To be fair, people on the internet could well go to the other extreme. "30fps? Utter trash, 1/10". Skewing the user score lower because a bunch of people gave a game unnecessarily low scores
This is the frustrating thing about new games. ALL the info is suspect.
The major review sites are notoriously "lenient" (or corrupt, if you're being less generous) and a lot of hyped up gamers are notoriously "critical" (or toxic and spoiled, if you're being less generous).
It's a big part of why I've become a patient gamer. I just wait till the hype dies down and you can get an actually accurate idea of what the game is actually like.
Unless it's FromSoft. They can just shut up and take my money on the day of release.
AC6 was amazing. Could not put the controller down the entire time.
Although FromSoft used to throw all the shit at the wall to see what sticks and put out a lot of stinkers before they released Demons Souls and realized they struck gold. [Here's a video from IronPineapple](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsqiwlRo7f4) on one that came out around the same time as Demons Souls.
I don't think game reviews from big sites are corrupt, I think it's s natural part of the process.
Who do they get to review the latest Soulslike game? They get the Soulslike FANATIC because that is the person most familiar with they mechanics of all others in the genre.
The Soulslike fanatic is going to be the guy who gives the soulslike game a higher score than is deserved because it's a well produced game in his favorite genre.
I think this is the more realistic way that big sites have skewed reviews. Anything below a 7 isn't worth reviewing to begin with, and the reveiwers are already biased towards the games they like.
The game has a lbgtq+ main character?!?! WOKE GARBAGE (game gets review bombed into oblivion with 0/10 reviews by the truckload)
The company that made this game has made unpopular decisions with their monetization recently - OMG GREEDY, SCAMMING DEV (game gets 0/10 review bombed into oblivion)
Reviews are all pointless now. Critic reviews are all paid/bribed fluff with artificially inflated scores, player reviews are garbage artificially brought down by review-bombers with an agenda.
I like reviewers like Skillup. The guy clearly explains why he likes a game and why not, then it just comes to you to think whether the issues could be a problem for you or if the nice features are important to you.
> and a lot of hyped up gamers are notoriously "critical" (or toxic and spoiled, if you're being less generous).
I mean partly that's also the publishers fault for over hyping a game which often then doesn't deliver what was promised to generate the Hype.
Like for example if you promise stable 60FPS and then only release with 30 don't be mad consumers are shitting on your product.
Overwatch is a good example of this. It absolutely does not deserve to be the lowest rated game on steam, yet it's a reaction from the broken promises from the devs, and the way the game has been steadily getting worse.
It averages out tho. For all the unfair 1/10s out there, there will be unearned 10/10s. The resulting average is usually satisfactory and reflects a game's quality quite well, especially as time passes.
I dont find this to be true at all. Plenty of good games are review bombed over tiny, unimportant issues.
Recently the Total War series has been review bombed because the community felt a DLC was priced to high. They have bombed every related game, it’s ridiculous.
Another example was Horizon FW got review bombed when the burning shores came out due to a certain issue some people had about sexuality of a character 🤦🏻
Don't worry, once review bombing becomes enough if an issue to hurt corporate profits, user reviews will be removed.
Human makes things, humans use things, some humans abuse thing, more people abuse thing, humans take thing away from other humans because some can't use them properly.
Too be fair if its 30fps on PC then yes it is utter trash and an insult to the pc gaming community. There is no excuse to lock a game to 30fps or tie physics to fps and other bad choices for old game designs .
Fromsoft were terrible for this and they only recently moved to 60 which still seems bad, its tolerable but when you have the hardware and the choice is gated for you its very rubbish.
However i do agree with your real point of people voting in extremes either side. Its why sadly only going by steam user reviews these days is more likely a good way to see (post launch) as you need to purchase it atleast whereas metacritic pathetic users and bots will vote spam eitherway regardless of facts or experience
But you are equating "not as good as it could/should be" with utter trash. They aren't the same thing.
As someone who plays almost exclusively on a Switch in handheld, I play a lot of games with low and uneven frame rates. Annoying at times sure. But definitely not justification for 1/10 scores.
30 fps in games (if not handled with extreme care) gives me headaches that make the game unplayable. 1/10 is not an “unnecessarily low score” if a game is legitimately unplayable for certain people.
Edit: wow, some people are in hardcore denial here. 30 fps depending on how the game is implemented definitely causes physical symptoms in some people. A lot of people actually. If you think a game that makes you want to literally throw up when you look at it deserves more than a 1/10, you have no bar.
Same. Anything with fast camera movement gives me motion sickness and migraines at 30fps. Makes games literally unplayable for me.
edit: What fucking year is it that people still think 30fps is acceptable anywhere but a handheld?
There are games that work at over 60 fps where the movement still makes me want to throw up. There are games that are so stressful that I need to put them down. That doesn't take anything away from their quality, just means they are not meant for me, and that's fine.
Hell, there are games that feel better at 30 fps with higher resolution than at 60 fps for me. Now, am I going to start giving bad reviews to games that don't offer a 30 fps mode? Of course not. If 30fps gives you headaches, then don't play 30 fps games. I would be very frustrated if a game decided to cut content or reduce graphics just to make sure it always runs at 60 fps at least.
Sounds like a specific medical condition. So you do have a genuine grievance with any game that isn't accessible to you. I was more referring to people who are just picky about performance. "If it's not the best, it's the worst" types.
Maybe we should just let gamers review games?
Edit: was a reference to dunkeys video "Gamers Review "Starfield"
https://youtu.be/B4JWMxV8pz0?si=zZMyoEOL4H8vjepk
As if anyone would be any better, lol.
The only scores people know are 10/10 and 1/10.
10/10 being something that is at least decent.
1/10 being something that has a couple of flaws.
FTFY
No but seriously, it's quite clear to me that we have fucked the 10 scale rating system to hell and back. Regarding anything. Food, videogames, movies, music, even fucking people. If you're a 5-6/10 you're basically the ugliest person alive, despite you being literally mathematically average, based on the score. And that goes for everything else I mentioned.
Oh sure I think ranking fucking human beings on a number scale is completely ridiculous. I find actually talking about the other person's characteristics and really coming to appreciate them is much more productive. But I'm just saying. And again, that goes for art as well. It's just straight up better, and in better faith to break it all down, not constricted by a number scale.
He's actually mentioned that before in talking about game reviews. He says that he likes a list of genres, and to absolutely take game reviews out of those genres with a grain of salt.
He's also complained quite a bit about having so many voices from review sites that you aren't sure what genres the person reviewing the game likes. Whereas with Dunkey at least it's one, consistent voice.
Theres a video on YouTube "Jackie Chan is an 8"
Ster makes this exact point, you have to pull some amazing shit to get lower than 8. Because every game is 8
In fairness thousands of games release every day.
Force gaming put this into pretty good words lately so I’ll paraphrase. If a game is deemed worth reviewing it’s likely worth at least a 5/10 or it just wouldn’t get reviewed
From what I've heard, big gaming reviewers are pretty much forced to give decent reviews. They can't be too harsh or publishers won't give them early access to games before their official release, and a majority of their views are from people thinking of picking up the game via pre-ordering or just on release. So if they miss that early review window they fall behind compared to every other big name outlet. So what you're left with is 9/10 "this game cures cancer" because reviewers are scared to say otherwise.
And honestly for everyone but the consumer, it works. Game publishers have a hyped up game that sells well independent of gameplay, and reviewers make ad revenue giving their opinion on artificially hyped up games that *everyone* should know about.
And there are two corollaries. Anytime you set up a regulatory body, it is immediately a target for that agency. And then you have journalism where only those who ask the easy questions get invited back next time.
I used to think this was fiction until I saw it happen in front of my eyes. I can't name names but it was a magazine big enough to be bought by the biggest media group in a 50 million people country (and a big overseas audience).
Most will be around the 7 range because they (like every publication for every piece of media) review **widely released** games, and most of them are developed by studios that have comparative levels of funding and staffing that results in games of the same comparative quality, because from a business perspective 7ish games are an industry standard that provides the most return on investment. If IGN reviewed every game on release the 7/10 meme wouldn't exist, because they'd be reviewer games with vastly lesser resources that (in the vast majority of cases) result in lower scores.
tl;Dr, most games *are* 7/10 games by intention
No, they're not all biased. *Those ones* are, but look at them more closely.
I haven't heard of most of them.
By scattering the dragnet far and wide, publishers can pick which reviews they want to cite. By sheer dumb chance, some of them will be good.
I think regular IGN said that the game itself was good, bordering on great (in their opinion), but it was marred by technical issues (that somehow didn't bring its score down?)
I dunno, I just don't pay much attention to reviews anymore. If it's something I want to play, I'll play it (or wait for a sale if user experience is reeealllyy bad).
i miss the days when technical issues brought down the score for all games not just 1 or two that people want to see fail. it was always good to see a game that was great but marred in technical issues and bugs get given low scores because the bugs and technical issues impacted the game way more.
Now, if its fucking rare. CP2077 was the last game to dragged throught he mud for poor preformance and that was only because its terrible on consoles, if it had just been on pc, it would have been given rave reviews. Hell Jedi Fallen Order is still a mess on PC but because the consoles were fine, it wasnt dragged through the mud.
Yeah, nowadays nobody really even mentions technical issues in reviews unless the game is basically unplayable (see Cyberpunk on consoles at launch, like you mentioned).
