This is all bordering on brain dead. Review scores are pretty meaningless numbers in themselves, so aggregating them can only give a crude metric that buries a lot of important factors.
Using that ranking to compare games across wildly different genres that appeal to audiences with similarly differing tastes just seems even less appropriate.
That said, there are considerably less duffers on the Nintendo Life list, so I guess your tastes must be way more in line with mine than either the reviewers or users on metacritic.
@Krull I agree, Into the Breach wasn't on my radar at all, but after seeing it on the list then looking at some reviews and gameplay, I really want to give it a go! There are a few more games on the list just like that. Did you get Divinity: Original Sin 2 from Limited Run? I missed out on that one.
@gcunit that's exactly what I was looking for, plus everyone's perspective of what the best games are is going to be different
@Tamale I like lots of different types of games, some dislikes, but I want to give games I would skip over a go, such as Divinity Original Sin 2, I would never have considered playing that type of game in the past.
@Mountain_Man@Gimli you're both right, i'm just keen to find great games which I have missed, which if I discovered in 3 years would be unavailable physically.
@Oswinner you're right, but like you say, it's a great gauge and I have to start somewhere if i'm going to create a collection of physical games.
I hadn't considered the user list, I'll have a look.
You're right about the Nintendo Life list too, from what I have seen and read Witcher 3 and Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze are great games, but nowhere near the top 25 on Metacritic.
@Matt_Barber I know what you're saying and there is truth in what you're saying, but I've found it useful to find games I should give go, but it's not the gospel.
Galaxy is a pretty good example of the limitations of Metacritic.
On the one hand, you've got a great game, that's widely held up as one of the best of all time, with a metascore of 97 for the original release. However, the 3D All Stars package rates a mere 82, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Tadpole Treble Encore.
That's despite the Switch version being basically the same game. It's not like they've borked it with unplayable controls or bad graphics either; it's just as good as ever. The problem is that the package as a whole was seen as rather lacklustre, with the other two games not quite getting the attention they deserved, a dearth of extras, and some rather disappointing marketing on the part of Nintendo by making it a time limited release.
Ultimately, there's no substitute for reading the reviews.
Using just a mean is pretty crude when trying rank.
Having a mode to see the most common score would be useful, along with the variance of each mean to see the spread of scores.
That way you can see if game generates differing views, and possibly point towards review-bombing (esp when contrasting with critics' scores).
But what's the percentage of game owners who post scores on metacritic? I bet it's quite small.
@Matt_Barber for sure. Compilations are always rated strangely. I’ve been playing the SNES and all-stars is amazing. You get 4 games in-one. Yet people rate Super World higher. I’m sorry but I’d rather have the all-stars collection if I could only have one.
I rate Galaxy better on the switch as I couldn’t stand the waggle of the Wii, yet with it coupled with 64 and sunshine it’s rated lower lol. Surely 3D-All stars is one of the best games on the switch right?
Maybe the individual games should be rated rather than the collection as a whole?
There's a famous quote by Roger Ebert which I can't actually remember but it's along the lines of you rate a movie for what's it's trying to do, not out of all movies. Apply that to game collections and I can see 3D All Stars not getting the top marks, it has minimal touch ups and lacks an obvious big game to include from the collection so as a collection it has shortcomings.
I use Metacritic a lot of times to find out about bugs/glitches or overly repetitive gameplay. I am surprised Astral Chain is not on any of these lists.
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To quote a famous movie critic: "Without critics all that would be left is advertisers."
I love MetaCritic to bits. Someone mentioned that re-releases of old games get low rating scores. I just check the original scores and go by them. I treat at a "10/10" game in 1985 as a "10/10" now.
Starting at the top of the MetaCritic list and working your way down isn't a bad idea. You can do some homework, read some reviews, watch trailers and gameplay. Factor in genres you might know you like, if you want solo or multiplayer games or a good mix.
To give a movie analogy: I hate silent movies. Can't stand them, though I've tried. From Chaplin classics to recent Best Picture winner "The Artist". They just bore me to tears. Similarly, I've never been a fan of first-person shooter games, and don't have any interest in competing against anonymous strangers in online warzones.
I also like to look at not only what games won at the big award shows, but those nominated too. That gives you a lot of different games from different genres to investigate.
The NintendoLife Switch Top 50 from NintendoLife user scores is the best user ranked game list I've ever found. Each entry is that game's average score, so it's not necessarily just a list of games that sold the most copies, but best reflects the quality of the games: https://www.nintendolife.com/guides/feature-best-nintendo-swi...
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Topic: Best Switch Games - Is Metacritic Right?
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