Back in Skirmish 83, we tackled one of the most significant issues in the gaming biz: reviews. Its a heated topic among many gamers and we had plenty to say on the matter. We were also full of opinions on Destructoid.com reviews editor Jim Sterling. Mr. Sterling is a polarizing figure for many readers; just as likely to be accused of bias as acclaimed for his (brutal) honesty. We thought it only fair to get his side of the story, so we were thrilled when Jim agreed to go Under The Axe and share his thoughts on ratings, reviews, and the abuse we dished out in EpicBattleCry 83.
We never tire of hearing what you think, so hit us back in the comments and share your thoughts on game reviews, scores, and, of course, Mr. Sterling.
Stay Brutal.
imho … i think many many games he reviewed he never playd through – and since his Modern Warfare Review with a Score of 9.5 i cant take him seriously. And i rented many games where he said in his reviews that the controls suck or other “Control based” things in a Game (difficult “never beatable” Minigames and so on)- and i realized he have to be a very bad Gamer.
My thing is – i turned destructoid my back and im glad with it. I dont want to see or hear interviews of this lazy sh*tpile writer on other sites – cuz of this and the troll from others he get the kudos/status he wants and gets.
sry 4 my bad english
I honestly am with DK on this..
And never read much reviews at all, so I won’t ever be reading anything from jim.
I also unsubscribed from dtoid on my reader.
I read and listen to a fair amount of game journalism/entertainment on the web and I can honestly say that I enjoyed this Under the Axe. I found the discussion to be fair and intelligent. It provided some tasty Food for Thought.
Thanks Brent, Daniel, Tony and Jim, good stuff!
Why does game reviews matter? Because more, and more developers refuse to do demos, so the general public don’t get to get an impression of a certain game, which in turn puts added value into the the different reviewers opinions. Look no further than Modern Warfare 2 for proof of this.
However, on topic, interesting discussion.
It was a great episode and I do enjoy my reviews. I like to read a bunch of them to get the bits of pieces of things that matter to me out of them to decide if the game is something I will personally enjoy.
And kudos to Jim for coming on and speaking very well on his behalf I felt. I imagine it’s not the easiest thing to do with you three on the other end of the line…axes dripping with blood. To be honest I can’t say I have ever read one of his reviews to date. However after this episode and listening to him, I think I will be adding his into my list of reads from now on. I can’t say there is one reviewer out there who is exactly like me, so the more I can read the more pieces I can pull out that have value to me.
His scores are odd, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. I know if someone starting giving me crap and didn’t bother to read the review or gave some generic “you suck” message I would probably lay into them as well.
So he uses a sheet to judge his tone to dictate what score he gives? So he is a tool? He is told what score to give by a guide sheet he created…oh yeah Jim…you’re a genius.
You pretty much admitted that you do not choose a number score…you let a guide choose it for you. Why can’t it be your score? You say your review owns up to it, but if you let a “comprehensive” guide dictate your score, then it is not your score anymore, which makes the score moot and pointless in any or rather all of your reviews.This is insightful. Now I know to ignore your scores altogether.
I will give you credit for coming on the show and confronting the crew about their opinion on you. I respect you, I really do, but I think you need to work on how you score your games.
Kudos to Sterling for coming on, but I think the guys dropped the ball here. All the tough talk in ep 83, then the guy comes on and EBA basically fold straight away, rather than stand their corner and give a really heated debate – they sound practically scared.
Re: Sterling’s view on the term journalism – being a paid reviewer is journalism, whether he likes it or not. Read any British tabloid newspaper and you will find article after article that are little more than someone giving their opinion, he should know that.
I must say I follow very closely both the Axe and Jim, so when they destroyed him last week, I was a bit shocked. I must say I feel last week’s episode was a bit wrong as they bashed on Jim as they said he bashed on commenters. I must say this interview is MUCH different because they actually have him on the phone, it is much more respectfull and creates a much more intelligent conversation.
Jim is mostly unrespectfull to flamers and people who are anonymous. The anonymousy of the commenters is a part of why he can be so severe, but also VERY funny.