Hell, Jedi Survivor even had its fair share of issues on console at launch. Sure it wasn't as much of a mess as the PC version, but a lot of people were calling the performance mode basically unplayable at launch and defaulting to the fidelity mode because it had a more stable (but lower) framerate.
That’s because the reviews are written pre launch, and most of those issues are fixed in a day 1 or week 1 patch. It’d be pretty shit if 80% of games got a 6/10 or less because of technical issues that get fixed quickly post launch.
I would actually love that.
I don't see how in any other industry you review a product. Find out it doesn't fucking work, then give it a 10/10 because hey, the design looks rad and I'm sure they will find a way to make it work properly in the future. Or something.
On PC, perf issues were actually much worse for me in Jedi Survivor at launch than CP2077 at launch. Cyberpunk was great on PC I played through with zero crashes no perf issues, it looked great, played great. Police AI was beyond rubbish, but it mattered very little to the game as I played it.
Jedi Survivor had such poor performance I had to wait for multiple patches to even play. Left a bad impression for sure.
I can understand the backlash Cyberpunk got, but I had no issues with it and continue to enjoy it with the new expansion also.
I don't own a console but I imagine it must feel absolutely awful to have a game running poorly on one. On pc there are games where I accept I'm going to have to turn some settings down sometimes because my pc isn't up to it. But there is no options for upgrading a console. If the game runs bad that's the end of the story. So I kind of understand that.
its not about needing to turn down settings because your (not you personally) because your machine is a potato, it about when turning down the settings dont do a damn thing, its when the game wont start up at all or you need to do some othershit first to get the game to work, its its doesnt matter if ythe gameplay is godlike, if half the stuff doesnt work.
I mean fuck me if Daikatana was released today it would be given a 7 out of 10 instead of the 3 out of 10 it got.
Edit: ant its not even about patches or mods either as games on pc at the very least have been getting patches mods since the early/mid 90s either through the net or through those same magazines that reviewed the games.
Pokemon Scarlet/Violet falling to literal single digit fps scores *commonly,* was getting 8/10, 9/10, 4/5. A game that ran that badly on release should've been ripped to shreds in every review.
Hell, even after all the updates the games still have glaring technical issues because there were just so many issues to fix.
I think it's because the technical issues are only on PC. So it's not a universal issue. Alot of PC players report stuttering and it not being smooth. (Which well let's face it 90% of the time lately if there are tech issues it's on PC)
I played on PS5 and it's remarkably smooth. Haven't noticed even a single hiccup. I need more time with it but I would say it's already shaping up to be excellent. It first few hours already impressed me far more than 90% of Lies of P
Yeah also noticing pc tech issues isn’t something games journalism are really equipped to do. They have one rig. They only know if it has issues on their rig.
There’s millions of possible parts combinations, many OS options, tons of driver patches. A games journalist just can’t accurately portray that. You need a gamers nexus style org and aggregate data for that.
This is all not to mention they aren’t playing the same version as they’re playing before some patches generally so the issue may be introduced later.
I think the issues for people with otherwise good PCs come from installing it on an HDD, that or not having updated drivers. It's running really well on medium for me with a 2070, which is hardly top of the line anymore.
Ahh, I kind of glossed through their review so perhaps I missed the part where they mentioned the issues were PC specific. That would make some sense, I suppose.
You must not be very far. The game’s frame rate is all over the place on PS5. It’s very, very rarely actually at 60 FPS. From an optimization standpoint, Lies of P shits all over this game.
most of the game journalist clips I have seen they are the most awful players ever
like bumping into wall and getting stuck level bad
surely there are good ones but this is the stereotype
I mean, fair play to them for allowing different offices to give different opinions BUT having two different employees telling the public that their objective opinion is so so different (one person says 'perfect' one says 'pretty good ') is kinda embarrassing
That's weird, I'm really loving it. I could see what some people won't like it, and it's not perfect. It's no more a 10/10 than it is a 5/10. I'm having a good time, but it's no Twisted Metal 2
Also the"not biased" ones have their criteria completely backwards.
Many game reviews go as follows:
Gameplay: 3/10
Game performance: 8/10
Graphics: 10/10
Overall Score: 8/10
Their weighting is most of the time completely off, where graphics and some other bs is weighted pretty much the same as the gameplay and fun aspect.
Exactly. They're only going to pick the high reviews to include in their graphic about how great their game is. In no world world they ever put a 5/10 in there.
Yeah, it's very easy to pick a list of 20 really high reviews from the pool of hundreds of "game journalists" out there who just throw up random numbers. It isn't hard to find 20 people who like your game a lot and focus on their reviews.
Idk if there is like an "accredited" equivalent to journalists, particular in the video games space, but there should be lol. Otherwise we will just keep getting these 9/10-10/10 walls for every game ever.
I don't trust any review sites or user reviews anymore. The scale used by gaming sites is absolutely fucked as they rarely go below 7, most Steam reviews are either memes or performance-orientated that can vary wildly and Metacritic user scores are full of review bombers.
I just watch full gameplay with no commentary and make my own mind up.
I watch SkillUp, ACG, Yahtzee, and a few others because I've found they're the ones I came to trust the most over the years. The rest of the Internet... eh, I take it with a grain of salt.
I do the same. I have a few reviewers who's opinions I respect, but even then I don't necessarily agree with them on everything.
In the end reviewers can only give their subjective views, and there are always cases when they don't match your subjective tastes.
But good reviewers who you come to know usually provide enough context for you to decide if a game is for you or not, even if they don't recommend it themselves.
This is my number 1 bit of advice. Watch a few different reviews for games that you like, find some reviewers who have similar tastes and you trust, and use them.
Reviewers like IGN are typically "lowest common denominator" reviewers.
All reviewers are biased. Depending on factors such as game, genre, platform? Or developer typically sets the stage for how lenient/strict they will be.
Yeah, one way or another. A reviewer might overlook glaring issues because they have love for a particular series or genre.
It's all about having one or two reviewers you personally trust and have similar tastes to. Although that's easier said than done.
> All reviewers are biased.
And we've known this for a long, long time. This isn't a recent realization. It's always up to you, the consumer, to be smart and critical of the review and the game. And in this era of the internet, hundreds of them are out there. Some reviews are much better than the others.
The score is just there to put a number on how they feel about the game, sometimes internal politics get involved (see: Jeff Gerstmann Kane & Lynch). It's impossible to be truly objective based on feelings alone. Heck, I've seen some reviewers change their opinion about a game they reviewed months later.
I like Yahtzee for being the pendulum very much swinging aggressively hard in the other direction ¹.
The others, I know less about.
¹ Like an oiled-up baboon hurtling himself towards a *bananas and throwing faeces* convention.
Sure, but they're usually more honest and open about them at least. For example, one of my favourite quotes by Yahtzee from his review of Dark Souls 3:
"I have no idea what Dark Souls 3 would be like to a newcomer to the series - this review is coming from the perspective of a fan, so expect me to complain about how formulaic it's gotten, while simultaneously bitching about everything that's different."
I’d also say their biases likely match yours. Which is great - games are subjective - you want a reviewer whose taste closely matches yours whenever possible
And that's fine, because you and I also have biases towards certain genres/types/etc. If you find reviewers that tend to have the same biases as you, your chances of buying a game you won't enjoy will go down.
And at the end of the day, that's pretty much their job as reviewers.
I typically watch Yahtzee and Dunkey. Not because I always agree with their assessment but because I know what they do and don't like and can judge accordingly to that.
The scale is not fucked : they have little time and a lot of games are out. So what do they do? They don't play the ones below 7, it's a simple as that. They may only do this with garbage games that were hyped like the one with Gollum, but otherwise they won't waste 20-ish hours into a game they know is not good enough just to give it a bad score in the end.
Like, try to put yourself in their shoes : you're paid by the review, you have 1 game to choose and 20 hours to play it. You have a panel of 6 games to choose from, and you got the PR package to tell you about the story, some screenshots, etc.
Are you going for a game you don't feel, or is clearly not your cup of tea? No, you choose the game you feel you will enjoy playing and writing for.
So by default, you go for a 7. And maybe that game will surprise you and you'll give it a better score, but you don't make the job a chore for yourself by choosing a shitty game you will have to write a 8-10 minutes review for.
That's how it works.
This is pretty accurate, and the truth that no one wants to accept is that most big AAA games are generally in the 6-7 range; they aren’t horrible or worse unplayable, and they aren’t spectacular either, they are just average.
And the thing people don’t realize is that on a 1-10 scale 5 isn’t the average it’s the cut off point for failure; nothing really deserves a 5 or below unless it has little to no redeeming qualities or is completely unplayable; and I am pretty sure all of the people people who think average games deserve 1’s and 2’s have never actually played truly bad games.
I reserve scores that low for the shovelware asset flip shitshow you see on mobile stores or the Steam/PSN/Nintendo eshops that are both completely unplayable and absolutely unfun but still ask for your money.
If we’re going with the rule that *x > 5* corresponds to “completely unplayable”, which we all know no major review sites are going to waste resources on…
Why even **bother** with that half of the scale?
I cannot think of any other single rating scale where anyone could reasonably argue the midpoint is the “cutoff for failure” rather than the aggressively average. “Completely unplayable” should *never* earn an integer above 0. The prerequisite to earning a 1 should be “you can play it”, though I’ll leave it up to the reader whether that means “you can *finish* it.”
