Do you trust the MetaCritic scores?

[Northern Lawn]

When I see glaring differences between the critics and the user's scores it's almost always a warning sign. Usually warning that the critics have been bought.. Mass Effect 89 for the critics, 39 for users. Too obvious.

But this time it got turned around.

http://i1057.photobucket.com/albums/t398/MWinnipeg/hugescore-1.jpg

I'm not sure if I can even trust the users at that sight now, LOL!!!
http://i1057.photobucket.com/albums/t398/MWinnipeg/weed.jpg

 

[Craig234]

Generally yes, I go more by critic scores than anything.

Sometimes users get 'campaigns' going to downrate a game if they don't like DRM etc.

 

[Anteaus]

They are worthless early on. They become more reliable after some time though. First month scoring is easily manipulated by fans, non fans and developers themselves. Often times early user reviews are emotion/hype based.

 

[0___________0]

I don't trust either of them.

 

[Glitchny]

nope not at all.

Critic reviews can have some merit, but i don't go by score, I read what they have to say and add that to the information from other sources. Numerical reviews are stupid.

Most user reviews are also useless. Like the people spamming Diablo3 who admitted they never played the game, yet gave it all 0's.

A huge amount of people playing games don't bother to review them. And the people that are the most vocal are usually people who have negative opinions, which slants the reviews. Generally people who enjoy a game don't go searching the internet for review sites to profess their love for the game. Haters on the other hand seem to want to announce their dislike for the game to anyone who will listen.

I really think Steam should implement a review system where if you owned the game you could rate it right there within the steam user interface. That way you could ensure only people who actually own/played the game can review it and it would get opinions from a wider amount of players. They could even include a %played with your review to see if the person rated the game after 30min or played a significant amount.

 

[Red Hawk]

Metacritic scores are generally useful for identifying piece of crap games and the really, really fantastic games, and then avoiding the former and buying the latter. But is there really a tangible difference between a game rated at 85 and one rated at 93? No, I don't think there generally is.

I trust user reviews even less. Mass Effect 3 for example got the overall critic rating it deserved, and users review bombed it for various reasons that may have been valid but didn't warrant giving the game a 0.

 

[Maximilian]

User reviews are far more valuable, if there are a lot of negative ones i simply read maybe 1 or 2 popular negatives reviews to get an idea of what is wrong. If people are "campaigning" against some game or another well... no smoke without fire really

 

[power_hour]

I don't. Then again I have bought some really crappy games so maybe I should start

 

[Sulaco]

FORUMS!!

You know, where people have to actually (for the most part) back up their views, and you can tell the idiots from the real gamers.



Anyone who gives a reasonably decent game a 0 or a 10 is an asshole, and has zero credibility.

It's sad that most of MetaCritic's scores are either 0 or 1, or 9 or 10. No room for thought, no room for shades of gray, just "It wasn't perfect! It sucked! ZERO!" or "Omg it was so much fun! 10 out of 10!"

 

[Northern Lawn]

Well I would give Bad Company 2 a 10 since I have about 1400 hours in it (Talk about Return on investment), and I would give Battle Field 3 a 0 since I can't play it for more then 5 minutes without it freezing my computer (talk about a waste of money).

10's and Zero's can be legitimate.

EDIT: Still, the Best online Shooter for me is America's Army 2...3,000+ hours and it's FREE!!! was free, dead now.

 

[Red Hawk]

Well I would give Bad Company 2 a 10 since I have about 1400 hours in it (Talk about Return on investment), and I would give Battle Field 3 a 0 since I can't play it for more then 5 minutes without it freezing my computer (talk about a waste of money).

10's and Zero's can be legitimate.

EDIT: Still, the Best online Shooter for me is America's Army 2...3,000+ hours and it's FREE!!! was free, dead now.

The problem there lies with your PC, not with Battlefield 3. So no, it's not legitimate to give it a 0 for that.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I don't trust professional review scores that's for sure, with games such as MW3 getting such high scores it's obvious that one of two things has occurred, there is some financial motivation to keep scores high, or reviewers have had their standards lowered to accept consolized garbage as the yardstick by which we judge games which is equally as useless.

The user side of things with metacritic is somewhat better I would say, the bombing of scores is a really handy tool to flag games with serious issues, while gamers might be over compensating with their scores to give it an artificially lower average, it still serves an important purpose which is to highlight these issues and make developers and publishers know we're not happy.

