*spin-off* Activision's Call of Review Hero: Controversy: Spin-Off

It is niave to think a "chart check box" accurately reflects the game. And a running *commentary* on the technical implimentation has little place in a *game review*.

I don't see why a running technical commentary has no place in a game review? Have you ever read reviews for movies on BD? They always talk about the technical aspects of the disc, eg: resolution, which codecs were used to encode the movie, number of layers etc...

If a movie can have a technical commentary, games should too.
 
They've been brought up multiple times, Scott.

Put up or shut up as they say on the basketball court. Or more specifically saying it so over and over doesn't make it more real.

I don't see a clear list -- or an example application of such to see if it is even possible -- in this thread.

Reserve your reply to this post for a copy-paste of a clear outline of (#1) these features / weight of each and variance across genres and (#2) some examples proving this method can even be applied objectively in a constructive manner communicated accurately to consumers.

You haven't done this.

And I don't think you can do this.

The main disagreement here is that you don't think a game can be deconstructed at all (I don't think you've actually thought out the repercussions on this notion). This is such a fundamental point of contention that we might as well be speaking different languages.

Strawman. :rolleyes:

I don't think Scott has ever said that technology cannot be discussed at all in regards to its contribution to game visuals.
 
No one's talking about post-processing, Scott. You're skirting the actual features I did bring up. When I asked if, on its own, 640p is ever better than 720p your response was that you can't even look at such things on their own. You didn't actually answer the question I asked. Instead, you disagree with the very premise that you can deconstruct graphics at all. This is fundamental, we can't reach any sort of consensus. This also applies to your shadow question; there's a clear idea of superiority (but the question of whether some feature is actually a negative is, again, based on a previously agreed-upon standard) you say that you can't isolate one aspect of graphics from the others. But you also can't isolate the 'I like it' factor from the gameplay, or from personal bias (which itself will influence the entire review).

So I'll throw a different question at you, which I hope you'll actually answer: given that all graphics analysis must be entirely subjective, how do you extract information about a game's graphics from a review written by a reviewer you don't know?

Edit: Just saw your edit. As to the subset, it's been presented multiple times. I've reduced criteria to a very base set which you have nonetheless rejected because you don't think any of these things can be separated from the whole.

You want to know if 640p is ever better than 720p? Well, if I was playing on the PC I would choose the highest resolution I could, depending on how high I adjusted AA, AF and all of the other graphical effect settings, depending on which ones were the biggest performance hogs and how it all balanced out to give me an image I liked. In that case, higher is better than lower, depending on all those other variables. I do tend to crank up all the "effects" as high as I can, unless I see a huge performance hit for diminishing returns.

In the case of a console game, like the much disputed sub-HD COD:MW2 ... I don't have a choice. I get the game and it is 640p, no matter what. Would 720p be better? I have no idea, because there is a reason they chose 640p, and I've never been able to see what it would have looked like if they went with 720p instead. Maybe the game overall would suffer and look worse in my eyes. Maybe the added resolution and removal of x, would look better to me. How am I supposed to know?

I hope that answers your question.

On your question of reviews, I don't. I read a multitude of reviews usually looking for some kind of consensus and spend a lot of time looking at the screenshots and videos that are always provided. I tend to read for descriptions of game play and the nuances of game play design that may not be adequately covered in videos.
 
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I don't think Scott has ever said that technology cannot be discussed at all in regards to its contribution to game visuals.

True. If someone wants to say, "The lighting is dynamic and adds depth and realism to the game," then I have no problem with that. If someone goes into detail about how the developer achieved the effect, then that's cool, but how they did it isn't actually important. It's the final image that matters.
 
Put up or shut up as they say on the basketball court. Or more specifically saying it so over and over doesn't make it more real.

I don't see a clear list -- or an example application of such to see if it is even possible -- in this thread.

Reserve your reply to this post for a copy-paste of a clear outline of (#1) these features / weight of each and variance across genres and (#2) some examples proving this method can even be applied objectively in a constructive manner communicated accurately to consumers.

You haven't done this.

And I don't think you can do this.

