@bowlingotter @markml99 Actually, this is what GameSpot's official policy is:

"The average rating on GameSpot lies between a high 6 and a low 7, which is fully in line with what we believe is the fairly good quality of the average game on store shelves. Because we do not strictly grade on a curve, we have not set 5.0 as our average rating. We believe the high end of our rating scale (the 8 and 9 range) works suitably well to distinguish truly outstanding games from all the others. However, most games really aren't bad."

@bowlingotter But there are a number of games that are broken or nearly broken. Other games have significant technical problems.Or you know they were thrown together in a day.

Those are the games that deserve to be ranked "horrible". I think everyone can agree on these.

As far I'm concerned, games that actually look like the developer put some effort into it do not deserve to be ranked "horrible", or completely trashed, even if the reviewer really didn't like playing it.

So to me, the reviews should go like this:

1.0-5.0 for games that are ruined by inexcusable technical problems, or games that look like their developers were drunk and clearly can't be taken seriously at all.

7.0-9.0 for games that meet a minimum standard of acceptable quality common for games released this era.

5.0-7.0 for games that are borderline between awful and acceptable.These are games that have some merits, but are still overwhelmed by flaws that the developer should have known better to fix.

9.0-10.0 for only the very top 1% of games released in the last 5-10 years. This is for the "if you only ever buy one game, buy this one" category.

Using that kind of scale is meaningful to people. Sure, you can tweak the ranges a little, but you need to have some separation between the games that are indisputably bad and those that aren't.

@bowlingotter @markml99 "If 5.5 and above aren't considered multiple levels of success, then the entire scale is weighted towards failure for no discernible reason (other than letter-grade bias)."

I think there is a discernible reason though. When you start comparing how awesome a game is, that's more subjective than how messed up it is.

Say you have a game that is technically perfect. One person might think it's average because there's nothing special that stands out to them (so you'd suggest giving a 5). Another person might think it's the best game they've ever played and give it a 10. That's way too much variance.

On the other hand, there's objectively a big difference between a game that fails because it has some flaws but is still playable, and a game that is complete crap.

The difference between a game that is "mediocre" and "horrible" should be much greater than the difference between a game that is "okay" and "outstanding", because the latter is more subjective.

@bowlingotter GameSpot says a 5.0 is ""merely average in the negative sense" whatever that means. It's a fact that their average is distributed around 7.0, and I'm pretty sure at least one of their chief editors has gone on record saying that is what they consider an average score.

I extrapolated that a C is "average" (not "average in the negative sense" but strictly average) because that's the usual definition. That's how I ended up equating C with 7.0. You're right that this is arbitrary, but it's a standard definition. Making a C a 5.0 is not standard.

I think you also misinterpreted what I suggested that Metacritic should do. They should look at the statistical mean and standard deviation for each sites' reviews and normalize each site's scores. That s the only scientific way to aggregate scores.

@stan_boyd @The_Luxemboss Sometimes tried and true is what's best. Not everything has to be new to be good.

It's hard to bring much innovation to the 2D platformer genre, since pretty much every idea imaginable got rehashed a million times over in the 90's when making these games was big business.

They're all distant cousins of Mario. Just because a game plays like hundreds of other platformers doesn't make it bad.

If hypothetically, Ducktales: Remastered were an original IP, it would still deserve at least a 6 for all the work put into the production values, which is indisputable. The nostalgia factor adds another point or two to the score, which gives you the 7 or 8 that pretty much every other reviewer thinks this game deserves. It also reduces the marketing cost, since a new IP would require more marketing to sell.

Fact is, I heavily doubt that Capcom would have invested in a making a new 2D platformer with totally new IP. It would be too much of a risk. Most 2D platformers made today look like crappy Flash games, less appealing in HD than even 8-bit graphics would be. Ducktales: Remastered has to be one of the most beautiful 2D platformers I've ever seen, and I'm sure the only reason it was ever given even that much is because Capcom knew that nostalgia would help sell it.

@cpfast @Darthvayd3r @TomMcShea I agree that a game has to be judged on more than nostalgia, but I don't think that makes this a good review.

The 90's were the Golden Age of 2D platformers. That's not nostalgia, that's a fact because you rarely see these games being produced by big publishers anymore, and when they do, they're more likely to mess it up than get it right.

It's not nostalgia to say that 2D platformers were better in the 90's because developers were willing to spend the time and money on them. In those days you could actually make $50 selling those games, which is at least $75 with today's currency.

But to be fair, there's also an "anti-nostalgia bias" to be aware of. It comes from two places:

1. The kids born today who think that anything without the latest 3D graphics automatically sucks. To them, the whole genre of 2D platformers is antiquated nostalgia to begin with, and we feel forced to set a higher bar for 2D games just to prove they can be just as fun.

