Worth Reading: 11/09/12

I found that guy's 1 star Halo review due to a tweet by

"BenKucheraHalo 4 had a 90 on Metacritic the last time I checked. Then an outlet gave it a 20 percent score. Now it's at an 88. Seems legit, all around"

I found the site, deemed it not worth my time and just left assuming the guy/site was just doing it for clicks.

After Mr. K put it up here, I went ahead and read the review and while the guy makes some good points, giving the game a 1/5 still seems crazy. I read his link on how he reviews games which sort of explains that his reviews aren't objective and are just his opinion. All I have to say is that anyone that would give Halo 4 a 1/5 is not someone who's reviews I would take seriously.

He mentions that he doesn't use the 100 point scale because to most, 70% is average. On a 5 point scale, 2.5 being average, he is stating that Halo 4 is all the way on the lower end. Well below average. If you can play a game like Halo 4, and deem it that far below average and actually just plop it down in the shitty game category, something is very wrong.

Patrick is right in saying that his opinion isn't wrong because opinions on how much someone likes something can't be wrong. BUT! I can say that his opinion is so far from mine that it seems stupid to me. My opinion is that this guy can write and make valid points but he has no idea how to use his own 5 point scale. Basically, I won't be returning to that site.

Also, he mentions that he gave Journey a 2/5. That alone would have me steer clear of his opinions on games. Journey was fucking awesome.

Christ, that weird Japanese point-and-click web game may be the most disturbing thing I've witnessed all week.

Seriously, it freaked me out.

@Fobwashed said:

I found that guy's 1 star Halo review due to a tweet by

"BenKucheraHalo 4 had a 90 on Metacritic the last time I checked. Then an outlet gave it a 20 percent score. Now it's at an 88. Seems legit, all around"

I found the site, deemed it not worth my time and just left assuming the guy/site was just doing it for clicks.

After Mr. K put it up here, I went ahead and read the review and while the guy makes some good points, giving the game a 1/5 still seems crazy. I read his link on how he reviews games which sort of explains that his reviews aren't objective and are just his opinion. All I have to say is that anyone that would give Halo 4 a 1/5 is not someone who's reviews I would take seriously.

He mentions that he doesn't use the 100 point scale because to most, 70% is average. On a 5 point scale, 2.5 being average, he is stating that Halo 4 is all the way on the lower end. Well below average. If you can play a game like Halo 4, and deem it that far below average and actually just plop it down in the shitty game category, something is very wrong.

Patrick is right in saying that his opinion isn't wrong because opinions on how much someone likes something can't be wrong. BUT! I can say that his opinion is so far from mine that it seems stupid to me. My opinion is that this guy can write and make valid points but he has no idea how to use his own 5 point scale. Basically, I won't be returning to that site.

Also, he mentions that he gave Journey a 2/5. That alone would have me steer clear of his opinions on games. Journey was fucking awesome.

So ignore the dumb number at the bottom of the review. That's why Jeff stated that he hates rating systems, and this guy does too. I thought he raised valid points about Halo 4, and most of the people who don't like his review hate it because "other people said it was good and I disagree with him"- much like you did with your little Journey comment at the end there.

The dude said he gave it a 1 star because it did nothing well and took out some game modes he liked. Sounds like a 1 to me.

@murisan said:

@patrickklepek The content of QTR's review was fine, but do you really think the game deserves a 1/5, a 20/100, etc. from anyone? Wouldn't a one of five basically mean the game is broken and unplayable? Furthermore, QTR is on metacritic, and whatever anyone's stance is on the site, there's a precedent for docking developer bonuses if the aggregate score is below a certain level. I think this is a serious issue, and I think that that slapping a completely serviceable game with a 20% score that's aggregated on the site is just a dick move. I doubt Microsoft will have any issues with 343i since the game is selling like hotcakes, but I think Mr. Chick was being a bit of a dick with the numerical score. His written arguments hold water, but that score is silly.

A one out of five means whatever the reviewer says it means. If you read the dude's site he explains his ratings system in full. While IGN/Gamespot etc may consider a 1 (or 0, since he points out a 1 star is a lowest his rating goes) to be a broken game, he obviously just considers it to be one of no merit. That's why I don't get people complaining "HE RATED IT WRONG" when it's his own damn system.

In the Reviews FAQ he linked he points out that he's surprised Metacritic uses him too, but that's an issue separate from his review. When reviewing something you shouldn't think "oh these dudes aren't gonna get bonuses so I'll give this game a rating I don't think it deserves", it does the readers of the review and your scoring system a disservice. People would trust you less. That's why people make fun of IGN reviews, because they recognize that all their scores are extremely overinflated.

Plus H4 still has like a 90 on metacritic so I doubt that his review hurt them much.

Tom Chick is not challenging to read nor does he make me think. He's merely a snarky empty contrarian with an old schtick. I take him and his antics about as seriously as I would something Andy Dick would do drunk.

