Loading ...
Community Voice #1: Review Scores
With Metacritic as the hot-button issue lately, this week’s Community Voice wants to hear opinions on those numbers that make Metacritic what it is. What do you think of review scores? Are they your be-all? Do you take them with a grain of salt? Do you completely bypass the actual review in order to get to those brain-satisfying numbers? And if so, should we reviewers even bother with the actual writing or are we wasting our time and yours? Conversely, should we abandon the numbers altogether and rate games purely with our words? Is there a happy medium? How do you feel about 5 stars versus an out of 10 system? A letter grade versus a 1-100 scale? Speak up! We want to hear your honest opinions.
What is The Community Voice? The Community Voice is your chance to make yourself heard on Spawn Kill. Yes, you can leave comments on any post that we have, but The Community Voice is a weekly feature that is notorious for encouraging discussion and fostering a sense of, yes, community. We want to hear from readers of the site, and we want to talk to you. So let us know your opinions on the topics each week and let’s get something lively going!
Personally I ignore scores all together. Some games that are scored low are games that I've enjoyed while games that have scored higher are games that I just couldn't stand. I'd rather deal with just reading the review itself –heck sometimes the scores don't match the review.
I say just get rid of scores all together. I don't ask my friends to give me a rating on a game, I ask them whether they liked it or not. I'd rather have someone tell me “This game was amazing and should definitely give it a shot” or “This game was terrible and you should just pass it by”.
That's just my two cents.
I agree with you. I would like to get rid of scores all together because I get more from reading the review than from looking at a score. but as much as i would like to get rid of it there are too many people who love to look at scores and there are also some people who see a score of a game they might have thought was good or bad and then went to read the review to see why the game got that score. Thanks to metacritic scores will be here to stay mostly for marketing reasons. How many covers or ads are out there right now highlighting scores like gamepro gave it a 5/5 or ign gave it 9.5 and then a small one or two word quote like “amazing”. I personally don’t use metacritic because I like to read the reviews but then again I only visit a few sites and read a couple of mags.
I've seen a really smart proposal for how to interpret Metascore scores once. Basically, it was about judging scores based on how many games there are below or above it. Kinda like IQ is calculated. It's only slightly more complicated than a current weighted average but would always place mediocre games in the 50 range instead of creating some artificial “mediocrity barrier” at 75 or 80.
Don't know how to translate this to individual reviews, though. But as long as you really want a number, comparison is still the only thing you can do. Pick similar games or games of the genre and decide if one game is better, worse or equal.
What's also important is to rate games based on what THEY try to do, not how popular whatever they try is to the average gamer. If we want to call it… *sigh*… a buyer's guide (really, that's all your pride, game journalists? “Buyer's guides?”), then at least acknowledge that some buyers have niche-tastes. And reward innovation, even if it means a pixel shader less or awkward control scheme more here and there… Innovation should be able to outweigh soulless production value or even methodical polish. And maybe giving a more obscure game a higher score (warnings can still go into the text) might motivate a younger generation to try something rougher but ultimately more fulfilling than Activision blockbuster titles.
Personally, I hardly follow review numbers anymore, except when curious about the mainstream taste (which too often doesn't respect the games I like). The Mount & Blade reviews really broke my heart (it's one of my favorite games of all times and I ALMOST didn't get it because of mediocre reviews… damn you guys!). I rather listen to blog comments by fans or genre enthusiasts. They're the only ones left celebrating innovation, especially when it's not in-your-face innovation like Little Big Planet or Portal but more of a subtle reinterpretation of a genre, maybe even with flaws. I'd love to see reviews used to push the more unusual games rather than just rate games on their proximity to mainstream taste.
I definitely agree about that mediocrity level at 75 or whatever. At least us Westerners are trained to see a C as near failure, as I'm sure the Japanese are too (not that I have a clue what their grading scale is, I just know they're pushed to get top grades). I wish we could get game review readers to realize that on a 1-10 scale, 5 is the median score.
You also definitely make a good point about niche games. People not into that niche have no right reviewing them if they don't even understand what the game's drive is.
I prefer the minimalist approach to review scores: buy, rent pass. This method doesn't correlate well with sites like Metacritic that require a numeral value to be included in the average consensus of a game. I used to like the 10-point scale until I realized that anything 5 or under is garbage so why bother including half of the review scale? 100-point scales are more inane–is there much of a difference between an 85 and an 88?
