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[erick]

Hence, I said the review was unjust. I did not say that it was supposed to be objective. A review should strive towards objectivity as much as possible, but we all know that it can't be done. But when someone fails to even STRIVE... I reserve the right to subjectively, based on some (semi-)objective data, call his subjective review unjust in its subjectivity.


Accept and move on.

 

[Thunderbear]

So you beat Crysis today?

Yes, and I had a pre-release version of Crysis from a few days ago. I got an 8800GT and I started over because how much I love this game and the different approaches I can take to each situation.

 

[zenbot]

A review should strive towards objectivity as much as possible...

You're after a consumer review; that's fine. Most on and offline publications write consumer reviews ("You should buy this game because it has: graphics this good, gameplay this good", etc.).

At the risk of Heroes of the Web-ing myself, the best reviews shoot for real criticism, of the kind that you will find of books and visual art. They attempt to offer insight into how a game works (or fails to); what kind of feelings the developers are trying to engender, or what kind of story they're trying to tell (and how they're telling it, and why), or types of play they're trying to encourage, and what they're doing to encourage that play; that kind of stuff.

Now implicit in good criticism are, usually, value statements. After having read a good book review you will usually know whether you want to run out and buy the book or not. But that statement of basic value is not the purpose of a good book review: it is to offer insight, to try to make you think about the book in ways you might not have, to try and explain what the author is trying to achieve in the book, how he's gone about doing it, and whether he's been successful. I wish more game reviews were like good book reviews in this way; Shawn's usually are, or try to be (as do Sean Molloy's, and skip's, and Edge's, and others that I'm forgetting).

(I am a banana rider, I will admit.)

 

[erick]

You're after a consumer review; that's fine. Most on and offline publications write consumer reviews ("You should buy this game because it has: graphics this good, gameplay this good", etc.).

At the risk of Heroes of the Web-ing myself, the best reviews shoot for real criticism, of the kind that you will find of books and visual art. They attempt to offer insight into how a game works (or fails to); what kind of feelings the developers are trying to engender, or what kind of story they're trying to tell (and how they're telling it, and why), or types of play they're trying to encourage, and what they're doing to encourage that play; that kind of stuff.

Now implicit in good criticism are, usually, value statements. After having read a good book review you will usually know whether you want to run out and buy the book or not. But that statement of basic value is not the purpose of a good book review: it is to offer insight, to try to make you think about the book in ways you might not have, to try and explain what the author is trying to achieve in the book, how he's gone about doing it, and whether he's been successful. I wish more game reviews were like good book reviews in this way; Shawn's usually are, or try to be (as do Sean Molloy's, and skip's, and Edge's, and others that I'm forgetting).

(I am a banana rider, I will admit.)

I'm so glad you mentioned towards the end that you like EDGE's reviews. Because I flat-out hate them. I think a review should not be based on a reviewer's (often unjustly high) expectations or visions of what a game should be, but on what the game holds in store for the players-readers compared NOT to the imaginary standards of the reviewer, but to other games available at that point in time.

Browse through their review archive to find that EDGE's scores are a bad joke - they have utterly failed to acknowledge some of the best, landmark-level games in history (just as an example: Diablo II - 6, The Elder Scrolls II: Morrowind - 6, Fallout - 7). But you all know that, this is NeoGAF after all.

So if you want a literary merry-go-round, excellent writing and no clue whatsoever about what this game will mean a year from now, 3 years from now, 10 years from now, feel free to go for these kinds of reviews.

If you're a gamer wanting to experience video game history in the making by playing those games now that will go on to achieve a legendary status in the future - ignore EDGE and its ilk. The joy derived from reading an extremely critical well-written review will not stay with you for too long; but the joy derived from acknowledge'ing and playing a new game that will some day become a legend will stay with you as long as there are people who rember sharing in its greatness.

 

[Suburban Cowboy]

just as an example: Diablo II - 6, The Elder Scrolls II: Morrowind - 6, Fallout - 7

I agree with those scores, although that 7 is a bit high. But I guess im supposed to love those games because they filled a niche a small segment of gamers enjoy?

 

[erick]

I agree with those scores, although that 7 is a bit high. But I guess im supposed to love those games because they filled a niche a small segment of gamers enjoy?

Let me take a wild guess... do you have a Wii?

