IGN's Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Review Plan

dex3108 · Oct 11, 2018

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is out tonight, and as has been our custom for the past several years, we've opted out of Activision's review event in favor of playing under real-world conditions. Now that the servers are filling up with fresh meat, we can get started.

This year, though, we're going to break with tradition and try something new: because each of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's modes is effectively a different game with unique mechanics, maps, and objectives, we're going to treat them as such. Competitive multiplayer, Zombies, and Blackout will each be reviewed and scored separately and concurrently by our team of three CoD players, led by CoD: WW2 reviewer Miranda Sanchez. When those are all completed, Miranda will sum it all up with an overall verdict. To be clear, that final score won't be an average of the scores from the three modes (because scores are code, not math) but a reflection of Miranda's overall opinion.

Why is Call of Duty getting special treatment? It's a good opportunity to try out this format, which I've wanted to do for years. If it goes well and feedback is generally good, you can expect to see us take this approach on other big games that pack a bunch of distinctively different experiences into one box or digital package. When it comes to games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Online, or Battlefield V multiplayer and single-player, it could potentially be extremely useful to players who spend the majority of their time in one mode or another. Or maybe it won't work as well as we hope and we'll learn from it and do things differently next time. It's an experiment, so please bear with us and let us know what you think!

https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/10/11/call-of-duty-black-ops-4-review

Interesting approach.

Theorry · Oct 11, 2018

Good.

Kalentan · Oct 11, 2018

Interesting experiment. It does make sense.

TheInfinityGauntlet · Oct 11, 2018

If you're reviewing them separately why not do an average score alongside the opinion overall score, seems silly

Certinfy · Oct 11, 2018

This is stupid. The game comes in one package, not individually. Review them all as one.

CloseTalker · Oct 11, 2018

Not necessarily a bad idea, but really this just makes me more inclined to think all sites should drop review scores altogether. If games have evolved to a point where they need four separate scores, then there's probably a better way.

Neoleo2143 · Oct 11, 2018

Finally, been looking for some review layout like this for awhile.

Serene · Oct 11, 2018

I'm fine with experimenting with review approaches.

Theswweet · Oct 11, 2018

I like the idea, it's worth a shot.

Tambini · Oct 11, 2018

Fair enough. Not sure why each mode needs its own review score rather than just a lengthy write up each but whatevs

Stryder · Oct 11, 2018

So Miranda listens to three different reviewers and comes up with a score based on their opinions? Is she one of the three I wonder, how much of it will she play? 3 different reviewers for each mode and she's leading by playing everything? Maybe im misunderstanding and she's actually one of the three who is also lead. Probably that idk

Interesting approach.

Memento · Oct 11, 2018

I dont like it

Betty · Oct 11, 2018

So... since they're all scored separately, does that mean they get added up and the game could score something like 28?

Oh just read, they'll give an overall verdict... eh...

Ozgiliath · Oct 11, 2018

This is way better than just one person in this and age with different modes/singleplayer etc it makes sense.

Hasney · Oct 11, 2018

TheInfinityGauntlet said:
If you're reviewing them separately why not do an average score alongside the opinion overall score, seems silly

You can do an average score yourself if needed. If zombies is a 9 but short and not something that needs to be replayed, but Blackout is a 6, the Blackout part is going to hurt longevity. An average number would not be good.

Squirrel09 · Oct 11, 2018

Certinfy said:
This is stupid. The game comes in one package, not individually. Review them all as one.

There is going to be an overall score, but also scores based on modes that people might only be playing. This allows me to see "Ok Zombies isn't good this year. I only buy for zombies. I'll stick with the other entries" Also there will be an overall score :)

Certinfy · Oct 11, 2018

Squirrel09 said:
There is going to be an overall score, but also scores based on modes that people might only be playing. This allows me to see "Ok Zombies isn't good this year. I only buy for zombies. I'll stick with the other entries" Also there will be an overall score :)

Each gamemode should all be covered in a review anyway though? Don't see why it needs to be done separately.

Deleted member 32018 · Oct 11, 2018

TheInfinityGauntlet said:
If you're reviewing them separately why not do an average score alongside the opinion overall score, seems silly

I'm sure we are all more than capable of averaging out the scores ourselves if we want?

