Some infidel reviewer has committed the grave sin of giving your precious game (which you haven't played yet) a review score that's lower than what you've arbitrarily decided is proper.
Good lord, what is one to do?!?
Obviously, the answer is to bitch and moan about it on and on. But I'd like to offer my own humble suggestion, if I may: SHUT THE FUCK UP.
Now, this post was inspired by the seemingly endless stream of moronic comments following the 6/10 that Nick gave to Brutal Legend. Now tell me, seriously, is this the end of the world? I know it can be hard for rabid video game fanboys to see things outside of their narrow tunnel vision, but is it really important that Nick didn't like the game and dared to give it a score lower than other sites? Given that reviews are subjective opinions, does it really matter what Destructoid thinks in comparison to IGN, GameSpot, or whoever? And seriously, does IGN have any credibility to begin with?
While the Brutal Legend review is the most recent example, this is a trend that's been developing for years. Any time that some high profile game comes out, angry fanboys invariably have to mention how some other site gave it a certain score, or that the review average on Metacritic is whatever number. The question here is, who cares? We all know that a 9 on IGN is not the same as a 9 on Destructoid. I laugh while reading Fanboy Fridays how there's always some idiot bringing up Killzone 2's IGN scores somewhere, but Brutal Legend has convinced me that Dtoid isn't immune from this stupidity, sadly.
Follow me back in time to 2006, when then-GameSpot editor Jeff Gertsmann DARED to give The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess a mere 8.8/10, and not the 1,000/10 that it clearly deserved. It was the very definition of a shitstorm, with angry fanboys proclaiming that he was wrong, that it was at least a 9.5, etc. Then, as now, there were people complaining that it shows how number ratings on game reviews are flawed and shouldn't be used. It's funny how that complaint only comes up when it's a score someone disagrees with.
Which brings me to the whole point of this rant: why are people so hung up on review scores?
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge video game fan and will play games until the day I die. But I don't see why people react so strongly to negative reviews of games they like. Often, it's a game they haven't even played yet, but are simply excited about. If that's the case, where do you get off saying that a review is "wrong" when you haven't touched the game yourself? If someone reviews a game and is being a troll or is being contrarian simply for the sake of being contrarian, speak up. But just because someone's opinion is different than yours, it's no excuse to fly off the handle. For whatever reason, some fans react as if a negative review of a game is a personal attack against them. It's really quite stupid, and I wish more people were mature enough to realize this.
Maturity and video game fanboys in the same sentence? Surely I must be mad...
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And then we shall take it all away....
Also, don't forget that you aren't supposed to give a good score to a game that people decieded was bad long before it was released.
And by "good" I mean an 8 instead of a 7.
But seriously, I don't think this is something that will go away, probably ever.
What really amuses me is how many people must read multiple reviews of games to read what they were wanting to hear in the first place, and then go back and accuse the other sites of writing it wrong.
TBH, the 10 for forza has left me more floored than a 6 for brutal legend.
Personally, if I like a game I pick it up and I enjoy playing it it; I read/watch the occasional review to see how other people see it, but I never expect other people to have my perspective.
I haven't read this review for Brutal Legend - and don't plan to. I already have the game, I don't need to be justified in my purchase. However, I think it is important to note that not everything that a reviewer says is opinion. If a reviewer says "Game A forces you to play a certain way, and if you don't like it, tough.", and you know from experience that the game provides MANY options for tackling any scenario... I just don't see how you can pin that on "Oh, it's opinion. Whatever."
This isn't just an issue with negative reviews. Anyone remember the review for Resident Evil 5 from GameInformer? Even though it was a VERY positive review, it earned a lot of hate. When the review cites things like "intuitive inventory system" and "great partner AI", it's pretty vexing based on your own experience with the game. Of course, both of those strings of praise are simply a matter of opinion, but still, I think you can see where I'm coming from.
You make a perfectly reasonable point. However, in the case of Brutal Legend, I think a lot of the disagreement rests largely on opinion. Some people are just not going to like the RTS elements or the way they're implemented. But with this game, I think the problem is more that some fans don't like the score not matching the hype. There was certainly a lot of hype going into this game, whether you're a fan of heavy metal, Jack Black, Tim Schafer or whatever, so they just can't understand someone not going with the flow.
Not related to your point, but something worth mentioning in all this silliness: Giant Bomb reviewed the game and gave it 3/5. Surprisingly, most of the comments were restrained and reasonable, not the shitstorm that we had here. What does it say about our community?
i don't think it's a negative on our community to be homnest. This game was extremely hyped up, but regardless the score that doesn't mean people who want to play it can't, or shouldn't just because it was scored less than this mythical level of perfection we find in numbers.
Even the most of editors seemed really excited for it but just excitement alone isn't reason to give a game a score it's not worth. Brutal Legend was a victim of too many bumps I think. It had so much going for it that some basic mechanics got lost in translation.
But having not played it myself I can't judge how accurate Any reviews are, but I would trust Destructoid, giantbomb and Xplay personally moreso than any of the others. Tis my bias so to speak. Even if i game I'm excited for gets a low score it won't effect my purchase too much in all honesty, which is why review scores systems are broken busted conventions...
tl;dr version- Don't shit on someone else's opinion. Go make your own.
A 6 on this site is not as low as a 6 on sites like IGN and Gamespot that people loved to bring up for those review comments. It's like people think they can't enjoy the game if one person gave it a lower score than they thought it should have gotten. People also like to think someone's opinion is wrong just because it's more negative than the majority's.
Even a perfect score isn't enough to stop people from complaining. X-Play gave Killzone 2 a perfect 5 out of 5 and PS3 fanboys still found ways to whine about it.
Also, I think that reviewers should just get rid of scores in total. A number does not show a complex opinion and they are not good references for comparison. If a game like Mass Effect gets a 7 and Splosion Man get a 9, does that mean Splosion Mans the better game? No, not at all. Plus lots of people don't even read the review, they just scroll down to the score.
Fun fact: "Utils" is an actual unit of measurement used in economics to describe how much enjoyment/satisfaction ("utility") a consumer receives from a given product or service based on the price, personal preferences, and the price and/or similarities of potential substitutes. Maybe reviewers should start talking like economists, forcing readers to learn about economics or stop reading reviews. Either way.
"This game, at the offered price, gave me a whopping 100 utils out of a total of infinity."
I mean, that and porn.