Author Topic: Argh! PGC review madness. (Read 4241 times)

GoldShadow1 · « **on:** September 04, 2003, 02:31:07 PM »

Has anyone else noticed that PGC reviews seem to be extremely optomistic? All of the following games have received a score of 10 out of 10:

F-Zero GX
Soul Calibur II
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Super Mario Sunshine
Metroid Prime
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Doesn't that seem a bit excessive? With the exception of F-Zero GX and and SCII, I have played everyone of these games, and not a single one of them is worth an absolute 10 in my opinion. That's not to see they are bad games (They're very good), just that they aren't worth a 10. On most sites, these games would score somewhere between 9 and 9.5 (with the exception of Metroid and Zelda).

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to be rather skeptical of PGC reviews from now on.

mouse_clicker · « **Reply #1 on:** September 04, 2003, 02:42:52 PM »

Stop referring to them as "PGC reviews"- they're not like IGN or other places where it's one guy who reviews just about every game- the reviews on PGC are done by many different people, and they have differing opinions. That's why PGC, unlike a lot of other sites, often have multiple reviews for the same game. Besides, I've never looked at PGC's 10 as representing a perfect game- it's always meant the top of the genre, which, in my opinion, all of those games are.

nolimit19 · « **Reply #2 on:** September 04, 2003, 02:47:18 PM »

think of it this way....10 is not an average....so even though super smash may not have teh best graphics, sound, camera control or whatever....it has unlimited repaly value and therefore deserves a 10...imo. i know mario sunshine got a 10 from one of the reviewers on pgc, but not all...as for the other 2, they have gotten really good scores across the board...if you go to game rankings.com you can see that all those games were rated pretty high and got their fair share of perfect scores...it all depends on the reviewer. some people think that no game deserves a perfect score, there are others that think that 10 games a year are perfect. and you cant forget that there are many different reviewers on this site. so i doubt any of them gave all these games perfect scores. i know what u mean though. it would be nice to get more negative reviews every now andthen. for instance i beleive smugglers run got a 7 something from this site, and i would put it more like a 5. either way, i think they do a pretty good job at this site. and all those games are really good. it would be one thing if they gave a 10 to star fox adventures....

Ian Sane · « **Reply #3 on:** September 04, 2003, 02:55:19 PM »

10 doesn't always mean perfect. It can simply mean the best of the best in which case games like Soul Calibur II and F-Zero GX, which are some of the best games ever for their genre, are more than worthy of a 10. They aren't perfect games but they are amazing and thus worthy of the highest praise.

Infernal Monkey · « **Reply #4 on:** September 04, 2003, 03:00:51 PM »

Maybe PGC should ditch the old review methods and go with thumbs up. "Soul Calibur II gets my lowest score ever, seven thumbs up"

I don't pay attention to the final little score anyway, I'd rather read the words and judge for myself. *Rushes out and buys Superman 64 and South Park*

KnowsNothing · « **Reply #5 on:** September 04, 2003, 03:14:18 PM »

I agree with Infernal (except for the Superman and South Park thing), I'd rather read the words. That's why they're there. If people didn't read the words, why not just give it a number score and save alot of time?

Bill Aurion · « **Reply #6 on:** September 04, 2003, 03:17:48 PM »

They all earn 10's in my book. But I guess that's because I really don't care about the difficulty of the game. If the game is incredibly fun, it gets a 10, no questions asked. ^_^

GoldShadow1 · « **Reply #7 on:** September 04, 2003, 03:35:59 PM »

"Stop referring to them as "PGC reviews"- they're not like IGN or other places where it's one guy who reviews just about every game- the reviews on PGC are done by many different people, and they have differing opinions."

This is true. However, these games do not have more than three-four reviews. So a ten out of ten is still very significant.

"10 doesn't always mean perfect. It can simply mean the best of the best in which case games like Soul Calibur II and F-Zero GX, which are some of the best games ever for their genre, are more than worthy of a 10. They aren't perfect games but they are amazing and thus worthy of the highest praise. "

I never said a ten was perfect. A ten simply represents the highest possible rating. I haven't played SCII or F-Zero GX, so I can't comment on them (though F-Zero GX and Soul Calibur II received 91% and 94% respectively on gamerankings.com). But I definitely know that Zelda: Wind Waker and SMS are not among the best in their genres. (but then again, I don't think I would rate the best in any genre as a 10/10.)

