Jim Sterling

FFS, anything less than a 9 means you hate it!

Funny you should say that, given that the 7/10 BotW got is meant to be a good score. Jim, like every critic/site, goes out of his way to emphasise as much. However, there's relativity against other scores to be considered, and the overall tone of the review (it was more negative, say, than Nintendo Life's 6/10 review of LCU, and ended on a con), and the fact that the site gave Street Fighter V the same score after lambasting it all review. It's all very well saying your site thinks 7/10 is good, but the evidence just doesn't stack up.

I probably am overreacting a bit though. But then, I'm a single-platformer fanboy who doesn't pretend to be much else. As long as I ain't outright insulting the man, I think I'm fine to talk/rant about why I disagree with his assessment.

I've not read his SFV review but from playing it, I would get why his review without reading it would be negative as the game had almost no content but did play great.

That what score do you give it, if the punching of the dudes is top notch and I'd hope that's what you buy a fighting game for but the rest around it is pants.

I think from watching Colin and Gregg for years, you get a understanding of people and you get what a Jim Sterling 7 is, if you read / watch his stuff for a good while.

That'll be her SFV review Mas, Laura K did that one. But I'd disagree with Balla that it lambasted the game throughout the review, I think that's a mischaracterisation. All of its criticisms were aimed at the sparse content, dreadful servers, and underwhelming presentation. Of the actual gameplay and stat stuff available it was very positive, describing it as an improvement over SFIV, praising various tweaks to the fighting system and the added features that worked.

If you're marking it then sure you could make the case that too much of the focus was on the negatives, rendering the review weighted towards something less than good. But one could equally argue that the score was justified because there's no real scathing criticisms of the gamey bits, only the lack of gamey bits and broken gamey bits, and so the reviewer was just doing their due diligence in hammering out the grim details on things which were lacking but resolvable. I mean, at least in the case of that review, it's worth noting that Laura's not a fighting game wiz and isn't going to be telling us anything about frames or whatever the technical terms are, how much deeper could her analysis have been? She probably expended all her assessments on the positive stuff fairly rapidly.

I felt pretty similarly about SFV as she did. Super disappointed in the faulty bits and occasionally wondering what could have been. However, I did have a blast when playing vs mode with Drunky boy.  I had a read of Jim's Zelda review too just now. I don't agree with him on several points but I think he did a decent job of getting across thought there was a good game in there it was just mired with too man inconveniences for him. I dunno, I feel like he's fairly consistent within his own realm and I'm generally understanding of whatever number he gives a game. It's when things start to get compared to other sites and their scales that I feel like scores start to become meaningless, which is why I only use metacritic as a place to find various reviews to read.

Balladeer wrote:

As long as I ain't outright insulting the man, I think I'm fine to talk/rant about why I disagree with his assessment.

Always.

I always forget, others do reviews on his site as it's not like a IGN where it could be almost anyone.

Might sound a bit narrow minded and fanboyish but I can't fathom how someone who is serious about video games can give Breath of the Wild anything less than a 9 without having some kind of ulterior motive.

I gave it a 7

The only real humans I've seen not rate Breath of the Wild are Mas and Andy, and they both finished it about a quarter of the usual time. I guess the game sucks if you're a heartless, joyless robot whose lost your inner child and sense of wonder.

I'd just like to point out it's perfectly possible to dislike a game and still recognise it's a top class act worthy of the highest praise.  Evidence: my rampant dislike for Metroid Prime, which I also consider a easy 9 out of 10 with a personal enjoyment rating of 4/10 (hmm, maybe I'll start adding those to my reviews from now on).  

There are just some games, very rare and special games, where you can just feel there's something different about them, that they're in a class of their own.  Most of these aren't flawless, sure, but usually the rest of the package is so good that those flaws are rendered nigh irrelevant.  Breath of the Wild is just such a game.  

