Gamerankings going away?

[Teggy]

Saw this on GAF - if you go to gamerankings.com you get redirected to Gamespot. Of course, the fanboys over there are glad, because they think the overall rankings are wrong. However, I use it all the time to look at various reviews and I'm hoping it's not actually gone.

[wonderpug]

That sucks.  I couldn't care less about the overall review aggregation, but it was my go-to place to see what reviews were released for a game and open up the ones I was interested in reading.

[TheMissingLink]

Lame-o.

[Captain Caveman]

That sucks.  I couldn't care less about the overall review aggregation, but it was my go-to place to see what reviews were released for a game and open up the ones I was interested in reading.

Me too.

Would metacritic work as a substitute?

[Laner]

That's a shame.

[Teggy]

The strange thing is that I looked up a game earlier today, so whatever is happening started only a few hours ago.

[Teggy]

That sucks.  I couldn't care less about the overall review aggregation, but it was my go-to place to see what reviews were released for a game and open up the ones I was interested in reading.

Me too.

Would metacritic work as a substitute?

Technically, yes, but I liked the layout at Gamerankings. Very easy to use.

[Gratch]

Man, that sucks.  I checked Gamerankings on a daily basis, and their lists of top ranked games for each system were a fantastic resource.

Can't say I'm surprised by the move though, and I'm a bit shocked it took them this long.  From a business standpoint, what vested interested does GS have to link to other website's reviews?

The strange thing is that I looked up a game earlier today, so whatever is happening started only a few hours ago.

same here.  I checked out a couple DQV reviews this morning from Gamerankings.  

[Teggy]

Possibly just internal issues - http://au.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26783939

We'll see...

[ATB]

They've been owned by GS for a while. My guess is it's a glitch.

[Clay]

Now it automatically forwards to Metacritic. 

On a related note, I cannot stand the graphics-heavy poorly-designed game websites that abound.  Pages at IGN and the like take ages to load.  I hope the day will come when there's movement towards sites that are easier to load, easier to read, and easier to navigate.

[Eduardo X]

I got really angry when gamerankings.com dropped all the smaller websites from their aggregates, like Bovine Conspiracy. That was basically the beginning of our end.

[jztemple2]

This is the message that's up there now:

Whoops. GameRankings is currently undergoing maintenance. In the mean time, please check out our sister site, Metacritic.com, for aggregated game reviews. Thanks for your patience. We hope to be back up soon.

If your browser doesn’t automatically go there within a few seconds, please go to Metacritic.com manually.

I too like Gamerankings.com, although I use it as a guideline rather than an absolute. The layout of Metacritic isn't anywhere as useful.

[Bullwinkle]

I think it's weird that metacritic has become an industry standard.  Or at least, it seems to have a lot of influence.  I've seen reference to metacritic scores in a number of articles (off the top of my head, there was the one about MS dropping some arcade games, and one of the factors was the metacritic score, but there have been more recent ones than that).  For my money, Gamerankings is not only way more convenient, it also has more information.  And it goes back a lot farther, too (which has helped me stockpile my PS2 collection in recent months).  Also, I can get it on my phone.  Boo if it actually goes away.

[Farscry]

I much, MUCH prefer Gamerankings over Metacritic.

[Bullwinkle]

IT'S BACK UP!!!

They've redesigned it.  Looks nice, not terribly different, but I can't tell if the functionality is changed.

[Gratch]

Wow, I don't like this new layout at all.  I really liked having the separate sections for each system with the most recent reviews under each one.  Now we only get a list of the 15 most recent reviews all lumped into one box, and I can't see any way to expand things to see additional new reviews or browse new reviews by specific systems.

Blech.   

[Bullwinkle]

Wow, I don't like this new layout at all.  I really liked having the separate sections for each system with the most recent reviews under each one.  Now we only get a list of the 15 most recent reviews all lumped into one box, and I can't see any way to expand things to see additional new reviews or browse new reviews by specific systems.

Blech.   

Yeah, I only just started looking into it.  The main page is kind of useless now.  The search section is lumped into that "Best of All Time" section, too, and it's more streamlined, but there are fewer filters.

I still prefer it to Metacritic, if only because it goes back further.

[kronovan]

Wow, I don't like this new layout at all.  I really liked having the separate sections for each system with the most recent reviews under each one.  Now we only get a list of the 15 most recent reviews all lumped into one box, and I can't see any way to expand things to see additional new reviews or browse new reviews by specific systems.

Blech.   

You still have the separate sections, you just have to click the appropriate link in the new 'Platforms' bar. You can still filter for all platforms by clicking the 'All Systems' link. The only thing I don't like about the new format it is the inability to hide box art, that you can't have more than 50 titles on screen and that the listing are no longer numbered. That said, it's still much better than Metacritic IMO.

