The Gamespot review

[Caerdon]

Scores are totally worthless, and scores from 0/1 to 10/100 are even more worthless.

 

If I had to give scores to games, I'd use the four star system:

 

* = bad

** = ok

*** = good

**** = great

 

That's more than enough granularity.

[luzarius]

Pillars of Eternity has a score of 90 on metacritic. Inquisition on the PC has a score of 85.  It brings me great pleasure to see Inquisition fail, I revel in Bioware's agony over not getting a score of 90 and above. Hopefully this changes Biowares outlook, instead of them trying to please [censored] ********* & **** [/censored].  I know a lot of families who didn't let their teenage kids play Inquisition over the [censored] content.

[Volourn]

"It brings me great pleasure to see Inquisition fail,"

 

But, it didn't fail. It sold ****load of copies. It sold more in its first day than PE will likely sell in the next 10 years. L0L

 

p.s. At this moment, I'd say I prefer PE with all its flaws but some people's definition of 'failure' is stupid. And, using metacritc is just the height of pure moronicy.

[PrimeJunta]

Oh come on. Any score from 7-10 would be fair for P:E. So much depends on your preferences, your tolerance for bugs, your willingness to learn systems, your experience with similar games and so on and so forth. 

 

Below 7 I would question the fairness though as it's more likely the reviewer just fails to get what the game is supposed to be.

[sim-h]

Oh come on. Any score from 7-10 would be fair for P:E. So much depends on your preferences, your tolerance for bugs, your willingness to learn systems, your experience with similar games and so on and so forth. 

 

Below 7 I would question the fairness though as it's more likely the reviewer just fails to get what the game is supposed to be.

 

Yeah but again I relate his 9/10 scores for other same-genre games (DA:I and D:OS) to PoE and find it odd that he considers PoE a full 'point' on whatever his scale is,  worse.

[KennethTopp]

Let's be honest 8 outta 10 is a pretty good score, secondly that score itself does not matter overall at least to me as a consumer. What would matter is if Van Ord has legitimate criticisms and concerns in his review.

 

Also I like Dragon Age.

Edited April 7, 2015 by KennethTopp

[PrimeJunta]

 

Oh come on. Any score from 7-10 would be fair for P:E. So much depends on your preferences, your tolerance for bugs, your willingness to learn systems, your experience with similar games and so on and so forth. 

 

Below 7 I would question the fairness though as it's more likely the reviewer just fails to get what the game is supposed to be.

 

Yeah but again I relate his 9/10 scores for other same-genre games (DA:I and D:OS) to PoE and find it odd that he considers PoE a full 'point' on whatever his scale is,  worse.

 

I can list a dozen things that DA:I does better than P:E off the top of my head. The fact that I feel that all of them are meaningless fluff simply means I have different preferences. 

[Zorfab]

 

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.

 

Actual games are also functional items and not just something that is purview of pure subjectivity. Game can for example have a good art style (subjective) but poor performance or low-resolution textures (objective). This is why reviews should concentrate on the latter and leave the former mostly up to the viewer in form of images and gameplay video. Reviewer can and should bring out his own preference on subjective topics, but keep it out of the end score tally as much as humanly possible. Which, granted, might not be much.

 

It is unfortunate that currently the review advertisement revenue is very much tied to who publishes first. Incentive is very much tipped into direction of quick reviews instead of quality reviews that usually take time. I personally like to read late reviews and buy most games couple months after release. Not only do you get the bug fixes but lower price and more informed opinions/reviews from wider audience.

[Eurhetemec]

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.

 

I've played Inquisition* and I agree. Despite being a party-based CRPG set in a fantasy world, it's very far from Pillars in design, and I'm not sure there's all that much audience overlap outside of hardcore broad-spectrum CRPG fans.

 

D:OS also seems like a very different game to Pillars. Whilst it's inspired by older games like the Ultima series, it doesn't really play like them, and it's core mechanic is very different to them, and it tries a number of new things, where Pillars generally tries to keep it old-skool.

 

So anyway I agree, and people whinging about 8/10 need to get some perspective.

 

 

* = I suspect most of the people bashing it haven't, given the types of comments made - there are tons of valid criticisms of it, but those are rarely made in favour of cheap shots. The most undeniably valid criticism is that a huge amount of the content outside of the actual story and missions, where you actually talk to people and stuff, is very grindy and dull. People compare it to MMORPGs, but that's very lazy. The crafting system is definitely comparable to MMOs (but I have yet to see a single CRPG or MMORPG which doesn't have a tedious-as-heck crafting system - Pillars is one of the less-awful ones, but is still a bit tooth-grinding), but the really tedious "FIND ALL THE THINGS!" or "GET A MILLION THINGS!" missions/quests aren't like MMORPGs at all, but rather like the tertiary content in open-world games like GTA (i.e. "Find all the packages").

