Other Joe... are you being blackmailed? It's ok. You can tell us.

Yeah, I read the last post in this tread first...

 

How on earth have I 'got it all wrong' when your entire post vindicates what I have been saying?

There was a suspicion that one games review site (was it Gamespot?? - yes it was) was under pressure to give favourable reviews to publishers who were key advertisers on the site, but these aside, most magazines and sites have similar relationships with publishers. The bigger (and thus more important) ones will find publishers more accessible and agreeable for obvious reasons - but the suggestion that accepting advertising money, competition prizes or access to gaming information and resources is a slippery slope to being in the pocket of the publishers is simply not true. In general, most organisations would be holed below the waterline if the public found out that they couldn't trust the partiality of game reviews.

 

So you're paid for bumming around now?

 

Nah, even better, I'm paid to break prototype hardware

 

Ah right. Sorry I read it as you were making the claim that all marketing practices were the same, editorial involvement or otherwise

 

I just typed out some amazing reply, network went down so I'll keep it short.

Batman gooood, played it for an hour the other week. Ghostbusters X360 gooood.

Making content creators give good scores is clever and a wee bit sly. It was a good idea until editors from other places developed backbones and now outcry instead

 

Hmm interesting read.

If i was to be honest I never took bit-techs "Games Review" section seriously for quite a while as I found the scores were always way way off what the majority felt, including myself on many occasions.

The situation with Gears 2 recieving 8/10 but only after the huge outcry that happened.

The summary made it sound like it was only given 8/10 because of the pressure recieved from the readers but the reviewer really really wanted to give it a 7.

Also the main problems the game faced were continously missed out, were 4 major patches in and all the bugs still aint fixed let alone the lag issues - That would have been the reason to give it 8/10, not simpy because "its more of the same"

I usually find that the reviews usually miss the mark when it comes to such things as if Gears 2 was going to fail for anything, it would be simply because of the bugfest/lagfest.

Reasons like "theres nothing new etc" or implying theres no new innovation isnt really cutting the mustard when you have bioshock aka system shock 2 recieving Game of the year, especially when you have the lead game designer (if i recall correctly, its in my post in the gears 2 review) stating they starting making bioshock as a straight system shock sequel and it evolved after.....ya...exactly.


But having said all this the reviews have picked up in accuracy with the scores recently. I have bought fight night 4 on release and although better than fight night 3, yeah it deserves the 7 out of 10, that is fair.

but i guess its opinion at the end of the day.

 

These turds are hurting the reviews "industry" so bad. Who's going to believe any games reviews anymore... Goes pretty well with my thread of "trusted review sites". Do some crap like this once, and that's it in my eyes.

 

Personally, I don't bother much with the score - it's the detail and the comments that are worthwhile.

[As for Bioshock, it wasn't quite as good as I'd hoped; precisely because,although it had been hyped as Son of System Shock 2, it wasn't - but it was good enough for me to buy it twice]

Much of it is, but the more detailed the review, the better you can make your own mind up.

 

I'll be honest, as long as the reviews are full of content I'll keep coming back, this si the sole reason why I've stayed away from Guru3D(although some swear by it) with an 8m pole, because it's very much the same, every review is literally a copy+paste with different pictures. There's no actual rating and such.

And I know, Bit-Tech does get a lot of scratch from companies because of their negative reviews of some products(Nvidia for example) but it's the honesty and the good journalism that keeps me coming back.

 

I'd be lying if I said that wasn't at least partially true. I did want to give it a seven, because I thought it was an average game. The gist of my preview and original view was meant to be more along the lines of "The original was OK, but not as magnificent as everyone thinks and, because there are no new features, this one is the same."

How most PC gamers think of Halo (dumbed down, be awful if it were on PC) is my general opinion of the Gears of War series. I find the characters bland, the art and setting depressing, the combat fun but very, very repetitive...but that's going off-track.

