The Nature of Reviews (ME, GTA4, TH etc)

[NRP]

This is a rather silly sub-thread in my opinion.

Games should be reviewed and scored as they are shipped. Publishers/Developers should be punished for shipping a game before it's ready. Although this is common practice for PC games, it is not for console games. Personally, I don't want console games to follow PC games in this regard.

I really don't see how there can be any rationalization for shipping unfinished console games (or unfinished PC games for that matter).

 

[RobertR1]

This is a rather silly sub-thread in my opinion.

Games should be reviewed and scored as they are shipped. Publishers/Developers should be punished for shipping a game before it's ready. Although this is common practice for PC games, it is not for console games. Personally, I don't want console games to follow PC games in this regard.

I really don't see how there can be any rationalization for shipping unfinished console games (or unfinished PC games for that matter).

There can't be and the reviewers are right for scoring them based off that. However, the burden then sits with the developer to take notice and address the issues.

Still, I expect a RPG to be more "buggy" than a linear FPS or action game due to the much greater complexity of testing such a game.

The developers who are on top of such bugs and work actively to address them are the ones who seperate themselves from the pack, in my eyes.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

Games should be reviewed and scored as they are shipped. Publishers/Developers should be punished for shipping a game before it's ready. Although this is common practice for PC games, it is not for console games. Personally, I don't want console games to follow PC games in this regard.

That too, rationalizing the notion that assuming a patch will fix everything on the basis of "patches are common nowadays -- everything has a post-release patch to fix problems." Doesn't that say that it's become common for games to be released in an unfinished and bug-ridden state? There's no twisted logic you could use to suggest that that's a good thing.

 

[Asher]

Patches aren't going away on consoles. While it's nice to reminisce about the good old days when games were bug-free, those days are gone. Games today are far bigger and far more complicated with far more business (publisher) intervention than before. Games are going to be released, and they're going to have bugs. I'd much rather have a mechanism to correct bugs as they crop up than not.

As long as the game patches are as seamless and tiny like they are on the 360, I've no major complaints. I think it's time reviewers acknowledge that patches do exist. They can either always keep an up to date review pertaining to the latest version, or they can not base their review and score off of bugs in the game as it launched. Anything else is unfair to the game and to the community.

Not to flog a dead horse, but what if the Orange Box review for TF2 said TF2 was unplayable online due to lag and was never updated or mention of a patch to fix it was nver made? That would completely turn me off from buying it a year down the road if I was a new console buyer. Little would I know the game worked perfectly fine, and all of those 5/10, 6/10 reviews would be useless and even misleading...

 

[swaaye]

I just picked the game up today and spent a few hours with it. I haven't read any reviews at all yet. What I've played so far has been really breathtaking and refreshing though. It's like a really slick retake on their classic RPG gameplay style set in a quite visually impressive universe. The approach they've taken with virtual actors and scenes is really interesting to me and immersive..

I did run into a bug where I got stuck for a moment while walking, but I just crouched and got "unstuck". That happened only once in my play time and it had no effect on playability. Combat is interesting and is reminiscent of Gears to me. I think it has potential to become much more interesting than Gears though. We'll see....

As of right now, I am not disappointed at all with what I've played. It doesn't seem particularly bug-ridden. Certainly nothing to go on some crusade over....

 

[zed]

I think it's time reviewers acknowledge that patches do exist. They can either always keep an up to date review pertaining to the latest version, or they can not base their review and score off of bugs in the game as it launched. Anything else is unfair to the game and to the community.

unfair!!!!
if youre man enuf to release a buggy game early then u should be man enuf to take a bad review cause of it.
u want reviewers to make assumptions about how the game may be (after a patch or three), ie crystalball gaze.