Deleted member 32018 · Oct 11, 2018

Certinfy said:
Each gamemode should all be covered in a review anyway though? Don't see why it needs to be done separately.

Because they want to try something different as it gets boring and stale reviewing games using the same structure every time?

Aters · Oct 11, 2018

Good, good. I hate it when half the review is about stuff I don't care. Now please other reviewers, stop telling me how good BF's campaign is.

Iadien · Oct 11, 2018

I like this. Reviewing specific game modes makes sense, I hate BR, but like zombies, so I'd rather read a review focusing on what I do like instead of as a whole. This also may be one way to get me to pay attention to reviews again, because for the past few years I have been using streams on Twitch to decide if a game is worth it to me or not.

Deleted member 4413 · Oct 11, 2018

That's pretty cool, hope it works out well.

SapientWolf · Oct 11, 2018

I forgot Battlefield even had SP. And that people have to review it. Those poor souls.

Skux · Oct 11, 2018

Certinfy said:
This is stupid. The game comes in one package, not individually. Review them all as one.

Yeah. At the end of the day you're buying one product. Let people make their own value judgements on the product as a whole.

dpanim · Oct 11, 2018

steviejd1 said:
Because they want to try something different as it gets boring and stale reviewing games using the same structure every time?

Now THAT'S silly. I sure as shit wouldn't want my game to be trifled with in the review process from an outlet just because someone's bored of the way games are reviewed. That's the job.

Cess007 · Oct 11, 2018

as has been our custom for the past several years, we've opted out of Activision's review event in favor of playing under real-world conditions.

Didn't know this. That's cool. Respect +1 for you IGN.

Parenegade · Oct 11, 2018

Good! As someone who couldn't give any less of a shit about Zombies it'll be nice to know what they think about the parts of the game I'll actually be playing.

Cordy · Oct 11, 2018

Hasney said:
You can do an average score yourself if needed. If zombies is a 9 but short and not something that needs to be replayed, but Blackout is a 6, the Blackout part is going to hurt longevity. An average number would not be good.

To go along with this, say I'm someone who only plays 1 mode. If I see it has a high score but the other mode (that I don't play) has a low one then yeah it'll be cool for me.

I look forward to seeing how this works.

SofNascimento · Oct 11, 2018

Sounds reasonable. Let's see how it turns out.

Deleted member 32018 · Oct 11, 2018

dpanim said:
Now THAT'S silly. I sure as shit wouldn't want my game to be trifled with in the review process from an outlet just because someone's bored of the way games are reviewed. That's the job.

Many outlets are starting to do things like this with some of them even dropping scores altogether. It's not down to the publishers/devs to decide how their games get reviewed.

Skux said:
Let people make their own value judgements on the product as a whole.

I assume that's why there's an overall review too?

Daniel Westlake · Oct 11, 2018

Skux said:
Yeah. At the end of the day you're buying one product. Let people make their own value judgements on the product as a whole.

It sounds like they're also going to do that, each part will be reviewed separately then there will be one normal review by Sanchez.

Deleted member 274 · Oct 11, 2018

This would make sense... if costumers were able to get each "game" separately.

SmarmySmurf · Oct 11, 2018

"Once the truck full of cash arrived, we decided the right thing to do was to give the game even more coverage. I joked we could just review it multiple times and we all laughed, but then we realized yeah, we could totally do that and people would even defend it!" -Dan Stapleton, IGN

I'm only half joking.

Cloud-Hidden · Oct 11, 2018

Exactly what we're doing.
*shrug*
Seemed like the logical thing to do with this one since every person has a mode they're looking forward to most and, let's face it, many people shoot straight to the score or metascore without reading a damn word of the review (save perhaps the opening, penultimate, and final paragraphs).

Bardeh · Oct 11, 2018

Makes perfect sense for this title. Each mode plays very differently, and they're rigidly segmented within the game.

