-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Metacritic: Best Games of 2016 (and platform comparisons)
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
That's always been a lie that I've laughed at every time I see it mentioned on GAF.
My personal GOTY.
EdReedFan20
Member
Yup. OOTP and MLB: The Show are my two favorite MLB games. I just wish they'd make a metaphorical baby. I love, love, love creating full custom leagues in OOTP (or expanding MLB). I love the gameplay and graphics of MLB: The Show. If there was a game that combined both, I would be ecstatic! I would also love the see a stadium designer like the one EA had in NCAA MVP Baseball be included.
dreamstation
Gold Member
So how is it that Overwatch scored 91 on XBONE and only 90 on PS4? I can understand the PC version being slightly ahead because pcmasterrace, etc but I just wondered why the discrepancy between the other two platforms. Was there something wrong with the PS4 version that the XBONE version didn't suffer from? It seems really bizarre.
slavesnyder
Member
Vita showing WiiU who's the boss.
The real console war is here.
The real console war is here.
pretty done
Member
Wii U with 0 great games in 2016
Sounds about right
Sounds about right
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
The reviewers are almost completely different for the two platforms.
PuppetMaster
Member
So awesome that Vita beat the WiiU in released games this year. And even has a higher average Metacritic.
The Vita!!
And it's not an exclusive.Odin Sphere Leifthrasir for Vita sitting on a Metascore of 93 but not counted as a great game because it was only reviewed on Vita 5 times
Tricky I Shadow
Banned
Uncharted 4 on top is exactly where it belongs.
Yeah. I wonder if Xbone would also perform better too in that case? Considering games like Gears of War and Forza are also on Windows 10 (and thus would not be considered exclusive?).
Still, even with that under consideration, looks like Sony's on fire this gen (again). And PC is just insane. There's no way to keep on top of all the fantastic new games any more!
Intelligent Systems (FE) might as well be.
texhnolyze
Banned
More like ignorance than lie.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
PC dominates the exclusives category.
thelastword
Banned
Let's be honest, how many of these exclusives have you played. Pretty much any indie can get a rating of 75 and above on PC. I think the console games are definitely games many people played and know about even in casual circles. The same can't be said of the majority of these 46 games on PC.....
So my satirical post is better than I expected!
Definitely is.
In case you're in the mood for a debate, Crossing Eden was the one who said Nathan Drake is the most generic white dude in gaming. I just assimilated all these exaggerations and even false statements into a satirical post.
Pretty much any indie can get a rating of 75 on PC? I'm sorry, what? The vast majority of indies either get blasted or never get enough reviews to get listed on things like this.
The ones left over are usually things like Planet Coaster, Stephen's Sausage Roll, OOTB, Owlboy, pretty much any decent strategy game or CRPG released this year, and a bunch of very well made smaller games. All of which very much are deserving of their scores.
Hundreds of PC exclusives are released every year. Far more than any console combined. The 46 are far from just any old indie.
This is also true. Not sure why people are making it sound like every PC exclusive is a tiny indie dev.
texhnolyze
Banned
CosmicQueso
Member
Once again, your username fails to be true.
No. Indie and PC games are scored just like every other game.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
450 games on PC were scored in 2016. The average score was 70~. Only 46 were scored above 75. Only about 10% of games scored on PC exclusives got a 75 or higher.
That is just simple math.
LowEndTorque
Member
This thread is like list wars without an actual list. Number wars!
If you think I'm saying that only one or two of those games are not indie, then I'm sorry. There are probably more non-indie games on that list of exclusives than there are non-indie high-rated exclusives on PS4.
Of course, dismissing all indie games is the definition of narrow-minded as well, but....
Nikodemos
Member
People talking about 'indies' have no idea how 'real' indie reviews look like.
To give the simplest example, Conquest of Elysium 4 has 2 reviews on Metacritic (both 80) and 3 on Opencritic (the 80 reviews by Gamewatcher and Hardcore Gamer from MC plus an 85 from TechRaptor). Similarly, Serpent in the Staglands has 4 MC reviews (90, 80, 70 and 60) and doesn't even feature on OC.
That's how most 'actual' indie reviews end up looking, rather than the 17 MC reviews for Age of Decadence.
To give the simplest example, Conquest of Elysium 4 has 2 reviews on Metacritic (both 80) and 3 on Opencritic (the 80 reviews by Gamewatcher and Hardcore Gamer from MC plus an 85 from TechRaptor). Similarly, Serpent in the Staglands has 4 MC reviews (90, 80, 70 and 60) and doesn't even feature on OC.
That's how most 'actual' indie reviews end up looking, rather than the 17 MC reviews for Age of Decadence.
Nikodemos
Member
Weighted averages yadda yadda.
While looking at this thread I actually decided to check up on Blue Revolver on Metacritic, since I wasn't sure if I should list it. Turns out it didn't even make the cut, just like the indies you mentioned.
One review (80), for what is one of the very best STG's this year.
Indie reviews on PC are a wasteland as far as metacritic goes.
LittleBigGamer
Banned
46 vs 13 exclusives. That is a fact.
The only thing I said from the start was that for some people these numbers say nothing because the majority of these games are titles that probably even you don't care about, but now you talk about a number as if it is saying something. Yes you can win in papers this numbers vs numbers argument if that is your point. You are the winner!
There are every month ps plus indies and sometimes a higher production value game appears, you can make a poll and ask if people want this psplus or the ps3's plus which had 2 or 3 AAA games every month.I am afraid that if you would prefer the ps4's plus you are in the minority.
