Slashdot Mirror

The last realistic effort, although fun to play, wasn't really fun to watch. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask represent a big step back in the Zelda graphics. Wind Waker is great, it's a 3D Link to the Past!

Link to the Past is my favourite Zelda game, as I think it represents a good balance. All the GBA and GBC (even the original GB Zelda verison) sport the graphics design of LTTP. Only the N64 ones are bad. Unspurisingly, despite me owning several copies (N64 carts + the GC bonus disc versions), they're the only Zelda games I haven't beaten.

I bet you like FF7 more than FF6, too, just because it was 3D.

I'm pretty curious about this one and I haven't seen many reviews about it. Would you mind doing a bit of a writeup about it?

Well I would, but apparently expressing a positive opinion about some random, recently released game is a definite no-no on Slashdot. One must winge, grumble and bear grudges indefinitely - cynicism and paranoia are the only acceptable behaviours!

...

Ahem!

But anyway, there's a couple of reviews on Gamerankings and there's the demo for download somewhere. I imagine it's a bit of an acquired taste - there's an interesting article from Edge magazine explaining in part why the game's so utterly peculiar.

I think I'd better shut up now, lest anyone accuses me of yet more dodgy activities... ;-)

However, sometimes these tastes do diverge - I LOVED MTG: Battlegrounds.

However, sometimes these tastes do diverge - I LOVED MTG: Battlegrounds.

And don't forget Hit and Run... though nothing can compare to the old favourites like Virtual Bart.

Of course, on the flipside there was...

But wasn't ...Halo 2 received with a collossal "meh"?
It really wasn't. It also still remains the most popular Xbox Live game even now, so it obviously has some longevity.

I would agree that it was hardly a perfect game, but it's crazy to suggest that most players were unhappy with it.

It got an 80% with IGN giving it a 8.4. The graphics look pretty realistic check the screenshot here.

It got an 80% with IGN giving it a 8.4. The graphics look pretty realistic check the screenshot here.

Something like this already exists It'd be maked up of a democracy people's opinion's.

I read multiple reviews for their scores, from Game Rankings, etc. These various sources tell me if the games are good to people or not in an overall picture.

Sites like game rankings give you the review numbers from a number of sites. Given that you get a fairly good idea of where a game sits. For films movies does the same for films. Given that and active reviewers on the site gives you a fair idea of what is good.

Knowing your reviewers is the other way to get good information. If you regularly read a particular reviewer you'll get a good idea about what they like and what they don't like. This is easier with films than games, but still possible.

Reviews are definitely subjective, but are still a useful way to make your money and time go further and if a bit of thought is used are well worth looking at.

Technology-dependent things like video games and special-effects-laden movies need to be compared with things from their own era, never the present. So the fact that you find it lacking today says something about today's games, but it might say absolutely nothing about its actualy quality relative to other games at the time it was released.

Example: Star Wars is unarguably a classic trilogy and one of the first great multi-film epics. But there aren't many people under 18 who actually think the original Star Wars movies are worth watching. (Please don't flame if you are and do, because I said "not many", not "none". Plus we are all nerds here, and so not a representative sample.) But its lack of appreciation today says nothing about it's significance back when it came out.

P.S. The original Tomb Raider was largely well-rated, and more recently made 1up.com's Essential 50.

I played this game for a while. It has a lot of depth and it solves the BIGGEST problem in MMORPG - namely idiots with a lot of time can dominate you. With this game, intelligence counts for a lot - namely your ability to do tetris-style puzzles.

It also has a lot of teamwork - you need to work together to get a ship from port to port. It also has a big time element - it takes time to build new swords, to buy a new ship, etc.

Or if you want, you can just stand in the town center and duel people for money.

The GameBoy used to get 2D Mario games, but they've since moved to calling them 'Wario Land'. One of them does exist on the GBA. Damn good series, too, that first Wario Land game I linked to is one of my favorites on a portable. Also, I've always enjoyed more of good things, so I don't mind sequels or ports/remakes one bit.

