Re: Gamespot fires honest reviewer, sh*tstorm ensues.
That's completely true. But look at it this way: Pong came out in 1972. At the time it was the most amazing game ever made, right? At the time (if reviewers existed, that is), it would've gotten a 10. Let's say an exact copy of Pong came out today but with next-gen amazing graphics. You think reviewers should give it a 10? Of course not. It'd get a 2, maybe a 3 just because of reminding them of a classic.
The point is, games evolve. If you make the exact same game and release it every year, like you run Koei or something, your games should get progressively lower scores, because as the rest of the game industry evolves and gets better you stay the same. NOTHING can be judged by itself. When you give a game a rating, you are comparing it to EVERY OTHER GAME EVER MADE. If you have nothing to compare it to, you cannot very well judge it. Pong, for example, had no real competition. It was a terrible game, but people thought it was great because nothing better had come along. That's why re-released games and ports get lower scores, because they don't have the originality of the first release.
The ONLY time a game should possibly get a higher score because of graphics alone is a simultaneous release across multiple consoles. Like when games were released on PS2 and XBOX at the same time, the XBOX version often scored a bit higher because it was a more powerful system and the game looked better/loaded faster.
As for ratings, I like things like RottenTomatoes, because it shows the average score of everybody. Sure, some sites and reviewers are going to be bought out and give unjustly high reviews, but others will have a tendency to rate unjustly low, so overall it works out. Especially because the site has the average user score, too, I trust things like that quite a bit. When I do look at GameSpot, I usually look at the Critic/User scores too, which usually match up with what GameSpot says. Taking a look at Kane & Lynch's review page, the scores go like this:
GS: 6.0
Critics: 7.0
Users: 2.6
So what if GS (and obviously other critics) give it high scores that it doesn't deserve? A 2.6 user score speaks more for the game than anything else.
Games need to be reviewed alone, on the quality of the game itself.
The point is, games evolve. If you make the exact same game and release it every year, like you run Koei or something, your games should get progressively lower scores, because as the rest of the game industry evolves and gets better you stay the same. NOTHING can be judged by itself. When you give a game a rating, you are comparing it to EVERY OTHER GAME EVER MADE. If you have nothing to compare it to, you cannot very well judge it. Pong, for example, had no real competition. It was a terrible game, but people thought it was great because nothing better had come along. That's why re-released games and ports get lower scores, because they don't have the originality of the first release.
The ONLY time a game should possibly get a higher score because of graphics alone is a simultaneous release across multiple consoles. Like when games were released on PS2 and XBOX at the same time, the XBOX version often scored a bit higher because it was a more powerful system and the game looked better/loaded faster.
As for ratings, I like things like RottenTomatoes, because it shows the average score of everybody. Sure, some sites and reviewers are going to be bought out and give unjustly high reviews, but others will have a tendency to rate unjustly low, so overall it works out. Especially because the site has the average user score, too, I trust things like that quite a bit. When I do look at GameSpot, I usually look at the Critic/User scores too, which usually match up with what GameSpot says. Taking a look at Kane & Lynch's review page, the scores go like this:
GS: 6.0
Critics: 7.0
Users: 2.6
So what if GS (and obviously other critics) give it high scores that it doesn't deserve? A 2.6 user score speaks more for the game than anything else.
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