Claiming Breath of the Wild is anything less than an eight is a tad ridiculous in my opinion, I spend most of my time playing 7 out of 8's after all, heck they're my favourite type of game.  I can accept the game has some issues, and force myself to accept that it might knock it juuuust shy of perfection.  But to call it anything like a 7 is to place it in a category of games that it simply doesn't belong with, considering the sheer brilliance and craftsmanship that the game exemplifies.  

To put it bluntly Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece. And yes, anyone that says otherwise, is, as far as I'm concerned, wrong. Note however that something being a masterpiece does not mean it lacks flaws. It does, however, preclude it from being a 7 or lower.


As for Sterling's decision for rating it that low, honestly I suspect it's partly a case of marking it a bit lower than it deserves to generate some attention/hits/discussion.  Can't really blame him for it either, we've all done that at some point (both marking up and marking down) for varying reasons.

Okay maybe I should have said 6 then

Athrun888 wrote:

I'd just like to point out it's perfectly possible to dislike a game and still recognise it's a top class act worthy of the highest praise.  Evidence: my rampant dislike for Metroid Prime, which I also consider a easy 9 out of 10 with a personal enjoyment rating of 4/10 (hmm, maybe I'll start adding those to my reviews from now on).  

There are just some games, very rare and special games, where you can just feel there's something different about them, that they're in a class of their own.  Most of these aren't flawless, sure, but usually the rest of the package is so good that those flaws are rendered nigh irrelevant.  Breath of the Wild is just such a game.  

Claiming Breath of the Wild is anything less than an eight is a tad ridiculous in my opinion, I spend most of my time playing 7 out of 8's after all, heck they're my favourite type of game.  I can accept the game has some issues, and force myself to accept that it might knock it juuuust shy of perfection.  But to call it anything like a 7 is to place it in a category of games that it simply doesn't belong with, considering the sheer brilliance and craftsmanship that the game exemplifies.  

To put it bluntly Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece.  And yes, anyone that says otherwise, is, as far as I'm concerned, wrong.  Note however that something being a masterpiece does not mean it lacks flaws.  It does, however, preclude it from being a 7 or lower.


As for Sterling's decision for rating it that low, honestly I suspect it's partly a case of marking it a bit lower than it deserves to generate some attention/hits/discussion.  Can't really blame him for it either, we've all done that at some point (both marking up and marking down) for varying reasons.  

Yup this is absolutely bang on.

The_Jaster wrote:

Athrun888 wrote:

I'd just like to point out it's perfectly possible to dislike a game and still recognise it's a top class act worthy of the highest praise.  Evidence: my rampant dislike for Metroid Prime, which I also consider a easy 9 out of 10 with a personal enjoyment rating of 4/10 (hmm, maybe I'll start adding those to my reviews from now on).  

There are just some games, very rare and special games, where you can just feel there's something different about them, that they're in a class of their own.  Most of these aren't flawless, sure, but usually the rest of the package is so good that those flaws are rendered nigh irrelevant.  Breath of the Wild is just such a game.  

Claiming Breath of the Wild is anything less than an eight is a tad ridiculous in my opinion, I spend most of my time playing 7 out of 8's after all, heck they're my favourite type of game.  I can accept the game has some issues, and force myself to accept that it might knock it juuuust shy of perfection.  But to call it anything like a 7 is to place it in a category of games that it simply doesn't belong with, considering the sheer brilliance and craftsmanship that the game exemplifies.  

To put it bluntly Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece.  And yes, anyone that says otherwise, is, as far as I'm concerned, wrong.  Note however that something being a masterpiece does not mean it lacks flaws.  It does, however, preclude it from being a 7 or lower.


As for Sterling's decision for rating it that low, honestly I suspect it's partly a case of marking it a bit lower than it deserves to generate some attention/hits/discussion.  Can't really blame him for it either, we've all done that at some point (both marking up and marking down) for varying reasons.  