Joshua, I'm tired of reiterating my points for you. I really am. I'm also amazed that you think I must do anything, considering you don't even afford me the courtesy of reading my posts before going on a long-winded tangent. Last, I'm not a reviewer. I'm not proposing a new framework for reviews, that can be done by a board of reviewers who can decide on what criteria is or isn't important, based on, say, a study of various current-gen games. It's not my job to 'put weights' to things. Why even put weights? If you've been reading my posts at all you know I haven't been talking about scores at all!


Strawman. :rolleyes:

I don't think Scott has ever said that technology cannot be discussed at all in regards to its contribution to game visuals.

Joshua, please, if you're going to respond to me, try to understand what you're replying to. This is like the 3rd time you've completely misunderstood what I've said, I have to believe you're being deliberately obtuse. I didn't say Scott said that. We're talking about deconstruction, of trying to break an analysis into the constituent pieces:

I would never evaluate any of them in isolation. If you had exactly the same game with AA than one without, then yes, the AA game would look sharper. But that would never happen because to add AA you have to trade something else. None of these things are free. That's why you have to evaluate as a whole and you can't reprimand a game for lacking a particular feature. Same goes for resolution, frame rate, shadowing, lighting, post processing, blur and all other shader effects. All of those things are used to create a complete image. The sum of the parts is important, not the parts on their own.

Maybe you'll actually be willing to read one of Scott's posts, so please, tell me how I'm wrong based on that.
 
I don't see why a running technical commentary has no place in a game review? Have you ever read reviews for movies on BD? They always talk about the technical aspects of the disc, eg: resolution, which codecs were used to encode the movie, number of layers etc...

Already addressed above: Many game reviews do delve into technical issues related to the game. When talking about a 3-5 page review on 2-3 platforms there will be a selection that the individual reviewers will feel are relevant to the title and potential user experience.

Scroll up I linked to a page where I then listed a number of stats given--as well as things skewed that you guys aren't rattling for (e.g. enemies killed, bitrate of sound samples, music, various sound techniques, whether music is synth or orchestrated, what stock audio pack were the default sound samples taken from, etc) My challenge was that of objectivity, the self selecting nature of the so called "objective reviewers," and the ability to relate technical data to the end product on screen and provide a truly objective review addressing desirable issues from consumers and apply such across multiple reviews (easy to do this process for 1 game or 2 side-by-side, the process fails when broadening the scope because the variety destroys the ENTIRE pretense).

All the while not contradicting the concept that there is nothing wrong with more technicals in a review as well as deeper discussion of graphics and the relationship of technology and art.

I am all for better game reviews, more details, and more intelligent discussion. I just challenge the presopositions the thread starters proposed (which obviously are a knee jerk reaction to a high score due to a favorite getting the proverbial shaft).

If a movie can have a technical commentary, games should too.

Yes games do. That question is what is sufficient and, more importantly, the concept of "objectivity."

I like the DF commentaries. I wouldn't call them "graphics reviews" because rarely do they delve into the art, asset quality, and composition. They are more commentaries on various technical features of note to the authors and how they different cross platform and against other games. But they don't have scores and they aren't holistic reviews either.

I wouldn't recommend a DF commentary on an analysis of texture filtering and edge anti-aliasing as a basis if a game looks good or not or "game ABC has better filtering and AA so it is better graphically / technically than XYZ" when that assumes XYZ needed those features or that performance wasn't invested elsewhere that improved visual quality. Hence the highly subjective nature of visuals and the need for various outlets to cater to their audiences.

Dare I say Japanese and American gamers have different perspectives on what makes a good game, visually.
 
You want to know if 640p is ever better than 720p? Well, if I was playing on the PC I would choose the highest resolution I could, depending on how high I adjusted AA, AF and all of the other graphical effect settings, depending on which ones were the biggest performance hogs and how it all balanced out to give me an image I liked. In that case, higher is better than lower, depending on all those other variables. I do tend to crank up all the "effects" as high as I can, unless I see a huge performance hit for diminishing returns.

