Topic: Nintendo Switch 2

i do think, depending on the game, the context will unavoidably slightly affect its score. hell, that happens all the time when many people revisit games from decades ago that were initially praised but perhaps given more scrutiny over time as other similar games show up.

people may pretend they can totally decontextualize media from their timeframe or surrounding media, but that is nigh impossible.

Context aside, the biggest issue with scoring I have, by far, is the consideration of price when calculating score.

That's probably going to be a controversial opinion, but I stand by it, and here's why:

1) Prices change. Scores do not. So if you rate a game a 7/10 based on a $70 price, and then price drops, the score is no longer valid. It's only reliable as long as the game is selling for the original MSRP. Any time it goes on sale, the review score becomes arbitrary and useless.

2) Value is subjective. Now. I understand scores are also subjective. The entire review is subjective. But subjectively assessing value is something the consumer should do, not the reviewer. The consumer may not see value the same way, rendering the score irrelevant. The reviewer should rate how good the game is, be it $10 or $100, and let the consumer then decide for themselves whether that game is worth whatever price it happens to be selling for at that moment.

3) Price affecting score is illogical anyways because that would mean all F2P games should be 10/10. Doesn't matter how good they are if the value, much like the contrast ratio of an OLED, is infinity. And clearly, anyone can see the flaw in that approach.

4) Some sites account for price. Others don't. Rendering scores unreliable and difficult to compare.

5) A fair, price-blind approach would result in scores equally judging a game based on it's quality of entertainment as a function of time invested. Nothing more, nothing less. This would eliminate cheap indies that are nowhere near as good as some full priced games receiving higher scores, providing the illusion they are better games when in reality they were just deemed better value by someone who isn't the consumer based on a price that will end up changing anyways. This would also allow F2P games to be compared in a direct manner to other paid games.

Let the consumer decide value, don't decide it for them based on ever-changing variables.

@squiddu-real
Perhaps it is impossible, but I think it should nevertheless be the standard by which reviewers aspire to adhere, at least to the extent possible. And if it necessarily must influence the score, so be it, as long as the goal is to minimize its impact.

@JaxonH everything makes sense besides the $100 mention. it's the same thing as a tech product: could prices change? maybe. depends on who you're buying from cough cough. but noone wants to feel ripped off, so i don't think it's unfair to consider that maybe some things should be put under scrutiny if they insist on being that premium of a price.

games are generally expensive, and many don't get much cheaper. you still would likely want some sort of assessment of if the general quality of the game matches the precious money you spend on it. mentioning f2p is redundant since noone usually applies that philosophy to those games anyways.

I think context is important/relevant to reviews…but also the exact context of a game isn’t quite concrete and down to many temporal, personal, environmental, etc., factors.

It’s why Mario 64 might still get some outstanding reviews but I’d personally rate it quite low. Some people are considering the original impact of the game, or remembering their own experiences with it, whereas I’m primarily focusing how it feels to play today and whether I’d want to play it with all the other 3D platformers (including Mario’s own) available today.

With this in mind the “context” for MK World for me is that:

• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is amazing and arguably the definitive Mario Kart game. There is almost too much content and honestly it doesn’t want me longing for more.
• Mario Kart World provides an excellent new spin to the franchise making it worthwhile over MK8. It does feel a little lacking content-wise, but I’m happy with what I’ve played and I’m fully expecting future support for the game.
• Mario Kart 8 is still playable on the Switch 2…so I’m not missing anything from it in the slightest.
• Overall it’s a great game in a series that I love for a system I was excited about, which will likely be played throughout that systems life cycle.

For others the context is that MK World is presented as the big launch title for the Switch 2 (a system they might not yet be sold on) and therefore has a lot to prove. Add to that the whole $80 discussion and I think people are expecting a lot of this game.

@Ralizah Honestly I’m quite a casual Animal Crossing fan…I tend to play for a couple of months at launch and then never touch it again, and that has remained the same for every entry. As such I didn’t really get to appreciate Nintendo’s drip feeding of content this time. I’m certainly not in a position to debate the merits of New Horizons vs previous entries…I just thought it was an interesting parallel.