The GameBoy used to get 2D Mario games, but they've since moved to calling them 'Wario Land'. One of them does exist on the GBA. Damn good series, too, that first Wario Land game I linked to is one of my favorites on a portable. Also, I've always enjoyed more of good things, so I don't mind sequels or ports/remakes one bit.

The GameBoy used to get 2D Mario games, but they've since moved to calling them 'Wario Land'. One of them does exist on the GBA. Damn good series, too, that first Wario Land game I linked to is one of my favorites on a portable. Also, I've always enjoyed more of good things, so I don't mind sequels or ports/remakes one bit.

because devs and Nokia were finally starting to realise the platforms potential.

When they were treating it like a mini Playstation 1 at the start, trying to make it run thru 3D hoops it clearly didn't want to, the games were slow and ungainly, and just downright bad. Not to mention the launch lineup was terrible and betrayed their complete lack of understanding of where the game industry is at at the moment.

Tomb Raider? gimme a break. the comic is more impressive than the latest few Tomb Raider games, and Lara Croft has becoming less a gaming icon and more a warning sign that the people you are dealing with are about 2-3 years behind the times gaming wise.

It's only lately, a good year plus after the platform was released that they are finally starting to realise it's potential and starting to tailor the games to the phone, instead of trying to tailor the games to what they think people want while paying no heed to the what the hardware itself is capable of.

One of the latest games, Pathway to Glory is the first game in what appears to be a developing trend of Nokia, or whoever is responsible for selecting games to be ported/developed, of realising that the games have to suit the platform, not the ideal. And with other games of late (Pocket Kingdoms, X-Men Legends, Worms World Party) showing the same logical thinking behind developing for the platform, things are not necessarily looking up, but at least looking better.

And besides, those bastards managed to buy the Rifts licence before anyone thought to pick it up, so I have to stick with the console.

And last but not least, it's actually a very good phone in it's own right. I almost guarantee that the all the people that constantly dump shit on it have either been crying about that initial admittedly pathic oversight of having the game cart behind the battery, or have never actually touched the phone at all. All told, ignoring the terrible games library that's only now slowly improving, the phone itself isn't that bad, and was very cheap for such a featured filled phone.

If it's canned I won't miss it (it's not like I really own it for games anyway although a purchase of Pathway to Glory is looking very likely), but if it's canned now, just as it was starting to show some promise, I'll be honestly disappointed.

because devs and Nokia were finally starting to realise the platforms potential.

When they were treating it like a mini Playstation 1 at the start, trying to make it run thru 3D hoops it clearly didn't want to, the games were slow and ungainly, and just downright bad. Not to mention the launch lineup was terrible and betrayed their complete lack of understanding of where the game industry is at at the moment.

Tomb Raider? gimme a break. the comic is more impressive than the latest few Tomb Raider games, and Lara Croft has becoming less a gaming icon and more a warning sign that the people you are dealing with are about 2-3 years behind the times gaming wise.

It's only lately, a good year plus after the platform was released that they are finally starting to realise it's potential and starting to tailor the games to the phone, instead of trying to tailor the games to what they think people want while paying no heed to the what the hardware itself is capable of.

One of the latest games, Pathway to Glory is the first game in what appears to be a developing trend of Nokia, or whoever is responsible for selecting games to be ported/developed, of realising that the games have to suit the platform, not the ideal. And with other games of late (Pocket Kingdoms, X-Men Legends, Worms World Party) showing the same logical thinking behind developing for the platform, things are not necessarily looking up, but at least looking better.

And besides, those bastards managed to buy the Rifts licence before anyone thought to pick it up, so I have to stick with the console.

And last but not least, it's actually a very good phone in it's own right. I almost guarantee that the all the people that constantly dump shit on it have either been crying about that initial admittedly pathic oversight of having the game cart behind the battery, or have never actually touched the phone at all. All told, ignoring the terrible games library that's only now slowly improving, the phone itself isn't that bad, and was very cheap for such a featured filled phone.

If it's canned I won't miss it (it's not like I really own it for games anyway although a purchase of Pathway to Glory is looking very likely), but if it's canned now, just as it was starting to show some promise, I'll be honestly disappointed.

because devs and Nokia were finally starting to realise the platforms potential.

