<!--quoteo(post=2034551:date=Nov 25 2012, 06:54 PM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 25 2012, 06:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034551"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->They don't deserve to thrive because of unfair reviews, and that goes for the positive ones. If they wanted better scores, they should've made a better game, rather than expect the community to dogpile and slam on everyone who says anything bad about the game, which is exactly what happens in this forum more often than not.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Only you seem to care about user reviews.. The game and UWE thriving doesn't depend as much on these scores, they depend on the critic scores. Stop arguing the user reviews like anybody cares. It's an indie game... any remotely good indie game will have it's user reviews populated with fanboys so I dunno what you're all up in a huff about (Natural Selection is not alone in this, and it's merely a symptom of being a small game, and being a relatively good one at that despite it's many outstanding issues).
It's a shame that the slamming went on in the user reviews. It's also entirely fair that critics should be able to slam the game based on fair reasoning after giving the game a decent chance. That is not what happened in this particular review.
<!--quoteo(post=2034551:date=Nov 25 2012, 06:54 PM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 25 2012, 06:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034551"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Also I don't know why you keep saying '108 user reviews' like that gives the score any credibility. You can find most of those user names as being the same as forum accounts here. It's quite obvious based on the scores and the content of the review that, because this forum put so much focus on the metacritic page, that the forum community decided to "fix" the review scores by giving it a user review score better than even Half-Life 2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I said 108 user reviews because <i>you</i> seemed to care about user reviews. I'm trying pointing out that the issue of a one bad critic review is a bigger issue in a pure numbers perspective (if you won't accept that the user review number doesn't matter all that much anyway). Do the math: A 10/10 or a 0/10 score will effect the user score by less than 1%. The 6/10 gamespot review most likely effects the critic score by over 10% (to be more precise, somewhere above 1/13, due to the higher weighting placed on gamespot critics). This is why we need more reviews. More reviews mean less weighting on the inaccurate one.
Sure, an unfair positive review will also have 1/13 (or higher if similar score weighting is present), but it seems like all of the positive reviews have pretty fair reasoning behind them, and most of them take into account both the good aspects of the game, and the things that need work. This might seem pretty convinient (that I believe the positive reviews to be fair), but the fact is that none of them were ever pulled for factual inaccuracies or the reviewer apologize and admit the score was too low.
As for the forum accounts, what do you expect? The user reviews are written by people who play (or have played) the game. It's a small niche game. A less casual orientated, more competitive orientated one at that. One that's still undergoing balancing and has new features being developed for it. Of course the players are going to have forum accounts.
<!--quoteo(post=2034551:date=Nov 25 2012, 06:54 PM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 25 2012, 06:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034551"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This isn't a new phenomenon. If a developer does something shady that the internet collective doesn't like, it's common for a site like Reddit to have its members review-bomb their latest game as vengeance. In this case, the opposite happened... doesn't change the fact that it's the community who trashed the game's scores by over-inflating the perceived quality of the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Exactly. ###### like this just happens. It isn't just the NS2 community. It's just gamers. It's just the internet. If something dodge happens, there's a 'call to arms' (figuratively speaking of course). You're bagging the NS2 community for doing something that communities all around the internet do all the time.
<!--quoteo(post=2034551:date=Nov 25 2012, 06:54 PM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 25 2012, 06:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034551"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I simply pointed out the two front page reviews - one a 10/10 with garbage content and one a 6/10 with actual content and the associated 'does this help you' scores as proof that those user reviews are just this community being fanboys and giving the game scores it doesn't deserve. The fact that that same community is upset about a LOW score that they feel it doesn't deserve <i>while at the same time giving it high scores it also doesn't deserve</i> is just... totally ironic. Which is why I find this whole thing quite funny.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, it's a shame about the good review getting slammed and the oversaturation of overly-positive reviews in the user review section.
The critic section didn't get any high scores it didn't deserve though. Certainly none that were inaccurate.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The critic section didn't get any high scores it didn't deserve though. Certainly none that were inaccurate.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We're agreeing on the same points, the only difference is that I think the game is very, very much a C+ effort, and nothing more. A solid 3/5 stars. I find that the flaws and total underachieving in the game design to be so great that the two 90+ reviews it received are laughably hard to swallow. You can ding a game down to 90 on some bugs, some poor sound, a weak single player, etc. The flaws in NS2 are much, much greater than that, including the worst in my eyes: failure to innovate.