I really hate the argument that if a game sequel has no changes in it, it's automatically labeled as bad. People who watch movies hate it when a series goes in another direction and that's how I feel with games as well. How would people react if all of a sudden Gears of War was a first person shooter with the locust as the main protagonist People would go crazy saying that's not the way the game is supposed to be played. What kind of changes do people want in a Halo game that's not already changed? <.<

Hey everyone: read reviews, ignore the scores. It works every time.

@Giantstalker said:

What a piece of shit review by that Chick fellow. And he has the audacity to give it some kind of objective veneer, pathetic.

The real problem with games journalism is apparently gross incompetence. Dunno why it made it to Worth Reading, this site is light years above that tripe.

Basically you're saying "that review sucks because I disagree with it".

Interesting.

@Clonedzero said:

what kind of journalist or reviewer gives an extremely low score to a game simply because it didnt revolutionize the genre? the fuck kinda logic is that?

halo 4 is a sequel. its SUPPOSED to be like the earlier ones....thats what sequels are. "i liked that, i'd like more please".

giving a game a bad score because you think its BAD is fine. giving it a bad score cus it didnt redefine the genre or abandon its roots is insane.

ah well whatever, if the guy wants to troll to get page views, so be it. i just dont care about his opinion and will be sure not to take him seriously ever.

He didn't say it was more of the same, he said it was worse (Spartan Ops sucks, no firefight, anecdotes about how the story was terrible).

@Beb said:

@Zekhariah said:

Tom Chick's reviews are interesting. They are pure opinion (which might be the case for other sites), but Tom reviews games that he usually hates. It seems a bit odd, but Tom will write a review for pretty much every major release without any regard disliking that type of game in general.

Which is a bit like a movie review thing. Although I kind of think that sort of thing is pointlesss - maybe it brings in another viewpoint. But if you already hate Halo I'm not sure you need a review written by someone who also hates the series to decide if you want to purchase it.

Just read the Halo 4 review in question, and it seemed to me like he was saying that he actually liked Reach and ODST, but hates Halo 4.

His score does seem a bit unfair. In a 5 star system, I think he probably should have given it a 2/5, meaning he didn't like it, but that it works.

Of course, reviews are subjective, so if he thinks the game is an abomination that should not be played by anyone then I guess 1/5 was the right call. The problem with his apparent review approach is that it doesn't consider how anyone else might approach the game, which makes his reviews sort of useless when trying to decide if you want to buy a game or not, unless you are his clone.

I think it would have been more interesting if it were a longer, more thoughtful deconstruction of the game. There are a few interesting points and at least one bad one (rampancy), but as it stands it is too easy to write off as flame-bait.

In the link to the bottom of his FAQ he explained that he doesn't believe games should get above a 1/5 (his lowest score) just because they work- basically games don't get praise for not being broken. Therefore 1/5 is for games that are broken or games that he didn't like at all. I don't necessarily agree that the game is terrible but hey, it's his opinion.

@fmprodguy said:

How could you fall for leading more hits to an internet Troll?!

Hate, Love, or indifferent to the Halo franchise, or Halo 4, he gave it a 20... yes 20 out of 100.

Carnival Games, Fn Carnival Games didn't get a lower score FROM anyone than a 49!!!!

Naughty Bears, a semi broken game didn't get lower than a 43!

Plus it's not a well articulated point, his complaints would fairly apply to all Call of Duties since 4, Gears of War, New Super Mario, Mario, Zelda (well a little bit at least), and God of War. Oh Nos, they didn't reinvent the wheel when changing developers... and it still feels like the game who's name is on the box... I'll give it a 20!

The only reason to score a Tripple A game, for being like the game it is a sequel to, and that IS NOT broken, below the score of broken games and far far below the average is to get attention, hits, and start a flame war with the only goal to get more attention or hits to your site.

I own and love all three consoles, this is not about Halo, xbox360, PS3, Wii, fanboy-ism.... It's about calling out BS

Bummed you fell for the BS Patrick.

Only if you read the way he scores reviews games don't get passes for being just not broken, and he doesn't believe in inflating scores so that "bad" or "average" is just a 6 or 7 out of 10 like IGN does.

@Kerned said:

Hey everyone: read reviews, ignore the scores. It works every time.

It's funny that the community on this site listens to the editorial staff and takes many of their opinions as gospel, including that of "scores shouldn't matter", and parrot that proudly as they read review after review with a score they agree with, then find something like this and immediately go "THIS REVIEW SUCKS IT DIDN'T AGREE WITH ME THE SCORE WAS TOO LOW'.

Gaming media needs people like Tom Chick. We don't need clones like Stephen Totilo from Kotaku who are part of the problem talking about the problem

I am responsible for about fifty of the comments on the Halo 4 review page at Quarter To Three whatnot. It is mainly some butthurt fanboys and Microsoft Defense Force.

Eurogamer is apparently changing their policy on having reviews done at publisher's events, at times with unfinished games before them. A step in the right direction.

So uh, that review contains pretty big spoilers. Might want to put a warning to that effect for people who don't want huge plot events alluded to (spelled out, really) in a review. That's actually the only problem I have with the review as a pretty big Halo fan, that someone would have so little courtesy as to spoil major events from all over the game like that without a warning.

