newc0253

yeah, except even that article softballs the process somewhat. i mean, they were gonna give Assassin's Creed a 7? why not be brutally honest - if we're grading Assassin's Creed on a scale of 1 to 10, why should a game with that many shortcomings score any higher than a 5? or they talk about a reviewer wavering between a 7 or an 8 but the publisher wanting a 9? compare that with movie reviews: many reviewers don't bother with scores or grades but even among those that do, you don't see every major release regularly scoring 70% or better.... seriously, for all the talk about games becoming an art-form in their own right? that's never gonna happen while mainstream gaming sites and mags continue to give out hand jobs for cash. so-called games "journalists" who write for those sites should be frakking embarrassed that they get paid to basically pimp games for a living. at least they should have the guts to work for a marketing department and be honest about what they do...

the point isn't that spore isn't a good game. it might be, and it certainly has gotten good previews. the point is how can we trust a site like IGN to give an unbiased review? i mean, how likely it that every major release manages to score 8, 9 or even 10? we're clearly not grading on a curve here...

lies? we're talking value judgments here, not facts and figures. i'm not accusing the reviewer of lying. i'm suggesting that sites like IGN regularly give favourable reviews to major releases. that's not a lie, per se, simply hype. no, other than the fact that it's an IGN review of a major release...

usually.

why not? i'm just questioning whether we need to be continuously bombarded with breathless updates about its progress.

Yes, I read it but - if my sig is accurate - it would hardly make a difference, no? It is what? Worth a read? or good or not? I think the logical error here is the assumption that, if an otherwise decent writer is paid by a site like IGN to review a major release, that otherwise decent writer will therefore tell the unvarnished truth about that release.

still, so what? just because someone writes well and has decent, independent thoughts in their spare time doesn't prevent them from being a hack for hire during working hours.

sure, but why not get paid at the same time?

not saying that spore is a bad game, but does anyone actually trust sites like IGN for objective reviews? ain't they all just essentially hacks paid to write promo copy for the big game companies?

so do you get a commission for hyping this?

i ain't played a god-game since Civ 3. they're usually engrossing in the short term but dull in the long term. i wasn't gonna bother with Spore but the recent NYT piece made me think i might buy it. now i'm thinking maybe not...

I played this for about 10 minutes too before it crashed. I didn't bother restarting it & sold it on ebay. The visuals looked fine, if uninspired. the comparison with Oblivion is unfortunate, though, especially as the folk as Bethesda make a big deal about your ability to customise your character and appearance, whereas Gothic 3 has ... you stuck playing some dude with a beard. I'm sure it might have been more compelling if i'd stuck with it. But it hardly seemed worth my time.

wow, that combat discussion is really going well, huh?

did not. and to think some folk worry about the quality of rational debate on the internet. wait, you're being objective? oh, in that case, i take it all back then.

really? if it was rushed, it didn't show. hmm, i think if you left personal preference aside, you might not be bitching so much about Mass Effect's 'poor' quality. on topic: i though Jade Empire's combat was fun enuf, even if it was mostly button-mashing towards the end...

same here.

huh, does anyone actually think the problems with TOEE were due to the engine? personally i had no problem with TOEE's engine. i liked the turn-based combat. but even if Troika had magically been granted permission to make TOEE using the infinity engine, the game still would have blown because of its threadbare dialogue and story.

see? pool was merely agreeing with most people on the internet, which - as we know - reflects the wisdom of the masses. after all, everyone knows that Aribeth had brilliant voice work. i'm pleased to see that lady kept working, she would have been a terrible loss to the industry...

dude, gamers have the right to anything the frak they want, so long as its not illegal. so if gamers want to bitch and moan about games or developers for their faults and errors, real or imagined, then that's their frakking right. they got frak all leverage otherwise. it's great that a publisher has the good sense to recognise some of the sh1t that pisses gamers off, (although i suspect that's just one of the many luxuries that comes from being a smallish independent publisher that's not beholden to the latest copy protection bs favoured by larger publishers). so if a publisher does have good sense to make a list of sh1tty things they ain't gonna do, i guess you could either welcome it or act like some little corporate weenie's lapdog. oh, i guess you made your choice already, huh?

i think he was in deadly earenst. after all, the voice acting for Aribeth in the original NWN was the stuff of legend. i hope she got more work after that.

just to make matters more confusing, D&D also has (or at least had, i dunno what the latest deal is under 4e) units of time called turns. so 10 rounds = 1 turn. also rounds could be broken down into segments, so 10 segments = 1 round, or 1 turn = 100 segments. fun, huh?

the most important thing in a CRPG is booty. preferably lots and lots of hot female sorcerer booty, although hot girl elf or tiefling booty is also acceptable. also, plenty of phat l00t. and dragons.

hey, wasn't this thread supposed to be about combat in CRPGs? the last few pages seem to be a bitchfest between folk who hated Mass Effect and/or KOTOR for reasons i'm too bored to consider.

hmm, a few posts back you were claiming this guy's definitions were objective truth. now you're simply saying that you agree with his overall take on things. let's wait a few more posts, so you can shift positions again...

better still, chant them. i have no idea who this VD is, except that he has very unfortunate initials.