My argument is that the 6/10 from gamespot served the same purpose that the 0/10 user reviews do - it dragged the game from the overly generous 90/100 / 91/100 it got from two sites down to where it belongs - C+ territory.
Ign gave Black Ops 2 a 9.3 ... It also sold $500 million of product on day one alone, mostly due to pre orders made waaaaay befor Ign's review.
Maybe, despite what you or I think about, we are in the minority and to a typical gaming human, it's the shiznit to alot of people.
NS2 did a cool $1 mill (I have 9 cents in my bank), got a few more lower scores than Black Ops 2, it's the shiznit to less people.
So saying 83 is a misleadingly low average due to outliers is possibly true, as especially in the entertainment industry, generally polarizing products ('love em or hate ems') can do really well within their target markets. Eg: Beiber, Marilyn Manson, Elvis, FPSRussia. NS2's target market (FPS/RTS blend) is just smaller than BO2's (I've been laying concrete all day and I really just wan't to play some mindless DM).
<!--quoteo(post=2034645:date=Nov 25 2012, 07:04 PM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 25 2012, 07:04 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034645"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My argument is that the 6/10 from gamespot served the same purpose that the 0/10 user reviews do - it dragged the game from the overly generous 90/100 / 91/100 it got from two sites down to where it belongs - C+ territory.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes, positive and negative reviews should balance each other out and be looked at as a whole, because no one review is going to give the whole picture. Unfortunately not everyone thinks like that. If someone sees 9's across the board and one 6, instead of putting the +'s and the -'s together they'll just regard that person as trolling or being pessimistic and disregard that review entirely.
<!--quoteo(post=2034186:date=Nov 25 2012, 06:42 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Nov 25 2012, 06:42 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034186"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->People are <i>complaining</i> about a 79 metascore?
Since when is that a bad score?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Just to refresh people's information on the situation:
I don't think very many people here would be mad or rage at Gamespot SPECIFICALLY for their initial score. To note, their initial score was around a 60, not a 79. This was later changed.
However, what people were angry about was that this original review seemed to be pretty obviously done at minimal effort, and we mean minimal. It seemed entirely likely that the reviewer didn't actually PLAY the game - just started up an empty server and took a few screenshots of empty corridors. He didn't discuss strategy to any degree whatsoever, and in the end, his review was removed for factual inaccuracies, which is the truth; he had no idea what he was talking about, and didn't even get the price of the game right.
Honestly, the game has its Achilles Heels, and I couldn't really fault a reviewer for giving a 58 score based on his first 3 hours of gameplay, focusing on its tutorials or lack thereof - it's not an especially newbie-friendly game. But when a "professional" reviewer has obviously not even played the game itself, that's when we all got angry, and prompted Gamespot to change the review.
Finally, I'm pretty sure there are a number of games on Steam that HAVE been reviewed on Metacritic, but their score is not displayed at the request of the developer. I'm not sure how this works, and there may be a rule against a publisher saying, later on, "Wait no don't show the Metacritic, it looks too bad"
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=2034504:date=Nov 25 2012, 02:42 PM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 25 2012, 02:42 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034504"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah, we've been over this. The 'factual inaccuracies' was a mistake on the price of the game, and he called it 'creep' (which is pointless since people on this forum call it creep sometimes too). CNN makes more mistakes than that.
Pay special attention to the content of the reviews, and the "did you find this review helpful" ratings. The first guy plays for 3 hours, then writes a bunch of garbage that has nothing to do with the game. The community decides that's a fair, useful review. The second guy slams the game and gives many good reasons why. The community slams him.
Most of the user reviews on there can be directly traced to forum accounts here, so it's quite obvious you people actually don't care at all about a fair review, you're just upset to hear people say that the game you've somehow decided was the most flawless masterpiece in the world actually isn't.
Seriously, you're not fooling anyone. Do you honestly think that the high review scores were given after playing the game for a few days? If that were true, I honestly doubt they'd have given the game as high a score that they did, because the flaws the game become painfully obvious the longer you play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Call me crazy, but I expect higher quality from a paid, professional review at a supposedly reputable review site like Gamespot than from random user submitted reviews and scores. That review was like if a music critic listened to a couple of songs of an album, messed up the name of the drummer, and knocked a few points of his review score because the music skipped on his CD player.