@squiddu-real
If the context is "the previous movie did this with the plot" then that's fine. But this is Mario Kart we're talking about here. You don't play Mario Kart for the plot. It's an singular release. There really isn't any need to consider "context"

If someone wants to make an opinion piece on the price of gaming or the state of the Switch 2 library. Then sure, they can (and do) do that. They can even end their review of World suggesting that people play something else if they wish, that's their opinion. But I don't think any of that has any impact on whether or not Mario Kart World itself is good or not. Which, ultimately, is what a game review tries to achieve

@squiddu-real
I agree things should be put under scrutiny for price. I just don't feel it's the role of the reviewer to do so.

The consumer is completely capable of scrutinizing price on their own. And that's where the responsibility should lie, since it's their money. Only they can assess whether the value of entertainment is worth the trade off for the asking price.

Letting a reviewer steal that role from you, as a consumer, means they're not just reporting information for your edification, they're actively deciding for you whether that trade off is worthwhile. Without knowing you, your preferences, how much value you expect to get from the game, what the price is, whether it's on sale, etc.

And that, I think, is what's getting lost in translation. I fully agree, I just see no reason the reviewer should make that assessment for, and instead of, the consumer.

We look to reviewers for opinions on the things they have privileged information about- primarily, how good the game is since we can't play it. But the price? They have no privileged information about price that we don't. So why would we forfeit our right to assess value with respect to price to someone who isnt ourselves?

@skywake "context" is not just a plot, for the record. it's the general gaming opinion on a particular thing (usually trends in game design), similar games we can compare to (i.e. crossworlds, air riders doesn't count), overall it's just more subjectivity introduced into reviews that is very very hard to completely detach yourself from, and i don't think there's anything wrong with that.

trying to remove context surrounding a game is like those people who ask for news sites to have "zero bias". but that's not reasonable, is it? there's no one perfectly neutral viewpoint on subjective discussions, and even if there is one, do you think anyone could ever reach it?

like i said, many people revisit games years later and have drastically different opinions on them. or some don't, because of nostalgia. point is, you don't need to make an opinion piece on the state of gaming for the state of gaming to affect how you review a game. it's all subjective at the end of the day.

@JaxonH but just like the opinions on the game itself, isn't value just as subjective? why, just because some reviewers get it days earlier, are their opinions on the former any different from the latter?

we shouldn't view reviewers as an end-all. if they make a statement on their percieved value of a game, that should not be treated as them taking responsibility away from the customer deciding for themself, just like their opinions on the games shouldn't be treated as thinking for us.

they are a reference point for what others think, nothing more, and if one just so happens to match your general opinion of such mechanics, good for you! but they do not work for everyone and never should.

@squiddu-real
Of course it is! As I said. But it's a subjective assessment the consumer should make, since it's their money and their potential enjoyment. Why on earth would we want someone other than us to decide for us what's a good value to us?

@squiddu-real
BTW, I have no issue with reviewers stating their perceived value of a game. I just don't want their subjective assessment of value contaminating the score, which I will be using to determine my subjective assessment of value. Capiche? 😀

@squiddu-real
Yes, but again, we're talking about Mario Kart. What is the context that would be missing in the critical reception that the review bombers and doomsayers have picked up on? It seems to me the only context missing related to the game itself is the price. Which, frankly, did not impact my enjoyment of the title. Especially given it was offered as a bundle

Also I don't see this as being the same as the people who bleat about news being "biased". The negative discourse about Mario Kart World isn't because of some political position or some controversial take. It's not because people are upset about the idea of a cow riding a dolphin kart. As far as I can tell most of it purely comes from the fact that some people don't like the Switch 2 for whatever reason and Mario Kart World is THE Switch 2 game. It's mostly just a proxy for console warrior BS. That's the "missing context"

To be clear, I'm not saying World is a Masterpiece or even the best Mario Kart. But what it isn't is a bad game. I have some minor quibbles with it, many of which were mentioned in its reviews. But it's still basically about as good as Mario Kart always is. Not ground breaking, but well executed comfort food

Played 2.5 hrs of Dragon Quest VII Reimagined. Thoughts:

Gameplay: Really good. The speed options make battles brisk and non-tedious. There are some overly long hangs for characters joining you or collecting certain items, but not a big deal.

Graphics: Absolutely top notch. This game is gorgeous.