When they were treating it like a mini Playstation 1 at the start, trying to make it run thru 3D hoops it clearly didn't want to, the games were slow and ungainly, and just downright bad. Not to mention the launch lineup was terrible and betrayed their complete lack of understanding of where the game industry is at at the moment.

Tomb Raider? gimme a break. the comic is more impressive than the latest few Tomb Raider games, and Lara Croft has becoming less a gaming icon and more a warning sign that the people you are dealing with are about 2-3 years behind the times gaming wise.

It's only lately, a good year plus after the platform was released that they are finally starting to realise it's potential and starting to tailor the games to the phone, instead of trying to tailor the games to what they think people want while paying no heed to the what the hardware itself is capable of.

One of the latest games, Pathway to Glory is the first game in what appears to be a developing trend of Nokia, or whoever is responsible for selecting games to be ported/developed, of realising that the games have to suit the platform, not the ideal. And with other games of late (Pocket Kingdoms, X-Men Legends, Worms World Party) showing the same logical thinking behind developing for the platform, things are not necessarily looking up, but at least looking better.

And besides, those bastards managed to buy the Rifts licence before anyone thought to pick it up, so I have to stick with the console.

And last but not least, it's actually a very good phone in it's own right. I almost guarantee that the all the people that constantly dump shit on it have either been crying about that initial admittedly pathic oversight of having the game cart behind the battery, or have never actually touched the phone at all. All told, ignoring the terrible games library that's only now slowly improving, the phone itself isn't that bad, and was very cheap for such a featured filled phone.

If it's canned I won't miss it (it's not like I really own it for games anyway although a purchase of Pathway to Glory is looking very likely), but if it's canned now, just as it was starting to show some promise, I'll be honestly disappointed.

because devs and Nokia were finally starting to realise the platforms potential.

When they were treating it like a mini Playstation 1 at the start, trying to make it run thru 3D hoops it clearly didn't want to, the games were slow and ungainly, and just downright bad. Not to mention the launch lineup was terrible and betrayed their complete lack of understanding of where the game industry is at at the moment.

Tomb Raider? gimme a break. the comic is more impressive than the latest few Tomb Raider games, and Lara Croft has becoming less a gaming icon and more a warning sign that the people you are dealing with are about 2-3 years behind the times gaming wise.

It's only lately, a good year plus after the platform was released that they are finally starting to realise it's potential and starting to tailor the games to the phone, instead of trying to tailor the games to what they think people want while paying no heed to the what the hardware itself is capable of.

One of the latest games, Pathway to Glory is the first game in what appears to be a developing trend of Nokia, or whoever is responsible for selecting games to be ported/developed, of realising that the games have to suit the platform, not the ideal. And with other games of late (Pocket Kingdoms, X-Men Legends, Worms World Party) showing the same logical thinking behind developing for the platform, things are not necessarily looking up, but at least looking better.

And besides, those bastards managed to buy the Rifts licence before anyone thought to pick it up, so I have to stick with the console.

And last but not least, it's actually a very good phone in it's own right. I almost guarantee that the all the people that constantly dump shit on it have either been crying about that initial admittedly pathic oversight of having the game cart behind the battery, or have never actually touched the phone at all. All told, ignoring the terrible games library that's only now slowly improving, the phone itself isn't that bad, and was very cheap for such a featured filled phone.

If it's canned I won't miss it (it's not like I really own it for games anyway although a purchase of Pathway to Glory is looking very likely), but if it's canned now, just as it was starting to show some promise, I'll be honestly disappointed.

You say it's all brand loyalty...Trust me, it's not. Look at the reviews on Metacritic.com .

FUCK METACRITIC. Metacritic doesn't even have a freaking score for Madden 2005 yet. GameRankings has an average based on 31 reviews. Fuck Metacritic.com about game review scores. GR is where it is at, it has reviews for a game that's been out for MONTHS that Metacritic doesn't, and has reviews for hundreds upon hundreds of games from hundreds of review sources.

