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Breath of The Wild has enraptured fans and critics alike in the week since its launch. Touted as one of the greatest open world games in a decade, the most awesome Zelda since Ocarina of Time, and the most excellent video game to come out in recent memory.

Flawless and perfection are the adjectives that echo in everyone's words that talk about this newest iteration of Zelda. But not everyone has been echoing the same sentiment, and one man, in particular, is paying pretty dearly for his opinion.

Jim Sterling, known for his no-nonsense and polarizing views on the gaming industry, has taken fire for seemingly being responsible for Breath of The Wilds drop from 98 to 97 on Metacritic after publishing his review giving the game a 7/10. (Boy that sure looks familiar.)

“At its absolute best, Breath of the Wild offers some of the most absorbing experiences a Zelda game ever has.

“Unfortunately, it makes you work harder for it than you should, buried as it is under a pile of small but constant irritations that collaborate to form a thick crust of frustration around a delectable center.

“Breath of the Wild is a delightful adventure, one that tries its utmost to be as big a pain in the arse as possible.”

In the hours since publishing his review, Sterlings website has gone down and is currently inaccessible at the time of this writing. He has also received numerous public death threats and even has shared straw polls demanding he be hanged for his opinion.

Truly, I wish I could say I understood what all the critics were raving about in their onslaught of 10/10 reviews, but I don’t. I see too many things getting in the way of the brilliance, too much repetitive busywork and full-on dick moves for me to say this is even close to my favorite Zelda game, much less in the top five.

Close, but no Triforce.

Silencing criticism with DDoS's and hate speech is an unfortunate and unnecessary consequence of modern internet media. No one should be silenced for their opinion as everyone has a right to their views.

What does our community make of this recent news? How do you all feel about what happened to Sterling?

 

[invaderyoyo]

Jim is an asshole. He gave the amount needed to tank the score from 98 to 97. His negative points are durability and stamina wheel. That's it. He praises the game, says it's fantastic but "some flaws hinder it" and that's the two things he /talked about. No way in hell the game should deserve a 7/10 for that. But he did it anyway to fuck with the metacritic score.

DDOSing is pathetic but he's just as bad as the people doing it.

A game doesn't start at 10 and then get docked each time something is wrong with it. I'm with him. I think the stamina wheel is annoying, the framerate drops are annoying and the breakable weapons are super annoying.

Nothing wrong with breakable weapons, it's just BotW's implementation that sucks. I'm always thinking about when my weapon is gonna break since they break so fast.

Other than that the game's pretty good. I'd give it a solid 8, maybe 8.5.

 

[StarTrekVoyager]

For those who still think Nintendo paid the other reviewers:
http://www.ign.com/games/1-2-switch/nintendo-switch-20063624
http://www.ign.com/games/super-bomberman-r/nintendo-switch-20063632
http://www.ign.com/games/sonic-boom/wii-u-20012785
http://www.ign.com/games/mario-tennis-ultra-smash/wii-u-20038885

 

[Armadillo]

What? Can't reply to me directly?

So I didn't quote you, big deal.

And Jim Sterling has a terrible track record with Nintendo so even that can be consider bias. Everyone is bias, everyone. One way or another.
What you need to do either A) Play the game yourself and make up your mind about it. B) Find reviewers you trust and have the same taste as you. C) Listen to the general reviews and try to figure out if the game is for you or not.

That's fair enough, but people only seem to care about bias if it causes the game to get a lower score than they think it should.

Most give it 10/10, yeah it definitely deserves that. Can't be any bias towards Nintendo or Zelda. Most reviews don't even mention technical issues or just handwave them as not a big deal. A smaller game will certainly get pulled up on them though. Same with other big titles like GTA. Never does it get pulled up on performance issues, while other open world games will.

No one seems to give a shit about the bias to big name titles, with big advertising budgets behind them. Dare to rate it lower and it's "bias" or click bait.

 

[StarTrekVoyager]

A game doesn't start at 10 and then get docked each time something is wrong with it. I'm with him. I think the stamina wheel is annoying, the framerate drops are annoying and the breakable weapons are super annoying.

Nothing wrong with breakable weapons, it's just BotW's implementation that sucks. I'm always thinking about when my weapon is gonna break since they break so fast.

Other than that the game's pretty good. I'd give it a solid 8, maybe 8.5.

Yeah, and that's the thing. For the sake of consistency, you can't give BOTW a 7. Because terrible games get similar ratings. 8 or 8.5 is fine, because it would be actually on par with the review and the flaws pointed out

 

[DarkenedMatter]

He clearly gave it something lower just to be spiteful now that I actually looked into it and I couldn't care less about the score being lowered.

 

[StarTrekVoyager]

The reason why IGN couldn't have given BOTW a 7 without being assholes: http://www.ign.com/games/mario-vs-donkey-kong-2015/wii-u-20019889
Yeah. MvsDK: Tipping Stars, a random unkown MvsDK on Wii U, with a poor lifetime, got a 6.8. All's said.

 

[Greymane]

I swear, whenever i think i have enough popcorn in stock shit like this happens.

