Slashdot Mirror

The public that I speak is the people who won't read a review, but just look at a score. These are the reason reviews can even be considered "obsolete". The fact that when people say "how is XXX" and you tell them, they are getting a review is lost on them. Instead from a review most times they look for a number and so on.

Personally I choose to read IGN's reviews because they not only have numbers but they're willing to show you where their 9.1 came from, then you can decide if those are factors you care or don't care enough about to get the game.

But because of those people who only care about the 9.1 or the 8.5 or the 5.0 is why reviews seem worthless.

The other problem is people who don't realize 5.0 is NOT an average score. If I give a 9.1 and 8.5 and a 5.0 to three different games the 8.5 is closer to an average score. http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/sites.asp gives the average scores for publications, yet most people don't even look at this. There's always someone who claims a 7.0 is a good score because it's above the average score and it just shows how little people think when they read a review.

http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/launchrev iew.asp?reviewid=714357

Not because I own an NGage, but because I'm sure it made at least one of the five guys who own one very happy. (I can talk of course, my Tapwave Zodiac has Warfare, Inc, and I'm still only playing the shareware version....)

Too many FPS games get so caught up in their own little world that they forget about making the experience fun. I recently beat Doom III (three years late, I know) and one word best describes it: boring. Sure, the weapons and environments (Mars, hell) are damn awesome, but the actual gameplay is monotonous and contrived. I actually turned on God Mode just so I could beat the game faster...

This is starting to veer off topic, but...

If you go to http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/sites.asp , you can see what the average review grade is for each game review site.

Sure; the occasional review may be biased or paid off, but you'll know to stay away from the sites that continually give unrealistically high ratings. (For the record -- and I was a bit surprised about this -- most of the major sites seem to sit in the middle).

Yes Zonk, there are games on the PSP, with more rated 8/10 by Gamerankings than the DS, in fact.

(This coming from someone who has a DS and no plans to get a PSP anytime soon)

Links don't really work... if you can't take my word for it that the current score is 30-26, pick DS or PSP as the console, and allow at least 40 results. I used a minimum vote count of 20.

Yes Zonk, there are games on the PSP, with more rated 8/10 by Gamerankings than the DS, in fact.

(This coming from someone who has a DS and no plans to get a PSP anytime soon)

Links don't really work... if you can't take my word for it that the current score is 30-26, pick DS or PSP as the console, and allow at least 40 results. I used a minimum vote count of 20.

I use http://www.gamerankings.com/ they're way better than those annoying review sites like IGN or Gamespy. They compile the scores from all the various review websites (like IGN or Gamespy) in an easily readable format. It's by far the best site for game reviews, you can see what all the different review sites are saying in one place, and find user reviews, etc..

See the gamerankings page for Dark Messiah

Avg Ratio: 74%
    Based On 43 Media Outlets

I use http://www.gamerankings.com/ they're way better than those annoying review sites like IGN or Gamespy. They compile the scores from all the various review websites (like IGN or Gamespy) in an easily readable format. It's by far the best site for game reviews, you can see what all the different review sites are saying in one place, and find user reviews, etc..

See the gamerankings page for Dark Messiah

Avg Ratio: 74%
    Based On 43 Media Outlets

There's a review at http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/launchrev iew.asp?reviewid=194383 but its fun from the freeform concept, you can either be a freelance pilot or follow a mission-based career.

2. Gears of War (Xbox 360) - Believe the hype.

Believe the hype? Give me a break. Hasn't this games 15 minutes run out yet? Seriously, this wildly overrated game has been overhyped to fucking hell and back, which is probably the only way it's been noticed. It's just kill.switch with a fancy graphics patch. Epic probably had this game finished months ago but knew that it would need a late year release to scoop the GoTY awards because any earlier and people would have forgotten it by then. They would do well to start hyping the sequel asap.

Oftentimes the show of a game's greatness isn't by someone's top 10 list or whatever, but for how long people can accept it. The Ocarina of Time is a great example of this.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess has found it way to #14 (though it was once #3) on game rankings: http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/simplerat ings.asp
Indeed, it is the only 2006 game on the top 20.

Anyone who has played those games knows they deserve to be on that list, but more often than not, they fail to be mentioned. Metroid: Prime has eluded many (though not all) game of the year awards simply because it was supposed to be an absolute train wreck.

According to Gamerankings.com Zelda: Twilight Princess is the 6th highest rated game of the last 2 generations from an average of all reviewers. Next highest of any of the new consoles is gears of war at #16.

I suppose that doesn't make it a "big game".