3) You say you haven't even played The Sims (the best selling PC game of all time) or BF1942 (one of the biggest selling and most award winning games of the year), and yet you turn around and say that EA's published all crap. Hmmm...right.

Sorry, I'll go out and upgrade my PC just so I can play 2 games I'm not all that interested in playing, just for you and your trusting in a site that can't even find reviews for Madden 2005 ass. I doubt my little 8 MB video card can handle these games. My iBook probably could, with it's 32 MB Radeon 9200 Mobility, but I use my iBook for more productive things than the Sims or Battlefield 1942.

It is quite possible that I don't really review PC games, isn't it? In fact, I've only ever reviewed 1 PC/Mac game, and that was Unreal Tournament 2004 for the Mac... but I had to uninstall it to free up room for more productive things on me iBook. And my console game reviews take up a lot of my gaming time, so I don't have the opportunity to go out and buy the Sims for the consoles, even if I was interested in playing it.

That's the nice thing about what I review... I get to pick and choose what I want to review, unless I get the games for free from the publishers, then I damn well need to review them in case they have games I want in the future. So, unless EA decides the site I work for is worthy of their notice, I don't forsee myself getting The Sims or The Sims Online, or The Sims 2 anytime soon. In the meantime, I'll review the EA games I feel like buying and reviewing, and the last one was Def Jam Fight for NY. The rest of their crap I'll try, but I'm not buying it unless it is good enough by my standards.

And 99% of EA's games are simply not good enough for my standards.

You say it's all brand loyalty...Trust me, it's not. Look at the reviews on Metacritic.com .

FUCK METACRITIC. Metacritic doesn't even have a freaking score for Madden 2005 yet. GameRankings has an average based on 31 reviews. Fuck Metacritic.com about game review scores. GR is where it is at, it has reviews for a game that's been out for MONTHS that Metacritic doesn't, and has reviews for hundreds upon hundreds of games from hundreds of review sources.

3) You say you haven't even played The Sims (the best selling PC game of all time) or BF1942 (one of the biggest selling and most award winning games of the year), and yet you turn around and say that EA's published all crap. Hmmm...right.

Sorry, I'll go out and upgrade my PC just so I can play 2 games I'm not all that interested in playing, just for you and your trusting in a site that can't even find reviews for Madden 2005 ass. I doubt my little 8 MB video card can handle these games. My iBook probably could, with it's 32 MB Radeon 9200 Mobility, but I use my iBook for more productive things than the Sims or Battlefield 1942.

It is quite possible that I don't really review PC games, isn't it? In fact, I've only ever reviewed 1 PC/Mac game, and that was Unreal Tournament 2004 for the Mac... but I had to uninstall it to free up room for more productive things on me iBook. And my console game reviews take up a lot of my gaming time, so I don't have the opportunity to go out and buy the Sims for the consoles, even if I was interested in playing it.

That's the nice thing about what I review... I get to pick and choose what I want to review, unless I get the games for free from the publishers, then I damn well need to review them in case they have games I want in the future. So, unless EA decides the site I work for is worthy of their notice, I don't forsee myself getting The Sims or The Sims Online, or The Sims 2 anytime soon. In the meantime, I'll review the EA games I feel like buying and reviewing, and the last one was Def Jam Fight for NY. The rest of their crap I'll try, but I'm not buying it unless it is good enough by my standards.

And 99% of EA's games are simply not good enough for my standards.

They aren't a goddamn gaming only meta-study/review average site! They do books and DVDs and all sorts of other shit. Look at GameRankings for averages for games based on just GAMING SITES.

And, in there, you will see that EA's Madden has gone down since 2003, not up. Not a huge amount, but it is falling in scores.

If we consider a game with an average score of over 85% to be "critically acclaimed", we see Madden still falls there on the PS2. However, Madden's score has been dropping, slowly but surely since Madden 2003. Madden 2003 got a 91.3% average, 2004 got a 90.8%, and Madden 2005 has a 90.0%.

NBA Live doesn't make it above 81% average this year, so it isn't what we'll call "critically acclaimed" for this unscientific survey.

