Fall is almost here, we’re officially in the thick of the back-to-school scramble, and I can’t stop buying apple cider spice candles for the house. We’re also officially in the thick of game release season, so why not take a minute to talk about Metacritic?
Despite long-established criticism of the way it reduces art (and the varied, wide-ranging engagement with that art) to numbers, the review aggregating website feels more inescapable than ever. It’s weaponized on social media by warring fandoms and still wielded by publishers as a metric to quantify their relative successes and failures. I love looking at a game’s magic Metacritic score as much as anyone, but the black box calculus can often obscure more than it illuminates. Grasshopper Manufacture CEO Goichi “Suda51″ Suda wants people to stop focusing so much on them.
“Everybody pays too much attention to and cares too much about Metacritic scores,” the No More Heroes director told GamesIndustry.Biz in a new interview. “It’s gotten to the point where there’s almost a set formula – if you want to get a high Metacritic score, this is how you make the game.”
He continued:
If you’ve got a game that doesn’t fit into that formula, that marketability scope, it loses points on Metacritic. The bigger companies might not want to deal with that kind of thing. That might not be the main reason, but that’s certainly one reason why. Everyone cares too much about the numbers. Personally, I don’t care too much about the Metacritic numbers. I’m not really conscious of them. What’s important to us is putting the games out that we want to put out and having people playing the games we want them to be able to play.
Suda is back on the publicity circuit to promote the remaster of Shadows of the Damned, a 2011 demon-hunting action game panned by quite a few critics at launch for its middling gameplay. Despite aiming at the mainstream, it was a sales disaster. It was memorable and had personality though, which is part of why it’s a cult favorite among some fans and why it’s coming back over a decade later. It’s certainly true that it’s not the kind of game made with maximizing a Metacritic score in mind. Neither are the rest of the games we’re looking forward to playing this weekend.
Play it on: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
Current goal: Beat up Joker
I wrapped up Persona 3 Reload’s The Answer DLC and really enjoyed it despite some of the annoying grinding that persists in the remake. However, one new challenge has been added in the remake that I have yet to overcome: Joker from Persona 5. Without much explanation, the protagonist of the latest entry in the series shows up as an optional boss, though the game heavily implies that it’s not actually the leader of the Phantom Thieves. But whatever this ghostly image of Joker is, he packs a real punch. Joker is one of the most powerful enemies in the game now, and I was too busy getting through the main game for review to even attempt the fight. Now, I’m gonna go whoop that guy’s ass…hopefully. —Kenneth Shepard
Play it on: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
Current goal: See if it clicks with me
We are entering one of those “good problems to have” periods in which there are simply more games I want to play than I can reasonably keep up with. I haven’t had a chance to play Astro Bot yet, I still haven’t finished Emio: The Smiling Man, and I’m still taking my time with Star Wars Outlaws and enjoying it in a leisurely way. On top of that, Yars Rising is out, a new game from WayForward that sounds like it may pay homage to the Atari 2600 blockbuster Yars’ Revenge in some cool and interesting ways. And, before we know it, both UFO 50 and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom will be upon us. Oh god, help me!
So it’s particularly frustrating that, yesterday, a friend of mine raved to me about Black Myth: Wukong in such a way that I came away convinced I have to give it a shot as well. They’re absolutely smitten with it—the world, the bosses, the storytelling, the game design—and while this friend and I don’t always agree, I always know that if they see something genuinely interesting and worthwhile in a game, it’s worth a look. (Former Kotaku EIC Patricia Hernandez also adores it, having penned a five-star rave for The Guardian. Said my friend about her review, “She’s absolutely right.”)
