There are games when you see the trailer/gameplay and you know you're going to buy it. I use Metacritic if i want to see how good a game is if the game's been under the radar or if i missed it.

Nothing beats your own perception when it comes to games or anything creative. After all it's subjective, you know.

Wonder why they don't just give the option to the user to have a regular aggregate with no weighting or display the weighting.

I'd really like them to say how each site rates. I'm sure it's a scaler that would be easy to display simply.

My biggest gripe with meta is that they will assign a score to reviews that never had a score assessed based on their arbitrary measure of what the content of the review is and how that translates to a score. IMO, that is beyond their scope, and not fair overall.

Anyhow, I usually find that after most of the reviews are in, with the rare exception, the final meta score often comes up to about what I'd score a game within about a point or so....except when it comes to some niche Japanese Otaku games which tend to review poorly in the US, but I rate them based on different criteria than most reviewers because I have different expectations from them.

oh, so now it's important, but when metacritic had that 40/100 score on uncharted, you all screamed the opposite. you ponies and a bunch of delicious hypocrites; i love it

@UCForce

Bro why bother mentioning Xbone games here?

If Halo 5 and Gears 4 (84/100 on metacirtic) aren't good games, then these games aren't either:

FFXV
The Last Guardian
Yakuza 0
Gravity Rush 2

Well, Halo 5 and Gears 4 are great games, but how long they going to keep that momentum after Epic and Bungie left ?

Never heard of The Order 1866.

If you are going to insult something, at least spell it's name properly.

Such troll.

and btw, Driveclub is a feaking amazing game.

The perfect name for a troll, because that's what trolls take down their gullet when ganged up after a butthurt rant.

But I liked Killzone Shadowfall, Fat Princess Adventures, Bound and Until Dawn rush of blood.

You know each of those games have plenty of fans, and your list just points out why Playstation dominates. Playstation has something for everyone and they take risks in searching for what players want. I see your list and it encompasses all genres.

Umm dude cherry pickin at its finest huh
Bloodborn
Uncharted 4
Ratchet and clank
The last guardian
Until dawn
Gravity rush 2
The last of us remaster
Nioh
Horizon zero dawn
Yakuza 0

Try looking up the meta scores for those games and then come back here

Lol I love how you picked the until dawn dlc....

Lol digging that deep into sonys library to fish for mediocre games shows utter desperation. Of course with a username like yours I guess you can't expect much else.

Lets see (since you don't know the definition of AAA)

- The Order: 1886 (get the name right, at least) - yep AAA
- DRIVECLUB: Also AAA (and loved by its fans)
- Knack (AAA and so bad that it's receiving a sequel. Cool)
- Hardware: Rivals (did not have a AAA budget)
- Bound (no AAA budget)
- Until Dawn: Rush of Blood (also no AAA budget - and funny how you skipped the highly praised full game that IS AAA)
- Fat Princess (not AAA)
- The Tomorrow Children (not AAA)
- Killzone: ShadowFall (you had to go back to launch titles multiple times now to prove nothing, except that, yes, it's AAA)

This is the problem with ignorance - it usually invites you to dance with it on thin ice.

@UCForce those aren't Sony games bro.

The Order was amazing by the way (: and so is Unti Dawn Rush of Blood.

Also, I think what you fail to see is that Sony ACTUALLY makes games. If a game flops, it's not a sign that things are bad, it's a sign that they tried something new and it didn't pay off, they learned from their mistake and next time they will deliver something epic. MS on the other hand fails to even make a game unless it's one that somebody made it already and it was a hit. That's why you get halo/gears/forza over and over. Why else do you think Sony exclusives are so much better and more abundant than MS's?

Say what your will, Deep-throat. At least there is a plethora of games. 2017 from January-March? Nioh, gravity Rush 2, horizon, neir automata, kingdom hearts 2.8, kingdom hearts 1.5+2.5, yakuza 0, tales of berseria. All well recieved. I would love to see a more diverse exclusive list for another platform that rivals that, if you can supply one.

Please gtfo!

The Order 1886's Meta score is a joke. Ppl are foolish to attempt to enclose this game in a box and deduct points for what it's not, but instead they should praise it for what it is. The Order 1886 is a polished, high brow exercise in artful game making and it's outright criminal what was done to the game.