MLB 2005 also doesn't make it with only a 79.9%

NHL 2005 saw a drastic drop year over year in averages. NHL 2004 had an 84.4%, which would have almost made it, but this year's NHL 2005 has only a 77.1%.

Now, let's look at Sega's lineup for this year.

ESPN NFL 2K5 scores an 89%. A mere 1% lower than Madden, and almost 2.5% higher than last year's, which was also higher than 2K3's score. Sega's game goes up in review scores, EA's goes down. Funny that EA got this license from the NFL, eh?

ESPN NBA 2K5 gets a 84.8%, not making it "critically acclaimed" for our survey, but close, and rated higher, overall, than EA's NBA game.

ESPN NHL 2K5 gets a 87.8%. That makes it to our list, and is 10.7% higher in the ratings than EA's arcadey crap NHL game (as it should be, because EA's is arcadey crap).

There is no Major League Baseball released for ESPN this year to compare. Or, at least no reviews of ESPN Major League Baseball 2K5.

So, take Metacritic's "green" rating and toss it. Go to GameRankings and see a site dedicated to just video game reviews, and it will give you a much better idea of what reviewers thought of any game out there. And these were scores just for the PS2 versions, not the Xbox versions.

Oh man! I hadn't heard of this beast. Have you played it? The few reviews I've read this morning are disappointing, but they won't stop me from buying it (for instance, I like the look of Transport Tycoon... and the Locomotion screenshots, by extension).

EA can't suck monkey balls. Sega has an exclusive license on them.

How did Metro3d get left out? Poor folks have been waiting since the age of the dreamcast for Armada 2 to be released, only to have every promised release date broken.

Last release dates were on November 2, 2004, then the 15th, and finally December 31st.

To me it means bigger, better games, with more action, more fun, and more on-line opponents. Games like Burnout 3 that are BIG! HUGE! AND FREAKING AWESOME!

It also means a larger quantity of high-quality games. Of course it also means more junk games, but anyone wtih half a brain, and an internet connection can read up on the games enough to know which ones to buy, and which ones to avoid.

I've never played games because I thought it was 'cool', or because I thought I was doing something different. I just play them because they are fun. If every single person on the planet decides to play, I don't think that would be a bad thing (except the productivity will go down, and then who will pick my bananas?) I think it would bring in a greater variety of games, genres, and everything else.

To me it means bigger, better games, with more action, more fun, and more on-line opponents. Games like Burnout 3 that are BIG! HUGE! AND FREAKING AWESOME!

It also means a larger quantity of high-quality games. Of course it also means more junk games, but anyone wtih half a brain, and an internet connection can read up on the games enough to know which ones to buy, and which ones to avoid.

I've never played games because I thought it was 'cool', or because I thought I was doing something different. I just play them because they are fun. If every single person on the planet decides to play, I don't think that would be a bad thing (except the productivity will go down, and then who will pick my bananas?) I think it would bring in a greater variety of games, genres, and everything else.

Um, why not just use gamerankings.com?

Reviews being "bought and paid for" is not the problem. The problem is that game journalism tends to develop bias completely on its own even without bribery. This is kind of inevitable. Games are art and as such quality is subjective. If journalist A honestly thinks Halo sucked and journalists B, C and D think Halo is great, who is to say who is right? These are opinions, not facts, that we are working with here, and so mr. A's review would be just as valid as B, C and D's. However if you are the kind of person who would tend to agree with mr. C's assessment, then mr. A's journalism won't be of much use to you.

Just check out these awesome graphics!!

Finally, I can stop wearing out my old ToeJam & Earl cartridge!

Seriously, I've not seen much success in getting the console and the hip-hop to play well together. Most recently, most people seem to agree that Get On Da Mic, a Karaoke Revolution for rap songs, generally failed to be playable.

As for Half-Life 2, frankly, I was disappointed. The on-rails gameplay is boring, there aren't that many opportunities to go 'off-rail' and when you do, it's usually blocked and you have to backtrack. There was only one genuine moment where I went "OMG! THIS IS SO FRIGGIN' COOL" (when the dog joined you towards the end...). In all honesty, the game seems more like a very long tech demo than anything that will hold my interest for long. And heck, if it wasn't for the gravity gun, the game would suck...