If you trust metareview sites, such as GameRankings, then Elebits appears to be a decent game, averaging about 71% at the time of this posting. Not a 5-star title by any means, but around the 3 to 4-star mark.

So far, when you actually look at the Wii and PS3 and xBox360 titles available in the US, it looks like the Wii has a stable of 4 and 5 rated games, the xBox360 is middle of the road (with barely as many total 4 and 5 games as the just-released Wii), and the PS3 is well, just not up to it, with only one decent game to speak of, and a lot of really glitchy but nice-looking games to round it out.

Going by ratings, assuming that Resistance: Fall of Man ( the highest-rated PS3 game ) is 100% fun, you'd actually have 4.494% more fun with Grim Fandango than with the PS3. ;)

( 89 vs 93 average score. )

Going by ratings, assuming that Resistance: Fall of Man ( the highest-rated PS3 game ) is 100% fun, you'd actually have 4.494% more fun with Grim Fandango than with the PS3. ;)

( 89 vs 93 average score. )

The current list of best-rated Wii games puts a pure 2D game at #3, just behind the latest Zelda and Madden offerings. While it's just a remake of the DS game, the stylus-to-wiimote conversion works surprisingly well - in fact, it's the best use of the Wii's motion sensing capabilities I've tried yet. In short, no. I think it's been long enough that there's no reason a game that only needs two-dimensional graphics should be forced to add a useless third one.

http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/920500.asp

I thought Zelda was *very* good, but I think the controls turned out a bit... awkward, for lack of a better word. I think they worked quite well, but it never felt really natural. Also, it's honestly time for some voice acting Zelda. All in all a fantastic game though!

As a general rule 'Most' suck. Fine, but Zelda rocks, and there are other exceptions...

You (and your friends) seem to be in the minorty.

Fastest Selling 360 Game
#3 Most Popular Game
9.4/10
9.6/10

I thought that the nunchuck was ussed to shiled bash in Z:TP

I meant that I think it uses the 'farkin good chase cam' method.

It was one of the reviews here: http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/928519.asp
Though last I looked there were only 4 reviews. There was one that made a single comment about how you couldn't change the camera but it didn't matter, and none of the others I read mentioned the camera at all. I think forgetting to mention the camera is the best praise for a camera that you could have.

Dono, I would like to hear about the controll set up. Well, actualy I would like to have a copy, but that probably will nto be happenign to soon

Frankly, I'm betting that the Wii's greater launch supply will let me get one at my leisure. If not, oh well. ;_;

Call it a hunch, but it's probably because it's flamebait.

There are a core of people out on the Internet who have mindless launched onto the "it plays itself" meme and trash the game at every possible moment, despite the fact that it's received universely positive reviews.

Anyone who's been paying any attention is well aware that it does not, in fact, OMG PLAY ITSELF!!11!!111!111111 any more than World of Warcraft "plays itself" because your character auto-attacks instead of requiring a click per attack ala Diablo II.

So, yes, the GP post is in fact flamebait. Has the GP poster ever actually played the game? Saying you played the preview demo that came with DQ8 DOES NOT COUNT since the demo barely showed anything off and was an early gameplay preview, NOT a full-fledged game demo.

Seriously, read the TON of absolutely glowing reviews about the game - almost none of them indicate that the game plays itself. It automates certain actions, but that's hardly a new thing.

Unless you've actually played the game, you have no right to be claiming it "plays itself".

UMD? why?

Because 1.8 gig flash cards are kinda expensive? The format was lame for movies mainly because of pricing and release choices (studios releasing romantic comedies, for instance...) but for games it gave tons of space for relatively cheap, and once developers got the hang of streaming load screens were usually nonexistent after the game loaded up the first time (plus the console goes into standby when shutting off so if you come back to the same game the next time you play you avoid this).

what games does it have?

At http://www.gamerankings.com/, the psp has 28 titles above 80%. The ds has 24. Both have 11 above 85%. Most people consider the ds to have a great library, but conveniently dismiss the psp without actually *gasp* looking at facts. Personally I think they both have solid games and I enjoy them both for different types of games.

Of course the games aren't a substitute for real life, but while you would be learning close to nothing about racing from the latest NFS, or about flying from Crimson Skies, you could learn a lot of relevant information from GTR2 and Falcon 4. Now, GH is completly different from the above two categories because it's just fucking retarded - you're pressing the buttons as they light up on screen! Wow, what a novel concept, and about as fun as the dancing minigames in Larry, Pirates!, Stubbs, and a shitload of other games.