Driveclub - is you think Driveclub's Metacritic score in any way reflects the quality of the game as it plays today you are very misinformed. If any game deserves a re-review it is DC. Driveclub is a polished, content rich gem atm that hardly resembles the weatherless, broken server mess that garnered a 70 something Metacritic score back in October of 2014. The best weather system ever in a racing game, new modes, cars, tracks, gameplay and server improvements, visual/technical improvements, photomode, and more have been added to make DC a vastly superior game that deserves closer to a 90 Metacritic in its current form.

Anyone who thinks Driveclub (currently) is a bad game simply has no idea or is too clouded with bias to see the truth. Driveclub is a visual achievement and one hell of a game atm, i'm proud of what was ultimately accomplished with this gorgeous racer.

Until Dawn Rush of Blood - now i know you have never touched these games and really aren't all that informed about them. Check ppl's reactions to Rush of Blood over the past few months since it launched. Rush of Blood is easily one of the best games on VR and it is an absolute joy to play. Super Massive nailed both Until Dawn AND Rush of Blood, it's funny you think RoB is a "bad game". Arkham VR also has a low 70's Metacritic, but like RoB it is among the best experiences on VR and both are massive hits that've sold huge numbers due to word of mouth. RoB is required gaming if you own PSVR, it's so good. It's the best selling VR game to date at about 500k physical copies on just one platform.

That's the best you can do? Most of those games are solid.

Try harder.

I personally liked The Order 1886.. I hope there is a sequel to it..

Bound - was developed by Plastic, not Sony. However, Bound was a beautiful and artful experience that is dramatically elevated in VR. Bound, on PS4 Pro in PSVR is spectacular and gorgeous. There is much more to Bound than its initial, PS4, 2D release. Bound also got a phenomenal Pro mode for PS4 and VR. Bound is a great game on Pro in VR.

Killzone Shadowfall - i think was a good launch title that did not deserve to be rated worse than CoD Ghosts. It was rushed for launch and the sp wasn't perhaps as riveting as the previous games, but the mp was terrific and it was a visual and technical achievement at the time. It wasn't a bad and it probably deserved higher scores based on the mp, visuals, and the undeniably awesome OWL companion bot and the way it influenced gameplay. Judging SF against KZ2 and 3 makes it seem like a disappointment, but judging it strictly as a gorgeous FPS launch title with solid mp makes it appear more like the solid shooter it is.

Knack - the general consensus is that Knack was more enjoyable than it's ridiculous Metacritic score would indicate. If Knack was as hideously bad as the score leads you to believe i don't think it would've sold 2 million copies and gotten a planned 2017 sequel. It's funny how Knack got docked for the nostalgic that other games get praised for. Knack was by no means perfect, but it was gorgeous and it helped fill a demographic that PS4 was lacking at launch. In many ways it was a success, but i believe Knack 2 will be an unequivocal success not only commercially, but critically as well.

Say what you will, but Uncharted 4, Horizon, Bloodborne, Infamous, Nioh, Ratchet & Clank, Yakuza 0, The Last Guardian, Gravity Rush 2, Alienation, Resogun, Transistor, Helldivers, Salt n Sanctuary, Enter the Gungeon, SFV, Kingdom Hearts 2.8, Tales of Beseria/Zesteria, Dragon Quest Heroes, MLB The Show, World of Final Fantasy, LittleBigPlanet 3, Grim Fandango, Uncharted Collection, TLoU Remastered, Tearaway Unfolded, Gravity Rush R, Everbody's Gone to the Rapture, and Soma make one damn impressive list of exclusives/console exclusives thus far. This is off the top of my head and excluding the games you listed, and including only the exclusives that received good Metacritic scores. Sony is dominating.

You forgot basement crawl and infamous second son.

Also remove the "Quality AAAs" line, only 2 games you listed were touted as and marketed as AAA must buys. Hell hardware rivals was on PS+ when it came out and tomorrow children is a f2p game, and VR can't be AAA until it's widespread and common

You're unfit to use that avatar mate. Instead of dumping on Sony for trying new ips - you should applaud them.

Not everything will hit the mark, but thats the nature of the beast.

I agree wholeheartedly. What you are describing is called taking the "trimmed mean" which is exactly what they should do since one or two low or high scores shouldn't have the same effect as an average does. A trimmed mean of say 5%-10% would be a great way to keep everything fair.

