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Worst 8.8 "Controversies" you've seen?

AllMight1

AllMight1

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,730
CommodoreKong said:
A lot of people lost their minds when Jim Sterling gave Breath of the Wild a 7.
The thread on GAF was hilarious and embarrassing at the same time.
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The problem with that review, is that giving a 7 to that game was such a huge joke to Jim Sterling, and then he goes and gives 10 out of 10 to indie games that doesnt deserve it.

For him, giving a 7 was another excuse to put his foot down that everything he does is meant to be controversial. Now... why review sites take his reviews as official is beyond me.
 
Vulcano's Assistant

Vulcano's Assistant

Member
Oct 29, 2017
13,552
And most people haven't played these games yet when they go nuts over a score, they are basically defending a game that is flawless because it only exist in their heads at that point.
 
spman2099

spman2099

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,893
Raoh said:
The problem with that review, is that giving a 7 to that game was such a huge joke to Jim Sterling, and then he goes and gives 10 out of 10 to indie games that doesnt deserve it.

For him, giving a 7 was another excuse to put his foot down that everything he does is meant to be controversial. Now... why review sites take his reviews as official is beyond me.
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So, I won't lie, I do think Jim was happy to create a bit of a controversy. However, I also think it is perfectly reasonable to think that a number of indies deserve a better score than BotW. You may not personally agree, and that is fine, but I would argue that there are many indie games that nail their core concepts and primary mechanics in a way that BotW never manages to.

You may need to investigate your own biases here...
 
GitarooMan

GitarooMan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
703
To me Uncharted 3 was the tipping point. Completely embarrassing at best. I don't even bother with review threads at this point; they are basically a meme.
 
Squid Bunny

Squid Bunny

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jun 11, 2018
5,342
Raoh said:
The problem with that review, is that giving a 7 to that game was such a huge joke to Jim Sterling, and then he goes and gives 10 out of 10 to indie games that doesnt deserve it.

For him, giving a 7 was another excuse to put his foot down that everything he does is meant to be controversial. Now... why review sites take his reviews as official is beyond me.
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An indie game can't be a ten?
 
Edgar

Edgar

User requested ban
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
7,180
Raoh said:
The problem with that review, is that giving a 7 to that game was such a huge joke to Jim Sterling, and then he goes and gives 10 out of 10 to indie games that doesnt deserve it.

For him, giving a 7 was another excuse to put his foot down that everything he does is meant to be controversial. Now... why review sites take his reviews as official is beyond me.
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Do you think reviews should reflect your views or consensus views or actual reviewers views?
 
Mr Satan

Mr Satan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
970
Anyone who puts more than cursory stock into review scores for any media is basically a decrepit human being.
 
sph3re

sph3re

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 28, 2017
8,423
norealmx said:
The 7 score to BotW was completely intentional and with the full expectation to stirr "controversy", and thus dishonest. I firmly believe the supposed DDoS attack was faked.
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Next you'll tell me Jim Sterling is poisoning the water and turning the frogs gay

Come on son
 
Xyber

Xyber

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,301
Raoh said:
The problem with that review, is that giving a 7 to that game was such a huge joke to Jim Sterling, and then he goes and gives 10 out of 10 to indie games that doesnt deserve it.

For him, giving a 7 was another excuse to put his foot down that everything he does is meant to be controversial. Now... why review sites take his reviews as official is beyond me.
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Just like you, he has his own opinion on what he thinks the game "deserves". To him, Zelda was a 7 and whatever indie game he gave a 10 to was a 10 for him. It's his opinion, he is entitled to it. If you don't agree, then just ignore his reviews in the future because you clearly don't value the same things in a game as he does.

People take review scores way to seriously...
 
Fantastical

Fantastical

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,380
GitarooMan said:
To me Uncharted 3 was the tipping point. Completely embarrassing at best. I don't even bother with review threads at this point; they are basically a meme.
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I think this was the moment that I kind of realized how ridiculous it all was. I was only 19 when that came out and had definitely been on the other side of those type of threads. I don't know why but at that moment I definitely became aware of how crazy this all was.
 