 

[Daozang]

I agree on score reevaluation if a patch that adresses the issues a game has is released. And that in the line of "Patch v.xxx has been released, should you apply, it will correct said issues".
But evaluation of a game on the assumption that it will be patched and that the patch will be perfect. is IMO unproffessional.
Besides, for many players, the game will stay unpatched. It's good to know that there is one, but without the means to apply it, I guess you are stuck with what you bought and by the way, what you bought, should work the minute you did.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I agree on score reevaluation if a patch that adresses the issues a game has is released. And that in the line of "Patch v.xxx has been released, should you apply, it will correct said issues".

The problem there is the time. Imagine having to review dozens of games you've already reviewed, along with all the new titles you have to review. Notices that a patch improves things make sense, but rescoring don't IMO. If you enter a marathon with a cold and come mid-pack where you could have won, they don't award you first-prize once your cold has cleared up. If you apply for a job and get turned down only because of your scruffy appearance, you don't land the position the moment you tell them you've got yourself a suit. The score should be a measure of what you are getting the moment you part with your money. If that improves over time, great, but we can't measure the future.

 

[Daozang]

The problem there is the time. Imagine having to review dozens of games you've already reviewed, along with all the new titles you have to review. Notices that a patch improves things make sense, but rescoring don't IMO. If you enter a marathon with a cold and come mid-pack where you could have won, they don't award you first-prize once your cold has cleared up. If you apply for a job and get turned down only because of your scruffy appearance, you don't land the position the moment you tell them you've got yourself a suit. The score should be a measure of what you are getting the moment you part with your money. If that improves over time, great, but we can't measure the future.

You are right, it can be time consuming. I'm not saying that it's easy, I'm saying that I prefer that, instead of basing the review on the assumption that everything will be fixed with a patch. Especially when not everyone will be able to apply it.

Besides, reviewing games is not like giving score to a race. It's very subjective.:smile:
I think that because of it's subjective nature, the reviewer should stick to the facts. And those facts, like you said, do not include possibilities. You can mention them but not judge by them. If on the other hand the possibilites do come true, then a rescore is not a bad thing IMO.

 

[Silent]

This is one of those reasons that I stopped reading reviews. It doesn't make sense anymore. If it was another game (or maybe another platform) their reaction would be different. I even would bet my life on it.

I don't think it's a complot or bias but just pressure from publishers. There goes allot of money in advertising. You wouldn't want to upset some advertisers... .

I've known a local succesfull company that published a website (even had a television show) that after a couple of bad reviews had allot of trouble securing review material from some publishers, stopped advertising, etc.

 

[-tkf-]

I've known a local succesfull company that published a website (even had a television show) that after a couple of bad reviews had allot of trouble securing review material from some publishers, stopped advertising, etc.

A guy that reviewed games in a non gaming magazine was told that all the games that got a certain score was his to keep while the others would have to be returned. As a consequence a game really had to suck to be judged real bad.

 

[JPT]

Not to flog a dead horse, but what if the Orange Box review for TF2 said TF2 was unplayable online due to lag and was never updated or mention of a patch to fix it was nver made? That would completely turn me off from buying it a year down the road if I was a new console buyer. Little would I know the game worked perfectly fine, and all of those 5/10, 6/10 reviews would be useless and even misleading...

But why is that the consumers concern? I mean if the developer/publisher wants the game to sell, they need to deliver a product the consumer wants and can use.
And if the product they have on the shelf in the store is not up to scratch I want to know that and they should be "punished" for it.
I do not want to pay them to finish their product so I can enjoy what I was supposed to enjoy from the start.

Next step is, well we made this game and there where bugs, but so few people bought it, so we wont bother with patching it.

 

[deepbrown]

I'm not sure what Edge have to say...but their scores here are interesting... http://www.ripten.com/2007/11/21/edge-scores-christmas-edition-smg-uncharted-mass-effect-and-more/

 

[RobertR1]

I'm not sure what Edge have to say...but their scores here are interesting... http://www.ripten.com/2007/11/21/edge-scores-christmas-edition-smg-uncharted-mass-effect-and-more/

I'm more interested in how "Bladestorm" score an 8!