Hating Tom Chick is nothing new. Glad to see more people join me.

@Alorithin said:

Hating Tom Chick is nothing new. Glad to see more people join me.

"Tom Chick: When You Want Jeremy Parish But Not the Editor"

Man those Kotaku comments on that Assasin's Creed 3 thing are the friggin' nadir of intelligence. "IF YOU JUMPED FROM THE VIEWPOINT AND MISSED THE HAY YOU JUST SUCK AT THE GAME!" No that means the game sucks, cause that should never happen. Thank you for existing, Giant Bomb and It's not dumb users.

@Whitestripes09 said:

I really hate the argument that if a game sequel has no changes in it, it's automatically labeled as bad. People who watch movies hate it when a series goes in another direction and that's how I feel with games as well. How would people react if all of a sudden Gears of War was a first person shooter with the locust as the main protagonist People would go crazy saying that's not the way the game is supposed to be played. What kind of changes do people want in a Halo game that's not already changed? <.<

Frankly? That would be the first Gears game I'd be interested in since the first.

@Spike_Kojima said:

Oh.... Was rampancy never explained in the previous games ? I know what it is because I read Fall of Reach and listened to I luv bees ( and even after that this game assumed i knew stuff that I would never know unless i was chin deep in halo shit ) . But if rampancy was not explained allready in any of the games that's a fucking joke .

I played all the Halo games minus ODST but I can safely say rampancy was never introduced in any of the games until Halo 4 just when it starts to affect Cortana, likely because it wasn't an issue until just now. It is a poor plot point that just suddenly happens to be an issue that the game uses as a means to generate urgency to Master Chief and drama for the player.

Still love the game but there's plenty to pick apart. Hopefully 343 addresses a lot of this stuff better in the next game.

@DharmaBum said:

I agree with Chick in that a game shouldn't automatically earn a minimum score because it's a functional piece of software or a lot of work went into it. He's scoring his honest experience with the game. This industry needs more outlier reviews beyond the 7-9 scale that offer valid criticism instead of there being a total echo chamber.

The comments on his site reveal the true problem - people (though it's most likely little kids) feeling the need to lash out offensively because they don't share the same opinion or want to be validated with their purchase. I'm a fan of the Halo series, but those people make me wish I had nothing in common with them.

@theanticitizen: how does what he wrote mean he knows nothing about Halo? He's making fun of how the story in 4 beats you over the head with the concept.

I wish I could share your optimism that all those comments on his site, and the disquieting high number of similar comments here now, ("that Chick's a troll/moron/poopoo-head cuz I like Halo and he said mean things about it and gave it a low score") are just "little kids".

Mentally they are, certainly, but I'm afraid they're mainly adults, the people driving beside you on the road every day. Scary, innit?

@ShiftyMagician said:

@Spike_Kojima said:

Oh.... Was rampancy never explained in the previous games ? I know what it is because I read Fall of Reach and listened to I luv bees ( and even after that this game assumed i knew stuff that I would never know unless i was chin deep in halo shit ) . But if rampancy was not explained allready in any of the games that's a fucking joke .

I played all the Halo games minus ODST but I can safely say rampancy was never introduced in any of the games until Halo 4 just when it starts to affect Cortana, likely because it wasn't an issue until just now. It is a poor plot point that just suddenly happens to be an issue that the game uses as a means to generate urgency to Master Chief and drama for the player.

Still love the game but there's plenty to pick apart. Hopefully 343 addresses a lot of this stuff better in the next game.

Halo 3/CEA terminals and the camera zoom/spasm during the Halo 3 campaign.

Guilty spark at the end of halo3.

Don't soapbox without the full picture.

Halo isn't very good. It was never very good.

Tom Chick is a pretty cool guy too.

@DystopiaX said:

@Fobwashed said:

I found that guy's 1 star Halo review due to a tweet by

"BenKucheraHalo 4 had a 90 on Metacritic the last time I checked. Then an outlet gave it a 20 percent score. Now it's at an 88. Seems legit, all around"

I found the site, deemed it not worth my time and just left assuming the guy/site was just doing it for clicks.

After Mr. K put it up here, I went ahead and read the review and while the guy makes some good points, giving the game a 1/5 still seems crazy. I read his link on how he reviews games which sort of explains that his reviews aren't objective and are just his opinion. All I have to say is that anyone that would give Halo 4 a 1/5 is not someone who's reviews I would take seriously.

He mentions that he doesn't use the 100 point scale because to most, 70% is average. On a 5 point scale, 2.5 being average, he is stating that Halo 4 is all the way on the lower end. Well below average. If you can play a game like Halo 4, and deem it that far below average and actually just plop it down in the shitty game category, something is very wrong.

Patrick is right in saying that his opinion isn't wrong because opinions on how much someone likes something can't be wrong. BUT! I can say that his opinion is so far from mine that it seems stupid to me. My opinion is that this guy can write and make valid points but he has no idea how to use his own 5 point scale. Basically, I won't be returning to that site.

Also, he mentions that he gave Journey a 2/5. That alone would have me steer clear of his opinions on games. Journey was fucking awesome.

