Edge #379

[footle]

11 minutes ago, Timmo said:

The problem with videogame reviews is that broadly speaking you’re having to rate two things, and how you weight the scoring between them is basically impossible. You’re looking at good the game is technically, and then how good it is artistically. I’d use Deadly Premonition and Ghost of Tsushima as examples. One is a technical dog which is incredibly entertaining and surprising throughout, whereas the other is a technical marvel whilst showing its entire hand in the first hour and turning into a very, very repetitive and dull game. How the fuck are you supposed to grade these games? You can’t. Review scores are a nonsense and if you want to use them as a buying guide, you are far better watching videos and listening to opinions. Eurogamer saw this a long while ago, few other places have.  Skillup is good, but generally I find the overall tone of a thread in this place far better than any review score. If certain ones here are talking about how fun the combat is in a game, I know I need to play it.

 

case in point... the callisto protocol - which if it was reviewed on anything other than PS5 is...

[thesnwmn]

6 minutes ago, Timmo said:

The problem with videogame reviews is that broadly speaking you’re having to rate two things, and how you weight the scoring between them is basically impossible. You’re looking at good the game is technically, and then how good it is artistically. I’d use Deadly Premonition and Ghost of Tsushima as examples. One is a technical dog which is incredibly entertaining and surprising throughout, whereas the other is a technical marvel whilst showing its entire hand in the first hour and turning into a very, very repetitive and dull game. How the fuck are you supposed to grade these games? You can’t. Review scores are a nonsense and if you want to use them as a buying guide, you are far better watching videos and listening to opinions. Eurogamer saw this a long while ago, few other places have.  Skillup is good, but generally I find the overall tone of a thread in this place far better than any review score. If certain ones here are talking about how fun the combat is in a game, I know I need to play it.

 

I'd argue there's a third element being reviewed which is the "should you buy this". Not specifically because it looks and plays well. But because at some level it's actually "are you likely to buy this". It's where value for money sneaks in. And where I think big "safe" games pick up an extra point or two over something more experimental.

 

Games in non-core genres I'd argue often get worse scores by a point or two from mainstream outlets. They are often accompanied by a statement along the lines of "but it's fantastic if you like this sort of thing". What's the point? Everything is only really of interest if you like that genre in general.

 

Is the yearly churning out of FIFA really worth scoring at all at this point? People know if they want to play it. Its score should just be an offset form the last game in the series. Maybe a 3 because it's much better than last year, fixing the passing mechanic. Or a -1 because the loot boxes got slightly more expensive. Or a 0 because it's exactly the same as last year. A standalone 5, 7 or 9 is almost meaningless.

[K]

I think that Edge's reviews are less about whether you should buy a game, and more focused on whether there is anything interesting to say about a game.

[Girth Certificate]

Maybe they gave it a 7 cos that one girl is black. 

[footle]

26 minutes ago, thesnwmn said:

 

I'd argue there's a third element being reviewed which is the "should you buy this". Not specifically because it looks and plays well. But because at some level it's actually "are you likely to buy this". It's where value for money sneaks in. And where I think big "safe" games pick up an extra point or two over something more experimental.

 

Games in non-core genres I'd argue often get worse scores by a point or two from mainstream outlets. They are often accompanied by a statement along the lines of "but it's fantastic if you like this sort of thing". What's the point? Everything is only really of interest if you like that genre in general.

 

Is the yearly churning out of FIFA really worth scoring at all at this point? People know if they want to play it. Its score should just be an offset form the last game in the series. Maybe a 3 because it's much better than last year, fixing the passing mechanic. Or a -1 because the loot boxes got slightly more expensive. Or a 0 because it's exactly the same as last year. A standalone 5, 7 or 9 is almost meaningless.

 

Counter-factual: arstechnica's yearly review of NBA-2KXX. "It'd be a good game but OH MY GOD THE MONETISATION".

Which is providing a public service.

 

(May be Polygon or Kotaku - can't remember).