 

[zenbot]

Browse through their review archive to find that EDGE's scores are a bad joke - they have utterly failed to acknowledge some of the best, landmark-level games in history (just as an example: Diablo II - 6, The Elder Scrolls II: Morrowind - 6, Fallout - 7). But you all know that, this is NeoGAF after all.

You're beating a straw man, here. Those scores mean nothing without the accompanying review.

 

[nesmar]

almost everyone in this thread really needs to listen to the new gfw podcast.

 

[Ten-Song]

almost everyone in this thread really needs to listen to the new gfw podcast.

almost everyone in this thread really needs to listen to the new gfw podcast.

almost everyone in this thread really needs to listen to the new gfw podcast.

This simply can't be quoted enough.

 

[erick]

You're beating a straw man, here. Those scores mean nothing without the accompanying review.

Reviews are only there to lend credibility to the score, to show what went through the head of the reviewer when he gave the game a score. A good, strong review score should be able to stand the test of time and seem reasonable to the average gamer even without the accompanying commentary that is "the review". Not one of the aforementioned scores manage to do that. All they do is raise questions about themselves.

 

[the1aser]

Reviews are only there to lend credibility to the score, to show what went through the head of the reviewer when he gave the game a score. A good, strong review score should be able to stand the test of time and seem reasonable to the average gamer even without the accompanying commentary that is "the review". Not one of the aforementioned scores manage to do that. All they do is raise questions about themselves.

Do yourself a favour, and just read Gamespot. They have the same delusions you do regarding objectivity in reviews. You should get on well.

 

[erick]

Do yourself a favour, and just read Gamespot. They have the same delusions you do regarding objectivity in reviews. You should get on well.

I think you, dear sir, have the same delusions as EDGE's reviewers, thinking that they give out meaningful review scores. They don't. They should stop giving out review scores altogether. Let the creative writing and the ultrasubjective opinion really roam free of what giving a helpful review score is about, you know?

 

[Kamakazie!]

My mid-end machine (dual core, 2GB RAM with a 8800 GTS 320MB card) disagrees with that. In medium settings, the object pop-ins were horrible, and UT3 still looked better. There's no way in hell the game was optimized for my setup. No buy until my next update I guess.

Same system as me. On medium object pop-in was very occasional and could be ironed out with a bit of tweaking. As for UT3 looking better.... WTF? Unless you class "multi-tonal brown shit" as the most important aspect of game graphics then you are so wrong.
UT3 looks good, but it is not on the level of Crysis, let alone better.

Crysis has better lighting, better shader effects (better water, better grass), more varied geometry, better faces and facial animation and it is on a FAR larger scale than UT3.

should we expand it for you skip

alternatively: bask in the hardcore gamer's stupidity! BASK IN IT!

Couldn't you just ban people like this for a few days and tell them to go educate themselves elsewhere in the meantime..... i'd rather 10 meme bullshit posts than this:

/care police

And that necessarily validates his opinion because?

At least the meme stuff is meant as a joke. This guy is serious. The mind boggles.

 

[Kamakazie!]

tbh im not in a position to anwser this :/. But i know people that got their hands on SDKs when they obtained the game in an "unorthodox" fashion. . Apparently the sdk tools are out of this world and so easy to use, a counter strike type game on this engine makes me glee in anticipation. And halo has always been mainly a console game, the MOD scene is pretty developed on the PC gaming side of the coin.

The demo included the CryEngine sandbox editor that modders can use to make levels. I highly doubt anyone has gotten their hands on the full SDK in an "unorthatdox" manner.
However, the SDK is out there with 2 modding teams so it is a possiblity.

If you want to see about Crysis mods, do a search for Obsidian Edge 2. The mod team have had various builds of the full SDK from Crytek for nearly a year now i think. They won a competition run by Crytek to start on the mods early. Crytek realised that they were too slow getting the SDK out for Far Cry and it ruined the games chances of competing with HL2 in the mod stakes.

Basically, the mod potential for this game is better than anything else around. The tools are just amazing. If the game sells well at the start then this will probably overtake HL2 as the modding platform of choice.



EDIT:

That is exactly the problem. Everyone looks at Halo's score or COD score and compares.

That is down to people being idots. Not the site having problems. For those of us that aren't so stupid, it is easy to see a reviewers name and compare the text (and maybe score) with what we were expecting and with other reviews from the person.
Idiots find this difficult and since so many of them love to moan about a number at the end of a comprehensive text based review, it turns in to threads like this. Full of whiny gits that really should be sent on a weeks holiday from this place.