In the case of a console game, like the much disputed sub-HD COD:MW2 ... I don't have a choice. I get the game and it is 640p, no matter what. Would 720p be better? I have no idea, because there is a reason they chose 640p, and I've never been able to see what it would have looked like if they went with 720p instead. Maybe the game overall would suffer and look worse in my eyes. Maybe the added resolution and removal of x, would look better to me. How am I supposed to know?

That's not the answer to my question. My question was much simpler and had nothing to do with AA or AF or FPS.

On your question of reviews, I don't. I read a multitude of reviews usually looking for some kind of consensus and spend a lot of time looking at the screenshots and videos that are always provided. I tend to read for descriptions of game play and the nuances of game play design that may not be adequately covered in videos.

Thanks for the straight answer. The fact that you have to read multiple reviews to glean actually worthwhile information is exactly what I'm railing against here. Giving the reader more information on a game's graphics, based on more knowledgeable reviewers would allow us to draw our own conclusions, which may be different from the reviewer's own. This seems to be a bad thing.
 
Despite all this, and for the sake of gaming, I still would have to agree with Obonicus's argument that more objectivity and a more technical orientated metric should be required in reviews. Why? Because for one, they can be measured in black or white just like the technical specs of a car in a car-magazine review. It also makes the reader more aware to what there is to graphics and that there is more to it than just art and how it comes together on the screen.

A problem I have with the idea that this is something that should be expected in all game reviews is that when I look at reviews of other kinds of media this type of technical information is missing from all but niche publications. Is it not enough to say a movie's special effects are lacking (or extraordinary) without knowing the software and hardware used to generate them. Do they list how many actors appear in the movie, maybe with an average per scene? Do music reviews typically list all the instruments and what equipment was used to do the recording? Maybe all album reviews should list the BPM of every song? How about books? Should every review reveal: the paper stock used, the typeface and point size of the text, the number and quality of it's uses of similes and metaphors?

Obviously, I'm exaggerating here for effect but seriously, try to apply what you are suggesting to any other type of media review and see how little sense it makes. Then ask yourself what is it about games that makes you think that it makes sense for them.

To be clear, I'm not saying this information should never be considered or reported in a review and DF seems to be attracting a good following doing just that. But should it be regarded as a necessary part of all reviews? I don't think so.
 
You still fail to meet the challenge and fall back on "I already did that." Like I said, you keep saying something without demonstrating it. Saying it over, and over without examples doesn't make it more true.

Joshua, I'm tired of reiterating my points for you. I really am. I'm also amazed that you think I must do anything, considering you don't even afford me the courtesy of reading my posts before going on a long-winded tangent.

And I am tired of you playing the wounded rabbit. Indeed, you did say exactly what I quoted and accusing me of misreading you is your typical insult. You have no problem generalizing people's points as "strawmen" but when you are specifically called on such, quoted, and explained why the very specific quote is a strawman you cast dispersions. Again, you said:

The main disagreement here is that you don't think a game can be deconstructed at all (I don't think you've actually thought out the repercussions on this notion). This is such a fundamental point of contention that we might as well be speaking different languages.

Scott never indicated that, "a game can [not] be deconstructed at all" but you continue such exchanges. How is that statement even honest at all to what Scott has said?

Maybe you'll actually be willing to read one of Scott's posts, so please, tell me how I'm wrong based on that.

Typical insult of an person unable to deal with specifics. I have given many specifics and laid out itemized #s for you to address.

Your response? A lot of personally directed complaints. Obviously I am reading you if I quote you and respond to the quote I am addressing.

Apologies if English isn't your first language, maybe that is your barrier. But addressing me constantly without my points and quotes isn't dialogue. The lack of technical examples in your posts as proof cases of relevance shows we are also talking after different technical levels of understanding. Essentially your plea doesn't even begin to address the complexity I see graphically. You see graphics as a handful of features--I see a single feature (like aliasing) is a robustly signfiicant hurdle that your suggestions inadequately address.

But instead of addressing me it is panned off as needless details, ie. the extreme subjectivity of the entire complaint.

Which is not to diminish the relevance of actually providing more information to relevant markets, only the entire exchange is self selecting, not objective, and flawed as it is based on false assumptions and lack of technical insight and would provide inconsistent results.
 
