So which outlet will be the one to lowball this game in the reviews?

Who's that one motherfucker that always pisses everyone off? Tom Chick?

Yep. I vote for that guy.

Don't forget Quarter to Three. Tom Chick is notorious for being the lowest scorer on any given metacritic page.

I'm honestly more curious to know if any of the major outlets will call GTAV out for critical missteps or mark it up as another game on the sexism witch hunt. It seems like GTA games always seem to get something of a pass even when there are significant issues.

Im going curve ball and saying Edge is going for an 8.5

I think Polygon will be the low one of the bunch but I don't think they do it for hits.

In Polygon's case, the question should be whether or not the score will stay the same from week to week.

Original review: 5/10 No multiplayer. Two weeks later: 10/10 Great multiplayer.

Why not play the Video Game Drinking Game? Every time you see a perfect score for GTA5, take a shot. If a review contains a phrase along the lines of "defining moment of a generation", down the whole fucking bottle.

ya missed 'i dont give a fuck .com'.

Incoming Arthur Gies review complaining about no female protagonist.

Now what sites will just give it a perfect score and review fearing public backlash.

You sound bitter.

Unless Polygon has ads up for GTA V, the game will get a 7/10, reviewed by Arthur Gies.

"GTAV has some strong-points, but the world is littered in sexist activities like stripclubs and beating up women. 2.5 points deduction"

Also: If GTAV was a Japanese game, it would have gotten an additional 2 points deducted.

It's a horrible and pandering site. They haven't changed one iota since their Kotaku tabloid rag days.

Tom Chick, the other guy.

I'll love it if he does.

I don't think hes negative for hits, but I know most people think he does. I love the drama it creates because he doesn't like popular games and reviews based on his tastes. I enjoy reading his take on games as well.

But ya, if anybody it will be him. Unless the game is what he expects it to be and if for him that is a good thing.

Tom Chick of course. What better game to attract massive traffic from angry people who should know better.

I am.

Sounds about right.

TOM CHICK

This is exactly why I don't trust reviewers at all. They're all so damn biased and inject their own opinions and ideologies into their reviews instead of giving an honest, non-biased review. It's never gonna happen, though, which is why I don't trust them or read their stuff in the first place.

Chris Plante is reviewing GTA5 for polygon, not Arthur Gies. Besides, it's typically Philip Kollar that deals out the below average review scores.

I guess everyone is on the assumption that there won't be anything in the game that will lower the score below an 8? Maybe I'm just cynical.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun in six months.

You know a review is an opinion, right? Ahh why do I bother.

This whole line of thinking is gross though, like GTA 5 by default deserves a 9 or a 10, like that's a given. Who the fuck cares what a reviewer thinks, if you enjoy it, more power to you. If you don't, that doesn't make you counter culture by default, it makes you someone with an opinion that happens to differ from the norm. I don't know if you guys actually read Tom Chick's reviews, but they're pretty good. But they're his opinion, which is what a review is. There's nothing wrong with that.

His Killer Is Dead review actually offended me more than the game ever could. It's not a GREAT game and some content is kinda like "yah yah ok I get it, girls" but man that Gies review is something else. Literally the first time in ages that I read a review and was so flustered by it.

Yes, god forbid someone not be utterly enchanted by this game.

Oh fuck off with this "theyrre doing it for teh hitz" garbage. The assumption that this is a 9.5 or 10 game across the board is fucking stupid and assumptive. If someone doesn't think its a 9 or a 10 then they fucking don't think its a 9 or a 10. Quit assuming there is agenda behind every fucking review. Good lord.

There was also the completely unnecessary kerfuffle surrounding God of War: Ascension before it that he (along with Adam Sessler) ignited as well.. So, yeah, definitely not a fan.

The one that likes the game the least?

It's nice that we're already assuming that GTA is deserving of a high score before even playing it and anyone who doesn't give it the score it so OBVIOUSLY deserves is "low balling" it.

I'm not going to assume the game is going to be God's gift to games or anything, but assuming that it will be a 9/10 I would expect IGN and Polygon to give it lower than average scores, and Tom Chick is going to call it shitty.

I don't really care about review scores except as purchasing advise, but I find the phenomenon surrounding them interesting. Polygon's 7.5 for Last of Us is so weirdly anomalous, I can't help but look for a hidden motivation, like a deliberate attempt to translate fanboy outrage into more page views. Or maybe something more benign, like broadcast to the world how much integrity you have by not feeding into the hype machine.

Yep.

Co-signed.

I'm gonna write a blog post and say that everything about the game is sexist. Over analyzing every single detail and shaming every single design decision. It will get people mad and it will get tweeted out and retweeted on Twitter. I will then bathe in death threats and harassment because that's how civilized people react to this kind of shit, isn't it?

Exactly.

Yupp

Nope.

I'd say the sentiment of this thread comes from the complete and utter predictability of games press when dealing with these kinds of "landmark" titles, rather than blind loyalty in search of potential injustice. The first 3D Zelda game to get below a 90 on metacritic is going to have to screw up pretty badly and the same goes for Grand Theft Auto V, regardless of whatever inevitable backlash will result.

But then we get to the question "Why do you care?" and the answer is "because it's sort of fun".

@octaslash said:

@hailinel said:

@yummylee said:

@nekroskop said:

Unless Polygon has ads up for GTA V, the game will get a 7/10, reviewed by Arthur Gies.

"GTAV has some strong-points, but the world is littered in sexist activities like stripclubs and beating up women. 2.5 points deduction"

Also: If GTAV was a Japanese game, it would have gotten an additional 2 points deducted.

It's a horrible and pandering site. They haven't changed one iota since their Kotaku tabloid rag days.

Sounds about right.

Yep.

Nope.

Arthur may not be reviewing it, but it's still impossible to take Polygon reviews seriously.

yeah but the sentiment isn't that they're lowballing the score because that's what it deserves, but that they're doing it to get page views.

And that's the sentiment that people are complaining about in this thread. That there are those that think the only reason someone would low-ball a GTAV review is purely for the sake of attention grabbing clicks.

The sentiment arises because of opinions that break so wildly from the consensus. When several sites 'low-balled' RE6, no one batted an eye, because everyone gave RE6 bad reviews. When most people say Halo 4 is a 8-10 game and then Tom Chick says "no, it's a 2" eyes will be batted. In the same way if most people said it was a 0-2 game and you said it was an 8, people would expect you were on the take.

yeah but people are saying they would 'low ball' by giving it an 8 or something, which was my issue with the OP. If they give it a 4-5 or something than they're just fucking with people, but an 8 is a perfectly fine score