The Gamespot review

[sim-h]

Just - wow. I can't believe the score Kevin van Ord gives PoE. 8/10, when he gave Dragon Age : Inquisition 9/10. AND Divinity Original Sin?!! Is he for real?

 

PoE is not perfect, but 8/10?

 

Something is definitely up here. Did the devs p*ss Van Ord off??

 

How can he say D:OS is a 'glimpse of the future' but PoE is treading the fine line between clone and homage? I lost interest in D:OS pretty quickly, the world is just too fairytale and garish, and everything is covered in either slime, fire or ice!!

 

I'm shocked by this review. Genuinely shocked.

 

 

 

 

[Danny1981]

I would have given PoE (in its current state) a 7/10, so what?

Story and atmosphere are perfect, but the game itself is lacking in the mechanics and the combat.

 

I am looking forward to mods / patches to fix that and then I will start over and I will have a blast

[Envy]

Opinions.

That said, there's a reason why traditional games media is going down the toilet. Ultimately scores are fairly pointless anyhow. 

[PBJam]

I don't care what gamespot gave this game?

[evensong]

I was really relying on gamespot to validate my opinion of this game, and they totally let me down. I rate their review 1/10, let's see how they like it.

[sim-h]

I don't care what gamespot gave this game?

 

I do. The industry dictates whether games like this get made. Reviews influence sales. Kickstarter is a last resort (and leads to irritating tombstones and NPCs) Opinions are opinions, but if I had read this particular review I might not have bought the game.

 

[edit] you can be as facetious as you like, this is a serious issue if you want to enjoy games like Pillars in future. It's an outrage, I tells you.

Edited April 7, 2015 by sim-h

[Eurhetemec]

Just - wow. I can't believe the score Kevin van Ord gives PoE. 8/10, when he gave Dragon Age : Inquisition 9/10. AND Divinity Original Sin?!! Is he for real?

 

PoE is not perfect, but 8/10?

 

Something is definitely up here. Did the devs p*ss Van Ord off??

 

How can he say D:OS is a 'glimpse of the future' but PoE is treading the fine line between clone and homage? I lost interest in D:OS pretty quickly, the world is just too fairytale and garish, and everything is covered in either slime, fire or ice!!

 

I'm shocked by this review. Genuinely shocked.

 

Whilst I disagree with him, personally, on the quality of Pillars (9+ for me), his opinion is absolutely not unreasonable.

 

D:OS is much more daring and tries actually-new ideas in CRPGs much more than Pillars, which is more reliant on being extremely high quality and amazingly written.

 

There's nothing "up", and conspiracy theory nonsense about devs pissing people off on an 8/10 is just that. Tinfoil hat time!

 

So, it's his opinion, it's a reasonable opinion, and it's a reasonable score. Please learn that because you disagree with something does not mean it is wrong, nor that there is a conspiracy. This will make the internet a better place!

[Envy]

 

I don't care what gamespot gave this game?

 

I do. The industry dictates whether games like this get made. Reviews influence sales. Kickstarter is a last resort (and leads to irritating tombstones and NPCs) Opinions are opinions, but if I had read this particular review I might not have bought the game.

 

Very much disagree with this. Games media is going the way of the dinosaurs with more and more closing shop or resorting to clickbait due to the pitifully small readership. Smart developers are banking on youtubers for coverage.

[Zorfab]

I´m shocked that you are shocked.

 

1) People have different tastes.

2) This game is not as good as you seem to believe it is.

3) D:OS is not as poor of a game as you seem to believe it is.

 

In actuality none of the games mentioned in OP are quite worth a 9 when you really go in and dig into the specifics. Each of them has too many actual flaws and weaknesses for that (not just style choices that are actual matters of taste and have no bearing on the actual quality of the product).

[Katarack21]

Gamespot doesn't know what it's talking about. Who listens to it anyways? It's just a bunch of paid corporate shills. **** the whole lot of 'em.

IGN, too, even though they gave a *good* review. >.<

[BruceVC]

Guys seriously, 8/10 is an excellent score. Lets not see it in a negative light or a bad reflection on Gamespot who I personally like

Edited April 7, 2015 by BruceVC

[b0rsuk]

I use Metacritic, and there I mostly rely on user comments too.

 

8 is not an excellent score on the 7-9 scale most big review sites use.

Edited April 7, 2015 by b0rsuk

[sim-h]

I´m shocked that you are shocked.

 

1) People have different tastes.

2) This game is not as good as you seem to believe it is.

3) D:OS is not as poor of a game as you seem to believe it is.

 

In actuality none of the games mentioned in OP are quite worth a 9 when you really go in and dig into the specifics. Each of them has too many actual flaws and weaknesses for that (not just style choices that are actual matters of taste and have no bearing on the actual quality of the product).