I'm also not sure why you think people who liked the game (so much so that they are also on the games official forums) shouldn't write or up-vote good reviews. Not having a representative sample of gamer reviews is an endemic problem to both professional and user-submitted reviews, which is why I think trying to turn these reviews into a score is a catastrophic folly for the gaming industry and community.
<!--quoteo(post=2034186:date=Nov 25 2012, 03:42 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Nov 25 2012, 03:42 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034186"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->People are <i>complaining</i> about a 79 metascore?
Since when is that a bad score?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Since forever, with video games. If you're familiar with metacritic for movies, tv, and music, you might think that reviews go from 0-100, therefore a 79 review is very good. Because their movie, tv, and music reviews are pretty sane. Bad ones are rated low, high ones are rated high.
But the video game industry is ridiculous. There is rampant grade inflation and paid positive reviews. Metacritic ratings basically start at 50 for awful games and anything in the 60s is very bad. It's only in the 70s where you start to even get into decent territory. 80 is where you start getting into good. So 79 for a video game isn't absymal but it's pretty low.
<!--quoteo(post=2034504:date=Nov 25 2012, 02:42 PM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 25 2012, 02:42 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034504"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah, we've been over this. The 'factual inaccuracies' was a mistake on the price of the game, and he called it 'creep' (which is pointless since people on this forum call it creep sometimes too). CNN makes more mistakes than that.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree that the "factual inaccuracies" is overplayed, but it was clear that he spent no effort on the review and the factual accuracies are consistent with that. For example, he talked about how maps took forever to load - because he'd never loaded the same map twice, he didn't know the second time was much faster. It seemed pretty clear from the review that he played 1, maybe 2 rounds - if he didn't rage quit in the middle of the first one - and barely knew anything about the game.
He also talked about how much "grinding" the game took, which was utterly absurd, given that it's like the only FPS game released in the last 5 years that doesn't actually need any grinding. But he basically said something to the extent of "you really need to work with your teammates in this game and be aware of your surroundings, so that's a lot of grinding" and it made no sense at all.
He also took screenshots of random blank walls and other stupid stuff taht showed he put absolutely no effort into it.
Good deal, breaking 80 is really all anybody could have hoped for. I think for Steam shoppers that crosses the mental barrier and should boost their performance next time the game hits the public eye(like with a sale or big patch).
<!--quoteo(post=2040555:date=Dec 5 2012, 06:07 PM:name=CrushaK)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CrushaK @ Dec 5 2012, 06:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2040555"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I find it strange that Metascore says that the German game magazine GameStar gave the title a 88, even though their actual test only gave them a 82.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Maybe it's a mixup with the 82 score they claim to have given NS1?
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=2040555:date=Dec 5 2012, 02:07 PM:name=CrushaK)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CrushaK @ Dec 5 2012, 02:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2040555"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I find it strange that Metascore says that the German game magazine GameStar gave the title a 88, even though their actual test only gave them a 82.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Metacritic making mistakes? Not possible!
<!--quoteo(post=2034350:date=Nov 25 2012, 11:11 AM:name=RobustPenguin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RobustPenguin @ Nov 25 2012, 11:11 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034350"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Does anyone with a brain give a damn about metacritic?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=2040518:date=Dec 5 2012, 03:55 PM:name=GeENiE)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GeENiE @ Dec 5 2012, 03:55 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2040518"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->so its 81, front page hasn't updated 2 new reviews yet :) <img src="http://i49.tinypic.com/kc6xt.png" border="0" class="linked-image" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The other great thing about that image - there is exactly ONE review that's not above 80, and you can instantly see that. Anyone who reads that review will take it with a grain of salt.
<!--quoteo(post=2033769:date=Nov 24 2012, 01:49 PM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Swiftspear @ Nov 24 2012, 01:49 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2033769"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Lets be honest, without Steam, metacritic is a minor annoyance, rather than a thing we actually care about.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah i think Steam is a major factor why metacritic is important for commercial success.
Until recently thought metacritic would be a good thing, because it shifts the influence away from big reviewing sites to many different sources. You never know how publishers and these sites interact with each other. But then i figured something out: metacritic weighs ratings of different sites by an internal "impact factor" and nobody knows how it is calculated. They even give a contact adress when you want your rating to be implemented. So, yes, it is a shift of power - to metacritic. Because of that I am quite confident to say to get a big impact and be listed on top of the reviewing sites, youll probably have to pay metacritic.
