Blinx Review

[CaptainHowdy]

I was going to say the oppisite, Gamespots Mario score may be low, but the review itself is fair.

Xbox.ign on the other hand would stamp an AAA rating on anything bearing the label "Only on Xbox".. Gunvalkryie a 9.0? geez, whether you like the game or not, it hardly deserves anything more than a 7.5-8, because its faults are huge, overlookable with some playtime yes, but there all the same.

 

[Gargr]

From GS: "The first line of dialogue in the game's intro cinematic goes, "Time is like a treasure." That being the case, you should carefully consider spending your time on something other than Blinx"

Laughs

 

[Mr. Angry Pants]

Mr. Darksbane, say what? Where did I say in my post that I would trust one publication over another for reviews? I seem to recall stating the exact opposite.

 

[aneep]

Mr Angry, you can also turn it the other way around:


Gamespot gives Mario Sunshine 8.0

Blinx supporter says: "HAHAH! Mario flopped, GC is D000med!"

Gamespot gives Blinx 6.3

Blinx supporter says: "OMFG! Gamespot is such a bunch of stupid biased a#$holes! "



In a matter of fact, GS reviewers have been way more harsh than IGN lately - and it goes for all platforms. I also tend to agree more with GS - there are too many solid, but not great games released nowadays, and I don't have money to purchase all of them...

I'm not saying I agree with Blinx, review, though - I will definitely give it a try. Concept is too nice to ignore, no matter how flawed the execution is.

i for one doesn't agree with 'harsh on all platform' statement
Ps2 games escapes relatively unscathed from many flaws just because they are on PS2 (its ok their visuals don't match GC or Xbox, ist because they're old tech, but when Gc or Xbox games have anykind of visual flaws, it will get slammed handily, see Blinx is too shiny comment, or SMS review)

how many 10 points games on the Ps2 and how many 10 games on Xbox and GC?

its the reviewer opinion anyway and i respected that, but they sure as hell don't judge fairly across platforms IMO

-aneep-

 

[marconelly!]

how many 10 points games on the Ps2 and how many 10 games on Xbox and GC?

Well, how many games is there on PS2 and how many on GC/Xbox?

Besides, there are not too many games on PS2 that scored 10s, and I really think they are just as harsh towards that platform as they are towards anything else. Last example: Burnout 2 got 9 for graphics, and it's probably the best looking arcade racer I've ever seen, regardless of platform.

Also, Gamespot have always said they score game's technical points (graphics/sound) compared to other games on that same platform, which absolutely makes sense, as very few people actually own more than one console.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

The problem is that it gives people the wrong impression. 5.1 audio IS better than stereo. 480p IS better than 480i, and so on. I think that having the overall score reflect the console is good, but graphics scores shoud probably take into consideration the overall visuals that are out there for this generation.

I'm not sure Gamespot really matters anyway, it would be interesting to see a study of review scores vs. sales vs. user review scores. There's a discrepancy between the Quantum Redshift user reviews (79) and GS (71) and IGN (63). This should clue people into the problem. The same isn't true about Enclave (user - 72 vs. pro - 70). Super Mario was overestimated in reviews (pro - 92 vs. user - 83). Starfox (user -84 pro - 80), was underestimated.

I'll probably get Blinx, despite the fact that I think it will only be a 7.5, simply because it brings something unique to the table. This concept will be executed better in later games, but I have a soft spot for the pioneering that Artoon is doing here.

I'll admit right now that this game probably isn't going to be as good as the big PS2 and GCN platformers this year. It's a bit of a shame, but I guess that's why I bought my Cube.

 

[marconelly!]

The problem is that it gives people the wrong impression. 5.1 audio IS better than stereo. 480p IS better than 480i, and so on.

That's true - but the minority that actually owns 5.1 and HDTV setups knows that already, or else wouldn't be spending tons of money on it.

