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UNCHARTED 4, METACRITIC, AND THE WASHINGTON POST: THE LUXURY OF BEING AN IDIOT - by Mr Biffo

17/5/2016

64 Comments

 
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Here's this week's big gaming drama: an idiot writing for the Washington Post gave Uncharted 4 a negative review.

Also: though the review was published score-less, when it popped up on Metacritic it somehow had been magically awarded a 4/10. Apparently, through a process of complex algorithms, the reviewer's words were able to be distilled into an accurate and definitive numerical grade.

Or someone at Metacritic basically sat down, read the review, and went... "Hmmm... that reads like a four to me."

Cue complete outrage from other idiots, as thousands of Uncharted 4 supporters marched metaphorically on the Washington Post and Metactitic, posting cat food and burnt hospital sharps through the letterbox, and demanding that they retract their contrary opinions.

The reviewer responsible - one Michael Thomsen - has been widely attacked online for his review, precisely because that's probably what he was trying to provoke. His review appeared full of what seemed like deliberately inflammatory statements such as: “A Thief’s End is less a conclusion to Nathan Drake’s story than an affirmation of the inconclusive wreck it has always been."

Consequently, a petition has been set up - as of writing, it has over 6,000 idiots' signatures - demanding that the Washington Post review be removed from Metacritic.

​Welcome, friends, to another beautiful day in the games industry.
BEAR MIND
Here are a few things to bear in mind before we go on: 

1) That Washington Post reviewer is, by all accounts, a professional troll. This isn't the first time Thomsen has trashed a major, much-loved, game release. Regardless, it's still a bloody terribly written piece, that meanders for a while, before driving suddenly into a hedge, while the author screams "Wahey! Look at me, everybody!"

2) But even if he wasn't  trying to be edgy and provocative, as I suspect he was - like a 10 year-old pretending to smoke a cigarette - all you're left with is that he didn't like the game. And if you did like the game, then... well... that means you and he have different, but equally valid, opinions.

3) Also, even if the petition hadn't been written by somebody from Athens, with a loose grasp of English - "Your Washington post for Christ's Sake , not a 12-year-old's diary. Treat the game with professionalism and respect" - nobody who can make a difference ever takes these petitions seriously. They seem to spring up for anything these days - "GET MY NEIGHBOUR TO STOP LOOKING AT ME FUNNY"... "BAN CLOUDS"... "HELP: HATS MUST BE STOPPED".

4) Review scores are stupid anyway, and always have been. They're there at the end of a review so lazy people don't have to read the entire thing. But you may as well just write "Good/Bad/Average". If you're marking out of ten, everybody knows that you're actually marking out of four: anything 7 and below is "bad". 8 and above is considered "good". Percentages? Don't get me started...

How are you ever meant to accurately quantify an opinion with a numerical value? You can't. Hence: Metacritic - the website that aggregates the opinions of some people who have an opinion about some things - is, ultimately, pretty meaningless. Even though the entire games industry looks upon it as the mark of whether their games are a success or not.

5) Sigh.
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STINKING THINKING
I've been thinking a lot over the last couple of days about all the drama that I've written about this year.

This latest one, like some of the others, is going to blow over in a heartbeat. By the end of this week nobody is even going to care.

Michael Thomsen will have moved onto his next hatchet job, and Georgios Petitionos will have already found something else to get outraged by. Every one of those 6,000+ people who signed the petition, or sent Thomsen an unpleasant tweet, has already forgotten they ever did it.

I could write more about how the petition won't make a difference, how complaining about someone not liking something you like is utterly futile... but I'm not going to insult your intelligence.

Digitiser2000 has an audience, I'm guessing, that is older than that of the average gaming site. A lot of you, I believe, are parents. You have jobs, responsibilities, bills to pay. You've not got the time to waste on frivolous petitions, and getting arsed-off about things you ultimately have no control over. You've got more important things going on, right? You matured. It happens to the best of us.

PETITION SOUNDS
I signed a petition last week to save CBBC from the Tories. Ultimately, it was a waste of time - the government white paper on the BBC was nowhere near as bad as we'd all originally feared. But I signed that petition because it mattered to me.