Bear · Oct 11, 2018

Doesn't make sense because they sell all three modes together.

signal · Oct 11, 2018

More experimentation in reviews is good imo. In the age of being able to watch people stream games at conventions, early access releases, dev previews, etc. for months or weeks or days or even on the launch day of a game, it's easy enough to just absorb a lot of content and decide for yourself as a way to replace a very basic traditoinal review.

ghostcrew · Oct 11, 2018

Pikma said:
This would make sense... if costumers were able to get each "game" separately.

It makes sense as there's a good chance that someone interested in Black Ops 4 might only be interested in one mode. Only buying it for the Battle Royale mode? Here's an in depth look into that mode with a score. Just wanna play traditional PvP multiplayer? Here's a reviewer specifically reviewing that mode. And then the person overseeing the whole process will also score the whole package with one score and a final write up. Covers all bases doesn't it?

Daniel Westlake · Oct 11, 2018

Bear said:
Doesn't make sense because they sell all three modes together.

I mean these types of reviews are just straight-up purchasing guides and the three modes as far as we know don't interact with each other in any way, no cross progression or anything, so if somebody just wanted to know about multiplayer this is somewhat more convenient for them.

And then you get the normal ass here's the entire package review anyway.

Deleted member 135 · Oct 11, 2018

Neat. Sometimes people buy games for a specific mode, like I only buy Battlefield for the multiplayer. I don't give a shit if the singleplayer is amazing or garbage. If this breakdown results in more detailed reviews of each section of a game I am all for it.

I know that there are people who only buy COD for the MP, for the Zombies, or yes, for the campaign.

Dremorak · Oct 11, 2018

4 scores tallied at the end? 0-40 scale? I guess if it works for Famitsu :P

Jonnykong · Oct 11, 2018

Seems a bit strange to me. I don't see why one big review can't just have three separate sections or paragraphs covering the three main components and then if for example somebody is only interested in the Zombies mode, they can read just the paragraph covering zombies. *shrugs*

Deleted member 44371 · Oct 11, 2018

This is so stupid, whats next? IGN rating singleplayer and multiplayer modes of ONE game differently?

Meg Cherry · Oct 11, 2018

Certinfy said:
Each gamemode should all be covered in a review anyway though? Don't see why it needs to be done separately.

Because that's the way most people actually play the game. They focus on the mode they like, and ignore what they don't. So it's very relevant to offer a score that reflects just the content they care about.

KingdomHeartsFan · Oct 11, 2018

A review should take an entire package as a whole into account. If one mode is lacking in content but there's extra content in another how would that even be taken into account with this new format.
Meh not like this is gonna affect me anyway, I don't pay much attention to IGN's reviews.

GrantDaNasty · Oct 11, 2018

Jonnykong said:
Seems a bit strange to me. I don't see why one big review can't just have three separate sections or paragraphs covering the three main components and then if for example somebody is only interested in the Zombies mode, they can read just the paragraph covering zombies. *shrugs*

It gets around the accusation of "the score is this low because of THIS specific factor" or the opposite as well. Honestly, I think it's a fine idea and welcome approaches like this to get to the details. If you're skiddish and waiting on reviews, there are other outlets if you're anxious.

And again, if people want a specific niche (just Zombies or just MP or just Blackout), all the better to tell them how that element of a product is.

franklyshankly · Oct 11, 2018

I can't buy them separately so I don't know why they would be reviewed separately. You can discuss each mode in the review and give it a score but at the end of the day it's one game that I have to buy so I feel like it should have one overall review.

Dark Ninja · Oct 11, 2018

So this game is gonna get 7 review scores. Each member assigned to each game mode + there overall game score and then the lead of them gives there overall score?

Deleted member 2791 · Oct 11, 2018

Would make more sense if they just dropped the scores in that case.

Deleted member 32018 · Oct 11, 2018

marzoo said:
This is so stupid, whats next? IGN rating singleplayer and multiplayer modes of ONE game differently?

Well for certain games it would make sense yes. An example would be GTA 5 and GTA Online, I don't see an issue with reviewing those separately if there is an overall score at the end too.

KingdomHeartsFan said:
A review should take an entire package as a whole into account.

Well it's good that they are going to be doing that too. Do any of you read more than the thread title and the first 2 sentences?

IGN's Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Review Plan

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