Does Nintendo Make the Best Games?
Feb. 17I'm sure for some of you this is like asking "Are awesome things awesome?" but bear with me. See, Kotaku dug up something else interesting in the giant blat of EA presentation images that yielded up the Nerf Blaster Controller pic: a chart of comparative 2007 average review scores by publisher, as tabulated by EA from Metacritic scores.
Obviously EA is mostly interested in their own score, but there's all kinds of interesting conclusions to draw from this thing. What draws my interest is how high Nintendo's average review score is, even given that 2007 was the year of such first-party disasters as Mario Party 8.
I wonder: is this score deserved, or is it the result of selection bias among reviewers? If you're in this business you were probably a kid during the NES or SNES revolutions, and Nintendo has probably more brand-oriented fansites publisher reviews than anyone else. Are Nintendo's games really the best, or are we as life-long gamers inclined to believe they are?
Comments
I think its probably a little bit of both... Nintendo has a reputation for quality, so reviewers are probably a bit more receptive to review Nintendo games and more forgiving if the game isn't as good as it could be.
On the other hand, I think Nintendo does, typically, make the best quality games. Most other companies are heavily influenced by marketing and budgets; Nintendo just makes games the way they feel is best, usually building off of their previous success.
"...the game fits perfectly in with the Wii's image as a party-friendly console. As with all parties, the more people you get involved, the better Mario Party 8 becomes, and if you can find three friends who are willing and able to buy into the game's simplistic and charming gameplay, you're almost guaranteed to have a good time." - Gamepro
"In the end, Mario Party 8 is a fun game that I'd recommend to most Wii owners. Given that, this review was written from the perspective of having multiple people playing the game. With that out of the way, I'll just say one last time Pick this one up, you and your friends will have a great time with it." - AtomicGamer
"If you don't love the Mario Party games, this one isn't going to do anything that will change your mind..." - Console Gameworld
"Disaster (n) : an unexpected natural or man-made catastrophe of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life or sometimes permanent change to the natural environment; an unforeseen event causing great loss, upset or unpleasantness of whatever kind." - Ninjawords.com
I have played Mario Party 8, sir. You can quote reviews at me all you want, but that thing cleared a house party inside of 45 minutes. Even people who thought Wii Sports was the shiznit wouldn't touch it, and I've never personally enjoyed a game with anyone or seen anyone enjoy playing it, including small children and casual gamers.
Obviously some mythical audience for this thing exists, but in some ways it's the poster child for lousy first-party games and I can find far more instances of people dogging it than you just did people praising it. (And from bigger outlets than Console Gameworld and Atomic Gamer, too.)
I'm just quoting some of the top reviews from Metacritic to show how it got to be such a high average on that particular site. The game really does have an audience, I've talked to many people who quite enjoy it, they just don't write reviews for a living (thank goodness). I too loathe the series with all my heart, but it enjoys the kind of general-audience praise and sales that really don't seem to warrant the epithet "disaster".
If I had to call a Nintendo-published game a disaster, I'd stick it to Wii Play. What could be more disgraceful than to be a best-selling video game based on the idea that "Eh, whatever, it's only $10 more than just buying another Wii remote. I guess that's ok, right?" Abysmal. And Nintendo even developed it!
Also, as far as reviewers go, they seem to be either too strongly attached to Nintendo to see any fault in it, too jaded to see any good in it, or a bizarre, seemingly inconsistent polarization of the two. Either way, the general public doesn't appear to be listening, if the sales numbers of both Mario Party 8 and Wii Play are any indication.
Sure it was the year of Mario Party 8 and Wii Play. But it was also the year of Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, LOZ: Phantom Hourglass, and Warioware: Smooth Moves. All of which were pretty good games.
I'm sure that if you took out Mario Party 8 and Wii Play the average would be, in fact, much higher.
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