Plus, I really miss being able to smack your enemy with your weapon...I think there should be a law that all FPS incorporate that feature...I'm even trying to do it in MP2 now...

As for realism? Sure, the game's all nice and pretty and the physics are awesome, but in some aspects it seems that Valve's still living in the 20th century, not the 21st:

• The in-game loading...no game should have loading nowadays, especially not one that claims to be ultra realistic, and especially not Half-Life 2, which thrives on immersing you into the environment. As soon as you hit that 'Loading' screen, which can take over a minute (2200+, 1 gig ram, radeon 9700 pro), you're immediately yanked right out of wherever you were. It's ridiculous.
• You look down...what do you see? Oh wait...I HAVE NO LEGS! In realistic environments people have legs. Many FPS' incorporated that 'feature'...why not valve? It would sure make it look much better.
• When you drive a vehicle...oh wait! IT DRIVES ITSELF! Seriously...how did they let this one go by? Where's the guy's hands? How's the vehicle driving itself? Another area where it takes you away from the 'realistic' environments.
• The startup loading. Here's the process: launch steam, wait for it to login (which can take a minute sometimes), if steam needs to update, it'll update itself, even if you just want to play. Then, 'preparing to play Half-Life 2', which can take another minute. Then Loading the damn menu (ya, you can put -console in the launch options...but if you can load the game faster, WHY NOT SET IT AS DEFAULT?!). Then load your save...and you better hope you're not at the end of your current 'level', cuz if you step further, you'll hit another loading screen. Weeeeeeeee.

I just wanted to point out that I'm not just complaining for the heck of it. It's just that Half-Life 2 was set out to be something revolutionary, something no other game would come close to, but in that aspect, it failed. It's still a fun game, but I don't think it's what Valve was trying to achieve.

I used to go straight to gamespot, cause they have a history of being tough. Now, I can legitimately compare all scores at the same time with gamerankings.com.

What you're doing is what I use GR for too - seeing a list of all scores in one convenient place - but it gives me a chance to bring up a practice that a lot of people use GR for that I think is really bad, and that's simply looking at the average score for a game and taking that as a definitive rating. GR themselves encourage this by heavily featuring that number everywhere on their site (as the "Average Ratio" - the main qualitative ranking that they use).

A big problem with doing this is that GR's weighting for its scoring is completely arbitrary, which skews the averages. They used to have the opposite problem, which is that they'd count all reviews equally in the average, regardless of the size, reach, influence, or respectability of a site. Another issue is that many games appeal to specific sensibilities and genres and so may generate widely divergent views based on who's reviewing them, so simply taking an average of scores is just not informative.

They seem to pick and choose now which sites get included in the average (there's a disclaimer saying only "sites in bold" are used to calculate the average), but I can't see any real pattern to the sites they select, and in any case, they're still including about 90% of all the sites out there, and every site they do include gets an "equal vote". Which means a huge site like Gamespot, with a history of reliable reviews and editors with many years of experience in the business, gets only as much weighting as a site like My Gamer or eToyChest (which I've honestly never even heard of).

I just don't think this is really giving people any more accurate of an idea of how good a game is than just picking one single site you like and sticking with it. Here is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Rez received scores ranging from the 50% to 100% - that's a huge spread, which tells you that people either loved this game or they just didn't get it. Yet the final average is an 82%. What does that average tell you? It tells you nothing, because depending on what you're looking for in a game, your tastes vs. the reviewers' tastes, and your personality vs. the game designers' personalities, you might love or you might hate this game. It's unlikely (from reactions I've seen, and from my own experience) that you're going to think this is just a "good" but unremarkable game, as the average score would suggest. Just because an average "smooths out" the highs and lows you might see in various reviews doesn't mean that average ends up being an accurate measure of how good the game really is. And there are a lot of questionable sites included in that average to begin with, so it's doubly faulty.

