I would suck Jim Sterling's dick. Just to piss you guys off. Get off fuckers.
Battlefield 3
Game » consists of 15 releases. Released Oct 25, 2011
Battlefield 3 is DICE's third numerical installment in the Battlefield franchise. It features a single player and co-operative campaign, as well as an extensive multiplayer component.
Jim Sterling Battlefield 3 multiplayer epic troll journalism
As for the different grouping we've been talking about I have to disagree with you, just because one thing has a relationship with another thing or a reliance on another does not mean that they aren't separate. A bee and a flower have a reliance on each other, that doesn't mean that they're the same thing. Honestly, I don't think the gaming journalists as a whole do care if the industry considers low scores blasphemy, I have to agree with Alexander that they're not allies, and that the games industry generally remains pushing for positive image, while games journalism generally remains pushing for truth. I also don't think the publishers are living and dying, hiring and firing based on Metacritic. If they cared more about upping their Metacritic scores than making money then they'd care more about making sure they only ever put out high quality games, as opposed to the kind of yearly increments and added-on bullshit like always-on DRM which journalists have decried. The majority of sackings we're hearing about from game studios also seem to be the result of economics rather than Metacritic scores. I think metascores have gotten too much attention but I don't think publishers are holding up these correlated review scores above stuff like good marketing. Even if a game sells prosperously though, the publisher's job isn't to make sure a game sells well, it's too make sure they get the maximum profit possible and even if they've moved 7 million copies, if Metacritic is standing in the way of them moving more then they're not going to like Metacritic.
I'm still not seeing these swathes of developers raining hate down on the games industry for its review scores though. Yes, Cliffy B came out with that ridiculous crap about 8/10 being "hating" on his game, but where are the hundreds of other Cliffy Bs doing the same? What's more, the way people treat review scores is insane, but just because the journalists, publishers and devs have all criticised scores doesn't mean that there aren't barriers between them, they're still placed very differently in terms of what a score means to them and indeed their general role in the whole video games things. I don't think people caring about reviews is a problem, I think the problem is people blowing things out of proportion and caring for the wrong reasons.
@Gamer_152: Sterling does write real reviews for certain games. As a "reviewer" ( I think he is the review editor at Destructoid ) that the troll reviews are unprofessional and lazy. I actually enjoy his real reviews but if you're going to troll a game on a major site at least give it to someone who wants to give it a REAL review. When I read a review I want an actual "professional" critique otherwise I'll read gamefaq reviews. I mean Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation are great entertainment pieces yet not something - I assume - people go to as a review.
It's a retarded double standard. He will say how shit it is that an obviously single player game has multiplayer tacked on yet it does not overly effect the score of the game which he is mostly judging as a single player game ie Dead Space 2. Yet if an obviously multiplayer game like Battlefield 3 has a tacked on Single player it takes up half the "review" and somehow makes the whole experience sour. I appreciate his real reviews but his troll reviews are just lame. I mean he said as a negative point that tanks control is sluggish, they ain't exactly the Porsche of the war world yet if they were he would obviously say they aren't sluggish enough.A person who says tanks are sluggish in BF3, obviously missed the screen fed message about the fact that "all armored vehicles have acceleration" (Left Shift by default). It only says it like almost every time you die and during loading screens. He barely touched the MP and when he did, he didn't give it the due attention a reviewer should.
To hate on Sterling is so easy and lazy, it's like saying 'Hey, I have no personality, and a terrible sense of humor. Excuse me while I take everything so seriously, because I'm a humorless dick.'
That sounds more than mildly sycophantic.To hate on Sterling is so easy and lazy, it's like saying 'Hey, I have no personality, and a terrible sense of humor. Excuse me while I take everything so seriously, because I'm a humorless dick.'
