Tom Bombadildo has left the editorial team following his TOTK review

[Costello]

Hi everybody,
I'd like to bring you up to speed about a few things that happened yesterday on the site and on the staff discussion channels.

Short version:
Tom Bombadildo, a member of our editorial team (aka. mag staff) has left the staff yesterday after a dispute concerning his 'Tears of the Kingdom' review.
He had his review almost ready for publication, but I, along with several members of the staff, had concerns with it, seeing as he rated it 6.9/10 (that is the score he gave to all his recent reviews).
I suggested that we bring in someone else and do a co-op review, in order to have some sort of balance, to make the review more representative of the GBAtemp staff's opinion. Tom didn't like this at all and decided it was time to leave.

Long version:
A few years ago, at the time Zelda BOTW was released, Tom designated himself to review the game. He posted this review: https://gbatemp.net/review/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild.564/ the score, as you all know it, was 7/10. At the time our review became a bit of a joke online because it was the lowest score any website had given to BOTW.

I personally didn't do anything in particular when this happened, thought it was fair that someone didn't like the game that much, and that was the end of it.
We had to own the criticism and I respected Tom's work and never really came and talked to him about the subject other than make the occasional joke about it.

When the time came for our TOTK review, Tom decided, again all by himself, that he should be the one to review it. By the time we had a say in anything, he had already come up with most of it. So Chary and I just let him go ahead with it. We laughed it off on the telegram group, I thought "what the hell, let's see what happens".

Later on, Tom revealed he was going to score the game 6.9 out of 10. He had already updated his review and said he was almost done.
Why 6.9 ? because, "nice", right? He gave the same score to all of his latest reviews:

Realizing this, I just couldn't allow GBAtemp's name to be dragged through the mud again. While I respect Tom's opinion as a reviewer, I do not believe his review of TOTK was written with the fairness it deserved. He clearly wasn't a big fan of the first game. That wasn't a requirement for reviewing TOTK, but you would need to have the honesty to acknowledge the hard work that was put into the game to improve upon the first one.

What Tom doesn't seem to understand is that he isn't just speaking for himself (if he were, he would be posting his review as a 'member' review, i.e. not an official GBAtemp review). His words represent our site on the public scene. People are going to share our review and we are going to be made a laughingstock again. I felt that I had to prevent that from happening.

I had a talk with Chary, our chief editor, who shared the same concerns. We tried to figure out a way that wouldn't upset Tom. I came up with the idea of bringing in someone else into the equation; someone who wouldn't be in the same negative state of mind as Tom and who could bring balance. I didn't suggest changing the score (just like I didn't ask Tom to change his score on the BOTW review) but simply to ensure the review is more representative of the staff's opinion, the staff as a whole, not just Tom with his constant 6.9 ratings.

After Chary presented him with the idea, Tom didn't take it well at all and decided to leave. He revealed to us that he was going to leave anyway, and that this would be his last review no matter what.
But before leaving, he forced the publication of his review (against our orders). As a result some of you may have seen Tom's 6.9 review for a very short time.
I'm here to tell you that Tom's review won't be published - or if he wants to publish it, he is free to do so under his own name (I personally think that he should).

However there will be someone else in our team that's going to review the game, and that will be our official review. I know who this other person is because Chary told me, and I'm not going to be influencing him/her, I'm just expecting them to publish something they really believe in, that they put a lot of effort in, and to come up with a fair score - fair in that it acknowledges and respects the work that the developers put into the game, without bias.


Last but not least: why did I post this message in public?
1) because some of you may have seen the review while it was online
2) because I think this is actually an interesting debate to have. Did we handle things correctly? Or did we make a bad decision that harmed our own integrity? Should we have published Tom's review as is? Tell me what you think.
3) because this gives Tom a chance to present his own perspective if he wants to. In spite of everything that happened, I respect him for his past work at GBAtemp and I will miss having him around.

 

[Tomato123]

To be honest, the 6.9 reviews were funny to begin with, but a sign of something worse to come. It was a sign of not caring/losing interest. And with the choice to allow them to review TOTK, it'd be like trying to get a death metal fan to objectively review KPop or something similar. It's just not going to work as it was never targeted towards them in the first place.

If the review had specifically stated that this person was never the target audience then it's a difference story as they can compare to things they do like and where people of a similar mindset can maybe find enjoyment with or stay away from certain things. However, this was clearly intended to be a more 'general' review by someone who was supposidely interested in the game so it should have been reviewed by someone genuinely interested in it.