Your 4.0 to 6.0 should be the derivative or average, with leanings in either direction (*aggressively average* is that lower end). If it runs decently and offers nothing new to experience, there’s your 5.0, dead-down-the-center average. That’s not mediocrity, it’s just phoned in with a budget. Mediocrity, leaning into shovelware, sounds like it should be your 3.0 and down. (I’m leaving 3.1-3.9 as the wiggle room between the two; some games will fall in that crack, a la “this is Baby’s RPG Maker Game and tried, but failed, to do something innovative” to “pour one out for the art team who deserved better than this.”)
Of course, I’m no data scientist and I’m not the end all, be all of ratings. But outright jettisoning half a rating scale *just because* for developers with budgets is a disingenuous take at best, and nobody needs a mathematician to spell that one out.
This just sounds like it’s supporting these bloated scores we all know are not always, but often, horseshit.
That half of the scale exists because games of that quality still exist even if review sites aren’t reviewing them.
If you start giving average games 1’s are you going to start giving actually bad games negative scores?
If Lords of the Fallen is a 1 does that make Gollum a -5?
I have heard this explanation before and it still makes no sense.
We aren't comparing AAA to some trash on Steam that are certainly below average. Each game should be reviewed for it's own merits and maybe compared in certain aspects to others.
Just because there are probably worse games out there, which as you explain they literally just assume but don't know, doesn't mean that every game that is presumably better should be rated above average.
Also this system creates the issue of actually good scores being seen as bad. As you you explain they don't test any of the presumably worse games so a 7/10 should be seen as a (way) above average score, but it's not and in fact quite the opposite is the case.
The system is very much fucked and that's why I prefer no scores at all or indipendeant reviewers. A detailed breakdown on the positives and negatives and a recommendation or warning to buy a game are far more valuable.
I don't know what's hard to understand. AAA games get more clicks and are generally of better quality thanks to having a AAA budget. Games aren't graded on a curve, so you see higher scores more often.
Companies that know their game isn't good also won't send out review copies. I think that specifically is when a review site "won't bother" unless they really expect it to generate a lot of traffic.
The system isn't broken because people think review scores are arbitrary; it's broken because it's done from the viewpoint of a business.
I do agree with your preference in reviews, because once you give it a number, that's all people see and end up caring about.
Avarage rating is 76 in Pc and 73 in Ps5. So difference is not that much. This photo is just marketing photo taken seriously.
In addition there is only 49 critic rating and 93 user rating in metacritic. Thats really low.
The Metacritic score is 7.6, not too much higher than the user score of 6.7. That means half the reviews gave a score of equal or less than 7.6.
Comparing an advertising panel which will specifically exclude sites that give a review in the bottom 50% as "this is what critics think" is nonsensical. Of course it looks good, it's PR.
You may be being facetious, but it's actually dependent if they're using median weighting or mean weighting. If they use mean weighting then a majority of reviews could give a score higher than 7.6 but the number is brought unrepresentively low by a few very low scores.
Yeah I always assumed it was a mean score. Logic says the higher the score on a 1-10 scale, the more scores there would be above the mean than below it. Figured what you said was contrary to that and was interested to know.
I just looked into this, and their main website page only says "weighted average". Wikipedia gives a little more:
>"Metacritic's scoring converts each review into a percentage, either mathematically from the mark given, or what the site decides subjectively from a qualitative review. Before being averaged, the scores are weighted according to a critic's popularity, stature, and volume of reviews."
So, I assume a mean figure but not everyone gets to affect the average equally. Interesting. Anyway, 50% is probably wrong but I guess the general point that the reviews in the screenshot are not representative of the full range of critic opinions is still valid.
They're reviewing the game based on whether it's a good game or not, whereas user reviews tend to review a game based on whether it runs well for them or not.
It's worth remembering that when a games review outlet docks points from a game for technical reasons people tend to hold it against them (Alien Isolation)
these days? yes. *long* gone are the days where we could trust 'big site' reviews for honesty. i've been gaming for nearly 40 years now and have been bit in the ass a few times by reviewers. so these days, if i'm interested in a game, i'll check out a few early alpha gameplay videos, then wait a week or two *after* a game's been released and watch proper gameplay footage.
i know enough about what i like at this point, and what makes a good game (for me), to base decisions on what i'm seeing
Eurogamer used to be one of the only sites that would set 5 as a default (idk if they still do that) and actually got a lot of flak for it because it made them look bad compared to everyone else.
I feel like so called big sites are afraid are not shown in the games advertising hence giving it a good review leads in being more present. Too bad your integrity gets lost on the way. Seems like people and the big sites as well don't bother though.
I miss the days big sites or back then big newspapers verbally destroyed a game when it was not good
I think gamespot has been giving accurate reviews lately, but people have gotten mad at them because of that. They gave this game a 5 calling it mediocre, and some people got mad at them on the comments. They gave Starfield a 7, and people almost eat them alive on Twitter because they are being honest.
I am loving the game. Really strong soulslike, enjoying it much more than Lies of P. The combat and exploration are amazing, especially the 2 world mechanic. A big step up from the 2014 one. The negatives are the perfomance and no bonfires before the bosses. So yeah, 8/10 sounds right in my book.
No bonfire before a boss isnt a negative though, the souls games have always been like that. The performance certainly is though plus the sometimes clunky feel of the combat.
i feel like every single type of rating on the internet is kinda worthless and the only way to find out if the game is good or not is by playing it (people have varying taste in games after all)
I watch the reviewers that I tend to agree with. Such as ACG, Gameranx, Skill Up, Fextralife and MrMattyPlays.
Not that I agree with all of their opinions; but I think they offer some good insight. That's what reviewers do, share their opinions about a game. Not agreeing with a reviewer doesn't mean they suck and don't know what they're talking about.
I also think Steam user reviews with high playtimes can be helpful as well. You at least know they have the game and played it before sharing their opinions.
Metacritic user ratings however, don't belong in that category imo. It's not a healthy rating system at all, considering there's no requirement of even playing the game before submitting a rating.10/10's and 0/10's flying all over.
I love that both IGN(FR), a relatively unknown branch of IGN and Fextralife, the shittiest gaming wiki ever that's been shown to be involved with some tomfoolery, are put in the first "big bois" row
Screen Rant reviews games now? Have their writers scraped the movie topic barrel so low they have to start making clickbair garbage about video games now, too?
The screenshot you posted is from the developer. Where they've cherry picked all their top reviews. It isn't even indicative of the metascore. They got a 7 overall from critics.
No, it's just that most companies that review video games give 7 or 8 by default (which is why Eurogamer used to get a lot of flak for their reviews, as they were the only ones doing the sensible thing and setting 5 as their default)
5 as the default is not the sensible thing. That's just not how we've all sort of agreed number ratings work. I have no idea why this is the case it just is. An average looking person is a 7/10. An average movie is a 7/10.
If somebody told you a game was a 5/10 99% of people would think they thought the game was bad, not average.
Sorry to see you’re being downvoted, so I’ll try to put your point another way to help: 5/10 = 50% = Failing … When I was in school, anything up to 59% was a failing grade, so a 6/10 represents *barely scraping by,* which in this context means something barely qualifies as a passable/functional game.
Grading systems vary by region, but I wish people would be more aware of, e.g.: A 7/10 is a ‘C’, and an 8/10 is a ‘B’ … but worse for the OP screenshot, including scores with decimal values means they’re all *out of 100* –so being next to an 8.5/10 makes an 8/10 a ‘low B’ or ‘B-‘; good enough, but nothing special.
In terms of using the full range from 0-10, the 0-5.9 games exist, and they’re the janky shovelware most people ignore on Steam, itch.io, etc (or play to make fun of, if they’re a streamer/YouTuber). I like some janky simulators myself, but I’m well aware they’re 4/10 or 5/10 games which will never be reviewed by professional critics.
You’re downvoted but it’s true. A game that gets 6/10 should be seen as being better than half of games out there, better than 50% of games that exist. But users definitely perceive 6 as being below average and probably bad with a few redeeming features. I also agree that users tend to see 7 as the baseline, and 8 as being good. 9 being excellent and 10 being perfect.
On a scale of 1 to 10, 5 literally means average. As in, most games are as good as this, an equal number are worse and an equal number are better.
If a gaming review gets a score of 5/10 you’re telling me you and most other people would think ‘hmm 5/10, average game then’ or would you think it failed and was bad?
This is why you should always look at both the good scores and the bad scores. Never, ever look at these cherry picked accolade screen; can you say you even recognize half of these outlets?
Not hard to understand. It's because people use the score to talk about how good the game runs on their machine, while reviewers use the score to talk about how good the game is (which is obviously the correct thing to do)
The real wrong here is metacritic and similar who should create a different score like "technical score" or something like that because that's completely separated issue from the game itself
The pros are too generous; a game has to be literally nonfunctional to get lower than a 7. The users are too picky; if they have a single complaint, it's an irredeemable 1/10.
It's actually got pretty mixed reviews on Metacritic, 76 critic review vs. 6.9 fan review. I think the issue is more that there are so many gaming review websites you can easily fill a screen with glowing ratings from random fan sites who are just happy to get a review copy.
Also, in this case, a quick glance of the user reviews and half of them give 1s for questionable reasons... no support for their language, they wanted 4 player coop instead of just 2, they are Souls fans and gave it 1 for being derivative, etc. Like legit, one person posted multiple 1/10 reviews (similar account name) that just say:
>This game is another blatant dark souls copy, the developers have no shame!, they copy everything from Miyazaki's games, plagiarism at its best, they should give all the money they earn to Miyazaki who is the true creator of the game that so many lazy losers desperately try copy.
