Tag Archives: metacritic

Gavin Mannion

Metacritic: Defending the Critic

April 22, 2013 at 12:30 pm | 27 Comments

You don’t have to go far to hear about how bad Metacritic is for the gaming industry. Kotaku recently wrote a great piece about it and Adam Sessler also had some good points in his recent video. This isn’t a new complaint either, IGN covered it a year ago and so have countless other sites.


Gavin Mannion

Metacritic denies weighting system research

March 28, 2013 at 9:00 am | 16 Comments

We’re profoundly proud of our metacritic affiliation and as such out unbiased nature could be called into question when posting an article about the industry respected site. But since we’re not taking sides here I thought it was safe to do so.


Gavin Mannion

The biggest announcement in Lazygamer history

March 14, 2013 at 12:30 pm | 186 Comments

I started Lazygamer.net back in 2007 as a hobby to give me a break between working fulltime and studying correspondence. It quickly became something of a monster and started taking more and more of my time to keep the site updated. Since then we’ve had some memorable moments.


Geoffrey Tim

EA is 2012’s best game publisher

February 6, 2013 at 9:45 am | 35 Comments

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, but EA’s the company that published the very best games of 2012, according to review aggregator Metacritic. In their annual publisher ranking, they’ve number-crunched EA in to the top spot, with the highest number of critically acclaimed games for 2012.


Gavin Mannion

2012’s best games according to the critics

January 3, 2013 at 7:45 am | 12 Comments

Pretty much every video game site on the planet has now posted their list of the best games of 2012 and as always the public are upset. We’ve been called many wonderful things since we voted Black Ops 2 as the best shooter and ClapTrap as the best voice actor but that’s the nature of the beast.


Geoffrey Tim

Borderlands 2 review round-up

September 18, 2012 at 2:00 pm | 45 Comments

Borderlands 2 is out this week - and we’re all chomping at the bit to return to Pandora for some lootin’ and shootin’. Well except for Yolanda, who’s shown little to no interest in the role-playing shooter and has been banished to the basement.  As is the norm - for no good reason that we can ascertain - the game’s out in the US three days before it washes up on European (and African!) shores, so reviews for the game have been coming through hard and fast…just the way Darryn likes it.

Here’s what the scores are looking like.


Geoffrey Tim

Irrational’s hiring based on Metacritic scores

July 27, 2012 at 2:30 pm | 9 Comments

We’ve had numerous discussions here about the relevance of review scores and Metacritic - wondering just how much they really matter. It seems they matter a heck of a lot if you’re looking for a job at BioShock developers Irrational Games.


Gavin Mannion

Call of Duty critic and user scores over the years

May 15, 2012 at 1:30 pm | 18 Comments

While stumbling through reddit, which BTW takes up far too much time in my day, I came across this chart that plots the critic and user scores for each Call of Duty title over the years.

What is most surprising really is how the user score is following such a solid trajectory while the critic score is relatively stable.


Gavin Mannion

Is Metacritic ruining the gaming industry?

March 16, 2012 at 12:15 pm | 29 Comments

I saw a tweet last night but unfortunately I can’t remember who posted it, but basically it was stating that the image below is the reason why Metacritic is ruining the gaming industry.

And when you look through this image you can quickly see the point and well it’s just not fair really is it?


Geoffrey Tim

Microsoft is 2011’s best game publisher, says Metacritic

February 13, 2012 at 1:30 pm | 9 Comments

You thought Sony and its PS3 were the king of exclusives, right? Not according to Metacritic, who’s crunched up the numbers and found Microsoft to be the best, most lauded publisher industry-wide - beating out both Nintendo and Sony. In fact, Microsoft’s the only publisher whose aggregate is over 75% across all their released titles for 2011.

Nintendo’s come in at 2, with Sony sitting with the bronze medal on the publisher podium.


Darryn Bonthuys

Modern Warfare 3 devs want your help to boost their low Metacritic user score

November 11, 2011 at 2:00 pm | 66 Comments

Man, doesn’t it just burn your ass that everybody is playing that game you hate? Why, the public must know that your generic current war shooter product A is a hundred times better than generic current war shooter product B!

So what's a guy to do? Why go onto the review aggregate site, Metacritic, and absolutely slate the grittiness out of that opposing product of course! That seems to be the reasoning behind the suspiciously low scores in the user section on Metacritic, where Modern Warfare 3 is currently sitting at 2.7 out of 10 on console, and 1.5 out of 10 on PC.


Darryn Bonthuys

SCEA praises Uncharted 3 review for saying it’s “A Much Better Game Than Gears of War 3″

November 1, 2011 at 10:45 am | 20 Comments

We’ve had quite a few rivalries this year, from Battlefield and Modern Warfare to Forza and Gran Turismo, but the one digital contest that seems to have died down lately is the heat between Gears of War 3 and Uncharted 3.

With GOW3 proving to be a smash hit with gamers, thanks to its gripping narrative and superb multiplayer, it would seem that Uncharted 3 is in for a tough time, in order to try and come out on top, But so far, the adventures of Nathan Drake have proven to be a resounding hit with critics, with early reviews resonating a higher overall score than what GOW3 could achieve.

Sony is understandably happy, so happy in fact, that they’ve even begun thanking a reviewer who outright claimed that Uncharted 3 was indeed better than Gears of War 3.


Geoffrey Tim

Valve has no plans for Source 2

May 16, 2011 at 10:15 am | 6 Comments

Valve’s Source Engine debuted in 2004 (I feel old) with the release of Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike : Source (along with a favourite of mine, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines). Many gamers consider the engine to be long-in-the-tooth, and believe that the aging engine doesn’t produce the visual acuity gamers expect from modern engines. That doesn’t mean that Valve is planning or working on a new Engine; quite the contrary in fact. Valve plans on updating and refining its modular engine instead of scrapping it for a new one.

Geoffrey Tim

Homefront is art, shouldn’t have a 71 Metacritic

April 13, 2011 at 12:30 pm | 15 Comments

THQ’s purposefully shocking Homefront got a pretty mixed reception; some gamers loved it’s harrowing - but short -  single player experience, other derided it for its unnecessary shock tactics. Many loved the multiplayer, others lambasted it for being a buggy, broken mess. Critically, it garnered a 71 average – which by my apparently flawed reckoning isn’t terrible.

THQ’s Danny Bilson isn’t happy with that score though. Why? Because Homefront is art, numbers are math – and “you can’t apply math to art”


Geoffrey Tim

Take Two is Metacritic’s highest scoring publisher for 2010

February 10, 2011 at 1:30 pm | 0 Comments

Metacritic, that fine repository of reviews has run the numbers, and compiled a list of the “best” video game publishers in 2010, according to Metacritic scores and averages.

With an average of 77.1 across its 40 releases last year, the number one publisher is Take Two, who brought you our game of the year, Red Dead Redemption. As a matter of fact, the publisher didn’t release a single game that was poorly received – its lowest ranked game, Major League Baseball 2K10 for the Wii received a middling 52.

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