(Is that the reason for the few reviews for NSII? Do you have to pay big reviewing sites to get it there? Didnt UWE want to do that? )
<!--quoteo(post=2040555:date=Dec 5 2012, 02:07 PM:name=CrushaK)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CrushaK @ Dec 5 2012, 02:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2040555"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I find it strange that Metascore says that the German game magazine GameStar gave the title a 88, even though their actual test only gave them a 82.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I might note that with this second little "mistake" from MC, it almost cancels out the bad Gamespot score. Even if we put the Gamespot score at 80 and left the Gamestar at 88, the unweighted average would only be 82, only 1% increase. So whether 81 or 82, and with 9/16 MC reviews giving NS2 80 (including Gamespot), the critics have weighed in, and their verdict is that NS2 is good but not a classic. Which is probably a reasonable conclusion.
I think it's fair to say that time reveals the Great Metascore Debate to be nothing but a tempest in a teacup and now hopefully we can move on to more and greater things...
<a href="http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/natural+selection+2/results" target="_blank">http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/natur...ction+2/results</a> (done by searching "Natural Selection 2" in the search box)
It gives a result of 79
Yet when I go here:
<a href="http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/Natural+selection+2/results" target="_blank">http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/Natur...ction+2/results</a> (done by misspelling "Natural Selection 2" in the search box, searching and clicking on the "did you mean Natural Selction 2". Subsequent searches on Natural Selection 2 also go to the same URL as long as it's the one you're already on)
It gives a result of 81.
I dunno wtf is going on there. I didn't even know upper/lower case URLs effect anything. But it's effecting this.
edit: I was wrong about the upper/lower case effecting things I think. But it still gives wrong results on an initial search.
<!--quoteo(post=2035279:date=Nov 26 2012, 09:11 PM:name=SenorBeef)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SenorBeef @ Nov 26 2012, 09:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2035279"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Since forever, with video games. If you're familiar with metacritic for movies, tv, and music, you might think that reviews go from 0-100, therefore a 79 review is very good. Because their movie, tv, and music reviews are pretty sane. Bad ones are rated low, high ones are rated high.
But the video game industry is ridiculous. There is rampant grade inflation and paid positive reviews. Metacritic ratings basically start at 50 for awful games and anything in the 60s is very bad. It's only in the 70s where you start to even get into decent territory. 80 is where you start getting into good. So 79 for a video game isn't absymal but it's pretty low.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Taking my games library as a basis, for me it's:
<50: Crap.
60: Probably crap but possibly interesting.
70: Give it a look.
80: Give it a look and will probably find something I really quite like about it.
90: Everyone has played it.
96: Half life 2, Skyrim, Won Game of the Year.
So 79 is a good score for when I look at games, most of my games are in the 70/80 range anyway.
I should also point out that CODBLOPS has an 81 metascore, and that's pretty damn popular.
<!--quoteo(post=2040877:date=Dec 6 2012, 03:05 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Dec 6 2012, 03:05 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2040877"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Taking my games library as a basis, for me it's:
<50: Crap.
60: Probably crap but possibly interesting.
70: Give it a look.
80: Give it a look and will probably find something I really quite like about it.
90: Everyone has played it.
96: Half life 2, Skyrim, Won Game of the Year.
So 79 is a good score for when I look at games, most of my games are in the 70/80 range anyway.
I should also point out that CODBLOPS has an 81 metascore, and that's pretty damn popular.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I like that categorization it hits the nail on the head.
Especially 90+ - "everyone has played it" and "Game of the year" is more like a commercial badge than anything else. The rest is a matter of taste. 95+ often also means "nothing special" (the last percents you simply cant get without the hype bonus, thats it*). How often did I have a game thats a bit unconventional, therefore polarizing, therefore not getting maximum ratings but therefore much more interesting as well? I think those not-so-popular titles often are the really interesting ones. I`m fed up with Call of Duty shooters. I`m fed up with FPS in general I have to admit. Except when they have something making them stand out - which NSII does.
* Just look at the toplist, you either have sequels of classics (often being said to "never reach their predecessor") or classics that are so old, the reviews in the internet are basically done retrospectively:
Yeah I mean I do generally like the high scoring titles, but it's not a guarantee. Like I said it mostly just means everyone has played it, which means I should have a look because maybe I'll want to play it too, but maybe not.
But anything from 70 upwards is what I'd call an actual game, like something you can play and enjoy if that takes your fancy. And if I really liked fpsrts games and scifi settings and wanted to play a game like that, and saw NS2 had a 79 metascore, or even a 70 metascore, I'd give it a look.
