cja said:I do know enough about how things operate in the UK
That's not the impression I get from anything you've posted, kiddo.
cja said:I do know enough about how things operate in the UK
A triple-crown prince
Ubisoft's ressurection of the Prince of Persia franchise has landed the company not one, but two stellar hits the last two years (check out our review of Warrior Within on page 126). And if what I'm hearing is correct (which it usually is), Ubisoft will attempt to go three for three. Look for the Prince running along the walls of your console next holiday, featuring a similar gritty backdrop as the last one, but with a greater emphasis on puzzle solving.
john tv said:Please don't compare the UK mag industry (or game industry, for that matter) to the US one. Two very different fish.
The Bookerman said:Wrong.
Don't believe it.
I know more, but I won't tell - ng.
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Good to see you quoting and answering the substantive part of my post, yeah.AbeFroman said:BeSt POST EvAr !!!
I really think the scores for GoldenEye:RA were due to Mark's ties to the Russian mafia. Or was it the Cubans?
Lay off the pipe man.
That combination of merit and "reader interest" can't be weighted much towards merit. Taiko is "awesome", LoTR is "booooring". Taiko gets a measly twenty words and doesn't get a review score while Third Age gets a two page spread. Jury, I rest that case.rod furlong said:The amount of space given to games in EGM's reviews section (I'm the reviews editor) is based on a combination of merit and reader interest. Obviously, WE decide what is likely to be more of interest to our readers -- but maybe we'll change that policy and give you a ring instead.
Thank you for the detailed answer. Only one of my scattergun of initial queries was about the final review scores and the question was about its uniformity, both scores and text, rather than opinion (assholes, everyone has one).skip said:the biggest point of "negotiations" for preview cover stories are always what art assets and actual information you're going to get for the story. and that's about it. review cover exclusives are even less involving than that. the fact that shoe wrote a public editorial about what happened (iirc, that was a condition that was applied to all magazines for that particular game, not just egm) should tell you where they stand on the issue of scores. even though they weren't named, the publisher in question could not have been pleased by that.
cgw just did a cover story on eq2, with a WoW ad that ripped eq2 placed right in the middle of the feature. if edit and advertising were really as mixed as some people believe...how could that have happened?
I don't work on egm, so I can't say what goes into their coverage decisions. for us, if a game is notable, it's going to get more space, regardless of potential quality. we put auto modellista on our cover and gave it a five. goldeneye is getting a two page review in our next issue because it's a big game of interest and people want to know about it. I'd like to give "smaller" games more space, but we just don't have the page count. deal.
Thanks, darling.D2M15 said:Not from anything I've read you post, kiddo.
cja said:EA and EGM wouldn't be dumb enough to give a ridiculously favourable review before release, it'd be too obvious.
After the scores are decided, reviewers sometimes read each other's text to change their own to address things the other didn't or address a disagreement or agreement between reviewers, sometimes not.)
Mrbob said:But I say there is only way Mark can redeem himself now! He must spill the beans on Ninja Gaiden DS!
MarkMacD said::lol
You may disagree with us about what the majority of EGM readers want to read about, but that doesn't mean we're taking bribes.
ESPN college hoops 2K5 - 6.0 / 7.5 / 8.0
NCAA march madness 2005 - 8.0 / 8.5 / 8.0
Soul4ger said:And more responsible are the developers who "choked" out update after countless update every few months. The demise of the fighting genre can hardly be placed on the heads of reviewers.
Blimblim said:He, well both are very flawed games. I felt RA was an insult to Golden Eye name, and to Halo's gameplay where EA obviously stole a lot of ideas (recharging shield, starting with grenades in the left hand) but missed the very good maniability and of course the AI. The level design is bland at best, the graphics are average, and they even managed to have the corpse disappear. I'll admit some of eyes powers are nice, but they get old quickly.
PAL UKArgyle said:Out of curiosity, which version of Goldeneye are you playing, PAL or NTSC?
Blimblim said:PAL UK
Bleh.Argyle said:Just wondered because you were complaining about the corpses disappearing - the PAL version has the corpses fading out a lot faster than the NTSC version. Blame Germany for that...
The reviewers, yes: editor-in-chief, executive editor and reviews editor. I guess that was an entirely random decision, that while all other games in the issue had at least one oddball from other parts of ZD or freelancer Goldeneye was getting special treatment. If a magazine wanted to fix a score it'd be the people in the position of responsibilty who would do that.MarkMacD said::lol
It'd be too obvious? That's a new one. I suppose any bad score we've given EA games in the past (recently, off the top of my head, LOTR:TTA) was just to throw clever snoops like yourself off the scent? DAMN YOU CJA :shakes fist:
Seriosuly though, a few factoids back at ya (this is for cja, everyone else, this is the same boring crap, feel free to skip it:
-No one at EGM knows what the other reviewers are going to give a game before they decide on their score. In fact, reviewers aren't supposed to talk to each other about the game (critically) before they -all- decide their scores. (After the scores are decided, reviewers sometimes read each other's text to change their own to address things the other didn't or address a disagreement or agreement between reviewers, sometimes not.)
