Graphics comparisons like this one, published by Bitmob, may have helped fuel criticisms that Crackdown 2 isn't a significant improvement over Crackdown 1
The press embargo has been up for an entire 12 hours now, and the Crackdown 2 review scores have begun to hit Metacritic, and already, loads of controversy. So here’s some more:
Thus far, 35 publications have submitted review scores ranging from 90 down to 42, and resulting in a Metascore of 73 (a weighted average; some outlets have more influence than others).
The “big sites” have played it safe, or in any case landed in the middle, giving it scores in the range of 70-75, and I don’t really have a comment on that. What interests me is the enormous variance between the high and low scores, and more specifically, the reasons cited by journalists who gave the game a bad review.
Now I’m not going to pick on anybody here, but this is a call to action: I implore you to look the game up on Metacritic, take some names, and then go yell intelligent things at the critics who punished Crackdown 2 for ridiculous reasons.
I love to debate. I am not attacking people for putting forth views which differ from my own. But I am questioning the barometer of those who so obviously let their expectations affect their analyses. Expectation is an enemy of fair critique. Especially when your unique position (as a games writer who plays basically everything) makes it unimaginable that your readers have the same expectations.
Wtf am I talking about? Well, I can’t see the justification for praising one game and rewarding it with superb review scores, (e.g. Crackdown, score of 90) and then roundly panning its sequel (e.g. Crackdown 2, score of 45), which you’ve acknowledged to be pretty similar to the original. Both games are good, but because you expected the second to be better…
The way I see it, most of the guys ripping on Crackdown 2 fall into two camps:
First, you’ve got the guy who rips it to make a point, railing against devs who build sequels which they deem too derivative of their predecessors, and feel that awarding a shockingly bad review score is a good way to express their disdain.
This guy is bastardizing an already suspect system. He’s using the review score scale to further an agenda, rather than to put forth a fair assessment of the value of the game. He doesn’t care that he’s obscuring the meaning of the Metascore by doing so, because he knows he’s right.
Second, there’s the guy who pans it because it’s not to “his personal tastes,” after all, review scores can’t be wrong; they’re opinion. And he doesn’t see himself playing Crackdown 2, given what else is available to him, and given how much he played Crackdown 1. I mean, if it’s not new and improved…. psshaw.
This guy is just plain out of touch with the reader—the actual dude—who reads his review.
Because here’s the thing: not everyone plays video games for a living. Most people get a game or two every few months. They don’t have a stack of stuff ‘which they’ve been meaning to get to,’ and to them, except for the odd one which genuinely sucks, video games are awesome. They bring home a new game enthusiastically and joyously, forcing themselves not to drive too fast on the way back from Best Buy because they’re so excited to play it. They don’t take it from a Fedex envelope, eye it suspiciously, and then toss it into the pile. And I think it’s a games writer’s job, to at least attempt to relate to them.
Because the average gamer won’t care, and possibly won’t even be aware that Crackdown 2 is very similar to Crackdown 1.
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 have multiple Xbox 360s).
So I want to ask the journalists in the second camp: if Johnny is buying an Xbox and wants to buy a game or two to go with it, why the hell shouldn’t one of them be Crackdown 2? It’s fun. It’s great mix of platforming and sandbox elements, it has addictive item collection, and when you factor in online play and co-op, many owners will play it for 100 hours or more. You said so yourself…yet your review scores serve to discourage people from buying it.
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 kind of lame? How the hell do you know how inspired the creative team felt when they were crafting the game?
Rant complete. And forgive me if that sounded harsh; I haven’t had an Agility Orb fix in several hours now, and so I’m feeling moody.
Hi there. It doesn’t look like your site uses WordPress at all! Are you
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lowongan kerja mei 2011
13:30
Crackdown was a sleeper hit that no one expected. I’ll agree to that. However, Crackdown is basically bad DLC for the first game. If it was a downloadable expansion that cost $15, it would be a much better product than it is at retail.
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.
The rant's intended purpose is to question the validity of heavily factoring one's own unique expectations into their blanket analysis. I think I've done that. It doesn't make me feel better, it makes me feel like i'm campaigning for content that better serves readers.
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.
I think you're missing the point here. I wasn't referring to giving the game a 45 to "pull down" the Metacritic score. I was referring to it bringing the Metacritic score down as a natural function of how the site works. The reviewers who posted those scores had no idea what the Metacritic rating would be when they scored the game. It's not like a guy looked at Metacritic and said, "Wow, that's awfully high. I need to correct that." That presupposes that reviewers are actively looking at Metacritic as they review games. I can tell you from experience that is simply not happening.
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.
You make a lot of good points. Bear it mind though, I didn't say critics were wrong, I'm a critic. I just think some of the reasoning provided by the handful of reviews that absolutely lambasted the game, was suspect. And I didn't call for the netizens to flame the shit out of them, I said "go yell intelligent things at them", I'm all about trying to stimulate debate
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.
It's great that you're enjoying the game, and I'm glad you see where I am coming from. That's what makes the masses of game reviewers valuable. You can usually find someone who likes the same games you do. When you do, you should see what they think of the new game you're looking at.
I do appreciate that you told them to go yell 'intelligent' things. It would be a nice change, eh?
ha, definitely, I love when there's analysis going on. I already know i'm an idiot, I don't need trolls to tell me.Your example of Metro 2033 is a good one because it's not a cut and dry 'good' game, lots of people had issues with it. on one hand it's good, but is anyone going to keep coming back to it when they own BC2 or MW2, etc. My copy of Singularity hasn't arrived yet but I'm excited about it too, even if it's not a top-flight shooter, it sounds like it does enough different (timeshifting puzzles) that it'll be really interesting. Although Im pretty sure my total playtime for Crackdown will be longer, with orbs and co-op with friends.
d5tryr asked me to post this, comment system wasn’t working for him:
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
your war on personal opinions is sure to be a crowning moment in your career. all the best.
Sigh.. K, i'll bite, anonymous. It's not the fact a few people didn't like Crackdown 2, that was my issue. It's pointing a finger at people who really liked the Crackdown vibe, but panned the sequel just because it didn't live up to their expectations for sequels, nevermind the fact that it's still a fun game. I find it self-interested, and not that helpful to readers. and it skews the meaning of a metascore.
are you +1-ing your own comments?
I plus one'd one of them
nah, but maybe when you comment its auto +1? it's whatever the default in this comment plugin is. So, anyway, what did you think of Crackdown 2?
maybe the second one isn't as good as the first, maybe they changed things about the controls/physics that rubbed people the wrong way, maybe it's not different enough to sell full price just cause you slap a "2" on it, maybe all it appears to be is "improved" graphics (though by most standards still at least 4 years behind) and a bunch of zombies dropped in to "mix it up".
who knows.
i agree with everything you said, and i still think it was a ton of fun to play
Never mind, I stand corrected. Thanks for contributing!
this is the stupidest thing i've read this week.
thank you.
False.
my opinion of this "rant" being the stupidest thing i've read all week is incorrect?
what, praytell, could top this?