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General discussion (archive)Can we PLEASE stop giving five stars to everything?(98 posts)(98 posts)
(98 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted May 26, 2013
high rated
I think this is becoming a serious issue now, honestly. Ok, I understand where everyone is coming from. I myself was raised in the golden age of gaming. I'm a 33-year-old man whose father and uncle ran a video game company out of their house. I was playing Decathalon on the monochrome IBM, ok.

All this aside, we have GOT to stop giving a five star rating to every game title because "It's a classic!". I'm trying to look at games I've never played and think objectively weather or not they are games I'd actually LIKE to play. This is freaking impossible when all the reviews are either "Five Stars! Great, epic, awesome piece of history!" or "This game sucks". This tells me absolutely nothing.

Now, I'm not gonna pretend like this is EVERY example. Lots of people hit five stars but then very carefully explain the game's good and bad points. That's great! You're allowed to love the game all you want but please, for the love of god, at least try to explain why.

I LOVE Dungeon Keeper 2. No joke. I have an old tower in my bedroom setup with Windows 98 just so I can play that game in particular. I would however not pretend that it is worth five stars or that it is this perfect game. The aesthetics are a clear downgrade from the first game, it's riddled with bugs (even after patching) and it has nearly zero functionality operating systems newer than Windows ME (don't even get me started on Mac).

So yeah. Can we all just be a LITTLE more sensible about our user reviews? Love the games you love but please, PLEASE don't "review" a game if all you can say about it is it's great or it sucks. This is only hurting the community in the long run.
Post edited May 26, 2013 by Tarrker
Posted May 26, 2013
I agree (although I think many of these games are worth between 3 1/2 - 5 stars), but I think unfortunately the people you want to reach are the ones who don't frequent the forums.
Posted May 26, 2013
avatar
Tarrker: I think this is becoming a serious issue now, honestly.

So yeah. Can we all just be a LITTLE more sensible about our user reviews? Love the games you love but please, PLEASE don't "review" a game if all you can say about it is it's great or it sucks. This is only hurting the community in the long run.
http://www.gog.com/gamecard/daikatana


My god, you're right.
Posted May 26, 2013
avatar
OneFiercePuppy: http://www.gog.com/gamecard/daikatana


My god, you're right.
That one has three stars, this one has one: http://www.gog.com/gamecard/guilty_gear_isuka
Not once but three times :D
Posted May 26, 2013
This topic gets my five stars!
Posted May 26, 2013
Its a very rare game that gets everything right and so 5 Stars in abundance really makes no sense. Most likely folks are giddy over the fact that some well loved game is here and available to play. Try looking somewhere else for your reviews, play a demo, or wait till its on sale for the price of a coffee.
Posted May 26, 2013
avatar
Tarrker: I think this is becoming a serious issue now, honestly. Ok, I understand where everyone is coming from. I myself was raised in the golden age of gaming. I'm a 33-year-old man whose father and uncle ran a video game company out of their house. I was playing Decathalon on the monochrome IBM, ok.

All this aside, we have GOT to stop giving a five star rating to every game title because "It's a classic!". I'm trying to look at games I've never played and think objectively weather or not they are games I'd actually LIKE to play. This is freaking impossible when all the reviews are either "Five Stars! Great, epic, awesome piece of history!" or "This game sucks". This tells me absolutely nothing.

Now, I'm not gonna pretend like this is EVERY example. Lots of people hit five stars but then very carefully explain the game's good and bad points. That's great! You're allowed to love the game all you want but please, for the love of god, at least try to explain why.

I LOVE Dungeon Keeper 2. No joke. I have an old tower in my bedroom setup with Windows 98 just so I can play that game in particular. I would however not pretend that it is worth five stars or that it is this perfect game. The aesthetics are a clear downgrade from the first game, it's riddled with bugs (even after patching) and it has nearly zero functionality operating systems newer than Windows ME (don't even get me started on Mac).