So ignore the dumb number at the bottom of the review. That's why Jeff stated that he hates rating systems, and this guy does too. I thought he raised valid points about Halo 4, and most of the people who don't like his review hate it because "other people said it was good and I disagree with him"- much like you did with your little Journey comment at the end there.

The dude said he gave it a 1 star because it did nothing well and took out some game modes he liked. Sounds like a 1 to me.

Asking me to "ignore the dumb number at the bottom of the review" doesn't work because that number is the conclusion statement to his entire review. He also goes into detail that he specifically hates the 100 point scale due to only the top end ever being used. I didn't read anywhere anything about him hating the 5 point system he uses, and even if he did, the fact remains that he does use it, and it conveys his opinion on the game in a X out of 5 scale.

I agree with you and even said in my comment that he makes some good points. I don't hate his review, I just don't agree with his opinion. We obviously have a huge difference in what we find enjoyable in games which was what the last comment I made about Journey was. I found Journey to be one of the best gaming experiences I had this year while he found it to be below average. Not "other people said it was good and I disagree with him". Just "I disagree with him". If someone tells me that Big Trouble in Little China was a shitty movie, I will no longer care about their opinions in movies. If someone says Journey was below average, I will no longer value what they think about video games.

The dude gave it 1 star, Jeff gave it 4. I personally value Jeff's opinion way more than I do this guy who seems to have opinions about a lot of games I don't share. If you haven't played the game and have read both his and Jeff's reviews and decide that the 1 star review is more to your style, that's your business. On a game I haven't played, I'll listen to any reviewer on this site over that guy. But he did make some valid points.

The AC3 articles feel spot on. It's not a terrible game, but it feels worse than Brotherhood. I guess if I was a monster I'd give it 1/5.

While I totally can understand the Halo review's POV, I can't agree because the game is so fun and well made, even if it hasn't blown me away. I'll probably get into MP too for a bit when I get my own copy. 

@Alorithin said:

@ShiftyMagician said:

@Spike_Kojima said:

Oh.... Was rampancy never explained in the previous games ? I know what it is because I read Fall of Reach and listened to I luv bees ( and even after that this game assumed i knew stuff that I would never know unless i was chin deep in halo shit ) . But if rampancy was not explained allready in any of the games that's a fucking joke .

I played all the Halo games minus ODST but I can safely say rampancy was never introduced in any of the games until Halo 4 just when it starts to affect Cortana, likely because it wasn't an issue until just now. It is a poor plot point that just suddenly happens to be an issue that the game uses as a means to generate urgency to Master Chief and drama for the player.

Still love the game but there's plenty to pick apart. Hopefully 343 addresses a lot of this stuff better in the next game.

Halo 3/CEA terminals and the camera zoom/spasm during the Halo 3 campaign.

Guilty spark at the end of halo3.

Don't soapbox without the full picture.

That's good to know and interesting to see there's a few hidden things I wasn't aware of. However that just means 343 made a bad assumption that heaps of people who pay attention to the story in just the main games would automatically know that rampancy was even a thing and was introduced via a Halo 3 terminal. That just doesn't seem like a good way to handle it. Relying on a concept that Bungie hid away as an optional extra to be one of the driving forces of the main narrative isn't really smart storytelling to me but of course that's just my subjective opinion on it.

@ShiftyMagician:

Half the charm of downbeat stories is discovering the context. Dark Souls (especially prepare to die edition), Kotor 2, Planescape:Torment, and Dues Ex would all suffer if the narrative was more direct.

I found Totilo's article interesting but I agree it's somewhat ridiculous coming from a Gawker media site. They run some interesting, well-done stuff, but it gets kind of overrun by link bait and the preview/PR intermingled nonsense he derides. It's one thing to say that they run it because people click it - which they do - it's another to talk about how troubling it is in a big ethics article while being one of the biggest perpetrators.

From the Elite Kickstarter page: "Cooperate on adventures or chase your friends down to get that booty." Oh my god I cannot stop laughing, I am apparently twelve years old again. GET THAT BOOTY.

@Fobwashed said:

@DystopiaX said:

@Fobwashed said:

I found that guy's 1 star Halo review due to a tweet by

"BenKucheraHalo 4 had a 90 on Metacritic the last time I checked. Then an outlet gave it a 20 percent score. Now it's at an 88. Seems legit, all around"

I found the site, deemed it not worth my time and just left assuming the guy/site was just doing it for clicks.

After Mr. K put it up here, I went ahead and read the review and while the guy makes some good points, giving the game a 1/5 still seems crazy. I read his link on how he reviews games which sort of explains that his reviews aren't objective and are just his opinion. All I have to say is that anyone that would give Halo 4 a 1/5 is not someone who's reviews I would take seriously.

He mentions that he doesn't use the 100 point scale because to most, 70% is average. On a 5 point scale, 2.5 being average, he is stating that Halo 4 is all the way on the lower end. Well below average. If you can play a game like Halo 4, and deem it that far below average and actually just plop it down in the shitty game category, something is very wrong.

