Falcon68

Yes. I know that. Which is why I said there should be a better system for reviewing games based on it's own merits and it's flaws. But that system should also give a few points to the reviewer to express his/her opinion as well. As it is many reviews and scores are based entirely on opinion. And I have seen some good games get railroaded while bad games have gotten some oddly high scores. Most of the time (sadly) when a game that is bad gets good reviews there is some incentive for the company to do so. The good games with bad scores can be a matter of the reviewer not liking the series or the developer. Here is the ultimate problem. Good game reviewers know that they need to leave opinion out of it as much as possible as this adds a wide variety of opinions to the score such as. Well Obsidian messed up KOTOR 2 so I dislike them as a studio as such I am going to already have a thought in my head that this game may not be that great. So when I review a game I try to avoid opinion and focus solely on the facts of the title. Opinions is something you DON'T want in a review.. trust me. As a professional I really hope your work ethic is based on this mantra and you practice it. Because far too often I am seeing reviewers like Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, or reviewers that use their lack of gaming skill to railroad games. In fact there was a review for DS3 that was bad and the score was low because the reviewer couldn't understand how to use the stances and was getting the shaft on Casual mode... dude if you are that weak as a gamer YOU DON'T NEED TO BE IN THIS BUSINESS! (btw this is not aimed at you, just the poorly skilled reviewer) And these "publications" that publish the reviewers articles need to have a screening that INCLUDES the reviewer showing that he is skilled in certain genres of games and they need to stick to those games as review subjects. Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw is more of a comedian then a actual game reviewer. I watch his work and enjoy it but I never really take him seriously. But yes a requirement for reviewing video games should be the ability to play all types of games from hardcore to casual. I completely agree with you there.

Isn't it ironic to say "OK I don't like Obsidian because they screwed up this other game but I'm not going to let my opinions influence my reviews"? You're right that reviewers need to try and take account of different opinions and try and balance out their own bias, but you can only do that when you recognise the bias that you have. Ya I was just using that as an example I loved KOTOR 2 personally but ya. The best thing to do is try a game yourself, but if you can't, find a game reviewer that you know isn't very opinionated.

Yes. I know that. Which is why I said there should be a better system for reviewing games based on it's own merits and it's flaws. But that system should also give a few points to the reviewer to express his/her opinion as well. As it is many reviews and scores are based entirely on opinion. And I have seen some good games get railroaded while bad games have gotten some oddly high scores. Most of the time (sadly) when a game that is bad gets good reviews there is some incentive for the company to do so. The good games with bad scores can be a matter of the reviewer not liking the series or the developer. Here is the ultimate problem. Good game reviewers know that they need to leave opinion out of it as much as possible as this adds a wide variety of opinions to the score such as. Well Obsidian messed up KOTOR 2 so I dislike them as a studio as such I am going to already have a thought in my head that this game may not be that great. So when I review a game I try to avoid opinion and focus solely on the facts of the title. Opinions is something you DON'T want in a review.. trust me.

Opinions aside. Because 3/10 means the game is unplayable not only due to bad design but bugs and a complete failure on multiple fronts. If you are going to give a game such a low score then you really need to explain why. An example... 10 - As a rule all games should start here and then be graded on merits. -1 - No New Game + -1 - No Keymapping -1 - Multiplayer camera is bad Those are my complaints against DS3, at the moment... that sets it at a 7/10. That's passing. But there is more! +1 - I liked the story. Short as it was I was very immersed and at the end... I craved more. +.5 - The gameplay was solid. +.5 - I had fun That brings it back up to a 9/10 in my opinion, and I just illustrated why. As I said with such a low score... you really should illustrate it further. Explain why you scored it so low. Actually reviewing video games for a living I can tell you that game reviewing is never scored like that. Most games that are reviewed are broken down by features and aspects and generally are compared to the best performer in the category. For example, DS3 would most likely be rated against and compared to Diablo 2 or maybe something more modern such as Titan Quest. In my opinion DS3 deserves a 6/10 it lacks many features that are pretty much assumed to be present in similar titles. That is a huge problem that would make the score dip down immensely. Now if Obsidian adds in persistent characters, separate cameras, separate gold, open access to modding, random loot tables for all creatures, and perhaps some random extra powerful mobs I can see that score being more around 8/10.

Ya that is sad considering one of the bosses (maybe all I know atleast 1 for sure) has a predetermined drop. If drops are guaranteed it kind of loses the fun. =/

/facepalm

I love how people who have no concept of what actually happened in development can assume that nothing was cut out of the game to make it work on console. It is absolutely ridiculous to make such an assumption with no proof, the game was designed to run on a inferior machine. When a title is designed to run specifically on an inferior platform things are cut, its common sense.