 

[CMDreamer]

Despite the main reasons of your decisions, I'd say that being the head of GBATemp makes you work to protect "the brand" and its interests above everything.

If in Tom's first review of a Zelda game (for the Switch) the results were lower than the average of other hundreds online, what did you expect that would result on reviewing ToTK?

Also, if -as you stated- Tom's score for most of his reviews was always the same, didn't that showed you he had lost any interest on reviewing the games on a more detailed/objective manner? Even if we don't like a game, as a reviewer, our duty is to be objective and point the pros and cons of what we're reviewing and not about a brand or publisher by itself.

I'd say the way you handled things was ok, but you should've debated with Tom regarding his interests on making an objective job while reviewing content as part of GBATemp's editorial team, because scoring most of his reviews in a fixed way don't provide quality content to the formula.

That's just my opinion, hope it helps a bit.

 

[JuanMena]

If you want our opinion... I think it was a right and a wrong decision at the same time.
Right because, perhaps you're thinkig that GBATEMP is going to have some backlash from different sites claiming that it gave the game a bad rating... and probably being the only site to do so.

And Wrong because Tom seems to have made a review without bias, and maybe it's just a "nice" joke.
But again, the constant "nice" jokes could've brought some backlash from other sites.
What I would've done, is to not only publish Tom's review, but also incorporate other's Staff reviews, in order to hide the "nice" joke and also give chance to get published without it being too obvious, as you know, it would've had other scores from different reviewers.

 

[Costello]

What I would've done, is to not only publish Tom's review, but also incorporate other's Staff reviews, in order to hide the "nice" joke and also give chance to get published without it being too obvious, as you know, it would've had other scores from different reviewers.

there can be only one "official GBAtemp review" (seeing as it is picked up by other sites such as OpenCritic)
so I did try to get other reviewers to incorporate their own thoughts into Tom's review - effectively turning it into a co-op review.
And Tom didn't like that idea

and maybe it's just a "nice" joke.

If you realize that, then you also realize that I don't want GBAtemp to just be a joke

 

[The Catboy]

It would be one thing if he just gave one review a 6.9 but kind of inappropriate to give all of his latest reviews the same score and for it to literally just be a meme.

 

[JuanMena]

there can be only one "official GBAtemp review" (seeing as it is picked up by other sites such as OpenCritic)
so I did try to get other reviewers to incorporate their own thoughts into Tom's review - effectively turning it into a co-op review.
And Tom didn't like that idea

Well... too bad.

I'm in no position to put words on anybody, and please, take my words for granted, but that just turned it into a "pride" issue.
In that case, yes, I agree with your decision.

 

[Kioku]

I’m at a loss here. I mean, if following the trends of 6.9’s, it makes sense to have a departure. At first I thought this was just about a number, but it just seems that Tom may not have a passion to be a reviewer? Does it require a passion? Probably not, but a major website like GBAtemp needs a more objective view. Not everybody likes something, and that is fine.

 

[The Catboy]

I’m at a loss here. I mean, if following the trends of 6.9’s, it makes sense to have a departure. At first I thought this was just about a number, but it just seems that Tom may not have a passion to be a reviewer? Does it require a passion? Probably not, but a major website like GBAtemp needs a more objective view. Not everybody likes something, and that is fine.

Maybe not passion but at least giving it some care and consideration when it comes to what you are reviewing.
Although, I think it's kind of a bad idea to review something that you already know or believe you won't enjoy. That just sounds like you are setting yourself up for a bad time.

 

[Costello]

I’m at a loss here. I mean, if following the trends of 6.9’s, it makes sense to have a departure. At first I thought this was just about a number, but it just seems that Tom may not have a passion to be a reviewer? Does it require a passion? Probably not, but a major website like GBAtemp needs a more objective view. Not everybody likes something, and that is fine.

That's true, he was always going to leave, and he told us afterwards.
So his TOTK review was his "departure gift" to GBAtemp.
Which for me, means that the review wasn't written in good faith. This reinforced our decision.

 

[Jayro]

I think you guys did the right thing by stepping in. The soft approach you took was also a good idea. Reviewing games from a non-bias viewpoint isn't always easy. And while I DO appreciate brutally honest and critical reviews of games, I do like to see the things that the game does right, also.

