The Rhomal Report - Skewed reviews?

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

But, while I agree that Arcanum was bug-heavy and quite unbalanced still even after the final patch, there are so so so many awsome things in the game that I don't even notice the bugs really.

 

SO while a reviewer may be doing the job by bringing up notice that a game is buggy that still doesn't mean that I won't enjoy the game.

 

Again, in today's gaming market, you simply assume that a game is going to be buggy upon initial release, sounless thay are system-destroying apocalyptic bugs, its not terribly useful info that a game is buggy.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well thats true of any review. The thing is if you go ahead and ignore the review you cant then turn around and say "It's all your fault mister reviewer".

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Heres something interesting from a review by Ajay over at Eurogamer.

 

The recharging health system, in addition to being implemented in an attempt to streamline the game (which, to be fair, it does since you

[alanschu]

I get the impression that the analysis makes an assumption that a score of 50% (or at least lower) means an "average" game.

 

According to IGN's ratings guide, games with scores below 7 are "barely passable." Games in the 7s are good games that tend to have "obvious flaws." A high 7 means that it might have some first rate elements. 8s are scores that "[miss] the boat in just a few key areas." 9s are fantastic, must have games, with the uber-rare 10 being virtually flawless.

 

PC Gamer has similar ratings.

 

I consider games in the 70s to typically be the "average" game.

 

 

 

EDIT: A few things that I noticed:

 

More then 75% indicates to me a way above average game. A game with news ideas, a fresh approach to old ideas or just fantastic game play. A game in the top 25%, and especially top 10% (90%+ rating), should be reserved for the elite few in my opinion. And I am pretty sure I am not alone in thinking a 80%+ rating shouldn

Edited December 1, 2005 by alanschu

[Kaftan Barlast]

This is MUCH bigger than the fact that the big magazines and sites are repeating what happened in the 1980s with the big "console crash" that brought down Atari.

 

 

The list of bad omens

• The failiure of the 360 launch to sell up to its hype (and the overheating power supply causing lots of people to return their new 360)
  
• That publishers focus on "branding" instead of financing good original games, leaving players with garbage like the new matrix game
  
• The hysterical pricing of "next generation" console games (usually 50% more than the PC release)
  
• The PS3 being delayed while Sony takes huge losses, firing over 10000 employees wordlwide.
  
• The PS3 most likely being priced like a mid-spec PC
  
• Nintendo giving up on the "spec race" and releasing a console mainly for low-powered cartoony blipblop games
  
• The backfiring "exclusives" resulting in substantially less sales than a multi-platform game while not attracting people to buy more consoles.
  
• Undererestimating the ultimate gaming device, the PC
  
• More and more publishers dying out every year, making it possible for "cheap to make crap is better than expensive quality titles" behemoths like EA to completely dictate the terms for game development as game developers will have nowhere else to go.
  

So, there is a big chance that the "next generation" consoles will cause a meltdown rather that rejuvenate gaming. But that will actually be positive for gamers since it would force the giants(sony, ms etc.) and the publishers to rethink their strategy.

Edited December 2, 2005 by Kaftan Barlast

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Thats only one console and lets face its not like its forerunner was that popular either.

 

Now if the PS3 was in the same boat there might be more reason to fret.

 

I dont see what the deal is about Nintendo "dropping out" is either. Aside from your obviously bias comments, graphics are not the be all and end all of games. Since the pretty much invented the gamepad as it exists today they may well be onto the next big gaming boom.

 

The PC is a piece of **** as a games machine. Really no other way to put it. The quality of games is disguisting which was part of what pushed people towards consoles in the first place. Stuff that works out of the box , wow thats novelty.

[Hurlshort]

Thats only one console and lets face its not like its forerunner was that popular either.

 

Now if the PS3 was in the same boat there might be more reason to fret.

 

I dont see what the deal is about Nintendo "dropping out" is either. Aside from your obviously bias comments, graphics are not the be all and end all of games. Since the pretty much invented the gamepad as it exists today they may well be onto the next big gaming boom.

