What is Reddit's opinion of
Metacritic?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
➔ Metacritic website
By popularity on Reddit, this Service is:
100 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
<strong>This game is getting absolutely savaged by critics</strong>. In this day and age where AAA games rarely fully fail, this one has managed to grab the brass ring and catch lightning in a bottle at the same time.
IGN gives it a 50 which is like failing a class in college with that easy class everyone wanted to get into because the professor gave you an A for showing up for the final.
Gamespot is giving it a 45.
This is a full on trainwreck, everyone. Come gather round and look at the casualties.
Yes I bought the game, there was a general vibe it was going to fail. If it was branded as anything else besides Aliens, I wouldn't have spit on this game if it was on fire.
I already put in down and went back to Dead Space 3. In fact DS3 looks like Ocarina of Time compared to this steaming pile.
What's noticeably absent are games that score higher than 80 and 90.
Vita 90+: 1 3DS 90+: 5
Vita 80+: 18 3DS 80+: 24
This doesn't change the picture that much but the only 90+ game on Vita is Persona 4 which is a highly niche game. Still the Vita isn't doing that badly I actually own both systems but I admit I play my 3DS more.
http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/3ds?sort=desc
http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/vita?view=condensed&sort=desc
Seems just like people trolling or being fan boys for TWD. They may be some fake positive reviews, but if you look at other recent "bad" games like Aliens Colonial Marines or Ace of Spades and it seems like the amount of positive reviews for TWD:SI is about standard.
For 11,867 reviews on Metacritic IGN did rate 60% of games higher than the average critic, 7% on the average, and 33% lower than the average critic.
However: On average IGN grades 4 points lower than other critics. In other words, the small amount it grades higher when it grades higher is offset by a larget gap between IGN and the average when it grades games lower than the average.
I definitely don't pay attention to the user scores on Metacritic because they tend to be grossly polarizing. Fanboys will shower 9s or 10s on the title, while detractors (often times many of whom have never played the game) will pile on the 1s. Case in point: Diablo III.
Available for pre-order on steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/225260/
I'm really looking forward to this hitting PC, the multiplayer should be fantastic, as PCs are generally the platform of choice for RTS games. It got favorable but not stellar reviews on the consoles when it came out so I'm hoping a good community forms around it on the PC! If nothing else it should be a blast to play at LANs!
Also worth noting, EA is not the publisher here, which I assume means Double Fine has got the rights back for the game! If so, I hope they're working on the sequel! :D
The sale lasts as long as Just Cause 2 is a Community Choice item. The first got pretty mixed reviews thanks to lackluster combat and repetitive sidequests, but at 27 cents that might not even matter to you. But if you've been really waiting to play a Just Cause game (and you haven't already), the highly praised second game currently on sale for $2.99 might be a better choice.
EDIT: It seems it has ended before Just Cause 2's Community Choice run and is now back to $1.39 at 80% off. Probably because it was indeed a mistake in the first place and has now been fixed.
Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. It is easily the worst movie I have ever enjoyed. Also it has the biggest gap between critic reviews and user reviews on Metacritic that I have ever seen.
Looks like an amazon bombing type deal. Reviews are all the same score and most say the same things in different words. Saw some of the reviews were cut/pasted for every version of the game.
Try to find any of those reviewers who have more than one review posted on metacritic. 99% of the people haven't reviewed anything else. On the rare case you do find someone with multiple reviews, it'll probably look like this: http://www.metacritic.com/user/Ramaah guy who took the time to post three negative reviews for DA2.
Also, look at the "Was this helpful?" ratings. Dead giveaway people are just going right down the line and clicking "yes" to everything.
The same exact thing happened with Portal 2, and that's a Valve game. Metacritic even made note of it:
OP might have already consulted this, but Metacritic has another analysis of IGN's score distribution.
Summary:
For 11,870 reviews, this publication has graded:
60%higher than the average critic
7%same as the average critic
33%lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Game review score: 69
Trying to take this data objectively, it seems like the worst charge that you could level at IGN is that they represent the critical consensus, or the "establishment," such as there is one in gaming, given that their scores line up fairly well with the rest of the industry. As such, they may be open to the charge of not being daring or edgy enough with their scores. It's much harder, though, to pin on the oft-made charge that they are sellouts, or substantially more lenient in their scores than their peers.
A 92 on Metacritic is notable, no matter what your opinion on the aggregate system is, and especially when trying to get a general idea of whether a game is worth the price of a McDonalds meal or not. It's not like it's just some generic "good score", a 90+ is significant. Take a look at the list of games with 90+ scores. I don't think anyone can argue against their quality.
Holy shit this guy is unbelievable, it almost sounds like he's just taking the piss.
A couple of highlights:
On all current servers only supporting 50 players. >Max players -- I'm not sure why this is even an issue. [The] text clearly stated "up to 100 players."