@Gamer_152: You make many valid points. However, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you when it comes to Sterling's reviews being actual reviews and not simply pieces of entertainment, regardless of what the man himself might have you believe. I fully accept that he takes a far more serious tone with reviews than he does with his jimquisitions and other articles, but this seriousness in itself doesn't actually make his reviews any more professional. I would argue that he uses this 'serious tone' as a smoke-screen or shield that he can bring up any time anybody dares to question his integrity- he hides behind it. I suppose, in many ways, some of his reviews (and I do only mean some) read like a piece you might find on encyclopedia dramatica- that is, serious in tone but ludicrous in its actual substance. As for my use of the word damaging, I totally agree with both you and Sterling when it comes to Metacritic- it's a service that is given far to much weight and is taken in all the wrong ways by much of the industry. The problem is, is that these games developers do take Metacritic as gospel, and it doesn't look like that position is going to change anytime soon whether reviewers like it or not. Developers are forced into accepting Sterling's impact upon them because he remains a constant part of Metacrtic- they didn't choose this, Metacritic did, and this is the system they live and die by. Finally, it seems to me that Sterling is also rather dis-ingenious, he lacks the courage of his convictions, for if he truly believed that Metacritic is silly, essentially peripheral and should be regarded only as a comparative feature at best, he would have removed himself from it ages ago to save all the fuss. This isn't about removing his right to free speech, of course he should still remain reviews editor of Destructoid and be free to write whatever he wants within it- simply removing somebody from a sheet of statistics isn't at all silencing them in any way so I wish people would stop acting as if removing him from Metacritic would be tantamount to sending him to Auschwitz or Guantanamo.
I think the only thing Sterling enjoys more than people getting up in arms about his trollish reviews are that people come to defend him as having a sincere thought out opinion. He didn't play muchBF3 because he was under deadline pressure and knew he wanted to troll anyway.
The reason metacritic matters to publishers is that there used to be a very close relationship between metacritic scores and sales. So making a good game that didn't sell would be considered just bad luck. But then metacritic has become a goal in itself for some strange reason.
How fucking dare he write something that I disagree with! Just shut the fuck up and ignore him if you don't trust him. What does it matter to you? You already implied that you didn't like his reviews so why are you reading them?
@SeriouslyNow: The attention you're giving me is adorable, but I have to ask: who pissed in your cornflakes? Quentin Tarantino?
@SeriouslyNow said:
@PrivateIronTFU said:That sounds more than mildly sycophantic.To hate on Sterling is so easy and lazy, it's like saying 'Hey, I have no personality, and a terrible sense of humor. Excuse me while I take everything so seriously, because I'm a humorless dick.'
Don't use words to which you don't know the meaning.
@Gamer_152: But under that assumption, doesn't that make her just as bad as the hordes of individuals who pitch a fit when they disagree with Jim's reviews in general? And what's more, why do we attempt to justify the rash actions of obsessive individuals who look for any little reason to disregard a statement, then justify it by saying that 'he should have spent more time on multiplayer'? I think people don't understand that reviewers have different processes in terms of how they play a game. To me, if I like a multiplayer off the bat, then I like it. Two, maybe three matches and I'm set in my opinions, and that shouldn't, if the game is being played correctly, take more than an hour and a half...although I'm now hearing that he spent perhaps double that across two platforms. I'd love to say that these are legitimate concerns, but they stem from evidence dug up to null & void the review out of a childish spite, and all I can see is the review score nonsense driving this, again, knee-jerk reactions aren't a terrible thing, but much like metascores, a lot of them are used in an overly serious context. Jim played the SP, played the MP, and took points off because part of the package was lacking, but still said the MP was excellent. He had an issue with the battlelog system, and I can understand that. What I can't understand are people's reactions, on either the obsessive and rationalist sides of this debate. Would people have been happier if he played 6 hours and ripped the MP a new one? The main argument I keep seeing is that 'tanks are sluggish' bit...I'm ok with that, seeing as from my memories of previous BF games, there was no option to accelerate so that would be something I'd dislike.