 

The PC is a piece of **** as a games machine. Really no other way to put it. The quality of games is disguisting which was part of what pushed people towards consoles in the first place. Stuff that works out of the box , wow thats novelty.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Wow...if you think games are hard to run now on PC's...you must have missed the Dos days.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Wow...if you think games are hard to run now on PC's...you must have missed the Dos days.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No , but I cant say I remember them fondly. Of course in the DOS days there were no platforms that ran comparable games.

[Rhomal]

Wow...if you think games are hard to run now on PC's...you must have missed the Dos days.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No , but I cant say I remember them fondly. Of course in the DOS days there were no platforms that ran comparable games.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Depending on your prefered style of game the console is either very good or very poor. With a PC you can pretty much play any type of game.

 

and I dont understand what issues you have PC gaming. once w2k (and now XP) came out all the issues of win9x went away and its been a pleasurable situation since. For me at least.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Two main ones.

 

1. The number of games does not justify the cost of a top end machine.

 

2. They rarely play straight of the box, crash, have bugs which a blind monkey could spot etc.

[Dhruin]

So your stance is every or most AAA titles are a 80%+ game and every indie game is bottom of the barrel by default?

 

Not at all. We do a lot of work with indies, which I have developed further and I regularly enjoy them over "commercial" titles. However, broad-based mainstream sites like GameSpot would give low scores to many indie titles because of the low production values - eliminating them removes some lower scores and potentially shifts their average up.

 

> It would also be nice to know what period you counted.  

 

Sorry, I dont understand what you are asking.

 

Your article says something like the "last couple of months" - I just wanted to clarify exactly what time period. I disagree with your method of examining the number of games with a particular score since it depends entirely on what titles were reviewed. If you happen to have reviewed a bunch of good games lately, your average score will rise, right?

[LoneWolf16]

Two main ones.

 

1. The number of games does not justify the cost of a top end machine.

 

2. They rarely play straight of the box, crash, have bugs which a blind monkey could spot etc.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

1. Partially in agreement...but quality over quantity, Baldur's Gate being a good example. Can't play THAT on a 360.

 

2. All my games play "straight out of the box" I've never had a problem in that area, and bugs aren't really that apparent. A good deal of them only seem to occur at odd points in the game, or if you do something stupid the devs didn't exactly expect.

Edited December 2, 2005 by LoneWolf16

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

1. Partially in agreement...but quality over quantity, Baldur's Gate being a good example. Can't play THAT on a 360.

 

2. All my games play "straight out of the box" I've never had a problem in that area, and bugs aren't really that apparent. A good deal of them only seem to occur at odd points in thr game, or if you do something stupid the devs didn't exactly expect.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

And it's been how long since Baldurs Gate was released ? Wouldnt really want to play it on the 360 since I've already played it. Dont you find it kind of amusing that you have to dig back that far into history to come up with an example of a good game ? I do.

 

Lucky you. Last one I played was Bloodlines and that certainly didnt work straight out of the box. It was also a buggy mess.

[LoneWolf16]

And it's been how long since Baldurs Gate was released ? Wouldnt really want to play it on the 360 since I've already played it. Dont you find it kind of amusing that you have to dig back that far into history to come up with an example of a good game ? I do.

 

Lucky you. Last one I played was Bloodlines and that certainly didnt work straight out of the box. It was also a buggy mess.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

All right, fine, something recent then. F.E.A.R comes to mind as a great shooter with perfect atmosphere. It played right out of the box, no problem. Call of Duty 2 is also up there as an A list shooter, Indigo Prophecy is a great adventure game, Guild Wars is an MMORPG-player-who-likes-to-solo's dream, World of Warcraft is for the MMO nerd in all of us, Halo (which was a computer game prior to being brought out by M$ for it's box), Far Cry, KotOR (#1, #2 is open to debate)...Just to name a few.

