Are there actually still people who think review scores and aggregates are useful? I can't imagine that given how nonsensical every review thread is, and people in threads like these must be the most engaged with the aggregator sites. I think most people just enjoy it because its an easy way to shitpost or argue about games you have no interest in without doing the work of engaging with the actual criticism being offered by reviews much less the game itself.
Oh my God that would be fucking amazing.
Yeah it really sucks that they had to review the version of the game that has all the issues that us players had to suffer with. C'mon now.
The online issues are temporary, so sure as long as they update their scores when everything is smooth sailing again.
Gears 5 is simply better. And it's not even close. And I say this as someone who loves the new Tomb Raider games.
Unfortunately, reviewers can't wait 2 or 3 years for a game to become good.
That's what I want from reviewers. Reviewers who give consensus scores are useless.
Secondary opinions are great for this very reason, then you'd cover the diverse opinions that no doubt is out there. The only problem with odd review scores is that they really stand out if there is only that one opinion from a whole media outlet. What if the reviewer for whatever reason don't like the genre/IP/design/controls? Then you'll see a surprisingly low score that nobody understands and the whole outlet will get dragged down and fans would hate on them etc.
Sometimes it is really needed though. No Man's Sky, the launch was a mess, and it sits at 71 on metacritic with 4.7 as user score on PS4. I still liked it at launch but I absolutely understood the complaints. Today it's a whole other game and it's rapidly climbing my best game of all time list, today I wouldn't be even a tiny bit embarassed to give the PC version at least 9/10.
Giving so much importance to double digit numbers is A LOT crazier.
That's fine and I'm glad they were able to right the ship. However, unless Hello Games is pulling a Bethesda and denying workers a bonus over that 71, I fail to see the injustice here.
NMS is unique but you have to think about the purpose of a review, to help consumers choose where to spend their money. It's not all that helpful if a review is too focused on dropping the score because of launch issues if that gets fixed before the masses even jump in, so personally I absolutely think updated reviews should be a norm.
How the heck am I going to review new games if I'm too busy re-reviewing last year's titles?
For the average reviewer, the reality is that they have hundreds of games to cover and zero free time.
A full re-review isn't needed. Just be serious about things, if you're nitpicking and drop the score at launch because of something that is likely to get patched out then I think it's only fair to update the score and remove the "drop" later. Otherwise your review will only be helpful for people that was there day 1 and everyone else could just ignore everything you said.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm getting trolled and ya'll just hate critics.
Maybe we need more critics instead of less up to date coverage on each game?
Most critics aren't even getting paid. Maybe we should work on that before trying to drag more in.
That's easy.Fredrik said:
It's the future though, I don't think you can escape the GaaS problems you talk about, it's already here and not just on the multiplayer games with all games getting post-launch updates and season passes etc. The day 1 reviews are sometimes inaccurate within just days after the launch.
What? Of course it does, reviews are for launch period, anything else beyond that comes from word of mouth, nobody looks at MC of a 3 year old game to decide if it's worth it or not.
If Game Pass becomes more widespread, the consumer doesn't need any purchase guidance anymore because they can easily try and see for themselves without additional cost. At that point MS should stop giving out review keys (as I already suggested earlier in this thread). Critics who want to give an unfair score at least had to buy the game or subscribe to Game Pass themselves then and didn't get it for free.
Bradley Ellis likes to keep his reviews rather succinct compared to other Allies, usually they're around 5 and 6 minutes. His longest one is Sekiro with bit under 9 minutes and it's an outlier for sure. I think he's also relatively new to writing review scripts, didn't start until EZA was formed. Him being new to writing is in no way an implication of his opinion of the game being wrong. Just want to say that so nobody thinks I'm trying to discredit him.
Nobody? Literally everyone I know checks metacritic before a purchase unless they already know that it's good. Same thing with imdb for movies.
Critics who want to give an unfair score will still find a way to do that. But I agree, Game Pass is almost like the demos and trial versions we got two gens ago, but with the full games. I love that. No reviews besides user feedback seems risky though, Gears 5 is doing crazy good work for Game Pass as a whole, every game on the service will gain from this success, but would that be the case without the high review scores? I'm not so sure.
People definitely do that. Even though there are people like us who buy games day 1, there are toooooons of people who don't buy consoles til several years after they're released and then try to find the best games to play. People who are able to buy games for $60 at release are usually just the enthusiast well-payed adults.
I think the industry as a whole needs to rethink how they're doing the previews and reviews. Like I said before pretty much all games have post-launch updates and season passes today, to rush out as a critic and try beating everyone else and post the first worldwide review on day 1 with no intention of updating the review is doing not only the game a diservice but also the consumers and the gaming industry as a whole. Almost nobody will play that version so why rush out and report on it?
There's a fair number of side objectives (basically little quests) to do in the open world levels.
To be fair, NMS got 2 chances to be re-reviewed with the XB1 port (77 MC) and the Beyond Expansion (83 MC).
Not sure why anyone would tell you that. It's basically a level select screen, the 'side' objectives are super clearly marked levels, basically. Some are very short, some are pretty chunky, but they're still just bespoke missions essentially. There's like map markers in the entire game. Nothing to actually search and find or anything.
Probably a good thing you aren't a reviewer like some of us. I can tell you if GaaS become the norm I won't be reviewing them as I've all but about gotten tired of those kinds of games already.
