On Champions Of Norrath, Forgiving Game Reviewers?

Thanks to Curmudgeon Gamer for its article discussing technical problems with PS2 title Champions of Norrath: Realms of Everquest, and why official reviews of the game didn't seem to mention those problems. According to the writer, who had been "experiencing frustrating lock-ups and hangs which have caused the loss some of my progress through the game", it turns out that "two of the reviewers did see the game hang and didn't mention it in their reviews." However, he argues: "That's a judgment call, really, and since each saw the problem precisely once I can understand leaving it out of the review", and ends by suggesting that "the real burden rests not on the shoulders of the reviewers but on the creators of the game and, potentially, the console itself."

Comments

Integrity

[Dachannien]

This has less to do with game reviews and more to do with journalistic integrity. If a reviewer comes across a serious bug in a game - especially a console game for which a patch is unfeasible - one would think that such a bug would get mentioned in the review.

Now the question is, was the bug not mentioned because the reviewer didn't consider it to be important, or forgot about it, etc. (e.g., just crappy reporting)? Or was the reviewer under pressure or edited by his superiors so as not to report bugs in the article, due to the financial pressures (no free copies, etc.) that a large console game company could potentially exert on a small online review site (e.g., complete lack of journalistic integrity)?

Pressure on both sides of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it was pressure on both the studio to get the game releases and pressure on the press by the publisher to ignore the bugs in the review.

The game has graphic bugs and freezes there is no one denying that. Supposedly they used some sort of modified DVD9 format which may be part of the problem. I'm not sure if the modded DVD9 format was used for software protection or just to cram more info on the disc. However these bugs are so big that both the studio and the publisher had to have known about them. So you have to point a finger at the studio and the publisher for releasing the game too soon. In this case Snowblind and Sony. Snowblind's last game (Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance) was rock solid on the Ps2. So I'm guessing it wasn't the incompetance of the studio but rather the Sony likely pushed them to make the release date. There were rumors floating around to that effect because supposedly snowblind wanted to optimize the online code to support modem connections, but Sony told them not to bother and make it broadband only. On top of that Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance 2 was relased about a week before this one. Sounds like Sony pushing to make sure Champions had a chance to snuff BGDA2.

As far as the reviewers go, well Sony is the biggest dog in the console arena. There may as well been some pressure to give it a good review. I'm sure they probably told the reviewers the version they had may have bugs because it's a beta, etc. etc. Now that the real version is out most reviewers with major sites probably don't have the time or inclination to question Sony. It will only help to ensure that you don't get the next exclusive preview of the next huge game Sony is releasing.

The saddest thing is this game is really great. I played though it once and I still want to play it again. My only real gripe is the freezing which has made me paranoid about saving. Otherwise this game rocks. The graphic glitches are annoying, but they go away in about a second. Sony should have let Snowblind do the job right. Perhaps with Champions 2 they'll let them do their job.

Pah game reviewers are a joke anyway

[SmallFurryCreature]

I did use to buy PC Gamer but stopped round about Operation Flashpoint. At the same time another soldier sim was released. Lets just say that I had widely different views on how they were judged and started to realize that the reviews were not what you would call objective. Imagine a car reviewer slagging of a jaguar because he is allergic to cats.

But a little bit farther back you have a real test of game reviewing. "Hidden & Dangerous" was widely reviewed as a great game. Maybe it was. No mere mortal ever managed to play it.

It had a gigantic number of game killing bugs. So many it would seem impossible that reviewers couldn't have noticed. So yes afterwards game reviewers admitted that yes they had encountered the bugs but had decided not to mention it since the game was so great.

Only by the time the sequel was being previewed did game rags start to really talk about the piece of crap the original was.

I said this before, "game reviews ain't worth the paper they are printed on wich is really bad news for online reviews". Until people start to realize that game reviewing includes product testing game reviews will continue to be little more then some idiot being paid to blub about games he liked or hated.

As for wich reviews are honest? Demos. Tells you 99% if what you need to know.

Most people I know treat game reviews as advertising. No different then an "making of" program on the latest movie. We use other gamers to review games.

Should the game industry care? Well yes, even better then demos is downloading the entire game. Perfect review. You can only sell crap so many times before I start thinking that stealing from lying scumbags isn't all that bad. You don't think I am going to pay for a single game ever from Illusion soft or take 2 again? Let them first patch the product they sold me.

Re:Pah game reviewers are a joke anyway

[cgenman]

One of the major problems with game reviewing, and this is why they all sound like adverts, is that the people who want to review a particular type of game are given that game to review. If someone is an Everquest junkie, they're going to be given the new Everquest to review. Wonder of wonders, he likes it! On a fundamental level, you don't get to the point of being a game reviewer without loving games in general, so even if you removed this point you would have an unnecessarily glowing review. Having 2 or 3 reviewers on a game would be an improvement, but few publications have that kind of manpower.

Furthermore, and I've seen this firsthand, reveiwers aren't exactly the strongest willed of people. They tend not to rock the boat. I don't know if this groupthink is from self-selection, from the fact that there is no objective way to judge the value of a reviewer so you must hire by whether or not s/he reviewed games in exactly the same way that you would have, but they all blow with the wind. Companies know this, and they do their best to blow at the reviewers. Companies create the perception of a popular uprising, and reviewers feed it until it actually is a popular uprising. Most reviewers don't realize they are doing this, nor do they realize where the uprising came from.

And yes, Demos are the best indicator of a 95% finished game. Unfortunately, you do have to cut the company the littlest bit of slack, as the demo will be done a month before the game finishes, so it is almost guarenteed to have crashes that won't appear in the final version.

Companies should care, but we don't. We're too busy trying to figure out how to manipulate the reviewers into giving our games a perfect score. Most of us are terrible at it, but what we want is hype for our products rather than objectivity for everyone else's. After all, after pouring your heart and soul into a game for years you're going to think it's the bees knees, even if a more objective viewer doesn't like it. And five points on a review might be the difference between doing the game you want next time or doing a licensed movie port for the GBA.

Don't look to us to fix the objectivity problem, that will only come with subscribers choosing magazines that actually use the full range of their scoring charts, rather than just 70-100%.