'Nuff said.

By Dan Hsu

Yes because clearly the fact that it was a different person makes no difference?

Reviews are only there to lend credibility to the score, to show what went through the head of the reviewer when he gave the game a score. A good, strong review score should be able to stand the test of time and seem reasonable to the average gamer even without the accompanying commentary that is "the review". Not one of the aforementioned scores manage to do that. All they do is raise questions about themselves.

:lol :lol
Seriously. Great post.
So a review is there to lend credibility to the score? In whose world?
The score is there to provide some tangible straw for people like you to grasp at. For those of us that can read, the review text is the important bit. People have different tastes. A review might describe an area of gameplay that the reviewer hates, but i might love that sort of thing. That is why scores are almost useless.
Individual scores have nothing to stand up to. A review is ONE PERSONS OPINION. You really need to grasp that concept.

 

[erick]

EDIT:
Yes because clearly the fact that it was a different person makes no difference?

How's about you read the bolded bits, buddy. This is a matter of more gravity than you can obviously comprehend. In what world is it okay for the reviewers of the same publication have double standards based on the platform? Gears had all the same flaws that Crysis is accused of spot-on, and a bunch more. However, Gears gets 10 and Crysis gets 8? How about some consistency - if you're a proffessional games reviewer, think of the context you're putting your score out to. Or at least have the decency to point it out in the review.

:lol :lol
Seriously. Great post.
So a review is there to lend credibility to the score? In whose world?

...

Seriously. Have you been living in a cellar for the last 10 years?

The score is there to provide some tangible straw for people like you to grasp at. For those of us that can read, the review text is the important bit. People have different tastes. A review might describe an area of gameplay that the reviewer hates, but i might love that sort of thing. That is why scores are almost useless.
Individual scores have nothing to stand up to. A review is ONE PERSONS OPINION. You really need to grasp that concept.

So what you are saying is that your opinion weighs in at the same as proffessional reviewers' opinions? Belongs to the same category? Is of the same depth and possesses the same capacity for analysis? Will be distributed and known as widely?

There are opinions and there are OPINIONS. If the first are not correct, who bothers, right? If the latter are not correct, something is seriously wrong, and they should be challenged.

All sorts of people had a lot of different opinions about Jews in pre-WWII Germany. Why do you think they chose to go with Hitler's, if everyone's opinion holds the same weight?

 

[WHOAguitarninja]

Reviews are only there to lend credibility to the score, to show what went through the head of the reviewer when he gave the game a score. A good, strong review score should be able to stand the test of time and seem reasonable to the average gamer even without the accompanying commentary that is "the review". Not one of the aforementioned scores manage to do that. All they do is raise questions about themselves.

I think you're going to find most people have the complete opposite opinion to you on this. Review scores will never stand the test of time because standards constantly change. It's the purpose of the body of the review to provide the information necessary to decide if the game is worth a purchase. The score is a highly subjective little nugget at the end that gives the authors overall feeling on the game in the shortest possible manner. A single number will never be able to shed light on what makes a game good, or what makes a game bad, so how can it ever be the meat of a review if it can't provide the necessary info to form an educated opinion on the value of the game.

So what you are saying is that your opinion weighs in at the same as proffessional reviewers' opinions? Belongs to the same category? Is of the same depth and possesses the same capacity for analysis? Will be distributed and known as widely?

Theres a couple points here I'd like to address. First, my opinion on a game matters a whole hell of alot MORE to me than some reviewer. If a reviewer hates a game but I love it, I don't need him to validate my opinion in order for me to love the game. I'm fully capable of judging the quality of a game myself and not relying on someone else to tell me how good it is.

Furthermore, you're still looking at reviews as an objective thing. They're not. They're one persons take on how much they enjoyed something. That's all. You may find the game to be enormously more fun than the reviewer did, but that doesn't make either of you wrong.

Lastly, how deep of an analysis do you ever see in game reviews...all i usually see is "this worked, this didn't, heres the score". But no matter how shallow a review I were to give it, it would STILL be deeper than "just the score" of some professional reviewers review. I don't know how you can talk depth of analysis in one breath, and then turn around and say the score is the most important part.

