Reviews are not an artistic form of expression, they serve a purpose, to inform customers so we don't throw our hard-earned money away, there is no place for philosophical thoughts or personal agendas, they should be logical and an 8/10 ain't it.

He is repeating what the Uncharted 3 guy did, hoping to get the same attention.

I like review scores and think they can be pretty useful at a quick glance, but man.

The people complaining about this be crazy

That's beautiful.

!?

Also, it's 8/10. He's still saying the game is good, isn't he?

@jayjonesjunior said:

:internet: :internet: :internet:

@darji: Phil Kollar gave Dead Souls a 7.75 in Game Informer, which is not the same publication as Polygon. For Polygon their reviews don't get a score until after the review has been written. Apparently other staff members look at it and assign a score based on what they think the text conveys. That doesn't necessarily explain the Remember Me review, but I'm pretty sure that was someone different who did that. There's no real way for me to criticize either review, because I have played neither game.

Also you keep saying that people's jobs depend on metacritic scores in this industry, but you don't seem to be taking the metacritic score of this particular game into account when being upset with these reviews. It's a 95 right now. I think they'll be okay.

peoples jobs are depending on metacritic scores in this Industry.

@darji said:

That's the mistake of the people who put value in "metascores", and hang peoples jobs over it.

What is the credibility problem here? Is there a problem where we believe the reviewer doesn't really hold the opinion they state they have on a game?

Unless someone has solid theory or evidence a reviewer is being unduly influenced then I'm not interested in hearing or reading how someone believe a review is right or wrong. A reviewer can't be right or wrong about how they feel. Why do people labor under the view they can see the flaw everyone else missed?

I haven't read Tom McShea's review.

I haven't played The Last of Us. Nor do I intend to.

I don't even fucking own a PS3.

But I'm an angry mofo. And I'm angry about something. How dare Tom McShea give a game I'm not interested in, nor have any intention of playing, nor own the fucking console to run it less than what I believe it should have got. How dare he. This is an insult to me. My family. My character. My lineage. My beliefs. My existence. It is Tom McShea that has made this personal. And I intend to let him know about it.

It is still the same person. He is a freelancer so he writes for a lot of publications. That is why his own opinion should be even less irrelevant. And yeah now its totally ok. But what if this review was the reason for the developer not getting the bonus. Just because it was total meaning less this time means it is ok.

And I agree that its the publishers fault for ranking metacritic so high by the decision if this game is a success or not but that does not really matter. We can not change that..

That's why the five-star system is flawless.

Patrick literally scored it anywhere between 80%-100%, and there's no way to know where.

Because people have different viewpoints and can interpret the same event differently?

its a 100% for metacritic^^

@darji said:

That's OK, Giant Bomb rates very low on Metacritic's video game site rating system. Which is partially why Metacritic needs to shut down, or companies need to stop paying them any mind.

Yeah totally agree metacritic's rating is totally strange. And personally I do not like that the industry so much depends on this.

There was recently an interesting thread about "trusting" reviewers that applies here. Reviews are supposed to be subjective, but there's objective homogeneity between most reviewers that TLOU is "a 10/10". This plus a lack of standardization in both games and journalism (i.e. a puzzle game has different standards from an FPS) leads to a lot of problems in how game reviews are presented and how critiques are qualified. Moreover, internet culture is such that reviews' effective function is different from their intended function. The intent of providing purchasing advice is, in this case and others, overwhelmed by discourse about the review itself and not the game.

What most people don't know is, that after the death threats from Nintendo's militant faction, Jeff Gerstmann went into FBI protection for a few weeks.

Some say the real Jeff never emerged. Some say the real Jeff is dead. Some say he lives in Manitoba, Canada. Some say we'll just never know.

Fanboys are shit people, big surprise.

@kentonclay Man, I love Mega64

I do love how pissed off people get over nothing,

People are conflating "My View" with "Correctness". Tom McShea can score Last of Us however he wants and he is no more correct than another.

@jayjonesjunior: And this is where you're wrong. Reviews are entirely subjective. Objective reviews dont exist. No matter what bias is going to come into play at some point. You can be objective about reporting the technical aspects of the game. Frame Rate, Screen Tearing, Load Times etc... things like story and how engaging or fun the mechanics of the game are are entirely subjective.

I know a review is mostly opinion but there is still a weight of a opinion in some form right? Its fine to have a wildly different opinion but that opinion has to be backed up with something creditable or the opinion won't have much weight in a given matter.

This speak more to Polygon site as a whole because i find their reviews to be unreliable and lazy in many regards. Sure everyone can have an opinion but i like to think the point of video game sites having reviews is there is a body of credibility there. Its what stop anyone from putting out a review to any reason.

I'm not asking for the guy to be fired or the review to be changed or anything crazy like that. It just seems fishy and that opinion won't have much weight until we all play it and see for ourselves.

Reviewers and/or website need to clarify if their review(s) are intended as purchasing advice or criticism. Doing both is utter nonsense and serves no one.

@phantomzxro: Then I take it you feel the same way about the 10 and 9's? Because what is the difference?

If you look at all the other games he reviews. They are mostly handheld and Indie titles. So I wonder why he was the one chosen to review it in the first place. After reading the review it is pretty clear he wasn't super interested in the game in the first place.

8 out of 10? God he must hate the game so much, if he didnt give it 10 then it has to be the worst game in the world or he is trolling the whole internet right?

