Failed to fetch tweet https://twitter.com/JimSterling/status/841054860921491456
​

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?

 

[geodeath]

It's funny how Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China is better than Breath of the Wild based on his past reviews.

Reviews should always be looked upon with reflection on current time and other things such as hardware, similar titles etc. Tony Hawk 2 is #2 best game of all time, well above BOTW and only just below OOT. Simply because when it came out it was a blast. If you keep thinking scores in reviews are timeless, think again. There are timeless games yes, but most of them are not. Then, there are games unilaterally thought as excellent and your opinion will be different. I personally hate Phantom Pain, people love it.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

I believe they failed with the Wii U version. The screen on the tablet is almost useless unless you are playing on the tablet itself. When you are playing on the tv, there is nothing that gets displayed on the tablet. They should have at least make it display a map or some character information, or something. Instead, when it comes time to name your horse you have to select keys on a virtual on screen keyboard using the directional buttons, whereas they could have just made the keyboard show up on the wii u tablet and make it much easier to name your horse.

Just a few minor things that I think they really bonered when they had plenty of chance to greatly improve it.

 

[geodeath]

The problem with scores is not what a 7 or 9 means, because people can't really tell scores apart. It's the list of games this guy is trying to say BotW is worse than.

if you're going to say this is on the same level as The Last Guardian for instance at least come up with decent arguments.




Different weapons ARE better against different enemies. Depending on the enemy a specific weapon can 1 shot them. Guardian shields can reflect back deadly guardian lasers. You probably didn't even play Breath of the Wild. I'm not wasting more time on this, have a nice day.

So what, if in his opinion game X is better than game Z? At the end of the day, it matters which game you have more fun with. Reviews are not, and should not be taken as a bible of gaming. If you feel 1-2-switch is greater than Horizon, then so be it. You vote with your wallet.

As for arguments, again, you cannot force an argument on somebody who does not feel the same way. Personally, the weapon degradation implemented by Nintendo is game breaking for me. The weapon degradation in Dying Light is fine, as it is exactly between being annoying, yet making you hunt for weapons and merchants to get the best next gear. I was literally trying to do the shrine with the Major Strength test yesterday and i literally destoyed all my weapons and arrows (not to mention bows and shields) at the guardian and it was still alive, leading in an obviously silly death. You might say that i did not have powerful weapons, but my opinion is that they should not break as quickly. Both are fine arguments.

 

[DeslotlCL]

The problem with scores is not what a 7 or 9 means, because people can't really tell scores apart. It's the list of games this guy is trying to say BotW is worse than.

if you're going to say this is on the same level as The Last Guardian for instance at least come up with decent arguments.




Different weapons ARE better against different enemies. Depending on the enemy a specific weapon can 1 shot them. Guardian shields can reflect back deadly guardian lasers. You probably didn't even play Breath of the Wild. I'm not wasting more time on this, have a nice day.

You have said that like 3 times by now and you keep comming to defend the game...

 

[CheatFreak47]

Different weapons ARE better against different enemies. Depending on the enemy a specific weapon can 1 shot them. Guardian shields can reflect back deadly guardian lasers. You probably didn't even play Breath of the Wild. I'm not wasting more time on this, have a nice day.

Yeah, but that doesn't change the fact that those weapons are still made of glass to encourage variety. They could've focused on that instead of saying "what we did isn't good enough, make every weapon made out of marshmallows".

Losing a good weapon isn't fun. Nobody likes losing things.

I'd love for you to explain to me why losing a weapon is fun, go ahead and try.

The problem with scores is not what a 7 or 9 means, because people can't really tell scores apart. It's the list of games this guy is trying to say BotW is worse than. if you're going to say this is on the same level as The Last Guardian for instance at least come up with decent arguments.

So what you're saying is that Review score systems are stupid. I actually agree with that. They are pretty stupid.
You can't wrap a game in a little bow and give it a score like it's some kind of talent show.
But sometimes it's convenient to do so.

Jim Sterling knows this, but he also knows that he can't remain relevant without that system, and he clearly demonstrates that there are merits to such a system.

If there weren't merits to a review score system, Metacritic couldn't even exist.