Besides, they would have to go even further then - for example, from what I've seen, there's big number of xbox games that support 5.1 only on paper but output 2 channel stereo digital audio through 5.1 decoder. Should they also mention that in the review?

I also don't see them giving PS2 games any better graphics scores in games that have progressive output.

My guess is, they don't bother taking these high end specs into account as only few people can appreciate them anyways.

 

[zurich]

Speaking of questionable reviews, IGN gave the PS2 version of NFS:HP2 a 9.0, and the Xbox a 7.1.

The punchline? They were completely different reviews written by different people. The games are, for all intents and purposes, identical, so why IGN would choose to contradict themselves is beyond me. If anything, it makes the PS2 look good and the Xbox look bad. Pretty poor to say, "we love everything about this game" on one system, and not on the other (when its the same game).

PS2: http://ps2.ign.com/articles/373/373218p1.html

Xbox: http://xbox.ign.com/articles/372/372606p1.html

 

[marconelly!]

zurich, if you was reading EGM review, you would see they also scored PS2 version much higher than XB and GC one.

Im a matter of fact, PS2 version is done by a completely different team, has better graphics, much better sense of speed and more modes/levels. That's what EGM said, and IGN review just confirms that.

The quality of the modeling and lighting on the cars is substantially better than what you'll see in the Xbox and Gamecube versions -- actually, more or less everything is better than the other platform versions ...

I remember an IGN editor posted about that on GA board, and said that it's almost funny how PS2 version feels like a completely different game.

 

[zurich]

Wierd, most dev guys around here downplay the notion of "completely different team", whereas its actually just 1 or 2 platform specific engineers whose job is to make specific optimizations.

Wheres the advantage in building 2 different games (besides giving more people jobs)? Sounds like theres a better chance to b0rk a game, like was demonstrated here.

zurich

 

[marconelly!]

PS2 version is done by Black Box. I assume they don't have enough manpower for doing the other two versions, so that job was handed to EA Canada.

 

[wazoo]

Speaking of questionable reviews, IGN gave the PS2 version of NFS:HP2 a 9.0, and the Xbox a 7.1.

The punchline? They were completely different reviews written by different people. The games are, for all intents and purposes, identical,

quote from a french paper mag.

"visually, both versions look the same".

"the xbox version is slower and feels bad" (??)

 

[Teasy]

Johnny, there's not point in looking at the user rating part of GameRankings. Look at some of the marks, notice how every game has loads of 1 and 10 scores? Basically the score of a game on there comes down to how many fan-boy's from each console vote on it, mixed in with the people giving there real scores. If you have a XBox game and you get more GameCube fan-boy's then XBox fan-boy's the game has a average to poor score. The other way round and it has a good score. The only good thing about GameRankings is the average review score, which actually means something.

Check out SMS's user ratings (92% review score):

Overall user rating = 83%

1 = 37 votes
2 = 9 votes
3 = 5 votes
4 = 2 votes
5 = 2 votes
6 = 5 votes
7 = 15 votes
8 = 36 votes
9 = 121 votes
10 = 188 votes

37 people seriously think SMS is a 1/10?

Now check out Halo's user rating's (94.8% review score):

Overall user rating = 88%

1 = 60
2 = 3
3 = 8
4 = 4
5 = 5
6 = 12
7 = 32
8 = 64
9 = 215
10 = 548

60 people seriously think Halo is a 1/10?

Now GT3 (94% score)

Overall user rating = 87%

1 = 29
2 = 4
3 = 3
4 = 7
5 = 6
6 = 17
7 = 49
8 = 101
9 = 245
10 = 321

29 people seriously think that GT3 is a 1/10?

They all have a familiar patern. Check out any good to great game on there and you'll see a similar patern.

So you cannot claim SMS, Halo, GT3 or any other great game is overated by reviews due to these user ratings.

 

[wazoo]

Check out SMS's user ratings (92% review score):

Overall user rating = 83%

37 people seriously think SMS is a 1/10?

the funny thing is that those guys maybe some hardcore (at least they think they are) Mario fanboys claiming that SMS sucks because there is no ice stage.