There are opinions and there are OPINIONS. If the first are not correct, who bothers, right? If the latter are not correct, something is seriously wrong, and they should be challenged.

While I don't understand the distinction, you're failing to credit the fact that opinions are not factually right or wrong. They are one persons subjective view of whatever he happens to have an opinion on.

All sorts of people had a lot of different opinions about Jews in pre-WWII Germany. Why do you think they chose to go with Hitler's, if everyone's opinion holds the same weight?

This is immature and inane and I won't dignify this with a response. Trying to conflate review scores with the Holocaust is absolutely absurd and somewhat insensitive.

 

[Kamakazie!]

How's about you read the bolded bits, buddy. This is a matter of more gravity than you can obviously comprehend. In what world is it okay for the reviewers of the same publication have double standards based on the platform? Gears had all the same flaws that Crysis is accused of spot-on, and a bunch more. However, Gears gets 10 and Crysis gets 8? How about some consistency - if you're a proffessional games reviewer, think of the context you're putting your score out to. Or at least have the decency to point it out in the review.

Since when did 1up start at 10 and mark games DOWN based on the games flaws? Oh wait, it never did. As soon as you mention the difference in scores, your arguement goes out the window, simply because it is a different review by different people.
The Gears reviewer thought the game was a 10/10 even though it had flaws.
Shawn though Crysis was an 8/10 even though it had flaws.
8/10 doesn't mean that game has 2/10 things wrong with it. It means that the game, as a whole, is an 8/10.
The Gears reviewer might give Crysis a 10/10 too, despite it's flaws. Like i said, different reviewers.

Contrary to what you say, they are actually reviews from different publications. GFW is not the same as EGM even though 1up uses reviews from both.

...

Seriously. Have you been living in a cellar for the last 10 years?

Review text has never been there to serve as a justification of the score.

So what you are saying is that your opinion weighs in at the same as proffessional reviewers' opinions? Belongs to the same category? Is of the same depth and possesses the same capacity for analysis? Will be distributed and known as widely?

There are opinions and there are OPINIONS. If the first are not correct, who bothers, right? If the latter are not correct, something is seriously wrong, and they should be challenged.

All sorts of people had a lot of different opinions about Jews in pre-WWII Germany. Why do you think they chose to go with Hitler's, if everyone's opinion holds the same weight?

I have no idea what you are rambling on about. I never said that people should listen to my thoughts on the game and take that with the same weight as the reviewer. I didn't even imply that.
I said that if you read the review text then you might find something that the reviewer dislikes that you would actually see as a plus point.
For games i buy then yes MY opinion is what matters. That is why the review text is the only important part of the review. If the game described is something i think i will like, then i will try it.
Just because a game gets critically acclaimed, if the review reads like something i would hate, then i won't buy it.

Oh and that WWII analogy is fucking stupid or did i forget that the merits of a game review score is of the same complexity as pre-WWII European politics and social setting?

 

[the1aser]

All sorts of people had a lot of different opinions about Jews in pre-WWII Germany. Why do you think they chose to go with Hitler's, if everyone's opinion holds the same weight?

I can't believe you're Godwinising a review thread.

Hero of the Web nominee right here...

 

[erick]

I'm getting tired of this.

In short: some people's opinions hold more weight than others'. Game reviewer's have the ability to alter how a game fares, how many people pick it up and what's the general talk of it. Their voices count much, much more than yours. Not for you, maybe, but for a lot of people. I really shouldn't be explaining this.

That's why it's important that they be more considerate when dishing out their opinions. The moment it is published it becomes more than just another opinion. A good review should not create controversy but consent. People should agree with it, in general.

As for the WWII example - embrace the history. It will teach you a lot about the world today. Bad things need to be remebered so that people do not repeat this ever again. And, naturally, at the point where I brought this example in, I was no longer talking about a "game review". I was talking about "personal opinion" as a concept. People so often forget that equality of opinion is just a pleasurable illusion.

But enough of this. I pointed out what I thought was wrong with the review, and the rest was just a misguided attempt to make you lift your pink glasses for a moment. That moment has passed now.

 

[cameltoe]

That's fine; rate a game on it's merits. But I don't think it's fair to say "well, the game is a 9, but it's gonna cost a lot of money to get a graphics card that'll run it, so it's a 8". Shit, right now I'm stuck with a card that would struggle to run Half Life 2 above 800x600 with medium settings. That shouldn't affect what a reviewer tells me about a game.

