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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."
...of the game industry. when they rely on the industry to get previews of the games, that's what happens. they all try to get the reviews first, even if the game was just headed for production. and they get press reviews so they can't even know which annoying bugs make it to the final release(and oh yeah, game publishers do ship products they're fully aware of being buggy).
well, at least they PLAYED the game, not so long ago it was pretty common that magazines made fake reviews that were in reality based on just few screenshots so that they could stay on top of the business.
as a sidenote, anyone know a reliable, good review site not afraid to say that "those fucking rocketthrower handed mutant monsters suck big time and the plot is a joke"?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'm really glad this story is on Slashdot, and I'm glad someone had the balls to write a story about it to begin with.
I haven't trusted game reviews fully since I got an issue of the "Next Generation" magazine after its acquisition and relaunch, and Ultima IX got 5 out of 5 stars. Ports of old Atari 2600 games with nothing but the graphics updated were getting 3 and 4 stars.
However, I let myself get suckered into buying this game AND a PS2 to play it (since Dark Alliance II was cancelled for Gamecube). There are glitches galore, more than I've seen in most recent PC game releases even.
The tech support forums are a joke and a half. The official Sony reps make a point of only replying to messages with 'solutions' to the glitching problems in them - they will resolutely ignore 20 questions regarding recalls, refunds, QA, lens cleaning, whatever, and promptly respond to any message saying "eject the CD and push it back in and the game might work", saying "Thanks for your help, we've also found this works." I'd rather they not reply at all, that sort of reply just makes me want to strangle them ala Homer Simpson.
Champions is a pretty cool game... too bad it could potentially wreck your PS2, or lock up at any time a spell effect or loading screen appears. There should really be a recall.
Just kidding. Blame the computer scientists.
The weakness isn't in the reviewers, or the testers, or even the coders. The complexity of much modern software is such, that the languages are inadaquate to manage the tasks set befor them. Buffer overflows, as attacks, or just unintended events, they are par for the course now. I've only had one game that would crash my old NES, none that would nuke my Atari. But as the consoles enjoyed ever more complicated titles, ever more errors with ever increasing severity have made their way into games, at every level.
It would be easy to see how a reviewer would assume that it's a manifestation of an abberation increasingly common in games and beneath mention. I've had Crazy Taxi crash and wipe out spectacular runs, and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory when I just barely compleated a infuriating crazy box. I've had RPG's with event triggers kick me into a spot where I can trigger the necessary event to proceed. Crashes that eat saved games. And let's not forget Phantesy Star Online and the horrors it brought.
People accepted Windows crashing.* They will accept console games crashing if presented with no better alternative. One segment of the population might have just reached the plateau first. Small wonder.
Kick the reviewers in the nuts if you want. Cry shenanigans and let loose the children in grade four. They're but a symptom of a much larger problem. No black helicopters needed.
* Blah blah Linux. BS, I'm using it right now, and there is plenty of "give up and die" or "Whoops!" as prefered modes of failure to go around.
There are two places I look to see if a game is good. One is GameRankings. They have lots of really small sites that they list, who I trust far more, and also always have tons of user reviews, which are generally useless but not always.
The other place I look to is Penny Arcade. Now, they don't talk about nearly every game that comes out, but when you do choose to talk about a game, they're as honest as can be. They will mention bugs. Just a few weeks ago Tycho said he had to get a no-CD crack just to get the game to start, even with his legit copy. No big reviewer would ever mention that, but isn't it kind of important? Not only are they scathingly honest if need be, but they really understand that there is no game in the world that everybody will love. They understand that some of the games that they enjoy, well, most people think they're terrible. They don't really write about whether a game is good, they write about what's to like about the game, what's not to like, and whether you, the reader are likely to like it in general.
Funny how the people that don't consider themselves journalists are usually the best ones.