Metascore is more just a measure of how competently made something is, and 70-80 is accurate for NS2, it's kinda rough but you can play it, and enjoy it if it's your bag. Which puts it in with about 60-70% of my library.
Of course you like them, me too. They are always really good. But good isnt *ooooomph* - to reach that feeling i need something innovative, something i havent seen before, something that really makes a game stand out. And that most likely will cause some players not to like it - because in games its like everywhere els, there is a mainstream and a significant amount of people wont like anything diverting from this recipe.
Current game of this sort is "Dark Souls: Prepare to die edition". Crappy port and unplayable without a controller but with mods and controller: *ooooomph* ;D Its just exactly my taste, unconventional enough to be something new I wanted to have but didnt know about. Its too difficult and technically unimpressive (and doesnt have a big western publisher in its back), so it just received the 85 rating.
okay, Skyrim was *ooomph* too. But somehow once you have seen it all and closed your mouth from the beautiful visuals you realize at some point that the games basic mechanics are kind of simple and behind all that beauty there is not sooo much to hold you in.
I dont think its that difficult, it just takes practice to play it. Today the games are just too easy and too smoothly designed to be as accessible to as many people as possible. In the past games always made their replayability this way due to restrictions in amounts of data. You had to learn to play a game. Be it the controls or be it basic game mechanics nowhere explained in detail. They beautifully realized the concept to bend the game mechanics by yourself in your favor of winning without it feeling like "cheating" or breaking the way its intended to be played. Sad as it is, this is something special now. Failure in modern games is basically not existent. As great as Skyrim is, you reach the point of superiority too soon. Then it isnt fun anymore, you just mow down everything. Most games today just fake getting better for you as a player. That may be a nice illusion while you are not progressing in anything. But thats what the real fun is - making actual progress in skill (normally left to competitive multiplayer), not only in your character level or the story. Thats so rare nowadays that i really came to love this game.
Dark Souls is one of the best game I played ever. They do almost everything perfectly. I find it easy to play because, well I want to play it. Skyrim, not so much. I find a boring game hard to play: it feels like working.
If I were giving an objective review I would probably give NS2 an 85. It obviously doesn't have AAA polish so I think a 90 is high, but it's also pretty much the only game that does what it does which I think is worth some credit. AAA developers just don't make games like this, so I think it's fair to forgive a few hiccups. Dark Souls is also a good example of a game that has a host of polish issues but the core of the game is so excellent that it deserves acclaim.
Comments
Only you seem to care about user reviews.. The game and UWE thriving doesn't depend as much on these scores, they depend on the critic scores. Stop arguing the user reviews like anybody cares. It's an indie game... any remotely good indie game will have it's user reviews populated with fanboys so I dunno what you're all up in a huff about (Natural Selection is not alone in this, and it's merely a symptom of being a small game, and being a relatively good one at that despite it's many outstanding issues).
It's a shame that the slamming went on in the user reviews. It's also entirely fair that critics should be able to slam the game based on fair reasoning after giving the game a decent chance. That is not what happened in this particular review.
<!--quoteo(post=2034551:date=Nov 25 2012, 06:54 PM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 25 2012, 06:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034551"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Also I don't know why you keep saying '108 user reviews' like that gives the score any credibility. You can find most of those user names as being the same as forum accounts here. It's quite obvious based on the scores and the content of the review that, because this forum put so much focus on the metacritic page, that the forum community decided to "fix" the review scores by giving it a user review score better than even Half-Life 2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I said 108 user reviews because <i>you</i> seemed to care about user reviews. I'm trying pointing out that the issue of a one bad critic review is a bigger issue in a pure numbers perspective (if you won't accept that the user review number doesn't matter all that much anyway). Do the math: A 10/10 or a 0/10 score will effect the user score by less than 1%. The 6/10 gamespot review most likely effects the critic score by over 10% (to be more precise, somewhere above 1/13, due to the higher weighting placed on gamespot critics). This is why we need more reviews. More reviews mean less weighting on the inaccurate one.
Sure, an unfair positive review will also have 1/13 (or higher if similar score weighting is present), but it seems like all of the positive reviews have pretty fair reasoning behind them, and most of them take into account both the good aspects of the game, and the things that need work. This might seem pretty convinient (that I believe the positive reviews to be fair), but the fact is that none of them were ever pulled for factual inaccuracies or the reviewer apologize and admit the score was too low.