Sacred 2 is a PC game ported to the consoles. You're missing the point. The same amount of data fits onto a disk regardless. So why would features have to be removed to accommodate consoles? Are you familiar with the porting process and its limitations? EDIT: Here let me just end this. Porting isn't what you think it is. Porting is just re-writing the code to work on another system. Most games are made for Xbox, and ported to PS3, thus the quality of the game (frame rate, graphics, sound) might take a hit. But in no way does it limit the quantity of the features in a game. It's just copying the code from one platform to another and re-writing it so it functions. Porting doesn't mean they had to dumb down features, it just doesn't make sense. The data limitations for a DVD, CD, or Blu-Ray are the same regardless of system. What can fit onto a PC DVD is the same as an Xbox DVD. Consoles simply have lower graphical potential, which would be the only area affected by porting an xbox game to PC. Understand? A couple things, first the current consoles such as the XBOX 360 and PS3 are roughly equivalent to a low end PC nowadays. They are way behind as far as the speed of both the GPU and CPUs in the systems. So when you code a game for a console that is far under spec of most $400 PCs nowadays you need to cut out features, textures, and possibly change how the game is played to meet the 30 FPS recommendation for console and in many cases this means stripping down the title to barebones. Then when these games are re-coded for PC nothing is generally added except maybe a few additional lighting effects. So then PC gamers with high end gaming rigs 50x faster then any console currently out is restricted by what features are in the game. THIS is the problem and that is how it works. Given a developer could spend extra time adding all the features back into the game that needed to be cut out to make the game run smooth on console. But this could be hundreds more hours of coding and lots more money. Most developers see a dollar sign and decide to just release the same cut to ribbons version of the game that was released for console.

No it wasn't... I buy computers with my own money thank you. I have had just about every console out there but I mostly play PC games because in my opinion the PC gaming community is much closer nit then any console community. Ventrilo is a great thing! If you are smart when you purchase your PC you don't generally need to upgrade it for atleast 5 years. My last pc I bought 8 years ago and it was the top of the line at the time and just recently stopped running the best graphical games. Since then I bought a new PC and will not need to upgrade it for atleast 5 years. As long as you buy brand name or good quality PC parts they usually come with a lifetime limited warranty or close to it. Most consoles have 1 year warranty then if a cheap part breaks you have to pay 1/2 the price of the console to fix it. As for the average length of RPGs, games like Witcher 2, Mass Effect 2, and Final Fantasy 13 reach far past 8-10 hours. All the games that generally are shorter RPGs (for the most part) tend to either have re-playability in the form of continuing to lvl up and get new gear for your character. From what I understand this game strangely does not let you continue collecting gear.. you beat the game... grats now your character gets tossed out.

I have never seen that... There are a ton of details in the game that make it obvious that it was built for console and ported to PC where it should have really been done the other way around.

Sacred 2? Nope multiplayer you shared a co-op screen. ie. not split screen. I know for offline multiplayer you shared one screen.. but online I am not sure about.

NONE of this stuff is acceptable for consoles. There are PSP titles with more robust character ssystems and more features for MP than DS3. THIS IS NOT AN ISSUE OF CONSOLES. There are PSP games that don't have a shared screen in multiuplayer, don't give the host all the loot/gold in MP, and that allow for persistent character saves. PSP GAMES! The consoles are NOT the mother****ing limitation here. I disagree. Please name a over head multiplayer diablo like game for xbox360 or PS3 that does not share an overhead screen. I definitely can't think of any. As it is there are few diablo like games for 360/ps3 but all of them share a camera. The hardware even in these consoles are starting to become noticeably dated to the point where the graphic differences have made me buy games only for PC if possible. The only games I will buy for my xbox or ps3 are games that are exclusive to them. Dungeon Siege 3 was built for console and ported to PC hence why the developers are saying now that they didn't get a chance to really work on the PC version much. Most games that are released now a days for consoles are maxing the hardware out and as such Obsidian probably decided to keep the graphics as close to the pc version as possible on console but in doing so they had to make certain sacrifices. Now PC gamers are suffering for it while Obsidian admits they have things to fix in the PC version that are not being changed in console.. this is obvious why they aren't being changed, because the console can't handle it.

These are game items that really NEED to be changed, many of these things are understandable for console but really should be patched for PC. 1. Removal of Shared Screen for Multiplayer 2. Removal of Shared Gold in Multiplayer (split it like in Diablo) 3. Make an actual character select screen and allow us to play with our character with our gear! 4. Make controls mappable (already know this is happening) These are the main changes that need to be made, and honestly the hardest one is probably number 3. I think everything else should be fairly easy to patch into the PC version, heck a good modder may be able to make a mod to change some of these. I know many topics have been made about this but figured I would consolidate them.

I can't watch youtube from where I am but... on the pc what is the button to turn on breadcrumbs? Didn't even know that was a feature til I saw it in a game review.

We just muted each other so we can use ventrilo without hearing double voices. Pretty easy to do in game.

These are game items that really NEED to be changed, many of these things are understandable for console but really should be patched for PC. 1. Removal of Shared Screen for Multiplayer 2. Removal of Shared Gold in Multiplayer (split it like in Diablo) 3. Make an actual character select screen and allow us to play with our character with our gear! 4. Make controls mappable (already know this is happening) These are the main changes that need to be made, and honestly the hardest one is probably number 3. I think everything else should be fairly easy to patch into the PC version, heck a good modder may be able to make a mod to change some of these. I know many topics have been made about this but figured I would consolidate them.