Squid Bunny

Squid Bunny

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jun 11, 2018
5,342
Wanderer5 said:
The Sexy Brutale, which would go on to be one of Jim's favorites from 2017.

*shrug*
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God forbid someone liking a game a lot and calling it a FAVORITE.

Rusty's Real Deal Baseball is a top 5 3DS game in my book and I also find Super Mario Sunshine just ok. People can like a game nobody else does and dislike one everyone else loves without doing so to grab attention.
 

Deleted member 29682

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 1, 2017
12,290
Wanderer5 said:
The Sexy Brutale, which would go on to be one of Jim's favorites from 2017.

*shrug*
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The point I was getting at is, the very act of calling it unfair is implying some objective way of rating media, which is an idea I don't subscribe to.

Personally I've played some deeply flawed games and enjoyed them more than more polished, higher budget and more consistent games, purely because I find what they do right to be a lot more interesting.

If someone wants to call shenanigans on a review, by all means, but I'd prefer to see some receipts.
 
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CartridgeSmasher

Member
Aug 17, 2018
839
So what if Jim gave BotW a 7. The game got 8-10 from just about everyone else.

Gamers think that every critic should give a game, movie or car the exact same review score?

I don't like Zelda games myself. I'd rather play Skyrim. If I played Zelda I'd probably give it a 2.

So shoot me!
 
Squid Bunny

Squid Bunny

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jun 11, 2018
5,342
Brian Damage said:
The point I was getting at is, the very act of calling it unfair is implying some objective way of rating media, which is an idea I don't subscribe to.

Personally I've played some deeply flawed games and enjoyed them more than more polished, higher budget and more consistent games, purely because I find what they do right to be a lot more interesting.

If someone wants to call shenanigans by all means, but I'd prefer to see some receipts.
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This, reviews are inherently subjective. Also, the idea that reviewers have a responsibility towards "the metascore" as if a single bad review would ruin a game's legacy is absurd.

Actually, the whole idea that a game's first impressions defines its legacy is simply wrong and every other type of art has already disproven that assessment.
 

CartridgeSmasher

Member
Aug 17, 2018
839
Squid Bunny said:
This, reviews are inherently subjective. Also, the idea that reviewers have a responsibility towards "the metascore" as if a single bad review would ruin a game's legacy is absurd.

Actually, the whole idea that a game's first impressions defines its legacy is simply wrong and every other type of art has already disproven that assessment.
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Ya. Given how gamers get mad at review scores (a big name game probably gets 50+ reviews from different sites), maybe these gamers would prefer all 50 people to call each other, combine notes and give one collective Borg score to represent the universe.
 

CartridgeSmasher

Member
Aug 17, 2018
839
CommodoreKong said:
It's been a little while but I think the big reason a lot of people went crazy was his score lowered the metacritic average from 98 to 97.
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LOL. People going ape shit over a 1 pt MC effect on a 34 year old guy who does reviews like this, shouldn't even bother looking at reviews if it bothers them that much.

jim-sterling-digital-homicide.png
 
AniHawk

AniHawk

No Fear, Only Math
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,182
ninja gaiden's c- review from gaming-age has a special place in my heart.
 
nDesh

nDesh

The Three Eyed Raven
Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,105
Besides Uncharted 3, I remember the 7.5 that Polygon gave to TLOU that started a lot of conspiracies about how MS pay Polygon to rate Sony exclusives badly.
SonyGAF was crazy.
 

Deleted member 16849

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,167
Raoh said:
The problem with that review, is that giving a 7 to that game was such a huge joke to Jim Sterling, and then he goes and gives 10 out of 10 to indie games that doesnt deserve it.

