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[Agent_4Seven]

4.0 from IGN

What on earth is this shit?! How can you give this game 4? A fucking 4, Carl!

It's like... "Fuck this game, I can't kill this boss / get through this level and beat the game (for example), so fuck you game - 4/10! So terrible and game-breaking! Do not buy!".

 

[Rexatality]

Were this a Bethesda game people would be applauding him for taking a stand and doing what a reviewer is supposed to do. Game breaking bugs are a perfectly reasonable thing to score a game poorly for. Reviews are a subjective expression of one person's experience with a game, and if bugs ruined it for him then of course he scored it poorly.

Then it's only fair that IGN gives a low score to any game with game-breaking bugs (Like Fallout 4, for example)

 

[Bobo Dakes]

Then it's only fair that IGN gives a low score to any game with game-breaking bugs (Like Fallout 4, for example)

The score is based on his experience. I'm not gonna score a game poorly because someone else had a bug when I didn't.

 

[GDJustin]

Dan had a very bad experience with a very nasty Prey bug, and wouldn't recommend the game to others as a result. If other people don't hit game-breaking bugs and love the game, that's fine.

There have been far, far more times where I see IGN get criticized for NOT going hard on the score of a game that's considered buggy, and no one cares when IGN's response is "The reviewer didn't encounter any of those bugs." It's a no-win situation.

As for the timing of the review - I wasn't involved in that conversation. But I imagine it revolved around how long it was appropriate to wait. There's a responsibility to our audience. Where do you draw the line? A week, two? At some point a reviewer has to be free to let people know he had a bad experience with the product he is reviewing. I also imagine it revolved around how widepread the issue is. If it was some freak accident that Dan and only Dan encountered, that'd be one thing. But when you see Reddit posts and forum topics... that's a different matter.

It's pretty clear what's going on there but I'm not going to explicitly say it. There is a correlation. One of those games came in a gift wrapped box, two didn't.

huh, this just seems like revenge now

Dishonored 2 got a 9.3. Try again.

 

[Primethius]

What on earth is this shit?! How can you give this game 4? A fucking 4, Carl!

It's like... "Fuck this game, I can't kill this boss / get through this level and beat the game (for example), so fuck you game - 4/10! So terrible and game-breaking! Do not buy!".

You could at least pretend like you bothered to read his issue with the game.

 

[Morts]

I'm loving the game so far, but honestly 4/10 seems too high if the reviewer couldn't finish it. Tech issues of that degree are unacceptable.

 

[Soulblighter31]

Gamespot 6/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWfIkK4cxfk

 

[Xe4]

Does anyone know how common a problem the game breaking bug is? If it's common, it absolutely deserves that score, but if it's pretty rare, I don't think it's fair for a site of IGN's caliber to grade it like that. You have thousands of readers be put off by a bad experience one reviewer had.

 

[Rexatality]

Does anyone know how common a problem the game breaking bug is? If it's common, it absolutely deserves that score, but if it's pretty rare, I don't think it's fair for a site of IGN's caliber to grade it like that. You have thousands of readers be put off by a bad experience one reviewer had.

The bug is not common from what I've heard.

 

[Xe4]

The bug is not common from what I've heard.

Pretty lame on Dan's part then, I think. No doubt it should be taken into account, but cutting the score in half (assuming he'd give it an 8, say) because of shit luck sucks. If it was a lesser site, I don't think anyone would care, but IGN is viewed by tons of people, so one would hope their review policy would be more objective.

Of course, this really comes down to Arkane being screwed by Zenimax's fucked up review policy in the first place, so I don't think it's entirely fair to put all of the blame on Stapleton.

 

[GameAddict411]

The bug is not common from what I've heard.

Is it fixed by now?

 

[dark10x]

IGN gave Fallout 4, one of the most broken and least polished games I've seen in the last decade, a 9.5 but Prey a 4? Review outrage is usually stupid but this actually angers me and feels irresponsible.

Same goes for Telltale games which have exhibited game breaking bugs going back to The Walking Dead.