 

Some consistency would be nice. If they'd all got 8 I wouldn't be bringing it up.

[sim-h]

 

 

I don't care what gamespot gave this game?

 

I do. The industry dictates whether games like this get made. Reviews influence sales. Kickstarter is a last resort (and leads to irritating tombstones and NPCs) Opinions are opinions, but if I had read this particular review I might not have bought the game.

 

Very much disagree with this. Games media is going the way of the dinosaurs with more and more closing shop or resorting to clickbait due to the pitifully small readership. Smart developers are banking on youtubers for coverage.

 

 

Good.

[Sleazebag]

People really overreact over review scores, especially these days. I honestly prefer scoreless reviews, but that's just me.

 

And people still read Gamespot?

[Mazisky]

8 with a "great" mark just under that score seems a good and very positive vote to me.

[Katarack21]

I'd give PoE a 9. The only reason I wouldn't give it a 10 is because the launch was a little more buggy than it had to be. 9/10 is what it deserves.

But then, for me it's the first RPG I've enjoyed since the original Mass Effect. So my view might not be for everyone.

[Zorfab]

 

I´m shocked that you are shocked.

 

1) People have different tastes.

2) This game is not as good as you seem to believe it is.

3) D:OS is not as poor of a game as you seem to believe it is.

 

In actuality none of the games mentioned in OP are quite worth a 9 when you really go in and dig into the specifics. Each of them has too many actual flaws and weaknesses for that (not just style choices that are actual matters of taste and have no bearing on the actual quality of the product).

 

Some consistency would be nice. If they'd all got 8 I wouldn't be bringing it up.

 

Unfortunately reviewers are humans too and have hard time keeping their own preferences out of the scoring. IGN and Gamespot gave poor reviews for Alien: Isolation (5.9/6.0 IIRC), even though people who actually like the genre love the game (with few reservations, as I have not seen a perfect game yet). But if you put a action/CoD gamer like IGN Ryan to review a survival horror game on a schedule... They can´t take it and it is too frustrating to them. They will feel humiliated and subconsciously seek revenge by scoring the thing down.

 

Problem with these big rags giving poor scores is that their scores are seen by more people. They should be able to put 2 or 3 separate people on each game and not rely on one specific individual for scoring.

Edited April 7, 2015 by Zorfab

[Blarghagh]

I don't care what gamespot gave this game?

 

I do. The industry dictates whether games like this get made. Reviews influence sales. Kickstarter is a last resort (and leads to irritating tombstones and NPCs) Opinions are opinions, but if I had read this particular review I might not have bought the game.

 

Here's a couple of problems with your statement:

 

- You assume the Gamespot audience and the type of audience that would want to play PoE overlaps a lot. This assumption is wrong.

- You assume an 8 is low enough to deter most players from playing or negatively influence aggregates like Metacritic. This assumption is wrong.

- You assume reviews still influence sales as much as they used to and that Gamespot has audience trust in the first place. This assumption is wrong.

 

Taking into account those factors, your fears are pretty groundless.

[Rosveen]

8/10 is exactly how I'd rate Pillars. The real problem is that nowadays any score below 9 is considered a disappointment.

Edited April 7, 2015 by Rosveen

[evensong]

Unfortunately reviewers are humans too and have hard time keeping their own preferences out of the scoring.

 

 

Of course their preference is reflected in the review, that's literally all a review is - a subjective opinion about a thing. Conversely, your opinion about the game is no more valid than theirs (->who are you to deem their review "too subjective"?), and popularity/sales is a poor measure of quality. If you have discovered a way of objectively assessing the quality of a cultural item, you should probably let someone know, you'd be a superstar in academic humanities.

 

 

The only reviewers worth paying attention to are the ones you find yourself in agreement with relatively often.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Yeah, 8/10 is more than fair, and actually better than how I'd rate the majority of kickstarted RPGs, BG1, or any of the Icewind Dale games.

[Excalibur_2102]

8 is a pretty good score really, though his reasons for lowering to that score are more questionable.  The overall review is favorable, and really I'm just glad virtually all reviews so far have been positive.  Just some more positive than others.

[NathanH]

Divinity is a really good game, so it's not really going to be surprising if some reviewers think it's a better game than PoEt. I'm not sure which I prefer right now myself. But D:OS was probably my favourite game last year, along with Age of Wonders 3.

 

I haven't played Inquisition, but my feeling is that it's sufficiently far from either PoEt or D:OS that comparing their scores isn't very meaningful.

Edited April 7, 2015 by NathanH

[Jimmious]

I would give PoE an almost perfect 9/10 but I'd give the same to D:OS contrary to the OP. Also if I take into account the co-op and how awesomely it worked, I would actually give it a 10/10 regardless of the kinda typical storyline.