This year saw the release of two of the most anticipated exclusive titles in the history of the Playstation 4 as both The Last Of Us 2 and the Ghost of Tsushima both found their full release, but both had been met with very different reviews and opinions and have both shown the huge disparity that often occurs between critic opinion and player opinion, with many users becoming vocal about how frustrating this difference can be.
Ghost of Tsushima has been the most recent of the two releasing on July 17th, although a very different type of game being more of an open world combat oriented sandbox title with a main storyline to progress if the player chooses, the users feedback has typically been very one sided – positive. According to current Google reviews, 96% of users rate the game positively with a rating of 4.8 out of 5, and whilst there has been some criticism that perhaps the story could’ve been done a little better and some animation could be considered a little dated, the stunning scenery and flowy game mechanics more than make up for where the game could be considered lacking and is very much a marvel for what the current generation of consoles are capable of as they reach the end of their life cycle. Critic reviews have been a little different, however, receiving just 83% on Metacritic and a number of mixed reviews, there seems to be a little disconnect.
The Last of Us 2 has been a very different story – receiving a 94% on Metacritic with critic reviews being overwhelmingly positive, one would assume that the game is near flawless with very little that would give players any reason for concern, but with user reviews being even with both positive and negative with many being extremely vocal about their problems with the game with the main criticism that the story, the main driving part of the game, being extremely hit or miss – it’s a little easier to see where the difference is here as the version that critics and press play tends to be very different, very guided and easy, but the differences are still measurable enough to be concerning on can be trusted as a fair and honest review, and what is instead pandering to fulfil the hype of a second title in the series.
This isn’t unique to these games however as a growing number of services rely on good reviews for growing an audience, this has recently been seen particularly in mobile gaming as changes to regulation such as Gamstop which has become mandatory for operators has led many to rely on other methods for their growth as a list of bingo sites not on gamstop here have relied on positive feedback to grow, but if users can no longer trust certain reviews it may become difficult to judge what may be legitimate and what may be used simply to fill a specific need.