VLOG - Xmas 2012

Kirby Retrospective 08 - Kirby of the Stars

TZ breaks slightly from form to take a look at the Hoshi no Kaabii manga that started in 1995. Also, special thanks to CoolNekoChan from Meta-Knight.com for letting me use the comic scanlations.

Gamers without Borders - Spike VGAs

Kirby Retrospective 07 - Kirby's Dream Land 2

Kirby is finally back in a brand new platformer, and this time he's bringing friends! But does it suffer from sophomore syndrome? Find out in this installment of the Kirby Retrospective!

Commercial Failure - Big Top Donut

It's the season 2 premiere of Commercial Failure!

Special thanks to Megan Wessels, the FanFic Critic. Check out her stuff here!

Kirby Retrospective 06 - Kirby's Block Ball

Unfortunately, Kirby bounces back onto the game boy in yet another unfortunately non-platformer title. How unfortunate.

Kirby Retrospective 05 - Kirby's Avalanche

Yet another 'fake' Kirby game. But oddly enough, more faithful to the franchise than our previous entry. How does Kirby's Avalanche pull this off? Watch and see!

Kirby Retrospective 04 - Kirby's Dream Course

Kirby finally lands on the SNES, but is this minigolf game a hole in one, or stuck in the rough? Find out on this installment of the Kirby Retrospective!

Kirby Retrospective 03 - Kirby's Pinball Land

Kirby returns to the Gameboy, but not in the way you'd expect. Let's take a look at Kirby's first non-platform game from 1993.

Kirby Retrospective 02 - Kirby's Adventure

Kirby's first foray into the world of color is also one of the best looking and densely populated games on the NES. Find out more in this installment of the Kirby Retrospective!

Kirby Retrospective 01 - Kirby's Dream Land

In this first installment of the Kirby Retrospective, We take a look at the game that started it all. A humble little game boy title called Kirby's Dream Land.

Announcing the Kirby Retrospective!

4up - Super Castlevania IV

Video Game Bunker - Top 10 Simultaneous 2-player NES Games

Zero delves into his memories to count down his top 10 simultaneous 2-player NES games. Which ones made the cut, and which is number 1? The answer may surprise you.

TZ and Friends try T-Virus Antidote Energy Drink

Last in a series of drink videos I shot a few months ago, forgot about, and finally found hidden on my hard drive this week.

TZ and Friends try Duff Energy Drink

More of a series of drink videos I shot a few months ago, forgot about, and finally found hidden on my hard drive this week.

TZ and Friends try Dragon Tail Energy Drink

Part of a series of drink videos I shot a few months ago, forgot about, and finally found hidden on my hard drive this week.

Video Game Bunker - Halo

It seems every game today seems to want to be the next Halo. But how does the first Halo hold up?

Lamentations of a Job Hunter

4up - Mega Man 2

Media Hunter - Black Sheep Review

Azeroth's favorite Druid reviewer takes a look at the ultra-violent Black Sheep. Happy April Fools day!

Tammy and the T-Rex Commentary

FanFicCritic #160 - Bad Fanfiction, Double Feature Commentary

Media Hunter - Tammy and the T-Rex Review

 TZ and Isaac team up to review a gem of schlock from the early 1990s.

Gamers without Borders - Episode 9 - March 6, 2012

We discuss Street Fighter X Tekken, Mass Effect 3, and by extension, Bullshit DLC practices by head-up-their-asses corporate morons.

4up - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

TestZero, Ozzie Arcane, Isaac the Media Hunter and Johnny Chase the Achievement Whore, take on the cause of so many childhood deaths, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
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Commercial Failure - Top 10 ads of Super Bowl XLVI

Commercial Failure - Top 10 ads of Super Bowl XLVI by TestZero

4up - Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!

4up - Castlevania

Analysing the Distribution of Gamespot and Metacritic Scores

So, I spent an hour today graphing the distribution of Gamespot.com scores in a line chart. What we find is rather interesting.

Naturally, we see a spike in every whole and half number, which may also be attributed to Gamespot's previous practice of not using decimal values, but we also see that the chart is skewed with 7.0 being both the median and mode.
So does this mean that there are 70 degrees of badness, but only 30 degrees of goodness? In a proper distribution, we should see a traditional bell curve, with 5.0 being the median. Perhaps this means most games are actually better than average? Or perhaps Gamespot simply likes to give 7.0's for mediocre games?

Personally, I believe this goes back to the American education system which labels 70% as a "C" or "Average" There's nothing inherently wrong with this metric, since it's fairly consistent across all districts, but after 12 years of learning "70% is average" these students grow up and have that mindset throughout their lives. thus, a score of only 50%, which SHOULD be average, reflects an "F" score, and thus not worth their time.

Of course, this information and analysis is nothing new, but I think seeing it so clearly makes for an interesting conversation piece.

What are your thoughts?

•  Source: http://www.gamespot.com/reviews.html?mode=all&sort=score&dlx_type=all&sortdir=asc&official=all&page=0 
• Games with multiple reviews (i.e. multiple platforms) are counted for each score, since the subject of this analysis is the scores themselves, not the games that receive them.

(UPDATE!) By request, I did the same thing to aggregate gaming review site Metacritic. These are the results:



And here are the two data sets overlayed:


We can clearly see a much more even distribution of scores between 85 and 55, without spikes on the halves. However, we still see the skewed bell curve with a mean around 73. While this shows that Metacritic is considerably more trustworthy in their scores, since it is collected from many sources around the internet, their data comes from the still-flawed "70% average" paradigm.

•  Source: http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/all?sort=desc&view=condensed 
• Games with multiple reviews (i.e. multiple platforms) are counted for each score, since the subject of this analysis is the scores themselves, not the games that receive them.

TZs Personal Top 5 Best and Worst Games of 2011

I don't tend to play games as soon as they come out, so my gaming experience is often on a few year lag. However, I did play a number of great and shitty games this year, so here are my thoughts on them.