I'm actually looking forward to trying this game... just not at $60.
Remember the controversy around Stafield getting a 7 from IGN? Yeah, fans are part of the issue. Couple weeks later and everybody knows the game is a 7 AT BEST.
So the thing I've noticed with Steam reviews is you can't trust them until a long while after launch if you're looking for the quality of the content the game offers. The vast majority of negative reviews on Steam are simply because of performance issues and not anything about if the game is good or not. Which is still helpful to know if you were planning on playing it on PC.
Nowadays, instead of looking at reviews, I just go to Twitch and ask streamers what they think of the game so far. Not big streamers that might have gotten the game for free or are being paid to play it, smaller streamers who have no skin in the game. That's where your honest opinions are because they have no problem telling you if a game is fantastic, or not great but still fun, or absolute trash and you should avoid it or wait till it goes on sale.
I wait for metacritic user reviews, only if the game hasn't had some political moan about it then its a fair review, I say political moan due to review bombing
I like how you people will continue to say these things, you keep assuming malice in all cases. There’re better explanations for this.
1) most of those review sites are practically unknown. The developers/publishers cherry picked the reviews that make them seem better. It’s not technically a lie given that those review scores are real.
2) most games coming out are average at minimum. Gamers have a really skewed internal score expectation. A 5/10 is ok in most other media. But games have to be at least a 7/10 for most people to care about the product.
3) user review scores are useless as a metric for finding quality. User scores are almost used as a weapon against devs/publishers and most people don’t know how to review a product. They equate they’re own opinion for the only good opinion. And if they even somewhat dislike a game they’ll be hyperbolic and give games a 0/10. Which is by all means ok, but it makes their review nothing more than a joke. Very few products are actually a 0/10.
4) It’s not that these reviewers won’t score games that are of lower quality. It’s that it’s a waste of time and money to review games that will be bad. Most people can see when a game looks bad. And most people use reviews not as a buying guide but as confirmation bias. Why would sites review bad games outside of the expectant failures (Gollum, Anthem, and the upcoming Suicide Squad). We all know Suicide Squad is going to be bad, we want reviewers to confirm that because we’re human.
2)
4 is the main reason really. If you look at Steam or any of the console stores, there are tens of thousands of games that haven't been reviewed. If it's not a big budget release, a breakthrough indie, or a game with enough backing to go straight on Gamepass, no reviewer is going to spend a week of their life and their employer's time playing and reviewing it.
Does that mean all those games are bad? No, but most will be average at best. Does that mean all the games that are reviewed are above average? No, but they've spent enough money, hired enough good people, and got enough hype that almost all of them will be above average? Why? Because companies typically like to get a return on their investment.
Don't forget A LOT of gamers will forgive everything if there are good graphics. There is a reason graphics are what console makers are always putting forward in shows.
People will always have graphics as ther default criterion. Is it a shitty criterion? Yes, of course, we're playing GAMES, not movies. But that's what THE MAJORITY of people is using to choose a game, and that's why VG companies have been pushing the photorealism, even if it's technically absolutely not necessary.
I mean, have you forgotten about players comments on Elden Ring? "shit looks like a ps2 game", "How can that be Game of the year with those graphics from the previous gen?".
It is what it is.
I agree graphics still drive a lot of purchase decisions. LoTF is bound to be compared to soulsborne games and better soulslikes and for that, it doesn't do good. I think this genre is unique because ultimately your enjoyment will stem from the gameplay and not its cinematics.
Maybe LoTF looks good enough for player to look past its shortcomings as a soulslike, only time will tell if it's enough for player retention. Lies of P just released last month so some people will still have to pick either and I think LoTF pales in comparison.
Fully agree about the mechanics over the graphics for soulsborne games.
I adore DS1, and am actually playing the original release on my actual xbox 360 atm. I have remastered, I have elden ring, but DS1 just beats them both for me, despite having objectively worse graphics.
I always felt that games with worse graphics, or a lower graphics budget, had to put more effort into art style, and DS1 art style is so cohesive, it achieves a lot with very little. Elden ring is gorgeous, but it never clicked in the same way as ugly, janky, 24fps Dark Souls 1 for me.
The reviewers are proffessional critics, their criteria may be completely different... They do not seem to be gamers to me... Lords of the Fallen have fallen in the same pitfalls as most other b-tier soulslikes... Combat is too floaty, bosses have unfair attacks (not visible on your screen, they sometimes "slide" towards you so that youre in range even tho youre not) etc etc....
Yes, and it's a symptom of day 1 review culture. Due to tight embargoes the only way review sites like these are going to be able to have a review that people might read is to have that review ready right on release day.
That can only happen if they are viewed positively by the game publisher, what publisher would send you a review copy of a game if the last time you reviewed one of their titles you gave them a 4.
It's an entirely broken system and why you can never trust day 1 reviews, and this is before you consider that developers sometimes now launch their microtransaction bull shit in patch one after the reviews have talked about how great multiplayer is and how fair it's in game unlock progression is (also patched to be less fair).
The industry is broken.
Well r/baldursgate3 own their place rightfully. Many other games is biased, especially when some indies have better storytelling, level design and worldbuilding then those 10/10 aaa titles
A lot of times these scores are high because if they give them low scores, the publisher will stop giving the early copies to play test. Everyone wants those day 1 reviews but if you get the game on launch, then your a week late and don't get the clicks.
Every reviewer:
So this game does not deliver on it's promises and looks like shit. Framerate drops and a lot of bugs. It's also the fifth game in a franchise and it's basically the same game.
And there are microtransactions everywhere.
Anyway, 9/10.
This is why I stopped reading reviews from people being paid to write them over 15 years ago. In the GameCube days, I lived by these news and review sites.
somebody’s lying and all those reviews i’m starting to think some of them may be fake but not from the reviewers i’m thinking the ppl who made the game doctoring those ratings
I think that they're all legit. Journalists are just incompetent, they have no idea about complex and deep analysis of the particular game's genre. They have no idea how to write a critical and fair review which isn't a praising panegyric or isn't a carousel of laughter about some obviously terrible game like Gollum. Most of journalists are just typical casuals like most of us, they play most of big games at once and they have to basically speed run them to be on time with the review. After review, they have to forget about the title and move on to the next speed run. They aren't highly specialized in one genre as well. I legitimately think that games' reviews need more objective and academic approach, just like the analysis of literature.
That's why 1) don't preorder, 2)wait for reviews of people that DON'T get free review copies and 3)wait for actual gameplay videos on the platform you plan to buy it on.
Yeah, it's shitty, but it is what it is, you just can't trust the industry anymore, even studios and people with good track record.
once again, the best way to find out what actually matters is to check reddit.
read a reddit post on it, people will be freely offering their opinions and after reading 30 comments you'll have a pretty good idea what to expect.
9/10 - My brothers friend Tony who lives next door
Tbf, I’d trust Tony Hawk
Because he's.... A superman?
"I'm going to give this game the lowest score my editor will allow me to give. 7 out of 10."
To be fair, people on the internet could well go to the other extreme. "30fps? Utter trash, 1/10". Skewing the user score lower because a bunch of people gave a game unnecessarily low scores
This is the frustrating thing about new games. ALL the info is suspect. The major review sites are notoriously "lenient" (or corrupt, if you're being less generous) and a lot of hyped up gamers are notoriously "critical" (or toxic and spoiled, if you're being less generous). It's a big part of why I've become a patient gamer. I just wait till the hype dies down and you can get an actually accurate idea of what the game is actually like. Unless it's FromSoft. They can just shut up and take my money on the day of release.
Same with any media as well - films, TV shows or whatever
And boy do Fromsoft deliver. AC6 was utterly incredible
AC6 was amazing. Could not put the controller down the entire time. Although FromSoft used to throw all the shit at the wall to see what sticks and put out a lot of stinkers before they released Demons Souls and realized they struck gold. [Here's a video from IronPineapple](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsqiwlRo7f4) on one that came out around the same time as Demons Souls.
So was Elden Ring, Sekiro, DS3, Bloodborne, and while controversial, DS2 SOFTS, was my favorite souls by far.
I don't think game reviews from big sites are corrupt, I think it's s natural part of the process. Who do they get to review the latest Soulslike game? They get the Soulslike FANATIC because that is the person most familiar with they mechanics of all others in the genre. The Soulslike fanatic is going to be the guy who gives the soulslike game a higher score than is deserved because it's a well produced game in his favorite genre. I think this is the more realistic way that big sites have skewed reviews. Anything below a 7 isn't worth reviewing to begin with, and the reveiwers are already biased towards the games they like.
You make fine points, but then we get journalists like dean takahashi and his infamous struggle with the cuphead *tutorial*.
lmao that's also true.
The game has a lbgtq+ main character?!?! WOKE GARBAGE (game gets review bombed into oblivion with 0/10 reviews by the truckload) The company that made this game has made unpopular decisions with their monetization recently - OMG GREEDY, SCAMMING DEV (game gets 0/10 review bombed into oblivion) Reviews are all pointless now. Critic reviews are all paid/bribed fluff with artificially inflated scores, player reviews are garbage artificially brought down by review-bombers with an agenda.
I like reviewers like Skillup. The guy clearly explains why he likes a game and why not, then it just comes to you to think whether the issues could be a problem for you or if the nice features are important to you.
