I do appreciate that you told them to go yell 'intelligent' things. It would be a nice change, eh?

I played Crackdown 2 and really liked it, and plan to play a lot more of it. Mind you, if I'd played more of the original, I might be tired of it. I'm also assuming a readership that includes lots of people for whom Crackdown 2 will be their first game; as pointed out, lots and lots of people are just buying their first Xbox.

I also think that you're missing a very important point here. Game Journalists ARE gamers too. They want to see good games. I think that game reviews are overly critical only in extremely rare cases. In most cases, reviews are not harsh enough on games. Part of that is a function of not wanting to piss off publishers too badly, and part of it is not wanting to rock the boat too hard.

Still, the point here is that you should score the game however you want to. Whether I think it's a 50, or you think it's a 90, is irrelevant. It's what that reviewer thinks it deserves. He CAN'T be wrong. You are free to disagree if you like, but you cannot tell him he's wrong.

Having played Crackdown 2, I can tell you that is a 50'ish game at best, and that had I actually paid for it, I would have been EXTREMELY disappointed. As a reviewer, that's a feeling that I am obligated to convey to my readers so that they don't suffer that same disappointment. Giving it a 70 (which in my book means still an above average game) simply doesn't cut it. That implies that there is satisfaction to be had there. That implication, in my opinion, would be a dishonest one.

Grabbing a Metacritic game at random, I see Metro 2033 has a Metascore of 77. Were Crackdown 2 to be setting at 77 as well, that would imply that those two games are roughly similar in their enjoyment offerings. That would a crime against nature were it so. Metro 2033 was a wonderful game that had a lot of things going for it, and could easily be scored higher. Crackdown 2 pales beside it in nearly every way. Maybe there's a logic to the Metascore after all; one that realizes that some people rate games too high, and some too low, but in the end, the game lands where it needs to be. If this is the case, you'll see Crackdown 2 residing solidly in the 60's when the dust settles.

And I think you're asking me to define "obscuring the meaning of Metascore"… work me with, here. A metascore is supposed to be an unbiased average, based on a sizable sample. It stop being that, the moment people willfully manipulate it. By giving a 'mediocre' game a 'terrible' score, in an attempt to "bring it down to where it needs to be" by neutralizing some ratings he deems too high, a reviewer, even though he's just one dude, is literally trying to "work the system', and effect the force of more than 1 contributor.

if a game is a 65, give it a 65, don't give it a 45 to knock down somebody else's 85. when does it end? when will someone give, say, Deadly Premonition, a 10, in order to make a point? Cough.

I think a lot of the crackdown 2 reviews were journalist/critic serving, not gamer serving, bottom line.

Game reviews are not a function some scale somewhere that you can reference. Every reviewer is different. I may like strategy games more than you. I will likely therefore find all the good things about strategy games, and will enjoy them more than you will.

Does this make either of us wrong, or off base? Nope. If we both play Company of Heroes, and I score it a 90, and you score it a 60, (and this is important, so pay attention) WE’RE BOTH RIGHT.

You see, game reviews are all about someone’s opinion. If you’re a smart gamer, you read multiple reviews and find a reviewer who likes the same type of things that you do. Chances are that if you agree on a number of games, you’ll have similar opinions in the future as well.

This rant of yours serves no purpose except to make you feel like you’re lecturing people who review games for a living. It may make you feel better, but that’s about all it will accomplish.

I also have a question: How the hell do you describe “obscuring the meaning of the Metascore?” See, I was under the impression that the meaning of the Metascore was that it collected all the reviews and aggregated them to give game an overall rating. If I thought Crackdown 2 was shit (which it is), I’m not obscuring the Metascore, I’m bringing it down to where it needs to be. If you want to complain about obscuring metascores, look at a few sites that would give a 100 to a scrape of dogshit off my shoe.

Crackdown is a game that might have been a 75-80 four years ago, BUT THAT WAS FOUR YEARS AGO. By your logic, if a game that was a 90 on the PS2 were released today, it should receive the same score. That’s not just nonsensical, it’s willfully obscure.

I’m all for reasoned debate, but you need to user reason in order to have it.

I don’t even know where to begin with how stupid this rant is. In fact rant is a little too flattering a word to describe this nonsense, tantrum would be much more accurate (although it too lends an air of 4-5 year old thoughtfulness which is undeserved).

“and to them, except for the odd one which genuinely sucks, video games are super awesome.”

Wow, cheers, I didn’t realise how much I hated criticism in the first place. Those guys are so out of touch.

“He doesn’t care that he’s obscuring the meaning of the Metascore by doing so, because he knows he’s right.”

What a jerk! I can’t believe that guy! Not only does have an opinion, which as you’ve already illustrated so succinctly, is a stupid thing for a critic of, super awesome video games, to have, but then to obscure the other opinions of critics who realise how super awesome video games actually are, well that quite frankly is terrorism, plain and simple.

“Because the average gamer won’t care, and possibly won’t even be aware that Crackdown 2 is very similar to Crackdown 1.”

I mean c’mon guys! Wtf is wrong with you!?!??!?! The average gamer is an idiot, can’t you please dumb yourselves down to the level of… ummm… well I guess this Chris idiot.

“Also this is only loosely related, but can we agree once and for all that putting the word ‘uninspired’ in a video game review is pretentious and douche-like? How the hell do you know how inspired the creative team felt when they were crafting the game?”

Loosely related? No way, you sir have really hit the nail on the head with this one. I mean what the hell, do these critics think that they’re psychic? Well they aren’t, and to go around using language which has been set aside for psychics is practically fraud. They should probably be reported to the authorities, or at least pushed down a flight of stairs. The jerks.

“How do I figure? Go look at console sales at VGCharz. During the week ending june 26, 225,192 people bought Xbox 360s. TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE GOT A NEW XBOX 360 LAST WEEK. And for most of them, it’s their first Xbox 360. Normal people don’t buy new Xboxes when their old Xboxes still work.”

Words and numbers! Take that elitist video game critics! Checkmate!

I was going to go and copy and paste a few more lines of your inane prose, but I’m starting to get worried that my cursor may catch stupid.

Best wishes, you dickhead,
d5tryr