CorgiShinobi

I can't get to sleep, so I began browsing some of the less frequent sites I visit. Thus the late nature of it all. Text for the link cause the video doesn't embed well. It's on the Escapist, and it's from Jim Sterling. I personally haven't made myself that aware of the guy, but I am aware of the stigma surrounding him. With the exception of his attitude, I think all his points are valid. If you don't want to bother with the video, basically: Metacritic isn't the problem; instead the publishers who abuse the aggregated scores, and of course the ludicrous fans raving over their precious game's reputation lay with fault.

All I can do is...

That definitely would be cool, but I remembered his name is Barney.

I think we've gone over this Yant, but used game sales are not exactly a pleasant exercise of the industry. Maybe there's not much room to complain about used sales, but I would still say there is something to complain about. Personally, I don't trade-in as much as I use to because I know I'll feel regret because I eventually do want to go back to those games. The only time I do trade-in is when I know I won't be playing a game because I have something to replace it, i.e. my PS3 version of Extraction. The other reason is how industrialized the trading-in process is at places like GameStop. I try to actually sell my games first, but when I know that time isn't on my side, I succumb to trade-in rates. That copy of Extraction I traded-in? I got $9.00, and that's with the "50% extra value" promotion that week. I honestly don't know who falls into the "trader" category anymore because of how one-sided it is. It's like, if someone only wants to play current release titles momentarily, then there's GameFly. Buying something new or used that's recently launched will cause you to lose money when you trade-in. I mean, it's gotta be a form of self-abuse to basically hand over (on average) $30 to GameStop each procedure.

I should probably finish up the last bit of Half-Life 2. I'm at the part where I'm dodging huge laser attacks with Barry, or whoever it was...

Lets all forget about the latest Pixar movie and instead look forward to Brave, an original Pixar film.

It's not even up for discussion. If television and movies, which have a much further reach into influencing the population, aren't regulated by the government in any way shape or form then neither should video games. Though it's an independent agency of the United States government, it's still a function of government regulation. Just thought I'd add that, nothing more. EDIT: I guess I'll add more to this post to give it some more worth. The following quote from David Jaffe is how I've felt about this topic since it gained momentum in the media. I will say this as well, I'm glad this is over for the mere fact I won't have to listen to general statements from non-parents to parents on how they should raise their kids. I say "general" because that's how the comments would read, i.e. "Parents need to..." and so forth. So, those without kids instructing bad parents on how to raise kids.

I agree with you Dean in regards to it probably not being the end of the world if game ratings were enforced, and that developers "toning down" games is also silly. Still, with how things are currently ran, it would be redundant and a waste of government time and power. Forget any kind of previous court ruling, I just think this was too broad and pointless in our current state. EDIT: You know, kinda like what Thursday Next said with the ESRB, and etc. If we didn't have the ESRB, I think attitudes about all of this would be drastically different.

Yeah, I don't think a lot of people are fooled by the intention behind Cars 2. I guess if they had to sell out, they did it with the most profitable sellout under their disposal. Kids will still get a kick out of the film, but it's (to me) the first Pixar film where it feels awkward to view sans family/children. I saw a few dates take place, but again, this (to me) is the first Pixar film where a date feels inappropriate.

Not in the specifics of merchandise, but there will be a Monsters Inc prequel titled "Monsters University" coming 2013. I think there are a few Pixar films that have high merchandising potential. Toy Story itself is merchandise come to life, but like WTF said, Cars is the easiest. Something like Incredibles 2 would require action figures with each character featuring unique mechanisms. Cars is cars, and cars are cars. I know they've done some weird things with the cars, like wrestling, but it's still plastic with four wheels.

I actually got this at Best Buy instead of through Amazon. The problem I was having was that Amazon wasn't going to ship the game out until July. I was aware it would take some time, and for a cheap price it would be worth it. However, Best Buy lowered their price again and so it was $20 in the store. Add my $5 discount coupon and I cancelled my Amazon order in a heartbeat. I also saw something a little perplexing. There was a young couple ahead of me at the registers, and they must have been loaded because their purchase was: one Nintendo 3DS, one Nintendo DSi, TWO copies of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and one copy of Pilotwings Resort. If I'm not mistaken, that's nearly $600 (with sales tax)! Maybe they were going to sell it all online, or perhaps they had a rich birthday party to attend.

I worked and did laundry! Would have had more "excitement" today, but I've also been feeling sick.

Saw Cars 2 last night (Friday) and it's better than I expected, but it's still a mediocre film. I'm seeing people in denial, and those who absolutely hate it, but the general consensus is that Pixar's "25 Years of Excellence" has been ruined. Basically, the film is good and I think everyone should still see it. After all, you want to be able to say you saw history, right? I mean, it looks fantastic and everything that can be classified as "spectacle" is high quality. It when you get to the story that you are immediately let down. I knew something was wrong when Roger Ebert gave away the tells of a mediocre film like "nostalgia" and "no plot, but fun." To summarize and to keep this short, there is no substance and there is too much work being put in to have a spy story and have a character study of Mater. Yeah, like I want all of this for nearly two hours. If they just stuck to having a Grand Prix plot, it would have been a really good film. I hear the reason why Cars 2 even exists is because of the worldwide marketing campaign for the first Cars gave inspiration to have a more "open, international" world to Cars. So yeah, while I say this is a good film, it's like a good Dreamworks film, i.e. Megamind. I guess it was going to happen sooner or later.

Well... that's the UMD release, and I'm surprised that even 13 critics bothered to review that kind of format. Besides, I can't find the movie on Metcritic. All I do find is the asstastic prequel movie, which even a 19 is generous. EDIT: Alright, I did find the critic reviews, but it was through the trailer. The positive reviews are low positive scores, while the rest are 5 mixed and 4 negative reviews. http://www.metacritic.com/movie/dumb-dumber/critic-reviews

The only Spider-Man movie I own of the trilogy is Spider-Man 2. It's on DVD and fullscreen, and truthfully, I've contemplated getting the Blu-ray. Before the reboot, I think it's the only Spider-Man movie that will stay of good quality.

I consider this to be a nice coincidence: Extra Credits video today is about Game Reviews It's really good, trust me! They go over pretty much what has been said in this thread already, and how reviews themselves can improve. Though, I think the "burnout" reviewers can experience may be the reason why game reviews are a "report" than when film reviewers go over a 90 minute viewing of such-and-such.

Not to argue your point WTF, but you could say that about any review. There will be users who do read a review, and do forgive my assumption, but I feel like a lot of users just scroll down the page, or click to the last page to see a number. Many users have different views on what a rating means. Even if people just go to a few review sites, you'll get people going on a rant/tantrum because a game got something like a... "8.8" rating. Then we get, "so and so site is a tool" and "you're not real reviewers!" So yeah, Metacritic doesn't help much because it enforces that way of thinking when it comes to, what essentially are, opinion pieces. I don't know if any of you guys are aware of this site, but a movie review site called Spill.com doesn't review movies by stars. Instead, they give a movie a kind of "word" rating. You have Full Price, Matinee, Rental, and Some o' Bullsh*t (and in special cases, there are the Better than Sex and F*ck You ratings). They're not numbers, but they get the point across on what you should do (at least in the reviewers opinion). EDIT: From the article Dean posted, I feel like this one chart explains it all. Now, I'm guessing here that the reason this is true for any given user is because of the educational grading system we're all use to. That anything below a "70%/C-" is bad, and even getting a C isn't desirable. An 86%? C'mon! Everyone knows it's all about the A's! Just you know, some A's are better than other because a 92 is less than a 94! Thus, we get the A range "Good, Better, Best" mentality.