http://zeboyd.com/2013/09/10/why-games-like-the-wonderful-101-are-a-poor-fit-for-the-gaming-press/
If you're interested, you should read whole article. Robert Boyd articulates the frustration a lot of us have with Metacritic and explains why a lot of great games (The Wonderful 101, Mirror's Edge, etc.) don't get the love they deserve.
If you're interested, you should read whole article. Robert Boyd articulates the frustration a lot of us have with Metacritic and explains why a lot of great games (The Wonderful 101, Mirror's Edge, etc.) don't get the love they deserve.
The Wonderful 101 is one of the best games to come out this year & is arguably the first truly killer app for the Wii U (though NSMBU was a lot of fun & Zombi U had some interesting ideas). It is also currently averaging around a 78% on Gamerankings.
There are many things that the developers of The Wonderful 101 could have changed to make the game more inviting to the press & general public for that matter but ultimately games like The Wonderful 101 are a poor fit for the gaming press.
The press is even relatively well-equipped to handle competitive skill-focused multi-player games as long as theyre grounded in a well-established genre. Got a FPS to review? Jot down a list of features, compare its level of execution to the most popular games in the genre at the time, and youre good.
Where it gets to be a lot more hit & miss is when the press is faced with a skill-focused game that doesnt easily fit into a pre-established category. These are games designed to be played over a period of months, honing your craft & improving your scores & times, not rushed through to see what happens at the end of the story. And if the reviewer doesnt even realize that this is a skill-focused game and instead thinks that the game is an experienced-focused game because its single-player and has a story? Heaven help the developer of that game who is hoping for a good metacritic score because theyre not going to get it.
Now if someone buys a game like this and doesnt immediately get it, what are they going to do? Well, they have an investment in the game (the money they spent and their desire to enjoy the game) so theyre going to put in the effort to try to get something out of the game. Theyll keep at it until the games systems click for them, or theyll look online at gameplay videos, ask questions on forums, check out a FAQ, etc. Some of them will eventually end up deciding that the game is bad or just not for them, but many of them will eventually end up enjoying the game. And if they end up enjoying the game, they may stick with the game and compete on the leaderboards, try to 100% the game, get all the achievements, etc.
Contrast this with your typical reviewer. Theyre pressed for time so theyre unlikely to really master any of the games that they have to review. Theyre unlikely to connect with other fans of the game or look up hints & strategies (and for that matter, hints & strategies may not even exist online since they may have the game pre-release). In short they have no incentive to try to get the most out of a game. In fact, they may even feel like putting any extra effort into a game may taint their unbiased viewpoint.