Patrick is right in saying that his opinion isn't wrong because opinions on how much someone likes something can't be wrong. BUT! I can say that his opinion is so far from mine that it seems stupid to me. My opinion is that this guy can write and make valid points but he has no idea how to use his own 5 point scale. Basically, I won't be returning to that site.

Also, he mentions that he gave Journey a 2/5. That alone would have me steer clear of his opinions on games. Journey was fucking awesome.

So ignore the dumb number at the bottom of the review. That's why Jeff stated that he hates rating systems, and this guy does too. I thought he raised valid points about Halo 4, and most of the people who don't like his review hate it because "other people said it was good and I disagree with him"- much like you did with your little Journey comment at the end there.

The dude said he gave it a 1 star because it did nothing well and took out some game modes he liked. Sounds like a 1 to me.

Asking me to "ignore the dumb number at the bottom of the review" doesn't work because that number is the conclusion statement to his entire review. He also goes into detail that he specifically hates the 100 point scale due to only the top end ever being used. I didn't read anywhere anything about him hating the 5 point system he uses, and even if he did, the fact remains that he does use it, and it conveys his opinion on the game in a X out of 5 scale.

I agree with you and even said in my comment that he makes some good points. I don't hate his review, I just don't agree with his opinion. We obviously have a huge difference in what we find enjoyable in games which was what the last comment I made about Journey was. I found Journey to be one of the best gaming experiences I had this year while he found it to be below average. Not "other people said it was good and I disagree with him". Just "I disagree with him". If someone tells me that Big Trouble in Little China was a shitty movie, I will no longer care about their opinions in movies. If someone says Journey was below average, I will no longer value what they think about video games.

The dude gave it 1 star, Jeff gave it 4. I personally value Jeff's opinion way more than I do this guy who seems to have opinions about a lot of games I don't share. If you haven't played the game and have read both his and Jeff's reviews and decide that the 1 star review is more to your style, that's your business. On a game I haven't played, I'll listen to any reviewer on this site over that guy. But he did make some valid points.

If you don't share his opinion, you don't share it, but that doesn't invalidate it.

If you are a 'trusted' review site on an aggregator like metacritic, do you think you have some responsibility to calibrate your scoring with other submitters? I'm of the ilk that would LOVE to see all review scores simply go away, to be sure, but shouldn't any site that submits to metacritic for the pageviews (and really, that is the ONLY reason a review site participates in metacritic aggregation, for the linkbacks) have a responsibility to score even remotely similar to other sites?

For example, what if my scoring range is 1-5. 1 for every game that runs without exploding, 2-4 for revolutionary, life-altering experiences, and 5 for Resident Evil games, regardless of quality. I mean, just like Tom Chick, these are my Honest Opinions, and I am being up front about them - but they're also not what ANYONE ELSE on the aggregtor uses when scoring, and adding my data will just muddle and already obfuscated system.

I guess what I'm saying is: when you submit to an aggregator you're really saying "My score is as accurate as everyone elses"... well, maybe not 'saying'... 'inferring'? Seems like there's an ethical responsibility to calibrate with the consesus. Or not, that's just, like, my opinion, man.

Score Halo 4 One Potato out of Five Watermelon Starbursts for all I care, but don't submit it to metacritic. Problem solved. Whole issue feels like a case of 1st Degree Sh*t-Stirring.

I give this comment 1/5 stars

@Manhattan_Project said:

@chickdigger802 said:

@murisan: It all depends. GB reviews are written for the readers. Gertmann didn't really like MW3 yet he still reviewed it as 4/5. Chick's reviews are all 100% his opinion, one that doesn't give a fuck about other people and the norm. (I do find it dumb that a well polished game 'should' score 'something'. Reserving the lower end of the spectrum just for literally broken games is pretty silly. If Halo 4 is beautiful super polished, plays well, and you hate it, you should be able to give it a 1/10 or w/e, no?)

It is odd that it's on metacritic though. but /we.

What are talking about? Jeff has repeatedly stated reviews are solely their opinion based on their taste. Its like that so you can make decisions based on how your tastes relate to theirs. And he did like MW3, THATS WHY HE GAVE IT 4 STARS.

I'm not sure. Gertsmann being disappointed with a game but game is still solid = 3 or 4 stars. There has been a few other instances where I have been surprised with how well a game is scored based off the context.

That review is awful. He has what are almost good points. He`s allowed to dislike the story, the character design, the way Cortana and Chief interact, but he doesn't expand on it. He complains that it's more Halo, reveals his ignorance about the lore of Halo by shrugging away rampancy, and then complains about the colour orange and hates the story because he wasn't paying any attention. It's shallow and pathetic, a review written so he could giggle about angry fanboys responding in the comments.

That Ubisoft article is about as bad as a "How Awesome Is Your Game?" interview.

@Hailinel said:

@Fobwashed said:

@DystopiaX said:

@Fobwashed said:

I found that guy's 1 star Halo review due to a tweet by

"BenKucheraHalo 4 had a 90 on Metacritic the last time I checked. Then an outlet gave it a 20 percent score. Now it's at an 88. Seems legit, all around"

I found the site, deemed it not worth my time and just left assuming the guy/site was just doing it for clicks.