On map size.
>"Over 100 sq km" falls in "100 to 400" right?
On objectively false information about game features on the Steam page.
>and yes we'll apologize for presenting information in a way that allowed different interpretation.
It's such a shame that these guys are getting so much damn money from this thing. Steam really needs to step their shit up and take a good hard look at their screening process, as well as offer a full refund to everyone who purchased the game.
Edit: Okay, just checked out the official forums and am now 100% sure the guy is taking the piss.
> War Z on metacritic - tell us what do you think !
>http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-war-z/
>19 ppl think game is shit, 3 think that game is good.
>Plese go and vote - tell us what do YOU think !
>Sergey Titov
>Executive Producer
>The War Z
Your mistake was not getting the Assassins Creed Vita bundle. Call of Duty: Blacks Ops Declassified is a terrible game.
It has a 31 on Metacritic, which is no small feat.
I sort of feel like I'm going to get an annoyed ex-boss sending me a message, but I know for a fact that my ex-boss is retired and hell it was eight years back, nobody cares anymore. Everquest: Champions of Norrath.
> What is your point, IGN gave similar scores to games that failed
Please provide some examples of IGN giving scores in the 95 region, while other reviewers gave significantly lower scores. Because I hear crap about how IGN's scores are inflated all the time, but it's never backed up.
Also, it's worth pointing out that on average, IGN grades 4 points lower than other critics on a 0-100 scale.
Could it be any more obvious that most of the positive user reviews are fake? Perfect 10's across all 3 platforms by people who made their accounts recently and have only reviewed one game.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/star-trek-the-video-game/user-reviews?dist=positive
Well, it's not like Square Enix ever ruined a series by going mobile, right?
I'm all for iOS gaming but this is disappointing. I hope they're still working on a "proper" Deus Ex game.
You want lower? Here is another game that Sergey Titov (CEO/Dev of Hammerpoint Interactive, creators of WarZ) made Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing.
It's probably an obvious example, but I have to go with Alpha Protocol. It was widely criticized on release for being a buggy piece of shit with very poor gameplay and while, and when I tried it all I could think was "Wow, this game is fucking terrible!" and I dropped it.
A year or so later there was a bit of a gaming drought and I decided to give it another go, and I absolutely loved it. Great story, great characters, and I realized that the gameplay really wasn't so bad if you focused all of your weapon points on 1-2 weapons (and completely ignored shotguns, because shotguns are terrible in AP). Definitely a thoroughly underrated game.
>ehh I havent bought a Rockstar game in several years due to this actually... Every single game I see from Rockstar looks like it uses the same game engine that came out 10 years ago.
I'm sure Rockstar is really upset that you don't buy their games.
The rest of us are happy that they've stuck to this format, because we enjoy their games.
Here is Rockstar's profile on Metacritic. Notice how almost all of their games score amazingly high.
I can't fucking wait for GTA V.
EDIT: Why are people downvoting Calsun for sharing his opinion?
The industry as a whole values Metacritic scores so highly that they're written into development contracts. While unlikely, and while it's usually the critic's metacritic score that matters, it's not unimaginable that a higher user Metacritic score would have a positive impact on the game's budget.
Link, which the OP might want to add:
The majority of audeinces and critics seemed to like it.
Personally I thought it was better than Spiderman 1 and 3 and sort of even with 2.
Edit: I seem to be getting downvoted a lot for saying that so here's some proof that most critics/audiences enjoyed it.
This is a fairly good example of what I'm talking about.
The Assasin's Creed: Revelations' Korean 5/10 is really low compared to the reception it received from Western audiences. On Metacritic, out of 77 critics, only 1 Western critic rated The Assasin's Creed: Revelations the same score or lower.
Similarly, not one Western critic gave Arkham City lower than 80, whereas this Korean site has given it 7/10.
It's not like this is the first piece of shit game they've added to Steam. Hell, it's probably not even the worst game on there. Ever try Orion: Dino Beatdown, or Dino D-Day?
Valve has proven time and time again that they do very little screening on the quality of titles they publish.
Bioshock Infinite is a textbook example of the hype superexceeding the credulity strain for reviewers granting a review score that would be legitimate and not be hate-attacked by said gamers who are really only reading the review to confirm their suspicions. I count 25 perfect reviews on metacritic, and very few of them comment on the real flaws of the game; notably repetition of action, weak combat, the very tight (almost constricted) nature of the game, limitations from its original premise, a world constructed that doesn't hold up particularly well under close scrutiny, a shit midgame boss fight and the fact that the game simply doesn't do things "better" than bioshock 1.
The best review of the game was videogamer's 8/10, not surprisingly granting the inevitable OMFGWFGHSHUH 8/10, you guys suck, worts review evarr!11 response devoted to anyone that dares criticise the hype of a game that's quite good, but not revolutionary by any stretch.