I'm glad you intervened to protect GBAtemp's integrity. Not everything needs to be a "nice" 69 joke. We all have to grow up sometime.

 

[JuanMena]

We all have to grow up sometime.

Maybe I'll grow up when I'm 69 years old.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Hi

I originally wasn't going to bother responding to this thread, as I know you're all going to crucify the guy who gave BOTW a 7/10 regardless of the facts (this is a Nintendo oriented site, after all ), but Costello conveniently left out a few things, so let me add some context

1), nobody asks for "permission" to review anything here. We list upcoming products we get access to, effectively put our names in a hat, and we're randomly picked to do it. If we like something, we'll mention we're going to write a review. It was asked in a mag staff chat who would review the game, I said I would, nobody else offered, so I started. I finished the game before anyone else, explored most of the world, and have nigh 20+ years of experience with Zelda games. I like them, and I feel like I'm qualified to rate then accordingly...without Nintendo bias like every other site. How many reviews of BOTW mention all the same negative traits I mentioned and yet still called it a masterpiece game 10/10? I figured we'd appreciate honestly here. This same situation happened with BOTW as well, the game leaked, we asked who would review it, and I offered because I was basically done with the game before it came out. Costello makes this out as it I went rogue and wrote the review without anyone knowing or approving which is just straight BS.
2). My scores almost never have anything to do with the content of the review, if any of you have read them you'd know that. I've always believed number scores are not the way to go, so i opt for a happy medium that's also a meme. Again, read the content. I'll give that it seems lazy and uncaring to post the same thing again and again, but we can't change to non-scores and putting a number out of 10 is difficult in most cases so I stopped bothering adding a number that conveys little to nothing about what I think. He also failed to mention my reasoning in this case, again mentioned in the mag staff chat a couple times (but also personally to Costello in a recent conversation as I imagine he probably doesn't have time to read most of it), that I opted for 6.9 again as I feel this game isn't as good as BOTW, which I previously gave a 7, but also isn't a bad game either so I didn't want to go lower than that. Let me quote the warning I put literally at the top of the TOTK review before anything else.

Before we get into the meat of this review, I’ve got a couple things to say. Firstly, this review WILL contain spoilers, if you wish to play TOTK as spoiler free as possible, DO NOT read this review. I’ve tried writing this without spoilers, and unfortunately it just doesn’t work out. There will be spoilers about main story and side story quests. Sorry! If you want to know if you’ll like the game or not, ask yourself this: did you like BOTW and want more of the same? Yes? Congratulations, you’re gonna love TOTK. Secondly, if you only make a comment based on the score I give and nothing else, just leave. I’m going to tell you right now I’m giving this game a 6.9/10, and it’s only because I don’t like number scoring systems for reviews so I put a meme number. Read the content, please. And with those out of the way, let's get started!

3) I've never once said I don't like the game?? This is what happens when nobody reads the content and goes off a score, which is exactly my problem with scoring anything. I'll quote my BOTW conclusion:

Overall, Breath of the Wild isn't necessarily a bad game. I enjoyed a lot of what I played, actual dungeons were relatively fun and initial encounters with some shrines and areas were pretty enjoyable. But I can honestly say that I have a lot of issues with how the game works and how Nintendo setup certain aspects, and I refuse to overlook them like everyone else has "because Nintendo".

Let me quote part of my TOTK review:

As noted above, Ultrahand lets you fuse objects to other objects, letting you make things like bridges, ramps, cars, planes, boats and all sorts of other things to make traversing the world or solving puzzles oh so much fun! Most of the vehicles you can make are possible thanks to Zonai items scattered throughout the world, which includes fans, gliders, rockets, wheels, hoverboards, hot air balloons, control sticks, water spouts, laser shooters, fire shooters, and probably more. Each of these things can be combined in all sorts of ways, letting you make planes, cars, boats, and more, using new “Zonai Batteries” as a limited power source to power each device. And that’s really great! I loved stuffing as many fans on the glider as possible to make a super fast plane. Strapping rockets onto a hot air balloon to make it shoot into the air so I can skip climbing a mountain to get to a shrine was great! This is by far the best thing Nintendo added to the game…that’s unfortunately ruined by Nintendo’s quirky nature of ruining fun by adding timers and limits to things that shouldn’t need a limit. Every Zonai device you use seems to have some kind of arbitrary timer that makes the vehicle disappear for…seemingly no reason. It’s not even related to the Zonair battery meter, you can recharge that using items you get in-game while operating the devices. They just have some weird built-in timer to expire for seemingly no reason. I’m sure it’s to prevent you from just flying around all of Hyrule, easily exploring the few sky islands they added, but why would they want to limit exploration in a game where the primary focus is exploration??

