Shenmue explanation

  • By Joe Fielder, GameSpot
  • Posted Dec 22, 2000 4:50 pm PT




We've recently done something at GameSpot that we feel deserves some explanation to our readers: We've changed the score of a game review. This isn't something that we do lightly, and we would be surprised if it came up as a topic internally even once a year. But when it does, it's something that we take very seriously.

Over the last month, there has been a lot of talk about our review of Shenmue. Some magazines referred to it as the best game ever. Others were more moderate in their approach. Our reviewer was clearly disappointed with it. Since the posting of the review, many of the editors on staff (including me) have played through the game to understand the different sides of the debate. While we all felt like the points raised in the review were perfectly valid and that the game's ambitious nature was undercut by several key problems, we came to the consensus recently that some of the component scores were too low. We then discussed this with the author, and came to an agreement on what changes should be made. We decided that the scores in the areas of gameplay, sound, and tilt were low by one point each, and altering them changed the overall score from a 6.8 to a 7.8. We feel this better demonstrates that the game possesses flaws that hold it back, but not so much as the previous score would imply. If you disagree in any way, I invite you to submit a reader review to the site for the game.

Happy holidays,

Joe Fielder
Site Director
http://www.gamespot.com

5 Comments

  • blacktorn

    Posted May 31, 2007 11:25 am PT

    Shame on Gamespot.....Shame!

  • Blace_07

    Posted Mar 1, 2007 2:08 pm PT

    Well at least they accepted they made a mistake, unlike Game Informer and their awful Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door review that they totally backed up ( a 6.75/10, are you freakin kidding me? Gamespot gave it a 9.2/10!

  • Rokin1

    Posted Jan 9, 2007 7:51 am PT

    Up for a whole point. I guess this was serious.

  • RockMFR

    Posted Sep 7, 2006 11:20 am PT

    By "revamp" you mean making sure third party writers actually play the game. *ahem*

  • m0zart Site moderator

    Posted Jul 29, 2006 10:31 am PT

    So this is the infamous "Shenmue" change that caused Gamespot to revamp its review criteria?

advertisement
Click Here

Hot Stories

Newsmakers

Featured Stories

Tags

shenmue

Submit News

Got tips? Send them in!

Recent News

See All News »

Site Blogs