You can't beat visiting somewhere like the anandtech or hardocp gaming forums and just reading about what genuine gamers have to say about a game.

 

[Proxyep]

I don't trust professional review scores that's for sure, with games such as MW3 getting such high scores it's obvious that one of two things has occurred, there is some financial motivation to keep scores high, or reviewers have had their standards lowered to accept consolized garbage as the yardstick by which we judge games which is equally as useless.

The user side of things with metacritic is somewhat better I would say, the bombing of scores is a really handy tool to flag games with serious issues, while gamers might be over compensating with their scores to give it an artificially lower average, it still serves an important purpose which is to highlight these issues and make developers and publishers know we're not happy.

You can't beat visiting somewhere like the anandtech or hardocp gaming forums and just reading about what genuine gamers have to say about a game.

Definetly for sure, the Diablo III review scores seem to be a bit dodgy, critics are freely handing out praise but a few of my friends say that it gets old REAL quick so its a bit hard to tell if the professional critics are simply offering high praise for a buck

 

[imaheadcase]

Never trust any reviews or any sites sponsored by said company.

Always go by word of mouth.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I certainly dont trust the big gaming sites like PC Gamer, considering the scores they gave ME3 and DAII. I put more faith in metacritic, especially as someone else said, after enough time for getting a lot of reviews. I probably rely on AT forums the most though. Sadly, the last game for me that really was outstanding was Skyrim.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Metacritic scores are generally useful for identifying piece of crap games and the really, really fantastic games, and then avoiding the former and buying the latter. But is there really a tangible difference between a game rated at 85 and one rated at 93? No, I don't think there generally is.

I trust user reviews even less. Mass Effect 3 for example got the overall critic rating it deserved, and users review bombed it for various reasons that may have been valid but didn't warrant giving the game a 0.

Yea, it didnt deserve a 0, too bad there are no negative numbers!!! Seriously, probably the most disappointing ending ever to a great franchise.

 

[Rage187]

yes

 

[darkewaffle]

I trust critical reviews more than user reviews. While neither are perfect, critical reviews are far less emotional and tend to provide more objectivity. User reviews, positive or negative, gravitate more towards "extremes" with zeros and tens handed out quickly and easily, which to me displays a high degree of subjectivity and a lack of perspective.

 

[Wyndru]

They are worthless early on. They become more reliable after some time though. First month scoring is easily manipulated by fans, non fans and developers themselves. Often times early user reviews are emotion/hype based.

This. Diablo 3 took a serious nosedive at release after getting great beta reviews simply because of their servers being overloaded on the launch date and people upset that they couldn't log on. Granted, I don't think it's a great game but early on these scores can be heavily influenced.

 

[bguile]

These days 'critics' reviews mean next to nothing to me. Now I go by user reviews and forum posts.

 

[PowerYoga]

I avoid metacritics with 50 or so below but not opposed to looking at a demo or something. A game that's 80-90 deserves a closer glance.

 

[waggy]

I thought everyone knew that game critics are full of shit? when EVERY game gets above a 5-6 unless they are huge stinkers then something is wrong.

i remember reading a report where a critic gave a real review. the gameing company pulled all other game reviews from them. they didn't get another.

 

[EDUSAN]

When I see glaring differences between the critics and the user's scores it's almost always a warning sign. Usually warning that the critics have been bought.. Mass Effect 89 for the critics, 39 for users. Too obvious.

if you are talking about Mass Effect 1 i would say that the user reviews suck too much, great game

if you are talking about Mass Effect 3 i would say that the game is closer to the 89 than the 39... too many fanboys on that 39 score, and too many bought critics in the 89 score?
Leave it at... 75 then

 

[shortylickens]

Nope. Its become obvious that too many professional reviewers just cant be fucking trusted. That skews the data more than I care to think about. No point. If you have a population of 1000, take 100 samples, and 75 of them are erroneous, you do not have good data, plain and simple. I'd rather read a forum or blog and hear actual arguments, then make my own decision.

Ditto politics.

 

[JamesV]

I don't trust the Metacritic scores, but I do often use the site for purchase decisions, and I always go there to read reviews because it's a one-stop destination to find all of them.

I'll read a favorable and an unfavorable review, and glance at user reviews, which seems to give me a good handle on how good a game is.