Which reminds me. I can't seem to find PGC's rating guidelines (if they have any). I suppose if they word it so that a 10/10 actually means simply better than average, I will accept these scores.

mouse_clicker · « **Reply #8 on:** September 04, 2003, 04:10:04 PM »

The only titles that can compare to Super Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker are entrees in their own series. This generation, I can find no platformer that even approaches Super Mario Sunshine's level of quality and Wind Waker just plain blows everything with the word "adventure" in it's title out of the water.

S-U-P-E-R · « **Reply #9 on:** September 04, 2003, 04:51:01 PM »

I'm sure you'll find individual authors' rating trends to be different. Personally, I don't think I'd give a ten to ANY GC or GBA games out right now... maybe Smash Bros, if any.

kennyb27 · « **Reply #10 on:** September 04, 2003, 05:06:53 PM »

Quote
The only titles that can compare to Super Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker are entrees in their own series. This generation, I can find no platformer that even approaches Super Mario Sunshine's level of quality and Wind Waker just plain blows everything with the word "adventure" in it's title out of the water.

I couldn't agree more with MC here. To say SMS and WW are not at the top of their respective genres, especially in this generation, is just ignorant.

Bloodworth · « **Reply #11 on:** September 04, 2003, 06:20:33 PM »

What people are saying about multiple reviewers is probably the most accurate reason that we have "so many" 10s. F-Zero is the first game I've ever given a 10 to, and the only reason it's conspicuous is that it came the day after Rick's SCII review. We try to limit 10s as much as possible, but looking over your list, I can see how all of those games would be given a 10. Those truly are the best of the best. As long as that holds true, I think we're fine.

Jonnyboy117 · « **Reply #12 on:** September 04, 2003, 07:15:38 PM »

Normally I would expect such a thread to have turned into a flamewar by now, so I thank you who have posted for keeping the discussion intelligent. There are good arguments on both sides, and you can be sure that this is something we on the staff discuss all the time. But no, we don't have a published review policy, as far as I know. I think our reviews are simple enough that we don't need one, save perhaps in extreme issues like a score of 10.

So here's an explanation of that situation, and it's exactly what many of you have predicted already. In our reviews, 10 is not a perfect score, and a game that scores a 10 is not a perfect game. 10 is simply the best possible score, and it means basically that the game is as incredible as you could reasonably ask for. Or, to look at it another way, the game is as close to perfect as you could get. There may be minor gripes here and there, but they are vastly outweighed by the incredible gameplay and overall experience.

We don't have a quota or maximum limit for 10 scores. When they happen, they happen. It's a rare enough event that we editors will examine what the review says and try to make sure that the writer is not just being overzealous. In addition, we almost always provide a second or third review of a game that gets a score of 10, so that there is a different viewpoint (which may or may not score the game lower). But we do not discourage a score of 10, and in fact, I think it's healthy that we have a few of them (but not too many). If we never used the 10 score, some lower score (9.5, for instance) would be the highest score practically given, and thus it would become the benchmark. So to avoid using the full spectrum of our scoring system would be to undermine the meanings of the scores themselves.

It's also worth noting that we don't take numerical scores extremely seriously. We consciously limited scores to multiples of 0.5, so that there wouldn't be pointless nitpicking over mere decimals. We purposefully moved the scores and their summaries to a second page, so that the review's actual text becomes the centerpiece of the article. We intentionally have never gone through the scoring spectrum number-by-number to explain what each score means. You can assume that 0 is utter garbage, 5 is average/mediocre, and 10 is insanely good. For everything in between, use your common sense and compare the score to the review body, which is where the real information is anyway.

In this particular case, two absolutely excellent games were released right next to each other. These two reviewers thought their respective games deserved a 10. We will have further reviews of both games that may disagree about the numbers, or may think certain features and/or problems deserve more consideration. Just look at the difference in opinion that we had in our various Super Mario Sunshine reviews. If you read each one of them thoroughly though, I think you can see that each reviewer justifies his or her scoring, even if you may not agree with it.

GoldShadow1 · « **Reply #13 on:** September 04, 2003, 09:34:05 PM »

I was going to argue the weakness of the aforementioned games, but that isn't the issue here. It's simply that PGC tends to rate higher than many other sites, at least on flagship titles, despite a meaning of 10 being "as close to perfect as you could get", which is even higher than than the definition of 10 of many other sites. Quite simply, if the GameCube had six games that met that definition, the console would be doing much better than it is. Yet I have not yet encountered ANY game that is "as close to perfect as you could get".

