Super Mario Galaxy scores skewed by PS3, Xbox, Wii fanboys
Official reviews of Super Mario Galaxy have unleashed a bloody civil war among the hardcore gamers – and like most civil wars it’s messy, painful, and quite breathtakingly stupid and pointless to everyone not directly involved.
The 1UP review itself is nothing special, an unsurprising love letter to the latest Italian plumber adventure. The real action takes place in the "User rating" section. 1UP allows users to contribute their own reviews and scores to any game, to share their own thoughts and experiences with others, and like everything else on the internet it was a matter of seconds before rabid fanboys destroyed the entire concept. Hordes of PS3 and XBox fans swamped the user-submitted rating with zeros, dropping the "User score" as low as 4.5.
No-one is sure what these people are trying to achieve, but leading psychologists are keenly studying the phenomena they have termed "being a goddamn fanboy". It’s a fact that the official reviewer could warn that the disc contains explosives and poisonous fire ants and that playing the game murdered his family, including graphic pictures of his blood-soaked relatives and an FCC warning that "This game contains plutonium" and everybody who’s going to would still buy it. He could proudly display a magical winning lottery ticket somehow printed by the Wii and a scanned medical certificate proving that the game cured his cancer, and those who hate it will still hate it. What the vote-crippling users hope to demonstrate, apart from an utter lack of anything better to do, is unclear.
Just as bad were the Wiitards, people who have somehow confused an amusing and innovative little console with a genuine Higher Purpose in Life. Many decried the official review, demanding that the game receive a perfect 10 rather than the insultingly low 9.5 based on their own experiences of
- never having played the game
- reading the review
- never having played the damn game, for the love of all that is shiny or holy
- but I saw a demo once
Skipping over the fact that a dog that once urinated against the tower of Pisa is better qualified to discus architecture than these obsessives are to rate a game they’ve never played, the only time the difference between 95% and 100% is important is if you’re selling bullet-proof vests. When you’re upset by the arbitrary score that a person you never met gave a game you haven’t played on one website out of hundreds, you’re so many degrees removed from reality that there’s a good chance you’ll wake up in Narnia. Casper the Ghost is more substantial than your opinions; Star Trek-Xena crossover fanfic is more realistic than your review.
- This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this: Halo 3 received perfect scores despite a weak single-player mode simply because giving it any other score wasn’t worth the hassle. BioShock triggered storms of controversy for those poor reviewers who dared award less than 9.7. As the big games get bigger, and the swarm of gaming websites get less relevant, the need to please the fans and their valuable clickthroughs rather than actually ‘rate’ the ‘game’ is turning reviews into press releases.
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18 Responses to “Super Mario Galaxy scores skewed by PS3, Xbox, Wii fanboys”
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November 5th, 2007
“This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this: Halo 3 received perfect scores despite a weak single-player mode simply because giving it any other score wasn’t worth the hassle.”
Halo 3 getting 10/10 are some of the dumbest reviews I’ve ever seen. The majority of 360 owners do not have live Gold accounts therefore they will not in any way be playing a 10/10 game if they buy Halo 3.
As for all this stupid negative and positive voting? The same happpend to Ratchet & Clank a few weeks ago. The people who do it are idiots.
November 5th, 2007
Lol, funny reading.
But true.
November 5th, 2007
good article.
November 5th, 2007
Luke: Completely surprising. After a previous article where you show the classic fanboy tragic himself, to an article that is well written, and has a very large amount of truth to it. Good work!! Keep it up!
November 5th, 2007
goooo wii!
November 5th, 2007
Wow, really good article. It’s true. I hate it when losers (sorry I meant “users”…or did I) flood the scores with 0s to bring it down, be it Rachet, Halo or Mario.. Its pathetic, but at leat there busy online rather than passing their deficient genes on to the next generation.
November 6th, 2007
Why are these fanboys attacking the Wii? it isn’t really a threat as it has different appeal, most people will end up getting a Wii alongside a PS3, 360 or PC, I know I’ll be getting one one to play Galaxy and Smash Bros. Brawl, it’s good for fun and to play with friends and i can use my ps3 next gen games and online gaming. Totally agree Karl Halo 3 was overrated especialy compared to Bioshock. Ratchet and Clank is brilliant as well but some fanboys decided to try ruin it for everyone just because it’s better than Halo 3.
November 7th, 2007
Stupid people putting zeros they havent even played the game, this game should get 10/10 it got 97% in the official Nintendo magazine, and this game will kick ass
November 7th, 2007
Stupid people putting zeros they havent even played the game, this game should get 10/10 it got 97% in the official Nintendo magazine, and this game will kick ass.
November 7th, 2007
What an outrageous story.
November 7th, 2007
TOTALLY OUTRAGEOUS! the game’s average review score is 9.6 according to gamerankings! how could it possibly be a 4.5. COME ON FANBOYS! DONT BE FANBOYS BE GAMERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 7th, 2007
Funny Stuff
November 14th, 2007
Honestly, I agree, all of this is really stupid. Fanboys are stupid in generality.
November 15th, 2007
This was a great article. Well written and very engaging. I was wondering what the PS3 and Xbox fanboys thought of Mario Galaxy. I guess this article laid it out pretty plainly. I don’t know why people can’t accept that good games come out for many different systems, not just the one they like the best. What could these people possibly have against a Mario game? Mario made video games what they are in the first place!
But you also make a good point about the Wii fanboys. Blindly supporting anything to that degree is foolish, no matter what it is.
November 15th, 2007
Oh and I just wanted to point out that currently one of the users posted a MAJOR spoiler in their review. There are no warnings or spoiler alerts. I’ve contacted the website’s editor about it but who knows if it will ever be corrected.
If you are on the page, try to avoid pants8’s review. He gave it a rating of 2. The spoiler is viewable without even clicking the link to the full review.
December 7th, 2007
People do this because they fear that if a better game does come out on another system then they have made the wrong system purchase.
Of course that’s not true but they must believe it.
Some people are really strange.
December 7th, 2007
It’s an inferiority issue
April 14th, 2008
When nintendo thinks of something outside of Mario or Zelda thats truly original in gameplay and character development than I’ll call the Wii a stroke of Genius. With Gamespot and 1up you’d think these rehashed versions of older titles where the next thing in videogaming. Twilight Princess was a rehashing of the zelda “formula” not the “experience” of being unique, different and forward thinking in design and approach. Mario Galaxy plays well and flips you all around a world of gravity defying planets but in the end you feel like you never left delfino island (to many simularities to mention). Ocarina pushed the boundries of game play, Twilight Princess just revisited it. Mario Galaxy was like putting Gel soles in your old gym shoes…it still feels old. I think the wii is going to loose alot of people when they realize they bought a controller, not a videogame system.