While it’s easy to pick up a classic like 2007’s Portal or even 1991’s The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and enjoy them as though they’d come out yesterday, those are the exceptions to the rule. Countless lessons were learned in the following 12 years, and it’s no secret that some game designs hold up better than others. What's Old Isn't Always New AgainAs for the question of why Crackdown 3 is treated more harshly by modern critics than Crackdown was in 2007 despite closely resembling a (moderately) visually updated version of that game, it’s simply a victim of progress. So when you see a game that we gave a 9.0 or higher drop to a low price, you’ll know you’re getting something we thought was an outstanding experience for a song when you see a game we thought was just okay (that’s 6.0-6.9 on our scale) but you think might be up your alley for a pittance, trying it for yourself to see if you agree with us or not becomes much safer without the fear of a $60 disappointment. Naturally, everyone has their own threshold for what they’re willing to spend and for what caliber of gaming experience. We hope that this philosophy keeps our scores useful to you even when a game goes on deep discount because, regardless of your financial situation, you’ll be able to use them as a guide for how we recommend you spend your time.

But we see it as our job as critics to help you to lower those expectations for games we find underwhelming, and the more we award high scores to games that simply provide more value instead of memorable experiences, the more we inflate expectations and create disappointment.

It’s certainly true that lowered expectations can make a run-of-the-mill game more enjoyable by removing the element of disappointment. Retailers like Amazon and GameStop (until recently) offered games for 20% off – should that result in a 20% increase in score? Does a game’s score dramatically rise when it goes on sale for 75% off on Steam? Are there different scores for a Microsoft game if you buy a retail copy versus getting access through GamePass? Should a free-to-play game never score lower than a 7.0 because you don’t have to pay for it at all? We think not, because getting a good deal on a bad or mediocre game does not make it any more fun or interesting to actually play. “A close relationship between price and score also causes major problems because, now more than ever, games’ prices are in flux. Those two perspectives can lead to very different takes on how much a game should cost and how much that should matter in an evaluation. Anecdotally, they will often want the highest-quality experience they can find to fill those hours, even if it’s relatively expensive. Meanwhile, older gamers with full-time jobs and families making demands on their time might have enough disposable income that the difference between a $60 game and a $15 game is negligible but their gaming hours are more precious. For example, someone who has a tight gaming budget – including most students out there – will be more inclined to dive into a game that’s not particularly groundbreaking or exciting, but is still reasonably entertaining and doesn’t ask for a lot of cash in exchange for many hours of entertainment. Our philosophy on this topic has to do with keeping our reviews relevant to a wide variety of perspectives.

For our purposes at IGN, though, when we’re reviewing and assigning scores we strongly prefer to decouple price from our criticism of the games themselves (except in extreme cases) in order to emphasize quality over quantity. For frugal gamers who aren’t into the free-to-play competitive scene of Fortnite, Apex Legends, and their ilk, that’s something to be valued and appreciated. It’s not an unreasonable argument: after all, while there’s a wide range of valid opinions on whether Crackdown 3 is good or not, one thing its fans and most of its detractors can agree on is that it’s better than playing nothing at all. “That’s why it’s easy to understand where people are coming from in a common piece of feedback on our Crackdown 3 review, in which they say our score of 5.0 is too harsh for a game that would normally go for $60 but is alternatively available as part of Microsoft’s $10-per-month GamePass service, and thus very inexpensive for subscribers.

Crackdown 3 ign review