Being a fan of ACII, I really loved his review. I went to tchek it out after playing the game and really understood the points he called out and kind of agreed on most points. This was also mostly true with Blacklight:tango down, though I don’t agree (Myself) with the scores he gives, but I understand and agree he scores them that way.
I must say I’m kind of on Jim’s side on this one…
I wonder if to an extent Jim, Destructoid and other like-minded reviewers, and review sites almost subconsciously give games that receive good scores on average bad scores because they know overall it won’t really hurt the games success to any significant extent, and this sort of at the same time would enable them to vicariously give more weight to games that would otherwise be overlooked by the majority of the community.
People might see something like Heavy Rain got a 70 on Destructoid but an overall metacritic of 87 and “this other game” got a metacritic score of 64 but Destructoid gave it an 89 and look into why Destructoid feels so differently about this game that is being reputedly outed (whatever “this other game” may be).
If I am right about them, and this is the way they go about their business, then I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. There are a lot of games that fly under the radar and possibly sites that take the same approach as Destructoid very well could reduce that.
I wonder if there could be distinction here between two different types of reviews:
Ones that are designed to give someone’s specific opinions (i.e. so the likes of Jim Sterling – his reviews are strictly his own opinion; whether you take heed of his review comments depends on whether you think you are a similar gamer to Jim)
Versus reviews which are designed to be representative of the ‘average’ gamer (i.e. more like GameTrailers, where the reviews are low on personal opinion and try to consider the game in terms of more generalised parameters – graphics, gameplay, multiplayer, etc.)?
Can these two types of review not co-exist?
I got to know JT when the Heavy Rain review came out. I wasn’t at all paying attention to his review, but for all the “fat” and ugly comments he got from trolls on the site. It’s a little disappointing in the way answers back to some people in the same unprofessional way, but after this interview I got to know more the guy and understand his point of view. By all means I don’t vouch he troll back to the trollers, he just needs to ignore them more that he should.
Sorry, but Jim Sterling is really a hypocrite. In “Under the axe” he told the exact opposite of what he is always doing. I am wondering, that nobody points out the antagonisms. Examples? He says that if someone comes with constructice criticism, he will reply in a constructive way, and that is how it should be, but what is he doing all the time on Destructoid? Yes, he insults people, bashes games which are succesful without any real construtivism. So he does all the things he critizises about the last skirmish himself. Dummy instructions are what spot Jim out. Often he writes like someone who wants to stand above other people by pointing out things which he thinks he is the only one to see, even if they are obvious to anyone. When he replied to Kotaku on the topic of realistic violence, he tried to prove that gamers have not become immune to realistic violence by showing a short film in which a politician kills himself. But this is a paradox. How does he want to prove it by showing a brutal film by himself? That’s like “hey, here you have real violence, it’s really shocking, so don’t worry you are not blunted by videogames, but I am because I am not realizing how insensitive I have become by showing it on a videogames portal”. Worse, a lot comments said, that it’s not shocking for them, which subverts his whole argument at all. And he doesn’t even realize all these things. It feels like Mr. Sterling thoughts are always crude. He really is not the best example of a videogame journalist.
Just to post my 2 cents:
I liked Brent’s posture during the conversation he did have his concerns regarding Jim’s reviews and he wasn’t afraid to state them;
Regarding the other two, if you only heard this interview you would never know that at some point they actually disagreed with Jim’s approach to video game reviews.
-_-’
I sent him a personnal message on Dtoid after the Jimquisition about the BIAS reviews telling him just that. Weather you ignore stupid comments, make a community based on discussing intelligently (like on the Axe) or you regulate them (like on Kotaku)…
Never gotten any response!
I’m not a fan of reviews and this interview hasn’t changed my view point. Nothing against Jim but I’d rather play a demo or watch a game video and make my decisions more on that.
On the note of Jim Sterling “not being a journalist,” I think he fails to realize that saying it doesn’t mean people don’t see him as one. If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, most people aren’t going to say “It’s a bantha!” Jim is an editor of a major gaming website. Whether he considers himself one or not, people are going to see him as an authority figure and as a journalist. It is, after all, his job.
Also, about the picture? Is he wearing mirrored sunglasses inside?
