Tag Archives: reviews

This holiday review period has brought us “h8/10,” journalists griping over review code and the concept of pre-ordering pushed to the limit. How did we ever get to this point? The publishers have the answers, says Patrick Garratt.

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Space Marine producer Andy Lang told Eurogamer today that Relic wasn’t surprised by review scores More »

Although we’re yet to see the full, post-embargo sprouting, enough FIFA 12 reviews have popped up to give a feel for how this is going to go. Spoilers! Stunningly.

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Famitsu’s published the first review scores of 3DS titles that will arrive in the handheld’s launch period ahead of its release in Japan this Saturday.

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The GT5 review embargo has now lifted. Get ever score after the break.

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Seems like just about everyone – old or young, smart or in love with their caps lock key – has an opinion about EA’s newest entry in its Medal of Honor franchise.

More interesting, however, is the range of opinions about those opinions.

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War – what is it good for?

Not EA’s shareholders, apparently.

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EEDAR’s said that review scores do make a difference to game sales, heavily impacting whether or not players will recommend titles to others.

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The June issue of Game Informer’s starting to hit mailboxes, and one GAF user has posted up some of the review scores for you.

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This is looking pretty much unanimous. Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Asylum’s sitting pretty with a 92 percent MC average, with even the “tougher” pubs coming out with glowing praise.

It’s out this Friday. We’re sending you subliminal messages to buy it by having our website covered in Batman ads. Actually, fuck it: just buy it.

• Eurogamer – 9/10
• IGN – 93%
• CVG/PSM3 – 93%
• CVG – 9.2/10
• 1UP – 91%
• Gametrailers – 9/10
• GamePro – 4/5
• Strategy Informer – 95%
• Wonderwallweb – 9.5/10

Edge has posted its final format-specific review score graph thing, this one showing categorically that the vast amount of Wii’s games are pretty much terrible.

From Wii’s launch to the end of last year, four percent of the platform’s games have rated over 85 percent on Metacritic. That’s 12 games.

Fifty-four percent, or 155 titles, have rated below 65 percent.

We don’t really need to say anything else. Read loads more words on the matter through the link, should you need to.

The first wave of reviews for The Lost and Damned, GTA IV’s first piece of 360 DLC, has gone live.

Everything so far below. Post in the comments if you want something added.

• TVG – 10
• TeamXbox – 9.7
• Eurogamer – 8
• IGN – 8.6
• Kikizo – 9
• Gamespot – “Downloadable content isn’t something that we review right now…”
• 1UP – B+
• IGN video review – After the break
• CVG – 9

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GamesRadar‘s been renamed TombRadar for today as a marketing thing to celebrate the release of Tomb Raider: Underworld.

“Tomb Raider: Underworld is a great game, well worth the 9/10 scores it is picking up across gaming websites and magazines,” said James Binns, Future’s publishing director.

“Getting the message out there on launch day is essential in the games market and this takeover gives Eidos unprecedented cut through.”

The game, however, appears to have only received two 9s, one at “ConsoleMonster” and one at Future’s PC Gamer, as seen there on TombRadar.com.

It has a MetaCritic average of 78 percent.

Just saying.

Speaking to MTV, Will Wright’s pretty much agreed with criticism levelled at Spore in a now-wide swathe of reviews, saying the game targets a casual audience, will sell more than Half-Life, and that’s as should be.

“We were very focused, if anything, on making a game for more casual players,” he said. “Spore has more depth than, let’s say, The Sims did. But we looked at the Metacritic scores for Sims 2, which was around 90, and something like Half-Life, which was 97, and we decided — quite a while back — that we would rather have the Metacritic and sales of Sims 2 than the Metacritic and sales of Half-Life.”

Wright’s also unfazed by the fact many reviewers have claimed the game is a Jack of all trades and a master of none.

“The feedback we’re getting from people is that everyone has some level they like and some level they don’t like,” he said. “A lot of the reviews I’ve read have said that the Space Stage was far and away the best and they were disappointed by the earlier stages because they were too simple. Other people have said the Creature Stage is their favorite and that the Space Stage seems too complicated.

“We knew, since we were using different genres with every level, that everyone would have ones they really clicked with and ones they didn’t. We’ve pretty much seen that. There hasn’t been any consistent feedback. Some people have said the Civ phase is the best.”

More through the link. We love you, Will.

Someone had to say it. EA CEO John Riccitiello has claimed some games get 100 percent reviews despite the fact people don’t play them properly, a factor the publisher doesn’t benefit from. It was as if he was saying the majority of games reviewers are untalented, me-too lemmings afraid to have an opinion about anything. But maybe we’re putting words into his mouth.

“All Metacritics were higher once upon a time because it was ten professionals rating them. Now, sort of anybody with a pen can rate them and it ends up with a bit of a wider track some times,” said the exec, talking at the William Blair & Company’s 28th Annual Growth Stock Conference yesterday.

“EA doesn’t usually get the benefit of the cult – ‘everybody has to rate it a hundred’ thing going on – that happens sometimes even when they may not, based on the review, have played more than the first fifteen minutes of the game. But that’s a separate issue.”

Thanks, GI.

This is only going to get worse. According to this GameSetLinks piece, US paper-staple EGM has refused to score Metal Gear Solid 4 because Konami attempted to censor certain aspects of the review.

According to the site, quoting from the mag, the decision was made because of “the limitations Konami wanted to impose on our comments”.

This is just the latest in an ongoing meta-row about Metal Gear Solid 4 reviews, which is sending fanboys grade-A crackers on a global level.

Eurogamer’s 8/10 attracted a comments thread over 1,700 posts long, and the revelation that Konami told US reviewers not to mention install sizes or cut-scene length last week has only added fuel to an already exploding fire.

All we’re going to say is, “Oh dear.”

Eurogamer, CVG and 1UP have all posted their GTA IV reviews. Apparently, it’s quite good. The embargo’s been lifted now, obviously, so keep an eye on Metacritic (PS3, Xbox 360) for the final result.

It’d have to be some kind of Biblical event that stopped the game from getting the highest average score yet, although there’s no accounting for that rogue eight out of ten. Hasn’t anyone got any balls any more?

The game’s out on Tuesday.

Update: Here’s what Kotaku and GamesRadar have to say about it.

According to this CVG piece, the UK embargo for GTA IV reviews will be lifted on Sunday at 5pm BST.

As you’ve probably gathered, “it’s good,” so don’t be amazingly shocked by a slew of top marks. We’ll bring you a list when everyone goes live.

According to this Next-Gen piece, February 2003 was the best ever month for average review scores, and February has seen the highest review scores on average for the past six years.

According to the site:

• February turns out to have the best average review scores at 70.6%.
• August is a closer runner-up at 70.2%
• May through July are rotten, with averages from 65.0% up to 66.2%.
• December – unsurprisingly – is the absolute worst, with a stinky 64.1%

Nice piece, but there are no graphs, only a coloured chart. Matt Matthews, the guy that puts these stats features together for Next-Gen has clearly peaked, being out-graphed by a Neogaf poster last month, of all things.

New NPD data’s due this week, Matt. If we don’t get the best graphs ever, we’re going to be tagging your analysis as “scrap heap”.