So yeah. Can we all just be a LITTLE more sensible about our user reviews? Love the games you love but please, PLEASE don't "review" a game if all you can say about it is it's great or it sucks. This is only hurting the community in the long run.
I agree that to much reviews end up with 5 stars. 5 stars should mean it's perfect with no flaws at all.
Nostalgia is probably the main reason all games here get so great scores.
My advice is to look for reviews that were made when the game was originally released. Lucky for me I still own a great deal of old gaming magazines.
Posted May 26, 2013
How about two thumbs up? Wait, that has actually been trademarked (no shit) so we can't do that.

Penthouse has a scale of boners. If you don't believe me check out one of their review pages. They give between one and five hard-ons depending on how good or bad a movie is. That works for me! :D
Posted May 26, 2013
Bullcrap.

It's not possible to filter by stars anymore, so I just have to rely on Roman5's gogmix, he apparently keeps it current. Thanks, Roman5. (Yes, seriously. I mean that.)

There are 51 games in that gogmix (including Wizardry 8, so I assume it's current). There are, as of this posting, 567 games on GOG in total. So, for the mathematically challenged, less than 10% are five-star-rated.

Now, the idiotic, unethical, counterproductive and antisocial bell curve grading system common in some schools (I feel for you, folks) recommends scaling the curve in a way that makes As to be 10% of all grades. Now, this is not the thread to discuss the nonexistent merits of the bell curve, but it IS a good indicator of how many top-rated items people like their arbitrary rating system to produce for it to feel "nice" and "fair".

Also, keep in mind that GOG's catalog, such as it is, is curated, so 20% or even 30% of A-rated games should not be unusual or unwanted. As it stands now, however, the effects of curation are not noticeable at the top level at all. Wanting there to be fewer 5-star rated games is just plain nonsense and mathfail.
Posted May 26, 2013
Yeah, almost everything single game on GOG has really good scores, but i dont care about the star rating. I read the reviews for details about the game that i might enjoy or not.
Posted May 26, 2013
avatar
Starmaker: Now, the idiotic, unethical, counterproductive and antisocial bell curve grading system common in some schools (I feel for you, folks) recommends scaling the curve in a way that makes As to be 10% of all grades.
Why, one might even say that out of a large enough sample size, the grades from 90-100 should be A's, according to that dastardly scaled bell curve. Ludicrous!
Posted May 26, 2013
low rated
Mathfail isn't a word. I think someone needs to check their own intellect before criticizing the intellect of others.
Posted May 26, 2013
I also think it's a problem. Reviews here are way off the mark due to nostalgia.
Posted May 26, 2013
avatar
Starmaker: Now, the idiotic, unethical, counterproductive and antisocial bell curve grading system common in some schools (I feel for you, folks) recommends scaling the curve in a way that makes As to be 10% of all grades.
avatar
OneFiercePuppy: Why, one might even say that out of a large enough sample size, the grades from 90-100 should be A's, according to that dastardly scaled bell curve. Ludicrous!
...was your math grade an F, or are you being ironically dense on purpose?

edit for constructiveness: You're a teacher. You have 20 students. You run a test with 50 questions with true or false answers. They do the test. Describe a grading system that produces the result you expect, other than "determine the two students who scored the most and arbitrarily give them above-90 numerical grades and As."
Post edited May 26, 2013 by Starmaker
Posted May 26, 2013
I don't think that using reviews on GOG is the best way to determine if a purchase is going to be worth your while. There is an incredible amount of nostalgia and bias, that will weigh in too heavily. I don't think you'll have much luck convincing the majority to give a vote and write a review that isn't.

What I suggest you do is look at reviews elsewhere, either reviews from back in the day (if available) or sites that do in-depth retro reviews.
If you insist on looking at reviews here, find out whose opinion you share and read their reviews only.
For those you like, upvote the reviews as helpful to make them more visible.

You can't fault people for just expressing their love or hate for a game no matter how little valuable it provides to you. We can't all be professional reviewers.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Can we PLEASE stop giving five stars to everything?(98 posts)(98 posts)
(98 posts)