How annoying is it to get into an argument about how good a game is, only to have somebody throw a link to Metacritic at you? Well gamers can rejoice, as now that same thing can apply to arguing how good a developer is!
Metacritic has recently added the ability to search for individual developers, with each developer given their own score based on the games they’ve worked on. Of course, this is in no way a proper method of scoring how “good” somebody is, as even an assistant co-co-co-producer credit for an amazing game can bring up the score of an otherwise awful person. Also, some great retro games are not rated or credits are not yet given. For example, Morio Kishimoto is at a 69 but is only rated for his work on Sonic and the Secret Rings. He also directed Sonic Colors but has yet to be credited or scored for that.
After the break, check out the pointless numbers now assigned to our favorite (or least favorite) SEGA devs! It’s like in high school, when you’d rate the boys… or girls. I rated the girls. Yeah…
Yu Suzuki: 88
Takashi Iizuka: 66
Masayoshi Kikuchi: 77 (only based on Yakuza work, Jet Set Radio is not credited)
Toshihiro Nagoshi: 76
Yuji Naka: 63
Jun Senoue: 67
Share more pointless scores in the comments section!
[Source: Metacritic via Gamasutra]
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Unfortunately, the gaming community in general follows Metacritic like sheep. =P I think it's a horrible idea to give developers scores.
Iizuka >> Naka.
Iizuka was wise to avoid Sonic '06. That, and many producer credits, hurt Naka bad.
Naka Bailed on Sonic 06 to avoid that incomplete disaster going on his Resume.
Since then he hasn't had a single failure, all I can think off is AstroBoy and Shadow 05. Prior to that SEGA didn't really make all that many bad games how is he so low?
"Since then he hasn’t had a single failure, "
Let's Tap, Let's Catch, and Ivy the Kiwi?
None of these were particularly well-received.
Anyway, I see this as Metacritic trying to do what rottentomatoes.com does with directors, etc. by listing the reception to their body of work. I think it works better with movies than with video games so I'm not sure this was a smart idea on Metacritic's part, since it's harder to find this info and get it right.
Cliff Bleszinski recently said that he was being credited on Metacritic for Geist even though he had nothing to do with it.
Naka had his name attached to nearly every Sonic (and Phantasy Star Online) title up until 2006, with most of his 90's titles being listed but not scored due to being before internet reviews and metacritic. So the 63 makes sense. He has a few high rated titles, a ton of mid rated titles and two low rated titles (Shadow and '06).
Ivy The Kiwi was awesome, and it was "well received", most of its scores on Metacritic are 75 and above.
^^
actually Ivy the Kiwi was really really an underrated game.
the game was brilliant IMO. i am blaming SEGA for not supporting the project.
Ivy the Kiwi was pretty great for sure. I'd recommend anyone with a Wii check it out.
Ivy the Kiwi got decent reviews, averaged a 74, which is considered by Metacritic as "mixed or average reviews" but definitely not critical acclaim.
I didn't say that everything he's made has been trash, haha, of course not. But the games he's made at Prope so far have been fair-decent in their quality but his average in the 60s makes a lot of sense to me.
But it's a stupid system because there's a big difference between "producing" and "directing" a game….this system doesn't seem to differentiate between the two.
70's is not average, its Good.
The whole 100 scale is broken. If 5-6 is bad, wtf is all 50% of the other points?
^Bad to worse, which is stupid. Why the crap do we need them? Why not judge things with merit and recognition as opposed to a 7.6 or 9.0210?
Ratings shouldn't carry a game, the game should.
Only upside is maybe seeing Yuji a cut above the average American developers.