After Mr. K put it up here, I went ahead and read the review and while the guy makes some good points, giving the game a 1/5 still seems crazy. I read his link on how he reviews games which sort of explains that his reviews aren't objective and are just his opinion. All I have to say is that anyone that would give Halo 4 a 1/5 is not someone who's reviews I would take seriously.

He mentions that he doesn't use the 100 point scale because to most, 70% is average. On a 5 point scale, 2.5 being average, he is stating that Halo 4 is all the way on the lower end. Well below average. If you can play a game like Halo 4, and deem it that far below average and actually just plop it down in the shitty game category, something is very wrong.

Patrick is right in saying that his opinion isn't wrong because opinions on how much someone likes something can't be wrong. BUT! I can say that his opinion is so far from mine that it seems stupid to me. My opinion is that this guy can write and make valid points but he has no idea how to use his own 5 point scale. Basically, I won't be returning to that site.

Also, he mentions that he gave Journey a 2/5. That alone would have me steer clear of his opinions on games. Journey was fucking awesome.

So ignore the dumb number at the bottom of the review. That's why Jeff stated that he hates rating systems, and this guy does too. I thought he raised valid points about Halo 4, and most of the people who don't like his review hate it because "other people said it was good and I disagree with him"- much like you did with your little Journey comment at the end there.

The dude said he gave it a 1 star because it did nothing well and took out some game modes he liked. Sounds like a 1 to me.

Asking me to "ignore the dumb number at the bottom of the review" doesn't work because that number is the conclusion statement to his entire review. He also goes into detail that he specifically hates the 100 point scale due to only the top end ever being used. I didn't read anywhere anything about him hating the 5 point system he uses, and even if he did, the fact remains that he does use it, and it conveys his opinion on the game in a X out of 5 scale.

I agree with you and even said in my comment that he makes some good points. I don't hate his review, I just don't agree with his opinion. We obviously have a huge difference in what we find enjoyable in games which was what the last comment I made about Journey was. I found Journey to be one of the best gaming experiences I had this year while he found it to be below average. Not "other people said it was good and I disagree with him". Just "I disagree with him". If someone tells me that Big Trouble in Little China was a shitty movie, I will no longer care about their opinions in movies. If someone says Journey was below average, I will no longer value what they think about video games.

The dude gave it 1 star, Jeff gave it 4. I personally value Jeff's opinion way more than I do this guy who seems to have opinions about a lot of games I don't share. If you haven't played the game and have read both his and Jeff's reviews and decide that the 1 star review is more to your style, that's your business. On a game I haven't played, I'll listen to any reviewer on this site over that guy. But he did make some valid points.

If you don't share his opinion, you don't share it, but that doesn't invalidate it.

I don't recall ever saying that his opinion is invalid. If there are people who share his opinion that Halo 4 is as bad a game as a game can get, then I'd rather not hear their opinion either because I'll think they are similarly crazy. The more I think about it, the more I feel like he prolly did stick the 1/5 just for the sake of controversy because it literally sounds crazy to me that anyone could label Halo 4 as the lowest rung on their scale. If someone tells me a game is 1/5, I take it to mean that it's garbage and not worth my time. I enjoyed the game, and so I can have the opinion that his opinions are useless to me.

I'm really wierded out right now. Are you saying that you agree with his opinion? Or are you just sorta white knighting where it's not necessary because I'm not really attacking the dude, just sayin I don't agree with him.

@ShiftyMagician said:

@Spike_Kojima said:

Oh.... Was rampancy never explained in the previous games ? I know what it is because I read Fall of Reach and listened to I luv bees ( and even after that this game assumed i knew stuff that I would never know unless i was chin deep in halo shit ) . But if rampancy was not explained allready in any of the games that's a fucking joke .

I played all the Halo games minus ODST but I can safely say rampancy was never introduced in any of the games until Halo 4 just when it starts to affect Cortana, likely because it wasn't an issue until just now. It is a poor plot point that just suddenly happens to be an issue that the game uses as a means to generate urgency to Master Chief and drama for the player.

Still love the game but there's plenty to pick apart. Hopefully 343 addresses a lot of this stuff better in the next game.

Its been an issue since Halo 3. Lord Hood wonders whether she is corrupted and Cortana herself expresses concerns about her well-being.

@Fobwashed: I'm just saying he's entitled to his opinion. If his opinion on a single game renders all of his other opinions useless, that's more your problem than his. I don't see how my making my previous statement should weird you out in any way.

People are hilariously up in arms over this review.

Wait, so we're criticising comments about other comments which criticise Patrick for NOT criticising the reviewer who criticised Halo 4, but not correctly? Is this right?

Everybody needs to take a step back from critception here, because this lasagna has infinite layers.