I didn't say that I dismising all indie games... ok black and white all over again. I don't count them as major exclusives on a system and thats all. I like some indies.
thelastword
Banned
Look at the number of scored games, pretty close between PC and PS4 despite all those games released on PC. There's a lot of chaff that gets released on PC, and there's no doubt that out of 4207 games, only a small percentage would even make it to metacritic. I can only surmise that only the best indies of such a huge number of games made it to Metaciritic in the first place. So the chance of getting a higher count of 75+ rated indies is indeed much much greater on PC based on the volume of games.Wat.
There is a total of 4207 games released on PC in 2016 alone.
Consoles don't get close to the number of indies/games PC have and that's a fact.
I can agree with that, however based on the number of games that are released on PC vs the number of games that you can follow on metacritic, the higher number of indie games in the 75+ ratio will always be higher on PC. The process to release an indie game on PC is so much easier, so many channels of content are available with less stringent policies as opposed to consoles.
I think the 90+ category is a more interesting stat, when you compare the number of games released on PC for any one year. Apart from the games that don't share a release with consoles in that category, how many of these games even inject into the mainstream or are known there? How many reviews are even listed for these 90+ rated PC games or the majority of these 75+ PC indie games? We all know how a limited number of reviews can skew these percentages to bigger metacritic scores....If you've been following these aggregate review sites you know what I'm talking about....PC benefits the most in that regard....
Look at a game like Abzu on PC vs PS4....18 critics on PC (84%) vs 71 critics on PS4 (78%), Hell even XB1 wins against the PS4 with higher meta scores in similar games....Even in that list, we have Overwatch, Inside etc...So making a case here is not clear cut....we have to read between some lines.
There's one thing we should keep in mind also, and lets be honest about this...All in One Baseball (8 critics) 92%, are we taking these seriously? Kentucky Route Zero ACT IV (8 critics) 90%, Stephen Sausage Roll 90% (9 critics).....hmmmm! I think that speaks for itself, but if it doesn't......Do you really believe that if these games were on consoles with 70 critics or erhh! even 20 criitcs they would even be at 85%? Look at something like Journey (70+ criitics) 92, if PC indies can do that, then I'll take them seriously...Till then, if PC games are only getting boosted because of a low number of critics, you really don't know the true quality of these games.
Hey! just look at the user reviews on these PC games with low critics, these games are not block busters where biased fans go all out to skew the score for Gears of War 4 or UC4 or the like, the people who commented most likely played these games.... the user review scores here are not close to these glowing scores from a few reviewers, but I think the point is made......
Tbh, I don't think we should take any of these PC exclusives seriously unless they're hitting 30-50 critics as a minimum......
old manatee
Banned
PC library outpacing McDonald's burgers sold.
Messofanego
Banned
Didn't know Kentucky Route Zero Act IV was rated that high, well deserved. My GOTY.
texhnolyze
Banned
The fact is that you actually said 'Pretty much any indie can get a rating of 75 and above on PC'.
Okay, so now we are at the point where we are saying good reviews for certain PC games shouldn't be taken seriously.
Let's not forget the part where Stephen's Sausage Roll has been heavily praised elsewhere, including Jonathan Blow himself calling it possibly one of the best puzzle games ever made.
Or OOTP, a sequel to a long running series of extremely highly rated sports management sims, which is known to be up there with Football Manager in terms of complexity and attention to detail.
No, good reviews for these games absolutely shouldn't be taken seriously, that would be ludicrous.
Let's not forget the part where Stephen's Sausage Roll has been heavily praised elsewhere, including Jonathan Blow himself calling it possibly one of the best puzzle games ever made.
Or OOTP, a sequel to a long running series of extremely highly rated sports management sims, which is known to be up there with Football Manager in terms of complexity and attention to detail.
No, good reviews for these games absolutely shouldn't be taken seriously, that would be ludicrous.
Nikodemos
Member
If you want true pain, look at Balrum (Feb 29, 2016).
1 MC review (60 from Games.cz) versus 10 user ratings and 6 reviews (80 aggregate). The two reviews by MikeZillaGames and SigilFey might very well be full-size game reviews given their length and depth (all they lack is editing and screenshots).
Bet this one didn't make the PC games list either.
Calling PC indie game reviews a wasteland is like calling Pripyat in the morning of 26th April 1986 a disaster area: the most painful understatement in the world.
I singled out Balrum because my GOG version just got patched via Galaxy. Talk about commitment.
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
I don't get how the PS4 version of Inside and Overwatch are below the Xbox/PC versions. They're the same game.
Different review sites are used to generate the metascore. Happens to a lot of other platforms too.
I agree that the reasoning is stupid except when one version is significantly worse than the other (framerate, technical issues etc.), the scores should be the same or similar.
How does that explain the inconsistency I pointed out?
PS4 version of games generally have more reviews than the Xbox One and PC versions, and more reviews in most of the cases tend to lower the metascore.
Nikodemos
Member
I may be spitballing here, but I think their averaging algorithms are set so a game needs at least 7 reviews before a 'decision' is made as to the score assigned (particularly since several outlets eschew numeric scores altogether) and the 'bin' (PC, PS4, XB1 etc.) it is placed in (according to reviewer 'weight', number of platforms released on etc.). Their weighting system is convoluted and opaque, and not necessarily by accident.
chillybright
Banned
foolishoptimist
Member
Lol. There are valid criticisms of the Uncharted series, but these are ridiculous.