Which is why you should actually read his review- to understand his complaints instead of just looking at a score.

If you think review score systems are so stupid why are you bothered that the game got a 7/10 from one critic?
If you think scores are stupid and they don't matter why does it bother you?

Is it because someone pointed out weaknesses in something you enjoy?
Ya know, just because someone else can find flaws in something doesn't mean you have to stop enjoying it.
It doesn't make the game any less fun for you, does it?

 

[porkiewpyne]

Ayyy let's go egg that IGN reviewer's house for giving Pokemon ORAS a 7.5 because "too much water". And tomorrow, we'll take down Rotten Tomatoes and Yelp

What the hell has this world come to? :\

 

[FAST6191]

Ya know, just because someone else can find flaws in something doesn't mean you have to stop enjoying it.
It doesn't make the game any less fun for you, does it?

Depends. It is widely held that trying to make works that out and out* appeal to experts in that field is one of the harder things to do. If reading the review in turn increases your knowledge of a field (ever learned a new term from a review, or how something might be codified if you sort of understood the concept already) and causes you to notice something now and forever more... Ignorance could well be bliss, or at least easier to find bliss in.

*you probably could make a film that impresses Steven Spielberg or someone of similar stature, however it will probably be with the qualifier of "made in 2 days on a budget of £50 and two bottles of vodka". Go toe to toe with him on a more money than both of us combined will see in our lives type budget and that changes.

Granted that it is no way a good reason to not review something.

 

[CheatFreak47]

Depends. It is widely held that trying to make works that out and out* appeal to experts in that field is one of the harder things to do. If reading the review in turn increases your knowledge of a field (ever learned a new term from a review, or how something might be codified if you sort of understood the concept already) and causes you to notice something now and forever more... Ignorance could well be bliss, or at least easier to find bliss in.

*you probably could make a film that impresses Steven Spielberg or someone of similar stature, however it will probably be with the qualifier of "made in 2 days on a budget of £50 and two bottles of vodka". Go toe to toe with him on a more money than both of us combined will see in our lives type budget and that changes.

Granted that it is no way a good reason to not review something.

Pretty much my point exactly, mate.

What happened here is that Sterling punched a hole in the ignorance of the masses and then they got mad about it and started DDoSing him.
People acting like children, thinking ignorance is something they should be allowed to defend.

 

[Molina]

Using a modified X1 chip, they can pull MORE power, they have improved it. Please check your facts before posting...

They COULD, but they didn't, check yours before posting. Their chipset is an low modified for power consumption. Lower clock speeds (docked), more battery life, less power.
It's not like a switch could run MGRR...

Ah, Bonus point... Nvidia was the one doing the modification...

Under the directives of Nintendo. Like Nvidia is going to impose his chipset in a console he doesn't own. Nintendo tell them how they plan to use their chipset, Nvidia modify it accordingly (no kidding, it's their technology. They are not going to let anyone else modify it)

They could have used a better chip, obviously, but that would also increase the price and it wouldnt simply be 10 bucks...

And thus from my previous statement, you pay 300+ bucks for a console and expensive addons only for the capacity to play Nintendo game. Which in the case of BotW (and Mario Odyssey incoming) may be worth it depending of the opinion.
Nvidia shield Tv being more than a simple console (and the fact that it's not portable), cannot be compare in terms of features but can in term of power/price.

 

[netovsk]

Yeah, but that doesn't change the fact that those weapons are still made of glass to encourage variety. They could've focused on that instead of saying "what we did isn't good enough, make every weapon made out of marshmallows".

Losing a good weapon isn't fun. Nobody likes losing things.

I'd love for you to explain to me why losing a weapon is fun, go ahead and try.




So what you're saying is that Review score systems are stupid. I actually agree with that. They are pretty stupid.
You can't wrap a game in a little bow and give it a score like it's some kind of talent show.
But sometimes it's convenient to do so.

Jim Sterling knows this, but he also knows that he can't remain relevant without that system, and he clearly demonstrates that there are merits to such a system.

If there weren't merits to a review score system, Metacritic couldn't even exist.

Which is why you should actually read his review- to understand his complaints instead of just looking at a score.