 

Bloodlines isn't a good example, and you know it. It's an amazingly buggy title made by a development team virtually brimming with insect life...but the numerous madagascar roaches aside, it's still a damned good game.

Edited December 2, 2005 by LoneWolf16

[Volourn]

"Heres the important bit.

 

The Bad: Many of the unique gameplay features of the last couple of Madden games are missing; lots of missing modes--all you get is a husk of a franchise mode and online play; some unsightly animation and graphical hang-ups that stick out all the more on a next-gen console; you can't challenge plays.

 

Probably enough there to justify the score , which is only going to be approximate anyway since it's one guys opinon.

 

Wouldnt place any faith (actually less) in the reader votes since people go around inflating and deflating the scores."

 

Really? They really cheated the x-box/x-box 360 fans then. I just bought Madden 2006 for the PS2 two days ago, and it has all the old features from the old version plus a bunch of new stuff.

 

It definitely allows one to challenge plays. In fact, I got back the ball after I had 'fumbled' the ball and challenged the call successfully.

 

The Franchise Mode is even deeper before with a choice of praticing key plays before each game to better prepare your team.

 

And, the graphics are as close to perfection as one could expect.

 

Weird...

 

Us PS2 Madden fanboys got an awesome Madden 2006. Sucks to be a x-box 360 Madden fanboy.

 

Hehehe.

Edited December 2, 2005 by Volourn

[Rhomal]

> Not at all. We do a lot of work with indies, which I have developed further and I regularly enjoy them over "commercial" titles. However, broad-based mainstream sites like GameSpot would give low scores to many indie titles because of the low production values - eliminating them removes some lower scores and potentially shifts their average up.

 

Fair point and I dont disagree. However I can only go by what they give me to work with to base the numbers on. If they choose to only review games they know will generate high scores as to not upset publishers then thats another entire can of worms.

 

> Your article says something like the "last couple of months" - I just wanted to clarify exactly what time period.

 

I list the time frame under each specific site. To sum it up here I looked at the last 8-10 weeks of reviews for each site. Which boiled down to the last 37-40 titles per site.

[Dhruin]

It is an interesting topic. As Matthias points out, it's hard to get agreement on reviews, so I think most issues are different interpretations, sometimes incompetence - but rarely commercial interference.

[alanschu]

Actually, I think considering that the average score is around 75%, would lead me to indicate that 75% isn't "way above average" score, but in fact an average score.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Wouldnt the problem be that each site would have it's own averge score ? Therefore you would have to determine what each sites average was before you could go about determining a collective average.

[Spider]

Lucky you. Last one I played was Bloodlines and that certainly didnt work straight out of the box. It was also a buggy mess.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Bloodlines was playable for me out of the box. It had one gamestopping bug that could be circumvented fairly easily. True, I'd prefer that I didn't have to do that, but it didn't render the game unplayable for me.

[alanschu]

Wouldnt the problem be that each site would have it's own averge score ? Therefore you would have to determine what each sites average was before you could go about determining a collective average.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Yup, that is definitely the case.

 

 

EDIT: Bloodlines was playable by me out of the box too. I did have a bizarre bug at the end where it seemed like I couldn't remove an obstacle. Though upon reload it seemed to work fine, so meh

Edited December 2, 2005 by alanschu

[Shadowstrider]

90-100% = A = Great game

80-90% = B = Good game

70-80% = C = Average game

50-60% = D = Below average, but somewhat enjoyable game

0-50% = E = Crap

 

Just like most schools grade. If you go by that, you'll see through the fluff of review ratings. All that aside, you should just read what they say and ignore their inane number ratings.

[Hurlshort]

I played Bloodlines out of the box too...not to go too far off topic.

 

Again, comparing PC's to consoles is futile. The PC has too many other uses. If I hated games, I'd still need a good PC to run all my Por...err, online movies

[Child of Flame]

Game reviewers speaking of games they get exclusive access to for the purpose of reviewing in a favorable light?

 

Well I never!