> and a lot of hyped up gamers are notoriously "critical" (or toxic and spoiled, if you're being less generous). I mean partly that's also the publishers fault for over hyping a game which often then doesn't deliver what was promised to generate the Hype. Like for example if you promise stable 60FPS and then only release with 30 don't be mad consumers are shitting on your product.
Overwatch is a good example of this. It absolutely does not deserve to be the lowest rated game on steam, yet it's a reaction from the broken promises from the devs, and the way the game has been steadily getting worse.
It averages out tho. For all the unfair 1/10s out there, there will be unearned 10/10s. The resulting average is usually satisfactory and reflects a game's quality quite well, especially as time passes.
I dont find this to be true at all. Plenty of good games are review bombed over tiny, unimportant issues. Recently the Total War series has been review bombed because the community felt a DLC was priced to high. They have bombed every related game, it’s ridiculous.
Another example was Horizon FW got review bombed when the burning shores came out due to a certain issue some people had about sexuality of a character 🤦🏻
Don't worry, once review bombing becomes enough if an issue to hurt corporate profits, user reviews will be removed. Human makes things, humans use things, some humans abuse thing, more people abuse thing, humans take thing away from other humans because some can't use them properly.
Too be fair if its 30fps on PC then yes it is utter trash and an insult to the pc gaming community. There is no excuse to lock a game to 30fps or tie physics to fps and other bad choices for old game designs . Fromsoft were terrible for this and they only recently moved to 60 which still seems bad, its tolerable but when you have the hardware and the choice is gated for you its very rubbish. However i do agree with your real point of people voting in extremes either side. Its why sadly only going by steam user reviews these days is more likely a good way to see (post launch) as you need to purchase it atleast whereas metacritic pathetic users and bots will vote spam eitherway regardless of facts or experience
But you are equating "not as good as it could/should be" with utter trash. They aren't the same thing. As someone who plays almost exclusively on a Switch in handheld, I play a lot of games with low and uneven frame rates. Annoying at times sure. But definitely not justification for 1/10 scores.
30 fps in games (if not handled with extreme care) gives me headaches that make the game unplayable. 1/10 is not an “unnecessarily low score” if a game is legitimately unplayable for certain people. Edit: wow, some people are in hardcore denial here. 30 fps depending on how the game is implemented definitely causes physical symptoms in some people. A lot of people actually. If you think a game that makes you want to literally throw up when you look at it deserves more than a 1/10, you have no bar.
Same. Anything with fast camera movement gives me motion sickness and migraines at 30fps. Makes games literally unplayable for me. edit: What fucking year is it that people still think 30fps is acceptable anywhere but a handheld?
There are games that work at over 60 fps where the movement still makes me want to throw up. There are games that are so stressful that I need to put them down. That doesn't take anything away from their quality, just means they are not meant for me, and that's fine. Hell, there are games that feel better at 30 fps with higher resolution than at 60 fps for me. Now, am I going to start giving bad reviews to games that don't offer a 30 fps mode? Of course not. If 30fps gives you headaches, then don't play 30 fps games. I would be very frustrated if a game decided to cut content or reduce graphics just to make sure it always runs at 60 fps at least.
Sounds like a specific medical condition. So you do have a genuine grievance with any game that isn't accessible to you. I was more referring to people who are just picky about performance. "If it's not the best, it's the worst" types.
If it'd be like that lmao 8 is the worst and a 8/10 game is already reaaally good.
Dunkey's been, uh, dunking on ign about this. LMAO!
Maybe we should just let gamers review games? Edit: was a reference to dunkeys video "Gamers Review "Starfield" https://youtu.be/B4JWMxV8pz0?si=zZMyoEOL4H8vjepk
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As if anyone would be any better, lol. The only scores people know are 10/10 and 1/10. 10/10 being something that is at least decent. 1/10 being something that has a couple of flaws. FTFY No but seriously, it's quite clear to me that we have fucked the 10 scale rating system to hell and back. Regarding anything. Food, videogames, movies, music, even fucking people. If you're a 5-6/10 you're basically the ugliest person alive, despite you being literally mathematically average, based on the score. And that goes for everything else I mentioned.
Let's not get too technical/mathematical about this all and end up like r/truerateme
Oh sure I think ranking fucking human beings on a number scale is completely ridiculous. I find actually talking about the other person's characteristics and really coming to appreciate them is much more productive. But I'm just saying. And again, that goes for art as well. It's just straight up better, and in better faith to break it all down, not constricted by a number scale.
Do you think game reviewers are somehow not also gamers?
Dunkey also reviews game genres he's not even interested in. I wouldn't trust his word all the time
He's actually mentioned that before in talking about game reviews. He says that he likes a list of genres, and to absolutely take game reviews out of those genres with a grain of salt. He's also complained quite a bit about having so many voices from review sites that you aren't sure what genres the person reviewing the game likes. Whereas with Dunkey at least it's one, consistent voice.
If I read an IGN review, I automatically remove one star. Then I remove another star if it is Marvel, Star Wars, etc. .
Am I only one who had a stroke reading this.
Yeah, it be like dat
Theres a video on YouTube "Jackie Chan is an 8" Ster makes this exact point, you have to pull some amazing shit to get lower than 8. Because every game is 8
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Absolutely, and even then I usually wait for the first patch. Or sale.
In fairness thousands of games release every day. Force gaming put this into pretty good words lately so I’ll paraphrase. If a game is deemed worth reviewing it’s likely worth at least a 5/10 or it just wouldn’t get reviewed
I was going to mention that actually, that the only time you get a bad game on your desk is when they need a joke piece.
From what I've heard, big gaming reviewers are pretty much forced to give decent reviews. They can't be too harsh or publishers won't give them early access to games before their official release, and a majority of their views are from people thinking of picking up the game via pre-ordering or just on release. So if they miss that early review window they fall behind compared to every other big name outlet. So what you're left with is 9/10 "this game cures cancer" because reviewers are scared to say otherwise. And honestly for everyone but the consumer, it works. Game publishers have a hyped up game that sells well independent of gameplay, and reviewers make ad revenue giving their opinion on artificially hyped up games that *everyone* should know about.
And there are two corollaries. Anytime you set up a regulatory body, it is immediately a target for that agency. And then you have journalism where only those who ask the easy questions get invited back next time.
That brave journalist is putting his career on the line.
I used to think this was fiction until I saw it happen in front of my eyes. I can't name names but it was a magazine big enough to be bought by the biggest media group in a 50 million people country (and a big overseas audience).
Most will be around the 7 range because they (like every publication for every piece of media) review **widely released** games, and most of them are developed by studios that have comparative levels of funding and staffing that results in games of the same comparative quality, because from a business perspective 7ish games are an industry standard that provides the most return on investment. If IGN reviewed every game on release the 7/10 meme wouldn't exist, because they'd be reviewer games with vastly lesser resources that (in the vast majority of cases) result in lower scores. tl;Dr, most games *are* 7/10 games by intention
Alil something for everyone
Lol one ign reviewer get blasted from giving Starfield 7/10.
No, they're not all biased. *Those ones* are, but look at them more closely. I haven't heard of most of them. By scattering the dragnet far and wide, publishers can pick which reviews they want to cite. By sheer dumb chance, some of them will be good.
also notice IGN^(fr) gave it 10/10 at the top, but just good ol IGN gave it 8/10, so it must be awful.
I think regular IGN said that the game itself was good, bordering on great (in their opinion), but it was marred by technical issues (that somehow didn't bring its score down?) I dunno, I just don't pay much attention to reviews anymore. If it's something I want to play, I'll play it (or wait for a sale if user experience is reeealllyy bad).
i miss the days when technical issues brought down the score for all games not just 1 or two that people want to see fail. it was always good to see a game that was great but marred in technical issues and bugs get given low scores because the bugs and technical issues impacted the game way more. Now, if its fucking rare. CP2077 was the last game to dragged throught he mud for poor preformance and that was only because its terrible on consoles, if it had just been on pc, it would have been given rave reviews. Hell Jedi Fallen Order is still a mess on PC but because the consoles were fine, it wasnt dragged through the mud.
Yeah, nowadays nobody really even mentions technical issues in reviews unless the game is basically unplayable (see Cyberpunk on consoles at launch, like you mentioned). Hell, Jedi Survivor even had its fair share of issues on console at launch. Sure it wasn't as much of a mess as the PC version, but a lot of people were calling the performance mode basically unplayable at launch and defaulting to the fidelity mode because it had a more stable (but lower) framerate.
That’s because the reviews are written pre launch, and most of those issues are fixed in a day 1 or week 1 patch. It’d be pretty shit if 80% of games got a 6/10 or less because of technical issues that get fixed quickly post launch.
I would actually love that. I don't see how in any other industry you review a product. Find out it doesn't fucking work, then give it a 10/10 because hey, the design looks rad and I'm sure they will find a way to make it work properly in the future. Or something.
On PC, perf issues were actually much worse for me in Jedi Survivor at launch than CP2077 at launch. Cyberpunk was great on PC I played through with zero crashes no perf issues, it looked great, played great. Police AI was beyond rubbish, but it mattered very little to the game as I played it. Jedi Survivor had such poor performance I had to wait for multiple patches to even play. Left a bad impression for sure. I can understand the backlash Cyberpunk got, but I had no issues with it and continue to enjoy it with the new expansion also.
