Ya, I liked it as well, except I do think that 70 is average. I believe the game review scale is like the grading scale you get in school: 90's are an A, 80's-B, 70's-C, 60's-D, 50's and below = F. They can also get further refined by adding a + or - to the grade/review (example: 97 and better can be equated to an A+). We are conditioned throughout our schooling that a C or 70's is average and is only natural that we would keep that mindset when reviewing games, movies, or whatever is getting "graded".

[ATiElite]

what school do/did you go to? Here it was changed to get kids to perform better.

A = 93-100
B = 86-92
C = 77-85
D = 68-76
F = 0-67

I think video game reviewers should use this format instead of giving a score on how much the publishers PAYS them or the amount of FREE GIFTS that magically appear to the office.

[Agent-86]

@ATiElite, I graduated in 1979 before "grade inflation" (ya, I know, I'm an old fart). Wow, an 85 would only get you a C....ouch. The standard grading scale in my day was: 91-93 would be A-, 94-97 an A, and 98-100 would be A+ (and the same on down the line: 81-83 = B-, 84-87 = B, 88-90 = B+, etc.). That's why I equate a 70 score as average.

[BnBMartin]

Thanks! :)

[GUYwhoPLAYSvideoGAME]

i was thinking of writing my first blog on this. I think one of the worst cases of poor and biased reviews were on killzone 3. that's not the worst but it wasn't as good as it could have been. they rated the game based on flaws that they seemed to dismiss on reviews for other games like call of duty. I was mad

[Soldierone]

A prime example of your example is IGN when they reviewed Medal of Honor and Call of Duty Black Ops. They nagged MOH for a "short" campaign, standard FPS gameplay, and not really adding a whole lot to the core FPS crowd (even though it had creative online modes). Then Black Ops comes out and its "has a short single player but thats fine we buy it for online" and even that somehow added new aspects to the franchise and genre....yeah right.

To be honest just go to IGN if you want prime example of stereotypical review examples...

[rob6021]

Black Ops had a luxurious review event, that's the reason for most of the CoD inconsistencies. These guys were indirectly bought out - although they'll never admit it.

http://arstechnica.com/gami...

Other games are getting fair scores, it's just that certain games we compare them too are getting unfair reviews.

[imoutofthecontest]

My favorite IGN review is for Final Fantasy Tatics A2 on DS.
It's a features list, not a single opinion stated, followed by a 9 at the end. Hilarious.

And yet people keep taking IGN seriously.

[disturbing_flame]

Totally.
i defend a lot this criticism toward webzines on N4G.
And i agree.

The problem is that webzines are copying each others, and the model is the bigger ones. So if big zines are crap automatically the followers are inspired by them.
If you add to this all the "console war" atmosphere, to make hits, you have an idea of the amount of shit those webzines deliver each and everyday.

By extension, the other problem is the public. The public seems to love this reward system and this console war, so they are fed with this nice amount of shit everyday.

Stupid journalists for a stupid crowd or audience.
This is Idiocracy.

far from that i'm not talking about the journalists that arrange their reviews for an editor or a corporation, or the ones that don't finish their games to review them. I mean everybody knows that there are some really incoherent review, take Dragon Age 2, this game sucks big time but you see that it had some great reviews, if people are smart we hope they find why such games have great scores, they could be surprised.

Anyway, cool article.

[Lindsey]

I actually really liked Dragon Age II, I felt it was misunderstood. It's like a fantasy take on the whole Scarface story.

[disturbing_flame]

Recycled areas, technically average, difficulty tuned down, poor narration, i really expected something better than the first episode and finally this episode fails at all levels.

Anyway there are so much more examples of overrated games like Dragon age 2.
Just this one is one of the biggest fail of this year 2011.

[Lindsey]

@ disturbing_flame

I'll give the recycled environments, but "poor narration" I totally disagree with. As for the difficulty, Bioware are on the record stating that DAII on Hard is basically DA: Origins on Normal. So if you found it to easy then turn up the difficulty.

[disturbing_flame]

I've played it on hard, the mecanism are done to assist you the gameplay is less core and more noobish even on hard settings, no friendly fire ? WTF ? lol

Just one breed to play ? No ambition for this second episode. Poor background for our character, poor quests, too fun to collect codex pages... Sad really sad...

For the narration, there's a thing to understand here, i've not played it in english, the traduction is bad it doesn't help, but there's nothing tremendously good in it, it's really average when you compared it to other PC RPG.

Finally when you compare it to other hack'n'slash it just an ok game but not a 9/10 or 10/10 game, when you know Baldur's Gate was released in 1999 it's just sad to see reviewers don't consider this, or maybe they never played those games like Baldur's Gate or NeverWinter Nights to understand how much Dragon Age 2 is poor in comparision.

I think this game deserves a 7 or a 6, it brings nothing new to the genre, and far from it; it even less good than games that have been released in the past.

[Aloren]

Totally agree with Lindsey. The recycled environments are indeed kinda cheap. But the narration was great, the characters were great... I thought it was a solid game, not as interesting as the 1st one when it comes to RPG elements, but that's why it got slightly worse reviews. I really enjoyed it and can't wait so play with hawke again.

A lot of people ridiculously overreacted imo.

[lephunk]

case in point: Socom 4... i got it day 1 regardless of any review, and i can't seem to put it down.. game is fantastic... but according to reviews, i shouldn't have even considered it... metacritic has it at 66 right now... seriously? a 66?

this game is fantastic, i don't know what THEY're talkin about...