As for the forum accounts, what do you expect? The user reviews are written by people who play (or have played) the game. It's a small niche game. A less casual orientated, more competitive orientated one at that. One that's still undergoing balancing and has new features being developed for it. Of course the players are going to have forum accounts.
<!--quoteo(post=2034551:date=Nov 25 2012, 06:54 PM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 25 2012, 06:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034551"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This isn't a new phenomenon. If a developer does something shady that the internet collective doesn't like, it's common for a site like Reddit to have its members review-bomb their latest game as vengeance. In this case, the opposite happened... doesn't change the fact that it's the community who trashed the game's scores by over-inflating the perceived quality of the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Exactly. ###### like this just happens. It isn't just the NS2 community. It's just gamers. It's just the internet. If something dodge happens, there's a 'call to arms' (figuratively speaking of course). You're bagging the NS2 community for doing something that communities all around the internet do all the time.
<!--quoteo(post=2034551:date=Nov 25 2012, 06:54 PM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 25 2012, 06:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034551"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I simply pointed out the two front page reviews - one a 10/10 with garbage content and one a 6/10 with actual content and the associated 'does this help you' scores as proof that those user reviews are just this community being fanboys and giving the game scores it doesn't deserve.
The fact that that same community is upset about a LOW score that they feel it doesn't deserve <i>while at the same time giving it high scores it also doesn't deserve</i> is just... totally ironic. Which is why I find this whole thing quite funny.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, it's a shame about the good review getting slammed and the oversaturation of overly-positive reviews in the user review section.
The critic section didn't get any high scores it didn't deserve though. Certainly none that were inaccurate.
We're agreeing on the same points, the only difference is that I think the game is very, very much a C+ effort, and nothing more. A solid 3/5 stars. I find that the flaws and total underachieving in the game design to be so great that the two 90+ reviews it received are laughably hard to swallow. You can ding a game down to 90 on some bugs, some poor sound, a weak single player, etc. The flaws in NS2 are much, much greater than that, including the worst in my eyes: failure to innovate.
My argument is that the 6/10 from gamespot served the same purpose that the 0/10 user reviews do - it dragged the game from the overly generous 90/100 / 91/100 it got from two sites down to where it belongs - C+ territory.
Maybe, despite what you or I think about, we are in the minority and to a typical gaming human, it's the shiznit to alot of people.
NS2 did a cool $1 mill (I have 9 cents in my bank), got a few more lower scores than Black Ops 2, it's the shiznit to less people.
So saying 83 is a misleadingly low average due to outliers is possibly true, as especially in the entertainment industry, generally polarizing products ('love em or hate ems') can do really well within their target markets. Eg: Beiber, Marilyn Manson, Elvis, FPSRussia. NS2's target market (FPS/RTS blend) is just smaller than BO2's (I've been laying concrete all day and I really just wan't to play some mindless DM).
Yes, positive and negative reviews should balance each other out and be looked at as a whole, because no one review is going to give the whole picture. Unfortunately not everyone thinks like that. If someone sees 9's across the board and one 6, instead of putting the +'s and the -'s together they'll just regard that person as trolling or being pessimistic and disregard that review entirely.
Since when is that a bad score?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Just to refresh people's information on the situation:
I don't think very many people here would be mad or rage at Gamespot SPECIFICALLY for their initial score. To note, their initial score was around a 60, not a 79. This was later changed.
However, what people were angry about was that this original review seemed to be pretty obviously done at minimal effort, and we mean minimal. It seemed entirely likely that the reviewer didn't actually PLAY the game - just started up an empty server and took a few screenshots of empty corridors. He didn't discuss strategy to any degree whatsoever, and in the end, his review was removed for factual inaccuracies, which is the truth; he had no idea what he was talking about, and didn't even get the price of the game right.
Honestly, the game has its Achilles Heels, and I couldn't really fault a reviewer for giving a 58 score based on his first 3 hours of gameplay, focusing on its tutorials or lack thereof - it's not an especially newbie-friendly game. But when a "professional" reviewer has obviously not even played the game itself, that's when we all got angry, and prompted Gamespot to change the review.
