Friday, November 17, 2006

My thoughts on Gamespot's "low" Zelda score


By now a ton of you have seen the Gamespot review of Twilight Princess. Now I've seen the message boards saying "Death to Jeff Gerstmann" or petitions to re-review the game by someone else. It is times like these when I'm glad I have this site to share my own views on things like this.

Let me tell you right now that I have not played Twilight Princess yet, but from reading his review I can already see that he was wrong on a few things and its easy to see. He says that the game offers nothing "new" to the franchise: "it's still a little disappointing that the series hasn't evolved much at all with this latest installment." Huh? He lost me on that one. I've read just about all of the reviews and previews for this game and I've seen a lot of which that couldn't be done on previous Zelda games.

Here are some brand new things to the Zelda franchise that I know about just from reading other site's impressions:

1. The game uses the Wii remote for free motion in sword fighting and for aiming your arrow/hookshot/slingshot etc.

2. Link can transform into a Wolf and can talk to animals while in this form.

3. The story telling has been transformed into a much more deep and rich experience than ever before.

4. This is the first 3-D Zelda game where link has been an adult(or young man at least) from the very beginning of the game.


5. For the first time in a Zelda game Link can now sword fight while riding on a horse or other animal.


These are just things that I've read about that you can do in this new Zelda that could not or have not been done before in previous Zelda games. I'm sure I can find more once I've played the entire game all the way through. The series hasn't evolved much at all he says? Changing much more would make this game not really a Zelda game anymore and something completely different. If Tingle is the star of the next Zelda, I'm sure Jeff will get his wish (I hope to god that rumor is not true).

Another point of reference is the fact that Gamespot decided to pick Jeff
Gerstmann a reviewer that should only review Xbox360 games since he is a known Xbox fanboy. It is also known that he has never really liked the Wii and its unique control. How could anyone expect a fair review of a game when it already has those things going against it with the reviewer himself? Yes it is only 1 review but it looks glaringly worse when this is the only review that received lower than a 9 score out of all the reviews so far. Also most of the reviews out there are giving Twilight Princess 10's and 9.9's. Something just looks way too fishy about this Gamespot review. This is why they assign reviewers to review for certain systems, like IGN does. You get far less of a chance of something like this happening just because the reviewer doesn't really like or "get" the Wii and its controller.

Shame and utter embarrassment to Gamespot and all of its editors for this ridiculous and strange review.


Link to Gamespot review

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

thank you!!!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I've gotta agree

Metaldave said...

Gamespot just turned into a sad, sad state. How could they let him even near a Wii to review games if he doesn't even like the system???

Anonymous said...

I could care less, really. The last thing I want to do is be worse as those violent fanboys just because one person slightly disagrees with my view.

Metaldave said...

There was such a huge uproar about this review, I felt the need to put my two cents into this. It just seemed very strange to me. Even though its only one review and it won't affect my purchase of the game, I feel that Gamespot may have been trying to get all kinds of traffic to there site by "maybe" giving Zelda a worse review than all other sites. No one there would ever admit that, but look at how much attention they got last night. Crazy

Anonymous said...

I just ignored his review I think he was drunk just alook at him on the video review.

Anonymous said...

I agree.

I think this review is a combination of him not liking it and GS wanting to drive traffic.

Personally, I think the reviewer gave it the lowest score he thought he could get away with. Honestly, read his review. He talked pretty negatively about it, yet gives it an 8.8 which is a great score overall. If this game is so uninspiring and repetitive then he should give it a lower score.

It just shows the whole thing is a fabrication.

Anyway, Metaldave,

I added you to my Wii friends. If you have any room left, you can add me.

1320-0996-8525-6852

Anonymous said...

The review was bogus - everyone knows it. His reasons for the 8.8 - graphics not great for Wii, unresponsive controls were lies. Because if he really thought that he would have gave the Gamecube version a much better score, he gave it 8.9.

The game pushes the GC's graphics to the limit, and is only rivalled by RE 4. He can't complain about controls with a trad controller - so why not give it at least a 9?

I'll tell you why. Because he's a biased Microsoft fanboy. But don't blame just Jeff because the rest of them aren't much better. Gamespot are shit.

Anonymous said...

The things you mentioned didn't really change the gameplay. Sure there was free motion controls for the boomerang, and arrow, but not where it counts: the sword. The Wiimote controls for the sword were sort of like a fancy button.
And the GC version got a 8.9 because it didn't include the crackle and pop of the sounds from the Wiimote, plus had limited storage space compared to the Wii, which mean it could've had some more refined sound. It has awesome graphics for the GC, but those graphics didn't get a 10 because of jagged lines. They made their statement and gave their reasons for the score in a logical way. You've got a great site going here, don't ruin it with your whining about how a game got a "low" score.
The next Zelda game will be tailor-made for the Wii.