This movie was directed by Steven Soderbergh (Ocean's Series, Traffic, Contagion), and the shitty comments dominating this submission can be attributed to the mass commercial campaign promoting this movie. Yes, I watch The Daily Show too, and the Magic Mike advertisements are brash and absolutely pandering to the female demographic. But marketing reflects nothing upon the actual film. Remember the Donnie Darko trailers?
This sort of criticism reminds me of the conservative wingnuts who trashed Grand Theft Auto and Doom without experiencing either.
You realize that sometimes marketing doesn't accurately reflect a product? The film currently has a 72 on MetaCritic. From the SF Chronicle:
>Which brings us to "Magic Mike," a mix of comedy and drama that takes place in the world of male stripping. If it falls short of greatness, it's not by much - and it could end up growing with the years. At the very least, it is exceptional and one of the best and most original pictures to come along in 2012.
Nobody in this thread knows what they're talking about, and most of these reactions seem to imply an ugly level of misogyny and homophobia.
That is because the majority of the gaming media just lie.
Then look at how many of those good reviews were published on the 4 of march the day it came out, primarily the reviewer never played the game and said it was great.
6 days later when the Guardian and Telegraph, two non-gaming media outlets, review it and it gets 40% from both.
In the OP's defense, this is PR drivel and they're obviously not going to admit that sales underperformed in such a public way, especially at the moment since many large investors are likely watching the situation.
In any case, even unsuccessful games can often be considered "hits", since that descriptor is usually a function of sales, not profit. The real measure of a game's success is obviously dependent on costs as well, and those haven't really been disclosed for comparison. Given the profile of the game, it's likely both its development and marketing budgets were huge (perhaps not quite as big as one of the usual AAA dudebro shooter titles, but still very high).
As for the "consensus among critics and players"... well, that's just plain old-fashioned bullcrap based on the actual numbers, which are already well below "great" territory and still dropping.
That's not a flaw. It's a design choice.
Edit: I'm sorry, but based on their website (http://www.metacritic.com/about-metascores) I can't agree with you guys. A Metascore only claims to rate HOW WELL SOMETHING HAS BEEN REVIEWED. Since they make no claim to tell you what's the best of all time, I see no problem with them creating a "Top Games by Metascore" list that contains the best reviewed game.
TLDR: They never attempt to make a best game list, they make a best games reviewed list. I see no problems here.
It's something we were just discussing here last night: Speed Racer. Meta score of 37%, but with a 7.7 on user ratings there. It was really a beautiful, simple family film with a powerful message and an orgasmic color palette. And it was pretty faithful to the material - But the message was also fiercely anticorporate, so yeah — easy target.
> People, you would be flipping your shit if COD: Ghosts got similar scores (which it will, whether you like it or not), and yet, you are circlejerking over reviews for the Last of Us to feed your own confirmation bias!
I've checked metacritic for top rated games of all time, especially those that got rated 95+ as in our case here, and I'm failing to pick a game which isn't groundbreaking. GTA, Half life, Bioshock, Uncharted, Batman Arkham City, RE4, MGS2, Red Dead Redemption and Portal 2. Now, a new IP, that manages to get into this list, and you are questioning feeding the hype? Call of Duty franchise apart from CoD4 and MW2, didn't even make it to the 90+ metascore.
This is worth pointing out whenever reddit's "omg IGN is totally bought and paid for" brigade comes up -
According to Metacritic's analysis, for 12,049 reviews, this publication has graded:
60% higher than the average critic
7% same as the average critic
33% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Game review score: 69
In other words, there is no hard evidence that IGN deviates in any meaningful or significant way from the overall critical consensus. Now watch as this fact has absolutely no impact upon future discussions of IGN.
Here we go again, another year another Top 10 Linux games. So let's have a look, shall we?
First of all, i'm surprised to at least see some new titles in this list. Past list tended to present the same games over and over again (like Sauerbraten, Americas Army, Nexuiz and Wesnoth).
- Oil Rush, Metacritic score == Meh (both, critics and user reviews)
- FlightGear, no idea, but does look interesting. But this is a "sophisticated, professional, open-source Flight Simulator" rather than a game.
- Wakfu: "Enter the magical world of Wakfu, and enjoy a game that brings character evolution and multiplayer cooperation to a new level." -- what is this? A press kit?
- Xonotic: uses a heavily enhanced version of the Quake engine. It's made by the Nexuiz developers. So it's Quake Arena all over again. In 2012. Are you kidding me?
- 0 A.D. ok, now i know i'm the asshole here, but really, gaming on Linux sucks and posting these pathetic lists is like emberassing yourself. 0 A.D. is in development since 2000. At the time of writing you can download the alpha version of the game.