Finally, I'm pretty sure there are a number of games on Steam that HAVE been reviewed on Metacritic, but their score is not displayed at the request of the developer. I'm not sure how this works, and there may be a rule against a publisher saying, later on, "Wait no don't show the Metacritic, it looks too bad"
Then explain this, please:
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/CWni0.png" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/CWni0.png</a>
Pay special attention to the content of the reviews, and the "did you find this review helpful" ratings. The first guy plays for 3 hours, then writes a bunch of garbage that has nothing to do with the game. The community decides that's a fair, useful review. The second guy slams the game and gives many good reasons why. The community slams him.
Most of the user reviews on there can be directly traced to forum accounts here, so it's quite obvious you people actually don't care at all about a fair review, you're just upset to hear people say that the game you've somehow decided was the most flawless masterpiece in the world actually isn't.
Seriously, you're not fooling anyone. Do you honestly think that the high review scores were given after playing the game for a few days? If that were true, I honestly doubt they'd have given the game as high a score that they did, because the flaws the game become painfully obvious the longer you play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Call me crazy, but I expect higher quality from a paid, professional review at a supposedly reputable review site like Gamespot than from random user submitted reviews and scores. That review was like if a music critic listened to a couple of songs of an album, messed up the name of the drummer, and knocked a few points of his review score because the music skipped on his CD player.
I'm also not sure why you think people who liked the game (so much so that they are also on the games official forums) shouldn't write or up-vote good reviews. Not having a representative sample of gamer reviews is an endemic problem to both professional and user-submitted reviews, which is why I think trying to turn these reviews into a score is a catastrophic folly for the gaming industry and community.
Since when is that a bad score?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Since forever, with video games. If you're familiar with metacritic for movies, tv, and music, you might think that reviews go from 0-100, therefore a 79 review is very good. Because their movie, tv, and music reviews are pretty sane. Bad ones are rated low, high ones are rated high.
But the video game industry is ridiculous. There is rampant grade inflation and paid positive reviews. Metacritic ratings basically start at 50 for awful games and anything in the 60s is very bad. It's only in the 70s where you start to even get into decent territory. 80 is where you start getting into good. So 79 for a video game isn't absymal but it's pretty low.
<!--quoteo(post=2034504:date=Nov 25 2012, 02:42 PM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 25 2012, 02:42 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2034504"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah, we've been over this. The 'factual inaccuracies' was a mistake on the price of the game, and he called it 'creep' (which is pointless since people on this forum call it creep sometimes too). CNN makes more mistakes than that.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree that the "factual inaccuracies" is overplayed, but it was clear that he spent no effort on the review and the factual accuracies are consistent with that. For example, he talked about how maps took forever to load - because he'd never loaded the same map twice, he didn't know the second time was much faster. It seemed pretty clear from the review that he played 1, maybe 2 rounds - if he didn't rage quit in the middle of the first one - and barely knew anything about the game.
He also talked about how much "grinding" the game took, which was utterly absurd, given that it's like the only FPS game released in the last 5 years that doesn't actually need any grinding. But he basically said something to the extent of "you really need to work with your teammates in this game and be aware of your surroundings, so that's a lot of grinding" and it made no sense at all.
He also took screenshots of random blank walls and other stupid stuff taht showed he put absolutely no effort into it.
<a href="http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/natural-selection-2" target="_blank">http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/natural-selection-2</a>
<img src="http://i49.tinypic.com/kc6xt.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://i49.tinypic.com/kc6xt.png" border="0" class="linked-image" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's great. Just in time for a Christmas sale ;)
Maybe it's a mixup with the 82 score they claim to have given NS1?
Metacritic making mistakes? Not possible!
Exactly. Now they said 88, they have to keep it at 88. Their own rules.
^
<img src="http://i49.tinypic.com/kc6xt.png" border="0" class="linked-image" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The other great thing about that image - there is exactly ONE review that's not above 80, and you can instantly see that. Anyone who reads that review will take it with a grain of salt.
Yeah i think Steam is a major factor why metacritic is important for commercial success.
Until recently thought metacritic would be a good thing, because it shifts the influence away from big reviewing sites to many different sources. You never know how publishers and these sites interact with each other. But then i figured something out: metacritic weighs ratings of different sites by an internal "impact factor" and nobody knows how it is calculated. They even give a contact adress when you want your rating to be implemented. So, yes, it is a shift of power - to metacritic. Because of that I am quite confident to say to get a big impact and be listed on top of the reviewing sites, youll probably have to pay metacritic.
