This review is everything that is wrong about the gaming industry today

[Humanoid]

Sure, I'm just saying it's not unfair to rate a game lower if it inconveniences its users in that way. Not a deal breaker but certainly a contributing factor in legitimately downrating a rerelease.

[Nepenthe]

Just an opinion (so please take it as that), "streamlining" is not about reaching a specific target audience, it's about reaching as large an audience as possible. It's the good old quantity versus quality debate. Do you have a specific vision that you are itching to realize or do you have a burning hole in your wallet that needs fixing.

 

And sometimes it's not even about that, sometimes you have, say, an overly complex skill/spell system riddled with "no-brainer" choices. Cutting off sub-optimal choices and leaving only the real deal left is streamlining, yet it has little to do with either of those. Or, it could be about quality vs. quantity.

[Nepenthe]

Does it make the manual appear out of my DVD drive tray?

 

 

 

EDIT: Yes, I'm being facetious, but usability is something that should be rated. Accessible isn't the same as conveniently accessible. And if it seems I'm being unfair because every company does it now, well, I'm marking down every single company. It's objectively a worse experience regardless of logistics.

 

How do you distribute a print manual with a game that has been released only digitally?

[Humanoid]

You could offer print manuals for delivery, but yeah, not the broader answer. That lies in finding a solution that at least matches the convenience of that print solution, and just saying "here's a PDF scan of the old manual" isn't going to cut it. That information needs to be presented out there in a way that's both as comprehensive and as conveniently accessible as a print manual, and tooltips are just the beginning of it. A BG2 player pondering their character build ought to have all the relevant information - stuff like the full XP table, level by level ability breakdowns, etc - available ingame in a way that would match a player looking at their character sheet onscreen while having the paper manual open in front of them.

 

To repeat the point, it's not that games have stopped making properly useful manuals that irks me, as much as there being no reasonable attempt at a like-for-like replacement. Putting it in the too hard basket, dumping all the information in a PDF and saying "eh, that's the price of progress" isn't the solution. It's not even trying. Yes, it means more cost in developing a better, self-documented product, but then what are the savings from not doing physical distribution for?

[BruceVC]

You could offer print manuals for delivery, but yeah, not the broader answer. That lies in finding a solution that at least matches the convenience of that print solution, and just saying "here's a PDF scan of the old manual" isn't going to cut it. That information needs to be presented out there in a way that's both as comprehensive and as conveniently accessible as a print manual, and tooltips are just the beginning of it. A BG2 player pondering their character build ought to have all the relevant information - stuff like the full XP table, level by level ability breakdowns, etc - available ingame in a way that would match a player looking at their character sheet onscreen while having the paper manual open in front of them.

 

To repeat the point, it's not that games have stopped making properly useful manuals that irks me, as much as there being no reasonable attempt at a like-for-like replacement. Putting it in the too hard basket, dumping all the information in a PDF and saying "eh, that's the price of progress" isn't the solution. It's not even trying. Yes, it means more cost in developing a better, self-documented product, but then what are the savings from not doing physical distribution for?

 

I see what you are saying and I agree. Let me give an example. I just finished IWD and despite the fact I know the AD&D rules I found there were several times I had to reference the manual around what  spells to select. What I ended up doing is keeping the manual open on my laptop and playing the game on my gaming rig. But it would have been more convenient to a hard copy of the manual.

 

This is not a reason for me to say "not having a hard copy of the manual detracted from my gaming experience" but it would just made things easier. So I see your point

[Messier-31]

*reads comments below the review*

 

This is hilarious.

 

*takes popcorn*

[Mungri]

Or you could just alt tab. or use 2 monitors, or print the manual out.

 

But wouldnt you rather save trees?

[BruceVC]

Or you could just alt tab. or use 2 monitors, or print the manual out.

 

But wouldnt you rather save trees?

 

I'll be honest sometimes my Alt-Tab crashes the game, so that's not always an option

 

I could print the manual out, as I mentioned, but its only a few things I needed to reference so that would be a waste

[Mungri]

*reads comments below the review*

 

This is hilarious.

 

*takes popcorn*

 

You might like these:

 

 

 

 

[BruceVC]

 

*reads comments below the review*

 

This is hilarious.

 

*takes popcorn*

 

You might like these:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay those are classic

[HoonDing]

Luckily there are hardcoer gaemers in the comments.

[Walsingham]

Without an objective standard against which the game could be rated, reviews are always going to be pish.

[AGX-17]

http://www.twinfinite.net/blog/2013/11/16/baldurs-gate-2-review/

 

- The author claims to be a hardcore gamer that has played games since the commodore.

- Has never played a Baldurs Gate game before writing this review, and I imagine no other infinity engine game either.

- Writes that BG2 is too hard, be couldn't figure out what to do, didn't read the manual, was lost from the start and that the game sucks because there's no in game tutorial or hand holding.

- Never played the original, yet writes that the game wasn't enhanced enough.

 

What hardcore games has he been playing since the commodore exactly?

Where in the Hardcore videogamers' Rulebook does it postulate you have to play D&D computer games to qualify as a "hardcore" gamer, as opposed to "a D&D nerd who owns a PC"? I mean, since you have it on hand, and all.

 

Someone who spends hundreds or thousands of hours playing old-school shooter games on the hardest difficulty to achieve the highest scores and least number of lives lost over the course of the game isn't hardcore if they didn't play Baldur's Gate when it was new? They might not be great at D&D, but they're in a whole other world compared to a person who devotes their game time to RPGs.

 

As is the case with all reviews, they are opinions. If you don't agree, then that's the end of it. No game is objectively good or bad, games are just like morality and ethics; fundamentally abstract, arbitrary concepts constructed by human minds, nothing more than an elaboration on basic genetic imperatives (societies improve survivability, societies need rules to function, games consist of behavior within a framework of rules, etc.) The universe has no concept of "games." Quantum Mechanics will not provide mathematical proofs as to which edition of D&D is objectively superior to the others.

Edited November 23, 2013 by AGX-17

[Meshugger]

Would you extend that statement to movies, literature, and music?

[Hurlshort]

It's interesting that no one ever claims to be a hardcore reader.  People tend to identify themselves as experts in a certain genre.  That really is a better tack to take when it comes to games.  Music and movies are a bit more digestible, so it makes more sense to say you are hardcore about those media types. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

It's interesting that no one ever claims to be a hardcore reader.

 

I like to think of myself as a hardcore reader.

[Hurlshort]

 

It's interesting that no one ever claims to be a hardcore reader.

I like to think of myself as a hardcore reader.

 

 

I wasn't talking about Penthouse Letters KP.  

[alanschu]

Seeing the "Doesn't even look up what THAC0 means" is not an indictment against the reviewer, IMO.  But then I always disliked AD&D and enjoyed the BG games despite it.

[Serrano]

I really should look up THAC0 one of these days as well. 

[Orogun01]

To hit Armor Class 0, see in D&D the lower your armor class the harder it is too hit it. Its also why I always joked about how sex works in a D&D setting, otherwise known as how a Half Orc mated with a gnome.

Edited November 23, 2013 by Orogun01

[HoonDing]