[BadgerFarmer]

54 minutes ago, Timmo said:

The problem with videogame reviews is that broadly speaking you’re having to rate two things, and how you weight the scoring between them is basically impossible. You’re looking at good the game is technically, and then how good it is artistically. I’d use Deadly Premonition and Ghost of Tsushima as examples. One is a technical dog which is incredibly entertaining and surprising throughout, whereas the other is a technical marvel whilst showing its entire hand in the first hour and turning into a very, very repetitive and dull game. How the fuck are you supposed to grade these games? You can’t. Review scores are a nonsense and if you want to use them as a buying guide, you are far better watching videos and listening to opinions. Eurogamer saw this a long while ago, few other places have.  Skillup is good, but generally I find the overall tone of a thread in this place far better than any review score. If certain ones here are talking about how fun the combat is in a game, I know I need to play it.

It's not necessarily a problem with reviews, as with the culture around them, which emphasises scores above all else. I don't think it's the same with, say, film reviews, where people get het up about Metacritic scores or whether a certain outlet gave the latest Avengers 3 or 4 stars. Or maybe I just don't see it.

 

Anyway, as a reviewer, I don't see the score as that big a deal. They're a rough and vaguely helpful quick reference, but beyond that they're meaningless without the accompanying text. They're a number at the end of the piece of writing that I actually spent my time on. Half the time I'm left with a quandry whether I should give something a 6 or a 7, 3 stars or 4, and it could go either way, but I have to make a decision. The people complain because they think 3 stars means it's terrible while 4 stars means it's great.

 

I don't think publications should do away with scores - they have their use. I just don't think they should be treated as the be-all and end-all of criticism either. 

[womblingfree]

I’m sure Pentiment is jolly good but wandering about its world makes me want a PS5 and Ragnarok like a dying man in the desert wanting an iced San Pellegrino.

[thesnwmn]

11 minutes ago, footle said:

 

Counter-factual: arstechnica's yearly review of NBA-2KXX. "It'd be a good game but OH MY GOD THE MONETISATION".

Which is providing a public service.

 

(May be Polygon or Kotaku - can't remember).

 

Oh I agree so much.

 

I'm not a fan of value for money being part of review score. How much 10 hours of entertainment is worth to me as an upfront cost is quite a personal question and ties into quality or uniqueness of that time. I don't mind the idea of a £40 game that is only 5 hours long if it's like nothing else. And as a game gets longer I'm probably actually less interested in it.

 

But I think loot boxes and in game monetisation should absolutely be demonised and heavily marked down. Knock off 3 or 4 points and just run the comment "if you like spending shit loads to play the full thing then this is for you". It seems insane to me that games that used to come with massive numbers of unlockable costumes and the like in game now have zero and just charge for this shit.

[footle]

Just now, thesnwmn said:

 

Oh I agree so much.

 

I'm not a fan of value for money being part of review score. How much 10 hours of entertainment is worth to me as an upfront cost is quite a personal question and ties into quality or uniqueness of that time. I don't mind the idea of a £40 game that is only 5 hours long if it's like nothing else. And as a game gets longer I'm probably actually less interested in it.

 

But I think loot boxes and in game monetisation should absolutely be demonised and heavily marked down. Knock off 3 or 4 points and just run the comment "if you like spending shit loads to play the full thing then this is for you". It seems insane to me that games that used to come with massive numbers of unlockable costumes and the like in game now have zero and just charge for this shit.

 

Kotaku:
 

This game, and series, has nothing but contempt for you : https://kotaku.com/nba-2k23-2k-review-kotaku-mycareer-impressions-myteam-1849528793

A shakedown disguised as a basketball game that is growing as tired as it is exploitative: https://kotaku.com/nba-2k22-the-kotaku-review-1847662757

 this is a full-priced game with the beating heart of a mobile free-to-play scam: https://kotaku.com/nba-2k21-the-kotaku-review-1844993959

 

 

[thesnwmn]

5 minutes ago, BadgerFarmer said:

The people complain because they think 3 stars means it's terrible while 4 stars means it's great.

 

I think the real issue with scores as a piece of information is what people think they mean.

 

Most people only play a few games. And they want them to be good ones. It doesn't really matter that 3* might be the "average" score. most people aren't buying a 3* because it's not worth their time when they are so many 4* or 5* games.