Partly, because most of my income is provided by CBBC, but also because I think it's important to have a strong BBC, and a strong BBC that makes shows for children, which are free from commercial influence. 

Now take a look at the logic behind the Uncharted 4/Washington Post petition. Petitionos The Greek gives his reasoning for demanding the review's removal from Metacritic as this: "It harms the Flawless reputation of the game for absolutely no reason. A review is not about what you think a game is , its about what a game is. Objective measures are applied."

​Well, no. A review is absolutely the opposite of what you just said. It's absolutely what a reviewer thinks a game is.

​You might be an idiot, Petitionos. You're definitely behaving in an idiotic way. But I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here, and say you're in your 20s. Maybe early 20s. Perhaps even younger. No kids. No mortgage. No real responsibilities. You've got the luxury of being able to behave like an idiot. It's a phase of life that the majority of us have to go through to get where we're meant to be.

However, as it is for me, I suspect that for you, sweet reader, life isn't like that anymore. Once upon a time, we probably would've allowed ourselves the luxury of getting annoyed about the smallest nonsenses. As we get older, so much of what wasted energy on just doesn't seem so important. You've got better things to waste it on. We look back and wince, but it was all part of the process.

​And I suppose that's what I'm realising - I'm still a gamer, but I'm not the gamer I was. For the better.

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RICOCHET SHOT
I mean, over the weekend I ricocheted between four games: Ratchet & Clank, Uncharted 4, Doom and Inks. I love all of them.

What an amazing time to be a gamer, I told myself.

​But in-between the gaming, I enjoyed the sunshine, went out for a pizza, and with the kids to see some dirty farm animals. We watched some good telly.

Then yesterday, we were at the funeral of my partner's grandad. A lovely, sweet man, who I sadly only got to meet a handful of times. He was an influential figure in the British animation industry - he'd worked on Yellow Submarine, and had a pretty amazing life.

And, as far as I know, he didn't waste it with getting annoyed and signing petitions, because a person didn't have the same opinion as him. And if he did, it was long forgotten, overshadowed by his achievements. A long life well lived.

PERSPECTIVE
And that's it really... it's perspective. That comes from age. I could tell the Uncharted 4 petitionees to "grow up", but that comes to us all when we're ready. When life's thrown everything it has at us, and we've survived... that's when you can look back at realise the lessons you've learned, what's important, and what isn't.

I dare say that Mr Petitionos thinks, right now, that his petition matters, but he's going to one day look back - I hope - and realise how irrelevant it was. I hope that at his eulogy it isn't mentioned as the defining moment of his entire life. That he grows up, and finds more substantial things to spend his energy and time on.

And that goes for all of those who routinely attack reviewers for their differing opinions. Not on here of course. Digitiser2000's comments are almost entirely interesting, civil and respectful - even when we differ. And that's why I've concluded that this is an issue of age and maturity. Digi - because most of you were there with me back in the nineties - has an older demographic. We've grown up enough to know that we can have different opinions, and that's okay.

It's the thing that other sites reporting on the Uncharted 4 petition are missing - perhaps because the people writing those reports are, themselves, closer in age to those signing that petition; the people behind it are probably, essentially, kids. 

Let them have their petitions, and their angry rants. We've got better stuff to do. Bless 'em.

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
VIDEO GAMES: OUR OWN PERSONAL HERO'S JOURNEY - BY MR BIFFO
THE BATTLEFIELD 1 TRAILER: DID IT OFFEND ME OR DIDN'T IT? - BY MR BIFFO
64 Comments
Kelvin Green link
17/5/2016 10:53:51 am

This ongoing battle between reviewers and fans is sad.

Did people get angry at you for your reviews back in the day, Biffster? The Amiga crowd aside, of course.

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Mr Biffo
17/5/2016 11:11:00 am

Oh yeah. All the time. It's nothing new!

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Ed Comment
17/5/2016 12:34:18 pm

I still remember the furious gnashing and wailing of teeth because Digi thought Power Stone was the best Dreamcast launch title instead of Soul Calibur like the rest of the media did because Soul Calibur was prettier. Over fifteen years and we still haven't moved on from this wankery. Sigh.