Sorry Dan, but this is wildly inconsistent with the rest of the site. This is an obscenely rare bug that should be noted but shouldn't drop the score that hard unless the site is consistently willing to do that.

 

[therealminime]

IGN gave Fallout 4, one of the most broken and least polished games I've seen in the last decade, a 9.5 but Prey a 4? Review outrage is usually stupid but this actually angers me and feels irresponsible.

Agreed, especially considering the fix for save corruption is live on the beta branch on Steam.

 

[Rexatality]

Is it fixed by now?

Yes, they just released the patch on Steam beta which should be fixed.

Either way, it's unlikely Dan will update his score. He's doubling down from what I've seen on his Twitter feed.

 

[Sinatar]

This comes off as IGN and Gamespot trying to teach Bethesda a lesson about the whole no review copies thing.

Save that shit for editorials, no reason to bury a very very strong GOTY candidate (in a year full of great games) for the sake of their soapbox.

 

[Xe4]

I think this reinforces my opinion that review scores are fucking trash, and shouldn't be used. Because the entire review aside from the first and last paragraph reads like something in the range of an 8-9/10. Yet the game gets a 4, which goes into the Metacritic score (weighted towards IGN's score), and half of the people reading the review will go to the very end and see the 4/10, to be put off.

 

[Surface of Me]

Gamespot 6/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWfIkK4cxfk

That dislike ratio and mostly positive scores on Xbox Live make me happy. I have to say I really disagree with the Gamespot reviewer. Especially the character part, it sounds to me like he didnt explore and didnt get much exposure to the characters he complains about and then whines that he didnt get the good ending because of it. I also seemed to get better at combat way earlier in the game than he did, which does make it sound like he rushed through to get a score out instead of exploring, which is a lot of what this game is about.

 

[pa22word]

I continue to have zero faith in the gaming press. Infinite sits in the high 90s while this game slips into the 60s.


Surface level apearance of systemic depth and false allusions of narrative depth are all they really want at the end of the day.

 

[Soulblighter31]

I think this reinforces my opinion that review scores are fucking trash, and shouldn't be used. Because the entire review aside from the first and last paragraph reads like something in the range of an 8-9/10. Yet the game gets a 4,

review scores arent and never were trash. If the article reads as a 9 and the grade is a 4 it means theres something wrong there. We might have a very poor writing journalist that cant trasmit what he means through words. Its not the grades fault. Problem is the gaming press is garbage beyond words for more than a decade and it seems every forum on the planet knows this and makes fun of gaming articles from mainstream press. Its only neogaf where metacritic and reviews are such estemeed

 

[Demption]

Why OP isn't listing the IGN score?

 

[Xe4]

review scores arent and never were trash. If the article reads as a 9 and the grade is a 4 it means theres something wrong there. We might have a very poor writing journalist that cant trasmit what he means through words. Its not the grades fault. Problem is the gaming press is garbage beyond words for more than a decade and it seems every forum on the planet knows this and makes fun of gaming articles from mainstream press. Its only neogaf where metacritic and reviews are such estemeed

I mean, opinions and all, but I disagree. I think a score at the end only serves to create controversy, and give people an opinion in half a second. Not only that, the feeding into Metacritic has real world consequences, such as bonuses being tied to an arbitrary Metacritic score, rather than sales or a publisher's opinion on the quality.

Though I agree many users on GAF cares too much about numbers, I think the problem goes beyond that.

Why OP isn't listing the IGN score?

Neither the OP nor Metacritic has been updated recently enough to show the IGN and Gamespot scores. I think you can PM a mod to update the OP.

 

[comshoplesce]

IGN : what have you been smoking? No money from Bethesda?

So COD is automatically 8 or more?

 

[kcp12304]

IGN gave Fallout 4, one of the most broken and least polished games I've seen in the last decade, a 9.5 but Prey a 4? Review outrage is usually stupid but this actually angers me and feels irresponsible.

Same goes for Telltale games which have exhibited game breaking bugs going back to The Walking Dead.

Sorry Dan, but this is wildly inconsistent with the rest of the site. This is an obscenely rare bug that should be noted but shouldn't drop the score that hard unless the site is consistently willing to do that.