But nope, I went into the game expecting to hate it and clearly think it's bad because I clearly hated BOTW since when is a 7/10 a bad score for anything?? Any non-nintendo game with that score would've been perceived as me generally liking it with occasional problems.

4) most of the mag staff, at least in terms of casual chatting, agreed the game isnt remotely worth a 10/10. Whether they'll actually confirm that is up to them, but either way the general consensus in my view was "yeah, 6.9 actually sounds about right", with some lower numbers thrown around by others.

5) none of this was brought up to me ever until late last night (my time) despite talking about my review and my thoughts the last 2 weeks (or at least since the leak). I was basically finished with it, ready to have it up by an agreed upon Sunday. If they were "discussing" anything, it was without consulting me at all until literally 24 hours ago where I get a message saying my review is going to illegitimize the site and someone should come and doll it up to make it look better. Anyone that's ok with letting someone else edit their content "add their positive opinions" to increase an arbitrary score that shouldn't even matter should be ashamed of themselves. It wasn't suggested that I opt for a personal review vs official review or anything of the sort, the solution presented to me was "change the score or let someone else write something up and change it". Anyone who writes content should agree this is a shit alternative. I did act hastily and pushed the review out without any authorization, purely because I was afraid it would simply be removed without my say in it.

6) I hope Costello is fine with this, as he directly contradicts what I said directly to him in this post. I'll just quote part of my conversation we just had before this thread went live:

No need to explain anything, I understand your position, I simply don't agree with it. As the owner of a site like GBAtemp, you're of course going to be worried about how we're perceived if we push out content like this, especially with the honest and blunt reviews that I personally write. I do realize that pushing out something like a 6.9/10 for a big name game from a big name company can cause trouble, especially in a circumstance like this now that we have a somewhat ok relationship with Nintendo. And I do recognize that as an "official review" it tends to mark my personal stance as the site's stance, even if the site as a whole doesn't agree with me. And that's ok to be worried about and I get it.

Clearly I understand the repercussions of posting something like that. I simply believed as a trusted mag staff member for near a decade the owner of the site would stand behind opinions made by mag staff, even some that he may not agree with. There's no such thing as an objective review, anyone who believes as such is gullible and I have a bridge to sell you. I'd love to see any purely objective review that's been posted here.


As for leaving, it was my plan whether I reviewed TOTK or not. I don't have time for review anything anymore, I have a 4 year old daughter and a full time job, both of which take up too much of my time. I didn't write this review "in bad faith", I wrote it because that's what I like to do, and wanted one last post that wasn't about a pretty meh USB dock.

 

[godreborn]

Personally, I think a review score is just a number. Someone should read everything the reviewer has to say, whether negative or positive, and make their own decision if they find these things good or bad.

 

[KingVamp]

Seems pretty spiteful towards the games and the site.

 

[MagnesG]

I would say that incorporating the correct people would be the best way, in all cases. And scores are still important and always will be, unless you don't want to be taken seriously.

Hi

I originally wasn't going to bother responding to this thread, as I know you're all going to crucify the guy who gave BOTW a 7/10 regardless of the facts (this is a Nintendo oriented site, after all ), but Costello conveniently left out a few things, so let me add some context

1), nobody asks for "permission" to review anything here. We list upcoming products we get access to, effectively put our names in a hat, and we're randomly picked to do it. If we like something, we'll mention we're going to write a review. It was asked in a mag staff chat who would review the game, I said I would, nobody else offered, so I started. I finished the game before anyone else, explored most of the world, and have nigh 20+ years of experience with Zelda games. I like them, and I feel like I'm qualified to rate then accordingly...without Nintendo bias like every other site. How many reviews of BOTW mention all the same negative traits I mentioned and yet still called it a masterpiece game 10/10? I figured we'd appreciate honestly here. This same situation happened with BOTW as well, the game leaked, we asked who would review it, and I offered because I was basically done with the game before it came out. Costello makes this out as it I went rogue and wrote the review without anyone knowing or approving which is just straight BS.
2). My scores almost never have anything to do with the content of the review, if any of you have read them you'd know that. I've always believed number scores are not the way to go, so i opt for a happy medium that's also a meme. Again, read the content. I'll give that it seems lazy and uncaring to post the same thing again and again, but we can't change to non-scores and putting a number out of 10 is difficult in most cases so I stopped bothering adding a number that conveys little to nothing about what I think. He also failed to mention my reasoning in this case, again mentioned in the mag staff chat a couple times (but also personally to Costello in a recent conversation as I imagine he probably doesn't have time to read most of it), that I opted for 6.9 again as I feel this game isn't as good as BOTW, which I previously gave a 7, but also isn't a bad game either so I didn't want to go lower than that. Let me quote the warning I put literally at the top of the TOTK review before anything else.