The same is true to one extent or another with pretty much every game, except maybe those that are almost universally praised and those that are almost universally panned. In those cases, maybe you can trust the averages a little more. But most games don't fit that description, where every review site pretty much falls in line with the general consensus. Most games have a fairly wide range of opinions for and against them and the average score isn't going to tell you anything.

Anyway, so I use GR to give me quick links to all the available reviews for games I'm interested in, but I basically ignore the average ratio. I can tell at a quick glance of the review list if most sites are in agreement or not; if they are, then I don't even need to see the average, and if they're not, then the average is pretty pointless anyway.

In case it hasn't been mentioned already, the average of all reviews for Half-Life 2 has made it the second highest rated video game of all time (Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time is the first), and the highest rated PC game overall.
http://www.gamerankings.com/

As much as I dislike the buggy steam activation system, the game is deserving of its ranking.

take it? and where the heck am I gonna go with a big noisy windmill sticking out of my pocket?

No, not your pocket. Pick it up with your ball and turn it into a star, obviously.

Fable Reviews
I think those reviews are fair, little bit on the high side. 80% is what I would have rated it because the story should have been longer. Compared to morrowind(90%) whose story is too drawn out and takes you an hour to get anywhere.

And if you really want some player reviews, see here.

When all of these sources start giving it the highest or nearly highest scores possible, it does make you think that this is the real deal.

And yes, you clown who is about to hit reply and rant about marketing guys twisting arms of magazine editors who live from their adverts, that might be part of it but I doubt that could have infected all of the reviewers out there.

More info and professional reviews from the top gaming sites to be found at http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/915014.asp The average score is apparently 77%, a good deal higher then the reviewer here, but 70% is where most reviewers seem to place playable but poor games, so that's not saying much.

Doom 3 was definitely a AAA title for PC.

Madden 2005 and ESPN NFL 2K5 are considered some of the best console games ever (definitely AAA).

Burnout 3, a console game released last month, received incredible reviews.

GameRankings.com

Halo 2 and Gran Turismo 4 are the next 2 anticipated killer console games for 2005.

soooo.... it's majestic?

i guess it probably would work better as a "free" ad, rather than something people would be willing to pay to play...

"half-life wasn't that great, it was the fluke of counterstrike that helped it out."

Then why was it one of the highest rated games ever?

http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages4/43362.asp

I disagree with you about driving games sucking on all platforms other than the PC. In fact, Gamerankings.com also disagrees with you.

Go to their 'The Rankings' section, and choose Category: Driving >> ALL

You can mess with the date range to make it suit your needs- but I think that 'Last 12 months' is the most relevant. But you'll see that far and away, the consoles are beating out the PC in both quantity and quality of racing games. The PC platforms biggest winner in the past 5 years is NASCAR (by Sierra). (In the past 12 months, you'll notice that the Xbox takes 7 of the top 12 slots. With Mario Kart Double Dash! Being the only game in the top 15 not available on the Xbox. In fact, you'll probably notice that Xbox dominates the the top of the driving charts- which many people cite as a detraction.."Xbox is only good for first person shooters and driving games")

Before I had an Xbox, I went to a friends house where we played Rallisport Challenge for hours and hours. We even played 4 player split-screen (big screen tv) and it was a blast. After that, I went out and bought Rallisport for my PC, got a wheel, etc. etc.

Well, it looked really nice (whenever my computer wasn't crashing) and it was a lot more realistic. Unfortunately, it wasn't really all that FUN.

Now I play Burnout 3 on the couch with my wife. It's a lot more fun, and playing it with someone else is great. Then of course, going on-line is also pretty nice (works now).

I hate boring simulators- give me insane crashes over 'realistic damage' any day. At least it is a lot more FUN. And the gaming media in general seems to agree.

The best E-bike, IMO.

Admittedly I haven't played it and game reviews are pretty subjective in my mind, but it seems Atari should have spent time makin' a more grounding breaking game gameplay wise than fiddling with making it 64-bit

... it won't play resident evil 4, so who cares anyway?

If my game received an average review score of 88.6%, I'd be pretty satisfied with that level of mediocrity!

that same site has even better ratings for Black and White.. so I would take that with a grain of salt.