Also someone saying that he doesn't like a game as much as you, doesn't lessen your ability to enjoy the game.

 

[Chary]

You know, the most hilarious part that all these people are saying that critics give low scores to mess with the Open/Metacritic average. Yet, publications are usually advised against that, and lesser known sites jeopardize themselves for even doing that sort of thing. He came to that 7 because it was his opinion. (7=Good, guys) not because he wanted to troll an aggregate site. Lol. Not to mention, Nintendo is skittish about review copies, and too many low scores can made them reverse even giving out codes at all to certain sites. Also--giving a score to purely mess with the Metacritic would be pointless, as publishers usually only get monetary bonuses at 85+, and no way would BOTW ever get to falling to that point, so there was nothing for him to jeopardize towards Nintendo. It's sick that bratty children get so butthurt over their precious Zelda ONLY getting "good" out of 10, rather than perfectomgsogoodidied10timesfromhowgooditis out of 10.

 

[osaka35]

He's an idiot, but silencing idiots isn't really the best way to go.

 

[Rockhoundhigh]

I have mixed feelings. I like the guy and I don't think he would ever put out a score just for attention but he can be scathingly cynical and and sometimes I have a hard time seeing eye to eye with him on his opinions on games and the games industry. In the end, whether I think his points against the game are fair doesn't matter though. A score comes down to personal enjoyment and if he can't see what all the hype is I imagine that's more alienating than anything else. Same goes for me and my experience with the Uncharted series. I never liked them. What people need to understand is how any single individual feels about a game shouldn't affect your own enjoyment of it. I actually adore a number of games with mixed reception. The reason review aggregator sites like Metacritic exist in the first place is that you get an overall look at a game's reception. If reviews like Jim's are the exception rather than the rule than you can comfortably ignore them (or throw a tantrum apparently).

 

[MYST78]

These corporate slaves never learn.

 

[linuxares]

No one seems to give a shit about the bias to big name titles, with big advertising budgets behind them. Dare to rate it lower and it's "bias" or click bait.

Problem it's a Zelda game, people been longing for a proper one since Twilight Princess (As we know, Skywards Sword got so much critic because of the controls) and when it comes and gets praised, some small brained people can't take it if their game even gets the slightest critic that isn't a glowing praise.
I also hope that there is no consparicy behind why a lot of big budget games get praise, it's not always the case. Never the less, GTAV for example is one game I don't rate as high like others do. It's a very good game, but it's not a perfect title like others think it is. San Andreas for example, I hate that game so much. It's so boring according to me. But others love it.
So opinions are in the end what determing what score the games should get. Or as I prefer myself, no score at all but rather a well written summary.

 

[skawo]

Honestly, myself, I wonder how much of BotW's metacritic score is just "alright, let's score it a bit higher so people don't shit on us".

 

[linuxares]

You know, the most hilarious part that all these people are saying that critics give low scores to mess with the Open/Metacritic average. Yet, publications are usually advised against that, and lesser known sites jeopardize themselves for even doing that sort of thing. He came to that 7 because it was his opinion. (7=Good, guys) not because he wanted to troll an aggregate site. Lol. Not to mention, Nintendo is skittish about review copies, and too many low scores can made them reverse even giving out codes at all to certain sites. Also--giving a score to purely mess with the Metacritic would be pointless, as publishers usually only get monetary bonuses at 85+, and no way would BOTW ever get to falling to that point, so there was nothing for him to jeopardize towards Nintendo. It's sick that bratty children get so butthurt over their precious Zelda ONLY getting "good" out of 10, rather than perfectomgsogoodidied10timesfromhowgooditis out of 10.

Just wait until Persona 5 comes out and it just happen to get a 6/10 from someone. People will flip on that as well.

 

[Deathbot64]

7/10 isn't even a bad review. Like wtf?

 

[jimbo13]

Fuck him & his review DDOS is too light, I hope Trump deports him

 

[RemixDeluxe]

Indeed. It's incredibly fun to climb mountains in this game.

I really admire your profile pic. Looks like it was pulled from a legit anime of the game. Feels like Studio Ghibli quality.

 

[Sizednochi]

A game doesn't start at 10 and then get docked each time something is wrong with it. I'm with him. I think the stamina wheel is annoying, the framerate drops are annoying and the breakable weapons are super annoying.

Nothing wrong with breakable weapons, it's just BotW's implementation that sucks. I'm always thinking about when my weapon is gonna break since they break so fast.

Other than that the game's pretty good. I'd give it a solid 8, maybe 8.5.

I didn't say the game deserves a 10 per see. But he didn't address performance issues for example. His only complaints were stamina wheel and durability. Going by what he says he should have given it a 8.5 at least. But he gave the right amount needed to get the metacritic score down to 97. He also gave Horizon a 9.5/10. Really makes you think....

 

[SuzieJoeBob]

The people who DDOS'd him are just acting like children. Let the reviewer express his opinion.

Honestly, the DDOS'ers are acting just as childish as the brats in Anonymous.

 

[_Chaz_]

All this because he has a different opinion than others?
Absolutely disgusting.