whats so great about metacritic?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Re: Re: whats so great about metacritic?

Originally posted by Verto
So in a matter of seconds I was able to compare the reviews and comments of a dozen or so different sites, as well as user ratings and comments, all from one website. Yes indeed, what's so great about Metacritic...

Wait a minute! You don't blindly look at the number score and go with that?!!

[lord of the mark]

Re: Re: whats so great about metacritic?

Originally posted by Verto



So in a matter of seconds I was able to compare the reviews and comments of a dozen or so different sites, as well as user ratings and comments, all from one website. Yes indeed, what's so great about Metacritic...

Yeah, I got that, which is why in the OP i said as follows:

"It takes in lots of reviews of a game, some of which may be insightful, but many of which are sheer garbage"

For like the fourth time, I UNDERSTAND its handy to have links to several reviews. My issue is more with the quoting of the average score as an indicator of quality. That works, at most with a "mainstream" titles, which I think its clear, dont include niche titles (even some pretty important ones) and perhap doesnt include most "casual" titles.

[Wiglaf]

For the love of god, it's an rough average of scores a game gets. Find something else to get mortally offended about.

[snoopy369]

I think it's "AN" indicator, not "THE". It has some value, when taken in context... for a mass market game (ie halo) it has more value, for a specific game it has less.

[Verto]

Re: Re: Re: whats so great about metacritic?

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Yeah, I got that, which is why in the OP i said as follows:

"It takes in lots of reviews of a game, some of which may be insightful, but many of which are sheer garbage"

For like the fourth time, I UNDERSTAND its handy to have links to several reviews. My issue is more with the quoting of the average score as an indicator of quality. That works, at most with a "mainstream" titles, which I think its clear, dont include niche titles (even some pretty important ones) and perhap doesnt include most "casual" titles.

I understand the concern if people look ONLY at that one number, without checking out any of the snippets they provide from each site, or the user reviews and ratings. But I think the ratings system is pretty accurate, overall. Quirky or niche games may get a skewed average rating, but even in the case you mentioned, Metacritic still provided enough information for you to make an informed decision as to whether the average rating was warranted or not.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
For the love of god, it's an rough average of scores a game gets. Find something else to get mortally offended about.

I didnt say that I was mortally offended. Some folks here tout metacritic scores as the gold standard of game quality. Im merely trying to introduce some reasoned skepticism about them. I wouldnt go on about it, except folks keep misinterpretating what Ive said.

[snoopy369]

This one's just for Asher...

[DrSpike]

Re: Re: whats so great about metacritic?

Originally posted by DrSpike


The point made later about reviews of niche games being hard to interpret is of course true - but metacritic doesn't really exacerbate this.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by snoopy369


This one's just for Asher...

That floored me!