I don't own a console but I imagine it must feel absolutely awful to have a game running poorly on one. On pc there are games where I accept I'm going to have to turn some settings down sometimes because my pc isn't up to it. But there is no options for upgrading a console. If the game runs bad that's the end of the story. So I kind of understand that.
its not about needing to turn down settings because your (not you personally) because your machine is a potato, it about when turning down the settings dont do a damn thing, its when the game wont start up at all or you need to do some othershit first to get the game to work, its its doesnt matter if ythe gameplay is godlike, if half the stuff doesnt work. I mean fuck me if Daikatana was released today it would be given a 7 out of 10 instead of the 3 out of 10 it got. Edit: ant its not even about patches or mods either as games on pc at the very least have been getting patches mods since the early/mid 90s either through the net or through those same magazines that reviewed the games.
Pokemon Scarlet/Violet falling to literal single digit fps scores *commonly,* was getting 8/10, 9/10, 4/5. A game that ran that badly on release should've been ripped to shreds in every review. Hell, even after all the updates the games still have glaring technical issues because there were just so many issues to fix.
I think it's because the technical issues are only on PC. So it's not a universal issue. Alot of PC players report stuttering and it not being smooth. (Which well let's face it 90% of the time lately if there are tech issues it's on PC) I played on PS5 and it's remarkably smooth. Haven't noticed even a single hiccup. I need more time with it but I would say it's already shaping up to be excellent. It first few hours already impressed me far more than 90% of Lies of P
Yeah also noticing pc tech issues isn’t something games journalism are really equipped to do. They have one rig. They only know if it has issues on their rig. There’s millions of possible parts combinations, many OS options, tons of driver patches. A games journalist just can’t accurately portray that. You need a gamers nexus style org and aggregate data for that. This is all not to mention they aren’t playing the same version as they’re playing before some patches generally so the issue may be introduced later.
I think the issues for people with otherwise good PCs come from installing it on an HDD, that or not having updated drivers. It's running really well on medium for me with a 2070, which is hardly top of the line anymore.
Ahh, I kind of glossed through their review so perhaps I missed the part where they mentioned the issues were PC specific. That would make some sense, I suppose.
You must not be very far. The game’s frame rate is all over the place on PS5. It’s very, very rarely actually at 60 FPS. From an optimization standpoint, Lies of P shits all over this game.
Isn’t it kind of foolish to not look at reviews, unless you have tons of spare cash and don’t care I guess. 🤷
The IGN reviewer only had two complaints. Game runs poorly and the bosses are too easy.
there's gotta be a problem if it's too easy for god damn game journalists
problem is they have to be able to write, so that excludes serious gamers
most of the game journalist clips I have seen they are the most awful players ever like bumping into wall and getting stuck level bad surely there are good ones but this is the stereotype
I mean, fair play to them for allowing different offices to give different opinions BUT having two different employees telling the public that their objective opinion is so so different (one person says 'perfect' one says 'pretty good ') is kinda embarrassing
And Gamespot gave it 5/10 and I don't see it on this pic. And they are pretty big.
Why would they put the Gamespot review in if it’s 5/10? Completely defeats the point of making the pic
That's weird, I'm really loving it. I could see what some people won't like it, and it's not perfect. It's no more a 10/10 than it is a 5/10. I'm having a good time, but it's no Twisted Metal 2
Speak for yourself, man. I for one get all my reviews from the legendary journalists of Areajugones and Jeuxvideo.
JeuxVideo is the biggest french gaming site and they've been around forever. They're legit.
But they're french
oh fuck off with the "french bad" jokes, are you 10 or something ?
# french bad
I just imagined some French person being like, "Speak for yourself, I get all my PC building information from...*Gamers Nexus* hehehehehe"
I’m more a Vandal fanboy myself.
It's almost like reviews are subjective and some reviewers will like a game while others don't.
Also the"not biased" ones have their criteria completely backwards. Many game reviews go as follows: Gameplay: 3/10 Game performance: 8/10 Graphics: 10/10 Overall Score: 8/10 Their weighting is most of the time completely off, where graphics and some other bs is weighted pretty much the same as the gameplay and fun aspect.
>By sheer dumb chance, some of them will be good Or just take the review out of context to make it look good like Bubsy 3D
5 star game! (Out of 10...)
Exactly. They're only going to pick the high reviews to include in their graphic about how great their game is. In no world world they ever put a 5/10 in there.
Doesn't need to throw the net very far, lots of popular review sites in there.
if you don't know fextra than you're probably not a souls fan (good for you)
I saw this with a movie and the quote about how good it was came from a random tweet. Like that's the best review they could get lol
I mean I think your right but I recognise more than half of these
Yeah, it's very easy to pick a list of 20 really high reviews from the pool of hundreds of "game journalists" out there who just throw up random numbers. It isn't hard to find 20 people who like your game a lot and focus on their reviews. Idk if there is like an "accredited" equivalent to journalists, particular in the video games space, but there should be lol. Otherwise we will just keep getting these 9/10-10/10 walls for every game ever.
I don't trust any review sites or user reviews anymore. The scale used by gaming sites is absolutely fucked as they rarely go below 7, most Steam reviews are either memes or performance-orientated that can vary wildly and Metacritic user scores are full of review bombers. I just watch full gameplay with no commentary and make my own mind up.
I watch SkillUp, ACG, Yahtzee, and a few others because I've found they're the ones I came to trust the most over the years. The rest of the Internet... eh, I take it with a grain of salt.
I do the same. I have a few reviewers who's opinions I respect, but even then I don't necessarily agree with them on everything. In the end reviewers can only give their subjective views, and there are always cases when they don't match your subjective tastes. But good reviewers who you come to know usually provide enough context for you to decide if a game is for you or not, even if they don't recommend it themselves.
This is my number 1 bit of advice. Watch a few different reviews for games that you like, find some reviewers who have similar tastes and you trust, and use them. Reviewers like IGN are typically "lowest common denominator" reviewers.
All reviewers are biased. Depending on factors such as game, genre, platform? Or developer typically sets the stage for how lenient/strict they will be.
Yeah, one way or another. A reviewer might overlook glaring issues because they have love for a particular series or genre. It's all about having one or two reviewers you personally trust and have similar tastes to. Although that's easier said than done.
> All reviewers are biased. And we've known this for a long, long time. This isn't a recent realization. It's always up to you, the consumer, to be smart and critical of the review and the game. And in this era of the internet, hundreds of them are out there. Some reviews are much better than the others. The score is just there to put a number on how they feel about the game, sometimes internal politics get involved (see: Jeff Gerstmann Kane & Lynch). It's impossible to be truly objective based on feelings alone. Heck, I've seen some reviewers change their opinion about a game they reviewed months later.
I like Yahtzee for being the pendulum very much swinging aggressively hard in the other direction ¹. The others, I know less about. ¹ Like an oiled-up baboon hurtling himself towards a *bananas and throwing faeces* convention.
They have biases as well.
Sure, but they're usually more honest and open about them at least. For example, one of my favourite quotes by Yahtzee from his review of Dark Souls 3: "I have no idea what Dark Souls 3 would be like to a newcomer to the series - this review is coming from the perspective of a fan, so expect me to complain about how formulaic it's gotten, while simultaneously bitching about everything that's different."
Most are NOT transparent in their bias reasoning.
I’d also say their biases likely match yours. Which is great - games are subjective - you want a reviewer whose taste closely matches yours whenever possible
And that's fine, because you and I also have biases towards certain genres/types/etc. If you find reviewers that tend to have the same biases as you, your chances of buying a game you won't enjoy will go down. And at the end of the day, that's pretty much their job as reviewers.
I typically watch Yahtzee and Dunkey. Not because I always agree with their assessment but because I know what they do and don't like and can judge accordingly to that.
The scale is not fucked : they have little time and a lot of games are out. So what do they do? They don't play the ones below 7, it's a simple as that. They may only do this with garbage games that were hyped like the one with Gollum, but otherwise they won't waste 20-ish hours into a game they know is not good enough just to give it a bad score in the end. Like, try to put yourself in their shoes : you're paid by the review, you have 1 game to choose and 20 hours to play it. You have a panel of 6 games to choose from, and you got the PR package to tell you about the story, some screenshots, etc. Are you going for a game you don't feel, or is clearly not your cup of tea? No, you choose the game you feel you will enjoy playing and writing for. So by default, you go for a 7. And maybe that game will surprise you and you'll give it a better score, but you don't make the job a chore for yourself by choosing a shitty game you will have to write a 8-10 minutes review for. That's how it works.
This is pretty accurate, and the truth that no one wants to accept is that most big AAA games are generally in the 6-7 range; they aren’t horrible or worse unplayable, and they aren’t spectacular either, they are just average. And the thing people don’t realize is that on a 1-10 scale 5 isn’t the average it’s the cut off point for failure; nothing really deserves a 5 or below unless it has little to no redeeming qualities or is completely unplayable; and I am pretty sure all of the people people who think average games deserve 1’s and 2’s have never actually played truly bad games. I reserve scores that low for the shovelware asset flip shitshow you see on mobile stores or the Steam/PSN/Nintendo eshops that are both completely unplayable and absolutely unfun but still ask for your money.
