On The Topic of Rating Video Games
Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2018 2:11 am
Since there's no "game discussion" board I didn't know where to put this, I decided to write this here.
That said, what I've noticed thus far when it comes the ratings people have given games is that a lot of what's rated highly isn't mechanically intensive or demanding. Something like "The Last of Us" or "Batman: Arkham City" is given high praise, yet games like "Tekken 3" and "Devil May Cry 3" seem to be getting lower ratings by comparison.
I gotta ask, on what basis are people rating games here? I get the impression that people will rate games lowly on here if it's a game that requires good mechanical knowledge to get good at. It's why you see other competitive games like Dota 2 and SFIV get low ratings too.
In which case, does that mean that a game you're not skilled at deserves a lower rating than something that's easy to grasp but still enjoyable, such as KotOR? When I rate games on Criticker, I tend to think of the qualities the game has on a mechanical level rather than whether or not I enjoyed it. I'm not an expert on Starcraft and I was never really into the game, but I still gave it a high rating. I also gave SSFIV and Melee because there's a lot of things I didn't like about them mechanically, which doesn't seem to be how others are perceiving them.
I think this shows quite a distinct difference in how we perceive video games and film, especially on here. With film, we simply take an hour or two to digest something and can thus more easily form our thoughts on it. With video games, it takes dedication to really understand the nuances of a game and sometimes with cases like "League of Legends" the game evolves to such a degree that it's unrecognizable to what it used to be. This is why I often don't care for "professional critics" who review titles such as Virtua Fighter when they've never touched the ground of any competitive scene in their lives. They've spent, maybe, 20 hours playing the game and that's only on a casual level. At which point, why should I care what some scrub thinks about a fighter?
Now I can understand that how much someone likes a game is subjective, but being objective about any media is important if there's to be any merit in someone's opinion. Is it fair to give a low rating to a fighter because you're simply not good at it? Why should something as good as DMC3 get low reviews because people can't grasp its mechanical nuances?
That said, what I've noticed thus far when it comes the ratings people have given games is that a lot of what's rated highly isn't mechanically intensive or demanding. Something like "The Last of Us" or "Batman: Arkham City" is given high praise, yet games like "Tekken 3" and "Devil May Cry 3" seem to be getting lower ratings by comparison.
I gotta ask, on what basis are people rating games here? I get the impression that people will rate games lowly on here if it's a game that requires good mechanical knowledge to get good at. It's why you see other competitive games like Dota 2 and SFIV get low ratings too.
In which case, does that mean that a game you're not skilled at deserves a lower rating than something that's easy to grasp but still enjoyable, such as KotOR? When I rate games on Criticker, I tend to think of the qualities the game has on a mechanical level rather than whether or not I enjoyed it. I'm not an expert on Starcraft and I was never really into the game, but I still gave it a high rating. I also gave SSFIV and Melee because there's a lot of things I didn't like about them mechanically, which doesn't seem to be how others are perceiving them.
I think this shows quite a distinct difference in how we perceive video games and film, especially on here. With film, we simply take an hour or two to digest something and can thus more easily form our thoughts on it. With video games, it takes dedication to really understand the nuances of a game and sometimes with cases like "League of Legends" the game evolves to such a degree that it's unrecognizable to what it used to be. This is why I often don't care for "professional critics" who review titles such as Virtua Fighter when they've never touched the ground of any competitive scene in their lives. They've spent, maybe, 20 hours playing the game and that's only on a casual level. At which point, why should I care what some scrub thinks about a fighter?
Now I can understand that how much someone likes a game is subjective, but being objective about any media is important if there's to be any merit in someone's opinion. Is it fair to give a low rating to a fighter because you're simply not good at it? Why should something as good as DMC3 get low reviews because people can't grasp its mechanical nuances?