What's the Score?

Hello again folks. I'm doing this week's scores a little earlier than usual because some of the games we'll be using for October come out early in the month.

Let's have a look at how each game fared in September:

Life is Strange: True Colours impressed critics with a score of 81. This is lower than most games in the series, and many rightly predicted this game would struggle a little relative to its predecessors. Nobody got this spot on, but Balla was only 1 point adrift.

Deathloop wowed with one of the highest averages of the year, clocking in at 88. A lot of people were unsure how to rank this, which makes a lot of sense given that it was hard to tell what the game even was right up until release. But Mas was dead on the money, and Andy, Muss, and Smurf were only 1 point off the money.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits had many reviewers gushing at its graphics, and most were happy enough with the gameplay too since this one weighs in at an 82. Most of us predicted high 70's to mid-80's for this one, but it's Mas and Muss who were dead on the money here.

Warioware: Get it Together! gave most a jolly fun time, coming home with a 77. A lot of us thought this was around the score it would get, with Andy and Rum going closest just 1 adrift.

So how did everyone do overall this month?

September Leaderboard:

What's this done to the overall leader boards?

Overall Leaders:

And some other stats for anyone interested

Spoiler:

Anyway, that was then, what about now? The games for October are:

Metroid Dread (releases October 8th). A lot of hype around these parts for this game, lets hope it's good!

Back 4 Blood (releases October 12th). This co-op zombie shooty banger and Left 4 Dead successor could be a hit.

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (releases October 26th). Honestly, wanted to put Nickelodeon Brawl here but not sure it'll get enough reviews. This game definitely will get the reviews and it might be even harder to predict. Could be shite, could be alright.

Mario Party: Superstars (releases October 29th). You know it.

My reviews:

Metroid Dread:

Back 4 Blood:

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy:

Mario Party: Superstars:

How the fuck does anybody follow that? This is like the GNamer equivalent of that time Kim Karadashian broke the internet with the photo of her big arse.

Class

That Metroid one had me rolling. Exceptional work!

I was starting to roll my eyes by the third video. Then the fourth had me rolling in the aisles. Muss I'm still expecting conversions of those into scores. Use the lengths of the videos or something.

Anyway sod it. Numbers time. (I reckon NickBrawl will get enough reviews, but that may just be because Nintendo Life seems to publish every other article about it.)

Scores, no dancing:

Yes Buska

More winning scores:

Buska, are you alright mate? Blink twice if you need help.

Exceptional videos aside, I'll join in this month after missing out on the first few! Let's see how I do:

My guesses:

@buska That also made me think that you would honestly kill it as a streamer with all the wacky shit you do.

My scores:

thanks guys. I don't know why, but I was able to find the motivation to smash that out last night after the idea popped into my head. Where is that energy when it comes to studying Japanese?

Balladeer wrote:

Muss I'm still expecting conversions of those into scores.  Use the lengths of the videos or something.

You have a weird definition of "interpret" mate. Muss will watch them, pick up the vibes I'm laying down and convert that into a number which he can use to tally up scores. And if he can't, I've proven once and for all that numerical scores are bollocks and should be ditched.

The_Jaster wrote:

@buska That also made me think that you would honestly kill it as a streamer with all the wacky shit you do.

Cheers mate. Yeah, I should try my hand at streaming. I was thinking of having a go when Diamond and Pearl comes out, as I may be able to pull a few LLP listeners in.

I can assure everyone that my machine learning algorithms, which definitely aren't discriminatory in any way, will fairly and objectively translate Buska's submissions into scores.

Anyway here's my guess

four scores and seven years ago:

Buskalilly wrote:

And if he can't, I've proven once and for all that numerical scores are bollocks and should be ditched.

Even if that were true, I'd still use them out of spite.

I'm all for giving Buska the points here and now but in the spirit of the competition...

It's spooky season, spooky because I'm getting all of these spot on:

Well, on the plus side, it's nice to be pleasantly wrong about Deathloop - I don't know if I'm going to get it myself but I'm pleased it's a banger.

Scorey Feldman:

I meant to do this sooner! I know the Metroid Dread scores are out but I haven't looked at OpenCritic or Metacritic yet, honest!

Scores babes:

It's that time once again where I jot up last month's scores.

Metroid Dread impressed critics with an aggregate score of 87. It didn't quite hit the 90's many of us predicted, but Crumpy and Muss got this bang to rights, with Jimbob and Cappa just the one point adrift.

Back 4 Blood was seen as pretty good but not great, weighing in at 76. Most of us had this in the low 80's, but Jimbob was once again only a point away.

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy actually did pretty well, bringing home an 82. A few of us swung low on this one with a few folk predicting 60's. Of those who were close, Balladeer went nearest at 2 points from the target.

Mario Party: Superstars Must've done something right because it finds itself on an 80. Interestingly the highest prediction for this was a 79 from Mas and a 78 from gjones. Everyone else had this coming in at the low-mid 70's.

Of course, one man pushed the boundaries of objectivist critique to limits nobody has ever dared venture before. The World Excite Truck Champion and Master of Cheese, Mr. Luke Summerhayes, harnessed the medium of interpretive dance with astonishing accuracy. Mr Summerhayes, forwent the traditional pillars of critique: damage, control, style, and aggression, in favour of a method that he dubbed: "reviews just based on, like, the vibes I get." Mr Summerhayes' ever-so-slightly off-tempo interpretation of Metroid Dread was an out and out 87: the dance everybody wanted, delivered ever so slightly out of time. His robo-testosterone riddled, "Back 4 Blood", a surprisingly nuanced takedown of old genre tropes that no longer mesh harmoniously within the hegemonic consciousness of the contemporary zeitgeist, an undoubted 76. "You don't have to believe in yourself, because I believe in you;" is both a Guardians of the Galaxy quote and the obvious takeaway from Luke's third dance, an eminently positive riff on a game so many doubted, 82.  And perhaps Luke's magnum opus, the take on Mario Party: Superstars, unarguably an 80% (It's only the last 20% of the dance that gets lairy, clever that innit?).

For the rest of us mortals, here's how the month played out:

October Scores:

And as for the overall leaderboard/most perfect guesses tables:

Overall Leaders:

And what of the games for November? To be honest, I wasn't really sure but hopefully the four below will do. I wanted to include Death's Door but it's already been released on other consoles, and I think I'd prefer to leave off collections, which obviously ruled out GTA.

Jurassic World Evolution 2 (Out November 9th) - The toilets are getting dirty, you should check that your cleaner's haven't been eaten ~ Lewis Macleod if he reprised his Theme Park World role in this game. (I know most people here don't play these types of games, the previous game in this series was meant to be pretty good but not world class. I expect this would be about the same).

Forza Horizon 5 (Out November 9th) - Whizz Whizz, neow neow, vrooooooooommmmmmm. ~ The Cars from Cars but they can only make Car noises.

Shin Megami Tensei V (out November 12th) - "JRPG Shite" ~ The Cappucino Kid

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl (Out November 19th) - Bidoof ~ a Bidoof

From experience I'd say that Metroid score was much fairer than what I predicted, my GOTG score I did purposely lower because I thought reviewers would go lower but really it deserved better so if I went with my heart I'd probably have been closer (or much further the other way).

I predict a riot:

Much like I said to Balla about Psychonauts 2, you can play Forza via Xcloud you don't even need a Xbox and people do love Horizon series with FH4 coming out 2018 (I believe).