Wicked Eric
17/5/2016 11:05:58 am

I'm still furious about Biffo's lukewarm review of Virtual On on the Sega Saturn.

We Saturn owners had so little, we needed all the positive affirmation we could get.

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Bruce Flagpole
17/5/2016 11:12:16 am

Mr Biff, giving the internet what for! It's just a shame that there's no way to make the idiots the article is aimed at, read and comprehend it.
Also, I was thinking that maybe you shouldn't link to the articles/pages you're ranting about. Totally understand why you do, but I just think that the main thing with these is they're just wanting people to click and view the page, and so the best solution is actually to ignore it. It's almost too tempting to click the link when it's just there waiting...whereas I'm sure we could all manage to find said page if we really wanted to.

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Metacritic
17/5/2016 11:22:26 am

I'm giving this article a 6 out of 10.

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PeskyFletch, outraged
17/5/2016 03:39:31 pm

YOU WANKER!

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Metacritic
17/5/2016 03:49:31 pm

I'm giving your comment a 3 out of 10.

Spiney O'Sullivan
17/5/2016 06:41:48 pm

I'm giving it a 9. Now you owe him a 6.

Koozebane
17/5/2016 11:47:17 am

Mature? Me? Never? Bum, Poo, Willies.

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Superbeast 37
17/5/2016 12:19:40 pm

I have been boycotting metacritic for years as I consider that it, and the score culture behind it, are harmful to the industry.

Granted in 2012 I was bored and looked there for a highly scored PC game to play. I bought Alan Wake as a result and I thank the site for that. The damage it does far outweighs the benefits though.

Only other thing to say, as was also the case with the Polygon/Doom drama, had the reviewer been female this would have been falsely portrayed as a sign of widespread misogyny within gaming.

When the next drama with a woman/gay person/trans etc at the centre occurs, the Uncharted and Doom dramas will be conveniently forgotten.

I hope people remember that the drama is quite consistent and identity blind.


Naturally the abuse is tailored to each "victim" (or troll/baiter) to get the biggest reaction so you will see different types of abuse in each instance.

Still I've no doubt only a very small percentage are sending genuinely unacceptable messages during each instance.

As for Uncharted, Naughty Dog paid their protection money to the cluque. They virtue signaled, praised the right people and removed donut drake. I think the media troll in this instance won't therefore be receiving much support from his colleagues due to breaking rank and going off-message.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
17/5/2016 07:26:35 pm

Metacritic is a useful aggregator for finding reviews, but its impact has been absolute poison for the industry

Scores in general are increasingly archaic as games become more than just toys, but Metacritic makes them law (look at the New Vegas situation, for example). I know you and I have historically disagreed on reviewing games as art vs reviewing games as a consumer product, and while I think the latter is valid, Metacritic unsubtle mashes together "product" and "art" reviews, creating something even more meaningless and nuanceless than regular scores.

I give Metacritic 1/10.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
17/5/2016 07:31:27 pm

I meant "the former is valid". Oops.

Darren link
17/5/2016 01:11:10 pm

You see, thick people only like it when everyone agrees with their world view. If someone should challenge that world view or offer an alternative, then "shit gets real".

The Internet has given power to people who should be kept away from sharp implements and it's only going to get worse.

A negative review has never affected the sales of any product. Whether or not the product sinks or swims is all down the the actual quality of the product...

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bit.bat
17/5/2016 01:14:16 pm

Being someone from Athens I would like to state for the record that the abhorrent practice of adding a space before a comma is not representative of how Greek people write in English (or Greek for that matter). The bad grammar is totally representative though.

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alex walsh link
17/5/2016 01:53:34 pm

Bring back ACE magazine and it's scores out of 1,000. 927/1,000? I didn't realise there was THAT much wrong with it, I'm not buying that!!!

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Kendall9000
17/5/2016 09:28:50 pm

Agreed! What's wrong with a bit of scientific precision in video game reviews?

Percentages are bullshit. Scoring out of 1000 is literally 10 times more accurate.