There is no need to know whats going on in the ad side from day-to-day, week-to-week or month-to-month, just the general trend to be biased towards certain games or publishers for ulterior reasons.-We don't have any idea what's going on in the ad side of things, and we like it that way. This isn't a crazy assumption, I've heard of it happening, but never at EGM or any of the Ziff mags I've worked with.
If I worked for EA public relations I wouldn't lose much sleep about raising a red flag over the lack of a Tiger Woods DS review, or poor scores for an already lost cause such as Catwoman or the amount of space afforded Madden. I would care about raising a red flag over Goldeneye, the score for Madden and the amount of space given to a new, different genre, LoTR or other franchise title. Convenient.-Like all game mags, we give things space based on what we think people want to read about. Sometimes, we think more people want to read about a high-profile game (say, LOTR:TTA), even if its a negative review, than a niche import we think is good. The facts of life. Sales numbers is only one consideration in guaging interest. Look at the coverage we give Madden every year, even though it's one of the best-selling and best-reviewed games, and think about it. Sometimes, yes, we crusade for something we think is a worthy cause, but sometimes it comes down to limited pages and simple math.
"that would be too obvious", it would! If any magazine had reviewed GE:RA weeks before any other and given it significantly higher scores than subsequent reviews they'd get ripped a new ahole.if you stop and really think about what you are saying and the assumptions it carries, or take in ALL the evidence, without being selective or twisitng it to your argument (ie "that would be too obvious," and EA's failure statement, both above), I think you'll see it's pretty ridiculous. You may disagree with us about what the majority of EGM readers want to read about, but that doesn't mean we're taking bribes.
Tellaerin said:As far as review scores go, well... You know 7.5 is pretty good, and I know 7.5 is pretty good, but if there's anything GAF's convinced me of, it's that the average person has an exceptionally fucked-up perception of what game scores are supposed to mean.
Unison said:The solution is to use the full ten points on the ratings scale. Make 5 a truly average game (i.e. what gets a 6.5 - 7 now).
No score, just a couple of sentences in the review wrap-up.AssMan said:did EGM review Budokai 3? I want to know if the game out scored DOA. =P
Tellaerin said:Not in full, no. It's largely the developers' fault for focusing on a niche audience. However, on the rare occasions when more accessible fighting games (like DOA: U) do come along, reviews by hardcore fighting game enthusiasts would lead the average person to believe that those games are lacking. Someone with a passing interest in the genre would probably end up not bothering with those games after reading the reviews, not realizing that the reviewers labelling the gameplay 'flawed' are judging it by enthusiast standards. That doesn't help keep the genre alive and bring in new blood, either. =/
Tellaerin said:As far as review scores go, well... You know 7.5 is pretty good, and I know 7.5 is pretty good, but if there's anything GAF's convinced me of, it's that the average person has an exceptionally fucked-up perception of what game scores are supposed to mean. I mean, just a couple of days back, Olimario posted about a certain section of Metroid Prime 2 'saving' the game from being an 8/10 experience, as if an 8 meant mediocre. True, that's an extreme case (I hope...), but it does lead me to wonder how many people are going to see those 7.5's and say, 'Ehhh, I was kinda interested in this, but between the stuff about it not measuring up to 'real' fighting games and that score, it sounds like they didn't like it too much. I think I'll pass.' Sadder things have happened. =/
Kaijima said:A lot of the reviewers who dismiss DoA as a poor-man's fighting game also, I can't help but suspect, are not hardcore themselves. They're just looking at the hardcore community and aping the opinions of self-proclaimed experts in order to give their reviews a greater ring of authority.
Zeenbor said:When is this issue expected in retail?
Tellaerin said:I think that's because the fighting genre's become so niche that the only people considered 'qualified' to review them are 'veteran fighting game aficionados'. You know, the guys who think 'pick-up-and-play' are dirty words, and who believe that the bigger a game's movelist is (and the more arcane each move is to execute, in order to deter 'mashers' from accidentally doing something like, you know, hitting the other guy--so what if that also makes the game impossible to pick up arcade-style, by playing, without studying a FAQ or spending hours in some 'practice mode' first? We must be protected from those evil mashers by any means necessary!), the better the final game is. When someone releases a fighter designed to appeal to more than this dwindling core of hardcore competitive fighting game fans, it gets panned for not catering to that audience. Lame, and it's helping to choke out the genre in the long term, but what can you do? =/
WarPig said:It varies from outfit to outfit. I do know some folks in the editorial side of things who can walk the walk with contemporary fighters, though -- Jeff Gerstmann's legitimately real good at Tekken, Shawn Elliot (ex-EGM) was a serious Soul Calibur II player, Ben Turner can mop up most folks at Guilty Gear. Jeremy Dunham's a real good Tekken player, too. Most of the Ziff crew was good at VF4 when that hit. I suck at everything, but I'll freely admit that.
For what it's worth, I don't find DOA2 a flawed game so much as I just find it an old one. I liked it a hell of a lot back in 2000.
DFS.