@Hailinel: Of course he's entitled to his opinion. At no point did I ever indicate otherwise which is why I'm weirded out that you're trying to point that out. His opinions on both ends of his scale are wildly different from my own. I already pointed out Journey but he also gave Waking Mars a 5/5. A game I played a few hours of and deemed not worth any more of my time -_-;; Anyway, it's not a problem, I was just voicing my opinion on his opinion which I'm entitled to do =D

You may have gotten the tone of this entire thing a bit wrong. I'm not up in arms about anything, I was just stating my opinion because this is the internet and that's what it's here for. Maybe what I'm sayin will sound a little less crazy if you read it assuming I'm just speaking calmly.

@Vampir said:

@fmprodguy said:

How could you fall for leading more hits to an internet Troll?!

Hate, Love, or indifferent to the Halo franchise, or Halo 4, he gave it a 20... yes 20 out of 100.

Carnival Games, Fn Carnival Games didn't get a lower score FROM anyone than a 49!!!!

Naughty Bears, a semi broken game didn't get lower than a 43!

Plus it's not a well articulated point, his complaints would fairly apply to all Call of Duties since 4, Gears of War, New Super Mario, Mario, Zelda (well a little bit at least), and God of War. Oh Nos, they didn't reinvent the wheel when changing developers... and it still feels like the game who's name is on the box... I'll give it a 20!

The only reason to score a Tripple A game, for being like the game it is a sequel to, and that IS NOT broken, below the score of broken games and far far below the average is to get attention, hits, and start a flame war with the only goal to get more attention or hits to your site.

I own and love all three consoles, this is not about Halo, xbox360, PS3, Wii, fanboy-ism.... It's about calling out BS

Bummed you fell for the BS Patrick.

Or maybe he's just using a 100 point rating system in a way that makes some amount of sense. What purpose is there to having a range of 100 points if even universally reviled games like Carnival Games and Naughty Bears get scores in the 40s. What does being AAA matter if you don't like the game?

You wouldn't expect a movie to get a decent rating just because it was big-budget, and I see no reason that should be true about video games either.

Hmmm, out of context rationalization.

The fact that a game is a "Tripple A" doesn't get it a good score. The point was that scoring a super high profile game lower than broken games and phoned in minigames collections, is opportunistic at best.

For example, plenty of people can say they thought The Avengers was not a good movie. Everyone is more than allowed an opinion, and their own view on what is good and bad. A published "Review" though is placing yourself up on the pedestal and saying that this is MORE than opinion.

Just check the Dictionary:

re·view

[ri-vyoo] Show IPA

noun1.

acriticalarticleorreport, asinaperiodical,onabook,play,recital,orthelike;critique;evaluation.

the cunts who hate on halo are the same ones who hated on half life. fuck em

Best weekly feature of any gaming site. Cheers Scoop!

@Beb said:

The AC3 articles feel spot on. It's not a terrible game, but it feels worse than Brotherhood. I guess if I was a monster I'd give it 1/5.

I second this...about 15 hours in...the game is fine but feels overstuffed and undercooked at the same time...suffers from having too many tasks and not enough purpose

@Manhattan_Project said:

@ShiftyMagician said:

@Spike_Kojima said:

Oh.... Was rampancy never explained in the previous games ? I know what it is because I read Fall of Reach and listened to I luv bees ( and even after that this game assumed i knew stuff that I would never know unless i was chin deep in halo shit ) . But if rampancy was not explained allready in any of the games that's a fucking joke .

I played all the Halo games minus ODST but I can safely say rampancy was never introduced in any of the games until Halo 4 just when it starts to affect Cortana, likely because it wasn't an issue until just now. It is a poor plot point that just suddenly happens to be an issue that the game uses as a means to generate urgency to Master Chief and drama for the player.

Still love the game but there's plenty to pick apart. Hopefully 343 addresses a lot of this stuff better in the next game.

Its been an issue since Halo 3. Lord Hood wonders whether she is corrupted and Cortana herself expresses concerns about her well-being.

I did not remember that, but to be honest, I didn't have much of a problem buying that Cortana had gone cooky by hanging out on an empty ship for years waiting for rescue. When she explained that AIs degrade after a set period of time I just took that at face value.

Now, her being the "only AI modelled after a human" felt like a weird McGuffin to me. THAT felt like an arbitrary goal, partially because it comes out of nowhere, partially because it only applies to Cortana and partially because it's a fairly common device in gaming where the characters get a very remote goal that will require many intermediate steps and nobody seems to know whether reaching this goal will resolve the situation or not.

ELITE! Someone just remake me Frontier Elite and i'll die a happy man!

Regarding Halo 4. I've completed it. Its good....However, if you dont know much about the Methology surrounding the Halo Universe to a new player it wouldnt make sense what so ever! Alot of people i have talked too havent even seen Forward Unto Dawn, which tells you more... its was free and awesome and people still missed it....

Cool reads.

Ehhh, that review for Halo 4 really just feels like he's deliberately trying to create controversy, to overemphasize the negative things about the game to bring more attention to himself. I'm not saying he doesn't have any valid points, but it really feels like Patrick played right into his hands by so prominently featuring his review in this week's Worth Reading.

A WHOLE book about Spec Ops: The Line? Oh, I'm all over that!