 

That'd be fine but those quests aren't segregated from the "real" quests, and this means anyone who likes completing stuff risks being bogged down in a mire of tedium. You have to actively avoid this stuff to make the game more fun, which isn't good design, period.

 

Also, for god's sake, I have an entire army (literally) at my disposal, tons of castles/forts, tons of friendly peasants, and they can't go and mine/pick herbs stuff like, automatically? Gah. (I am aware of the missions to do this, but they're pretty crummy for anything but top-tier stuff).

[Eurhetemec]

 

Oh come on. Any score from 7-10 would be fair for P:E. So much depends on your preferences, your tolerance for bugs, your willingness to learn systems, your experience with similar games and so on and so forth. 

 

Below 7 I would question the fairness though as it's more likely the reviewer just fails to get what the game is supposed to be.

 

Yeah but again I relate his 9/10 scores for other same-genre games (DA:I and D:OS) to PoE and find it odd that he considers PoE a full 'point' on whatever his scale is,  worse.

 

 

It isn't odd. You finding it "odd" to the point of invoking bias/conspiracies is what is genuinely strange.

[Luckmann]

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

 

8/10 is exactly how I'd rate Pillars of Eternity too, but more to the point, I'd rate D:OS at about 7/10 and the real question is how he could be crazy enough to rate DA:I at 9/10.

 

The context is more important than the score, here, I think. I think that PoE really deserves 8/10, but if he rates both D:OS and DA:I at 9/10, I can see how people are asking him what the hell he's smoking.

[luzarius]

"It brings me great pleasure to see Inquisition fail,"

 

But, it didn't fail. It sold ****load of copies. It sold more in its first day than PE will likely sell in the next 10 years. L0L

 

p.s. At this moment, I'd say I prefer PE with all its flaws but some people's definition of 'failure' is stupid. And, using metacritc is just the height of pure moronicy.

 

Mass Effect 3 - 94

Mass Effect 2 - 93

Mass Effcet 1 - 91

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - 93

Dragon Age Origins Metacritic - 91

Pillars of Eternity - 90

 

Dragon age II - 82

Dragon age Inquisition - 85

 

Like I said, I know a lot of families that didn't let their teenage kids play Dragon Age Inquisition due to its [censored] content.

Edited April 7, 2015 by luzarius

[Ohioastro]

Some reviewers like splashy visuals and don't care much about plot.  D:OS had weak writing and plot (it was tongue-in-cheek and funny, but sparse and barely coherent.)  It had snazzy visuals - you could blow things up like in a first-person shooter - and it was a good deal easier than PoE once you figured out how to use the environmental effects.  It was also "front loaded"; Cyseal was a lot more interesting than any later part of the game was.  I certainly enjoyed it, but this game is a good deal deeper.  Having a reviewer basically complain that this is a Baldurs Gate clone, given the bitter complaints here from purists, is actually amusing.

 

People - in the pro reviewing business a 7/10 is a game that barely works, an 8/10 is a disappointment, and the usual scale runs from 9/10 to 10/10.  Just because you use the whole scale doesn't mean that they do; it's a hostile review from someone who clearly prefers things like Dragon Age to things like this.  He's entitled to his opinion, of course, but that's what his score means.

[vattghern]

I'm shocked that people still give a damn about reviews from mainstream media after it's been shown time and time again how worthless gaming "journalists" are.

[Rosveen]

 

 

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

8/10 is exactly how I'd rate Pillars of Eternity too, but more to the point, I'd rate D:OS at about 7/10 and the real question is how he could be crazy enough to rate DA:I at 9/10.

 

The context is more important than the score, here, I think. I think that PoE really deserves 8/10, but if he rates both D:OS and DA:I at 9/10, I can see how people are asking him what the hell he's smoking.

Personal preference? It depends how you weight all elements, I'm sure there are things Inquisition does better than Pillars (team relations, for example. Or exploration.) But I haven't played the other two games, so I have no idea what score they deserve.

[evensong]

Actual games are also functional items and not just something that is purview of pure subjectivity. Game can for example have a good art style (subjective) but poor performance or low-resolution textures (objective). This is why reviews should concentrate on the latter and leave the former mostly up to the viewer in form of images and gameplay video. Reviewer can and should bring out his own preference on subjective topics, but keep it out of the end score tally as much as humanly possible. Which, granted, might not be much.

 

This would be akin to asking a book reviewer to keep the content of a novel out of his final assessment of the book, expecting their score to reflect only how well stitched the pages are. (Also, low-res textures is very obviously not an objective standard at all, considering the enormous success of Minecraft, Terraria and similar low-res games. Performance is worth mentioning, I guess.)