What happens when two games come out and they both get 93%? You'd just have to sit there, staring at the scores, shaking with impotent rage at the impossible choice they'd forced upon you.

Out of a thousand you'd see that one got 927/1000 while the other got 931/1000 and you'd know which was worth playing.

Better make it out of 10,000, just in case.

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alex walsh link
19/5/2016 12:03:27 pm

First law of scoring systems is someone will always try to introduce half marks. Out of 5? Give it 3.5 because it's better than a 3 but not quite a 4. Out of 10? Give it a 9.5 because it's almost almost perfect but not imperfect enough to drop to a 9.

Best scoring method involves an i Ching calculator, which would have scored Uncharted 4 as a A Suffusion of Yellow, providing the score you wanted was more than 4/10 in the first place.

Nin
17/5/2016 02:24:34 pm

This seems like a contradictory position to me. Reviewers are allowed opinions, no matter how stupid, but the public aren't allowed to say "Hey, you're stupid"?
Does any of it matter? No, but a game reviewer criticizing game-buyers for having an opinion seems hypocritical.

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Mr Biffo
17/5/2016 03:32:56 pm

Well... it's one thing to say "I disagree with Reviewer X". It's another thing to be abusive/start a petition. And that's not really the point of the article anyway. It's basically me letting out a big sigh and going "Shall we let the kids have their fun?".

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Nin
17/5/2016 03:49:21 pm

I wouldn't equate starting a petition as being abusive. One is perfectly fine, the other isn't.
And honestly, yes, just let them get on with it. They're allowed to complain about the things they care about, regardless of whether it's important to anyone else.

Mr Biffo
17/5/2016 03:58:56 pm

No, but the usual aggressive twitter/comment section comments often spill over into being abusive. I mean, I don't care - abuse me all you like - but I know it does bother some reviewers, when everything they write gets them a face load of ire.

Nin
17/5/2016 04:19:25 pm

Yeah we've all seen it, most of us have been on the end of it if we've dared step out of line with "popular opinion", it isn't right but this is reality now. Everyone has a voice, even the morons & there's nothing to be done about it until the internet finds some accountability.
Speaking of accountability, reviewers are not bulletproof, nor should they be, especially when they're actively seeking to be shot at. You're always going to get complaints, it's when those complaints reach the thousands that maybe they should be considered somewhat legitimate.

Superbeast 37
17/5/2016 06:06:16 pm

@Nin, I agree with most of what you are saying there.

Everyone has a voice including the morons. Unfortunately it is hard to stop the morons having a voice because:

1, Who defines a "moron"? We see plenty of people out there who have rather unusual and extremely wide interpretations of terms (e.g. "abuse") due to wanting to cast a wide net in an attempt at catching those legitimately criticising them as well.

2, Once we have identified morons, it is very to stop them given that bans/blocks etc are so easily circumvented. I am reluctant to move to real ID systems due again to those who would abuse that knowledge to intimidate into silence those who dare disagree with them.

Most effective would be the ability to block all accounts that are less than 3 months old etc to stop those that are blocked from simply creating another anonymous account. Unfortunately that also makes it easier for legit criticism to be silenced (see point 1).

The thing that is constantly forgotten is that the morons are typically less than 1% of all those voicing an opinion. I always refer people to the famous WAM GG study that showed that only 0.6% were actually being abusive.

The problem these days is that those people who make public statements and don't like to receive criticism have become very adapt at using the 1% as an excuse to discredit and even attempt to silence ALL critical opinion including those who are merely trying to defend themselves having been a victim of the "victims" slurs.

Half the time the "victims" are pretty good at exaggerating the nature of the abuse that the morons sent them. E.g. "go kill yourself" is no different to "take a long walk off a short pier". It is NOT a "death threat" but the person on the receiving end will sure claim that it is and milk it for all it is worth as a weapon against the other 99%.

They will also exploit any minority identity status they have to claim that the abuse they are receiving is directly motivated by a hatred of their identity rather the perpetrator just using the identity as an attack vector that they know will sting. I got called four eyes at school but I don't think those who called me it really cared less about glasses. When they realised it didn't bother me they tried laughing at my hair, height, trainers etc.