Ehhh, that review for Halo 4 really just feels like he's deliberately trying to create controversy, to overemphasize the negative things about the game to bring more attention to himself. I'm not saying he doesn't have any valid points, but it really feels like Patrick played right into his hands by so prominently featuring his review in this week's Worth Reading.

I think that's my issue with the Halo 4 review. It didn't feel like a review. It didn't read like one. It just felt like someone writing a purposefully negative response to a well regarded game to create controversy. Tom Chick is known to do this. I mean look at Civ5 review. C- on 1up. It honestly just comes across as attention whoring. I mean, I'm a huge Halo fan and I don't care if people don't like the game, but it's well made, MP is fun, SpOps is fun and yeah the game has some minor issues but it's certainly not one of the worst games ever made as Chick has claimed. Maybe he forgot to play RE6. Or maybe he gave it a 5/5 just to be contrarian like everything else he writes.

Well look at it this way: Maybe there's some 30-something guy out there who hasn't played a computer game since the Amiga days, sees there is a reboot to a fond memory of his, Syndicate, and Jeff's 5-star review just so happens to be the first review he sees.

I have a feeling that man is in for a very rude surprise when he boots that game up.

The Halo is absolutely terrible, although it's funny how mad people get from reviews.

@Fobwashed said:

@Hailinel said:

@Fobwashed said:

@DystopiaX said:

@Fobwashed said:

I found that guy's 1 star Halo review due to a tweet by

"BenKucheraHalo 4 had a 90 on Metacritic the last time I checked. Then an outlet gave it a 20 percent score. Now it's at an 88. Seems legit, all around"

I found the site, deemed it not worth my time and just left assuming the guy/site was just doing it for clicks.

After Mr. K put it up here, I went ahead and read the review and while the guy makes some good points, giving the game a 1/5 still seems crazy. I read his link on how he reviews games which sort of explains that his reviews aren't objective and are just his opinion. All I have to say is that anyone that would give Halo 4 a 1/5 is not someone who's reviews I would take seriously.

He mentions that he doesn't use the 100 point scale because to most, 70% is average. On a 5 point scale, 2.5 being average, he is stating that Halo 4 is all the way on the lower end. Well below average. If you can play a game like Halo 4, and deem it that far below average and actually just plop it down in the shitty game category, something is very wrong.

Patrick is right in saying that his opinion isn't wrong because opinions on how much someone likes something can't be wrong. BUT! I can say that his opinion is so far from mine that it seems stupid to me. My opinion is that this guy can write and make valid points but he has no idea how to use his own 5 point scale. Basically, I won't be returning to that site.

Also, he mentions that he gave Journey a 2/5. That alone would have me steer clear of his opinions on games. Journey was fucking awesome.

So ignore the dumb number at the bottom of the review. That's why Jeff stated that he hates rating systems, and this guy does too. I thought he raised valid points about Halo 4, and most of the people who don't like his review hate it because "other people said it was good and I disagree with him"- much like you did with your little Journey comment at the end there.

The dude said he gave it a 1 star because it did nothing well and took out some game modes he liked. Sounds like a 1 to me.

Asking me to "ignore the dumb number at the bottom of the review" doesn't work because that number is the conclusion statement to his entire review. He also goes into detail that he specifically hates the 100 point scale due to only the top end ever being used. I didn't read anywhere anything about him hating the 5 point system he uses, and even if he did, the fact remains that he does use it, and it conveys his opinion on the game in a X out of 5 scale.

I agree with you and even said in my comment that he makes some good points. I don't hate his review, I just don't agree with his opinion. We obviously have a huge difference in what we find enjoyable in games which was what the last comment I made about Journey was. I found Journey to be one of the best gaming experiences I had this year while he found it to be below average. Not "other people said it was good and I disagree with him". Just "I disagree with him". If someone tells me that Big Trouble in Little China was a shitty movie, I will no longer care about their opinions in movies. If someone says Journey was below average, I will no longer value what they think about video games.

The dude gave it 1 star, Jeff gave it 4. I personally value Jeff's opinion way more than I do this guy who seems to have opinions about a lot of games I don't share. If you haven't played the game and have read both his and Jeff's reviews and decide that the 1 star review is more to your style, that's your business. On a game I haven't played, I'll listen to any reviewer on this site over that guy. But he did make some valid points.

If you don't share his opinion, you don't share it, but that doesn't invalidate it.

I don't recall ever saying that his opinion is invalid. If there are people who share his opinion that Halo 4 is as bad a game as a game can get, then I'd rather not hear their opinion either because I'll think they are similarly crazy. The more I think about it, the more I feel like he prolly did stick the 1/5 just for the sake of controversy because it literally sounds crazy to me that anyone could label Halo 4 as the lowest rung on their scale. If someone tells me a game is 1/5, I take it to mean that it's garbage and not worth my time. I enjoyed the game, and so I can have the opinion that his opinions are useless to me.

I'm really wierded out right now. Are you saying that you agree with his opinion? Or are you just sorta white knighting where it's not necessary because I'm not really attacking the dude, just sayin I don't agree with him.

I've enjoyed reading your posts in this chain. Your stance on this is very reasonable.