[Bond]

Originally Posted by BreakABone

As for my later point, I noted the 360 had some quality releases, but compared to other years it was pretty weak.

Just looking back at 2007, during the holiday season alone there was Mass Effect, Bioshock, The Orange Box, Assassin Creed, Halo 3, Modern Warfare 1, and the original Rock Band. This was all compacted into a very small time frame.

Compared to this year which had Batman, ODST, Borderlands, MW 2 and L4D 2. If you don't think that looks weaker on paper, well then you are a tougher person than I.

The premise of your thread was the following:

"Its that time of the year in which we look back with googly eyes about the year that has just passed us by.

And 2009 was quite a year for gaming."

It was an evaluation of how each console fared for the year 2009. No where was it indicated that this would be a comparison of how consoles fared during 2009 as compared to 2007. And why even choose the year 2007? Because it was a strong year for the 360? That's true - and clearly 2009 was not as strong a year, but that kind of comparison could be made arbitrarily for nearly any year, and isn't exactly germane to the subject at hand.

Also, of the seven games you mentioned in 2007, six have had or will have sequels coming out quite shortly.

My statement rings true here as well. And was aided by the fact that you and Fox had to research half the games I was talking about to offer a rebuttal. There are a ton of fun and quality games if you pay attention to the console. And compared to the latter half of 2008, was a much better year in terms of release schedule and quality games.

Now you are comparing Wii's 2009 to Wii's latter half of 2008, but you compared the 360's 2009 to the 360's 2007? That's not consistent.

I don't see how my need to research the Wii's best games of 2009 de-validates my conclusions at all. I also had to research the PS3's best games of 2009, for that matter.

I have several beefs with reviews, but the biggest is how do you qualify quality. I mean you gave us review scores, but are they all standard, do they have the same number of reviews, hell are they even reviewed by the same person?

Metacritic, as you know, aggregates tens (and sometimes hundreds) of reviews over nearly all (every?) titles that are released each year. The aggregation of the reviews averages the scores to account for outliers. I also aggregated the already aggregated Metacritic score. I can't think of a more objective way to compare the software released for the year 2009.

All of those factors effect the final outcome, I'm sure my review of Final Fantasy would be different than most people's on this forum, the same as my review of Street Fighter IV would differ from Moogle.

So while reviews in of themselves, are objective measures of quality, the reviews themselves may not be.

That's true, and is why using Metacritic is as objective as one can get - it's an average of reputable video game review websites and magazines.

My other problem with reviews.. or the use of reviews... is that it really can not summarize how everyone would feel about a movie, off the top of my head I believe Avatar is holding in the mid-80s on RT, but I wasn't a huge fan of the movie, while GI Joe which is probably sitting at 30 something was a much more enjoyable movie to me.

The same could be said for games. They aren't meant to be read about, and as much as some of you enjoy stories, they aren't meant to be watched. They are meant to be played and enjoyed.

This is your personal opinion, which is fine, but is not a similiar or superior objective measure of comparing how each console fared for 2009.

And to just prove my point with the list you used and the power of Xbox, of the games you listed for this year,
1. Modern Warfare 2 (94)
3. Batman: Arkham Asylum (92)
12. Halo 3: ODST (83)

You've owned/played 3 of them. Now who knows, you may think that 3 games spread out over 12 months makes it a quality year, its your opinion, but it seems rather weak to me.

I have no idea how what games I played this year has any relevancy to the discussion at all? Perhaps it affects your personal opinion, but it does not have any bearing on the objective measures I posted.

Now to the heart of the matter, some folks get a little pissed because I said the Wii had a better year than the 360, I still believe that to be true. And while Bond will hate this defense, how the hell would most of you even know? I mean most don't play anything outside of shooters, and play even less attention to anything else.

Again, relevance? P.S. I do play genres other than shooters.

I'm almost certain no one disputed the PS3 list because they really couldn't find something to laugh at...

Or because your assessment was accurate, and was reaffirmed by my statistical analysis?

Which reminds me just because a game is 2D doesn't mean its less impressive than a 3D game. Hell, I still think they look better for the most part. And if not sprites, cel-shading.

Again, relevance?