If you think review score systems are so stupid why are you bothered that the game got a 7/10 from one critic?
If you think scores are stupid and they don't matter why does it bother you?

Is it because someone pointed out weaknesses in something you enjoy?
Ya know, just because someone else can find flaws in something doesn't mean you have to stop enjoying it.
It doesn't make the game any less fun for you, does it?

I pointed out many times exactly why he pulled a 7/10 out of his ass without giving proper reasons and yet you waste time writing this. What's the plan? Making me repeat myself over and over to get your point across?

Pretty much my point exactly, mate.

What happened here is that Sterling punched a hole in the ignorance of the masses and then they got mad about it and started DDoSing him.
People acting like children, thinking ignorance is something they should be allowed to defend.

Gotta love the "Ignorance of the masses statement", which clearly shows that unlike you're trying to tell me it's not only his toally very own personal opinion but some sort of "truth" that only "the chosen few" can perceive.

Well I'm sorry Zelda is very likely going to be GOTY and HZD or whichever game released this year you liked more won't.

So, play Zelda, maybe?

 

[Molina]

Well I'm sorry Zelda is very likely going to be GOTY and HZD or whichever game released this year you liked more won't.

Even though I love BotW, it don't think he will be GOTY. Media covered so much BotW, that you seem to forget that other went live in the same time and are big opponents.
If BotW win, it will likely be an awkward situation like Overwatch goty when everyone wondered "uuuh what? With Doom alongside of Uncharted 4, Overwatch won?"

 

[DeslotlCL]

I pointed out many times exactly why he pulled a 7/10 out of his ass without giving proper reasons and yet you waste time writing this. What's the plan? Making me repeat myself over and over to get your point across?




Gotta love the "Ignorance of the masses statement", which clearly shows that unlike you're trying to tell me it's not only his toally very own personal opinion but some sort of "truth" that only "the chosen few" can perceive.

Well I'm sorry Zelda is very likely going to be GOTY and HZD or whichever game released this year you liked more won't.

So, play Zelda, maybe?

Again, you keep comming to this thread to defend the game... didn't you say you had enough of this?

 

[geodeath]

I pointed out many times exactly why he pulled a 7/10 out of his ass without giving proper reasons and yet you waste time writing this. What's the plan? Making me repeat myself over and over to get your point across?

Gotta love the "Ignorance of the masses statement", which clearly shows that unlike you're trying to tell me it's not only his toally very own personal opinion but some sort of "truth" that only "the chosen few" can perceive.

Well I'm sorry Zelda is very likely going to be GOTY and HZD or whichever game released this year you liked more won't.

So, play Zelda, maybe?

And out of all the GOTY every year, i could not give the slightest of shits for 80% of them. Does this mean they are bad games? No, it means they are not my cup of tea. Similarly, just because BOTW might take it, does not mean anything, when it comes to our *personal opinions*. If you really need anyone to tell you what to play based on what is game of the year, then you must have not played a Nintendo game since 1998!

I love it when people defend the GOTY decision when it is a nintendo game, yet say they are bullshit when it is not. Do you feel the same way about Fallout 4? Journey? Dragon age? Overwatch?

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I really don't get it. It is the same with movies. Just because some movies are highly regarded by critics, do i have to agree? I am the only one in my circle who thinks John Wick blows, does this mean my opinion is less relevant? No. It means that more people find it entertaining than not.

Same with Zelda. It is a success. Most people enjoy it than not. The ones that not, have valid arguments. Learn to respect diversity or else go and play each and every GOTY out there because the critics said so.

 

[netovsk]

I love it when people defend the GOTY decision when it is a nintendo game, yet say they are bullshit when it is not. Do you feel the same way about Fallout 4? Journey? Dragon age? Overwatch?

Calling Journey a game is a bad joke. One of the worse apps I executed on my ps4.

Overwatch is somehow a TF2 ripoff but improves many aspects and try to bring people who never liked fps to the genre while being accessible and inclusive so I give it props for that.

Loved DAI and Fallout 4 so it's not a concern to me.

 

[geodeath]

Calling Journey a game is a bad joke. One of the worse apps I executed on my ps4.