Didnt Warhawk get a point deducted because it costs $40?

 

[Tieno]

I'm getting tired of this.

In short: some people's opinions hold more weight than others'. Game reviewer's have the ability to alter how a game fares, how many people pick it up and what's the general talk of it. Their voices count much, much more than yours. Not for you, maybe, but for a lot of people. I really shouldn't be explaining this.

That's why it's important that they be more considerate when dishing out their opinions. The moment it is published it becomes more than just another opinion. A good review should not create controversy but consent. People should agree with it, in general.

My review of Half-Life 2: it's a good game where you shoot and you have a nice lady to look at. Buy it.

 

[AstroLad]

Ironically my second 7950 finally shipped after being back-ordered a month. Crysis here I come; I don't care if 1Up essentially says it's a "mediocre at best" 8/10, I still think it's going to be a really fun experience and as a nice side benefit a great showpiece for my decently hot-rodded laptop.

 

[Foxtastical]

That's why it's important that they be more considerate when dishing out their opinions. The moment it is published it becomes more than just another opinion. A good review should not create controversy but consent. People should agree with it, in general.

This is wrong beyond what the current definition of what wrong is.

Oh yeah, duh. It must have slipped my mind that all individuals have had the same past experiences and are thus incredibly similar in thought.

 

[glaurung]

My review of Half-Life 2: it's a good game where you shoot and you have a nice lady to look at. Buy it.

I consent! Will you be my friend! Yay!

 

[WHOAguitarninja]

In short: some people's opinions hold more weight than others'. Game reviewer's have the ability to alter how a game fares, how many people pick it up and what's the general talk of it. Their voices count much, much more than yours. Not for you, maybe, but for a lot of people. I really shouldn't be explaining this.

This much is certainly true. I don't argue this. But that's not really the point you've been pushing.

That's why it's important that they be more considerate when dishing out their opinions. The moment it is published it becomes more than just another opinion. A good review should not create controversy but consent. People should agree with it, in general.

This is where we disagree. A review should explain the position a person takes on a game. If what you were saying were true, there would never need to be more than one or two reviews of a game, since you seem to think all others should fall roughly in line. Do you think that if multiple people played through a game they should necessarily arrive at the same conclusion to its quality? This would be true if a games quality is an objective judgement that stands outside of personal preference and experience. But it's not. The quality of the experience is all that one has to go by when discussing a games merits, and that is a very subjective thing. If reviewers couldn't offer their own interpretation of a game and were forced to bend to others scales of judgement then the only option they would have would be to review it based on what they think someone else will think about it.

While ideally that would be possible, the very fact that they may think differently makes it so that such a review really isn't feasible, as all other opinions will NOT necessarily fall in line with the one they are proposing that you will have. Therefore the only real option left is to be honest with how they felt about the game. If a reviewer can't do that, then the whole point of the review is gone.

As for the WWII example - embrace the history. It will teach you a lot about the world today. Bad things need to be remebered so that people do not repeat this ever again. And, naturally, at the point where I brought this example in, I was no longer talking about a "game review". I was talking about "personal opinion" as a concept. People so often forget that equality of opinion is just a pleasurable illusion.

No, it's still a ridiculous example, and your purposely constructing a straw man argument here. Personal opinion on governmental policy is one thing, but when you try and equate the rationality of radical genocide as a personal opinion matter, then you've clearly stepped into another realm. I don't think you'll find many people that think an opinion of a race's lack right to live is a valid form of disagreement. So no, you can't lump in the Nazi ideaology as a valid point in a discussion about opinions that a rational, sane, and non-brainwashed person can hold.

But enough of this. I pointed out what I thought was wrong with the review, and the rest was just a misguided attempt to make you lift your pink glasses for a moment. That moment has passed now.

Spare me the self righteous tone and I'll drop it. Theres nothing wrong with pointing out what you disagree with in a review. It's there to stand as an opinion, and nothing more. Discussion on points that you disagree with is beneficial and provides those in the discussion a better frame of reference. But that doesn't make the review at fault (or the reviewer, or the person that disagrees for that matter). That's my main point. You can't fault the reviewer or the review for having an opinion.

Didnt Warhawk get a point deducted because it costs $40?

If Crysis the game were a poor value, then you'd have a point. But no points were deducted from Warhawk for being on a $500 (or whatever PS3 costed at the time) system, so the comparison isn't really valid.