[CrazyOrange]

It THEIR OPINION.

oblivion got very high rate yet i can't find it a playable game!

same goes to many high rated games for me or the the oppsite

[MysticStrummer]

SOCOM 4 is the game that leapt to mind when I saw this article. How many people passed on it because of overly harsh reviews, along with the whining of the "vets"? I'm a SOCOM vet and I also can't seem to stop playing it. I bought Portal 2 at the same time, and I still haven't finished the story even though I have finished S4's. I keep turning off P2 at the end of each chapter so I can do S4's custom missions and play the campaign again on a harder difficulty level, finding the intel that I missed on the first run through. Great game, and that's with no available multiplayer right now, which is the best part of the whole package.

[rob6021]

I agree, While PSN was still online I had a blast - the CoOp is very well done- feels like a slightly more tactical Uncharted 2. The graphics are similar to U2 as well. S4 is no 6-7/10 that's for sure. 8-9/10 would have been more fair.

[Neckbear]

How reviews would be better, in my opinion: Ditch scores.

An arbitrary number to show off a game's value in a critic's opinion benefits nobody but the marketing teams of publishers. Drop that aside, and what's left are actual reviews mentioning the game's flaws and strong points, both.

...Of course, the inconsistence of criticisms and the idiots who write them would still persist, but it would be a step foward.

[cereal_killa]

I agree 100% Scores should be removed all together, so sick of fanboys gloating over useless review scores on Metajoke how there multiplat game is better because they decided to put one bad review on one side and not the other to make it seem better in reviews. Taking stuff like that away from fanboys would only make them go into the fetal position even more but it's pathetic journalist who are to dam butthurt or trying to gain hits to there trash sites who fuel the fires even more and it will never stop only get worse in my opinion.

[KMxRetro]

Yep, I agree with that totally. However, I tried to do that once on one of my sites, and had GameRankings refusing to list my reviews.

When a good 40% of your traffic comes from there, you've got a problem. :/

[InLaLaLand]

I agree with Neckbear. Some scores that reviewers give are inconsistent, they should follow a guideline or just drop the scores altogether.

[thebudgetgamer]

this is what you're looking for.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[Stevo91]

If you buy/dont buy a game because of a review your a tard... reviewer scores are so un-consistant that you cant believe them.

[TheBeast]

Scores are meaningless in my opinion, however, the review can still deceit if it can interest a person or not.

[InLaLaLand]

Check out the comments on the IGN review for Yakuza 4 lol. Some people DO follow these 'journalists' as a creditable source for games LMAO.

[Venoxn4g]

..or IGN's review on Ps2's God hand ... terrible score, masterpiece game .. :) and it could be a cause that game didn't sell well..

[InLaLaLand]

I heard about the 3/10 for that game. I haven't played it myself though but most people that have played it enjoyed it by the looks of it.

[Lindsey]

Do people complain about movie review scores like they do game review scores? No, they don't. Even in Hollywood a 70% is average. In school a 70% is average. I get that review scores in games are a bit different, but if you measure the scores against other entertainment mediums there really is not much of a difference.

[NukaCola]

The problem isn't the score itself, it's the meta grade that everyone freaks out over. back in the day it was always a simple review with an occasional 5 Star system or a recommendation scale. but now it's a check list of rediculous criteriors that equal some score that never matches the review itself. So we get 'short and boring = 8/10' and then a 'pretty cool game, original = 7/10' and no one knows why. Bias in the media. If shooters are both 6 hours with the same online issues are put infront of today's gaming media, the one labled COD will always score higher. Sad truth, but this is why I miss the days before the damn metacritic.

[starchild]

I don't think review scores need to go away, I just think people need to put them in the proper perspective. Review scores are not objective truth, they are merely opinions that may help to guide you in finding games that you will find to be worth your time.

The fact that a game like Portal 2 has received almost all 9+ scores from reviewers doesn't mean that YOU will necessarily feel the same way. But it does make you sit up and take note and maybe read through a few of those reviews and decide if it sounds like something you will like.

Statistically it is more likely that you will enjoy a game like Portal 2 than a game that has a 54 on metacritic, but it isn't guaranteed. I'm sure we all have a few favorite games that have way below average metacritic scores.

Numerical scores are a tool just like the written reviews themselves. How you use them is up to you.

[IWentBrokeForGaming]

is the console comparisons. If graphics aren't that drasticly different (which mostly all the time they aren't). It comes down to console exclusive content for the games that ends up being my main factor!

[thebudgetgamer]

when it comes to multi-plats i base my decision based on the control scheme of the game. games like the orange box or racing games that use the triggers i will buy for the 360.

[Tuxedo_Mask]

I think the biggest problem with game reviews is that there are too many copycats. It seems as though if the major sites rate a game highly then all the little sites give it exactly the same score. Using DA2 as an example, many sites gave it a 7-9 score, and the lesser sites followed, but one man gave it a 2 or 3 and everyone dismissed him as foolish or biased. Although even I think a 2 or 3 was a bit harsh, at least he had the courage to rate the game the way he saw it rather than simply follow the crowd.

Not everyone is going to agree with everyone else on what games are good and what games are bad. I personally think the Assassin's Creed games are highly overrated, but I'm sure there are a lot of people who disagree. I do think that MGS4 was an excellent game, and a lot of sites agree with me, but I'm not going to write a review stating the same opinion as dozens of other sites just to get attention. I know smaller sites need hits just like everyone else, but they might get those hits easier if they review the games that are overlooked by the bigger sites rather than just regurgitating their reviews.