The point is, I did personally want to give it a 7. However, it wasn't the outcry in the forums that changed my mind as it's easy to look at reactions like that and dismiss them as fanboys being over-protective and hyped up (especially when it's for a preview, not a review). What did change my opinion was playing the game with the others in the office - Harry, Jamie, Hiren and Tim. I voiced my concerns to them and said what I thought, they listened (well, except Tim ) and then rebutted. It eventually became clear that I was probably missing something - that this just wasn't the game for me, but that didn't mean it wasn't a good game.

With that in mind, I made a big effort to try and move past it and try and find what it was everyone else saw. I didn't make it, but I got far enough to justify bumping the score up a notch and get more in tune with the audience.

Yes, a review is just personal opinion - but it's one which should be weighed closely with the mass opinion and the objective fact. I didn't like GOW2, but I could see that I was an exception and by talking to the others I was able to stay informed about why and what made it good - though I guess that didn't stop some parts of my deeper feelings coming across in the review. That's pretty hard stuff to block out in a 2000 word review though.

Interestingly, a similar thing is happening at the moment with an indie game I handed to Rich yesterday. He played it, came back to me and told me it was infantile, boring, depressing, slow drivel that wasn't worth our time of day. Elsewhere though the game has had universal acclaim, so I'm going to look at it myself when I can.

For the same reason that I don't review racing games (because I can't drive and am therefore not very informed), it's obviously important to make sure that you are open and receptive to the games you review.

 

Actually we have a great relationship with Nvidia (and ATI), it's the Taiwanese that tend to be hugely protective and go off in a huff over a bad review. No skin off our nose - they always come back eventually. I've been told "our tongue is too strong" for East Asian tastes. Meh.

Just waiting for that phonecall from Inno3D now....

 

that's what... erm, actually nevermind.

 

Very well put Joe and I can (as well as all readers) respect your opinion if your transparent like this; "Its not for me too much but will appeal to most people because of x y z"

I never liked Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 - Yeah really I thought it was average at best and I really couldnt understand why people gave it such high scores. It was through talking to people and seeing what they liked that I tried to lookout for those segments, look for the things that drew them because I may have missed them.

In the end just like you I got an inkling of why it was liked but in my opinion I too would have rated it 8/10 in its hayday.

I would agree and say sometimes its looking passed your own feelings but trying to see why others like it, if its not for me - I'm quite transparent about it - COD4, bought it, sold it a couple months later.

Didnt really like the fast pace, the 1 shot kills made it repetitive since you die when your new but I can see why people would like it. Solid game but not for me there also.

But yeah I get you.

 

This was mentioned on the first page of this thread, and I'd be interested to know how many people hit the front page of a review (because that's the only link from the homepage of the site) and immediately dive to the final page and read the conclusion.

I know I do. Generally, if it's a score I expected I'll just leave it at that. If it's something I've never heard about or an unexpected score I'll go read the review properly.

Maybe the pro's, con's and score would do well at the beginning of the review. Perhaps even link them to the relevant point in the following pages.

We took a similar stance at work with proposals recently. Knowing that all anyone is interested in is the money, we put the final cost on the first page, the breakdown on the second and then the actual proposal. We got told it was refreshing. A different situation, but the same principal.

 

Their words, not mine.

Time, Gentleman, Please, is a pile of teenage, hashcaked dross humour mixed with too many failed attempts at "witty banter" mixed with a desperate need of a proper editor. It's more long winded silent cartoon than game.

Oh, Oh, it's Indie!! How many people are so ready to drop their kegs and go all out with their right wrist over a home studio is amazing.

 

QTF. It's Introversion's entire marketing strategy.

 

I've just googled this game, got a lot of stuff about batman

 

This is why I keep coming here.

 

I do admit, If I was an Taiwanese manufacturer(i'm Chinese, and only that), I'd be pretty angry at your tone too.

And I'm one of those people who actually read the reviews(well the case and games ones, the GPU ones...I skip to the last few pages on Pwr consumption and whatnot).

On a semi-off topic note, I do love Overlord II, it's proven to be hilarious.