- Savage 2 seems to be a good game. That came out in 2008. ANd is on a list titled "linux games for 2012".
- Cradle: not sure about this one. Looks like Dear Esther set in Mongolia. It's way too early to tell if it'll b e any good. But hey, the russian developer promises some exciting features such as "Freedom of movement within the game realm".
So there you have it. Linux gaming in 2012. Who needs Mass Effect 3, Battlefield 3 or BioShock Infinity, ammirite? Linux Desktop isn't going anywhere really and Linux Gaming is basically non-existent. Lists like these (which pop up regularly here) just emberass further.
With Aliens: Colonial Marines, there was a huge disparity between the "previews" and the actual game, but the actual reviews trashed the game pretty hard, which is in line with its actual quality.
A similar problem, but a less egregious one, since none of the major outlets actually gave that game a glowing review.
(for reference here's the metacritic page for A:CM.)
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic got shit on by reviewers for its poor multiplayer (it was a feature forced on a single player game) despite the core game being widely praised by players. There's just no way it deserves to live amongst much of the garbage in the 72% tier. It's a common theme with reviewers - if the game doesn't have all the checklist features, they mark it off regardless of the quality of the game.
Anything without mass-market appeal also takes a hit. Mount & Blade got a 72% (Warband wasn't much higher) and X3: Terran Conflict (and all the X games, really) got a 73%. They were popular enough to still have large communities many years after release, but from the reviews you'd guess they died weeks after release.
Never let facts get in the way of a good circlejerk.
For 11,982 reviews, this publication has graded:
60% higher than the average critic
7% same as the average critic
33% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Game review score: 69
They represent metacritic score. It is by no means an optimal way to measure the actual quality of a game but it gives you a hint of what the general consensus about the game was at release.
> it's like he's going out of his way to find things that are only slightly wrong and really focus on them like crazy.
I don't see anything wrong with this.
The video isn't a review or a critic, not in the same sense these are.
The video at no point(AFAIK) calls The Last of Us as a bad game, but rather uses it as an example of his criticisms of modern games in general.
What is so wrong in looking for the small flaws(argued by the video as fundamental flaws) in great works?
There are 2 that come to mind. Well maybe 3.
Amy - a survival horror game. It currently has a 25 / 100 on Metacritic the game was bad from both a design and functinal level, being really broken.
Sonic 06 - A bizzarly bad Sonic game, sitting at a 46 / 100 on Metacritic. You can see this one in action over on Game Grumps
Those are the 2 most broken and actually bad on an objective levels that come to mind from this generation. The worst game I personally have purchased?
Dead Island - That game is broken as hell, I have never struggled so much to try and play with friends. That said it is still fun despite how bad and broken it really is.
Relevant - http://www.metacritic.com/user/M_Stannard
2 Reviews -
Dragon Age 2: Score: 10, "An absolute triumph in the art of RPG storytelling. By far the most compelling characters, boldest storytelling, and most enjoyable combat in …"
Average score: 4.4
The Witcher 2: Score: 0, "CD Project releases another misogynistic jaunt into the Mary Sue world of 'the witcher.' There is hardly anything of substance to recommend th…"
Average score: 9.2
EDIT: Fef May 17, 2011
Score: 10
Game looks absolutely fantastic. Dialogue is immersive and well written. m_stannard is a gelatinous, buttperturbed jackass who is super mad DA2 sucked dick.
I was going to say "and the best games list is now definitive" but TIL that they're still making PS2 games.
Disney could release a turd and it would have been better than Duke Nukem Forever.
Which they totally did with Cars 2.
I'm fine with VALVe not releasing games often, the games they release truly take the world by storm. Look at the top PC games on metacritic and VALVe has 4 of the top 5.
After playing through Portal 2 (haven't tried co-op yet), I know they still have it. When Episode 3 comes out we are all going to be shitting our pants with bliss.
looking at the user reviews for the baseball
90% of the complaints on this game is that it is on the best game list.
read the ones for people who actually like baseball sim games.
the commercial reviews were ridiculous though.
not saying the list cant use work but the only people who dont seem to like that game dont like it cause it is on the list.
So it's certified "fresh," and even got "generally favorable reviews" at metacritic., which puts it within earshot of fight club, and if you dare say that fight club is underrated I'll drive to your house and punch you in the ear.
If you look at the user review pages you can see the dates for each review, every single review by Gamerr was posted on April 22, 2011. This is the only instance of this on reddit as far as I can tell and there is a gap in Ulfur's posts between April 4th, 2011 and June 23, 2011 so he didn't make it and try to post it on April 22 then repost it now. I find it improbable that the OP created these reviews, waited a little over 2 months and then posted a link to the profile all while not using reddit very much.