 

[AstroLad]

That's why it's important that they be more considerate when dishing out their opinions. The moment it is published it becomes more than just another opinion. A good review should not create controversy but consent. People should agree with it, in general.

They talked about this point in detail on the GFW podcast a few months ago (which Shawn was a part of), and the general feeling was that reviewers should not necessarily strive to somehow mimic their audiences' tastes, but rather strive to inform them. There was a great Ebert quote in there on this very point, but it escapes me now.

 

[erick]

This is where we disagree. A review should explain the position a person takes on a game. If what you were saying were true, there would never need to be more than one or two reviews of a game, since you seem to think all others should fall roughly in line. Do you think that if multiple people played through a game they should necessarily arrive at the same conclusion to its quality? This would be true if a games quality is an objective judgement that stands outside of personal preference and experience. But it's not. The quality of the experience is all that one has to go by when discussing a games merits, and that is a very subjective thing. If reviewers couldn't offer their own interpretation of a game and were forced to bend to others scales of judgement then the only option they would have would be to review it based on what they think someone else will think about it.

While ideally that would be possible, the very fact that they may think differently makes it so that such a review really isn't feasible, as all other opinions will NOT necessarily fall in line with the one they are proposing that you will have. Therefore the only real option left is to be honest with how they felt about the game. If a reviewer can't do that, then the whole point of the review is gone.

I feel like I might not have managed to get my point across fully. I will try to do so now: a REALLY, REALLY good review has people thinking about it, nodding and agreeing. Just because the review's train of thought was so clear, logical and understandable.

Your other arguments would also merit a longer discussion, but I'll leave you the last word and stay on topic instead of launching into a fresh series of arguments that have no bearing on my original post.

After listening to the podcast I'm somewhat of a milder opinion over this review, Elliott does make valid points. I cannot yet decide whether it was me who flew into the frenzy too quickly or whether he took the whole "dumb, vegetative blonde" theme so far that it clouded his original message. Anyways, if it would have been a flawless execution, the author would not have had to explain himself in a podcast. And yes, if you say something has flaws, people will assume that's the reason you deducted points. Always. Because the opposite would violate the rules of logic and pragmatics (the study of effective communication).

 

[WHOAguitarninja]

I feel like I might not have managed to get my point across fully. I will try to do so now: a REALLY, REALLY good review has people thinking about it, nodding and agreeing. Just because the review's train of thought was so clear, logical and understandable.

Your other arguments would also merit a longer discussion, but I'll leave you the last word and stay on topic instead of launching into a fresh series of arguments that have no bearing on my original post.

After listening to the podcast I'm somewhat of a milder opinion over this review, Elliott does make valid points. I cannot yet decide whether it was me who flew into the frenzy too quickly or whether he took the whole "dumb, vegetative blonde" theme so far that it clouded his original message. Anyways, if it would have been a flawless execution, the author would not have had to explain himself in a podcast. And yes, if you say something has flaws, people will assume that's the reason you deducted points. Always. Because the opposite would violate the rules of logic and pragmatics (the study of effective communication).

Okay, that makes more sense. I think a nice way to go about doing things, and I know sometimes people hate on EGM here (although it's gaf so people hate on everything), but I appreciate the fact that they have several people review games which offers a nice scale of opinions to judge by instead of just a single reviewer. It acts as a reminder that a single review does not represent the viewpoint of an entire publication.

 

[erick]

Okay, that makes more sense. I think a nice way to go about doing things, and I know sometimes people hate on EGM here (although it's gaf so people hate on everything), but I appreciate the fact that they have several people review games which offers a nice scale of opinions to judge by instead of just a single reviewer. It acts as a reminder that a single review does not represent the viewpoint of an entire publication.

Completely agree. Ideally, they could have different reviews by a genre aficionado and an average Joe gamer

 

[FartOfWar]

When Gears game out Shawn said he would give it an 8-8.5, there's even an EGMLive where he discusses the game with Shoe.

That's on record, and the point I was making in the post above Stan Lee was saying that I didn't "dock the game points" for AI inconsistencies (hence then stuff about sentence arithmetic). : )

 

[FartOfWar]

The joy derived from reading an extremely critical well-written review will not stay with you for too long; but the joy derived from acknowledge'ing and playing a new game that will some day become a legend will stay with you as long as there are people who rember sharing in its greatness.