3) I've never once said I don't like the game?? This is what happens when nobody reads the content and goes off a score, which is exactly my problem with scoring anything. I'll quote my BOTW conclusion:


Let me quote part of my TOTK review:


But nope, I went into the game expecting to hate it and clearly think it's bad because I clearly hated BOTW since when is a 7/10 a bad score for anything?? Any non-nintendo game with that score would've been perceived as me generally liking it with occasional problems.

4) most of the mag staff, at least in terms of casual chatting, agreed the game isnt remotely worth a 10/10. Whether they'll actually confirm that is up to them, but either way the general consensus in my view was "yeah, 6.9 actually sounds about right", with some lower numbers thrown around by others.

5) none of this was brought up to me ever until late last night (my time) despite talking about my review and my thoughts the last 2 weeks (or at least since the leak). I was basically finished with it, ready to have it up by an agreed upon Sunday. If they were "discussing" anything, it was without consulting me at all until literally 24 hours ago where I get a message saying my review is going to illegitimize the site and someone should come and doll it up to make it look better. Anyone that's ok with letting someone else edit their content "add their positive opinions" to increase an arbitrary score that shouldn't even matter should be ashamed of themselves. It wasn't suggested that I opt for a personal review vs official review or anything of the sort, the solution presented to me was "change the score or let someone else write something up and change it". Anyone who writes content should agree this is a shit alternative. I did act hastily and pushed the review out without any authorization, purely because I was afraid it would simply be removed without my say in it.

6) I hope Costello is fine with this, as he directly contradicts what I said directly to him in this post. I'll just quote part of my conversation we just had before this thread went live:

Clearly I understand the repercussions of posting something like that. I simply believed as a trusted mag staff member for near a decade the owner of the site would stand behind opinions made by mag staff, even some that he may not agree with. There's no such thing as an objective review, anyone who believes as such is gullible and I have a bridge to sell you. I'd love to see any purely objective review that's been posted here.


As for leaving, it was my plan whether I reviewed TOTK or not. I don't have time for review anything anymore, I have a 4 year old daughter and a full time job, both of which take up too much of my time. I didn't write this review "in bad faith", I wrote it because that's what I like to do, and wanted one last post that wasn't about a pretty meh USB dock.

So you would agree for a co-op review then?

 

[Costello]

Hi

I originally wasn't going to bother responding to this thread, as I know you're all going to crucify the guy who gave BOTW a 7/10 regardless of the facts (this is a Nintendo oriented site, after all ), but Costello conveniently left out a few things, so let me add some context

1), nobody asks for "permission" to review anything here. We list upcoming products we get access to, effectively put our names in a hat, and we're randomly picked to do it. If we like something, we'll mention we're going to write a review. It was asked in a mag staff chat who would review the game, I said I would, nobody else offered, so I started. I finished the game before anyone else, explored most of the world, and have nigh 20+ years of experience with Zelda games. I like them, and I feel like I'm qualified to rate then accordingly...without Nintendo bias like every other site. How many reviews of BOTW mention all the same negative traits I mentioned and yet still called it a masterpiece game 10/10? I figured we'd appreciate honestly here. This same situation happened with BOTW as well, the game leaked, we asked who would review it, and I offered because I was basically done with the game before it came out. Costello makes this out as it I went rogue and wrote the review without anyone knowing or approving which is just straight BS.
2). My scores almost never have anything to do with the content of the review, if any of you have read them you'd know that. I've always believed number scores are not the way to go, so i opt for a happy medium that's also a meme. Again, read the content. I'll give that it seems lazy and uncaring to post the same thing again and again, but we can't change to non-scores and putting a number out of 10 is difficult in most cases so I stopped bothering adding a number that conveys little to nothing about what I think. He also failed to mention my reasoning in this case, again mentioned in the mag staff chat a couple times (but also personally to Costello in a recent conversation as I imagine he probably doesn't have time to read most of it), that I opted for 6.9 again as I feel this game isn't as good as BOTW, which I previously gave a 7, but also isn't a bad game either so I didn't want to go lower than that. Let me quote the warning I put literally at the top of the TOTK review before anything else.



