Just wanted to clarify.

“2008 will be a big year for Sony. There’s also no need to really hate on any of the systems too much. I can point out a long list of flaws with all three of the next-gen consoles.”

I happen to think that William is dead on right here. With games like Uncharted, MGS4, Gran Turismo, and the release of things like Home and LittleBigPlanet, Sony has a bright future next year. I think people tend to forget that the PS3 is only a year old. It has a fair bit of market time left to it.

the PS3 does not suck. I play the Xbox 360 more than any of the other systems and that’s simply because of the games. I think the PS3 is probably the best console that simply needs a better library of games.

2008 will be a big year for Sony. There’s also no need to really hate on any of the systems too much. I can point out a long list of flaws with all three of the next-gen consoles.

We’ve discussed the inability of some people to do anything but bash on games in the past here, and it’s a topic I still think holds a lot of validity.

Thanks for stopping by!

Please don’t steal other people’s name in an EXTREMELY lame attempt to make them look bad

I agree with a lot of the posts here. Yes, the review system is flawed. The sad thing is that the way people review games now and since forever 7 out of 10 is average, not 5. That’s just the way it is. It’s skewed all wrong, which is kind of stupid.

Seems Assassin’s Creed is simply a love or hate title. I happen to love it.

“Well, gave it a 6, and Gaming Today gave it a 2. has been around longer, so it might be all right. I’ll go buy it.”

*2 days later* “THIS GAME IS BLOODY AWFUL!”

I wish (and I know this is a HUGE pipe dream here) that there could be a standard of review scoring. Sure, I might score games differently than you would, but I bet the aggregate scores would be a lot more telling if this sort of thing existed. At the very least, the average reader would know what to expect.

I totally agree. This type of confusion really hurts the industry (and I never even heard this explanation from a game site, but from another commenter), particularly when you have a site like this rate a game a 2 and another site ranks the game a 6 even though they both intend to give it a “failing” grade.

Instead most places apply the logic you describe to a 1-10 rating system, and that makes no sense. I have no problem with rating systems going 1-100 and using the methodology you describe.

I can tell you this. Our rating system here at Gaming Today is 1-10, and poor games will receive the scores they are due based on a straight 1-10 system. For more on this, see Chris’ Painkiller review that published today.

Good point.

@Ron,

The best explanation I’ve read is that game scores are like grades in school.
Consider a 90-100 and “A” game. 80-89 is a “B” game. 70-79 is a “C” game. 60-69 is a “D” game and 59 and below is an “F”. The assumption is that every game, even the shitty ones should get enough right to get the game to a 50 or so. Meaning a game that would be a 1 would not even allow you to control the player in a straight line or something that basic.

I don’t agree with this approach but it helps explain the way reviews are expressed.

This game let me down really badly too. They could have done so much with this expansive, beautiful and highly detailed world. Instead they chose to neglect gameplay. What a waste of $60USD

Folks should check out the podcast, we really did talk at length about it. You can find it easily by clicking on the Features tab above and then File-N-Forget. The episode was called Reviewing the Reviewers.

So far this year, my favorite 2 games have to be Halo 3 and BioShock when it comes to Xbox 360 games. Neither of which were perfect.

This highlights something I think more people should be talking about: Review Scores, and what they mean. Most people, if they see a game get a score of 5 (on a 1-10 scale) think that the game is terrible. In the current review culture, they’d be right.

Games that are just awful should get 3’s. Maybe even lower, if they’re that bad. Average games? 4-6. Good game? 7-8. Great games get 9’s, and perfect games get 10’s. It makes me laugh to see how many reviews sites throw 10’s at every AAA title that comes along, then you read the review, and they talk about the flaws the game has. How can a game score a 10 if it has flaws? There hasn’t been a 10/10 game released this year, imho. CoD4 is a good 8.5-9, but not a 10.

Constantly rating every game from 5-10 just throws the integrity of your review scale down the toilet.

I wouldn’t say all reviewers are lazy for not finishing games. There’s just too many games out there to actually beat them all before you drop your opinions of the game. I didn’t actually finish Assassin’s Creed and I probably never will. I’ve put in about 6 hours of gameplay with it and honestly don’t even feel like finishing the game. There probably is a degree of laziness with some reviews of the game though. My suspicions when it comes to reviewers is that a lot of them jump on a bandwagon and simply recycle opinions from other reviewers. That’s really the lazy part. There are also certain sites (not dropping names) who have business relationships with companies and they are inclined to not bash certain titles. It’s unfortunate, but it happens. I guess I can understand some high scores because the game really does introduce some new and unique aspects, and I can also understand the lower scores.

I am really looking forward to follow up in this series and hope that they take the critical responses to heart and made a killer game. You definitely can never take a single review to heart because we all have different opinions. Several of the guys here at Gaming Today have an overall positive opinion of the game while I have an overall negative one and that just happens sometimes.