 

[Teasy]

Maybe a few of them yeah (although I doubt any hardcore Mario fans would rate the game as a 1/10 even if they were annoyed by that). But for the most part its just fan-boys of other consoles. That's why those user ratings are pointless. For instance, as I said check out the three games I showed, Halo and GT3. They all have loads of 1's, basically fan-boys from other consoles voting the lowest score possible, and of course loads of 10's, allot of them from fan-boys of the console the game is on. Check out any good to great game on there and it'll have the same patern.

BTW I got the game (SMS that is) a couple of days ago. So far its fantastic. I love the FLUDD thingy, the controls are as brilliant as ever. I also love the camera system, I don't understand the problem some people have with it.

Graphically most of the game is nice, nothing great as far as textures are concerned, but then can you imagine Mario with high res bump maps ect? The textures just look nice enough for a Mario game, the polygon counts again just suit the Mario world. The animation is excellent, as always. Of course the most important thing is how fun the game is, and IMO its extremely fun. By far the best platformer ever created. The cut scene's can be a little od, but its not really important IMO.

The only thing that is brilliant technically and visually is the water. OMG that is the best water in any game on any system (XBox, PC included). The subtle shading, the glistening sun light relfecting on the surface of the water, the undulating wave effects, its got just about everything! Deffinately the most real looking water I've seen in a game. Maybe we should re-open the "best water in any game" thread and name SMS the champion

I seem to remember that Mario 64 had the best water ever seen in a game at release and SMS has continued this trend IMO.

 

[CaptainHowdy]

Speaking of questionable reviews, IGN gave the PS2 version of NFS:HP2 a 9.0, and the Xbox a 7.1.

The punchline? They were completely different reviews written by different people. The games are, for all intents and purposes, identical, so why IGN would choose to contradict themselves is beyond me. If anything, it makes the PS2 look good and the Xbox look bad. Pretty poor to say, "we love everything about this game" on one system, and not on the other (when its the same game).

PS2: http://ps2.ign.com/articles/373/373218p1.html

Xbox: http://xbox.ign.com/articles/372/372606p1.html

uhm, that actually has to do with the fact that the PS2 version is a solid finished game, and both the Xbox and GNC versions were slopped together to make a single day launch, chock full of bugs and horrid textures.

 

[wazoo]

uhm, that actually has to do with the fact that the PS2 version is a solid finished game, and both the Xbox and GNC versions were slopped together to make a single day launch, chock full of bugs and horrid textures.

you are probably right. it just shows what is in reality will happen with a lots of multi platform games due to the huge userbase of the ps2. Most of the budget goes to the ps2 version.

 

[Swiss2]

...

The punchline? They were completely different reviews written by different people. The games are, for all intents and purposes, identical, so why IGN would choose to contradict themselves is beyond me. If anything, it makes the PS2 look good and the Xbox look bad. Pretty poor to say, "we love everything about this game" on one system, and not on the other (when its the same game).

no where near identical. In fact, it's almost like two different games altogether. XB and GC owners got screwed on this one

 

[bbot]

Anyone got Blinx yet? what your opinion of it? I'm gonna give my Xbox one more chance and get Blinx. The GS review seems to gripe the most about the camera angle and slowdown. I've owned Mario 64, and sometimes the camera angle gave me trouble. And I've encountered slowdowns on Sonic Adventure. These weren't serious problems IMO, so I think I can tolerate these deficiencies in Blinx.

 

[Gubbi]

Just to pour some more gasoline on the fire. Gamespot (the same reviewer) gave Madden 2003 9.0 on PS2 and 8.6 on XBOX even though he stated:

The PlayStation 2 version of Madden NFL 2003 isn't quite as clean as its Xbox counterpart, but otherwise the two versions look identical.

Go figure. Maybe he just expected more from a XBOX game

Cheers
Gubbi