Break it down, son. Because an 8 is as clear a keep away sign as any. Because, you know, it's absolutely impossible to read a review of a game, disagree with it in part, and still convince yourself to buy that game. Break it down, son.

 

[FartOfWar]

All sorts of people had a lot of different opinions about Jews in pre-WWII Germany. Why do you think they chose to go with Hitler's, if everyone's opinion holds the same weight?

Oh shit. Godwin's Law and the bogeyman of moral relativism--all over a videogame review. I was about to explain the difference between arbitrary opinion and informed perspective, but I shouldn't. Not when I can read about how game reviews are like the Holocaust.

 

[Livin_Lovin]

This thread reminds me how much I <3 GAF. I've said it before and I'll say it again, there will be bitching over a 9.5 or higher (Probably IGN) about it not being high enough within the next year.

In spite of this, how are you people managing to bitch over an 8? On any website's scale, that's a recommendable score. Award winning in magazines as well.

 

[Zapperkhan]

Just finished the GFW podcast. I laughed so hard when I originally read those comments. (especially the ones talking about your Naruto fetish) I surely hope they weren't real, with just some Gaf invading 1up or something refering to the crazy people from the Ratchet and Clank thread. But, I was totally wrong when I saw this thread. You all need to grow up and play the game first before making assumptions. I was completely satisfied with Shawn's review, and frankly think it's the best out of them [Crysis Reviews] so far. The cons he listed I can live with. I'll be picking this up once I finish my current few games.

I think people are over reacting a lot more then normal due to having the limited budgets/time to play the games and want to play the best ones. With so many games, they just don't have time to even read the reviews with any sense and skip to the numbers. Wish everyone had the downtime I have at work to check up on all

P.S. I need a Shawn Elliot Defense Force avatar And yes, I do fail at English

 

[purvispisgah]

All sorts of people had a lot of different opinions about Jews in pre-WWII Germany. Why do you think they chose to go with Hitler's, if everyone's opinion holds the same weight?

This is an inexcusably retarded thing to bring up in a review thread of a fucking video game. Erick, do yourself a favor and start downloading the GFW podcast. Not only will you get plenty of quality discussion about PC games and the video game industry in general, but perhaps you'll also lighten up.

Shawn, thanks for the excellent review. I was wondering if you could point me to some dicussion about CGW's decision to start putting review scores back into reviews. I didn't start listening to the podcast until right before it switched to GFW, so I sorta missed that time in the magazine's life. I'm hoping that there was a podcast about it, or some written piece available on the interwebs.

As far as review scoring goes, I really wish the game industry would adopt a five star rating system. Five stars would go the rarest of gems, Four for high quality games, Three for games that you'll probably like but have serious flaws, Two for games that you'll only like if you love the genre, and One for games to be avoided. Perhaps a system of two different reviews would work as well, one that is more of a product review, and another that is more of an art review.

 

[datruth29]

Oh shit. Godwin's Law and the bogeyman of moral relativism--all over a videogame review. I was about to explain the difference between arbitrary opinion and informed perspective, but I shouldn't. Not when I can read about how game reviews are like the Holocaust.

Wait. If he invoked Godwin's Law in this argument, doesn't that mean he losses by default.

 

[Bluemercury]

So another space marine shooter then..........this time it has the advantage of not running on most pc's......it will be easier to ignore it.....

 

[CastleBravo]

So another space marine shooter then..........this time it has the advantage of not running on most pc's......it will be easier to ignore it.....

Another space marine shooter? Not sure where you got that from. Crysis is definitely not "just another shooter", it's one of the best in the genre. I think people are doing themselves a disservice by not playing Crysis.

 

[erick]

Shawn and purvispisgah, do you always arrive at parties when they are already over?

And, naturally, at the point where I brought this example in, I was no longer talking about a "game review". I was talking about "personal opinion" as a concept. People so often forget that equality of opinion is just a pleasurable illusion.

Posted by me at 2:07 PM yesterday.

After listening to the podcast I'm somewhat of a milder opinion over this review,...

Posted by me at 3:49 PM yesterday.

 

[Slavik81]

Didnt Warhawk get a point deducted because it costs $40?

No. It didn't.
The reviewer requested that be the case but the 1UP editors decided against doing so.

(Just because nobody's directly answered this question yet.)