This is it. It has not been even a week since Uncharted 4 has released, and the fanboyism is out of bounds. “It’s a great game, it’s a great game!”, seems to have settled in my ears and though it might be a good game, some critics have denied it good scores, one of them being Washington Post, who gave the game a 4 out of 10. This has stirred up a lot of controversy. Another site XO.TV was heavily slandered for giving the latest and the final entry in the Uncharted series a mere 6 out of 10.
It seems, that there is a huge community that backs up Uncharted as a good game and is willing to go many distances to suppress people with the opposite opinion and totally belittle them. The latest feat coming in as a petition being signed against Metacritic to remove Washington Post’s review from the critic score to increase the overall critic rating of the game. This is insane even for fanboyism standards. Many people are claiming that the critic at Washington Post didn’t give a score, but Metacritic translated it as 4 and brought down the overall Metacritic score from 94 to 93. After a bit of digging and a lot of hate tweets and what not, Forbes confirmed that Michael Thomsen (the guy who reviewed the game) did indeed give a 4/10 to Uncharted 4, and that was the score that WP submitted to Metacritic.
They may be furious with the critic, but the more pressing matter is that they are concerned about the Metacritic rating going down. I don’t understand why this is a matter of concern for most of the people, that too, with such a big game. Every negative review is being taken harshly and seems like no one can have a unique opinion.
And if that isn’t enough, you just cannot, CANNOT criticize Uncharted 4 openly even if your point is totally in the logical spectrum. They will press you down with force. A small comment on the game being slow paced in some parts was welcomed pretty warmly with 24 Disagrees/Downvotes within minutes. If you are diplomatic, you’ll maintain a bit of decorum with the crowd with 7-10 Downvotes, and for writing a good point about Uncharted, your comment will be filled with Agrees/Upvotes. There are a quite a few who agree to the fact that Uncharted may probably be the most overrated game of the decade. I myself haven’t experienced the game yet and hence I’m not going to be talking about the game, but it’s not good to see such a harsh community, so much so that going to the comments section feels toxic. Here are some of the comments that were given to negative review on the Uncharted 4. Names will not be mentioned.
Uncharted 4 is not a 6 out of 10 game no matter the persons opinion. Giving this game a 6 mean either you have no clue what makes a good game, just another sleazy sight trying to get cheap hits, Uncharted 4 is not the type of game you normally play or would like anyway (probably shouldn’t be reviewing it), or you have an agenda (like trying to lower the metacritic score like people are doing with user scores). Don’t tell me so called journalist don’t sometimes have agendas or aren’t fanboys, that would be untrue.
No one is going to take a 6 out of 10 score for Uncharted 4 seriously. People are entitled to their opinion but when they are this far off, I have to question them.
Dude that wrote this. You’re a moron. Stop trying to write anything immediately and hand over the crayons you 1st drafted this crap with. Change careers, oh, but do have a wonderful life.
The above comment got 60 Upvotes
The reviewer is inconsistent. Uncharted 4’s Goonies meets Romancing the Stone vibe which I felt in some chapters is ‘new’ as such or signicantly expands upon the Drake’s Fortune aesthetic. A large meeting (auction) is new. Sam is new. The villains’ motivations are new. The grapple hook and crampon are new to this series. The 4×4 vehicle and boat are new in terms of being fully controllable. But Mike hated the 4×4 , he didn’t fully appreciate the brilliance of the subtle humour in the dialogue and he doesn’t respect the gunplay scenarios as the tense puzzles they can be if on Hard or Crushing. His 6.0 might be sincerely held for his tastes but a true Uncharted fan could not , I am confident, think at the end of this game that the artistry, gameplay, characterisation, puzzles, story, level design and sound design all added up to 6/10.
Notice the ‘A true uncharted fan’, and people say that’s not fanboyism.
After such slandering and bashing people with a different opinion, I am unable to comment anything, because I know I have to get bashed, so there is no point in explaining things. So I would like to have a few questions answered by such people:
- What is the point of all this? Does the Metacritic rating matter that much to you?
- If you enjoyed the game, is it necessary that all people have to like it around the same degree as you did?
- Do other people judge a game, the same way you do?
- Last but not the least, how come do you have this much spare time to do useless stuff like commenting on why other people didn’t like your favourite game?
The petition has already been signed by 1268 supporters at the time of writing this article, and this is within minutes of the news appearing. The sight is not good and I will state what I had already written in one of the comments section of the site, if this is the way the gamers are going to behave it’s not long before companies take advantage of you. It’s good that a community likes a game and has a healthy non-toxic environment, but this is quite the opposite of a good community where, instead of discussing about the disagreement, you start slandering.