Well, the movie currently holds a 14/100 on metacritic from critics, and a 3,1/10 "User score". http://www.metacritic.com/movie/movie-43
I'm sure some people liked it, but generally people disliked it.
And to those of you saying that Rotten Tomatoes isn't a proper rating system, Grown Ups 2 has a 16 on Metacritic based on 8 critic reviews while Pacific Rim holds a 69 with 31 reviews.
For comparison, Wolrd War Z has a 63 with 46 reviews.
For those who care about critics:
| Game | Metascore | Userscore |
|---|---|---|
| Red Orchestra | 81 | 8.6 |
| Red Orchestra 2 | 76 | 6.8 |
| Killing Floor | 72 | 8.7 |
DCS A-10C Warthog is pretty great. This thing is a straight up simulator, not a game.
Here's the 8 minute start-up tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSIGzDMJ-ik
It also has great reviews: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dcs-a-10c-warthog
If you need more bad games, I'd highly suggest Darkest of Days for you guys. Its awful, has awful writing, and so many glitches. Never played the PC port which I would assume is equally awful
Persona 4 (and 3 as well)
Whenever I told my friends about it they were immediately turned off because of the "social sim" aspect and how bland most JRPGs are. But you don't understand how well they're able to tie in these features together to create such a magnificent game. It's also funny when I tell them that Persona 4 is one the top PS2 games of ALL TIME!
To be fair, they also made a very decent mobile installment in the Final Fantasy series. I've been enjoying Dimensions more than any FF game since Four Heroes.
So yeah, major disappointment that this is for a platform I don't have, and that it appears to crib a lot from HR, but I wouldn't be surprised if this game turned out to be decent. And I would be thoroughly surprised if it's as bad as that abomination All The Bravest.
> the average person has to work at nearly 2 hours to make enough money to watch a film
The Average Ticket Price this year is $7.94, which is barely above the Federal Minimum Wage for America.
> Added Bonus: The movie appears to be terrible, which is about par for Marvel films
A 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 70 on Metacritic says otherwise.
> It's $5 million short of breaking even, at which point you would be justified to pirate the film as the studio will have lost no money from your unauthorized viewing.
You're a fucking moron.
Kazumi Totaka is credited with having worked on this game: http://www.metacritic.com/game/3ds/paper-mario-sticker-star/details
Could this be related to the Totaka's song easter egg?
Eh, I fully agree with you except for the last statement. House of Cards IS in fact a big budget show. Season 1 of GoT cost ~$60M ------- while HoC season 1 cost ~$100M.
Fraid not, Obsidian got a flat payment for FO:NV which wasn't huge, and the possibility of a bonus if the game got 85% or better on metacritic. Recently they've been in some financial difficulties and are currently kickstarting their latest project.
They may not have been developed in Japan, but the twofer pack of Breath of Death VII/Cthulhu Saves the World on Steam and Desura is a good set of games. They're both fairly brief (single digit hours) but they've got a very good JRPG feel to them. The developer went on to make the third Penny Arcade game as well, which was fairly well received.
rule 1: never trust metacritic or fan ratings. this is the same thing that happend to Mass effect 3. the game is fantastic from what i have heard from.
EDIT: http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/dishonored/user-reviews?sort-by=most-clicked&num_items=100&dist=negative so there is one physical comment on a review and its saying nothing about the game at all... if youre still not convinced this was a "raid" i dont know what to tell you.
I love Final Fantasy IX, one of my favorite games, but how is it underrated?
I was 13 when it was released and I remember reading about it all the time in EGM, GamePro and on IGN in the months leading up to its release. It was a huge deal and really the only other JRPG that came out that year that got an equal amount of hype was Chrono Cross.
Its release was an enormous deal, it topped the list of "Now Playing" for almost any person who felt compelled to post one on the internet, it was discussed on every forum, and a hot topic for any kid nerdy enough to discuss Japanese role playing games with their friends. 10s and 9s were common in almost every review (it has a 94 on Metacritic.
12 years later it's still referred to "the last great FF" and one of the best RPGs on the PS1, a system known for its great RPGs.
It was hyped to hell as a "return to form" for the Final Fantasy series after the more technological/futuristic themes present in Final Fantasy VII and VIII.
Maybe time has tainted the memory of some.
>And yet, even E.T. is important, because it taught the industry just what can happen when you get caught up in hubris and try to cash in on awful shovelware.
I'd argue that the industry learned absolutely nothing from E.T.
Games built on licenses have remained largely synonymous with crap in the years since. At a glance, It looks like somewhere between half and three-quarters of these games with a Metascore below 40 are based on a movie or TV license.
By the way, a quick anecdote about E.T.