 

[deepbrown]

I'm more interested in how "Bladestorm" score an 8!

Yeah weird. I would've said a 6 :/ that demo was shite.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

Patches aren't going away on consoles. While it's nice to reminisce about the good old days when games were bug-free, those days are gone. Games today are far bigger and far more complicated with far more business (publisher) intervention than before. Games are going to be released, and they're going to have bugs.

Certainly not on anything I work on...

As long as the game patches are as seamless and tiny like they are on the 360, I've no major complaints. I think it's time reviewers acknowledge that patches do exist. They can either always keep an up to date review pertaining to the latest version, or they can not base their review and score off of bugs in the game as it launched. Anything else is unfair to the game and to the community.

It's also every bit as unfair if not more so to take it into account selectively, which is in fact the case. It's also not a very good idea to try to take something into account that you don't fully understand. That will lead to mistakes. There will be just as many cases of something that they *think* can be fixed by a patch that won't be as there are things that they think cannot be fixed by a patch that very easily are. And in that respect, the most obvious thing is to simply revise the results after a patch is out. That at least doesn't require knowledge on the part of the reviewers that they'll never have.

Not to flog a dead horse, but what if the Orange Box review for TF2 said TF2 was unplayable online due to lag and was never updated or mention of a patch to fix it was nver made? That would completely turn me off from buying it a year down the road if I was a new console buyer. Little would I know the game worked perfectly fine, and all of those 5/10, 6/10 reviews would be useless and even misleading...

Where is it the reviewers responsibility to be apologetic for developers and publishers rushing a game out before it's ready? If the game has problems, the game has problems. If they're fixable, that's fine, but that's not the same as already fixed, and therefore they should never be treated as one and the same. If a game like TF2 never had any problems and it was given a 9.5/10... fine. If the score was revised to 9.5/10 after the patch came out and fixed all the problems the first time around... great. If they assume a patch will fix such and such problems and decide to defer giving the game a score until then... fine. But assuming that a fix is almost certain to come and saying "well, since it's coming, we'll just pretend that's the same thing as there not being any problems at all so... ummm... pre-emptive Game of The Year!"

It may not be easy on the part of the reviewers, but that's just too bad for them. It's a lot better than relying on them to be abreast of things that are light-years beyond their depth. If it was the developer's job to make life easy for reviewers, then there wouldn't be any patches in the first place. And if a few games have to suffer for it, then that's the price of dropping the ball for whatever reason.

 

[dubyateeeff]

<snip>

Trust me, you are wrong. And all though you may not like my arguments now I will address them later on in a patch/edit.

 

[Akumajou]

This is one of those reasons that I stopped reading reviews. It doesn't make sense anymore. If it was another game (or maybe another platform) their reaction would be different. I even would bet my life on it.

I don't think it's a complot or bias but just pressure from publishers. There goes allot of money in advertising. You wouldn't want to upset some advertisers... .

I've known a local succesfull company that published a website (even had a television show) that after a couple of bad reviews had allot of trouble securing review material from some publishers, stopped advertising, etc.

The problem with the reviews is that in the ever widening influence of the internet and magazines and tv channels/programs that focus on videogaming a much larger audience is being influenced into what to think reguarding a videogame product.

The mainstream buying joe/jane will not analyse and re-read a review, they will just hear:

"Heavenly Sword is a six hour game with no online multiplayer"

"Lair is uncontrollable and buggy"

"MassEffect will run better with a patch and the bugs can be overlooked"

"Uncharted: Drakes Fortune does not have $60 dollar legs"

I could go on but I'm sure others can bring in more to add and I personally am very disappointed with the game reviewer's coments reguarding a patch fix for a console game as a way to forgive bugs that can disrupt your gaming experience.