That's not the answer to my question. My question was much simpler and had nothing to do with AA or AF or FPS.

The question you're asking me to answer is impossible for me to answer. I answered as best I could. I did leave out the situation where the game only allowed me to alter resolution, and nothing else. In that case I would pick the highest resolution I could that achieved a framerate that was acceptable to me for the type of game I was playing. Does that help?

Thanks for the straight answer. The fact that you have to read multiple reviews to glean actually worthwhile information is exactly what I'm railing against here. Giving the reader more information on a game's graphics, based on more knowledgeable reviewers would allow us to draw our own conclusions, which may be different from the reviewer's own. This seems to be a bad thing.

Well, I don't treat reviews as gospel and never would, regardless of how much technical information they chose to include. I tend to watch gameplay videos because you're seeing what you'd actually play. Game demos are one of my favorite features of PSN and Live, because I like to try before I buy. The only way I'll ever know what a game is like, and how fun it might be to play is by actually playing it. Sure, if reviews provided more information, you might come to a different conclusion. But the actual usefulness of the information would impact the usefulness of your conclusion, which is the part Josh and I are disputing. You can throw all kinds of specs into any review, but whether they are actual relevant depends on the person and the product.
 
True. If someone wants to say, "The lighting is dynamic and adds depth and realism to the game," then I have no problem with that. If someone goes into detail about how the developer achieved the effect, then that's cool, but how they did it isn't actually important. It's the final image that matters.

A perfect example of this (yet another technical example) is HDR. I mentioned this earlier, but a game can do HDR effects a number of ways. And a game may not use every effect because the visual style doesn't benefit--some don't use it at all and look much better than games that do. How has a gamer benefited knowing about the visuals if there is a checkbox, "FP16 HDR: No" when it communicates nothing of the on screen product, or the visual impact of the entire screen image? Again, this is not a renderer being reviewed...
 
Reading the aforementioned review:

"Over the years the Call of Duty series has set the bar for immersive, action-packed, cinematic FPS gaming,
and no matter what camp you're from there's no denying the franchise's influence on the industry."

Starts from overly too positive, tuning the reader in to a praising review.
Still nothing is said about the game, but you already should feel that this one will speak about "the good".

"When Infinity Ward moved from the classic World War II setting and blazed new ground with Modern Warfare
we saw the first obvious split within the world of Call of Duty."

"Blazed new ground" - unnecessary praising for nothing really new.

"The series dropped its historic focus, created a new cast of characters,
and began treading on new ground by taking the first-person shooter genre to new locales,
and pushing the boundaries of what military games are willing to show."

Last time I've checked all FPSes were about "new locales", because that's the first thing you think of when you ask yourself:
"how can I be different from the competition?"
"New ground" second time, trying to imprint that MW was all about innovation.

"With Modern Warfare 2, the sheer amount of hype has been practically inescapable,
with preorders alone setting it up as one of the biggest selling games of all time,
the addition of even more multiplayer modes and features,
and the game's new Special Operations mode has set Infinity Ward's lastest up as the game to beat this year."

Last paragraph is trying to be "objective" by using the most obvious objective measures to make it look great: preorder numbers and amount of hype.

"The real question: has it been worth the wait, and can Modern Warfare 2 live up to the precedent set by over half a decade of Call of Duty tradition?"

This is very good false choice statement, because there is no way to know that it will or will not "live up to the precedent" until late sales numbers, and it clearly has nothing to do with the review. But here the unskilled reader will make an assumption that the reviewer is the one who will decide on this "live up" question.

Really, people, this is 101 of Demagogy/Public Speech/Sales Pitch/NLP/no matter how you call it. Just choose to praise or to bash and hack away.
 
A perfect example of this (yet another technical example) is HDR. I mentioned this earlier, but a game can do HDR effects a number of ways. And a game may not use every effect because the visual style doesn't benefit--some don't use it at all and look much better than games that do. How has a gamer benefited knowing about the visuals if there is a checkbox, "FP16 HDR: No" when it communicates nothing of the on screen product, or the visual impact of the entire screen image? Again, this is not a renderer being reviewed...