Sometime in the late 80s I received a used Atari 2600 and a handful of games for Christmas. One of those games was E.T. It was frustrating, seemingly unplayable, but being 9 or 10 at the time I figured I had to be missing something - something I wasn't seeing on my black and white TV or instructions I needed from the missing manual.
Fast-forward ~10 years and I'm reading article in Next Generation about what a broken, half-assed piece of crap E.T. was.
Suddenly, it all made sense.
Syberia 1 and 2 are widely considered among the best adventure games ever made.
But don't take my word for it, check out the critic reviews of the original Syberia and Syberia II.
Syberia III is also in the works.
According to this, it got generally favorable reviews and the same exact score as the first season from critics (not from fans). I personally liked the fourth season.
I actually think you're doing a lot right, and that app discovery is simply really difficult for small developers on the App Store in 2013. We've released an iOS title that was:
- In New and Noteworthy
- Given a big-ass honking feature
- Game of the Week in multiple countries
- Solidly 5-star rated by users
- Critically praised (Metacritic listed it as #10 of the top 25 best iOS games of the year)
...and yet, the PC version has easily outsold it by a factor of 10. Yeesh! It's not too surprising for us to run into PC gamers who have heard of the title, but rarely an iOS gamer. We haven't solved this problem, so I can't say for certain what'll work, but some food for thought:
- Check out the landing pages for successful iOS titles and see if you can glean something from them. For example, many have text on the screenshots that sell the game.
- Have you hit as many press outlets as you can? (E.g., TouchArcade, 148Apps, Slide to Play, etc.)
- I actually might recommend against lowering the price. We raised the price of our game, and are generating more revenue.
Anyway, I like the art style, and hope you guys do well. I see that you also have a Greenlight submission up; best of luck on both!
It seems to be the consensus from most reviewers. Can't wait to play it. This is one hell of a season for gamers.. not so great for my wallet though.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/uncharted-3-drakes-deception/critic-reviews
Almost every TV and Music review on the website is done this way because most of those reviewers don't actually give scores. If OP is right, then I can see Metacritic do the same for the Games section. Here's an example from one of my favourite TV shows this past year.. As you can see, neither the Wall Street Journal nor the Zap2It wrote a score for the show, and although Uncle Barky gave an 'A', Metacritic listed it as a score of 100. Uncle Barky uses a system that has pluses and minuses. (A+, B-, etc.)
Also, this.
And yet Half Life 2 came out fine, even Ico had to shift from PS1 to PS2 over the course of it's development, hasn't hurt it either. Even Heart of Darkness came out mostly fine. STALKER also had spend quite a while in development hell and there have been plenty more.
In all seriousness, if you haven't played Half-Life, I highly recommend it.
It's $10 on Steam, and The Orange Box, which includes the entire Half-Life 2 series, plus TF2, a fantastic shooter, and Portal, a fantastic first-person puzzle game, is $20. Just take a look at the top aggregate-reviewed PC games according to MetaCritic to get a feel for just how good they are.
It's probably the best $30 I have ever spent on video games.
This new game has no name, just a big red X in the title that is very reminiscent of Xenogears' "X", and a gameplay that look nearly identical to Xenoblade.
I don't understand your other question. Are you asking what is Xenoblade about, or how this new game is related to Xenoblade? If it's the first, just read any of the review.
I'm glad someone else shares my sentiments.
Have you looked at the "critics" on Metacritic? Pick any AAA game, choose any of the critics that gave it a 100%, now see what they give all other AAA games.
I only now noticed just how enslaved the reviewer world was by checking out the reviews for "Last of Us". Hilarious.
Example: http://www.metacritic.com/publication/guardian?filter=games
>Consider how many people hated Inception.
Wat? People hated it to the tune of 825 million dollars box-office, and an 8.5 user score on metacritic?
It was an immensely successful movie. It is the 35th highest grossing movie of all time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/inception
There are always people that dislike a piece of media/art for various reasons. But Inception is acclaimed by both critics and audiences, with the box office receipts to support it.
From the guidelines: > If you are making a submission about a specific movie or actor, please name them in your title!
Also, I wouldn't call this movie underrated, it's 7.1/8.7 on Metacritic and 86%/73% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Haven't played it myself, but the fact that it's going on -50% within 2 weeks of release is pretty worrying.
Also, only one of my friends have left a review, saying this.
(Imgur link might 404, refresh a few times to see it)
Edit: It's also getting bad reviews from users + critics alike on MetaCritic.
I'd say avoid it.
It's happening to OoTPB 13 right now too, and a bunch of other games.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/out-of-the-park-baseball-13/user-reviews
Additionally, who in their right mind would claim to be a "9GAG/Reddit Army" member, both sites have bit of spite between the communities.