Of course the games aren't a substitute for real life, but while you would be learning close to nothing about racing from the latest NFS, or about flying from Crimson Skies, you could learn a lot of relevant information from GTR2 and Falcon 4. Now, GH is completly different from the above two categories because it's just fucking retarded - you're pressing the buttons as they light up on screen! Wow, what a novel concept, and about as fun as the dancing minigames in Larry, Pirates!, Stubbs, and a shitload of other games.

Mediocre? The few reviews I've read had mostly good things to say about this title raiting it in the 80s and some in the 90s. I haven't played it myself so I can't say for certain, but several of my friends have purchased it already and have raved about it... I lost interested in the MK series when the went 3D (I've been playing a lot of UMK3 in the Xbox Live Arcade though). However I must say that the ability to create a character that looks just like Jack Thompson as definitely made me interested... Perhaps I'll pick this title up. If midway didn't hire JT to market this game, they sould at least stend him some cookies, I'm sure they'll make money off of this.

It can be useful to look at especially if some site has a weird rating system, or Nintendo or Sony buy a good review. Naturally you still have to read reviews to see if the game appeals to you but these site help there too since you have links to dozens of reviews all within a single page.

Now all that's missing is a sequel to The Lost Vikings :D

They did that already
The Lost Vikings II review

Looks like the reviews are giving it pretty good marks. Though the screenshots look pretty pedestrian compared to most games. Maybe the Sims crowd will like it.

...but Clover was overrated. Okami is brilliant, but Viewtiful Joe was overhyped to the point of pain, and its sequels were mediocre to foul. Now God Hand is getting 70%. This is a studio that will be remembered for one game.

I suppose we can commence comparing them to Origin, Square-Enix, Sierra, VALVe, Maxis, iD, and Nintendo now.

...but Clover was overrated. Okami is brilliant, but Viewtiful Joe was overhyped to the point of pain, and its sequels were mediocre to foul. Now God Hand is getting 70%. This is a studio that will be remembered for one game.

I suppose we can commence comparing them to Origin, Square-Enix, Sierra, VALVe, Maxis, iD, and Nintendo now.

...but Clover was overrated. Okami is brilliant, but Viewtiful Joe was overhyped to the point of pain, and its sequels were mediocre to foul. Now God Hand is getting 70%. This is a studio that will be remembered for one game.

I suppose we can commence comparing them to Origin, Square-Enix, Sierra, VALVe, Maxis, iD, and Nintendo now.

Is gears of war suddenly so important that Slashdot is publishing links to pre-previews as some sort of scoop?

Well, Gears of War is supposed to be this year's Halo. While it has a competent team behind it (CliffyB!), I'm starting to think maybe it's been overhyped and will never live up to expectations.

Does anybody remember Brute Force? It was supposed to be 2003's Halo, got overhyped, and ended up as yet another mediocre third-person shooter that nobody remembers. To me, Gears of War looks like it's shaping up to be Brute Force rather than Halo. Hopefully the rest of the holiday titles will keep the 360 afloat if Gears of War can't. (sigh ... and I so wanted Forza 2 for the holiday. Have to wait until next year, now.)

I'm always suspicious on game review-sites that they enhance the rating of games from money-spending advertisers.

Especially when rubbish like Enter the Matrix sells tons of carts regardless of actual review scores.

There's a hardcore segment out there that scrutinizes every scrap of information, for sure, but most games are still purchased by Grandma and Grandpa for little Joey because of the title, genre, or franchise, not because of an aggregate score somewhere in cyberspace.

The best 'top X games of all time' site is GameRankings. You can sort by user votes or by reviews from magazines. The only problem is that 'all time' only goes back as far as 'N64' as that is when they started parsing reviews. Still worth a look though as it does not have 30 pages of adverts and is quite a nice search engine.

I swear I saw this, somewhere else already.,

• a great programmer and level designer (http://www.idsoftware.com/);
• an average game designer (Daikatana); and
• a really bad manager (Ion Storm).

Really? That doesn't sound right to me. I guess there were no sequels before now.

Really? That doesn't sound right to me. I guess there were no sequels before now.

Really? That doesn't sound right to me. I guess there were no sequels before now.

Really? That doesn't sound right to me. I guess there were no sequels before now.

Really? That doesn't sound right to me. I guess there were no sequels before now.

Really? That doesn't sound right to me. I guess there were no sequels before now.

Really? That doesn't sound right to me. I guess there were no sequels before now.

Really? That doesn't sound right to me. I guess there were no sequels before now.

Really? That doesn't sound right to me. I guess there were no sequels before now.

Really? That doesn't sound right to me. I guess there were no sequels before now.

Really? That doesn't sound right to me. I guess there were no sequels before now.