 

In fact, most outlets aren't even reviewing most 3* and below games either. The ones they do are just those with a high enough profile to mean there's some level of hype or expectation around them. Most of them just sneak on to a store without much fanfare.

 

The result then is 3* and below reviews are often a body blow for a community who was expecting something. A game they have waited for and suddenly turns out to be just average (or worse).

[BadgerFarmer]

26 minutes ago, thesnwmn said:

 

I think the real issue with scores as a piece of information is what people think they mean.

 

Most people only play a few games. And they want them to be good ones. It doesn't really matter that 3* might be the "average" score. most people aren't buying a 3* because it's not worth their time when they are so many 4* or 5* games.

 

In fact, most outlets aren't even reviewing most 3* and below games either. The ones they do are just those with a high enough profile to mean there's some level of hype or expectation around them. Most of them just sneak on to a store without much fanfare.

 

The result then is 3* and below reviews are often a body blow for a community who was expecting something. A game they have waited for and suddenly turns out to be just average (or worse).

True, but then some games that get 3 stars were of course a whisker away from 4 stars (while others were a whisker away from 2, and others are nailed-on 3s). So again, you have to read the review for it to mean anything. It might still be a better fit for you than any 4 star game and some 5s.

[thesnwmn]

8 minutes ago, BadgerFarmer said:

True, but then some games that get 3 stars were of course a whisker away from 4 stars (while others were a whisker away from 2, and others are nailed-on 3s). So again, you have to read the review for it to mean anything. It might still be a better fit for you than any 4 star game and some 5s.

 

Absolutely. Scores shouldn't really be removed from the text they were delivered with. But then we are in a monthly thread entirely based on debating scores that most people haven't read the text to which they relate. And Meta/Open-critic have become the de facto way to summarise the quality of a title.

[Flanders]

1 hour ago, thesnwmn said:

 

Games in non-core genres I'd argue often get worse scores by a point or two from mainstream outlets. They are often accompanied by a statement along the lines of "but it's fantastic if you like this sort of thing". What's the point? Everything is only really of interest if you like that genre in general.

I don’t think even this is particularly consistent - racing games for example appear to be frequently given to aficionados for review and aren’t critiqued in line with a publication’s wider ethos.
 

Good example of this would be Edge and Forza Horizon 5. Edge as a publication at this point has a pretty strong editorial line on not caring for various modern trappings of the AAA game - maps filled with icons, hand-holding, bloat, etc. And also as noted in this topic that editorial line very much favours the new over the iterative. 
 

Forza Horizon 5 is more guilty of these modern AAA sins than any game I’ve played outside of the worst Ubisoft offenders and it offers barely anything new from Forza Horizon 4. And yet it got an Edge 9 - I can only assume this happened because racing games are fundamentally viewed as unimportant in the great scheme of criticism so the review was done from the point of view of ‘is this a good game for people who like Forza’ rather than ‘how does this fit into the wider gaming landscape and our view of what it should be’.

 

Which is weird really, because Forza Horizon is hardly a niche game, its got 20 million players or some such. I don’t get why that’s not a game you’d want to write about with the same rigour as other big titles.

[Kevvy Metal]

2 hours ago, Flanders said:

I don’t think even this is particularly consistent - racing games for example appear to be frequently given to aficionados for review and aren’t critiqued in line with a publication’s wider ethos.
 

Good example of this would be Edge and Forza Horizon 5. Edge as a publication at this point has a pretty strong editorial line on not caring for various modern trappings of the AAA game - maps filled with icons, hand-holding, bloat, etc. And also as noted in this topic that editorial line very much favours the new over the iterative. 
 

Forza Horizon 5 is more guilty of these modern AAA sins than any game I’ve played outside of the worst Ubisoft offenders and it offers barely anything new from Forza Horizon 4. And yet it got an Edge 9 - I can only assume this happened because racing games are fundamentally viewed as unimportant in the great scheme of criticism so the review was done from the point of view of ‘is this a good game for people who like Forza’ rather than ‘how does this fit into the wider gaming landscape and our view of what it should be’.

 

Which is weird really, because Forza Horizon is hardly a niche game, its got 20 million players or some such. I don’t get why that’s not a game you’d want to write about with the same rigour as other big titles.

