WTF is... The Last Federation

[Draco18s]

And that's why you read the reviews.

I look at the description, "That sounds fun" I say.
What is the aggregate score?  Oh, it's a [whatever], I wonder why that is.
I look at the predominant view points (rating it very high, very low, and a couple right around the aggregate).
If I still need an opinion, I'll ask a friend or two whom I trust.

And I take each of those reviews that I do read with a grain of salt.  "This guy rated it a ten and basically just hyped the game, not relevant.  This guy rated it a 1 and is clearly an anti-fan, not relevant.  Oh this review makes some good points."

[Mick]

And I take each of those reviews that I do read with a grain of salt.  "This guy rated it a ten and basically just hyped the game, not relevant.  This guy rated it a 1 and is clearly an anti-fan, not relevant.  Oh this review makes some good points."

That's pretty much my system to.

[Misery]

And that's why you read the reviews.

I look at the description, "That sounds fun" I say.
What is the aggregate score?  Oh, it's a [whatever], I wonder why that is.
I look at the predominant view points (rating it very high, very low, and a couple right around the aggregate).
If I still need an opinion, I'll ask a friend or two whom I trust.

And I take each of those reviews that I do read with a grain of salt.  "This guy rated it a ten and basically just hyped the game, not relevant.  This guy rated it a 1 and is clearly an anti-fan, not relevant.  Oh this review makes some good points."

Ideally, yes.

But my whole point is that MOST PEOPLE DONT.  They get a score thrown at them, and after that, they've made their judgement.   THAT is the problem.  YOU may do it that way, actually looking into the reasons for the score, but that's NOT the norm, and this is part of why there are more and more people lately that really hate Metacritic.  As time goes on, the problems with it become more and more apparent, even to the unobservant.

At least someone doing this with a normal, single review is getting a score just from ONE writer.  And typically anyone actively clicking on a normal review, be it on IGN or whatever, they're on the site to read those.  With many sites, you HAVE to click on the review and open it to even see a score at all. And of course, video reviews will show you all sorts of gameplay, with the person talking about it, and THEN give you a score.

But Metacritic?  No.  Most expect the number, and the number is all they get, because after that, they're done.  It's either "Oh, it's got a good score on here, so that's something I'll buy!"  or "Ugh, only 60?  Well I wont waste my time then!" followed by immediately leaving.  This is not a rare way to deal with the site: This is the most COMMON way it's dealt with.  The site simply lobs the number, and... that's it.  Really, expecting more effort than this from much of the gaming community is damn silly. 

And hell, Steam makes it worse, because it shows you the number without you having to even go to the actual site!  Most people simply never go past that number.

And again, that's only one other reason why that place is flawed as heck.  All of the other reasons still stand.... and I could go on, and on, and on, and on.....

[Draco18s]

Ah, but that still doesn't make "His opinion is flawed, just like Metacritic" any more valid.

Metacritic does not have an opinion.  Yes, it boils a lot of things down into a single number, which may or may not be accurate, but that is not the same as one reviewer having a opinion that is wrong.

[Billick]

Anybody else find it funny that the Total Biscuit thread turned into the Metacritic sucks thread?

[Misery]

Ah, but that still doesn't make "His opinion is flawed, just like Metacritic" any more valid.

Metacritic does not have an opinion.  Yes, it boils a lot of things down into a single number, which may or may not be accurate, but that is not the same as one reviewer having a opinion that is wrong.

I never said anyone's specific opinion is flawed, for this particular topic.  I meant JUST Metacritic.

At least with a single person making a review, there is an encouragement to read/watch it, and after hearing what the person says, you can make a better judgement, wether you agree or not.


As for TB?  Frankly, I"d forgotten this thread had to do with him originally.  Which is par for the course for me, really.

[Draco18s]

I never said anyone's specific opinion is flawed, for this particular topic.  I meant JUST Metacritic.

At least with a single person making a review, there is an encouragement to read/watch it, and after hearing what the person says, you can make a better judgement, wether you agree or not.

As for TB?  Frankly, I"d forgotten this thread had to do with him originally.  Which is par for the course for me, really.

Here's the sentence that got this started:

Cant say I'm overly fond of the guy either.... I dont think he's BAD at what he does, but he's sorta like Metacritic to me.... I typically find his opinions flawed.

[Misery]

Ahh yes, that.  Indeed that is my opinion on him.

Though, he DOES at least explain himself in extreme detail, so I'll give him that at least.  Even if you dont agree with him you can still learn about the game in question, so that's okay.

I'll stick to other reviewers myself.  THough, I dont really watch reviews much, I tend to find things out by just impulsively buying the game in question. 

[Coppermantis]

I disagree with a lot of TB's opinions, but at least he tries to make it clear that those are his opinions, not gospel. Unfortunately, many still seem to treat it as such.

