I’ve been slowly but steadily playing The Last Of Us 2 now that it’s out and so far I mostly really like what I’ve played. It’s dark and violent but that’s to be expected, and I really love revisiting these characters and this world.
It’s also gorgeous, a true masterpiece when it comes to graphics. There are some areas—like a post-apocalyptic Seattle—that are truly breathtaking.
I have some issues with the game as well, and I’m taking notes so I can do an impressions piece soon, followed by a full review and other musings. It’s certainly the kind of game that makes you think, not just about the story but about video games as art—and the inherent limitations of this art form, as well as its strengths.
In any case, before we get to that there’s something that’s been troubling me ever since I wrote my first piece about this game’s Metacritic score.
At the time, the game was rocking a 96/100 on the review aggregation site. It dropped to 95/100 (the same score Forbes Games’ Paul Tassi gave the game in his in-depth, spoiler-filled review).
Now the game is at a still-excellent 94/100 thanks to a couple of negative reviews pulling down the average.
It’s what’s missing from the total score that I find troubling, however. A few years ago, a big debate over the usefulness of review scores rippled through the gaming community. What a fun time that was! Debating something as neutral as review scores, instead of all the crap that’s followed, is like looking back on a simpler bygone era. How I miss it.
In any case, following this debate a number of publications simply stopped using review scores altogether. They were too arbitrary. All scores fall between 6 and 10 anyways, typically, so what’s the point? (The point, I always argued, was that 6 is and below is an F, 6-7 is a D, 7-8 is a C, 8-9 is a B and 9-10 is an A / A+ just like with grading in school).
Then a lot of these publications just stopped using review scores. I didn’t because I still believe they’re useful to readers and consumers. Now we have a situation with The Last Of Us 2 where I think my point is kind of proven to be true.
Most of the most critical reviews of The Last Of Us Part 2 are ones without scores. Kotaku’s review, Polygon’s review, Jim Sterling’s review, Vice’s review, Time’s review—all of these would have, in years past, impacted the overall Metacritic score. Maybe other non-scored reviews that are more positive would have balanced it out, but I can’t help but feel there’s something missing here that makes the score feel off.
I’m not saying it should be a lower score or anything like that. As noted above, so far I’m very much enjoying The Last Of Us Part 2. It’s just a little odd to have so many glowing 10/10 scores and then quite a few more nuanced/mixed reviews that have no score at all.
Meanwhile, the Metacritic user review scores paint an entirely different picture of the game, one that I would argue is just as unhelpful. You can’t leave an unscored review as a user as far as I know.
What do you think about all this? Are review scores useful or should we get rid of them altogether? Does a mixture of scored and unscored skew things too much? Let me know your thoughts on Twitter or Facebook.