Personally, I like the 5-star scale as it caters to the numbered score audience and it's ambiguous enough to cause readers to actually read your review. A 5/5 game is held with less esteem than a 10/10 game. A 10/10 game is assumed to be basically perfect, while a 5/5 has more room for imperfection, but both scores have the same message: YOU NEED TO PLAY THIS GAME.
If we got rid of scores altogether, though, I am sure a lot of reviewers would close their reviews with something like, “This is a must-buy”, or, “I would give this a rental first.” Pretty soon they'd have systems with which to say certain things when the game is X amount of Good. It might not be numbers, but the rating would be in there somewhere.
I agree with that, a 5/5 system is a lot more easy to manage for the reader. It does prove a bit more difficult for the writer, though, and with so little room between “meh” and “great”, I don't imagine it is too pleasing to developers.
The sad reality is that some scoring system must be given to every game, movie, book, or other type of media so that the people who don't have time to inform themselves have something to go by. Especially in this day and age when everyone wants their information 2 minutes ago, you need to keep it short and informative. As nice as it would be to abolish review scores, it's simply not going to happen.
And again the problem there is people are so conditioned to certain number values that they see a 3/5 as not worth playing, when 3/5 is probably a good game, or at least above average. But we see it as a 60 which is what we got grounded for in middle school so we don't play it.
I have posted arguments on why I like review scores on here in the past, but they were pretty long, so I'll keep this brief:
You have to keep in mind that when you write a review that the audience may differ, and because of this I feel that a review has to be both informative and simple. Removing review scores could potentially alienate casual audiences and people who are new to gaming, which is unacceptable.
Personally, I always like to look at the score first before I read the review, to get a reference point, but I always read the full review. I personally tend to dislike reviews that don't give a score, although I don't necessarily rely on the score alone to make my judgment. I really like to read the review and get a feel for why the reviewer gave the score they did. For instance (and I do use metacritic a lot), if a game got a mediocre score (i.e., in the 60s), but the flaws that caused it to get that score are things I find acceptable (that I can live with), then I'll go ahead and give the game a try anyway. Conversely, just because a game has stellar scores doesn't mean I'll automatically accept it as such. I'll read to see why it got the score it did first. Finally, I use my own judgment based on everything I've read/seen.
So, basically, I do like review scores, and I prefer the 10-point scale because I think 5 is too small. I feel like you rarely see a 10/10 game, but you see 5/5 games all the time. To me, a 10/10 game is one that we will be talking about for (console) generations to come, but a 5/5 game is just a really good (but possibly very forgettable) game. That's the perception I have anyway.
While I never use metacritic (I actually got into the habit of going gamerankings.com), I do appreciate a number score system. Or in 1up's case, a letter score. I don't really mind -any- kind of scoring system as long as it's there somewhere on the review to get as a reference point. If a game is consistently getting 5's across the board, I will probably skip it unless it's a really niche title.
I can understand why lots of people don't like a scoring system because people put a lot of time and work into their reviews, but sometimes I don't have time to sit there and get through a four-page review. I also like Gamespot's way of reviewing games, where they have the little icons on the side of the page and when you hover over them they explain what they are (such as a button for bad sound, poor visuals, etc.). I'm not terribly fond of the 5-point scale, favoring the 10-point more but the decimals annoy me. A 9.2? An 8.3? I don't really understand those and prefer to see just 2's, 8's or 10's.
I completely agree with you when it comes to niche games and innovation! A lot of niche games go reviewed by people with no interest or understanding of their appeal, which is why they get shamed reviews. I most definitely (as someone who often enjoys niche titles) claim excellence when a niche game does what it should be doing and very uniquely so, even if the graphics aren't that Metal Gear Solid 8 or Call of Duty 64.7.
There are a lot of different reasons why a game is good, though bugs and control issues have to factor in regardless — it's still a video game and it's still a review of the highs and lows, an evaluation of everything you're getting in the package. That said — I'm glad things like Sakura Wars and Half-Minute Hero were getting in the 9/10 range, despite their niche-y-ness that a lot of reviewers tend to squat over and dump on.
It looks good,I have learn a recruit!Recently,I found an <a href=” http://database-tracks.com/ ” >wslmart.net excellent online store, the XX are completely various, good quality and cheap price,it’s worth buying!
It looks good,I have learn a recruit!Recently,I found an <a href=” http://database-tracks.com/ ” >wslmart.net excellent online store, the XX are completely various, good quality and cheap price,it’s worth buying!
[...] Community Voice: Review Scores | Spawn Kill | Video Game News & Reviews [...]