Are We Done Yet?
Damn you, Solomon. Damn you and your principles and your review updates. I now know full well why other reviewers never look back on their past articles. After a certain point, you forget what you’ve written, and you definitely won’t remember exactly why you handed out a certain score. I am barely able to avoid repeating the same jokes or introduction paragraphs. How can I be bothered to actually reflect on my life choices?
I’ve certainly questioned if I should adjust a score in the last five months. Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap, Treadnauts, and Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime are all games which I’ve considered. After playing Firewatch and Gone Home, I now appreciate Night in the Woods more. However, I won’t change a single score. After reading Past Solomon’s critiques, I trust him more than Current Solomon’s nostalgia.
Gone Home has also made me reassess the validity of my high scores. Critics loved Gone Home, and after playing the game, I can confidently disagree with their lofty “88” rating on Metacritic. I just don’t think the game is that good, and I recognize people could say the same about Katamari Damacy and Gorogoa, two games I’ve hammered with a 9.5 score. Do I feel my ratings are off? Hell no. Based on my parameters, both games are near perfection. That doesn’t mean others care about my parameters.
This is why I like Metacritic and review scores. No review can tell you if you’ll like a game, even if you read through it all instead of skimming the conclusion. It’s a single opinion; that’s it. If you are interested in a particular title, I recommend you go on Metacritic and read at least these three reviews: one which gave the game the highest rating, one which gave the lowest, and one which scored somewhere in the middle. This brief survey will give you a pretty clear picture regarding if you should go forward with the purchase.
And that’s enough ass-kissing for Metacritic. In terms of updates, the Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth + received the most content when Nicalis gave out the other booster packs (including a new character). As a testament to how much I’ve played Isaac, the update has done little to make me interested in the game again. GoNNER also earned a whole new underwater section (and some other knick-knacks) which just seems to pad out the game more than anything. The developers for Treadnauts gave some extra love to their players in the form of new options for multiplayer plus the ability to shuffle all stages together. It’s cool that they did this, but I haven’t really played more than a few rounds since the update.
I know in my last review update I promised to show how my review scores add up to other sites, but I forgot where I put my Metacritic template, and I’m too whiny and lazy right now to make it again. Suffice to say that my more recent reviews have increased my overall average. I’m still theoretically more negative than my compatriots, but I’m getting more neutral.
On a final note, I want to take some time to shit on the Jackbox Party Pack 3. It’s the only game my family is willing to play, and out of the different games we could play, they only like Quiplash. I’m sick of it all. I’m done making witty penis-related jokes. I have a website for that. I don’t need this in the rest of my life, god damn it.