I don't think they give reviews that high out nearly as often as people say they do. Here's a list of non-iPhone games that came out this year that got over a 90 from Metacritic. Honestly, aside from the sports games (which r/gaming never seems to care about) and MW3 (and we all know how r/gaming tends to feel about the Call of Duty series in general), I've gotten the impression that most of the people who played all of these games really enjoyed them.
Sure, they could spread the scores out a bit more than they do and make scores over 90 a bit rarer, but this doesn't seem unreasonable (especially since only two games got a 95 or above). You don't see a ton of reviews that give below a 70 or 80, but I think that's partly just because most shovelware that really deserves an awful score doesn't get reviewed. Most sites focus on reviewing the major releases, and usually the major releases become major releases in the first place because there are reasons to expect them to be good (great previews, respected developer/franchise, etc) and/or because the developer's putting a lot of money to them (which means it's less likely to be awful budget shovelware). My guess is if all sites reviewed every game that was released, we'd see a much bigger range of scores.
http://www.metacritic.com/faq#item12
>However, this does pose a problem for our METASCORE computations, which are based on numbers, not qualitative concepts like art and emotions. (If only all of life were like that!) Thus, our staff must assign a numeric score, from 0-100, to each review that is not already scored by the critic.
They openly admit to it.
Don't forget about the terribleness that was Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire. A launch title for the PS3, you picked it up thinking it would represent the wonderfulness of next-gen gaming wrapped in an awesome Gundam package. Instead it was an unplayable mess that looked like a crappy PS2 game.
> The last good one, Frontline, (with a good Metacritic rating, anyway)
What? Airborne was pretty darn good and even has a decent Metaritic score if you care about that. The 2010 one titled simply as "Medal of Honor" was a decent. Not groundbreaking, not terrible, decent.
This is part of akelz7's review,
>if you can get past the sickeningly horrid graphics,
It's not that Minecraft has bad graphics, it's just that it has simple graphics. There's a difference.
>Also, how HL2 is literally the highest scoring game on Metacritic and is used as a comparison for quality for literally every single game that's come out since.
Games that are literally ranked higher than HL2 on Metacritic: GTA 4, Super Mario Galaxy 1&2, Pro Skater 3, GTA 3.
http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/all?view=condensed&sort=desc
Games that literally were never compared to Half-Life 2: L.A. Noire, Alan Wake, Gran Turismo 5, Spongebob U Pants
You seem to be the one that doesn't know what he's talking about. Call of Duty & GTA are way bigger franchises than Half-Life, which really only is popular in the core gaming space.
>>The publishers effectively pay the salaries of IGN reviewers. Drug money laundered through the HSBC is no less dirty. Reviews paid from IGN coffers filled by the publishers of said games are no less bought.
Holy strained analogies, Batman!
Instead of relying on innuendo and a few cherry-picked examples, why not reference the closest thing we've got to real statistical analysis?
For 11,914 reviews, IGN has graded:
60% higher than the average critic
7% same as the average critic
33% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
If anything, IGN seems to be comfortably close to the center of grading, rather than some brazen outlier. You can perhaps fault them for being too close to the consensus, but the evidence is extremely scant that they are corrupt, influenced by advertising revenue, or otherwise abnormal in any way.
Every time Kanye is mentioned here there are quite a bit of downvotes, it's kind of annoying. I'm not sure if this is the result of people honestly disliking his music, or just "hurr durr Kanye's the biggest douche of all time lloooll GAY FISH". I don't necessarily like the generic "dadrock" that is so well loved here and elsewhere on reddit, but I don't go around downvoting those posts. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the past decade, you don't have to like it, but it's true. He's simply an incredible artist. The production on that album is amazing, I've yet to find a hip hop album that has felt as raw, with such grandiose and powerful, orchestral arrangements. Honestly, he's just a messiah in modern popular music, and the music critic community, by and large, regards him as such.
I was reading some of the negative reviews on metacritic, and while I feel that these people have exaggerated how low the score should be, after watching a few hours of day9 play (full disclosure: I haven't played), it does seem that most of the complaints are valid (all of these are from metacritic PC reviews):
Much of the game doesn't look any better than Oblivion
Stiff animations
Very buggy: "There are 42 known critical bugs at the moment with work arounds. For those of you that need help you can visit - segmentnext dot com/2011/11/11/skyrim-crashes-freezes-sound-keys-errors-fps-lag-textures-and-fixes/."
Bad user interface
Poor console port: ~~no key bindings~~ (this appears to be incorrect), alt-tab issues, mouse acceleration always on
"It really feels awkward when swinging your weapon. Your just slashing your way at an enemy, occasionally blocking and pulling back until a random finishing kill pops up. Using magic and weapons during combat is a pain in the neck. You have to un equip your weapon to use spells, and re equip your weapon once your done. AI is not that great either to not say worse."
