Amentep Posted February 17, 2009 Posted February 17, 2009 I'll come from it from a different perspective - why aren't movie reviews a joke? They're just as full of opinion and bias as any other review and the "4 star" rating system is just as meaningless as the ten point. This doesn't mean that it can be a useful guide - if you read enough reviews from the same person to get an idea of their taste you can usually gauge where your own tastes lie in line (or oppose) that of the reviewer. But that doesn't make them any less idiosyncratic or arbitrary. Reviews are by their nature subjective. I think it's because movies are much easier to write reviews for because of their length. I mean they're 2 hour experiences in general and you can see it in a day, mull it over and pop up a review. Game reviews take MUCH more time because of the amount of content the reviewer has to sift through to get a good idea of what's going to happen, and thus they need to get the game much earlier than a movie reviewer does. Also the games industry in general.... well not the industry, more like it's surrounding media, is driven by the marketing of the games. Why would I want to click the add for the game who's review says it sucks? That's the catch 22 of the entire gaming review industry, if a game gets bad reviews then people won't want to buy it, and then you loose ad revenue because the company who's game you gave a bad review to will pull the marketing. There are a number of film reviewers will start writing their review during the movie. I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot! ~ Ro-Man
Calax Posted February 17, 2009 Posted February 17, 2009 I'll come from it from a different perspective - why aren't movie reviews a joke? They're just as full of opinion and bias as any other review and the "4 star" rating system is just as meaningless as the ten point. This doesn't mean that it can be a useful guide - if you read enough reviews from the same person to get an idea of their taste you can usually gauge where your own tastes lie in line (or oppose) that of the reviewer. But that doesn't make them any less idiosyncratic or arbitrary. Reviews are by their nature subjective. I think it's because movies are much easier to write reviews for because of their length. I mean they're 2 hour experiences in general and you can see it in a day, mull it over and pop up a review. Game reviews take MUCH more time because of the amount of content the reviewer has to sift through to get a good idea of what's going to happen, and thus they need to get the game much earlier than a movie reviewer does. Also the games industry in general.... well not the industry, more like it's surrounding media, is driven by the marketing of the games. Why would I want to click the add for the game who's review says it sucks? That's the catch 22 of the entire gaming review industry, if a game gets bad reviews then people won't want to buy it, and then you loose ad revenue because the company who's game you gave a bad review to will pull the marketing. There are a number of film reviewers will start writing their review during the movie. Exactly, it's just easier to review a film because it's got a defined length of time and isn't very interactive. Victor of the 5 year fan fic competition! Kevin Butler will awesome your face off.
Deadly_Nightshade Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 New American Mcgee's Alice! "Geez. It's like we lost some sort of bet and ended up saddled with a bunch of terrible new posters on this forum." -Hurlshot
Slowtrain Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 New American Mcgee's Alice! That's surprising. And kind of cool. I thought he was out of the business. Notice how I can belittle your beliefs without calling you names. It's a useful skill to have particularly where you aren't allowed to call people names. It's a mistake to get too drawn in/worked up. I mean it's not life or death, it's just two guys posting their thoughts on a message board. If it were personal or face to face all the usual restraints would be in place, and we would never have reached this place in the first place. Try to remember that.
Purkake Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 New American Mcgee's Alice! That's surprising. And kind of cool. I thought he was out of the business. Yeah, after Grimm you'd think that. Anyway Alice was awesome, so if he can do the first one justice then count me in.
Maria Caliban Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 (edited) New American Mcgee's Alice! That is awesome news. I believe he's still doing Grimm stuff. Edited February 19, 2009 by Maria Caliban "When is this out. I can't wait to play it so I can talk at length about how bad it is." - Gorgon.
Purkake Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 (edited) Empire: Total War demo coming out tomorrow on Steam. Mind = blown or bust. Edit: It will feature one land and one sea battle. Edited February 20, 2009 by Purkake
Moatilliatta Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 Could it be that the reason that some people believe that "games journalism sucks lol" is because they have preconceived notions of what games journalism should be that have nothing to do with reality and as such it'll seem wrong? http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/...vion?q=oblivion lol and another one... i wonder what game they truly tested, it was for sure not PC version http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/grandtheftauto4 I love it when I hit the nail on the head.
