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As with our last ‘Reviews Special‘ we just can’t get away from review score controversies, mostly triggered by Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception. Eurogamer’s 8/10 was beautifully written by Simon Parkin but drew considerable heat for the score. Less beautiful and somewhat less thoughtful were a 4/10 from Honest Gamers and 5/10 (well, they gave it a ‘B’ which Metacritic converts to a ’5′ from AV Club.
The best writing about this (which seems to be getting a ‘h8/10′ moniker) has come from established sources. First off games journalism legend Pat Garrett entered the fray with a long piece that, in the main, pins the problems on publishers trying to “balance the need for early reviews and high day one results with a façade of press independence”.
Future’s CVG also weighed in with a similar piece a few days later by John Dean who seems to mainly blame score aggregators like Metacritic for the problem. “Forming an opinion on a game based on Metacritic alone is like asking a bus full of strangers for personal advice: Regardless of how solid the information you get back is, there’s no guarantee that any of it will be right for you.”
More entertaining was Jim Sterling’s ‘Jimquisition’ on the subject.
Any more links or thoughts about video game scores and reviews? Let us know…