You should review your experience. A reviewer can play Fallout 4 or a TT game and not deal with any major bugs and they can play Prey or any other game and have a horrible experience. All they should do is tell us thier experience. I played Fallout: New Vegas at launch and didn't have a buggy experience. Would my opinion be wrong for giving it a good score because everyone on the internet complained about bugs and how Obsidian & Bethesda released another broken game?

It's not their job to run a game on a bunch of different machines and settings. Reviewers can't always know if a bug effects 0.5% of users or 25% of users.

 

[More_Badass]

I mean, opinions and all, but I disagree. I think a score at the end only serves to create controversy, and give people an opinion in half a second. Not only that, the feeding into Metacritic has real world consequences, such as bonuses being tied to an arbitrary Metacritic score, rather than sales or a publisher's opinion on the quality.

Though I agree many users on GAF cares too much about numbers, I think the problem goes beyond that.

A score is merely a representation of individual enjoyment. It's not even an inherently numerical value. As much as I prefer reviews without scores, to say that scores are merely agents of controversy seems short-sighted. A number score is no different than having "Good", "Great", "Masterpiece" at the end of the review; they're both saying the same thing

 

[roytheone]

Yes, they just released the patch on Steam beta which should be fixed.

Either way, it's unlikely Dan will update his score. He's doubling down from what I've seen on his Twitter feed.

He should at least update the review text. Letting advice to not play the game purely based on a bug that is now patched stand seems irresponsible.

 

[Kenzodielocke]

A score is merely a representation of individual enjoyment. It's not even an inherently numerical value. As much as I prefer reviews without scores, to say that scores are merely agents of controversy seems short-sighted. A number score is no different than having "Good", "Great", "Masterpiece" at the end of the review; they're both saying the same thing

You say that every time this topic comes up, and I would agree with you to some degree. However, I don't think that goes for every reviewer.

 

[BlizzKrut]

Ridiculous score, even more after he said that he was enjoying the game 30 hours in.

 

[Sun Bather]

That score is fine with me, and a good stance with this stuff in games if you ask me. If you are going to send out review copies and release a game, with some horrible bugs, expect it to be reviewed as such. A reviewer can't do much with the promise of those getting fixed.

Updating it, or at least the text would be appropriate though.

 

[More_Badass]

You say that every time this topic comes up, and I would agree with you to some degree. However, I don't think that goes for every reviewer.

It has too. There's no universal scientific scale of what a 7/10 is, or what 3/5 versus 4/5 graphics are if a review breaks down those aspects. What one person considers worthy of one score will be different from another, even for writers on the same site, and between sites since each has their own rubric of what their scores mean. Thus it comes down to the individual person and their own judgement, experience, and perspective.

 

[El_Chino]

And this is why I don't bother with reviews anymore.

 

[Xe4]

A score is merely a representation of individual enjoyment. It's not even an inherently numerical value. As much as I prefer reviews without scores, to say that scores are merely agents of controversy seems short-sighted. A number score is no different than having "Good", "Great", "Masterpiece" at the end of the review; they're both saying the same thing

I don't think they're merely agents of controversy, but I do think they cause a lot more trouble than they are of use. It's nice and all that everyone has a different opinion over what a 4 vs a 5 vs a 6 means to them, but giving a highly reviewed game a 4 is going to create controversy whether you mean to or not.

It's a something you'll see again and again come up, some highly reviews game getting a worse score than average, and then people loosing their god damn minds over it. Most don't even bother to read the review, and see what the actual criticisms are, and it really hurts discussion.

In a perfect world, people would always read a review before commenting, and a review score would be a way of simply summing up their thoughts on the individual components of a game, similar to how a grade is just a summation of different problems and assignments. The problem is most people seem to argue over the score itself rather than the reasons over the score. I'm guilty of this myself, getting caught up in threads where a game earns a lot of 10's or whatever.

I simply think the discussions of games would be a lot better if there wasn't a number attached to a person's thoughts. That way, the discussion would have to be on the criticisms and praises of a game instead of the score attached to those.