Hurlshort Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 The kind of people who really spend time posting user reviews on metacritic and other sites aren't really all that positive to begin with. You will get quite a few spewing hate simply because something is popular.
Slowtrain Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 (edited) I love it when I hit the nail on the head. SO you're saying what exactly, moat? That Oblivion was deserving of that string of scores? The kind of people who really spend time posting user reviews on metacritic and other sites aren't really all that positive to begin with. You will get quite a few spewing hate simply because something is popular. I wasn't linking to show the user scores though, but the string of "professional" review scores Edited February 20, 2009 by CrashGirl Notice how I can belittle your beliefs without calling you names. It's a useful skill to have particularly where you aren't allowed to call people names. It's a mistake to get too drawn in/worked up. I mean it's not life or death, it's just two guys posting their thoughts on a message board. If it were personal or face to face all the usual restraints would be in place, and we would never have reached this place in the first place. Try to remember that.
Calax Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 All user reviews are going to be bias. The Amazon.com reviews I found for one of my favorite books that I recently found (a cruel wind) had sharply divided reviews over all but more people found the good reviews to be the helpful than the later ones. Victor of the 5 year fan fic competition! Kevin Butler will awesome your face off.
Nightshape Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 OFP2 http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/operatio...-preview?page=1 I came up with Crate 3.0 technology. Crate 4.0 - we shall just have to wait and see.Down and out on the Solomani RimNow the Spinward Marches don't look so GRIM!
funcroc Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 Desslock said Atari is doing 4th D&D edition stuff.
Purkake Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 Desslock said Atari is doing 4th D&D edition stuff. But I liked my 3.5e, now they will screw everything up.
Hurlshort Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 OFP2 http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/operatio...-preview?page=1 advertising bot!
Nightshape Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 OFP2 http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/operatio...-preview?page=1 advertising bot! I know using a eurogamer links also, terrible. I came up with Crate 3.0 technology. Crate 4.0 - we shall just have to wait and see.Down and out on the Solomani RimNow the Spinward Marches don't look so GRIM!
Morgoth Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 Actually, I had some fond memories of Operation Flashpoint. I died a lot, but the game kept me trying the mission again anyway. It offered some pleasant ultrarealism. How's ArmA? Should I give it a go now with Patch 1.14? Rain makes everything better.
mkreku Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 I played ArmA when it came out and I would not recommend it. It wasn't so much the bugginess, it was the ability of the enemy soldiers that irked me. I remember crawling through knee-high grass in the middle of the night for 30 minutes to reach my destination, only to get shot by a common soldier from one kilometer away. And he was shooting from his hip! It was extremely annoying. I stopped playing it when I reached a mission that involved me taking control of a squad where I had to make sure a couple of cars survived an attack by soldiers armed with RPG's.. I could never manage that and gave up. Swedes, go to: Spel2, for the latest game reviews in swedish!
Llyranor Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 Yeah, ArmA (unpatched) didn't provide particularly enticing gameplay; or maybe it was just the badly designed campaign. One early mission had you sneak into a heavily-patrolled enemy camp at night and take out a bunch of tanks, by yourself. Enemy soldiers, of course, had the ability to shoot you down with deadly accuracy. Single shots from miles away during nighttime would take you out. (Approved by Fio, so feel free to use it)
Llyranor Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 More like you're fighting an army of Hades who all have the ability of pausing the game in order to put their crosshair square on your face. (Approved by Fio, so feel free to use it)
alanschu Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 More like you're fighting an army of Hades who all have the ability of pausing the game in order to put their crosshair square on your face. Ah...so we need to disable that pause feature, and become werewolves!
random evil guy Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 the only ones i know of are dragon age, hearts of iron 3 and empires:total war. any other decent rpg, rts or general strategy games on the horizon? i'm thinking of buying the new warhammer game.
Morgoth Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 the only ones i know of are dragon age, hearts of iron 3 and empires:total war. any other decent rpg, rts or general strategy games on the horizon? i'm thinking of buying the new warhammer game. Well there's Alpha Protocol you should consider, for starters. I haven't played DoW2 yet, and I heard albeit it has changed from the standard RTS formula, it's still a competent game on it's own. Rain makes everything better.
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