Quoting Glazunov1, reply 9
That said, 10/10 for a game that has major diplomatic AI issues (leaving all other matters aside) seems over the top to me. The writer may not care about the fact that one player can attack you, and then all others will usually jump in, but that's the kind of thing people would find significant, worth noting, and lowering one's rating for. I suspect this was someone who played briefly, was thrilled, wrote, and moved onto the next greatest game to come along. But possibly I'm doing them an injustice. It's at least the impression I receive.
While I would tend to agree, it is not as though "professional" reviewers are immune to over-rating a game. Case in point:
http://www.gamespot.com/sid-meiers-civilization-v/reviews/sid-meiers-civilization-v-review-6276683/
Gamespot I consider to be a very "big name" game review site. The author of that "9/10" review was Kevin VanOrd, credited as a "Senior Editor." The review was dated September 22, 2010 -- one day after release, before a single patch.
At launch, before patches, how would you rate Civilization V? Just consider its diplomacy ... remember the most-AIs-liked-you, then one-denounced-you, then all-denounced-you, then all-declared-war-on-you runaway silliness? 9/10? Seriously? Add in the AI that was so weak, even with hefty cheats at higher levels to production, income, research, etc., was easily overcome due to tactical stupidity, leaving its ranged units unguarded, inability to field a capable navy, etc. And by far, the best winning strategy was the rightfully-much-loathed "Infinite City Sprawl." Seriously, 9/10? And then there were the bugs, ridiculously fast research but slow production, multiplayer and modability shortcomings ... on and on. I do not see how Civilization V was worth even close to a 9/10 at launch.
Yeah, it may not be as bad as giving FE a 10 out of 10, except to make my point that big name reviewers make worthlessly skewed review scores and if you consider a "Senior Editor" at a big, professional review site as being 'professional' despite an overly positive bias, but mark someone else as not being professional for essentially the same thing, its an uneven-handed different set of rules for some folk versus others and I consider that to be a BadThing(tm).
I agree with you completely, and never meant to imply otherwise. Game magazines are a business model tied to ad revenue, and as such, it's always tempting to get games reviewed very quickly, and (at least when they're big name companies behind them) very positively. That's not to say there aren't reviewers with ethics--or even editors with ethics, in the business of games industry reviews. But the easy road involves hiring kids for free with hardly any background knowledge, throw PR presentations at them, and watch them orgasm out. This hasn't always been the case. Magazines a decade ago and longer received many letters from companies complaining that their games had been slandered, etc. But those days seem past.
I would never consider a "Senior Editor" more than a title. I was once in a cab with two senior editors of gaming magazines, boasting to one another about how many freebies they'd received from various companies. (And this isn't an exaggeration.) I just listened quietly the whole time, and kept my gorge down.
As for Civ V: to be honest, I never liked the game. But I hear where you're coming from. The best defense against such things is to scout for negative reviews when all the others are raves, and see if the writer has serious, well expressed concerns, defended with examples (like yours, above), instead of wanking off to the image of their own ego.