[Dante Rising]

Wow, I don't like this new layout at all.  I really liked having the separate sections for each system with the most recent reviews under each one.  Now we only get a list of the 15 most recent reviews all lumped into one box, and I can't see any way to expand things to see additional new reviews or browse new reviews by specific systems.

Blech.   

I agree. The new format is much less informative and intuitive than the previous version. It looks like they used Gamefaqs as a template and then shoehorned in some differences. I'm very disappointed.

It reminds me of Coca-Cola giving way to New Coke. Way to ruin something that was already superb.

[Gratch]

Wow, I don't like this new layout at all.  I really liked having the separate sections for each system with the most recent reviews under each one.  Now we only get a list of the 15 most recent reviews all lumped into one box, and I can't see any way to expand things to see additional new reviews or browse new reviews by specific systems.

Blech.   

You still have the separate sections, you just have to click the appropriate link in the new 'Platforms' bar. You can still filter for all platforms by clicking the 'All Systems' link. The only thing I don't like about the new format it is the inability to hide box art, that you can't have more than 50 titles on screen and that the listing are no longer numbered. That said, it's still much better than Metacritic IMO.

The Platforms bar brings up a list of the top all-time reviews for the system, not just the most recent.  You have to manually sort it to get to games released within the last month.  Even that feature isn't a ton of help, since some sites (like ours) can be a little slow with reviews.  If you aren't looking for a specific game, there's no way (that I can see anyways) to pull up just the most recent reviews that have been posted for a specific platform.  I used to come across lots of games that weren't initially on my radar, but grabbed my attention because they were getting good reviews.

[kronovan]

The Platforms bar brings up a list of the top all-time reviews for the system, not just the most recent.  You have to manually sort it to get to games released within the last month. 

True, but the same thing was true for the old site; games that were listed when you 1st accessed 'The Rankings' were the all time top scorers for all platforms. You still had to select platform and the 'sort by' drop down if you wanted to get the most recent for any given platform as the sort order always defaulted to 'best to worst'. The other site did seem to recall your previous settings if you hadn't deleted your cookie, so maybe that's what you're finding different. I don't know if that recall feature is true for the new site.

[Bullwinkle]

The Platforms bar brings up a list of the top all-time reviews for the system, not just the most recent.  You have to manually sort it to get to games released within the last month. 

True, but the same thing was true for the old site; games that were listed when you 1st accessed 'The Rankings' were the all time top scorers for all platforms. You still had to select platform and the 'sort by' drop down if you wanted to get the most recent for any given platform as the sort order always defaulted to 'best to worst'. The other site did seem to recall your previous settings if you hadn't deleted your cookie, so maybe that's what you're finding different. I don't know if that recall feature is true for the new site.

But on the front page, without having to go into The Rankings, they had recent reviews broken down by platform.  It was very useful, and I checked it daily.  I think it was updated several times a day, too.

[kronovan]

The Platforms bar brings up a list of the top all-time reviews for the system, not just the most recent.  You have to manually sort it to get to games released within the last month. 

True, but the same thing was true for the old site; games that were listed when you 1st accessed 'The Rankings' were the all time top scorers for all platforms. You still had to select platform and the 'sort by' drop down if you wanted to get the most recent for any given platform as the sort order always defaulted to 'best to worst'. The other site did seem to recall your previous settings if you hadn't deleted your cookie, so maybe that's what you're finding different. I don't know if that recall feature is true for the new site.

But on the front page, without having to go into The Rankings, they had recent reviews broken down by platform.  It was very useful, and I checked it daily.  I think it was updated several times a day, too.

OK I can see what you're saying there; just the most popular and most recent for all systems are on it now. I do like the new 'latest articles' on the front page as 1st page visibility could be an incentive for reviewers to submit reviews. That was one of my biggest beef about the old site; too many reviewers just didn't bother to submit.

[Canuck]

I'm just glad its back-I dont give a damn what it looks like.  I don't go to GR to peruse the front page-I go when I want to look up a game-usually an older one which I missed the first go around.

[Ridah]

Funny, when I clicked on the link I thought to myself "the post is either going to have a link to a reputable news site or it's going to mention a random NeoGAF thread" 

It loads fine for me.

[Huw the Poo]

I'm just glad its back-I dont give a damn what it looks like.  I don't go to GR to peruse the front page-I go when I want to look up a game-usually an older one which I missed the first go around.

Agreed.  I don't care for the "new" look either, but it still does exactly what I want it to - and, as a bonus, there's no more annoying frame at the top when I click on a review.