In many past arguments, I am often quoted using metascores to justify whether a game is good or not ( or to be accurate whether its worth my time or not ). My friends often ask me why I hold such a value to metascores and often refuse to play a game below a metascore of 80. I thought I would take the time to explain so here are my reasons;
First off, we have such limited time in the world, especially if we hold a full time job or have a family, why waste time with games that aren't the best ( the best being a subjective term, but read on for further explanation ). Second off, because of this limited time factor it is impossible to have first hand experience with EVERY game ( not to mention the limited money factor if the game doesn't have a demo or we can't try it out beforehand ), so we have to compensate for this by using other peoples opinions, the opinions I rely on are metascores. These opinions aren't just some 12 year old kid whos played a game for 5 minutes and threw it away ( which is most of the user reviews on Gamespot ), these are professionals whos jobs are to critique a game, they have vast amounts of experience to compare a game being reviewed to classics of the past and often look at all the dimensions of a game ( graphics, gameplay, controls, presentation etc and most important of all, replay value ). If one game site is in fact bias, well then that won't matter much because I'm not looking at an individual critic's score, but the average of all the professional critics' score of a game.
Metascore is even powerful enough to change the games developers/publishers stock before the game even comes out ( proven by Bioshock ). If a game has a metascore below 80, then something is wrong with it seen by a huge majority of the professional critic community, sure the game can still be fun, but theres so many other games that are fun and don't have these serious faults. I understand that these serious faults the metacritics find in itself are just opinions and are always subjective, but from my personal experience these opinions match my own.
For example, the reason FarCry 2 didn't get a 90+ metascore was that many professional critics were cited as saying the games single player is INCREDIBLY repetitive. I took a chance and gave the game a try to see what I would think and not surprisingly while I was going through the single player I thought….WOW this game really is repetitive. That didn't completely ruin the game experience as there were many other redeeming qualities ( which is also the reason why it didn't get below an 80 ), but that's an example of how the meta opinions matched my own. Sure there are probably exceptions where the meta opinion won't match my own and theres some hidden jewel somewhere…but we at least need some sort of a guide right? I can't waste my time and money playing every game to find this one hidden jewel whos meta opinions differ vastly from my own. Its also incredibly rare this event can happen. I challenge you all to find an amazingly fun and good game ( of high caliber ) that has under a metascore of 50…I've tried and don't think it can be done.
Some may say, I will try a game if I'm interested regardless of metascores or not, and that's a fair statement. However is it really a fair decision to those who are financially and time limited to place a whopping $60 dollars down at times to discover that the game that got a bad metascore really IS bad to them as well? Nothing feels worse then making those kinds of decisions where “you should have listened to others.†There's other more important decisions like car buying that are almost a requirement to research professional reviews on. Test drives however offer us first hand experience without taking much time and are free
Lastly there is a very strong correlation with games I enjoy and find to be superb ( GTA4, Mario Galaxy, SSBB, MGS4, Fallout 3, Oblivion 4, Dead Space, Left4Dead, Crysis ) that have a very high metascore, and I don't think this is any coincidence, I think professional critics, at least meta wise, know what a “good†game is ( despite the fact that good will always be subjective, their definition corresponds with mine ). At the same time, if a game that doesn't grab my attention initially ( Oblivion 4 ), gets a good metascore as it did, I usually take notice and this led me to trying out Oblivion 4 and finding out that I agreed with the meta opinion, it was quite an amazing game indeed.
If I have no other choice, I would always trust the overall opinions of professional critics over a single gamers opinion, I think this is a fair statement. I think at the very least metascores should be used as a guide, but if you even have less time and money then its okay to use it as a judgment to whether or not to play the game in the first place. First hand experience will always and I can't stress this enough, always give you a better impression on your thoughts of a game ( kind of obvious ) but in an ideal world we don't have the financial or times to experience everything we want and that's when metascores come in.. Thoughts and comments appreciated
First off, we have such limited time in the world, especially if we hold a full time job or have a family, why waste time with games that aren't the best ( the best being a subjective term, but read on for further explanation ). Second off, because of this limited time factor it is impossible to have first hand experience with EVERY game ( not to mention the limited money factor if the game doesn't have a demo or we can't try it out beforehand ), so we have to compensate for this by using other peoples opinions, the opinions I rely on are metascores. These opinions aren't just some 12 year old kid whos played a game for 5 minutes and threw it away ( which is most of the user reviews on Gamespot ), these are professionals whos jobs are to critique a game, they have vast amounts of experience to compare a game being reviewed to classics of the past and often look at all the dimensions of a game ( graphics, gameplay, controls, presentation etc and most important of all, replay value ). If one game site is in fact bias, well then that won't matter much because I'm not looking at an individual critic's score, but the average of all the professional critics' score of a game.
Metascore is even powerful enough to change the games developers/publishers stock before the game even comes out ( proven by Bioshock ). If a game has a metascore below 80, then something is wrong with it seen by a huge majority of the professional critic community, sure the game can still be fun, but theres so many other games that are fun and don't have these serious faults. I understand that these serious faults the metacritics find in itself are just opinions and are always subjective, but from my personal experience these opinions match my own.
For example, the reason FarCry 2 didn't get a 90+ metascore was that many professional critics were cited as saying the games single player is INCREDIBLY repetitive. I took a chance and gave the game a try to see what I would think and not surprisingly while I was going through the single player I thought….WOW this game really is repetitive. That didn't completely ruin the game experience as there were many other redeeming qualities ( which is also the reason why it didn't get below an 80 ), but that's an example of how the meta opinions matched my own. Sure there are probably exceptions where the meta opinion won't match my own and theres some hidden jewel somewhere…but we at least need some sort of a guide right? I can't waste my time and money playing every game to find this one hidden jewel whos meta opinions differ vastly from my own. Its also incredibly rare this event can happen. I challenge you all to find an amazingly fun and good game ( of high caliber ) that has under a metascore of 50…I've tried and don't think it can be done.
Some may say, I will try a game if I'm interested regardless of metascores or not, and that's a fair statement. However is it really a fair decision to those who are financially and time limited to place a whopping $60 dollars down at times to discover that the game that got a bad metascore really IS bad to them as well? Nothing feels worse then making those kinds of decisions where “you should have listened to others.†There's other more important decisions like car buying that are almost a requirement to research professional reviews on. Test drives however offer us first hand experience without taking much time and are free
Lastly there is a very strong correlation with games I enjoy and find to be superb ( GTA4, Mario Galaxy, SSBB, MGS4, Fallout 3, Oblivion 4, Dead Space, Left4Dead, Crysis ) that have a very high metascore, and I don't think this is any coincidence, I think professional critics, at least meta wise, know what a “good†game is ( despite the fact that good will always be subjective, their definition corresponds with mine ). At the same time, if a game that doesn't grab my attention initially ( Oblivion 4 ), gets a good metascore as it did, I usually take notice and this led me to trying out Oblivion 4 and finding out that I agreed with the meta opinion, it was quite an amazing game indeed.
If I have no other choice, I would always trust the overall opinions of professional critics over a single gamers opinion, I think this is a fair statement. I think at the very least metascores should be used as a guide, but if you even have less time and money then its okay to use it as a judgment to whether or not to play the game in the first place. First hand experience will always and I can't stress this enough, always give you a better impression on your thoughts of a game ( kind of obvious ) but in an ideal world we don't have the financial or times to experience everything we want and that's when metascores come in.. Thoughts and comments appreciated