Audio: OK. So, the voice acting is actually great. And the music is excellent. But the audio mixing and recording quality is absurd! Most amateur hour stuff I've seen in a video game since... well, maybe ever. It's downright atrocious. All the recorded voice lines have this insane reverb like it was recorded with a $3 mic in church hall, and the volume fluctuations are all over the place! One minute it's too loud like they're talking right up to the mic, the next minute I can hardly hear what's being said. Had to turn "Night Mode" on my Ambeo soundbar to equalize the volume a bit. They should be ashamed of this. Whatever rag-tag company they hired to mix the audio... I can't believe they're in business. Even YouTube videos I watch from no-name content creators have better audio clarity and volume equalization than this.

Overall, I really do like it despite the embarrassing audio mixing. It sucks but I can look past it. Real shame though. If they'd just used, like, literally any other studio for the recording and mixing this game could have been near flawless.

For what it’s worth, Mario Kart World is the best S2 game I’ve played. But then it is the first time I’ve played a kart racer in years.

@squiddu-real
No, I didn't realize sequels exist. (Ask a dumb question...)

We're human beings. We can't help but acknowledge other things.

But when it comes to reviewing the game, review the dang game. Not everything around the game.

@skywake ...how do i even respond to that? where was controversies of the game itself ever questioned? i... what?

I think MK World’s biggest challenge was being the first mainline Mario Kart game in 11 years. Long gaps create super high expectations but also you know that’s the entry for the next decade or so.

Other massive heavy hitters like GTA6 (13+ year gap) and Elder Scrolls 6 (15+ year gap) face similar challenges.

Just took a look at Digital Foundry's top 5 SW2 games of the year from Oliver - and MKWorld took the top spot. I'm just saying....it's a good read.
"So Mario Kart World is a great game, and it has the potential to become a near-perfect racing title with future expansions and updates. In any case, it’s still the best racing game of the past few years in my view, and therefore easily scores first position in my game of the year ranking for 2025."

Just ran a t-test for NintendoLife reviews vs Metacritic aggregate, calculating the difference in scores, be it higher or lower and by how much.

Null Hypothesis
H₀: Difference = 0

Alternative Hypothesis
H₁: Difference =/= 0

Conclusion
p-value = 0.2419
Failure to Reject Null Hypothesis

The data were taken from the top 10 highest scored Switch 2 games according to MC, and compared with their NL score. Games included both 1st and 3rd party, and spanned at least 4 different reviewers on NintendoLife. The MC aggregate used was for the version with the highest number of scores to increase accuracy of the mean.

The x-axis represents the difference in scores in terms of standard deviations. The average difference was -0.3, meaning NintendoLife, on average, scores games lower by 3 points out of 100.

The green shaded area represents the 95% probability range of the difference. If the t-value lies within the green shaded region, we cannot claim there is a statistically significant difference. It doesn't prove the Null Hypothesis (that there's no difference in scoring), but it does fail to reject that Hypothesis. Meaning there's no grounds to claim bias.

It's even worse when you test for bias in favor of Nintendo instead of for or against. Using a 1-sided t-test instead of a 2-sided test, the p-value jumps all the way up to p = 0.88. Remember, the p-value would need to be LESS THAN 0.05 to indicate bias.

The t-value would need to fall in the red zone to indicate pro-Nintendo platform bias, which is clearly not even close to being the case.

Note
The yellow line indicating the average difference of -0.3 is not on the same scale as everything else in the graph, which has been converted into standard deviations. I wanted to visually show the average difference and didn't want to make another graph so I just added it in. Basically, you should be looking at the t-value and checking to see if it falls in the red shaded region or not.

@JaxonH I love that you did this, really cool analysis. Thanks for sharing.

@squiddu-real
This discussion stems from the idea that the positive reviews of Mario Kart, and in particular the reviews on this site, are missing the "context" around the game. You're insisting that games cannot be reviewed without the "context". I'm questioning what the "context" is in this scenario

If you're trying to argue that a game review should consider the conventions of the genre, the current capabilities of gaming hardware, the expectations we have given the platform and its limitations. Then sure. I would agree that a review should consider that context. If you're arguing that a review will inherently contain the biases and preferences of the reviewer towards a particular genre then sure. That's unavoidable. Same deal if a game made a specific political statement or butchered some character/plot established in a previous entry

But it seems to me in this case the "missing context" is "Nintendo bad", "I don't want to see Nintendo do well" and "I don't like the game pricing strategy this generation". Which.... I'm not really convinced is the kind of context a review should be concerning itself with. That's something that should be saved for an opinion piece separate from the review and shouldn't really impact the score. Because as a reader I've already absorbed that "context" and can factor it into my purchasing decision without the reviewer pointing it out