• 31Jul 08

  Game ratings are overrated.

  The first time I noticed how much gamers cared about ratings was when Twilight Princess came out for the Wii. Jeff Gerstmann gave the game an 8.8(great), the lowest rating given to a major Zelda game on Gamespot, and a pretty low rating for any hyped-up game. But Jeff backed up his opinion with valid arguments, stating that despite all the things TP did right, many elements of the game were dated and not up to current-gen(or last-gen) standards for graphics and sound.

  Zelda fanboys balked. I'm sure some of them were in tears as they wrote angry comments about how Gamespot was the only site not to give the game at least a 9, and how Jeff was an Xbox loving fanboy. The sad thing was, none of them seemed to have any problem with the written review. It was just the rating. If Jeff gave the game a 10, but kept the written review exactly the same, all of those fanboys would have been happy.

  Then came Metal Gear Solid 4. Anything less than 9.5 was a crime, and meant that the reviewer had lost his credibility. I'm sure I don't need to remind you people.

  By the way, I'm a fan of both games. Love them dearly. But I respect opposing opinions that are backed up with valid arguments. Personally, I think the 10 point system needs to go. The five point system is way better, because it's more general and it forces the reader to actually read the review. Most movie reviewers use the five point system(sometimes even a four point system). A couple game sites do as well (Gamespy, Giant Bomb).

  Heck, maybe they should do away with point systems, period. If you read the written review, you'll know EXACTLY what the reviewer thinks of the game. The only purpose of point systems is competition and laziness. "Oh, my game got better ratings than yours." "I'm too lazy to read the review so I'll just look at the rating." And so on.

  P.S. Guess who gave Ocarina of Time a perfect 10 in 1998? Jeff Gerstmann. So much for him being biased against Nintendo, or the Zelda series.

  • Posted Jul 31, 2008 12:13 pm PT
  • Category: Editorial
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