World looks dull
"They released oblivion, again"
The fighting is very easy
No challenge
"repetitive gameplay, [...] boring AI,"
Not sure what you mean? That Brink deserved worse or that it is high for a game score? 6/10 is lower than Metacritic's collated average for Brink 68/100.
Of course this is based on the assumption that Will Smith has a great body of work.
http://www.metacritic.com/person/will-smith
He really doesn't.
Popular? Yes.
Quality? That's a much tougher argument to make.
I used to play empire of the ants growing up (early 2000). It was based on famous french book, "les fourmis" by Bernard Werber. The game was a pretty good ant-warfare game, with a lot of diverse civilian and military units, and a pretty deep base-management aspect.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/empire-of-the-ants
I think the game deserves more than 55%, I'd give it an 8/10 from the little that I remember
With reviewers like this, and the massive vote bombing that goes on against hated companies (EA) I'd have to say metacritic is a joke for ratings anyway.
Strangely, I don't remember the "pay2win cash shop" being mentioned in the latest patch notes ;)
Yeah, a 96 average on Metacritic is pretty bad.
Only one of those 82 critic reviews went below a 90 (88).
As to 'most of the newer RE games (having been) D list':
There's only been one real RE game since RE4: RE5. There were a couple of on-rails shooter games for Wii, and DS/3DS titles, but they really don't count as half are on rails shooters (different genre), and the others are portable titles.
Even so, RE5 still did decently on Metacritic - 86(PC), 84(PS3), 83(360). If we're going by letter grading, that's a solid B, not a D.
Here's the list of all of the reviewers that are composited together by Metacritic. But before you contact any reviewers, there are a few items you need to take care of first.
If you haven't done so already, read Kieron Gillen's article on How to Use and Abuse the Gaming Press. It looks like you already have a press pack on your webpage, so that's a great start. You'll be shocked at how frequently bloggers and reviewers simply cut-and-paste from your game description.
Now prepare a really sexy email to send to the reviewers and bloggers. Personalize it with the reviewer's name and website. A mass email is not acceptable. If you want to maximize your Metacritic score, hand-pick reviewers who have a history of giving high scores to games that are similar to yours. Your email should contain embedded screenshots and logos. Don't go overboard, but have something to immediately catch the reader's attention. Assume the reviewer gets 100+ similar email every day. Make sure yours stands out.
Good luck.
And is that why half of their game is in the highest rated PC games of all time? Not counting the baseball game, 4/6 games in the top is by them. Having a model that works isn't only about "making money". There are also other criterias to judge a company by.
At a guess? Multiplayer.
Turn-based multiplayer frequently sucks rocks, particularly for games with long turns. You have to wait for the other guy to complete his turn before you can do anything.
Simultaneous turns partly solves this problem, but usually at the cost of being really counter-intuitive.
That being said, here's MetaCritic's list of most recent turn based games. I count 12 titles released in 2012, with 3 of them being new IPs. Certainly seems like a still alive genre to me.
http://www.metacritic.com/company/soma-games
Looks like a whole lot of nothing. iOs games. I'd love to have a more experienced group tackle this and without the weird "Christian Developers, but not really" tacked on. Just disconcerting and I can't see much good coming out of it IMHO
I'm watching it, and loving it. The Metacritic reviews are a wee bit mixed, but I think you just have to accept the concept for what it is - it's not trying to be ultra-true to life, or even that 'logical' (which I know a lot of shows do). It's pure R-rated fantasy - susend all belief, turn off your mind, and enjoy a good romp of violence, sex and blood.
I saw Life of Pi last week, so I'm entitled mindless guilty pleasures.
Recommend putting Critter Crunch on your list. It's a mobile game ported to PC very recently, but its metacritic score for the PS/3 version is 87.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/critter-crunch
Its a steal at under $2.
But is riptide worth $20? It looks like simply more of the first game, and the first game was a load of bad voice acting, beef-gated areas, and fetch quests everywhere. And a metascore of 61 isn't exactly enticing. Sure, it's not the disasterific catastrophe of a game that WarZ/I:SS is, but I'm not sure it's worth 20 bucks. Still, L4D2 has already had a sale, so I guess there's a bit of a conundrum there.
Infinite has 24 perfect score reviews on metacritic from sites such as GiantBomb, EuroGamer, Polygon, Destructiod, The Escapist, GameInformer, and Machinima. All 100/100 perfect scores. If you let that discredit review establishments, you pretty much can't trust the entire games journalism industry.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/bioshock-infinite/critic-reviews
That said, it's never smart to base your decision for any game on the opinion of any one review establishment. Go get a second opinion, and a third and fourth :)
Like point and click games? Syberia is excellent value here.
Great collection. Thanks!
Also if anyone wants a good breakdown of the critic's top ten lists, check out this feature on Metacritic. Seems like Zero Dark Thirty and The Master are the two most popular choices for film of the year.