14 DAY TRIAL // Are video games getting better or are video game reviewers just giving better grades to the titles launched this year? This is the question that pops up when one reads the report critical site Metacritic has recently released, showing how the game reviews from the first half of 2010 scored compared to those from the same period of last year.
The big take from the new mid-year report that Metacritic has delivered is that the average review scores offered during the first half of this year were higher than those offered to titles launched during 2009. No less than three of the video games outed in the past six months scored higher than Capcom’s Street Fighter IV, the 2009 title that got the biggest score before July rolled around.
The 2010 titles are Mass Effect, the space bound action role playing hybrid made by BioWare, Super Mario Galaxy 2, the space bound adventure of the familiar Nintendo character, and Red Dead Redemption, the open world Western-themed title developed by Rockstar and the best selling video game of May, which moved more than 1 million units on the Xbox 360 and on the PlayStation 3 in North America.
The under 50 scores dropped to 16 this year from 25 last year. It seems publishers are taking to heart the observations made in 2008 and the concept that they are better served by launching a smaller number of better video games than flooding the market with shovelware.
Of course, the increase in quality could be just a symptom of how the game review process works, with those who grade games rarely using the full 1 to 10 scale and often awarding passable scores to the weakest efforts made by developers and publishers.
The full Metacritic report can be consulted here.