Its not about lowered expectations its about a different kind of gaming altogether for me. Downloadable games can't really eb compared directly to retail titles for the obvious reasons.
BTW, ONM rated Max and the Magic Marker 84% and I would rate the WiiWare service as a whole 9/10
"They say video games are bad for you? That's what they said about rock n' roll."
You should be able to see the qualities of a game, even if it doesn't fit your taste. A reviewer has a responsibility and should also look at a game from a more objective standpoint, not just scoring a game by how much he/she likes it. There are many factors like level design, graphical quality, replay value, originality etc. A reviewer should not be self-serving and should be able to judge a game on a level that goes beyond his/her own taste.
I pay less, there are size limitations, the development cycle has been shorter, so I expect less. I know an 8-rated WiiWare title won't be half as good as an 8-rated retail title. At least that's how I look at it anyway.
I think personal opinions and tastes are a big part of scoring a game but, it's true, there should be a certain amount of just presenting a games basic features as they are for people to make a judgement about and indicating when something isn't your cup of tea but that it might be well implemented anyway. If you're turning to reviews to make your choices, though, you should always read it at least knowing that there will be some bias based on personal tastes, whether or not the reviewer is up front about it. My favorite reviewers are pretty clear about their own tastes so it's pretty obvious when you might feel differently about some parts of a review; it's really helpful. Some reviewers try to pretend like its some kind of objective, serious matter, and then tear apart stupid things that you can tell they just personally don't like (like when you can sense that they prefer another console or hate any kind of motion controls or something like that).
That whole notion of "objective journalism" and all that junk that comments sections toss around is so silly. Nothing is totally objective, especially in "official, serious" journalism. Thats why we all have our favorite web sites and news outlets; because we prefer different kinds of viewpoints and biases and takes on things. Every thing that people communicate in any form is editorialized and subjective, thats what makes us alive, and what makes us great.
People like to pull out this nonsense about "thats not real journalism; it's biased!" Get real, dude, it's Nintendo life.com for one thing, they can do whatever they want. Plus look at all the crap thats called "real journalism" anyway; Ever see a copy of "USA Today"? Ever watch any Fox News? I'm sure the UK has it's share of glaring left and right leaning papers as well, I just don't know them since I don't live there.
Y'know, you make the argument that we lower our expectations because of the price, and that's true. But the thing is, you can't use that to say that it's ruining the industry. We (the consumer) are paying less than 1/4 th of a normal retail game to get another game that is shorter and slightly less polished than a big-budget release. It's hard to argue with that. And, like many of people have said, an opinion is an opinion. You can't really change that.
P.S. I have not played Max & The Magic Marker, so I cannot comment on that.
Thanks given to Xkhaoz for that one avatar. Please contact me before using my custom avatar!
A (Former) Reviewer for Digitally Downloaded.net
My Backloggery: http://backloggery.com/v8_ninja
Lostwinds winter of the melodias has shown what can be done on Wiiware. To my opinin Nintendolife scores Wiiware games way too high. For example: an 8 for Max & The magic marker??? The game has a very bad framerate, freezes now and then, is short, there is a lot of repetition in the gameplay and the controls don't feel tight. Simply forgiving these things because is cheap and downloadable is wrong. All these points could and should have been inproved before bringing the game out. If this would have been a longer and full priced game on a disc, the same faults wouldn't have been forgiven this easily. Wiiware is lowering our expectations and our standards of what we consider a good game.
I think the simple answer is to not pay too much attention to the number, it's all relative afterall. WiiWare scores are relative to WiiWare and Wii scores are relative to Wii games. I for example didn't buy Max and the Magic Marker, based on the review from NL, even though it go 8/10! That's because I could understand from the review that it wasn't for me, simple as.
Listen up kid, sure no one is totally objective, and personal opinion plays a big role in a review. But you should not score a game low because for example, you don't like platformers or it is difficult. Judge a game for what it is, what it's trying to be and how well it does that.
Personal opinion is also appreciated in reviews, I don't want to read a robotic review devoid of bias, that'd be boring, if they aren't a fan of the genre and I am, then of course I'm almost certain to disagree with their score, a number from 1 to 10 tells nothing about the game really, the review itself is where attention should be focused, as the reviewers often state their feelings on the genre as a whole, which in its self is enough to help me judge a game most times, if they are a fanatic of a certain genre and I'm not but still a fan, then I'd think maybe I'd view it as more a 7 or 8 rather than their 9 or 10, and same for lower scores.
I expected a bunch of retro-styled games, myself. Instead it seems like we are getting cell phone ports and games that could have been Flash browser games. I have enough to keep me happy though. Bit Trip is a constant stream of awesome, and if Nicalis ever releases a single game, I'm sure it'll be golden. Not to mention Mega Man.
I've had low expectations for Wii Ware ever since it started coming out. It has a few gems, but I have no idea why anyone would expect anything more than just a few. I mean honestly... did anyone REALLY think that Nintendo could offer up two high quality games at low prices every week? 1 good Wii Ware game a month surpasses my expectations.
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