Anyway, as I don't want this to turn into an even bigger argument, I will accept that PGC's opinion on its games differs from mine. It is, after all, all about opinions, how much fun a particular person had with a game.

RickPowers · « **Reply #14 on:** September 05, 2003, 05:53:08 AM »

Hopefully to finish out this debate ...

I've given only THREE games scores of 10 (Metroid Prime, Soul Calibur II, and Wind Waker), and only because I felt that they were the absolute best the genre had to offer, has wide appeal to gamers outside its usual genre classification, and warrants a "no questions asked" purchase for fans of the genre. That's not to say that when you look back, a game couldn't be viewed as a 9.5 or 9 a year later as better games come out. It's only fair to review a game on it's merits and against what is possible NOW. And like Jonny said, it doesn't mean the game is "perfect", it is simply "the best", which is a moving benchmark every day. For what it's worth, there is only ONE game that has recieved multiple reviews and received what I would consider "perfect" 10 scores, and that was Wind Waker, reviewed by a whopping FOUR staff members. Not a single dissenting opinion there, and that is even MORE rare.

In this case, I firmly believed that Soul Calibur II deserved a 10, being the best fighting game available, appealing to me even though I don't normally like fighting games, and is an easy purchase. Dan felt similarly about F-Zero. As opinions go, I would probably not have given F-Zero a 10 score, and as a result, you'll probably see another review of F-Zero soon. Yes, it's rare that two vastly different games will get a 10 score so close to each other, but it's not like it's the same person reviewing them all. Our staff has varied opinions and tastes, and that's reflected in our reviews. Again, when only Wind Waker gets straight tens from multiple reviewers, that's how you can tell our system works.

But please to realize that 10 scores are not handed out lightly, despite the recent pair of reviews, and I think your list of all our "10" games is acutely indicative of that. Six games out of the HUNDREDS we've reviewed, and quite frankly, I'd still recommend every one of those games to any new purchaser of a GameCube regardless of their tastes. This is why our system works ... if there is a reviewer whose personal slant tends to the same direction as yours, you can pretty well rely on thier reviews. One single review doesn't have to suffice for multiple opinions and tastes. For example, if you tend to like the same games I do, only three games out of the six you listed get 10s. For other reviewers, even less.

S-U-P-E-R · « **Reply #15 on:** September 05, 2003, 12:06:05 PM »

If you like Soul Calibur II so much, I hope you put up at least a little fight when I thrash you up real good at the next E3. ; )

Plugabugz · « **Reply #16 on:** September 05, 2003, 12:12:09 PM »

I loved the review for The Scorpion King - very entertaining

thepoga · « **Reply #17 on:** September 14, 2003, 07:22:21 PM »

in regard to what goldenspoon or whatever his name is, about zelda WW, it is a great game. and not just thought of that by planetgamecube. Electronic Gaming monthly, gave it 10, 10, and 9.5. Nintendo Power gave it perfects. Lol, actually nintendo power doesnt count at all, cuz they arent a very good magazine for reviews and news. more of a strategy guide thingy. Gameinformer also gave it a perfect 10 and 9.75. and also, if i remember correctly, Famitsu, one of japan's hardest rating thingy, gave it a perfect 40 (4 people review it and give it 1-10) And its only like the fourth ( or something) in its whole history to recieve that. Just wanted to let you know how many other places gave it perfects.

Yuji Miyamoto · « **Reply #18 on:** September 27, 2003, 04:59:07 PM »

solu caliber 2 is not worth of a 10. if it came out two years ago, maybe
f-zero in not a perfect game either. extreme difficulty limits the games audience.
reason enough for it not being a 10. i question this reviews integrity

mouse_clicker · « **Reply #19 on:** September 27, 2003, 05:10:37 PM »

It's not difficult to the point of absurdity, though. Ikaruga and Super Monkey Ball, THEY'RE difficult to the point of absurdity on the harder levels. F-Zero is hard enough to force you to constantly better yourself while still entertaining the player. It's also a very refreshing change from all the extremely easy games that have come out recently. There's a difference between being accessible to the public and insulting the public's intelligence. I'd rather play an overly difficult game that alienates some people than a pathetically easy game that doesn't alienate anyone.

Bill Aurion · « **Reply #20 on:** September 27, 2003, 06:37:41 PM »

People complain about games being too easy, and they also complain about games being too hard...Something's wrong with this picture...

This is why I don't like reading reviews. A game can be great to one person, and crap to another. One man's trash is another man's treasure. ^_^

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Author Topic: Argh! PGC review madness. (Read 4241 times)