Of course, Wukong has a reputation for being very challenging. It’s been a while since I tackled a really tough game, and I’m not sure I’m in the mood for something that puts my gamer skills to the test right now, no matter how much I may be taken with it. But there’s only one way to find out: by playing it. And finding the time to do that, in the midst of all these other games, is going to be the real challenge. — Carolyn Petit
Play it on: PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series 360, Xbox One
Current goal: Drag as many enemies as possible into the wall and smash their heads in
There are a lot of great games coming out right now and there are even more promising ones on the horizon, but for some reason my head is stuck in the past. I downloaded all of the seasons of Telltale’s The Walking Dead before bed last night because I remembered I never actually finished the entirety of that story. I made sure Night in the Woods was installed on my PS5 ahead of my annual trip to Possum Springs. And of course, I’ve been playing Destiny 2 every night with some friends to grind for Exotic gear and for a title associated with the shooter’s recent 10th anniversary. But the thing that will probably take up the bulk of my weekend is Sleeping Dogs, an open-world action game from the early 2010s that I never gave a proper shot.
Sleeping Dogs spun out from the True Crime series of action games I played back on the PS2. Initially billed as True Crime: Hong Kong, the project was eventually canceled and revived as Sleeping Dogs under Square Enix. And it was tremendous. I remember thinking at the time that no game I’d played before had successfully made both a satisfying open world and a deep and enjoyable combat system. As Wei Shen, an undercover cop breaking up the triad gangs strangling his hometown, you skirted the line between cop and gangster on a morality system that would unlock different sets of techniques to use in combat. Sleeping Dogs was a bit of a brawler, but unlike, say, the comically overwrought fisticuffs of the Like a Dragon games, scraps in Sleeping Dogs felt more realistic, rough and tumble, and visceral.
It also sports quite the cast. It features actors like Tzi Ma, who appeared as the Chinese commander in Arrival, as well as Tom Wilkinson, who you might’ve seen throughout the 2000s in movies such as The Girl with the Pearl Earring and Batman Begins. The biggest names folks would recognize, though, are Lucy Liu and Emma Stone, who portray a singer and the main character’s love interest, respectively. Come for the gritty crime thriller, stay for the acting chops of this stacked cast, I guess. — Moises Taveras
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch, PC
Current goal: Finally play this strange thing
This weekend I’m planning to play Funko Fusion, that weird-looking Funko Pop-themed video game from some of the people behind the popular Lego games. Will it be good? I’m not sure. Will it be a crass and soulless experience filled with famous brands and franchises? Possibly, yes. That’s a very real potential outcome that I’m nervous about. Every time I’ve seen this game, it’s been advertised primarily as an IP sandbox and not a fun-to-play video game. That’s concerning.
But I’m also hopeful that maybe, just maybe, it will scratch the same itch those past Lego games did, offering me a fun and whimsical spin on famous movies and TV shows. Perhaps it will be a really good time. Or maybe I’m going to hate every moment of it as I’m forced to look at the back of giant digital Funko Pop heads for hours and hours. I’ll report back next week! Please wish me the best. — Zack Zwiezen
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Current goal: Make my brothers proud in multiplayer
I finally booted up Space Marine 2 this week after all the hype and was pleasantly surprised at just how immediately it won me over with chunky combat and dense environmental backdrops. The game is shockingly gorgeous and plays well so far. The voice acting is also decent and the story beats haven’t overstayed their welcome yet, even if the early missions are a bit stiff and overly tutorialized for my liking. Meanwhile, the chainsaw blade and bolt gun rip, and the kill animations for the enemies give the combat a lot of gory gravity. I’m still not crazy about the parry system, which feels to third-person action games like what the double-jump has become to almost everything, but so far I’m making it work.
I try to play a lot of stuff, experimenting with multiple new games a week. Sometimes I’ll play 15 minutes, sometimes I’ll stay for hours. The prospect of starting something new, priming my brain for new exposition dumps and rapid worldbuilding while also trying to quickly learn a new rule book, can feel preemptively exhausting, especially when it’s at the end of a long day. How much easier it would be just to sink into a game I already know I love and have poured dozens of hours into. But Space Marine 2 got its hooks into me immediately and it’s already climbing up my long-list for a potential GOTY nod. — Ethan Gach