What do you think about such a harsh community? Would you like to be a part of such a community? Let us know what you think about this in the comments below.
To be honest, even I also anticipating that game like “A FANBOY”, but if the fanboys are supposed to be like this then sorry I don’t want to be one of them.
Every person has his own point of view, we can’t force anyone to change their opinion according to us. We can’t stress him to give a game a perfect score coz we wanted to.
Yes, Uncharted 4 is really a good game but there are things that it lacks and there are things that it excels.
Washington Post may found the game not engaging enough (or you can say compelling enough) to give it a perfect 10/10 score, and this isn’t a new thing. Many games are awarded with a perfect score but not every critic awards the game with a perfect score. Every critics has its own criteria to give a game the score they decided it deserves. And if a game succeeds to fill those criteria, it’ll undoubtedly gets a 10/10.
If a reviewer gives the game a score below the perfect margin, those “FANBOYS” are like – “Hey, it’s Nate’s last adventure and you should give it a perfect score!” “Hey, you need a doctor coz everyone is giving it a perfect score and you’re giving a 4/10!” and the most common of them is – “Is it some kinda ‘publicity’?” and I was like – Woah!!! some kinda “PUBLICITY”!?!?! Media don’t need “publicity”. They are the people who are responsible for promotions and consequently, the hype created.
As far as I think, this kind of “fanboyism” is surely not acceptable among the gaming community.
All things considered, if we take that review into our consideration, it’s slightly weird. WP published two reviews first(and the controversial) one comes from Washington Post’s Comic Riff, however, they’ve also published a second review this time with a score of 4 out of 4 star. I don’t know what the hell is happening with WP, but they need to clarify the matter.
@saurabhcharde:disqus
If this article was the only source of information on this issue I would agree with you. Unfortunately this author has chosen not to include all the facts (see my other comment). Furthermore he points out where a very small amount of people are not exercising the best manners. Seriously if those 3 comments are the worst he found, I would suggest the debate over this has been quite tame when compared to other so called game “scandals”.
the review is a joke retard, fuck out of here
True that review may be joke, but should the community behave like that? There are more pressing matters at hand for signing a petition than for increasing the rating of a game.
@pratyushezio96:disqus
WHAT UTTER NONSENSE
So let me get this straight Mr. Raj. You knew the Washington Post review you cite here was a satire obvious if you look at the URL and if you have found the review with the score of 4/4. Even though you were well aware of this reviews comedic purpose you decide to hold it up and the petition to remove it as some sort of rabid fanboyism?
Shouldn’t someone who takes the effort to write for a website have it within their intentions to inform? Don’t you see how you have really marred your credibility by admitting you knew this review was a joke yet didn’t inform your audience of that information within the article? People should not have to scroll down to the comments to get some honesty.
True some people wrote some fanboy remarks and you are making a big deal of comments with 60 upvotes on a website that likely sees hundreds of thousands of visitors each day.
If any comment on your website got 60 up votes it would be a major feat. Don’t project your lack of audience on a website that actually has one. I believe this is my first visit to this website and if this is an example of your work, I likely won’t be back any time soon.
The purpose of the petition is not to simply artificially inflate the game score it is to correct the record. If MetaCritic is to have any credibility it can not have satire based articles in the score aggregation system. Credibility may be a concept that eludes the mission of this website.
@pratyushezio96:disqus
Here are the links for both reviews on Washington Post.
The satire review. Note the term “comic-riffs” in the URL…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/05/12/uncharted-4-a-thiefs-end-review-this-four-part-series-should-have-ended-after-part-one/
Here is the actual review. Note the 4/4 review score…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/review-uncharted-4-finds-brotherly-love-amid-spectacle/2016/05/11/f76beb2a-1773-11e6-971a-dadf9ab18869_story.html
The fact that this information is appearing in the comments and not the article body should be an embarrassment for the editors here. Sure this is an opinion piece, but you don’t have the right to misinform people and call it “your opinion”. That is just flat out lying.
@pratyushezio96:disqus
The first words in the so called review were “comic riffs”. Here is the review and the satire side by side so you can see the difference.
OMG, you are comparing titles. From my next articles, I’ll put things like /People-Don’t-Care/ or something like /They-Died-in-Bus/ in the URL, but that won’t change the way people look at the article.
Look at the contents of the review, both have done away with minimal explanation of what the game is about. Just that Michael has mentioned the previous entries of the title and where he found the ridiculousness in the game, the other one, Lou has actually given a very vague, superficial and noob like review. Why are your arguments becoming all about the “Comic Riff” parts? Do spread some light on the content.