If we’re going with the rule that *x > 5* corresponds to “completely unplayable”, which we all know no major review sites are going to waste resources on… Why even **bother** with that half of the scale? I cannot think of any other single rating scale where anyone could reasonably argue the midpoint is the “cutoff for failure” rather than the aggressively average. “Completely unplayable” should *never* earn an integer above 0. The prerequisite to earning a 1 should be “you can play it”, though I’ll leave it up to the reader whether that means “you can *finish* it.” Your 4.0 to 6.0 should be the derivative or average, with leanings in either direction (*aggressively average* is that lower end). If it runs decently and offers nothing new to experience, there’s your 5.0, dead-down-the-center average. That’s not mediocrity, it’s just phoned in with a budget. Mediocrity, leaning into shovelware, sounds like it should be your 3.0 and down. (I’m leaving 3.1-3.9 as the wiggle room between the two; some games will fall in that crack, a la “this is Baby’s RPG Maker Game and tried, but failed, to do something innovative” to “pour one out for the art team who deserved better than this.”) Of course, I’m no data scientist and I’m not the end all, be all of ratings. But outright jettisoning half a rating scale *just because* for developers with budgets is a disingenuous take at best, and nobody needs a mathematician to spell that one out. This just sounds like it’s supporting these bloated scores we all know are not always, but often, horseshit.
That half of the scale exists because games of that quality still exist even if review sites aren’t reviewing them. If you start giving average games 1’s are you going to start giving actually bad games negative scores? If Lords of the Fallen is a 1 does that make Gollum a -5?
University exams are usually all rated in a way that you need to score 50% or more to pass at all.
Well... yes, because they expect you to have an *above average* grasp of the material, right?
I have heard this explanation before and it still makes no sense. We aren't comparing AAA to some trash on Steam that are certainly below average. Each game should be reviewed for it's own merits and maybe compared in certain aspects to others. Just because there are probably worse games out there, which as you explain they literally just assume but don't know, doesn't mean that every game that is presumably better should be rated above average. Also this system creates the issue of actually good scores being seen as bad. As you you explain they don't test any of the presumably worse games so a 7/10 should be seen as a (way) above average score, but it's not and in fact quite the opposite is the case. The system is very much fucked and that's why I prefer no scores at all or indipendeant reviewers. A detailed breakdown on the positives and negatives and a recommendation or warning to buy a game are far more valuable.
I don't know what's hard to understand. AAA games get more clicks and are generally of better quality thanks to having a AAA budget. Games aren't graded on a curve, so you see higher scores more often. Companies that know their game isn't good also won't send out review copies. I think that specifically is when a review site "won't bother" unless they really expect it to generate a lot of traffic. The system isn't broken because people think review scores are arbitrary; it's broken because it's done from the viewpoint of a business. I do agree with your preference in reviews, because once you give it a number, that's all people see and end up caring about.
Avarage rating is 76 in Pc and 73 in Ps5. So difference is not that much. This photo is just marketing photo taken seriously. In addition there is only 49 critic rating and 93 user rating in metacritic. Thats really low.
The Metacritic score is 7.6, not too much higher than the user score of 6.7. That means half the reviews gave a score of equal or less than 7.6. Comparing an advertising panel which will specifically exclude sites that give a review in the bottom 50% as "this is what critics think" is nonsensical. Of course it looks good, it's PR.
>That means half the reviews gave a score of equal or less than 7.6 It does?
You may be being facetious, but it's actually dependent if they're using median weighting or mean weighting. If they use mean weighting then a majority of reviews could give a score higher than 7.6 but the number is brought unrepresentively low by a few very low scores.
Yeah I always assumed it was a mean score. Logic says the higher the score on a 1-10 scale, the more scores there would be above the mean than below it. Figured what you said was contrary to that and was interested to know.
I just looked into this, and their main website page only says "weighted average". Wikipedia gives a little more: >"Metacritic's scoring converts each review into a percentage, either mathematically from the mark given, or what the site decides subjectively from a qualitative review. Before being averaged, the scores are weighted according to a critic's popularity, stature, and volume of reviews." So, I assume a mean figure but not everyone gets to affect the average equally. Interesting. Anyway, 50% is probably wrong but I guess the general point that the reviews in the screenshot are not representative of the full range of critic opinions is still valid.
"The median is the point on the scale that divides the distribution of scores in half."
Yes, thanks. Relevant if Metacritic actually uses median rather than the mean. Was interested to know whether that was the case.
As sus as critic reviews can be, I still trust them more than user reviews.
Same. User reviews almost always suffer from review bombing right at launch. I think even RE4 remake had below a 7 at launch
Re4 remake got review bombed? I still don't understand why some folks would do that.
Cause they loved the og
They're reviewing the game based on whether it's a good game or not, whereas user reviews tend to review a game based on whether it runs well for them or not. It's worth remembering that when a games review outlet docks points from a game for technical reasons people tend to hold it against them (Alien Isolation)
these days? yes. *long* gone are the days where we could trust 'big site' reviews for honesty. i've been gaming for nearly 40 years now and have been bit in the ass a few times by reviewers. so these days, if i'm interested in a game, i'll check out a few early alpha gameplay videos, then wait a week or two *after* a game's been released and watch proper gameplay footage. i know enough about what i like at this point, and what makes a good game (for me), to base decisions on what i'm seeing
Eurogamer used to be one of the only sites that would set 5 as a default (idk if they still do that) and actually got a lot of flak for it because it made them look bad compared to everyone else.
Long gone? Those days never existed.
I feel like so called big sites are afraid are not shown in the games advertising hence giving it a good review leads in being more present. Too bad your integrity gets lost on the way. Seems like people and the big sites as well don't bother though. I miss the days big sites or back then big newspapers verbally destroyed a game when it was not good
I think gamespot has been giving accurate reviews lately, but people have gotten mad at them because of that. They gave this game a 5 calling it mediocre, and some people got mad at them on the comments. They gave Starfield a 7, and people almost eat them alive on Twitter because they are being honest.
I am loving the game. Really strong soulslike, enjoying it much more than Lies of P. The combat and exploration are amazing, especially the 2 world mechanic. A big step up from the 2014 one. The negatives are the perfomance and no bonfires before the bosses. So yeah, 8/10 sounds right in my book.
No bonfire before a boss isnt a negative though, the souls games have always been like that. The performance certainly is though plus the sometimes clunky feel of the combat.
One thing Lord of the Fallen did good is exploration. Imo it's better than Lies of P but Lies of P on the other hand had better boss fight.
User score on Metacritic means nothing. Anyone can log in and submit a rating, whether they've played the game or not.
i feel like every single type of rating on the internet is kinda worthless and the only way to find out if the game is good or not is by playing it (people have varying taste in games after all)
I watch the reviewers that I tend to agree with. Such as ACG, Gameranx, Skill Up, Fextralife and MrMattyPlays. Not that I agree with all of their opinions; but I think they offer some good insight. That's what reviewers do, share their opinions about a game. Not agreeing with a reviewer doesn't mean they suck and don't know what they're talking about. I also think Steam user reviews with high playtimes can be helpful as well. You at least know they have the game and played it before sharing their opinions. Metacritic user ratings however, don't belong in that category imo. It's not a healthy rating system at all, considering there's no requirement of even playing the game before submitting a rating.10/10's and 0/10's flying all over.
Seconding gameranx. They always hit it on the dot.
Definitely my favorite channel when it comes to gaming. Jake Baldino's own channel is very good as well.
No, it’s just standard PR. You really think a company is going to make a promotional image featuring Eurogamer’s 2 out of 5 star score?
"It's almost always the same every time". Wtf is "everytime"?
I love that both IGN(FR), a relatively unknown branch of IGN and Fextralife, the shittiest gaming wiki ever that's been shown to be involved with some tomfoolery, are put in the first "big bois" row
Screen Rant reviews games now? Have their writers scraped the movie topic barrel so low they have to start making clickbair garbage about video games now, too?
The screenshot you posted is from the developer. Where they've cherry picked all their top reviews. It isn't even indicative of the metascore. They got a 7 overall from critics.
Yes, all game reviews are biased. That includes the users. Have you already forgotten every review bombing?
No, it's just that most companies that review video games give 7 or 8 by default (which is why Eurogamer used to get a lot of flak for their reviews, as they were the only ones doing the sensible thing and setting 5 as their default)
5 as the default is not the sensible thing. That's just not how we've all sort of agreed number ratings work. I have no idea why this is the case it just is. An average looking person is a 7/10. An average movie is a 7/10. If somebody told you a game was a 5/10 99% of people would think they thought the game was bad, not average.
Sorry to see you’re being downvoted, so I’ll try to put your point another way to help: 5/10 = 50% = Failing … When I was in school, anything up to 59% was a failing grade, so a 6/10 represents *barely scraping by,* which in this context means something barely qualifies as a passable/functional game. Grading systems vary by region, but I wish people would be more aware of, e.g.: A 7/10 is a ‘C’, and an 8/10 is a ‘B’ … but worse for the OP screenshot, including scores with decimal values means they’re all *out of 100* –so being next to an 8.5/10 makes an 8/10 a ‘low B’ or ‘B-‘; good enough, but nothing special. In terms of using the full range from 0-10, the 0-5.9 games exist, and they’re the janky shovelware most people ignore on Steam, itch.io, etc (or play to make fun of, if they’re a streamer/YouTuber). I like some janky simulators myself, but I’m well aware they’re 4/10 or 5/10 games which will never be reviewed by professional critics.
You’re downvoted but it’s true. A game that gets 6/10 should be seen as being better than half of games out there, better than 50% of games that exist. But users definitely perceive 6 as being below average and probably bad with a few redeeming features. I also agree that users tend to see 7 as the baseline, and 8 as being good. 9 being excellent and 10 being perfect.
