@Herculean I think that’s a decent analogy. But I think it sells the MCU a little short. I see what you’re saying and agree to an extent, but I do see more presence of legitimate film art and excellence of production in the MCU (and other popular movie franchises) than they get credit for. Maybe if I played COD and could detect the nuance and evolution from game to game then I’d feel the same way about it (or FIFA, or NBA2K, etc).
There is plenty of room for different kinds of movies and different kinds of games, and it’s nice to see smaller titles rewarded. But I do think there is an element of bias in both industries whereby fair judgment doesn’t always prevail.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@lolwhatno According to the vast majority of reviews, an 'average' game that's not necessarily pushing the genre forward and has 'decent' frame rate - maybe dropping a frame or two at most, but generally very consistent would be about a 7 so you have 'extra' points to award games that innovate, go above and beyond 'expectations' in some areas - like story telling, open world design etc.
In my mind, no game should get 'top' marks unless 'every' aspect is 'perfect' and pushing the industry 'forward'. A 10/10 is a 'perfect' score, something that 'cannot' be faulted - no bugs, no performance issues etc and 'pushes' beyond the 'average' game....
A pessimist is just an optimist with experience!
Why can't life be like gaming? Why can't I restart from an earlier checkpoint??
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@BAMozzy It's an issue though if readers expectations happen not to align with the scoring policy of websites. Of course it's fine for a reader to require a game to be "perfect" to obtain a 10, but they need to understand what a 10 means as per the actual website they are reading a review on, as it does not generally mean perfect as per their system. For example, a few scoring policies from various websites below. So you need to understand what that number means specific to the website you are on, not another website or your own feelings. But that's why so many people respond by saying it's a 9 or an 8 or whatever.
10/10 – Outstanding
The pinnacle of a given genre at the time of release, these titles raise the bar in virtually all critical categories. You can be sure that a game awarded this score has the highest quality presentation and expertly honed gameplay, but also breaks boundaries and pushes the industry forward in a meaningful manner.
10/10 - Outstanding.
A truly elite title that is nearly perfect in every way. This score is given out rarely and indicates a game that cannot be missed.
10/10 - Masterpiece
Simply put: this is our highest recommendation. There’s no such thing as a truly perfect game, but those that earn a Masterpiece label from IGN come as close as we could reasonably hope for. These are classics in the making that we hope and expect will influence game design for years to come, as other developers learn from their shining examples.
@Herculean You’ve exposed an element of my own hypocrisy because - No, I haven’t seen Parasite nor Nomadland! 😅 Nor Green Room. (Although looking at the box office numbers I’m hardly in the minority there) And I had forgotten that Black Panther was nominated, so I guess there is a little bit of the Academy which considers the large box office shows too. But I think it does seem harder for the big budget mainstream films to get award consideration.
I think we all speak from our own experience and bias, and I look over the nominees for the last few years and it’s like I’m staring at a wall gibberish because I barely recognize half of them. And that’s a ‘me’ problem, not an indictment of those films’ quality. I can’t muster enough interest to watch some of the more art house style movies or lesser known quantities. I do want to see Parasite though. Just need to find the time.
But it’s a valid point that one can’t truly judge something that he/she hasn’t directly experienced. And so that’s why I wouldn’t say any award winning movie or game is undeserving, but I’m just looking at patterns and thinking things look skewed leaning toward certain prejudices and/or the lens through which a piece of art is judged is inherently clouded by other factors (like whether it is ‘casual’ or ‘mainstream’, etc)
Which underscores your first point about the MCU being COD. I was just thinking MCU has evolved and innovated consistently, established entire market trends, influenced the entirety of culture and society at this point. And as soon as they seem to have reached a plateau, they do something different and creative. Basically the movies have changed the pop culture world, and I think that’s indisputable, whether they are ‘good movies’ from a film art perspective or not.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@velio84 I have not played it, but I don't expect FW is a 10 simply because it's basically ZD again five or six years later. That's absolutely fine because ZD was pretty awesome, but I reckon it'd be an 8 all day from me - which is perfectly fine too.
Dead Space 2 is one of my all time favourite games but I understand objectively it's an 8 out of 10 experience.
I do give ER a 10 as I think it moves open world games in interesting new directions. As a genre openworld games are my least favourite, but that's just because of how stale they've become. Then you see a game like this or BOTW do it "right" and its really eye opening.
@Herculean No, it’s not rambling at all. I think it’s an astute observation and largely valid. I think Hitman 3 was also heavily hindered by recency bias, since it came out right at the beginning of 2021 and so had been forgotten by the time GOTY awards started coming around. (That’s a well known phenomenon in the Oscars also where movies from the latter part of the year seem to get preferential consideration.) But the fact HM3 is a sequel is the other issue and critics have a harder time judging sequels within a vacuum. It’s one of the reasons Elden Ring will have a leg up on HFW, GoW Ragnarok, GT7, Halo Infinite, etc. as far as being able to pull it out and give it merit on its own accord when award time comes around.
I recall that when LotR Return of the King won best picture, many felt like it was a recognition of the entire trilogy as a whole, rather than just the one movie.