 

[J 0 E]

Gamespot + IGN's trash reviews urged me to purchase the game even more

 

[Lancelot]

Why OP isn't listing the IGN score?

Because it is not deserve to be there.

 

[kcp12304]

I don't think they're merely agents of controversy, but I do think they cause a lot more trouble than they are of use. It's nice and all that everyone has a different opinion over what a 4 vs a 5 vs a 6 means to them, but giving a highly reviewed game a 4 is going to create controversy whether you mean to or not.

It's a something you'll see again and again come up, some highly reviews game getting a worse score than average, and then people loosing their god damn minds over it. Most don't even bother to read the review, and see what the actual criticisms are, and it really hurts discussion.

In a perfect world, people would always read a review before commenting, and a review score would be a way of simply summing up their thoughts on the individual components of a game, similar to how a grade is just a summation of different problems and assignments. The problem is most people seem to argue over the score itself rather than the reasons over the score. I'm guilty of this myself, getting caught up in threads where a game earns a lot of 10's or whatever.

I simply think the discussions of games would be a lot better if there wasn't a number attached to a person's thoughts. That way, the discussion would have to be on the criticisms and praises of a game instead of the score attached to those.

Oh, people would just find reasons to discredit a review and copy those reasons over and over again in threads. They would just read first and last paragraphs and skim the rest for parts to take out of context or misread. Or they would find another review written by a difference person on the same site and discredit that review in a similar fashion and use that to discredit the current review. When it come to validating your gaming perchase, people will find a way to do that with or without review scores.

 

[Agent_4Seven]

You could at least pretend like you bothered to read his issue with the game.

I always read reviews and in this case it's downright stupid to give this game a 4/10 just because you encountered a bug which corrupted your save game or because the game crashing a lot. Furthermore, since the issue with corrupted save files and crashing has already been fixed in the latest beta patch for PC, this review is absolutely pointless and does not help anyone right now. If anything, this should have been review-in-progress and not a final review with a fucking 4/10, which this game simply do not deserve.

Many people playing the game right now and so far it's got really positive reviews on Steam and just overall from other press outlets etc. But nope, someone in IGN has encountered a game-breakling bug and crash problems (which is not common at all, otherwise you bet this game could have recieved mixed or negative reviews all across the board) and now the game is shit because of this and deserves to be aworded with 4/10. Fucking no, it's not. Period.

Also, no one can tell if you'll 100% encounter this bug (which again - already fixed) or not. It's the same fucking thing with PC port reports - you can't tell if people will have the same problems as you and based on your personal experience with the game on your rig you can't tell them what they should do based on your experience alone. If the game is downright broken and unplayable, if no one can enjoy it at launch, if it has a ton of issues and all that like BAK (or Dishonored 2) had 2 years ago... then yes, you've a right to tell people that they should not buy the game on PC cuz it's fucking unplayable, but this is absolutely not the case with Prey here.

Anyway, this review is fucking pointless and serves no one, not to mention that this whole situation is just another indication that review scores is fucking stupid and must go the fuck away, permanently.

 

[Green Ninja]

Gamespot + IGN's trash reviews urged me to purchase the game even more

How are they "trash" reviews because you don't agree with them? It's more refreshing then every single big name game getting 8s and 9s across the board.

 

[brickarts295]

I guess Bethesda wins this one. Kinda.
I probably would have stayed away from this game had I seen scores like that. Then again I wasn't interested in buying it even after the Demo. But I actually end up renting and I am enjoying so far. Might even buy it in the future to play it in another way.

Doesn't IGN have some sort Editor to look at that review and examine that score and say something like "yeah these don't go well together".

 

[enigmatikone]

IGN trashed Alien Isolation and it wound up being my GOTY 2014.
Despite a very crowded field, Prey so far is looking every bit like my personal GOTY for 2017.
In this case, at least IGN can be counted on to be consistently unreliable.

