PixlBit

An 8? How is that bad? I'm assuming it's out of 10?  That's a great score! Some people are just idiots. It's the text of the review that matters. Not the damn score.

I just looked at the comments. Wow. lol. Don't worry so much about it man! When that EA engineer called the Wii U crap there was an article on there that got like 20,000 comments or something. They were saying stuff like a nuclear holocaust was better lol. That's what kind of community your looking at.  A bunch of idiotic trolls.

It just annoys me that this guy is copping so much flak for trying to be honest with his opinions. People don't acknowledge that other people matter, which is reall apalling.

You've got to remember that gaming is now infested with a shitload of 12 year olds and that's where a lot of this is coming from.

My favourite has always been when they write "user reviews" for games that haven't been released yet or claim that they finished all 3 versions of a multi-plat game and proceed to let us know what was wrong with the two versions they don't actually own systems for.

 Yes, but this was every single comment on the review. Very few of them would be 12, and I'm damn certain most of them are at least 16. They have no excuse for their ignorance.

Mob Mentality? If they were in a movie they'd all have pitchforks and torches.

I actually cannot fathom why people get emotional about games they don't own and haven't played. It's not like someone made crude remarks about their mother or kicked the dog.

It is a Naughty Dog game, and a PS3 exclusive, so everyone feels the need to defend it. Doesn't make it any less retarded though.

Oh yeah it's from Naughty Dog, I'd forgotten about that. That reviewer should defo lose his job then. LOL

unless they are an awful writer, they will have backed up their reasoning for that score.  Unlike  the user reviews on Metacritic,  10- i think that this game is really an 6, but there are too many 0s so I want to try and balance it out.

I am slowly realizing the brilliance of RPSs wot I think, and Kotaku's "yes, no, not yet."  It forces you to read at least a portion of the review to understand if you should play it or not.  Plus, games that score 80% tend to be pretty darn good. 

Yeah. The website I write for uses "Buy it" "Try it" and "Deny it." There is no score, just an indication of whether that game is of a decent quality or not. RPS is my favourite gaming website hands down, with Kotaku being my least, so it's interesting you mention those two.

 The problem is that IGN and Game Informer gave the game a 10, so people think every site should give it a 10.

I am a big fan of RPS and am indifferent about Kotaku.  There are things that I like about Kotaku, and there are things that I do not like about Kotaku...  the same with IGN.

After reading that review and looking at a few of the comments, I doubt that many of these people even read it.  I think that they only watched the video. 

 Eh I don't even bother with Kotaku most of the time. IGN is extremely hit an miss, but I still go there. I do love PC Gamer though. That's my second favourite website for gaming.

 And yep, I highly doubt most of them did that. They saw the score and started complaining.

Critics have such a tough job sometimes. You can't please everyone,nor should you try. Whatever score is given to the game I'm still gonna buy it. Won't effect my enjoyment of it one bit. If someone gets fired for not giving the score you want to see then why even read the reviews? That fellow needs to just pretend he  lives in a world where his bottom is special,and better than the others. Mommy said so! She did I tell ya!

It sucks for critics, especially on popular websites. This is ridiculous though, Gamespot usually give scores lower than IGN and Game Informer. Game Informer gives a 10 to damn near every exclusive game, and they're kind of shit from a journalistic standpoint.

I agree that Game Informer is highly biased. They are in the pocket of big game companies and do not rock the boat ever.

I am hoping the best for Last of Us, but I never put much into what the rating games get. I extremely dislike some games people think are 10's and vice versa. I was impressed with the Demo and that is what matters most to me.

Yep. I really hate GTA IV, and I really like some games that get 6's and 7's. Scores aren't as important as the text associated with them.

Somebody did something similar to a poor female reviewer for giving animal crossing a great score. If you wanna see the true side to a lot of humans just go on youtube and you will. Even when I write review blogs I know people wont always agree and I respect others for feeling how they do. Im still excited for The Last Of Us, for me it looks to be a great game.

Yep. I saw a gamer girl do the "feminism" thing the other day, but she fought for both sides and talked about equality over anything else, and everyone still told her they were going to rape her and murder her and shit like that. Youtube disgusts me sometimes.

It's all subjective, but like mothman, I have to think a lot of commenters there might skew younger or are trolling a bit.

At least, that's what I have to believe to keep sane.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. I have an account on Gamespot, and I've seen a few of those commenters hanging around. The majority of the accounts I'd seen before were ages 16-22, and most of them weren't trolls - they genuinely believed this shit.

Dan Amrich of the One of Swords podcast (ex Gamepro. Official Xbox Magazine writer) did a great rant on this exact subject with many of the same arguments you made. Hilarious that people have opinions even about things they know nothing about. LOL

Everyone has opinions about shit they don't understand. That's why people hate video games and gay marriage. The problem is not havng that opinion, but expressing it in an extremely hostile way, and taking such offense at another person's opinion, especially in something they themselves haven't tried.

You would think people would have stopped complaining about this tactic already. I knew The Last Of Us was going to get a few "low" scores. People need to do more with their lives than whine about something they should have known was coming online. It's the nature of the Internet. Websites have been doing this tactic for years to get hits because they know people will run over and complain about it. Gets them everytime. It will happen again when GTA V, Beyond: Two Souls, Watch Dogs and others arrive.

My only complaint about The Last Of Us is that it releases 3 days later than it should. I hope Sony isn't going to be like Nintendo and release their exclusives on Fridays now.

I haven't payed it, but if it's mechanics are anything like Uncharted 3, then it deserves an 8. If GTA V is anything like IV then it deserves a 6 imo.