I can agree with that totally. Games like uncharted should not be getting any 6's, it's a 9-10 game imo. It should be the same for Xbox games also then, there is clickbaiting on both sides.

"I think there’s certain reviews that are written more to get clicked on than they are to actually accurately reflect the quality of the game, and that kind of bums me out."

"Spencer here was referring to the score of 4 given to Forza Horizon 3 by International Business Times UK. It was the only publication to give the title such a low score on Metacritic, which actually dragged the overall score of the title down but which still currently sits at an impressive score of 91. You can bet your bottom dollar that Spencer wouldn’t give a shit if IBTimes UK were not on metacritic."
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I have to agree with Spencer and the author. Except about the part that Spencer wouldn't give a shit if IBTimes UK were not on metacritic. I think at the time, he definitely would have given a shit. It's how I feel every time I see crazy scores popping up. I would shit all day every day if it got the clickbait out of reviews.

Reviews are supposed to be how the general gamer views a game that sounds interesting to them, not how your aunt's feminist friend thinks, not how a fanboy thinks, not how the financially astute think.

@gangsta_red "Everyone deserves a voice even if you dont agree with what theyre saying" I whole heartedly agree with that statement. That was why I was suggesting that while Metacritic could pull the top 5 and bottom 5 scores when creating the average they should still post those score / reviews in their list so someone can read them. And while I hear your concern about tweaking a review and creating grey areas I would say if a game is generally well received or generally poorly received and even in the middle on the scale, this system would still accurately portray that. What this does eliminate is one or two sites inflating or deflating a games overall score with their outlying divisive review...which lets be honest, often those reviews come out just to be different and get the views.

@Dlacy13g

While at first I disagreed with your notion, the more I think about it, the more I can see where you are coming from. Your solution might not be best, but it is at least an attempt to sway people from giving dishonest scores.

We definitely need a system that discourages people from trying to bring the average down or up and instead encourage just plain old honesty.

To a degree, yeah. Last gen was more generous with scores than this gen as well.

KZ2 for example (which I love) was rated 91
http://www.metacritic.com/g...

That is higher than ANY FPS this gen, higher than Horizon, higher than pretty much everything aside from a few games. Halo 4 has a higher score than Halo 5.

Mass Effect 3 has a 93
http://www.metacritic.com/g...

Last gen was way more forgiving than this gen.

I guess we could discuss it until the cows come home and I concede it was probably easier to please/impress 'back in the day' when we were less spoilt but I also believe based on my own experience that the franchise doesn't have the magic it used to. 3 A spec was the s***.

But we go off point, I was just trying to suggest we're fickle beasts and promote something when it backs us up and choose to ignore it when it doesn't (I included myself in that).

I appreciate a sensible debate though so I respect your opinion/point of view. I think you occasionally let your heart rule you head in these threads (as we can all).

https://www.mediacurrent.co...

Dominance of the genre? Are you serious? This isn't the PS2 era anymore. GT does not have the same weight in 2017 as it did in 2003. Stop with this dominating talk. It dominated during the PS1 and PS2 era, it fell right off a cliff after that.

Gran Turismo 5 sold 12M, Gran Turismo 6 sold 6M launching after the PS4 on PS3.

No other racers come close to those numbers.
http://www.gamespot.com/art...

Consider that over the years there are more reviewers. Gran Turismo has 13 professional reviews making the aggragate. GT2 has 23. Keep going up the chain, and it keeps getting more reviewers.

The more scores there are in any aggragate, the more likely the score will go down. That's just a fundamental of statistics and averages.

On top of that, I'd say that standards have changed, and GT games have more competition on consoles, and there are reviewers who hold it to standards that didn't exist 20 odd years ago.

The overall quality of GT has improved with each itteration. It has it's faults, and in some areas it hasn't advanced as fast as in others, but the core fundamental part of why GT games are really good has always gotten better.

Just as an example, GT6 IMO, was the 2nd best GT in the franchise, only being beaten out by GT4, although GT6 is better in some areas. how it rated lower than GT5 or 3 is kind of odd if you really look at it analytically, so I'd imagine a lot of the lower scores were more because people were expecting more, not because the quality of the games themselves have gone downhill.

@Constantine

Yeah, I'm afraid it does. It's a game that sells quite well with each release. Maybe look outside the gaming forums, and GT is one of the few games which can actually be said to be a system seller.