And somehow by providing a review with tech spec list, it makes it impossible for a reviewer to provide context for that list within a technical discussion portion of his review?
 
You still fail to meet the challenge and fall back on "I already did that." Like I said, you keep saying something without demonstrating it. Saying it over, and over without examples doesn't make it more true.

Because, Joshua, I have no need to do your homework for you. If you want to participate in a discussion, read through the posts and cull the information yourself. I won't itemize things I've repeated multiple times. I simply won't. I refuse. (Actually I don't, but read on.)

And I am tired of you playing the wounded rabbit. Indeed, you did say exactly what I quoted and accusing me of misreading you is your typical insult. You have no problem generalizing people's points as "strawmen" but when you are specifically called on such, quoted, and explained why the very specific quote is a strawman you cast dispersions. Again, you said:

Scott never indicated that, "a game can [not] be deconstructed at all" but you continue such exchanges. How is that statement even honest at all to what Scott has said?

Joshua, Scott's quote says he can look at things in separate, as long as you don't forget about their contribution to the whole. How do you conciliate that with a willingness to deconstruct a game's graphics?

He just said that he can't answer a very simple question about whether more resolution, on its own, is better than less resolution. It's not a trick question.

And that's again, misreading what I said. I said that if Scott is unwilling to concede that the criteria I gave can be analyzed in isolation then there's no point to this discussion. It's such a fundamental point of dissent that there can be no further argument. Even if I did mischaracterize what Scott said, I didn't argue against it, there was no attempt to tear the strawman down. I said that there's just no reconciliation between our opinions, they're too different. That was me agreeing to disagree.

Apologies if English isn't your first language, maybe that is your barrier. But addressing me constantly without my points and quotes isn't dialogue. The lack of technical examples in your posts as proof cases of relevance shows we are also talking after different technical levels of understanding. Essentially your plea doesn't even begin to address the complexity I see graphically. You see graphics as a handful of features--I see a single feature (like aliasing) is a robustly signfiicant hurdle that your suggestions inadequately address.

Joshua, the reason I don't address the technical issues directly is because what the actual details are is immaterial to the discussion at hand. All of these questions that I 'refuse' to respond are your attempts to change the subject to discredit me. But even then, I've given very simple examples: framerate, AA, resolution. All of these affect image quality very directly. I think, and I'm not the only one, that these things can be taken in isolation, can be weighed against each other and against the product itself. Scott, who I'm presently arguing with, disagrees, as I said above.

Maybe I'm unable to come up with a better set of criteria; that's quite possible, I personally do not care about graphics. My issue is with bad reviews. I'm not saying I have a set of criteria to analyze graphics; I'm saying that it's possible, and I've even given you examples that you have never responded to, such as what the Lens of Truth and Eurogamer do in their platform comparisons. The analysis in those could be ported to a single product review, without the console war angle, as part of something bigger.

Which is why when you say I'm not addressing your points, you're not being perfectly fair. I responded to all of your points at first, but then you started responding selectively, arguing around me rather than with me. It seemed like a waste of time to actually try and carry a discussion with you, which is why I'd rather focus on Scott.

I know English is your first language, so I have to wonder why you have misread my points so consistently. And by this little outburst and previous ones in this thread, it seems you're offended that I pointed out your fallacious arguments. I can't apologize for that, I can only suggest that you take more care when building your points.

Which is not to diminish the relevance of actually providing more information to relevant markets, only the entire exchange is self selecting, not objective, and flawed as it is based on false assumptions and lack of technical insight and would provide inconsistent results.

Only if you accept the slippery slope that each reviewer will pick and choose which criteria to grade games against, arbitrarily. If a publication establishes a fixed set of criteria according to what they find important (and force their reviewers to be able to do such analysis), we won't have any of these problems. And we'll have more information. As others have pointed out, all sorts of other markets have more detailed analysis than gaming and it's almost shameful.
 
The question you're asking me to answer is impossible for me to answer. I answered as best I could. I did leave out the situation where the game only allowed me to alter resolution, and nothing else. In that case I would pick the highest resolution I could that achieved a framerate that was acceptable to me for the type of game I was playing. Does that help?