I still watch his show a lot because it's fairly informative, and can bring games to my attention that I might not have heard of or looked at otherwise. Except that, as of late, he's been doing a lot of "here's this old game that no one was ever interested and everyone assumed was probably bad. Spoiler alert: You're right." sort of thing. Hearing a good rant once in a while is fun, but not as often as he's been doing it.

[BobTheJanitor]

Yes we've veered way over the horizon from the original topic. But oh well, let's enjoy the ride. His stuff lately with 'steam sells X' and all that has mainly been spotlighting the fact that Steam sells a lot of junk and shovelware and has basically given up all semblance of quality control as of late. And that a lot of games are hitting steam marked as "release date: today!" when in fact they were released years ago.

I find that annoying as well, so I don't really mind someone with a soapbox and a megaphone pointing out the problem. It wasn't all that long ago that you could rely on most of what you saw on Steam to be of a certain level of quality. Even if they weren't all games that I wanted to play, they were usually well made games that fans of whatever genre they happened to be in would enjoy. Not so much lately, now it's starting to look like the bargain bin at a used game shop. I'd much rather have a more curated store front if it meant that that quality titles got more time in the spotlight, rather than what we've got now.

I mean, Arcen had to scheme and plot just to get TLF on the new releases page for 3 days, which is quite good by recent standards. Used to be you could release a game any time and have it not roll off the new releases list for a week or more. But now it seems like every day a new truckload of forgotten and forgettable titles gets dumped onto Steam, burying the rare gems in a never-ending flood of trash.

[Coppermantis]

I agree with his grievances, but making a ton of videos to trash specific games seems unnecessary. Especially when he goes into it having effectively pre-judged the game and just attacks it mercilessly, like he did with that one tank game. Was it a good game? Not really, but it wasn't that bad either. As soon as he ran into one glitch, though, he basically admitted "there, I was looking for a reason to hate this" and instantly declared the game total garbage.

Steam does need better quality control, though.

[Misery]

Yes we've veered way over the horizon from the original topic. But oh well, let's enjoy the ride. His stuff lately with 'steam sells X' and all that has mainly been spotlighting the fact that Steam sells a lot of junk and shovelware and has basically given up all semblance of quality control as of late. And that a lot of games are hitting steam marked as "release date: today!" when in fact they were released years ago.

I find that annoying as well, so I don't really mind someone with a soapbox and a megaphone pointing out the problem. It wasn't all that long ago that you could rely on most of what you saw on Steam to be of a certain level of quality. Even if they weren't all games that I wanted to play, they were usually well made games that fans of whatever genre they happened to be in would enjoy. Not so much lately, now it's starting to look like the bargain bin at a used game shop. I'd much rather have a more curated store front if it meant that that quality titles got more time in the spotlight, rather than what we've got now.

I mean, Arcen had to scheme and plot just to get TLF on the new releases page for 3 days, which is quite good by recent standards. Used to be you could release a game any time and have it not roll off the new releases list for a week or more. But now it seems like every day a new truckload of forgotten and forgettable titles gets dumped onto Steam, burying the rare gems in a never-ending flood of trash.

Yeah, this has been a big issue with Steam lately.

I dont find that overly many of the recent releases are bad.... I still impulsively buy the absurd amount of games as I ever did and they're mostly good stuff.... but the sheer number of releases can make it hard to look through them and dammit I'd like to smash whoever invented laptop keyboards.  Argh. 

*ahem* but yeah, that's defniitly an issue.  And they *need* to seperate the blasted lists!  Early access is a fine system, I buy those frequently.  And I like that they put up some older games on there as well, there's some good stuff to be found from earlier eras.  But they shouldnt be squashed together all in one list!  It's confusing.  I dont know what the heck they were thinking with that.

I love Steam but good grief, that bit is obnoxious.

[Ucchedavada]

Metacritic does not have an opinion.  Yes, it boils a lot of things down into a single number, which may or may not be accurate, but that is not the same as one reviewer having a opinion that is wrong.

It's worth keeping in mind that the Metacritic is based on a weighted average (based on criteria such as the "overall stature" of the review-site, whatever that means!) of a selection of reviews, not simply the average of all available reviews mapped to the same scale (which is itself problematic). So what you end up with is an aggregate score adjusted according to / filtered through the opinions of the people at MetaCritic.

So while MetaCritic does not "have an opinion", the scores are contingent upon the opinions of the people at MetaCritic, who are mostly not know to us. It is essentially a black box.

[Excession]

Well I think it's good for Arcen as I bought this game having watched his 30+ minute you tube review.

I'm an old Arcen fan and bought the original AI War years ago, as well as Skyward Collapse.

So far TLF looks great fun..will spend some more time with it tonight.