(Is that the reason for the few reviews for NSII? Do you have to pay big reviewing sites to get it there? Didnt UWE want to do that? )
I might note that with this second little "mistake" from MC, it almost cancels out the bad Gamespot score. Even if we put the Gamespot score at 80 and left the Gamestar at 88, the unweighted average would only be 82, only 1% increase. So whether 81 or 82, and with 9/16 MC reviews giving NS2 80 (including Gamespot), the critics have weighed in, and their verdict is that NS2 is good but not a classic. Which is probably a reasonable conclusion.
I think it's fair to say that time reveals the Great Metascore Debate to be nothing but a tempest in a teacup and now hopefully we can move on to more and greater things...
<a href="http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/natural+selection+2/results" target="_blank">http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/natur...ction+2/results</a> (done by searching "Natural Selection 2" in the search box)
It gives a result of 79
Yet when I go here:
<a href="http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/Natural+selection+2/results" target="_blank">http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/Natur...ction+2/results</a> (done by misspelling "Natural Selection 2" in the search box, searching and clicking on the "did you mean Natural Selction 2". Subsequent searches on Natural Selection 2 also go to the same URL as long as it's the one you're already on)
It gives a result of 81.
I dunno wtf is going on there. I didn't even know upper/lower case URLs effect anything. But it's effecting this.
edit: I was wrong about the upper/lower case effecting things I think. But it still gives wrong results on an initial search.
But the video game industry is ridiculous. There is rampant grade inflation and paid positive reviews. Metacritic ratings basically start at 50 for awful games and anything in the 60s is very bad. It's only in the 70s where you start to even get into decent territory. 80 is where you start getting into good. So 79 for a video game isn't absymal but it's pretty low.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Taking my games library as a basis, for me it's:
<50: Crap.
60: Probably crap but possibly interesting.
70: Give it a look.
80: Give it a look and will probably find something I really quite like about it.
90: Everyone has played it.
96: Half life 2, Skyrim, Won Game of the Year.
So 79 is a good score for when I look at games, most of my games are in the 70/80 range anyway.
I should also point out that CODBLOPS has an 81 metascore, and that's pretty damn popular.
<50: Crap.
60: Probably crap but possibly interesting.
70: Give it a look.
80: Give it a look and will probably find something I really quite like about it.
90: Everyone has played it.
96: Half life 2, Skyrim, Won Game of the Year.
So 79 is a good score for when I look at games, most of my games are in the 70/80 range anyway.
I should also point out that CODBLOPS has an 81 metascore, and that's pretty damn popular.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I like that categorization it hits the nail on the head.
Especially 90+ - "everyone has played it" and "Game of the year" is more like a commercial badge than anything else. The rest is a matter of taste. 95+ often also means "nothing special" (the last percents you simply cant get without the hype bonus, thats it*). How often did I have a game thats a bit unconventional, therefore polarizing, therefore not getting maximum ratings but therefore much more interesting as well? I think those not-so-popular titles often are the really interesting ones. I`m fed up with Call of Duty shooters. I`m fed up with FPS in general I have to admit. Except when they have something making them stand out - which NSII does.
* Just look at the toplist, you either have sequels of classics (often being said to "never reach their predecessor") or classics that are so old, the reviews in the internet are basically done retrospectively:
<a href="http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/pc?sort=desc" target="_blank">http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/sco...ll/pc?sort=desc</a>
But anything from 70 upwards is what I'd call an actual game, like something you can play and enjoy if that takes your fancy. And if I really liked fpsrts games and scifi settings and wanted to play a game like that, and saw NS2 had a 79 metascore, or even a 70 metascore, I'd give it a look.
Metascore is more just a measure of how competently made something is, and 70-80 is accurate for NS2, it's kinda rough but you can play it, and enjoy it if it's your bag. Which puts it in with about 60-70% of my library.
Current game of this sort is "Dark Souls: Prepare to die edition". Crappy port and unplayable without a controller but with mods and controller: *ooooomph* ;D Its just exactly my taste, unconventional enough to be something new I wanted to have but didnt know about. Its too difficult and technically unimpressive (and doesnt have a big western publisher in its back), so it just received the 85 rating.
okay, Skyrim was *ooomph* too. But somehow once you have seen it all and closed your mouth from the beautiful visuals you realize at some point that the games basic mechanics are kind of simple and behind all that beauty there is not sooo much to hold you in.
Not too many cheap shots in the game, most of it is doable but requires you to do it well, good way to make a game difficult.
^