 

Yes, yes, yes! Absolutely this! Well observed! 

The ubi-bloat that people immediately fall back on as a criticism I don't think is nearly as bad as it actually is in most games, but FH5 is -by far - the worst offender of any game I have ever played. It actively feels likely it's working against the player to the point that just selecting a race, or trying to find one that looks interest is a complete an utterly confusing nightmare. I eventually uninstalled the game, as I came back to it after a short few weeks and I had no idea what was going on. If some races were part of the game, or user created, or where I was in the campaign or anything like that. 

 

The racing handling-model is wonderful, the world is beautiful but it's just such a confusing mess of a game. 

[Benny]

I really enjoyed FH4 and played it loads - it felt like a very "content rich" game. But I don't know what it was they did to FH5 - on paper it looked like they were just doing the same sort of thing again in a new environment, but in practice instead of content rich it felt like it was just stuffed full of bullshit and nonsense that got in the way of the racing in an egregious way, that it didn't feel like FH4 did.

[BadgerFarmer]

13 hours ago, thesnwmn said:

 

Absolutely. Scores shouldn't really be removed from the text they were delivered with. But then we are in a monthly thread entirely based on debating scores that most people haven't read the text to which they relate. And Meta/Open-critic have become the de facto way to summarise the quality of a title.

You're right, but it's also therefore a bit of a strange exercise going round and round on scores divorced from the reasoning behind them. I suppose it's almost a game in itself, or a tradition of sorts, but (IMO) not a very interesting one.

 

And Metacritic is definitely to blame for some of this.

[bear]

6 hours ago, Isaac said:

Fine, replace the word journalism with criticism, the point still stands.

Sorry, its just that people using the word journalism and applying it to every type of outlet covering games is a pet peeve of mine. 

 

Its plainly ridiculous that a seven gets categorised as mixed under Metacritics system and really highlights how few outlets use the full breath of their scoring scales.

[Spacehost]

How is it that after 20 years this forum still has anything left to say about Edge magazine review scores? Can we not just go back through the preceding 260 threads about reviews and summarise it all in one sticky post?

 

Anyway I'm disappointed that there's no Calisto Protocol review, I thought it'd make it in since the embargo lifted a few days before subs get the magazine but ho hum.

[Mr. Gerbik]

Alpha Protocol > Callisto Protocol 

[merrychan]

That lone issue of EDGE where they abandoned review scores was the absolute best.

 

People had to find out the reviewer's impressions by reading the words

 

 

 

[Spacehost]

1 hour ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

Alpha Protocol > Callisto Protocol 

Alpha Protocol was the best game of the PS3/ 360 generation though.

[Rex Grossman]

15 hours ago, BadgerFarmer said:

It's not necessarily a problem with reviews, as with the culture around them, which emphasises scores above all else. I don't think it's the same with, say, film reviews, where people get het up about Metacritic scores or whether a certain outlet gave the latest Avengers 3 or 4 stars. Or maybe I just don't see it.er. 

 

There have been 'review bombs' on Marvel films and the Ghostbusters reboot where scores were considered to be very important. Those sort of films and videogames share a lot of emotionally weak people who tie their own self-worth with that of their favourite entertainment properties. A low score is like a personal insult.

[Graham S]

Love the photos in Simon’s piece about Japanese arcades.

 

 

[LaveDisco]

@Kevvy Metal, @Flanders, @Benny - totally agree - the pass that Forza gets from everyone is purely 'in the kingdom of the blind, the one eye man is king' stuff. The world built is spectacular, but the underlying game is the most tedious distillation of AAA tedium know to man.

 

Talking of which, I need to try the new Need for Speed...

[Spacehost]

On 10/12/2022 at 13:59, Graham S said:

Love the photos in Simon’s piece about Japanese arcades.

 

 

I got that book as a Secret Santa a few years back, wonderful stuff.

[jonamok]

It’s a gorgeous book. His new one is out too. After Dark. I’ve not pulled the trigger yet, as it widens the subject matter from Tokyo to other cities like Paris and Edinburgh. But they hold much less interest for me.