1) Like Mass Effect 3 all you want, but objectively speaking it's not a 99/100 game or RPG.
There is no objectivity in reviewing a game. As I said before, I couldn't care less whether it's even an RPG or not. It's not the purpose or goal of a review to evaluate whether a game is an RPG or part of any othr genre or not. You can come to the conclusion that Mass Effect 3 is a great game but not a great RPG. So what? Devalueing it because it's not a great RPG and the game has to be a great RPG no matter if it's just a fun and entertaining game? Ahem, no...
2) Yeah, they wouldn't be apparent in a shill review.
What wouldn't be apparent?
3) The fact that they were done by different people doesn't matter at all, reviews have to carry some air of objectivity, reviewing something means to critique it, not to just post if you like it or not.
No, not at all. Reviews are pure subjectivity. They can list features but ANY evaluation whether they are fun alone or as a package is just the opinion of a single reviewer.
4) "The everything is an opinion argument"
I wish people who use this argument were never allowed on the internet. No, in fact a lot of things carry objective value such as plot structure, gameplay elements, graphics, environmental diversity, encounter design etc. Games can and should be judged comparatively, as objectively as possible by critical individuals, otherwise there is no difference between a professional review, and someone's Tumblr page.
Games are more than a list of features, that's what you have to understand. A game can have a great list of features which all sound great on paper. That doesn't matter much if the game just doesn't make any fun. And the opposite can be true as well: there are games that sound only meh on paper but once you play them you are engaged and entertained, sometimes just because ONE feature is done right in such a good way that you personally enjoy a game. That is - sorry - highly subjective, whether you want to accept that or not. The only reason to compare games is to give an interested reader a better impression of how a game could play or function but there is no reason at all to compare games each other based on scores or verdicts (which are bollocks after all).
5) An affinity isn't needed, a familiarity with the genre, it's conventions and understanding what fans of the genre like and expect is needed.
A review is not there to checkt whether expactations of fans are met or not. That's not even possible since each individual person can have very different expactation when it comes to games.
6) They changed their policies, ok, so their old reviews won't be changed to reflect this, even for high profile games? Talk about a lack of journalistic integrity.
You can make everything bad if you want to. But acknowledging that you maybe made a mistake in the past by using a "flawed" scale for your reviews should be ignored if they played by your books? Is it better to stick to a flawed scale for reviews just to keep the "journalistic integrity". No not at all, because journalistic integrity is exactly the opposite. It's a sign of journalistic ingerity if you are honest about your own mistakes and try to actively improve on them.
7) I agree, there is nothing wrong with a late review, but when your reviews go up on metacritic, which you know full well has influence in the industry it means you should strive to judge games fairly, after all, review scores serve a purpose, that is to compare games, because they aren't isolated, they exist in an industry and the only way of knowing if game X is better than Y is to play and judge for yourself, or in an ideal world have actual critics, and not teenagers who can't even be objective about anything.
How is that not fairly? If they reviewed D3 at releast the game might have gotten a lower score which might have attracted less people to the game. But apparently they enjoyed the game a lot a few months after release. So why not giving it a high score? A late high score "upgrades" the metacritic score but only at a late time which is exactly how it actually should be. The problem is the other way round. Low initial scores based on problems with games just after release can be outdated sooon. But then again that's the fault of both metacritic AND the developers who released buggy games. It's not the task of the gaming press to reward for endeavours. That would be a truly dishonest take on reviews.
8) I agree, meta critic should never have the influence it does, but it has it, and if reviewers continue to ignore it, and continue shilling for that all important marketing $$$, the industry will never change. Luckily kickstarter came along and several experienced development studios managed to get funding to make video games, not committee designed hamburgers like Mass Effect 3.
There is nothing wrong with hamburgers...
Reviewers don't ignore metacritic, not at all. But you want them to ignore their own journalistic integrity or their own opinion just to have an impact on a metacritic average to give somebody "a message"? You just want them to agree on your dogmatic view that modern games are crap (just because you don't like them) and old-school games are great (because you like them). That's not how reviewing works and that has nothing to do with metacritic.
@Mindless Automata
You were not harsh, you were just rude and offensive (I read the whole Steam topic). You can call yourself lucky that he even answered you at all with the behaviour you've shown there....
