The fact that you were able to find things about the game that you would enjoy, and which affect your purchasing decision, all in a negative review, makes it sound like the review succeeded. If there had been no score attached, you likely would have just said, "yeah it sounds pretty multiplayer-focused and with skimpy single-player attached, but that's actually what I like, so I'll pick it up. Fair review." It's like the 2/5 score changes the text somehow.
"Offline play is where players who go to tournaments actually play to level up."
Understood, but it was my impression that this review was written for adults.
Wow... any gamer looking for a good story in their fighting game, well, I think that sums it up pretty well. You guys may as well take advice from a monkey about cooking fish...
You're kind of missing the point of Metacritic. Some of us actually care about things like single player.
I fundamentally disagree with your statement that single player should be secondary to multiplayer in a fighting game review. That's not to say I'm suggesting that single player should be the focus instead, but more that there is room for different reviews to explore different aspects of the game. We don't all like the same things so why should reviews all be written from the same perspective? Diversity is a good thing and a game that doesn't satisfy all buyers doesn't warrant a 9/10 or higher in metacritic.
A SC V review that focused on online multiplayer exclusively is worthless to someone like me who only plays multiplayer with someone in the same room or single player. I've bought every SC game to date (including the original Soul Blade) so I think my opinion on this franchise is worth as much as anyone else's.
Yeah, I hate how cheap the game feels when the difficulty level spikes. Which leads me to wish it did a better job with its training tools. Why can't every game be as good as BlazBlue when it comes to training tools and therefore cheap difficulty spikes?
I actually find your idea that games should be "as full-featured" as their predecessors to be more problematic than the idea that reviewers go easy on Transformers 3- anyone who watches Transformers 3 knows what he's getting into, but there's a tendency to confuse "features" with "fun" in modern gaming that seems a lot more insidious. Granted, these seem to be features that you particularly enjoyed (and they're similar to features that accounted for most of my SC2 time), but a series shifting direction should come down to more than just a shakeup in the features list- is the speed and "feel" of the fighting in SC5 remarkably different from its predecessors?
Seems you like to contradict yourself. 'and to Learn Match Up data' Seems to me like you've already admitted that online play has use beyond casual play. Thus proving my original comment correct and your misguided opinion about my experience with the fgc quite hilarious.
I got this game roughly 5 days before it came out and played it nonstop for about 6 hours against the cpu because there was no online available. After those 6 hours I was struggling to find something to do in the game. Tom is right when he says the single player is lacking. It really is. I got it for the multiplayer part of the game, only intending to play single player to unlock everything. After I had gotten all the characters and most of the costume bits, I found myself somewhat bored. There really was nothing left to do. Now that online is available, I don't really care, but when my internet connection is down or suffering from lag spikes, I'll be playing something else.
This is the same guy who gave 4/10 to Uncharted 3.
Just sayin'.
Hey I've got an crazy idea, now hear me out this may get weird but how about finding a reviewer that shares your tastes and you know stop reading Tom's reviews?
If someone uses the word 'noob' without a sense of irony I immediately ignore their point.
What I dislike about the score (not the review) is that it's misleading and drags the metacritic score down significantly.
The problem is your review isn't even reflecting the score properly. I get the feeling you don't realize just how low a 4 is. It means it's a failure of a game and clearly this is not the case it just doesn't fit your personal tastes.
Which leads me to another point. Reviews are meant to be as neutral / unbiased as possible. I say "as possible" because no one can ever be truly neutral when reviewing something but when you do a metacritic included review, imho it's required.
For example you can have me review the next call of duty and it will score a 2.5 because i hate the franchise and what it stands for however this is by no means what the game truly deserve thus shouldn't belong on metacritic. Same thing here
Couldnt give 1 shit what you think about my point. The "point" of you replying to a comment that has nothing to do with you tells me you are just a troll. Run along kid.
Erm, OK big guy I'm a troll. I apologise if I caused you emotional distress.
I completely agree with most of this review. I think the score should be a little higher, but I was really disappointed by the character customization. Cosmetically its is great, but the complete lack of RPG-like stats customization is a horrible step backwards. That was like 50% of the fun for me.
Is there some kind of reviewers' bible that gets handed out to people when they take on this job? I had no idea there were so many rules involved and it would be awfully handy to have them all in one reference.
lol the only emotional distress something like you would cause is regret from your mother for spawning such a miserable disgusting excuse for a life. I mean really, if you are going to be a troll at least try to be a creative one. Yawn.
in My Opinion you just got owned. hahaha
Causes...no. You're still wrong. Online is for casual play. However it provides an alternative to learn match ups if you simply dont have offline available, but it's not a replacement. He didn't contradict anything.