I'd like to let "the kids have their fun" but I remember getting kept behind for a class detention at school because a few kids disrupted the class. Too many people out there in favour of collective punishment especially when inconvenient truths are being told.

Need to stay vigilant.

Panda
17/5/2016 07:29:49 pm

Your comparison between reviewers expressing their opinion and those complaining about reviewers would only work in this instance if the reviewer was taking real action to have the game removed from market.

It's this ridiculous fanboy trend I've noticed in the past year that involves stating how much the reputation of a game is being tarnished by those seemingly overly negative reviews propping up metacritic. Uncharted 4 is breaking records in terms of sales for the franchise. It's one of the highest meta scores of the generation. I suspect the real issue is that some game by Nintendo or some other rival has a better score and some puny review or two is preventing the Sony exclusive from the top spot. Naughty Dog are classy enough that they must be mortified on that guy's behalf.

Clockwork Fool
17/5/2016 09:57:09 pm

Sorry Biffo, but I can't help but feel your position is a little bit inconsistent here.

You just wrote an article mocking someone you don't know and will never meet for starting a petition about a deliberately provocative review and the site it's from being featured on a review aggregator website.

If what the petition guy did is worthy of mockery because it's not going to change anything and it's really not something worth getting worked up about because we all have bigger problems and better stuff to do...

Seano
17/5/2016 10:58:57 pm

ME BIFFO YOU'VE GOT A BIG, STUPID FACE AND YOU SMELL OF VARNISH.

Nin
17/5/2016 11:52:52 pm

You fool, Seano, he smells of old leather. I'm giving your review 3/10

Nin
17/5/2016 08:25:29 pm

The comparison stands when petitions are just another form of criticism.
Reviewers don't get immunity from criticism. They're often unfairly criticized but, on the whole, they only get hammered when they deserve it. This guy Thomsen absolutely deserved it, he practically encourages it.
I have to admit I've found this "How dare you criticize us" attitude from journalists over the past few days really tiresome. This isn't the 90's anymore, if you put something into the public domain then it's going to get questioned. The days of The Untouchable Critic are well and truly over.

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Superbeast 37
17/5/2016 09:11:48 pm

Seems that a lot of critics and private individuals write things (often deliberately controversial and provocative) in the public domain but mistakenly seem to think it is the same as writing it on their personal Facebook wall with the privacy settings ramped up to the max.

They seem to expect that people will read it and just accept it as the absolute truth because naturally their opinion is more important and more "right" that anyone else's so how dare anyone question it.

I've seen many variations on this cartoon with various types of individual with the spade but it applies to pretty much everyone complaining about the poo flying back over!

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/960/143/d7a.jpg

Panda
17/5/2016 09:22:43 pm

Petitions aren't just another form of criticism, though. They have a goal, and the goal in this instance is to eliminate - or, at the very least, substantially disempower - an opposing view.

People have been complaining about and sniping at reviewers and reviews ever since the public had a platform. A few days of some critics getting on their high horse might be tiresome but not as tiresome as three decades of some people taking negative (or simply less than glowing) reviews of games they desperately need to see heavily endorsed as a personal insult. The only thing I disagree with in Biffo's article is the assumption (or hope) that those folk are all just young and don't have any responsibilities or perspective. A lot of the comments I see online are from people older than me and with kids and they really should know better. If a negative review is enough to move them to make some of the comments I see, they must lack perspective to a disturbing degree and it makes me wonder how much energy they give to more important things in their lives.

Col. Asdasd
18/5/2016 11:29:53 am

Panda: I dunno - by that argument, criticism isn't just another form of criticism either. As a writer on a popular website, you're wielding power. You talk about petitioners trying to disempower viewpoints, but by giving a game a bad review the critic is also consciously, if not intentionally, disempowering a view - that of the games' creators. A negative review will have consequences. Most directly it will persuade some of the people reading it not to buy the game. The score will be fed into the metacritic aggregate, which again might cause lost sales, but may also result in withheld contractual payments from the publisher. It may harm the developer's reputation and make it harder for them to land publishing deals in the future.