3) I've never once said I don't like the game?? This is what happens when nobody reads the content and goes off a score, which is exactly my problem with scoring anything. I'll quote my BOTW conclusion:


Let me quote part of my TOTK review:


But nope, I went into the game expecting to hate it and clearly think it's bad because I clearly hated BOTW since when is a 7/10 a bad score for anything?? Any non-nintendo game with that score would've been perceived as me generally liking it with occasional problems.

4) most of the mag staff, at least in terms of casual chatting, agreed the game isnt remotely worth a 10/10. Whether they'll actually confirm that is up to them, but either way the general consensus in my view was "yeah, 6.9 actually sounds about right", with some lower numbers thrown around by others.

5) none of this was brought up to me ever until late last night (my time) despite talking about my review and my thoughts the last 2 weeks (or at least since the leak). I was basically finished with it, ready to have it up by an agreed upon Sunday. If they were "discussing" anything, it was without consulting me at all until literally 24 hours ago where I get a message saying my review is going to illegitimize the site and someone should come and doll it up to make it look better. Anyone that's ok with letting someone else edit their content "add their positive opinions" to increase an arbitrary score that shouldn't even matter should be ashamed of themselves. It wasn't suggested that I opt for a personal review vs official review or anything of the sort, the solution presented to me was "change the score or let someone else write something up and change it". Anyone who writes content should agree this is a shit alternative. I did act hastily and pushed the review out without any authorization, purely because I was afraid it would simply be removed without my say in it.

6) I hope Costello is fine with this, as he directly contradicts what I said directly to him in this post. I'll just quote part of my conversation we just had before this thread went live:

Clearly I understand the repercussions of posting something like that. I simply believed as a trusted mag staff member for near a decade the owner of the site would stand behind opinions made by mag staff, even some that he may not agree with. There's no such thing as an objective review, anyone who believes as such is gullible and I have a bridge to sell you. I'd love to see any purely objective review that's been posted here.


As for leaving, it was my plan whether I reviewed TOTK or not. I don't have time for review anything anymore, I have a 4 year old daughter and a full time job, both of which take up too much of my time. I didn't write this review "in bad faith", I wrote it because that's what I like to do, and wanted one last post that wasn't about a pretty meh USB dock.

I appreciate the sensible reply, and I have no problem with anything that you said.
As you said yourself, we disagree on a number of things.
And as much as I hate to say it, you can't just take the entire site in your own direction (I'm talking about your rebuttal of scoring systems) of your own accord. Whether you like it or not, scores mean something to a lot of people. We want to respect that because we are trying to appeal to a large audience - that is our editorial decision. If you aren't willing to respect that, then we have to do something. We didn't want to completely toss your work away so we suggested just going from a solo review to a coop review, I do not think this is disrespectful to you, on the contrary it is respectful to our audience. I'm OK that we disagree but at the end of the day I get the final say :-/

 

[Tomato123]

Hi

I originally wasn't going to bother responding to this thread, as I know you're all going to crucify the guy who gave BOTW a 7/10 regardless of the facts (this is a Nintendo oriented site, after all ), but Costello conveniently left out a few things, so let me add some context

1), nobody asks for "permission" to review anything here. We list upcoming products we get access to, effectively put our names in a hat, and we're randomly picked to do it. If we like something, we'll mention we're going to write a review. It was asked in a mag staff chat who would review the game, I said I would, nobody else offered, so I started. I finished the game before anyone else, explored most of the world, and have nigh 20+ years of experience with Zelda games. I like them, and I feel like I'm qualified to rate then accordingly...without Nintendo bias like every other site. How many reviews of BOTW mention all the same negative traits I mentioned and yet still called it a masterpiece game 10/10? I figured we'd appreciate honestly here. This same situation happened with BOTW as well, the game leaked, we asked who would review it, and I offered because I was basically done with the game before it came out. Costello makes this out as it I went rogue and wrote the review without anyone knowing or approving which is just straight BS.
2). My scores almost never have anything to do with the content of the review, if any of you have read them you'd know that. I've always believed number scores are not the way to go, so i opt for a happy medium that's also a meme. Again, read the content. I'll give that it seems lazy and uncaring to post the same thing again and again, but we can't change to non-scores and putting a number out of 10 is difficult in most cases so I stopped bothering adding a number that conveys little to nothing about what I think. He also failed to mention my reasoning in this case, again mentioned in the mag staff chat a couple times (but also personally to Costello in a recent conversation as I imagine he probably doesn't have time to read most of it), that I opted for 6.9 again as I feel this game isn't as good as BOTW, which I previously gave a 7, but also isn't a bad game either so I didn't want to go lower than that. Let me quote the warning I put literally at the top of the TOTK review before anything else.