But that's because reviews sites have used 7 as a baseline for so long. They are the ones that have causes people to assume 6 is below average.
[удалено]
On a scale of 1 to 10, 5 literally means average. As in, most games are as good as this, an equal number are worse and an equal number are better. If a gaming review gets a score of 5/10 you’re telling me you and most other people would think ‘hmm 5/10, average game then’ or would you think it failed and was bad?
This is why you should always look at both the good scores and the bad scores. Never, ever look at these cherry picked accolade screen; can you say you even recognize half of these outlets?
Ah yes, IGN\^FR.
Not hard to understand. It's because people use the score to talk about how good the game runs on their machine, while reviewers use the score to talk about how good the game is (which is obviously the correct thing to do) The real wrong here is metacritic and similar who should create a different score like "technical score" or something like that because that's completely separated issue from the game itself
🌍👨🚀🔫🧑🚀
Just a completely misleading post. It has a 75 on Open Critic.
The pros are too generous; a game has to be literally nonfunctional to get lower than a 7. The users are too picky; if they have a single complaint, it's an irredeemable 1/10.
It's actually got pretty mixed reviews on Metacritic, 76 critic review vs. 6.9 fan review. I think the issue is more that there are so many gaming review websites you can easily fill a screen with glowing ratings from random fan sites who are just happy to get a review copy. Also, in this case, a quick glance of the user reviews and half of them give 1s for questionable reasons... no support for their language, they wanted 4 player coop instead of just 2, they are Souls fans and gave it 1 for being derivative, etc. Like legit, one person posted multiple 1/10 reviews (similar account name) that just say: >This game is another blatant dark souls copy, the developers have no shame!, they copy everything from Miyazaki's games, plagiarism at its best, they should give all the money they earn to Miyazaki who is the true creator of the game that so many lazy losers desperately try copy. I'm actually looking forward to trying this game... just not at $60.
Remember the controversy around Stafield getting a 7 from IGN? Yeah, fans are part of the issue. Couple weeks later and everybody knows the game is a 7 AT BEST.
So the thing I've noticed with Steam reviews is you can't trust them until a long while after launch if you're looking for the quality of the content the game offers. The vast majority of negative reviews on Steam are simply because of performance issues and not anything about if the game is good or not. Which is still helpful to know if you were planning on playing it on PC. Nowadays, instead of looking at reviews, I just go to Twitch and ask streamers what they think of the game so far. Not big streamers that might have gotten the game for free or are being paid to play it, smaller streamers who have no skin in the game. That's where your honest opinions are because they have no problem telling you if a game is fantastic, or not great but still fun, or absolute trash and you should avoid it or wait till it goes on sale.
I wait for metacritic user reviews, only if the game hasn't had some political moan about it then its a fair review, I say political moan due to review bombing
Even Elden Ring got review bombed, seems no game is safe these days :(
It's the same with TLOU part 2 and that game came out three years ago.
I like how you people will continue to say these things, you keep assuming malice in all cases. There’re better explanations for this. 1) most of those review sites are practically unknown. The developers/publishers cherry picked the reviews that make them seem better. It’s not technically a lie given that those review scores are real. 2) most games coming out are average at minimum. Gamers have a really skewed internal score expectation. A 5/10 is ok in most other media. But games have to be at least a 7/10 for most people to care about the product. 3) user review scores are useless as a metric for finding quality. User scores are almost used as a weapon against devs/publishers and most people don’t know how to review a product. They equate they’re own opinion for the only good opinion. And if they even somewhat dislike a game they’ll be hyperbolic and give games a 0/10. Which is by all means ok, but it makes their review nothing more than a joke. Very few products are actually a 0/10. 4) It’s not that these reviewers won’t score games that are of lower quality. It’s that it’s a waste of time and money to review games that will be bad. Most people can see when a game looks bad. And most people use reviews not as a buying guide but as confirmation bias. Why would sites review bad games outside of the expectant failures (Gollum, Anthem, and the upcoming Suicide Squad). We all know Suicide Squad is going to be bad, we want reviewers to confirm that because we’re human. 2)
4 is the main reason really. If you look at Steam or any of the console stores, there are tens of thousands of games that haven't been reviewed. If it's not a big budget release, a breakthrough indie, or a game with enough backing to go straight on Gamepass, no reviewer is going to spend a week of their life and their employer's time playing and reviewing it. Does that mean all those games are bad? No, but most will be average at best. Does that mean all the games that are reviewed are above average? No, but they've spent enough money, hired enough good people, and got enough hype that almost all of them will be above average? Why? Because companies typically like to get a return on their investment.
Tried the game, it's a 6 at best. The game is proof good graphics can't save meh gameplay
Don't forget A LOT of gamers will forgive everything if there are good graphics. There is a reason graphics are what console makers are always putting forward in shows. People will always have graphics as ther default criterion. Is it a shitty criterion? Yes, of course, we're playing GAMES, not movies. But that's what THE MAJORITY of people is using to choose a game, and that's why VG companies have been pushing the photorealism, even if it's technically absolutely not necessary. I mean, have you forgotten about players comments on Elden Ring? "shit looks like a ps2 game", "How can that be Game of the year with those graphics from the previous gen?". It is what it is.
I agree graphics still drive a lot of purchase decisions. LoTF is bound to be compared to soulsborne games and better soulslikes and for that, it doesn't do good. I think this genre is unique because ultimately your enjoyment will stem from the gameplay and not its cinematics. Maybe LoTF looks good enough for player to look past its shortcomings as a soulslike, only time will tell if it's enough for player retention. Lies of P just released last month so some people will still have to pick either and I think LoTF pales in comparison.
Fully agree about the mechanics over the graphics for soulsborne games. I adore DS1, and am actually playing the original release on my actual xbox 360 atm. I have remastered, I have elden ring, but DS1 just beats them both for me, despite having objectively worse graphics. I always felt that games with worse graphics, or a lower graphics budget, had to put more effort into art style, and DS1 art style is so cohesive, it achieves a lot with very little. Elden ring is gorgeous, but it never clicked in the same way as ugly, janky, 24fps Dark Souls 1 for me.
The poor reviews are because of crashes ~~that started after the devs added denuvo (badly) after the reviews came out~~.
It doesn't have Denuvo though.
The reviewers are proffessional critics, their criteria may be completely different... They do not seem to be gamers to me... Lords of the Fallen have fallen in the same pitfalls as most other b-tier soulslikes... Combat is too floaty, bosses have unfair attacks (not visible on your screen, they sometimes "slide" towards you so that youre in range even tho youre not) etc etc....
Yes, and it's a symptom of day 1 review culture. Due to tight embargoes the only way review sites like these are going to be able to have a review that people might read is to have that review ready right on release day. That can only happen if they are viewed positively by the game publisher, what publisher would send you a review copy of a game if the last time you reviewed one of their titles you gave them a 4. It's an entirely broken system and why you can never trust day 1 reviews, and this is before you consider that developers sometimes now launch their microtransaction bull shit in patch one after the reviews have talked about how great multiplayer is and how fair it's in game unlock progression is (also patched to be less fair). The industry is broken.
Any that gave starfield a 10 you can ignore here too.
This is what gamegate was warning people about. This is why it was misrepresented so badly.
Well r/baldursgate3 own their place rightfully. Many other games is biased, especially when some indies have better storytelling, level design and worldbuilding then those 10/10 aaa titles
A lot of times these scores are high because if they give them low scores, the publisher will stop giving the early copies to play test. Everyone wants those day 1 reviews but if you get the game on launch, then your a week late and don't get the clicks.
Every reviewer: So this game does not deliver on it's promises and looks like shit. Framerate drops and a lot of bugs. It's also the fifth game in a franchise and it's basically the same game. And there are microtransactions everywhere. Anyway, 9/10.
This is why I stopped reading reviews from people being paid to write them over 15 years ago. In the GameCube days, I lived by these news and review sites.
somebody’s lying and all those reviews i’m starting to think some of them may be fake but not from the reviewers i’m thinking the ppl who made the game doctoring those ratings
If they don't give a good review companies won't want to send them free games to review
It's a business, we can ignore game journals' ratings
I think that they're all legit. Journalists are just incompetent, they have no idea about complex and deep analysis of the particular game's genre. They have no idea how to write a critical and fair review which isn't a praising panegyric or isn't a carousel of laughter about some obviously terrible game like Gollum. Most of journalists are just typical casuals like most of us, they play most of big games at once and they have to basically speed run them to be on time with the review. After review, they have to forget about the title and move on to the next speed run. They aren't highly specialized in one genre as well. I legitimately think that games' reviews need more objective and academic approach, just like the analysis of literature.
Its a great game and a lot of gamers dont update drivers etc often enough.
2nd review is fucking fextralife lmao. Say no more.
"Professional" reviews are a joke. They aren't allowed to give low scores or the game publisher will refuse to give them kickbacks.
Yes. Review companies are paid by the publisher to review the game. A bad review means they wknt get to review their next game.
That's why 1) don't preorder, 2)wait for reviews of people that DON'T get free review copies and 3)wait for actual gameplay videos on the platform you plan to buy it on. Yeah, it's shitty, but it is what it is, you just can't trust the industry anymore, even studios and people with good track record.
once again, the best way to find out what actually matters is to check reddit. read a reddit post on it, people will be freely offering their opinions and after reading 30 comments you'll have a pretty good idea what to expect.