 

The purpose of a review is to give some indication whether a game, book, movie, album, whatever - is more complicated than simply making a rundown of the "objective" values of the item. It's trying to answer whether the item worth acquiring for the person reading the review overall. For this purpose, an indication of the subjective quality is far more important. I think most people would play a great game that runs imperfectly to a dull game that runs perfectly - we are talking on the Pillars of Eternity forum, after all. If game performance should reflect a large part of the final score, shouldn't PoE score lower? It has a considerable amount of bugs and performance issues.

Edited April 7, 2015 by evensong

[Lightzy]

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.

 

I would have given it 7..

The setting is extremely contrived (souls floating around giving ppl power?), the storyline is kind of weak, all the exposition and everything happens at the beginning and then it's just... not so interesting.

 

The combat mechanics are rather poorly done at the moment and the stat system is an unintuitive, clunky mess..

 

The balance is way off (6 ciphers FTW. 6 chanters also good. everything else is kind of rubbish)

 

Some 'central game features' are poorly done as of now (the fort, meh. consensus atm is that it's better not to have it than have it)

 

And some design decisions are outright atrocious (sneak to find hidden items = run through the entire game sneaking with fast mode on)

[evensong]

 

The setting is extremely contrived (souls floating around giving ppl power?)

 

Yeah I actually found this ridiculous. Richard Dawkins taught me souls don't even exist, yet there they are! That's just lazy game design!

[Zorfab]

Some reviewers like splashy visuals and don't care much about plot.  D:OS had weak writing and plot (it was tongue-in-cheek and funny, but sparse and barely coherent.)  It had snazzy visuals - you could blow things up like in a first-person shooter - and it was a good deal easier than PoE once you figured out how to use the environmental effects.  It was also "front loaded"; Cyseal was a lot more interesting than any later part of the game was.  I certainly enjoyed it, but this game is a good deal deeper.  Having a reviewer basically complain that this is a Baldurs Gate clone, given the bitter complaints here from purists, is actually amusing.

 

 

All of these three games have problems with difficulty:

 

1) Divinity has talent stacking for some defenses and AI exploits with their obsessive need to avoid area effects. Also potential for abusing the item system (stacking crates/barrels to corner enemies).

2) PoE has deflection stacking and AI that is incapable of dealing with simple chokepoint tactics due to map design and the lack of attack options available for the AI. Failure to enforce limited resting and unlimited storage add to this.

3) DA:I has multiplicative damage exploits (which is amazing considering how simple the system is) and abusive crafting that allows you to circumvent any difficulty by simply increasing statistics outside the bounds that the developers probably intended (tier 3 elite gear available as soon as you hit Skyhold).

[archangel979]

Pillars of Eternity has a score of 90 on metacritic. Inquisition on the PC has a score of 85.  It brings me great pleasure to see Inquisition fail, I revel in Bioware's agony over not getting a score of 90 and above. Hopefully this changes Biowares outlook, instead of them trying to please [censored] ********* & **** [/censored].  I know a lot of families who didn't let their teenage kids play Inquisition over the [censored] content.

You are looking at wrong score. Only user score means anything as it comes from a much bigger group of people.

And that one is 8.7 for PoE vs 5.8 for DAI. Enough said.

[GrandWazoo]

Personally, I don't care. I have always found review scores stupid and arbitrary so I don't see much point in reading too much into the numbers.

[Polanski]

It is clear that Kevin has actually taken the time to finish the game completely and as a result have been more plagued by the bugs, in contrast to some of the early 10/10 reviews. The minuses he points out are both completely fair.

 

That seems to be a very fair review and 8/10 is a great score whichever way you look at it. I do not understand why the OP is complaining.

[sim-h]

If you read my post I was pointing out the fact the same reviewer rates certain other games 9/10 - that surprised me.

 

A poster on the Gamepost comments (renzuken3) has gone to great lengths to voice similar concerns.

 

At the end of the day it's just a score - sure. But I guess I'm surprised at this particular one in view of the same reviewers scores for other games. He's only human, I guess.

 

As I asked in another thread (no response) if this is 8/10 or less can someone point me at an RPG that is in their opinion 9/10? Cheers!

Edited April 7, 2015 by sim-h

[Amentep]

Opinions.

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

 

Opinions. Opinions never changes.

 

The Romans waged debate to gather influence and students. Religions built virtual empires from spreading their views to the masses. The internet was founded on the ideal of beating others over the head with your strongest held beliefs when not looking at lolcat photos.

 

But Opinions never change.

[sim-h]

"Opinion... Opinion never changes."

Edited April 7, 2015 by sim-h