It's been long enough since I posted. Let's remedy that now.
Well, the review of Metroid Prime 3, my most-wanted game this year, is finally up, and I must say I was surprised to see that the game scored an 8.5 rather than a 9 or above. Naturally, this sent the more volatile forum-goers into an uproar over how Gamespot is "teh biased" against Nintendo.
Actually, this is something that I've been seeing for a long time, and have long since grown weary of. Claims of bias go up every time a game gets a review lower than what its fans think it deserves, and it's not just limited to games on Nintendo platforms. Now, I've been coming to Gamespot for a long time, and while there are several reviews I disagree with (I don't think I'll ever figure out what was wrong with the guy who gave Mario Kart 64 a 6.4 when it was first released), I have yet to see any bias against anyone. No, in my opinion the cries of bias come soley from fanboys bitter that their games didn't get higher scores.
I'd like to address the issue of bias with some examples. As most of my time on Gamespot is spent looking at Nintendo games and browsing the Nintendo forums, however, I will limit my discussion to analyzing the perceived bias against Nintendo.
Is Gamespot biased against Nintendo? Consider these Gamespot reviews of Nintendo games:
Gamespot gave WarioWare: Smooth Moves a 9.1, higher than any other reviewer, and significantly higher than its 82% average score among critics
They also gave Yoshi's Island DS a 9.1, higher than its 82% average, and much higher than the 6.83 awarded it by Electronic Gaming Monthly
Another 9.1 went to Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition. This game would have been easy to critique for being a port of a two-year-old game with last-gen visuals, yet they still gave it a Superb rating.
Generally, Gamespot gives all games, including Nintendo games, middle-of-the-road scores. They're more critical of a game's shortcomings than many critics, but seldom if ever do they simply hate on a game and give it a bad score. Sure, some of their scores rest at the low end of the spectrum, as is the case with Zelda: TP and MP3. But I've just given you some good examples of Gamespot doing the opposite and giving Nintendo games a higher-than-average rating.
The fact is opinions differ, even among critics, and Gamespot isn't going to give MP3 a 9.5 just because everyone else has. They didn't do it with Bioshock, either. And it may be that their reasons for dropping the score for this game are warranted; they certainly were with Zelda. But in the end, it doesn't matter. What does matter is what everyone seems to miss, even though it's the review's headline: that, according to Gamespot, Metroid Prime 3 is "a worthy end to the trilogy".
Yeah, they obviously hate it.
My cousin got me Baten Kaitos Origins for Christmas, so when I finished Zelda I started up on that. I beat it yesterday, and while I enjoyed it, it still left a lot to be desired, especially where the story was concerned. It's fun, but it's no Final Fantasy.
In between, I've been spending time with my VC purchases: SM64, Kirby's Adventure, Gunstar Heroes, and Bomberman '93. All great games, and I'm still playing them.
My Playstation is not working, alas. I need to get a new laser for it. I still haven't finished Final Fantasy V and IV yet, and I want to get FFVIII and IX soon, plus the other great PS1 RPGs that I haven't yet played.
My SNES hasn't seen a lot of use lately, though I've been thinking about starting up some Super Mario All-Stars. I can't believe how long it's been since I've played one of the NES Marios, especially SMB3.
My Sega Genesis, likewise, hasn't seen a lot of action. I played through Sonic 3 & Knuckles fairly recently, but I haven't done much with it in a few months. It's sill nice to have, though, because I'll want to go back to those old Sonics eventually.
I have played my N64 a bit lately, though. Having played my cousin's copy of Mario Kart DS, I decided I wanted to replay MK64. I did, and instantly remembed why it's so much better than MKDS. It's the only really good game I have left on my N64, so I'm thinking about selling the system and getting MK64 on the VC.
Anyway, I'm starting up a game on Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, which I recently bought used. No new game prospects in the near future, except for the occasional VC purchase. No, the games I have should keep me satisfied until SSBB comes out.
