2011 has been a banner year for great games; just the sheer number of 9.0+ review scores has been simply staggering. Uncharted 3 has been pulling in 10s across the board, Skyrim and Arkham City have been getting 9.5s, so on and so forth.
It occurred to me the other day that game ratings might be somewhat…vague, if you will. Yes, Skyrim got a 9.5 at certain websites. But then again, so did Forza Motorsport 4. IGN gave Infinity Blade 2 a perfect 10, which is what The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword got.
Which led me to wonder: Are all perfect 10s, 9.5s, 8.0s, etc. created equal? Should genre matter when reviewing a game and giving out a score?
Let me paint a picture for you: you hate racing games but love first person shooters. A website rates Modern Warfare 3 with a 9.5 but also gives Forza 4 a 9.5. How do you feel about that rating? Would you be able to accept that a racing game got the same coveted 9.0+ score as a worldwide megahit like MW3?
How about a comparison between Portal 2 and Forza 4, or between Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat?? Can there be justification with giving a racing game or fighting game the same score as Portal 2?
The reason why I ask these questions is because of a recent conversation I had with a friend of mine. I, as many of you may know, LOVE racing games, especially sim racers. My friend DESPISES them. He doesn’t feel that racing games are “real” video games; in fact, he categorizes them as casual games, the likes of an Aladdin Magic Racer for Wii or something along those lines.
He feels that no racing game EVER should get above a 5.0 simply due to the fact that racing games are nothing but repetition and different iterations of the same franchise usually include the same cars and tracks with minimal new content (his words).
On the flipside, he argues that pretty much any other game, be it an RPG or FPS, can offer varied gameplay, story, and more replay in the sense of competitive multiplayer, co-op, finding hidden items, different endings, etc. In his mind, a comparison between a racing game and any other type of game shouldn’t even be close; the racing game will always be inferior.
So I ask again: Should genre matter when determining whether or not a game is great?
Pages: 1 2