 If a reviewer can back up his opinion, you have no right to complain. If he fabricates stuff, or write an incredibly positive review and then gives it a 6, then yeah, he's a bad reviewer. This guy wasn't.

Oh, what the fuck people? Really? I'm stoked for The Last of Us and normally would say you're taking this reaction too far, but when they're saying a guy should get fired for calling a game most people are giving scores that signify amazing and he calls it really good, yeah, go fuck yourself. 

I don't use scores when I review a game.

This Blog:

Lost 1/2 star due to no online multiplayer.

i think that it should gain a half star for not having online multiplayer shoe-horned into it.

What the hell are you guys talking to it? You did the multiplayer when you left a comment.

I got confused since I was sitting on whatsacow's couch when I scored this blog. I assumed it had offline only and I was typing into a Word document. My bad.

Revised score: 

(out of a possible )

Well, I originally had splitscreen in here, but my publishers told me to take out so people who wanted to play multiplayer were forced to buy another copy. 

And the case with this game is that if you average out all the scores including bad ones it still comes out to a 9.0--as if even this means anything. I read a few articles about how the game repurposes the use of violence in games and that it sets a precedent for the next generation. It's like video games are growing up finally with this game. Adam Sessler influenced my opinion, not on a review score which was 5/5, but the discussion about the games use of violence. 

Exactly. Adam Sessler is a god, and we should all obey him. I haven't watched that yet, I might have to.

 But you're right. Magicka got really shitty scores. I watched TotalBiscuits WTF Is of it, and the gameplay sold me. I love this game that I never would have bought if I followed reviews.

Sessler is over at Revison3.com under games and still does video reviews. 
http://revision3.com/rev3gamesreviews/the-last-of-us

My favorite review complete comes from my Disney Epic Mickey review. If you've played the game, you probably agree that it's actually a really bland puzzle/platformer with a lot of dull back-tracking, lacking a lot of the charm one might expect from a license that has the whole of Disney's forgotten catalog as creative inspiration.

Anyway, the review was linked to on N4G, a gaming media aggregate site. One individual there didn't own a Wii and had never played the game. He blasted my opinion of the game on the basis of my age, suggesting I was too young (I was 23 at the time, I believe) to get most of the references.

It is my favorite criticism ever. The best.

 That brings up a different point that brings me a lot of frustration: The heavy reliance on references and continuity. References aren't inherently bad, but a product should be able to stand without them. Community is a funny show whether you get the references or not. Games (especially indie games) tend to fall into this trap a lot, especially in the form of memes. Some references are barely jokes, they're just stealing other people's material, like in 'splosion man where they steal damn near every one of Portal's jokes. These people are boring and unimaginative, and they deserve harsher criticism.

 Back to the main point: My country doesn't have guns. I can't chastise people who do because I've never used one. If you haven't played a game, you can't judge it. Simple.

With you there dude! I'd understand more if everyone gave it an 8 but only because expectation can lead to some dangerous hopes which if dashed can result in extreme pig headedness, but if the overwhelming majority gave it a 9/10 or 10/10 I can't see why there would be upset. Any how I like reading how and why scores vary so I actively seek out those 'disagreements'

The great thing about looking at different sites is that you get different views on a game. Expecting every site to be the same ruins that.

You should do what I do.  Stay away from the comments on reviews. 

I can't! I read the comments on everything! I can't help it! 

I stopped reading reviews after they bashed Castlevania 3DS. I really enjoyed that game. Reviews are all subjective, anyway. The only good way I know of is to just rent it at a video store and see if you like it. 

 I wouldn't stop reading reviews. Find someone with similar taste to yourself, and start looking a t a bunch of different reviews to get a bigger picture.

I think reviews are important, and they've always been my favorite part of games writing. Back in the day I'd flip straight to the reviews section of EGM before reading the rest of the magazine cover to cover. With that said, I think the IGN reviewer is safe since Polygon gave it a 7.5. It was a well-written, well-argued review, and I could totally understand how the score that was given was arrived at.

With that said, most of the problems the reviewer had with the game are things that wouldn't bother me as much. Since I know what I like, I have a good idea of what to expect from this game, but the Polygon review allowed me to brace for some possible annoying elements.

Reading reviews takes some effort from the reader. Read the text, understand what's being said, and then check that against your own tastes and expectations. And also read reviewers that you know, and finding websites that use their whole scale helps a lot. It's sad that people think of a 7 as "terrible" when it really means "pretty darn good".

I can only hink of destructoid and pc gamer that actually use the entire scale, which is disappointing. 

And PixlBit! I have yet to bust out the dreaded half star score, but I have reviewed quite a few 1.5 star games. I've also awarded one 5 star score in the 2 years I've been with PB.

 Yeah! Although so far I've only read positive reviews on this site. Now that I have more time I'll have to look through the archive and see how good this site is with reviews. From what I've seen it's pretty decent!

Minus the swears, I really agree with what you had said here. It really is underwhelming that there's those kinds of people that can't respect an opinion and think any game over the 70 or 80 score of Metacritic deserves to be an untouchable holy grail. Sure, I may disagree with some reviews (like Gametrailer's one for Sonic Colors), but in the end, it's all opinions, which you can take or leave and it all depends on what's being said and most importantly, that you actually had played the game and you had created your own criteria.

Hope I explained myself very well.

Exactly. Disagree, but respect their opinion. I also think we should get rid of metacritic... it does more harm than good. Or at least, the gaming industry should stop focusing on it so damn much.

Yeah, they should stop focusing too much on Metacritic. I think it's good to search reviews from various sources, but it's just an score counting site and not the ultimate source to know if a game is good or not. Like I said, the best criteria is that you had played the game and form your own opinion. That said, it's better to stay away from most user reviews from that site.....