I quite liked Joker, but you’re right - it stands easier on its own than The Dark Knight or The Empire Strikes Back. But it’s also the type of movie The Academy seems to gravitate toward with its high drama, somber tragedy, and deep character study.
Anyways — I’m not sure how we got going on this, but it’s fun to discuss. Oh yeah, it was in reference to FromSoft being exposed to more microscopic criticism now since they have such a following. 😅
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Fragile Not that I remember. But I only gave 3 games a 10 last gen, and one of those was a Switch game. Think my lowest was a 6 for Marvel’s Avengers, but I tend not to finish games I'm not enjoyed so rarely give games a low low score.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
@Fragile@JohnnyShoulder I gave Demons Souls a 10. Probably a bit controversial what with it being a remake… but is a remake of one of my fave games of all time.
@colonelkilgore I gave that an 8, as for me it wasn't up there with Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro. And when I give a game a score, it is for the game I've played and not the original game if it is a remaster. Otherwise Dark Souls Remastered I would dock points as I didn't like it when I first played it. But everyone has different parameters they use when it comes to these things.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
No game is 'perfect', but there are a lot that I would say are above average, even games that I'd perhaps give a 9.5 - which may well go 'up' with some post-release patch/content. But at launch, which is when most reviews are written for, then I don't think any 'recent' release is 'worthy' of a 10 because many games aren't released complete, aren't released with 'perfect' frame delivery etc relying on post release patches and dribbling out the 'rest' of the content over time. The 'review' should represent the 'state' of the game at the time of Launch and if more 'reviewers' took this into consideration, then publishers/devs may well be more 'willing' to make sure their games are 'ready' to release - bugs squashed, performance perfected etc.
To me a '10' would have to release with absolutely no issues at all, exceed every expectation and significantly raise the bar, the industry etc. Super Mario 64 wasn't a '10/10' at launch, but it had such an impact on gaming. Lets not forget that '7' is still 'better' than average and 8 is still a 'great' game. 9 is still a must have so there is scope for highlighting the games that get 'close' to being 'perfect' or at least a Game of the Year contender. You don't see games getting 0, 1 or 2 either so why have those if its almost impossible to get those scores! Just because a 10 is 'almost' impossible to get doesn't mean it doesn't serve a purpose. It doesn't matter if 100% on a test for example is 'impossible', its about identifying and acknowledgement of areas of weakness - whether its in your knowledge as an exam tests, or in terms of games, areas that needed improvements...
@BAMozzy I do agree with what you’re saying, that’s a perfectly valid scale for you to rate games on. But my point, which I’m sure you already understand, is most outlet’s don’t use the same scale, that’s all. So if you see a 10 you can’t disagree with it just because it doesn’t work with your own scale. But of course you are entitled to say you’d score it less using your own metrics.
@Fragile No - I rate games on a 0-100 scale but that allows for more variation between an '8' and '9' game because an 8 could be more 84, and a 9 may not be quite a 9, maybe an 87 for example but you could have 8.4 or 8.7 to fit in that scale.
It still doesn't matter 'how' people want to do their scoring, I still find it unbelievable that a game with such poor performance as it stands right now, with the ONLY version that runs at its target frame rate consistently is the PS4 Pro version via Backwards Compatibility on PS5 as being worthy of a '10' on ANY scale. The odd frame drop, particularly in cutscenes when the player isn't in control anyway, I can accept that its 'not' perfect (so maybe a 97 on my score) to be given a 10/10, 5/5 because its the closest 'whole' number - which is an even wider range of games that get '5/5' because they are others 9/10 rated games, 7 and 8's get 4 stars. I do understand why with rounding up, some get 'perfect' - they'd be my 95+/100 games.
If this was Gran Turismo, Returnal, R&C, Horizon: Forbidden West or any 'Other' big AAA release promising 30/60fps on console, that level of performance would be 'severely' criticised. A lot of developers feel that their reviews are a LOT less forgiving when it comes to hitting their targets. Especially if their games performance issues are as bad as Elden Rings are...
And that's what prompted this entire discussion, I can at most see why it might be a 5/5 game for some because it maybe a 9/10 for everything else and so a '5/5' on their scale - but on any scale, how can that performance be a '10'? Which started the entire discussion. It doesn't matter whether I can ever award 100% for a game, its still a valid metric to use. I can understand a 95% game to be given 10's or 5/5's because they don't do 'fractions', I have a hard job understanding why Elden Ring Devs get away with it, as do a lot of those developers who know they would never get away with releasing games in that state and not getting penalised critically for it!!!
I've wanted to change my username on here for so damn long as FGS was just... Blergh! I hated it. Just some random words slapped together that got on my pip after a couple on months but I could not figure out on what to change it too either
Eventually decided on "HallowMoonshadow" like an hour ago lol.
Wanted to invoke that kinda dorky DnD character vibe seeing as I love that kinda stuff with my newfound love of CRPGS with Divinity & Pathfinder and watching DnD stuff like Critical Role
... And yeah. That's kinda it. Don't wanna make this post too longwinded like I can whenever an impressions piece or a review comes into mind 😃
I won't say my absence was entirely due to work. Got a new dog who's a bit a handful and well... some stuff happened on here when I was going to come back a month or so ago that I wasn't too impressed with and... I didn't wanna start anything else 😅
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