The Grandeur of Metacritic Scores

As with each Holiday season, my December calendar is as sprinkled as a school boy’s ice cream cone, with festivities and events. Early this week, I had lunch with a few friends, and the subject of video games came up. The much talked about topics were; do we game too much, are games getting better over the years and Metacritic. When one friend, says,

“I do not buy games with less than 85 score on Metacritic.”

At first, I thought he was joking. My friend, name undisclosed in fear of backlash, became very animate in his defense. There is a paradigm, he argues, that will make a game worthwhile and great rather dull and lackluster. He cites, gameplay, visuals, and responsive controls as the tenet of games.

“I just do not have the time to play terrible games.”

Playstation Move reception has been lukewarm at best.

Time plays an important role in the way we consume our entertainment goods. No one wants to dine at a where they treat customer service as a rarity or stay at a roach-infested motel. Review scores, and their average collected at Metacritic, are there for folks, like my friend, to help decide if the game is worthwhile.

“It is just not games, movies, music, restarants, shows and hotels, I use aggregate sites to help determine if I want to give my money and time to them. I read the comments as well.”

Epic Mickey was a letdown on Metacritic

Continuing to listen, I come to understand him more. He wants his entertainment, not just organized, but to experience the best that is out there. The best video game titles, crème de la crème, are on the top of the list. He may miss Gran Turismo 5, but probably enjoy Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Epic Mickey is off his list, but Donkey Kong Kountry Returns would fill his Wii platforming void. As flabbergasted as I was, he did enjoy Call of Duty: Black Ops (which he bought) than Medal of Honor (which he borrowed). His glass ceiling works.

Metacritic, as other aggregate sites, can be the tipping point for many potential customers. People, as my friend, who plays games but are not ultra-fanatical in the following of previews, videos, and reviews. Do you really have to be an ultra, if you follow video games? What take do Bitmob readers have? Do you use Metacritic, or any other sites in choosing which games you buy and play? Do you go gaga for games with less than a 85 score on Metacritic?

Tags: Metacritic, Medal of Honor, Epic Mickey, Gran Turismo 5, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Donkey Kong Kountry Returns

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Chris Hoadley

December 10, 2010

I do check up on Metacritic from time to time if there's a game I'm really iffy about trying, but I try to read the reviews and quotes and not just take the score blindly. To paraphrase a quote from a review some of my favorite games would fall in the 70-80 range. Also some games like Epic Mickey or Mirror's Edge can get low grades for not living up to expectations, even if they do try something different.

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Doug Otto

I despise Metacritic.

You can't just lump everything into one grade by the "all mighty" score. Much like my English teacher said, "Your grades do not define you as a person." The same goes for games. Agreeing with Metacritic is agreeing that the Wii is 5 years ahead graphics wise. You have to take into consideration all the ups and downs of games, so that you don't end up with a game fit for the average someone else.

Chris "Cosmo" Ross

December 11, 2010

I don't use the Metacritic score for anything, but I do use the site to click on and read all the individual reviews of a game I'm on-the-fence about, like Chris said.

I think I would miss too many great games if I went solely by Metacritic.

Juan Letona

December 12, 2010

Great comments everyone. I am a bit more open minded when choosing the games I play. But it is really interesting in to see an outside perspective. I use Yelp to find local eateries, near work and home, and use the ratings as a decision factor. Some like to look up games they are interested in and use metacritic as a barometer.

Ben Villarreal

December 13, 2010

As others have commented before me, I use Metacritic as a convenient link to individual reviews.

I guess that I feel the danger of just playing/watching/reading what everyone else thinks is good is that you never discover anything for yourself. That for me, is part of the reward.

Of course, most of my favorites fall into the 70-80 range too, so maybe I'm just bias, haha!

Gerren LaQuint Fisher

Metacritic is absolutely useless to me and is often leveraged in in the business of games I'm not too comfortable with. From complaints I've read and heard from editors, it also seems to have a history of not particularly showing actual respect to the meanings of certain site's actual scales. If it ceased to exist tomorrow, I'd personally feel the world better for it.

But that's one person's view and it's existence doesn't require my value of it. I know plenty of people that do. I have the bias as a writer of believing the words of a review should bear more than a review score if one even needs to exist. I have friends that aren't writers and frankly they just want to know if something is universally liked. If a problem arises or they catch some issue later on, they'll look up more information on it later.

Is it limiting? Absolutely. Can you miss a diamond in the rough of you don't catch it by word of mouth? Sure. Then again, the only people I've known with the time to play most everything that comes out during a year are students, unemployed or work in the games press. Even then, most of those people have a fairly sizeable backlog. So if you're only going to buy five games a year, I can't really blame you using a tool that might save you from Tony Hawk's Ride if you don't have the time to read a Gamepro or EGM or visit 1UP or IGN and read every other review that get published.