Fair enough, you believe that, but I have to say that bees and flowers aren't going to go to war over one bee saying one particular flowers output isn't satisfactory for some arbitrary reason. The games industry no longer has walls built around it like it used to. More and more publishers are pushing devs to appeal to the masses who comment on forums in order to make their games more appealing. The point I'm making is that: while it shouldn't be happening, there is a type of over-reliance and an almost incestuous relationship going on nowadays by people who should simply know better. Sites like IGN have to appeal to publishers, otherwise they don't get games, or advertising from said groups. Nowadays, a lot of videogame journalists have to be allies with the industry in order to gain access to the 'truth' they're looking for. Unfortunately, it's a downhill slide from there, as the boot-licking some sites have to do compromises their integrity, forcing upon them an unfair bar which everyone else has to be measured to. I have to disagree with your take on publishers and metacritic. It was announced last week that BF3's metacritic score was going to be the most important thing. The good marketing aspect of their job is being overlooked, and even then, a metascore of 75 is an excellent result, why do they lose their rag over it? It's like defining yourself by everyone's opinions of you, but then shattering because one individual finds a problem with you. It's anything but mature, and shouldn't be how business is conducted. This is the information age, and that comes with more interactions between parties that we viewed as different, just look at Jim Redner. Poor guy got angry, lost control for one twitter comment, and lost his job, but EA and Activision can go at it in the most pathetic way possible, because that's their job apparently. I don't know how we can justify a man being human getting fired, but two huge companies going at it just gets some disapproving looks, and from me, a round of applause for being entertaining and pointless.
One member of the team behind DA2 posted a metacritic reviewing stating that 'anything negative you'll see about this game is an overreaction of personal preference', there are sites that don't get review copies because they roasted previous titles by the dev or publisher. Hell even Jeff got fired from Gamespot when he gave Kane and Lynch a bad review. Cliffy B was one of the louder voices, but there's a lot more going on in the background that we don't tend to see happen too often, but is becoming a trend. To ask 'where are the hundreds of other Cliffy B's doing the same?' is a little much, because a lot goes on behind the scenes, and a lot happens in terms of seemingly minor things, but we can see the publishers and devs are getting a bit too self-entitled (a label I think is overused, but accurate to this situation), and the same goes for people who back a game to the death. To be fair, people blowing things out of proportion is exactly how this topic was created. I agree with you when you say the way scores are treated is insane, because it is, but the barrier between them is being more and more removed from the picture. I'm gonna disagree with some people because there have been a lot of questionable decisions made as of late in the industry that, at least in my point-of-view, glorify some of the more negative aspects of gaming in general. There are a lot of double standards, and a lot of overreactions not just by gaming communities, but by publishers and devs, who have all began to act alike...despite what we want to believe, the differences are narrowing between all parties, and for those who choose to go against the grain, they'll have to ride out a lot of unnecessary crap they shouldn't have to because of this current situation and mindset. Really its the age we live in, and a misunderstanding of how communication and interaction works, with all parties forgetting their original places, and falling into a bizarre patchwork of extreme confusion about what their particular group is about. It does, in the end, come down to people caring for the wrong reasons, but that can be applied to publisher, devs and consumers.
I don't see the problem with giving a game a score after playing six hours of it and only 90 of that on Mutiplayer; seems plenty fair to me. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion so hating on someone because they have a differing one from the vast majority is pretty stupid and incredibly childish. Even if you think his reviews are more for entertainment than actually giving games a detailed review, that's still no right to hate on someone because they have a different opinion or do things differently.
Here's a tip for you; when you start a reply to me and then decide to try and suck up to the mod instead, it's best that you refresh the page and start again because I still get the reply even though it actually isn't addressed to me. Also, I replied in point form to the things I felt were relevant and incorrect on your part and I made that clear.@SeriouslyNow: The attention you're giving me is adorable, but I have to ask: who pissed in your cornflakes? Quentin Tarantino?
@PrivateIronTFU said:
@SeriouslyNow said:
@PrivateIronTFU said:That sounds more than mildly sycophantic.To hate on Sterling is so easy and lazy, it's like saying 'Hey, I have no personality, and a terrible sense of humor. Excuse me while I take everything so seriously, because I'm a humorless dick.'
Don't use words to which you don't know the meaning.
I do know the meaning and your implication that anyone who criticises Jim Sterling is somehow lacking in personality and a sense of humour is derived from sycophancy because a rational person would be able to appreciate that Jim Sterling is just as valid a target for criticism for his professional opinion and paid work as any other gaming media personality is but because you're a true believer you can't but help defend a person who doesn't need your defence.
@SeriouslyNow: Awwwwh, little guy just wanted some attention. You satisfied now? *pats on head* that should make it all better, go back to your corner, the adults are talking.