I have backed my personal opinion up and you still haven’t given yours. I would like to know your thoughts on the reviews.
@pratyushezio96:disqus
No it is in the URL and it is published in the article as a heading for the feature. Please look carefully at this image.
Stop it with the straw man arguments!
Well for all I care, you are just stuck on the opinion that the URLs had the word “Comic Riffs” and that the WP review which was negative was given a 4 out of 10. I myself said that nobody actually cares when the URL contains anything. Someone who wanted to prove to himself/herself that the review was a satire has sat down and nitpicked the word and the section as “Comic Riff”
Look at the review, the one that you claim has given a 4 on 4 is not even a review as I said above. If you think either of the reviews are worth mentioning in the metacritic, then I’m guessing you either a hypocrite because the positive review is not even up to standard, even a 14 year old would write a better review than that guy or you are just a plain old fanboy who doesn’t want his game to be rated badly, just because he thinks the game’s good. And since you are emphasizing that much on the URL, I’m doubting that you have even read the review. Just read my comment above, don’t come with the most vague of arguments.
Also WP never came out and said that the review was a satire and also Metacritic was sent a score by WP. You can read it on twitter.
So anything other than the Comic Riff argument? Or else it’s a waste of time.
If you would click on that Comic-riff category, you will see that the Category is not your standard “Onion” section. Agreed it has comics and satires, but it also have articles which aren’t satirical at all like:
1) RIP, Darwyn Cooke: How friends and fans are mourning a profoundly gifted comics great(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/05/15/rip-darwyn-cooke-how-friends-and-fans-are-mourning-a-profoundly-gifted-comics-great/)
2) ‘Captain America: Civil War’ hurtles toward becoming the year’s first billion-dollar film (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/05/16/captain-america-civil-war-hurtles-toward-becoming-the-years-first-billion-dollar-film/)
Looking at that category there is nothing to suggest, this review is Satirical. And here is more, WP have not reverted or officially announce that this review is a satire, nor has the writer for all the bashing that they have been getting. Both of them have stood by the review. So I don’t understand where you are getting the satire vibe from.
Finally, here is a post from FORBES, that confirms that the writer indeed give a score to the game, which was submitted as the official entry from WP to Metacritic. It also mentions that un-scored reviews are more than common on WP.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/05/16/yes-the-washington-post-is-allowed-to-give-uncharted-4-a-410-but-did-they/#216ad80527db
Finally here is another post from Kotaku, confirming that as it stands, the WP 4/10 review is official:
http://kotaku.com/reviewer-targeted-for-giving-uncharted-4-negative-revie-1776854933
So I don’t think he has hurt the credibility of his article at all here.
@theIndianNoob:disqus
Both of those Washington Post links you provided do not work (404 error).
MetaCrtic should only use data that is available on the published review. If score doesn’t appear there it should appear with the non-scored reviews.
Well for one the title of the Feature was COMIC RIFFS. Oddly enough though MetaCritic has used “Comic Riff” reviews in their meta data before. Those did not have published scores either so I am at odds with what MetaCritics actual policies are. Your website on the other hand seems to want to just put forth a narrative and there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of intellectual curiosity because at the end of the day the controversy serves page views and ad revenues.
None of this changes the fact that Washington Post did another review that did not have the words “Comic Riffs” attached to it and it included a score of 4 out of 4. Why was this review ignored in favor of the controversial one?
Right about this point, you are beginning to sound un-reasonable. You made a good argument of an alternative review, and the reasoning behind why MetaCritic is picking up an “Obviously” satirical review.
But both WP and the writer of the actual (Comic Riff) review have confirmed is their official review. The writer did give the game a score, but as is the policy with multiple WP reviews the score was not published.
The writer of this particular article has already owned up to the fact, that he did not know an alternative WP review exists. I think its about time, you agreed that the Comic Riff review is not satirical at all. If the links I have given don’t work, open the Uncharted 4 review, navigate to the “Comic Riff” category and read some of the stuff there, I think that would drive the point home.
And to be fair, highlighting a bad review for Uncharted 4 was not what the site wanted, highlighting the venom such a review gets from the community was the point of this article.
I would like to say that I had read the article which was supposedly the satirical one (After reading it, I didn’t think it was), and just now I read the 4/4 review. Don’t hate on me, I have played the first 3 Uncharted games to some extent and I pretty much agree with Michael. The games might (not my personal opinion) be story wise good, and the characterization may have been pretty but I didn’t find a game in there, rather more of a cinematic experience (And being a gamer who has invested 6-8 hours in games per day, non stop, Uncharted didn’t have a hold on me for longer than an hour or two). I agree that he has criticized the earlier parts of the series and also agree that he has not talked much about what Uncharted 4 actually is, but he has pointed out the flaws in the previous title pretty perfectly, though I won’t comment on the story part. But that review seems legit and the only thing that is missing is the score. Now if you are not willing to accept the flaws of a game, then I can’t see a reason as to why I’m explaining this to you. I felt that Michael’s review was laos comparitively more detailed than the second review and I’ll explain the reason below.