However my main point was that as per Mass Effect, Bioware had to have had more than the two whole years of game development that the XBox 360 has been out in retail life, that combined with another topic reguarding reported game dev difficulties when working on the PS3 version with many "multi platform" game devs claiming that its too much work to make a game on one console, being the PS3 and "everything just works" when you make the game on the XBox 360 and then MassEffect gets retail launch with technical bugs???

Bioware can definetly be considered to despite making a console exclusive, to not be newbies to game development.

Basically Bioware, or at least in my mind since I own these games myself, has already made the award winning Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic back in 2003 and later focused on making Jade Empire for 2005 on the old XBox that was powered by a mere single core Intel Pentium III 733Mhz CPU, Nvidia Nv2A 233Mhz GPU and 64MB of Unified memory plus including the fact that although exclusive, they were using Microsoft dev tools then and two years later a console that packs three 3.2Ghz (3,200Mhz) IBM CPU, 512MB of UMA and the ATI unified shader GPU plus the fact that they must be using more advanced MS dev tools and I as a consumer expect far less bugs and issues with the final game, I mean is it too much to ask or do I just have to start to believe that something is seriously wrong and worst of all some game reviewers who hold influence over consumers are sweeping bugs under the forgiveness rug???

And its not just one game, Blue Dragon comes to mind for me and I know Artoon helped in development yet despite them having Blinx 1 and 2 under their belt on XBox, Blue Dragon has frame rate issues.

I mean I can start to see this easier to develop game platform line is filled with BS, since neither is troublefree, I just want to know the real intentions of the people saying that, but that is a different topic.

 

[archangelmorph]

It may very well just be that the bugs don't impact the game enough to warrant it to reflect this in the reviews?

Blue Dragon certainly comes to mind as, whilst the game certainly has framerate issues, the overall apce and style of the game (JRPG) lends itself well to helping you not conveniently forgive them, but forget about them since there impact on gameplay is severely minor..

Had the game have been a fast paced FPS however then my attitude towards this would have been alot different..


In the end I don't think it's fair however when many reviewers can slate one game they didn't expect to be the cream of the crop for minor performance issues, but when it's a title they've been cheerleading since it's inception they are more than happy to ignore them..

Above all & whatever you decide as a reviewer you wish to use to rate games, I just wish some integrity and impatiality could be implored to help maintain a consistent review schema..

 

[Jon Brittan]

Surely the reality has to fall somewhere between most of the comments.

We have to accept that console games (at least on 360 and PS3, can they on Wii?) can and will be patched...

Games should be marked down for patchable faults, but not as heavily as they would be were the problem unfixable, as you should be able to assume the problem will be fixed, but it is still a problem out of the box.

So, let's have an example where we have a candidate game which, in pure form, is a clear 10/10 and we have two consoles, console A which is patchable and console B which is not...

Review:

No Problems: ConsoleA 10/10; ConsoleB 10/10
Minor graphical glitch: ConsoleA 9/10; ConsoleB 8/10
Some story elements broken: ConsoleA 8/10; ConsoleB 6/10
Controls broken: ConsoleA 6/10; ConsoleB 3/10

I think it is only fair to criticise a game for any failings it may have, but it can certainly be compensated and not considered as big a flaw as long as it can be reasonably expected to be patched... I think that, the final example certainly, some examples could do with a little explanation as once the controls are fixed on ConsoleA a 6/10 for what could then be a 10/10 would need mitigation, but if it is exceptionally difficult to play out of the box then it deserves relatively harsh criticism.
I certainly also think that a game that has patchable problems should not be as harshly judged as one that does not. Assuming the Wii cannot patch disk based games, taking Bioshock and Mario Galaxy as two 10/10 games, would it be fair if both games had broken control schemes, yet Bioshock was going to get a patch to fix it, for them to receive the same score if we can reasonably expect one to soon be in 10/10 form and the other to never be? At the very least they should get the same low score, but Bioshock should then be written up to state that with a patch it would be 10/10 instead...