For him, giving a 7 was another excuse to put his foot down that everything he does is meant to be controversial. Now... why review sites take his reviews as official is beyond me.
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I am willing to bet you where part of the controversy crowd. This post reads like the comments from that Eurogamer 8 out of 10 UC3 score. Also why does a game been Indie discredit it from getting a 10 score?
 
WordsintheWater

WordsintheWater

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,521
Raoh said:
The problem with that review, is that giving a 7 to that game was such a huge joke to Jim Sterling, and then he goes and gives 10 out of 10 to indie games that doesnt deserve it.

For him, giving a 7 was another excuse to put his foot down that everything he does is meant to be controversial. Now... why review sites take his reviews as official is beyond me.
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Lol what is this? I agreed with his review, felt the score he gave was accurate for BotW, but maybe I'm just doing it because it's an excuse to put my foot down and be controversial.
 

Deleted member 29682

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 1, 2017
12,290
I'm actually curious, have there been any uproars involving reviews which don't use scores? I'd expect there to be little to none but you never know.
 

Deleted member 6730

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
11,526
Everyone gives Jim shit because he gave Zelda a 7 but what about that time he gave Hellblade a 1 because the game glitched out on him.
 
Slime

Slime

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,971
Posting on a Zelda board when TP got that 8.8 was not good for my blood pressure.
 
verygooster

verygooster

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,652
New Jersey
Uncharted 3 was the worst I had seen it go and that was pretty much when I stopped wading into review threads. The meltdowns weren't worth it and I honestly wasn't gaining anything from them anyway.

Actually not necessarily a review score, but my god the salt when Journey took GAF GOTY 2012 lol...
 

[redacted]

Member
Dec 28, 2017
206
Brian McDoogle said:
Oh, another older one. Greg Sewart didn't give Chrono Cross a perfect score back in EGM and someone threatened to kill him or his dog, if I remember the story correctly.
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Yeah, only gave it a 9.5 compared to the other two 10s so it only got an 'Editor's Gold' instead of a Platinum. Earliest I can remember an incident like this.
 
Ocarina_117

Ocarina_117

Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,592
Jack Orion said:
People are still super sensitive about that 7/10 score I see. Gamers are the best.
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You misread my post.

I mean even fan reaction leading up to the review dropping was crazy. Jim made it clear he wouldn't give it a "good" score and people on Twitter/GAF were mad to say the least. Jim built up to the review dropping and fanned the flames expertly.
 

CartridgeSmasher

Member
Aug 17, 2018
839
Raoh said:
The problem with that review, is that giving a 7 to that game was such a huge joke to Jim Sterling, and then he goes and gives 10 out of 10 to indie games that doesnt deserve it.

For him, giving a 7 was another excuse to put his foot down that everything he does is meant to be controversial. Now... why review sites take his reviews as official is beyond me.
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So what if he gives an indie game a 10? Lots of indie games are great. Maybe he liked that indie game (which ever game it was)

Games like Hollow Knight and Dead Cells have 90% MC scores. That's better than probably 95% (or more) of games out there. HK and DC don't deserve these scores?
 
Turnabout Sisters

Turnabout Sisters

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
2,354
Spiderman literally has an "8.7" on metacritic and there's so many people in the review thread freaking out. Same exact shit, over a decade later.
 
I_D

I_D

Member
Oct 27, 2017
572
It's because of the grading-scale reviewers use.

8.8 out of 10, by any metric, still means 'really really really good,' but people don't see it that way.

A game earning 10/10 would literally mean it's one of the greatest games of all time. Realistically, there should be only a small handful of games which earn that title.
 
Liliana

Liliana

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
3,375
NYC
Raoh said:
The problem with that review, is that giving a 7 to that game was such a huge joke to Jim Sterling, and then he goes and gives 10 out of 10 to indie games that doesnt deserve it.

For him, giving a 7 was another excuse to put his foot down that everything he does is meant to be controversial. Now... why review sites take his reviews as official is beyond me.
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The fuck? Indie games are some of the best I've played on my life.
 
newmoneytrash

newmoneytrash

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,981
Melbourne, Australia
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