As for the second review by Lou Kesten, I just read it now, and I will have to say, he has just written what the crowd wants to read. Look at that review, first of all it’s barely an in depth look. It just seems he has written down the first impressions of the game and what came to his mind instinctively, while someone else was actually playing the game and he was pseudo gaming:
“And then there are the gonzo action sequences that are a specialty of developer Naughty Dog. “A Thief’s End” is filled with enough explosions, chases and hairsbreadth escapes to fuel a summer’s worth of Hollywood blockbusters, and one in particular — a frantic race through a seaside town — left me giggling and breathless.
All of this is presented with the most gorgeous graphics that have ever been summoned for a video game. Whether you’re lost in a jungle or perched on a lofty mountaintop, it’s worth taking a break to appreciate the gloriously detailed scenery.”
He has generalized the whole game within two paras, nothing in detail about what kind of development our character goes throughout the game, nothing about the different kind of environment setups (Which according to him look gorgeous), nothing that he personally liked or disliked. Not only that, he hasn’t even mentioned anything about the various changes in gameplay that he felt when compared to the previous games in the franchise. Its obvious that either this is his first Uncharted game or he just wrote it for public satisfaction. Similar to Michael’s review, he has not written what Uncharted 4 really is. The whole review looks like a para that Sony published for the promotion of the game and a summary for the story of the game. The first review at least pointed out the flaws with some sort of proof and seemed like the guy had played the game and at least the author pointed out the “Supposedly” best moment of the game, but the second review seems like a first impressions of the game or pseudo gaming as I said before. If you disagree with me please do tell me where I’m wrong.
@pratyushezio96:disqus
I am not hating on you, I am pointing out your lack of credibility. I don’t know you — this isn’t personal.
I don’t see a ton of due diligence here to get the facts straight. When I saw this “4/10” review from Washington Post the URL clearly showcased the review was a satire. Also other news sources with a greater interest in getting the facts straight than you pointed this out. Playing dumb and saying “I didn’t know” doesn’t help your case at all. You should know as you can’t expect to inform other people if you have not informed yourself.
This issue is not about the content of other people’s reviews this issue is a matter of your website attempting to form a narrative and not inform the audience.
You say yourself that you didn’t care for the game in many respects and you sought out reviews that were confirmation of your own bias. When you in a hole man stop digging. You would be better off updating the article with some facts and admitting you were wrong.
I don’t anticipate any game. And yeah they may have pointed out that the URL contains the word “Comic Riff”, but did Washington Post come out and say that it was a satire? I don’t think they have till now, and obviously that means that it is not a satire. And, it seems that the way he has written the review, he didn’t find it even average. But it certainly sounds hilarious that Metacritic derived a 4/10 for such a post. 5-6/10 would also would be good enough lol.
So tell me if WP has two reviews, who’s do they count as the real one. And anyways I was talking about people’s reaction to negative reviews and not a single thing about the review. I’ll tell you a secret, I don’t judge a game without playing it.
I never said I don’t care about the title, I’m just not into the title, means that I don’t worry about what review it gets, if I get to play it I’ll play it, but then it’s not a necessity for me. I always try out sequels, irrespective of whether I found the previous games boring or not.
And I didn’t go after the review, I just went after people’s reactions. Have you ever seen any other community do such a thing. It seemed absurd. There have been petitions for games in some way or another, but never for increasing the rating or removing a review.
Also you didn’t react to what I said about the second review that was written by Lou. I would like to know what you think about his review. Do you think that’s a review?
@OrionPaxBB:disqus
I would have opted for more diplomacy but you are 100% correct about the Washington Post review that was included in MetaCrtics Aggregate Score.
I think you’re missing the point of the article… by a large margin.
Hey Pratyush,
Couldn’t agree with you more. The reaction to even a hint of negative criticism is, honestly, very saddening.
I don’t really understand why gamers are defending the game with so much passion. Naughty Dog are big boys and girls, they can take criticism. They don’t need people on the internet defending their game. These people who defend the game at all costs are actually insulting Naughty Dog, they’re implying that they’re children who need to be looked after and protected. News flash, they’re not.
It’s all quite crazy.
Joshua
Hahahahahaha……. I guess you are right in saying that.