 

[dark10x]

You should review your experience. A reviewer can play Fallout 4 or a TT game and not deal with any major bugs and they can play Prey or any other game and have a horrible experience. All they should do is tell us thier experience. I played Fallout: New Vegas at launch and didn't have a buggy experience. Would my opinion be wrong for giving it a good score because everyone on the internet complained about bugs and how Obsidian & Bethesda released another broken game?

It's not their job to run a game on a bunch of different machines and settings. Reviewers can't always know if a bug effects 0.5% of users or 25% of users.

It's not their job? I'm not convinced about that. Granted, we focus more on tech analysis than normal reviewing, but ignoring technical issues does a disservice to readers. I do believe that reviewers should do their research.

In this case, the reviewer encountered a bug that impacts a low number of users and has since been fixed. The review should be updated to make note of this fact.

 

[NumberThree]

Ah, review scores. If it was just an RPS-style write-up with the exact same text no one would bat an eye.

 

[Yautja_Warrior]

Xbox One is sub full HD and has performance issues when running off an external HDD.

PS4 has an input lag issue and no PS4 Pro enhancements, even though it says it has on the box !

PC version has a potential game breaking bug.

Not the best start for Prey, which is a shame because it is a great game. Really hope they fix all versions and patch in the missing PS4 Pro features.

 

[Stiler]

I don't get how one can praise the game and then give it a bloody 4 for a bug, even if it's a serious bug.

I can understand WARNING people about it, saying you experience was marred by it, but knocking the score THAT ow for a bug, a bug that doesn't even seem widespread?

Seems really petty to me, especially considering how highly they rate The Elder Scrolls and other open world games that usually have quite a fair share of bugs and issues but they overlook them for the overall enjoyment of the game as a whole.

Especially if the score/review isn't revised if the bug gets fixed, which from reading some above comments seems to be the case?

 

[GHG]

Dishonored 2 got a 9.3. Try again.

Here's the thing, he literally said these words in a previous article on the whole review copies thing:

Reviewers will get frustrated by temporary roadblocks that impede progress and become resentful.

It's pretty clear what's going on here. Someone should ask him if this is one of those cases where he has become resentful. In which case everybody can then treat the "review" accordingly.

And for what it's worth, he didn't review Dishonoured, this is actually his first Bethesda games review since his article on the subject.

 

[Sotha_Sil]

And this is why I don't bother with reviews anymore.

Some of my favorite games of this gen (Wolfenstein, DOOM, Hitman, Alien Iso, Mankind Divided) are criminally underrated, imo. I'll find out when I get home in a couple of weeks if Prey will join that list. I suspect it will. Curiously, Dishonored 2 scored high than all those games despite being in the worst shape from a technical standpoint.

 

[MrCookiepants]

Oh wow, maybe the embargo was a good idea after all. LOL.

 

[StewboaT_]

I don't see a problem with the score as long as it's updated when the bugs are fixed. Game save corruptions after 36 hours invested absolutely deserve to be put on blast.

 

[Eusis]

How are they "trash" reviews because you don't agree with them? It's more refreshing then every single big name game getting 8s and 9s across the board.

IGN's was mostly saying "this would be a good game if it weren't for my saves constantly being corrupted" which I didn't have happen but more importantly SEEMS to be fixed if you go with the beta patch on PC (and wasn't an issue on consoles anyway) so it's actually arguably a review that's still useful once you excuse that grievance, and GameSpot... uhhh, need to look harder, don't want to bother with a video review so I'll have to look in this thread I guess!

 

[benzopil]

Oh wow, maybe the embargo was a good idea after all. LOL.

If embargo existed and reviewers were able to play this 10 days before the release, it probably would've been fixed before they could even publish reviews.

 

[Rexatality]

I don't see a problem with the score as long as it's updated when the bugs are fixed. Game save corruptions after 36 hours invested absolutely deserve to be put on blast.

That's not the point. The point is that its ludicrous to give Prey a 4 for a rare bug (That is already fixed in Steam beta patch) that not a lot of people suffered from.

Hell, the reviewer admitted he would've liked the game more were it not for the bugs.

 

[kAmui-]

This thread reminded me why I rarely visit review threads. What a trash fire. People on this site don't seem to understand how reviews or opinions work.