Oh and here's a little tip for you: Get that stick removed from up inside your ass...it's not doing you any favours, it's also affecting your reading comprehension, and your hormones.
@CrimsonAvenger said:
I don't see the problem with giving a game a score after playing six hours of it and only 90 of that on Mutiplayer; seems plenty fair to me. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion so hating on someone because they have a differing one from the vast majority is pretty stupid and incredibly childish. Even if you think his reviews are more for entertainment than actually giving games a detailed review, that's still no right to hate on someone because they have a different opinion or do things differently.
Exactly this. I agree entirely, regardless of the view, who really cares? I find it sad that people actually hunted down his battlelog just to shoot holes in his opinion. I mean the content of the review was fair, based on a single person's personal experience with the game. It's confusing how people lose the run of themselves and forget that opinions are opinions, but will use it as a justification for what they're saying...which is redundant and kinda ironic.
@Dookysharpgun: I have to admit these replies are becoming a bit large for me to deal with, I apologise if I don't address any major part of your response here. I don't think Alexander is comparable to the people whining about Sterling's score in a very selfish way. While I believe she's wrong about Sterling, she's trying to act in the interests of the industry, whereas the people simply raging over the fact that 7.5 isn't "enough" are trying to act in only the interests of themselves. I feel a bit like a broken record here but I'd also like to state one more time that while the argument may have originally been born out of rather sad circumstances and I don't agree with it, I think people like Moreau have a perfectly acceptable opinion in saying that they believe Sterling didn't spend long enough on the mutliplayer. As for developers, there have been isolated incidents of them flipping out over low game scores but these are a handful of cases and I still don't get this general impression that all developers flip out when their games get trashed by reviewers. Similarly, bad stuff has gone down in the games industry such as under-the-table transactions over reviews or review copies being held back, but it's not the norm that reviewers are completely robbed of free speech by foul deals with publishers.
I've said it before, but again, publishers lose their shit over review scores even if they're good because they always want more money, and yes, the publishers far too often take the opportunity to act like dicks for their own benefit. The spat between EA and Activision was childish, it was stupid, but these are people that are going to do whatever they can to put themselves ahead of the competition and make the most money possible. In fact I think the kind of problems we're talking about here are less about miscommunication and misunderstanding, and more about the industry having become increasingly money-driven and publishers trying to protect their assets. I totally agree that there's a lot of major bullshit happening in the industry right now and I don't think it's going to go away any time soon but I don't think the drive of the industry is metascores.
@CrimsonAvenger said:
I don't see the problem with giving a game a score after playing six hours of it and only 90 of that on Mutiplayer; seems plenty fair to me. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion so hating on someone because they have a differing one from the vast majority is pretty stupid and incredibly childish. Even if you think his reviews are more for entertainment than actually giving games a detailed review, that's still no right to hate on someone because they have a different opinion or do things differently.
How the fuck is an hour and thirty minutes of gameplay enough to review and judge a game ? He should have spend at the very least 10 hours in MP before opening his pie hole.
Atleast a 7.5 is ok, and enough people know what the fuck battlefield is to not care about his opinion if they already want to play it. It was almost breaking my heart to read the comments to his 5/10 vanquish review(or fuck..his bastion review, 6/10 I think?). So many people seemingly writing it off cause of one shit review, all responding in his comments section, making sure he never goes anywhere. I can see a 7.5 if you properly look at the parts of battlefield, ignoring that whatever shit the SP has in it is irrelevant to the multiplayer, and actually letting it all affect the score. I mean dave gave it a 4, if you wanna be technical, that's an 80.
Jim's entitled to his opinion, but my issue with him is his inconsistency in his reviewing. He gives a game like Deadly Premonition a 10, ignoring pretty much all the problems associated with it, but reviews other game critically.
here's my two cents -
if a game has 10/10 multiplayer and 5/10 single player, it should get a 7.5/10.
if you don't want to make a worthwhile SP, just leave it out and ship the MP disc only. but if you say "hey we made a great SP and people that don't care about MP will still get value" then expect people to judge the SP.