I think when Jim said he would look at his guide sheet then be surprised that the score was so low even if he thinks it should be higher, maybe that reflects that his review focused on more of the negative aspects of said game and he should maybe go back and focus on more positive aspects. As a number score indicates how much enjoyment he got from the game so if he got more out of it than a 3, instead of being lazy and giving it a 3 cuz it goes with his review, he should take a critical look at the review and think whether he should talk about some of the things he enjoyed about the game. Just some friendly criticism for ya Jim.
Also i don’t use metacritic, or scores i totally agree with DK, which is why my fav. reviews are ClassicGameRoomHD on youtube, those are great entertaining and informative. CGRHD has shown me more games that have flown under the radar that i wouldn’t of known about before. I definitely suggest everyone to check them out.
@Thingy
So your saying that 9.5 is a bad score or a good score?
Because its a VERY good score. Almost a near perfect game. Much like everyone else that reviewed it…
Mostly Dtoid doesn’t go against the grain that much, and even if they DID then isn’t it good to have a more blanced view? Or mabye not because the game you bought is DEFINATELY a 9.
Besides since no one else seems to the 1-10 scale, if he gives something a 3 or a 4 thats means its just below average. Like a 2 star film being average. Not everything needs to be 4 ors 5 stars to be good does it? 3 stars is a good film right? Even bad films can be fun same with bad games.
So grown up. Or start using stars. Cos stars are WELL COOL!
Yeah but games like MW2, you don’t need a demo. You know exactly how it’s going to play out. The demos you need are for games you are unsure of. Games such as MW2, if you have your mind set on buying it, you will buy it. And a game as big as that, you will never be short of opinions and reviews. It’s games of new IP’s (transformers:WFC or Batman:AA) and long awaited sequels (Street Fighter IV or Fallout 3)that you’d be unsure of before buying to need a review on.
Jim Sterling didn’t even deserve to go under the axe in my opinion, he’s just not even worth the time or effort, he is pretty much a two bit reviewer who lets his personal opinions get mixed in with a more professional and real analasys of the games he reviews, then he acually confronts people who tend to disagree with his rants, I have never watched any of his crap and don’t intend to either, this is actually the first time I have ever heard of him so in my opinion he is also a nobody, full of arrogance and unprofessionality, he is just a pretentious fat ass english man who wants to make a name for himself in the gaming industry, who is struggling for it but ultimately, with the questionable amount of people following his rants, he is pretty much a failure, I don’t know why the epic battle axe crew gave him any attention whatsoever.
@Colossus What i meant with the 9.5 Score of Dtoid is ->
When u read the review u can see the unprofessionality of Jim Sterling. In real bad reviewed games like Alpha Protocol or Too Human (i have it and love it) hes real technicaly focused. The MW2 review is only dumb personal Hyping.
I got MW2 at release day and playd 5 Minutes Multiplayer to see that the Multiplayer theese days was VERY VERY VERY unbalanced. Remember the Balance issues at the very first times in MW2 – or the “Magic Bullet Syndrom” – NOTHING in his Review, all only Praise – in his “bad” reviews he goes EVERYTIME on the technicaly site to bash the Game in the Floor – but not in MW2. So his “sheet” for MW2 can be clean (lol)
And i think he is a very untalented Gamer (ridiciously hard minigames in Alpha Protocol ? i rent it – yes it was a bad game, but HARD minigames ? … Come on …. there are more reviews from him with a point like that). And Guys who cant Game shoudnt be Game Reviewers imho (or the Reviewer shoudnt take himself sooo serious like “Bluewhale” Sterling).
And he is a arrogant fatass with a very bad attitude… go on youtube “Storm and Jims Adventure with Super Mario Bros” where Jim make very dumb jokes about clinical depression, the new Generation of Gamers appreciate it and praise him for such bullsh**, what i cant understand – cuz im a too old gamer ? i dont know.
Im sry for my bad english
I say AngryJoeShow.com has the most down to earth reviews of games I’ve seen. Even when he interviews the press regarding their game he asks the hard ball questions. Good stuff, highly recommend checking it out. He too uses the entire scale when reviewing. I never understood why reviewers use the grade school method.
For the 100th EBC, you guys should try to “arrange” a major Under The Axe.