All of these consequences are financial, and can have a huge impact on the creators' ability to continue to create. Most developers operate on the very thinnest financial ice.

Reviewers' opinions are a powerful weapon, even if that power is on the wane with the rise of generation youtube. It's not really surprising that fans attempt to weaponise dissenting opinions in turn, or that they do so collectively to make up the difference in weight. The tactics they employ can be range from benign to outright illegal. I'd put petitions at the legitimate end of that spectrum. In any case, as Mr. Biffo points out, they're more or less a complete waste of everyone's time.

I'm not saying that's critics wielding such power is automatically a bad thing, mind you, or that it'd be desirable or even possible for them to be stripped of it. Just pointing out that criticism of any stripe never happens in a vacuum.

Panda
18/5/2016 01:11:41 pm

I don't have your experience but it seems to me that this perceived empowerment of professional critics is the by-product of parties failing or refusing to accept accountability for their actions or inactions. Why should a reviewer be held responsible for a developer shutting down if that reviewer thinks one of their products or services is poor? Surely the publisher or studio in question needs to take responsibility for how their business is run and make sure there's enough resource to counter any such failures. I'd hate to see a studio shut down just because one reviewer gives a bad review (I'm assuming nobody cares if a game is universally panned?) but I'd hate even more to see reviewers be dishonest with their appraisals just because they're incorrectly held accountable for the success of the products they're employed to appraise.

All of this assumes that 1. Positive reviews consistently lead to good sales and negative ones lead to poor sales and 2. This review in question is from a place of dishonesty and a lack of integrity just so the writer can stand out. I haven't seen a great deal of evidence for either, particularly considering lukewarm games that become record breaking blockbusters on the back of a hype machine that any number of reviews couldn't possibly derail.

So what I'd ask is: if reviewers are consistently to be held accountable and challenged for the potential failure of a game that deserves better (as far as can be argued), are they also to be given proportional credit and reward for games that sell as well as they deserve, even when those games aren't hyped to the rafters? Or are they the opposite of fair weather friends, as I suspect they are?

Nin
18/5/2016 11:12:43 pm

I'd say you've taken accountability too far.
It's not the reviewers responsibility what happens to the game. The reviewers responsibility is to the audience. They have a duty of care to give an honest appraisal, because people are relying on them. If you can't do that, you've failed to do your job on the most basic level.

Panda
19/5/2016 10:26:54 am

Well that level of accountability was introduced by those who have a problem with the review. "Developers rely on positive reviews" and "this affects the metascore, which a publisher might use as a barometer for bonuses" etc. Either reviewers have to deal with that level or accountability when they shouldn't or they don't have to deal with it at all but in both cases the reviewer still has the right to say what he thinks.

And, if we accept that the reviewer has a duty to his readers to be honest and to write with integrity, then we have to accept that he has a duty to say what he thinks, not just a right. People can easily draw conclusions that the review in question is just some cynical move for someone to make a name for himself, or they can accept that he genuinely believes what he's written. Even if you don't have enough evidence to conclude the former, then by all means people have the right to say "your review is absolute tripe" but campaigning to have it stricken from the record is absolutely not the same as that.

Nin
19/5/2016 12:47:12 pm

That level of accountability was introduced to the argument by fanboy idiots with an agenda.
The reviewer has a right to give their opinion, and the readers have the right to say "This is bullshit". As a general rule, the internet only kicks off en masse for serious breaches of credibility, which this is.

Mentusssssssssssohsodit. link
17/5/2016 02:57:44 pm

HATS WILL NEVER BE STOPPED.

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James of the North
17/5/2016 03:00:23 pm

73%

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Don Juan
17/5/2016 03:16:48 pm

I've had a busy week myself, so know what you mean. Spent a lot of time making love to the GF, broke up over something trivial, now getting back together again.

Job interviews. Work. Bank errands. Plus a bad case of hives on my arms, revealing I have a food allergy.