3) I've never once said I don't like the game?? This is what happens when nobody reads the content and goes off a score, which is exactly my problem with scoring anything. I'll quote my BOTW conclusion:


Let me quote part of my TOTK review:


But nope, I went into the game expecting to hate it and clearly think it's bad because I clearly hated BOTW since when is a 7/10 a bad score for anything?? Any non-nintendo game with that score would've been perceived as me generally liking it with occasional problems.

4) most of the mag staff, at least in terms of casual chatting, agreed the game isnt remotely worth a 10/10. Whether they'll actually confirm that is up to them, but either way the general consensus in my view was "yeah, 6.9 actually sounds about right", with some lower numbers thrown around by others.

5) none of this was brought up to me ever until late last night (my time) despite talking about my review and my thoughts the last 2 weeks (or at least since the leak). I was basically finished with it, ready to have it up by an agreed upon Sunday. If they were "discussing" anything, it was without consulting me at all until literally 24 hours ago where I get a message saying my review is going to illegitimize the site and someone should come and doll it up to make it look better. Anyone that's ok with letting someone else edit their content "add their positive opinions" to increase an arbitrary score that shouldn't even matter should be ashamed of themselves. It wasn't suggested that I opt for a personal review vs official review or anything of the sort, the solution presented to me was "change the score or let someone else write something up and change it". Anyone who writes content should agree this is a shit alternative. I did act hastily and pushed the review out without any authorization, purely because I was afraid it would simply be removed without my say in it.

6) I hope Costello is fine with this, as he directly contradicts what I said directly to him in this post. I'll just quote part of my conversation we just had before this thread went live:

Clearly I understand the repercussions of posting something like that. I simply believed as a trusted mag staff member for near a decade the owner of the site would stand behind opinions made by mag staff, even some that he may not agree with. There's no such thing as an objective review, anyone who believes as such is gullible and I have a bridge to sell you. I'd love to see any purely objective review that's been posted here.


As for leaving, it was my plan whether I reviewed TOTK or not. I don't have time for review anything anymore, I have a 4 year old daughter and a full time job, both of which take up too much of my time. I didn't write this review "in bad faith", I wrote it because that's what I like to do, and wanted one last post that wasn't about a pretty meh USB dock.

While I totally agree that numbers are a horrible way to review a game, it's unfortunately the standard and most people won't read a review to see your reasoning behind it. I hadn't actually had a chance to read your full review but from what you mentioned with Ultrahand, I suspect we probably have similar opinions on it as that is a major problem for me with the game too. Only thing I don't agree with is the game being 'worse' then BOTW as I think both do things better or worse than the other. BOTW has that sense of wonder as you explore around but TOTK trades it for story and slightly better (but sometimes worse/infuriating) gameplay. So it just depends what you as an individual value more.

 

[Xzi]

As for leaving, it was my plan whether I reviewed TOTK or not. I don't have time for review anything anymore, I have a 4 year old daughter and a full time job, both of which take up too much of my time. I didn't write this review "in bad faith", I wrote it because that's what I like to do, and wanted one last post that wasn't about a pretty meh USB dock.

Will miss you as a mag staff writer, but life definitely takes precedent. For what it's worth, I'd probably put BotW at around a 7 in hindsight, and TotK slightly lower as well. Nintendo seems to be mostly chasing trends at this point instead of doing their own thing. Telling that to the internet shouldn't be the equivalent of tying your own noose, but I understand how it must put Costello and the website in a pickle.

Anyway, good luck on your future endeavors and being a dad, hope to still see you around here occasionally.

 

[wiiu20603]

I just couldn't allow GBAtemp's name to be dragged through the mud again.

Lol.