I'm going to add this. Some things grow on you over time. They can start poorly or you can have a bad early experience and slants your view one way than can then be brought around by giving it a fuller consideration. If a movie reviewer left a film near the beginning because he wasn't enjoying it yet, he'd be fired, doubly so if the rest of the film was the best film in the world.
Jim is under a lot of pressure to get content out quickly because that's the kind of site destructoid is, and the whole fiasco of DICE only giving out copies as bribes shortened his schedule even further. In the end, he just didn't have the balls to tell his audience to wait until it was done. I was patient enough to wait until friday to get Giant Bomb's view, but I guess the destructoid crowd, not so much.
In the end he might never of changed his views of any aspect of the game with a longer exposure to it, but the problem is that he didn't give it a shot.
He seemed to spend a lot of the review mainly stating facts and not opinion, like 'you can do this, or you can do that, or you shoot dudes.' etc. but I got a sense that he liked the multiplayer anyway.
@CrimsonAvenger said:
I don't see the problem with giving a game a score after playing six hours of it and only 90 of that on Mutiplayer; seems plenty fair to me. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion so hating on someone because they have a differing one from the vast majority is pretty stupid and incredibly childish. Even if you think his reviews are more for entertainment than actually giving games a detailed review, that's still no right to hate on someone because they have a different opinion or do things differently.
You really think one hour and a half is enough to pass fair judgement on anything? Are you kidding?
@Dookysharpgun said:
@SeriouslyNow: Awwwwh, little guy just wanted some attention. You satisfied now? *pats on head* that should make it all better, go back to your corner, the adults are talking.
Oh and here's a little tip for you: Get that stick removed from up inside your ass...it's not doing you any favours, it's also affecting your reading comprehension, and your hormones.
@RsistncE: Really, who wants to be an Olympic weightlifter? And street fighting is so unprofessional. Silly stereotypes from five years ago don't really apply to our new, more advanced society do they?
@Dookysharpgun said:
@RsistncE: Really, who wants to be an Olympic weightlifter? And street fighting is so unprofessional. Silly stereotypes from five years ago don't really apply to our new, more advanced society do they?
I think the overarching message of that picture remains the same though Mr. Internet Toughguy.
Like him or not, Sterling is a subjective reviewer and he speaks from the heart. His review and scores reflect how he personally feels about his experience playing the game. That's the whole point of a review imo.
@Sooty said:
@TekZero said:
7.5/10 is still a decent score. What's the big deal?
That he played a heavily multi-player focused game for less than two hours?
How long do you have to play something and feel x way about it before you can legitimately say that you feel x way about it?
@RsistncE: So you can only converse in cliches and memes eh? Well you'd be doing well if you grew up to be like me, obviously you need to do a bit of it atm, but it might take a while...come back in ten years when you hit voting age, and we'll see how you've progressed.
@sickVisionz said:
Like him or not, Sterling is a subjective reviewer and he speaks from the heart. His review and scores reflect how he personally feels about his experience playing the game. That's the whole point of a review imo.
@Sooty said:
@TekZero said:
7.5/10 is still a decent score. What's the big deal?
That he played a heavily multi-player focused game for less than two hours?
How long do you have to play something and feel x way about it before you can legitimately say that you feel x way about it?
I'd say you can play a game and know if the "tone" of the game strikes you or not, but Jim's review is filled with misinformation simply because he didn't play deeper into the MP. So, in that case, his short play time affected the integrity of his review.
@RsistncE: ....clearly someone doesn't have a sense of humour, or common sense for that matter. I'll tell you the same as I told the other dude...that stick up your ass is making you hormonal, and when that happens, sometimes you jump the shark, and say some weird and crazy things. It's ok though, I forgive you.
yep until a couple months ago i didn't know who he was. I quickly learned he does it for the lulz and to ignore him.
@Dookysharpgun said:
@RsistncE: ....clearly someone doesn't have a sense of humour, or common sense for that matter. I'll tell you the same as I told the other dude...that stick up your ass is making you hormonal, and when that happens, sometimes you jump the shark, and say some weird and crazy things. It's ok though, I forgive you.
Wow, this just get's better and better. Guy insults other people repeatedly and then tells them to calm down (using more insults to do so no less). Then he get's back up on his high horse. You must have fun masturbating.
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