Yup this is absolutely bang on.

Seconded. I get this feeling most often in genres I don't really like.

masofdas wrote:

Okay maybe I should have said 6 then

The shadow of your words will be cast long over the pages of history. One day you will pay for your insult to the almighty gods. With my fists I will deliver blow after blow. It will sound as though the thunder is rumbling in a valley, where each hill echoes the sound a dozen times. Like that will be the sound of my powerful fists bringing you low in the field of battle. So swears Luke, son of Gary, the Drunken Lilly to you, Chris "masofdas" Pengilly.

Top reply from Drunka

On Athrun post, I agree to a degree but surely their will still be a case where someone doesn't feel the same. Their must be books, films, paintings and yes games which are consider masterpieces but some people don't like them.

I see Athrun's very good post and say two things about it.  I'm guessing you'd never volunteer to review Metroid Prime for a site.  And Sterling did make a lot of good technical points in his review.  While I do believe he's gunning for attention, I simultaneously believe he wouldn't be doing that unless he really did have some axes to grind that he thought were genuine.


And now, to contradict myself, the other thing I thought of (inspired by Drunka's post above): BotW is a game you need to be patient with.  It's a big world that demands, and rewards, a leisurely approach.  I'm not a patient type, and before going into the game, I practically sat myself down and said to myself that I'd need to take this slowly.  If you're reviewing a game, and especially if you're reviewing a game long after everyone else has, there's pressure to get it out ASAP.  You don't have that luxury.

Is it a coincidence that all of Metacritic's sub-80 reviews came out more than a week after launch, presumably from people who hadn't got review code and had to catch up?  And that the two people who thought it was mediocre on this forum were two of the first to finish it?  I think not.  

While in most cases I'd say that there's 'no wrong way to play a game', I don't think that's true for BotW - and I think Mas, Andy, and Jim might just have played it wrong.

I played it like a Zelda game, do dungeons, defeat Ganon, watch credits.

masofdas wrote:

I played it like a Zelda game, do dungeons, defeat Ganon, watch credits.

It isn't your typical Zelda game though which was the point of them getting away from the old formula, if I had just done that then maybe I would have been a tad disappointed too BUT I had so many magical moments in between all of that.

Some of which felt totally unique to me but I guess some just like being methodical when playing games.

Whereas I enjoyed it for the polar opposite reason: rather than methodical, I'm easily distracted and I ran around doing anything and everything with a childlike sense of wonder and glee.

The_Jaster wrote:

masofdas wrote:

I played it like a Zelda game, do dungeons, defeat Ganon, watch credits.

It isn't your typical Zelda game though which was the point of them getting away from the old formula...

Massively this. And for me personally, that was obvious before I dived in.

It was but that's not what I mainly play games for, I like to do the story and experience that which I did do with BotW. Some games like P5, I could just skip all the side stuff and interactions but they add something to the story and experience.

Going off in any direction and coming across whatever in BotW, doesn't do anything for me as doesn't add anything to overarching story experience.

It did for me as I felt like I was creating my own story/adventure but each to their own I guess, kind of funny that BotW doesn't let you rename Link when it arguably makes the most sense here compared to other Zelda's.

It does contribute to the story, just in a more mature and interesting way than most games which simply ape existing media. Look at so many classic works of film and literature: the basics of the story are very simple good versus evil/ going on journey things, but the details that happen in between are what makes them. Instead of cutscenes and text, which you can get with films or books, Zelda fills the journey with encounters and adventures and playfulness that you yourself experience. I had so much fun with every one of those encounters, I cannot even imagine the mindset that would rush past them. So glad I turned the Shrine Sensor and minimap off right at the start of the game.

I think it may add to the journey to the end, not the story.

The closest I can think off to what your saying Drunka is FFXV which the story was standard JRPGness but the journey along the way with the boys and doing the side stuff added more to the game and made me care about them and why it was one of the best games of last year.