2. The people who got tired of playing these 2D platformers in the 90's. To be fair, I can relate to that perspective. They made so many of these damn games that they over-saturated the market, and that's the real reason that the genre nearly died.

The reviewer has one of these two biases, and it really shows. He claims he has nothing against the 2D platformer genre, and yet he seems to hold games in the genre to a much higher standard. In his opinion, if a 2D platformer isn't extremely innovative and in the top 5% of all 2D platformers ever made, then it's not worth playing in 2013.

Someone who has never played a 2D platformer in their life would probably not have that opinion, and would give a more fair review of the game, taking its actual merits into consideration.

@TomMcShea @markml99 @Verenti I won't knock Cloudberry Kingdom too much because I haven't played it, but it looks like a Flash game on steroids and I'm skeptical that procedurally generated levels would ever be as appealing as those that are manually designed.

I agree that games should be judged on their own merits, but I think that the most important merits of game are timeless in nature.

The original Ducktales did have flaws. I don't think anyone is denying that. It's no Super Mario Bros.

But your assumption seems to be that people didn't know that 20 years ago, or that people were less picky or more willing to overlook those flaws. I disagree. In the early 90's, the vast majority of video games released were platformers.

Today, you might only get like a few major platformers released per year, but in the 90's there were hundreds. A lot of them we knew were crap then, and are still crap today. But Ducktales stood out as one of the better ones.

Why? The game had a memorable character, great graphics, great music, some gameplay elements like pogo-jumping that were a bit gimmicky but still fun, and more non-linear exploration than was common for a platforming game.

I believe this last thing is the main reason the game was successful. Non-linear exploration is still uncommon in game design, particularly more so in modern games that give you arrows telling you where you're supposed to go or what mission you're supposed to fulfill.

The actual platforming design was always a weaker point of the game, even back then, but it wasn't so bad that it stopped people from having fun.

Does the original game still have these merits. Yes, with the exception of outdated graphics and sound, the original NES Ducktales is still fun to play. So what Remastered attempted to do was to update the graphics and sound for the modern era, so that it has all its original merits.

You've given no evidence that they didn't succeed. The game is absolutely beautiful. I can't recall a 2D platformer released in the last few years that looks this good. So the only remaining question is if they kept what people liked about the gameplay alive as well.

Let me reassert, it wasn't the be-all or end-all of platformers either then or now. But that wasn't why people liked it. It was the other merits, which you've conveniently ignored in your lopsided review.

@bowlingotter GameSpot states that their C average is a 7.0 and if you look at statistics, that's where their average score lies. C means 70. Metacritic is at fault for making that 50.

What Metacritic should do is they should normalize every site's scores based on historical data. This is the only scientific way to compare scores from two different publications.

But in general, scores should be normalized to around 70/100 average, because that reflects that there are many levels of failure for a game. It's also less subjective when a game is complete crap that no one in their right mind would enjoy, so you want a review system that differentiates those games from the ones that the reviewer just happened to not like as much.

@TomMcShea @markml99 @Texasguy This is why it was a bad idea for GameSpot to get rid of the component sub-scores.

The old review system weighted technical aspects (which are more objective) more heavily. This reduces the ability for a reviewer's bias to result in an incredibly low (or high) score for a game that doesn't deserve it.

It's always going to be very subjective whether you find a game fun or not.

@TomMcShea @Texasguy But even according to GameSpot's published guidelines, this score seems too low. 4.0-4.5 is "poor" and GameSpot says its reviews are "not strictly on a curve" and range between 6-7 on average.

It's kind of funny, because even just watching the video where you trash the game, one can't help but notice how amazing the graphics and sound are. That obviously doesn't get factored into the score at all.

According to GameSpot, the 4.0-4.5 ratings are supposed to be reserved for games that "didn't spend enough time in production". In other words, a game that fails because it was rushed and not polished. Is that Ducktales: Remastered?

A 5.0-5.5 game is "mediocre" and that translates into games that have "major weaknesses to considerably outweigh their strengths". A 6.0-6.5 represents games that are "certain good qualities but significant problems as well".

Based on GameSpot's criteria, there is no way your criticisms justify a rating that low. You are entitled to your opinion that the gameplay is really boring to you in this game, but it's not buggy or unplayable. So let's say you rate the gameplay 4.5 but the graphics and everything else are in the 8.0-9.0 range. That would give you a rating in the 5.0-6.5 range, a game that has significant flaws (to you) but also has a lot of good qualities.