I'm sorry to say it Mr B, but this article is the first thing I've read in a month, due to lack of time. I didn't even know there were reviews of UC4 until I saw this. I've also played 1 game in the last 6 weeks (Castlevania on PSP).

Sorry about missing all your stuff recently. Still love you. ;_;

(I really just made this post to tell the world I had sex last week. I think if more people were having sex, there would be fewer people starting and signing petitions.)

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Mr Biffo
17/5/2016 03:57:47 pm

I'll let you off. Just this once.

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Don Juan
17/5/2016 09:59:22 pm

It's kindness like that which makes me want to hold you. Or have you hold me. Maybe we could get some friends round and everyone could engage in a group holding sesh?

Karavanpark
17/5/2016 04:10:49 pm

Having different opinions is one thing, someone blatantly just taking the piss is another; and a group of people getting together and saying "Hey, can we eliminate this person from the jury, please?" is pretty reasonable. Maybe signing petitions about videogames isn't a massively useful way of spending your life, but neither's playing the things.

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Karavanpark
17/5/2016 04:19:48 pm

Much like films and comics etc. fans of those mediums treat passionately debating, discussing - and obsessing - them as much of their pastime as enjoying the piece of entertainment itself.

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Clive Peppard
17/5/2016 04:32:19 pm

Biffo hasn't unleashed the Kraken in some time.

Sign below to DEMAND he unleashes it imminently.

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Col. Asdasd
17/5/2016 04:51:04 pm

If none of this really matters, can we talk about something more important?

For instance, I'm at my wit's end about what I can cook with the leftovers from the Sunday roast. There's always about an extra meals' worth of meat and I'm loathe just to chuck it, but I find whenever I try to use it in something the results are less than appealing.

Crap curries, crap stir fries... does any know of any dishes that leftovers are good in?

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Nin
17/5/2016 04:58:24 pm

Sandwiches & soup, pretty much useless for anything else.

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Stay
17/5/2016 06:07:31 pm

I agree a nice piece of left over pork or beef in your sandwich helps get over the Monday/Tuesday workday blues.

Failing that fry some chips (as I am doing at this very moment) and serve with the left over meat.

Uncharted sucks tho
17/5/2016 05:25:56 pm

It's Uncharted 2 (or 3?) all over again.

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Rob Ace
17/5/2016 05:50:45 pm

The Washington Post provided them with that score, Metacritic didn't assign it themselves.

https://twitter.com/metacritic/status/730915112362610688

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Dangerous Dave
17/5/2016 08:10:03 pm

It's a shame the world still cannot grasp the concept of an opinion. I've not played Uncharted 4, but I can appreciate somebody scoring it quite low. Having played the first three, I think they're barely above average games. Great stories and great presentation, but the mechanics and level design are at best average. The first game has some of the worst combat i've seen in the genre and the third is definitely one of the cheapest. Gameplay clearly comes second to the presentation.

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James of the North
17/5/2016 08:22:44 pm

So it looks like what's actually happened is a mix-up between two reviews on the same site.

Washington Post had a real review, and a satirical review. The former gives the game a score of 4/4, the latter no score at all.

Metacritic has taken the score of the real review, mistaken it for a 4/10, and attributed it to the satirical review, thinking it's the real review.

People are pointing this out to Metacritic on Twitter, but have yet to receive a response.

Reply
Metacritic
18/5/2016 12:48:15 am

METACRITIC MAKE NO MISTAKE!

METACRITIC CRUSH PUNY PEOPLE!

TREMBLE BEFORE THE MIGHT OF METACRITIC!

Reply
Damon link
17/5/2016 08:59:56 pm

I was on the internet in the early 2000's before the rise of facebook when small communities of mostly adults who were into science and tech survived. The .com bubble was just about to burst. It was all adults acting like adults. Occasionally you'd get someone trying to get a rise or an adult who acted like a child but trolls were fewer and far between and trying to be a professional one would make people roll their eyes rather than take you seriously.

I was 12 or so talking to 30-year-olds online, just as I was warned not to... and what I learned was how to fold a fitted sheet (well... in theory) and that watts = amps * volts and the safe way to clean out debris from a fuse box. Oh and a sweet old British woman messaged me through figuring out plumbing in my old house. Never once did I feel attacked, threatened or in danger by any of those people older than me.