Overwatch is somehow a TF2 ripoff but improves many aspects and try to bring people who never liked fps to the genre while being accessible and inclusive so I give it props for that.

Loved DAI and Fallout 4 so it's not a concern to me.

Yet i know people that thought Journey is what they are looking for in a game. I played it and i found it an incredible small game for what it is. It was nice as an experience and definitely something different. Yes, it is not like a full fledged game, yet so many people regard it highly. What does the fact that you think it is a joke means? That GOTY awards are a joke? If so, treat all of them as jokes and we are cool. If you do not think it is a joke, then you have to accept there are other opinions.

I much prefer playing Journey than Fallout myself. I find the battle of Fallout the single most boring thing i have ever played in my life, and i have been through thousands of crap games. Yet i respect some people like it. The same way people need to respect that for some people Zelda has game breaking flaws.

It is called choice. You cannot argue with people's opinion. You can discuss arguments but thats it. No matter how many critics tell me so, the combat system of this Zelda for me is completely flawed. I still enjoy it. Just less. How that affects other people experiences, i fail to understand.

 

[netovsk]

Even though I love BotW, it don't think he will be GOTY. Media covered so much BotW, that you seem to forget that other went live in the same time and are big opponents.
If BotW win, it will likely be an awkward situation like Overwatch goty when everyone wondered "uuuh what? With Doom alongside of Uncharted 4, Overwatch won?"

No it will not, U4 didn't really innovate in any way and Doom is a niche game. I don't see something outside an unexpected groundbreaking indie game to beat Zelda for goty but ofc I might be proven wrong. Sony won't make a game to goty again much to ps4 fans demise.

 

[StarTrekVoyager]

I would agree with those who say 10/10 ils subjective BS, if there wasn't tens of different reviewers who gave the game between 90 and 100. The probability that every single of them is a blind Ninty fanboy is ridiculously low. As opposed to the probability that 7/10 reviews are actually more wrong, which is pretty high. That's high school statistics. A high number of reviews will give something that ressembles a Gaussian distribution centered around the average grade, here 97-98. This is perhaps why only 2 reviews gave it around 70. And the problem is that a gradibg scale cannot be absolute. There is no such reference as a 'perfect' game. That's why OoT got 99 when it was released. Today, I bet it would get a 15/100 or less on Metacritic just for the low-poly models.

 

[netovsk]

Again, you keep comming to this thread to defend the game... didn't you say you had enough of this?

Because I can, because I keep getting quoted. why do you care?

 

[geodeath]

I would agree with those who say 10/10 ils subjective BS, if there wasn't tens of different reviewers who gave the game between 90 and 100. The probability that every single of them is a blind Ninty fanboy is ridiculously low. As opposed to the probability that 7/10 reviews are actually more wrong, which is pretty high. That's high school statistics. A high number of reviews will give something that ressembles a Gaussian distribution centered around the average grade, here 97-98. This is perhaps why only 2 reviews gave it around 70. And the problem is that a gradibg scale cannot be absolute. There is no such reference as a 'perfect' game. That's why OoT got 99 when it was released. Today, I bet it would get a 15/100 or less on Metacritic just for the low-poly models.

I would agree with the numbers but opinions do not come with statistics unfortunately. What you can extract from the ratings is that more people like it than not. There is no wrong in a smaller number of opinions vs a larger number, else it would be very easy to tilt the scale by paying everybody to give 10/10. There is some good commentary in the medium to bad ratings on metacritic, if you can filter between the bullshit ones that are there only to bring the score down.

 

[StarTrekVoyager]

I would agree with the numbers but opinions do not come with statistics unfortunately. What you can extract from the ratings is that more people like it than not. There is no wrong in a smaller number of opinions vs a larger number, else it would be very easy to tilt the scale by paying everybody to give 10/10. There is some good commentary in the medium to bad ratings on metacritic, if you can filter between the bullshit ones that are there only to bring the score down.

Off topic but relevant: an experience was done among something like 100-200 people. They were asked to estimate the number of candies in a big jar. The calculated average abd median were both close to the real result with less than 0.5% error.