Actually, at this point, I'm just saying that if we can't agree that resolution can be looked at in isolation, as a single criteria, there's no point in continuing this, there's just no reconciling our opinions.

Well, I don't treat reviews as gospel and never would, regardless of how much technical information they chose to include. I tend to watch gameplay videos because you're seeing what you'd actually play. Game demos are one of my favorite features of PSN and Live, because I like to try before I buy. The only way I'll ever know what a game is like, and how fun it might be to play is by actually playing it. Sure, if reviews provided more information, you might come to a different conclusion. But the actual usefulness of the information would impact the usefulness of your conclusion, which is the part Josh and I are disputing. You can throw all kinds of specs into any review, but whether they are actual relevant depends on the person and the product.

My objection, in general, is how low the signal-to-noise ratio is for game media. dobwal brought up great examples of how embarrassing it really is. The things you say help, but aren't universally available.
 
...
He just said that he can't answer a very simple question about whether more resolution, on its own, is better than less resolution. It's not a trick question.
...

It isn't a trick question, but I won't agree that it is simple to answer, which is why we're at an impasse.

But I have thought of another scenario, the only setting I can change is resolution and the game is frame rate locked so switching resolutions will not affect performance. In that case, I would set the resolution as high as my display would allow. Obviously this is minute corner case and also something I have never encountered.
 
The irony is that if we decide to hand out graphics related scores based on technical achievements, then even KZ2 may have to face a few penalties:
- no 60fps
- half-res particle rendering buffers
- occasional low-res textures
- not multiplatform

So what are the things that MW2 is lacking that require penalties?
Is the sub-HD resolution really such a thing, when the 720p games are actually the exception in this generation?
No SSAO maybe? We could argue that this implementation (the screen space fake) is more of a stylistic choice, having very little to do with realistic lighting. No GI? Is that a requirement for a 10 score? And MW2 does seem to have at least some kind of ambient lighting on everything as nothing's ever pitch black unless it's completely dark around the player.
I don't see much else to criticize, apart from the occasional unpolished asset, but that's something present in most other games as well.

And in the end we could still say that KZ2 got that 0.5 substracted for artistic choices that the reviewer did not appreciate, like, a relatively dull color palette, or lack of really large scale battles... And Uncharted 2 got a 10 from IGN anyway, so stop the platform defense force already :p
 
I keep hearing that sub-HD games are the minority, but a brief scan over the stickied thread in the tech forum doesn't seem that way. Has anyone actually counted the listed resolutions there? I'm pretty sure 60 fps games are the minority, though.

And to be perfectly, absolutely clear, I'm certainly not talking about KZ2 vs. MW2, much less their review scores. That's other people, who may not even be in this thread anymore.
 
I think that Digital Foundry's detailed features have pretty much solved the technical commentary issue, gone are the confusing comparisons that we've seen earlier in this gen. We can now read about resolutions, frame rates, texture filtering and other issues in detail and we can point anyone with misconceptions to the site.

Expecting every other website that produces reviews to perform the same in-depth analysis is both unfair and unnecessary. If any reviewer is still foolish enough to publish false information, or simply just wrong impressions, about which version of a multiplatform game is faster or sharper, then the community will fill his mailbox with the appropriate links immediately. But I'd expect everyone to try to be highly cautious about this issue, now that they have someone to be measured up to.

Scores for graphics should still remain to be an evaluation of the overall impression that the game has created in the reviewer, IMHO.
 
Completed the campaign last night and I still stand by my previous argument that the graphics does not deserve anything above a 9. Technically speaking the game almost seldom renders any next gen effects such as advanced shaders, HDR, deferred rendering, object based motion blur, SSAO, parallaxmapping, lens flare, advanced physics and animation blend, being subHD doesn't help neither. At least from what I observed and can perceive. There's not even any artistic merits to be praised for neither, everything looked generic and uninspired. So what's the deal? I think it got a perfect score mainly due to the fast action sequence, well staged setpieces, the nature of Hollywood action movie themed style and of course the title itself. I enjoyed it for what it's worth coz the later missions were indeed fun, but when there are games that look vastly superior and didn't receive a 10, you know just how flawed the media has become.
 
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