While we wait for the Skyrim reviews and playing the game ourselves, I thought it would be interesting to see how it might stack up against the competition so far.

It looks like MW3 may be a flop, though certainly not in game sales. IGN gave it a tepid 9.0. After reading the review itself, I get the feeling that it should be lower than 9.0, but we all know angering a big publisher isn't good for long-term business. More interesting are the Metacritic user reviews: people are absolutely slamming the game. The backlash is really surprising, and there are very few dissenters. Overall, it looks like MW3 is no competition for Skyrim from a pure gameplay point of view. I can't say I'm unhappy about that, because IMO, the CoD series lost its true panache a while ago.

Zelda: Skyward Sword is an entirely different story. Game Informer doesn't have their review up yet, but their reviewer says he's giving it the first 10 he's ever given at Game Informer. He does mention that the boss battles are truly great and a big step above the usual "figure out the weak point, disable boss, attack three times, repeat" type of gameplay. The only other reviews up seem to be in the 10 range too.

Say what you want about Nintendo or the Zelda series, but to consistently turn out that kind of quality in a franchise is truly remarkable. Hats off to them. In the meantime, while I hope that Skyrim reaches those heights, I doubt it will. I think Skyrim ends up taking a respectable second place in games released this week.

What do you guys think?

I think that years after those games are dead and buried, Skyrim will still be selling strong.

The only game competing for my time with Skyrim will be Battlefield 3 for the insanely amazing multiplayer action. What's MW3?

I think reviewers will be givings Skyrim 9s or 9.5s. I'd be surprised if it got a 10 from GI or IGN.

I don't own a Wii, so Zelda doesn't even matter to me.

I have the same feeling about what Skyrims scores are going to be. I honestly hope it deserves a 10.

Fair enough, Zelda is the reason most of us are here.

Never understood COD games really. They're good enough but the MW series should have been stopped after 1. I thought 2 was rubbish and 3 is likely more of the same. As for Nintendo and Zelda, I think it's one of Nintendo's finest creations. I've yet to play a Zelda game I didn't enjoy completely. I honestly think it's one of the best series of games ever conceived.

It isn't direct competition. All 3 games are very different. Many gamers will buy both cod and skyrim or both skyrim and zelda. The problem exists with gamers who don't have the money or will to buy more than 1 game in a short period of time.

That said, I think many gamers will be picking up Skyrim who didn't this week later in the month and in December (Holidays coming up). So I don't think it is really a major problem. Skyrim will get excellent reviews, TES playes will all buy it, and average gamers will get it a bit later with Christmas around the corner and good reviews to support it.

Also, Zelda isn't really that much of a competitor if you ask me. Zelda is on Wii and Skyrim is on PS3 and Xbox, the kind of gamers who own a Wii and Xbox/PS3 are generally the kind who will buy both games regardless, and obviously those who have just one of the other will buy the game on their respective console so neither game is really in competition.

Skyward Sword hasn't been hyped at all, so it'll probably do quite well as far as reception goes but not sell too much
Modern Warfare 3 = Modern Warfare 2, so half the world will play it and the other half will hate on it.
Reviewers will of course grade it far above an 8/10 average because it's been a while since big reviewers were actually deservant of the title 'critic'

Then again, Skyrim has been hyped to oblivion (no pun intended) as well so there won't be a lot of critical reviews for it either

9.0 being a flop is an interesting choice. A stupid one, you are stupid, is what I'm saying.

Zelda is zelda. They're fine, nothing new or that interesting. I can't trust any nintendo review to be honest. It's all just nostalgia.

+1

Offtopic: Does somebody know some GOOD and INDEPENDENT gaming site review? I'm tired of reviewing the reviewer's score afraid of it being biased.

Jeez, I haven't played Nintendo since I was like 16. That's 20 years ago to you kids out there. No interest in Nintendo, sorry. The Wii/DS are the only platforms I don't own. Hats off to Nintendo, sure, but no cash out of my wallet to Nintendo. I'll save that for Skyrim. :thumbsup:

Ya, ideally, I want it to be a ten, but realistically? Somewhere in the nines.

AC revelations and steam already pushed skyrim down my list

then theres xmas to get through,
then the new year,
then the redecorating of lil girls room,having a family really encrouches on gaming time.

priorities are a bane of growing up.

isnt there also an american extra holiday in Nov ?/..[the one about killing indians ?]


summer is when all games should be released :wink_smile:

How... is a score of 9 massive hate?

My thoughts exactly. Link to the Past was one of my favourite games as a child and kind of planted the seed for my later RPG loves.

MW1 revitalized the CoD series and did some excellent things for FPS gaming. Since then, CoD has become synonymous with rehashed gameplay and [censored]ting on the PC, both of which I can't abide.

From my own point of view, I'm hoping I can give Skyrim an A-, and I rarely give out an A-range score to any game. For example, I'd give Red Dead Redemption and Witcher 2 both B+, while most people would say they are easy examples of 9.0 and above games.

Haters gonna hate.

Giantbomb.com

What holiday is about the murder of my people? Why was I not invited? Where is my cake? I assume there is cake.
I mean, they took our land.... can't I at least get some cake?

im not worried about CoD but zelda does have an unusually big fanbase. then again it is a classic and sorta set the template for rpgs to come so no surprise there. still i think the next few week are going to be interesting and i feel like skyrim is gonna come out on top...btw you should've mentioned batman as well. game informer gave it a 10/10

Come on guys, read what I said. There are a lot of user posts on game sites really slagging on MW3. I also think that IGN wanted to go lower than 9.0, but that's like business suicide for them. Go look at all the games IGN has given 9.0 and above to, and tell me that all of them absolutely lived up to that score.

i just realised that we just "celebrated" guy fawkes night....which tells me that every holiday "celebrates" murder

aint we a lovely species...lol


ps..since we all know about gift bags and advertising revenues....WHO THE HELL reads reviews anymore ?

read the gamers reviews,at they are being honest.

Good point. Looking at a couple dozen user posts out of 9 million (so far) purchasers should be pretty accurate representation. Have you considered a career in statistics?

Thank you, I'll look into it.

MW3 a flop, :rofl: IT has nearly 9 million pre-orders, http://www.gamespot.com/news/modern-warfare-3-preorders-hit-nearly-9-million-anolyst-6344321?tag=updates%3Beditor%3Ball%3Btitle%3B7 There is the sauce, Skyrim is doing good with nearly 2 million pre-orders in American alone on the consoles,SO what is you point? People thtat get MW3 don't like huge games like Skyrim because of the time it takes to play it, they like brain-dead muiltplayer.And Zelda only apply to Wii owners. I never played Zelda, and don't plan on starting now.