The only reason some of these people are on there is to try and somehow validate their own opinion, they bought the game and want to make sure everyone thinks exactly the same thing that they do because if they dont then they are idiots. Seriously, 8 is a pretty good score, 7 would also have been a good score, its his opinion so it can never be wrong, its not a fact, its what he thinks of the game and surely that holds value?

My God... it's nearing 7,000 comments already. It actually froze my browser at one point even.

Guys I thought Uncharted 2 was actually kinda boring in a lot of ways, should I go to a psychologist? Am I even.. a human being?

I lol'd so hard. I can't believe any of this is taken seriously.

Funny, that was one time that I found myself 100% agreeing with him. That game was a realllll bummer.

And reactions to review scores.

Eversince his MoH opinion piece, I don't care one iota for his opinions. The upside, before that opinion piece, I didn't know who he was. The good old days, if only I could go back.

I'm in the same camp.

I'm staying the heck away from this whole ridiculous topic, but I just wanted to say that I read this in Matt Berry's voice after seeing your avatar. ;)

"FA-THEEER!"

Sheesh. I love how much stock people put into an arbitrary number. Heck, I usually ignore the numbers, but just READ THE WORDS IN IT.

Doing that, I look for common themes: "bad combat", "janky", "short" etc, and let that form my opinion. I could care less if he rated it a kitty out of rainbow as long as the review's content makes sense, and pulls it apart to show the good and the bad.

And reactions to reactions to review scores

[spins top]

I stopped caring about other gamers being idiotic about scores a year or so ago and only came on here to post this fact. Reviews subjective etc, etc... blah blah, this will keep happening so why bother even thinking about it. The best thing the reviewer can do is not even look at the comments section and he/she won't even know this stupidity exists.

HOW DARE YOU DISAGREE WITH MY VIEWPOINT

Is there a support group out there for people who [whisper] don't like Naughty Dog games?

Uncharted was just the first Tomb Raider in pretty clothing (borrowed from Indiana Jones), Jak never reached its potential as a kid-friendly GTA, and Crash was not even up to Sonic's low standards.

I think I'm criticising critics criticising the criticism of critics now ... maybe I need to lie down.

The score he gave for what sounded like minor gripes just seems odd but this isn't the first time he did something like this. It's only one review anyways, whatever.

@jayjonesjunior said:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... oh, you're serious? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Tom Mcshea is the super anti military guy right? If so then I think its possible that the violence in the game put him off.

@fuzzypumpkin: Why do we still need to discuss this. People have been complaining about whatever they see on the Internet since 1992.

The only thing that's a bigger waste of time than complaining about reviews of games you've never played is caring what those complainers think.

People who get upset at reviews are idiots.

He was Gamespot's Zelda reviewer until he left. He reviewed Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess.

On Topic - I really hate when people who haven't played the game claim they know better than a person who has played the game. Maybe Tom is wrong. Maybe he isn't. Wait until you play the game and then judge.

Some choice quotes from the comments:

Tom don't you look at the other professional reviews and think "maybe I was harsh" or "I'm a shit reviewer" or was ya paid off by MS?

THIS is an OUTRAGE!

How the hell u give TLoU 8/10 ?? Does that mean RE6 is better? Hell NO! This game deserves 9.5 from GameSpot! The most reliable gaming website ever for me but now :(( this is even alot better than bioshock infinite which is great but overrated as hell and also super reptitive! U r strange Mc Shea, u dont like Sonic nor 3D fighting games the hell with that??

Btw Im playing TLoU right now and from the first 15 minutes I started getting excited which is super awesome presentation that tons and tons of the greatest games of this gen missed ( I spent 2-3 boring hours when I played Far Cry 3 and Bioshock Infinite until finally I started to have fun with 'em

Just change the score to 9.5 please.

i was one of the greatest gamespot fan until i read this review... WTF

most reviewers gave this game a 10 so tom stop reviewing games and get another hobby.

Tom don't you look at the other professional reviews and think "maybe I was harsh" or "I'm a shit reviewer" or was ya paid off by MS?

Wait a FLIPPIN minute here... How is it they gave Remember Me (a game as mediocre as Binary Domain, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and/or FUSE) a 7.0 rating and think so little of 'The Last of Us' that they've slapped a 8.0 score on it?!?!?! These are clearly amateurs here reviewing these games. GameInformer (the number one video game magazine in the country) gave it a 9.5 and IGN.com gave it a perfect 10.0!!! I only happened across this website because I accidentally spelled gamestop wrong but MY GOD; I can really say I'm NEVER coming back! And yes; I did register just to be able to post this.

most reviewers gave this game a 10 so tom stop reviewing games and get another hobby.

You know what the issue is? I read the review all the way through, and it's very well constructed and well written, but when I was originally scrolling through Metacritic and saw this low score, I said to myself, "Gee, I guess we have a Tom McShea review!" And I was unfortunately correct. You, sir, need to reconsider your review methodology itself (not the argumentative structure) if every score you give out (Metroid, Infamous 2, etc.) are at the bottom of the barrel every time, and that I can actually call out that you wrote the review if the score is out of the ordinary. Not saying you should throw 10's at the screen, but my god, the fact that I could call a Tom McShea review just by looking at the score distribution is frankly sad. Be more positive; maybe initially give the game a chance of being the hugely successful work that it is being universally praised as instead of nitpicking from the beginning and finding flaws to justify a low score. Just my two cents.

I don't have a problem w/ the score 8.0, I would however like to point out that Metal Gear Revengance grabbed an 8.5 aaand I find it hard to believe that this game is not better than that.

To be fair, that dude is a complete shit head. But his review is probably fine.