Now at 24 I feel in danger of stepping out of line for 14 year olds who will have no problem calling my place of employment and trying to get me fired if I post a dissenting opinion online.

Their stupidity is becoming harmful and I think we can't write that off as kids being kids. A silly pointless petition is harmless but the idea that ruining someone's life and potentially the life of their family is objectively justice and "literally activism" is a very harmful thing.

I don't know if I'm even going anywhere with this.

Reply
Superbeast 37
17/5/2016 09:40:39 pm

I'm 40 and first went online at Uni during the early/mid 90's.

It was an amazing time. Back then you went on there to talk to people from other countries and cultures. Just talking in real time to someone from America was an incredible novelty in those days. To then talk to someone in Brazil, Australia or South Africa too was outright bizarre. Sharing photos of your neighbourhoods from early digital cameras (or scans in the earliest days) was also mind blowing.

The people you were talking to were also there for the same reasons so my memories of that time are all positive.

Then in the late 90's a different group of people started coming online (this was still long before you joined of course) and they turned the entire web into a glorified dating site/pr0n magazine.

After that came the mainstream retailers in the early 00's as most of the new startups died when the bubble burst or were bought out by the former.

Finally in the mid 00's we started seeing the cancerous rise of social media/political activism that both kind of started at the same time.

For that generation having a discussion isn't about having a serious debate and discussing ideas/facts/evidence.

Instead they pick a position from which they will never budge no matter how much contradictory evidence is thrown at them. Once you have chosen your position you are there for life.

For them the topic that is up for debate is just a side show, the real contest is a kind of meta game where you play tricks - use of fallacies, playing victim, phoning employers, doxing etc to see who wins.

Whether you win from a position that is ultimately false is neither here nor there. The truth doesn't matter, winning the game matters.

So yeah you pick "the earth is flat" side and by use of fallacious arguments, pretending that someone's benign comment was ist/phobic and by making a false allegation to their employer you win the debate and the other person gives up. That is considered success; it doesn't matter that you are full of **** and the earth is not flat and never has been! You "won" and the flat earth BS becomes the new truth!

It actually makes me nostalgic for the pr0n/dating freak invasion!!!!

Reply
Damon link
17/5/2016 10:57:15 pm

hah. Even teh pr0nz and eDate: Because it's easier to lie in writing had a use. They existed as tools and served a function.

I just want a place where people will be reasonable. My head isn't so far up my ass that I think I'm always right but I need a better argument than "because reasons" and statistics that don't really make sense.

Did you know all polar bears are left handed? 10% of car thieves are left handed. Therefore if your car is stolen there's a 10% chance it was stolen by a polar bear. Instead of thinking critically about this it is immediately manufactured into an emotional ideological standpoint -- "Teach polar bears not to steal cars! I should not have to live in fear!" or "Stop discriminating against polar bears that is a harmful stereotype and those statistics are way out of date if they were ever gathered accurately it are a fact and I am know because of my learnings... but it's not my job to educate you!"

Nin
18/5/2016 12:00:07 am

The internet has become like The Walking Dead. If you manage to find somewhere decent, word will eventually spread & the mindless hordes will turn up to tear it to shit.

Euphemia
18/5/2016 01:11:11 am

One word will bring a shit-ton of bad news to your door faster than anything else. Gamergate.

Superbeast 37
18/5/2016 07:41:08 am

@Euph - perfect example of how times have changed.

Compare Gamer-Gate to Driv3r-Gate and the different tactics employed by those trying to defend against their impropriety and those unhappy about what had happened.

A world before social media, identity politics/activists, doxing etc.

For the young uns who don't remember it:

http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/drivergate/drivergate.htm

Amazing the difference 10 years made.

Tom Wonton
20/5/2016 01:26:18 pm

It has a 93 score even with that 1 poor review out of 96 reviews.

Reply
Tom Wonton
20/5/2016 01:28:28 pm

Just 1 bad review out of about 100 good reviews.

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