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Edge 226 Reviews
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Discotheque
Banned
Bulletstorm is probably one of my favorite Single Player FPS campaigns this gen....
The only ones I'd put above it would be Stalker, Metro and maybe Bioshock.
The only ones I'd put above it would be Stalker, Metro and maybe Bioshock.
obonicus said:
While it's pretty common to see a 4 appear now and again, I believe the reason why you don't see them as often as higher scores is because Edge don't review everything. They pick what they review and, generally, media will stick with what people want to hear about. In other words, the games more likely to score high due to their production or artistic values.
obonicus said:
And in most gaming publications, a 7 implies below average as well, so I'm not really seeing your point. Edge see Homefront as mediocre but passable, just as everyone else in the gaming press does.
GillianSeed79 said:
Introducing a storyline to a EA sports franchise is kind of a big deal. If it actually suggests a direction me might see in other titles moving forward, it could be huge and potentially even a legitimate reason outside a roster swap to rebuy essentially the same game every year.
Wouldn't know if that's the reason they give, of course, as Zinio hasn't given me my copy yet.
GillianSeed79
Member
Wow at the 9 for fight night. I'm more surprised by that than the Bulletstorm review. What's different about it from past Fight Nights? I know of the new physics and Rocky-esque story mode, but that's about it.
stupei said:
I'm not really interested about talking about Homefront, or really what any single game scored.
My point, which wasn't about the game, was that Edge doesn't use the 'full scale' to review their games. Their scores don't line up with that of other publications, but otherwise their spread is pretty much like everyone else's, maybe shifted to the left a point. (Also, I'd dispute your characterization of '7' as below-average for other publications. I think it's pretty close, if not slightly above the average score.)
DevilWillcry
Member
Wow at MS:A I might have to check that out. I really like what I've played of the demo and MS
R is pretty much my favorite racing game anyways.
R is pretty much my favorite racing game anyways.obonicus said:
Hard to criticize their use of the scale if you aren't interested in talking about any of the actual scores, the content of the reviews, or the games they apply to. Could you point to any game that they have given more than a 3 that you feel actually would deserve one if they were to legitimately use the full scale -- as you claim they do not -- or is your complaint more that they don't bother to review enough incredibly sub par games to justify their assertion that they use the full scale?
infinityBCRT
Member
European gaming influences are different so their game developers make different games and their tastes are more suited for those style games. In the late 80s and early 90s C64 and PC were the dominant platforms in Europe. In North America, the video game market was utterly dominated by NES/SNES with a sprinkle of PC Shooters in Doom and Quake (which only became realized in consoles once the Xbox came out), so thats where you see the influences.Curufinwe said:
I grew up on games like Quest for Glory, Space Quest, Test Drive, Monkey Island, LA Crackdown, Star Control II, Lords of the Realm II, Bards Tale, etc so I totally understand where the European gamer's mindset is.
To me its actually sad that a lot of old school PC Gamers who used to be in the Western games press are gone now (like Greg Kasavin, Jeff Green, Shawn Elliot, even mangod knew his PC games). I see a lot of games coming out now with mechanics which the press thinks are new and innovative, but I can definitely see the influence from previous games. The most obvious one is Mass Effect 1/2's influence from Star Control II/StarFlight. Everything from the Mako, to the fuel, to the mining, to the dialog trees, to getting a bunch of factions on your side to fight a war-- I can see that rooted in Star Control 2, and I've even seen developers on BioWare's forum give a few nods to SC2. I know that they have said in the past that they want to put Space Combat in Mass Effect at some point, and that again was in SC2. I love Mass Effect for essentially creating a spiritual sequel to SC2, but its sad that such an amazing game has been lost from the gaming consciousness.
Western gaming press is dominated by Nintendo kids, so Ocarina of Time is now the best game ever made. =/
DidntKnowJack
Member
I'm a little surprised TDU2 garnered a 7. Biggest piece of shit I think I've played this generation.
obonicus said:
They do use the full score, hence games like Homefront and Dragon Age 2 scoring so low. You're arguing that they don't use the full score because they don't give tons of games a 3 or under which has an obvious explanation. They don't review everything; in fact they're pretty choosy with what they review. IGN and Gamespot review Babiez, the latest Petz game, etc. Edge doesn't and thus that cuts off 99% of the games that would deserve a score that low.
infinityBCRT
Member
Its not that bad once you get past the awful cutscenes at the beginning. After that its just like playing TDU1.DidntKnowJack said:
That being said I'm hoping they don't put another one out until the next-gen because this gen can't do an open world racing game justice graphically.
stupei said:
I'm looking at the scores in aggregate, but I don't want to talk about any single game in particular. Someone said something about the Edge's scoring that I don't agree with.
You're missing the point. Again, it's not about individual scores, but in taking their scores as an aggregate, eyeballing how they'd fall on a curve and seeing how they're not that different from IGN or Gamespot in scoring.
What you're doing, and trying to make me do is assign relative values to games and go 'well, I agree this game is/isn't average, therefore Edge is vindicated/sucks'. That's a pointless discussion, that's why I'm not interested in it.
The 'they review what they want' point is true, to some extent, but it makes the 'full-scale' thing an article of faith. Which is part of the weird amount of respect for Edge you see in these threads. What I do see is a score spread that is in-line with a lot of other places, only with some scores switched around. (As an aside, I'd slightly dispute how 'interested' they are in games they review. The games they review every month are mostly big releases by major publishers, with higher-profile indie games thrown in. It truly is a wonderful age of gaming we live in that those games so rarely are deserving of a low score.)
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
obonicus said:
It's near the middle of their scale. They routinely give bad games 3s, while 1s and 2s are reserved for truly atrocious titles, just like 9s and 10s are reserved for truly great ones. And like others have said, they review more really good games than really bad ones. What would be the point, anyway?
PSGames said:
I believe they'll review an import from time to time.
NinjaBoiX
Member
Nah, they gimped it to holy hell. Punching is no longer akin to skate's "flickit" system, it just uses the various directions on the stick as button inputs. Boo. Also, the blocking is now just a button you hold, rather than a block modifier that is modify via the rightstick. It just seems they've stripped too much away in the name of accessability. It looks the nuts though.No_Style said:
StevePharma
Member
Hey guys my Edge pile is getting ridiculous from years of subscription to the mag, so I'm thinking of taking a Zinio online subscription. From the people here who already have it, how's the service and do you get your issues reasonably on time?
StevePharma said:
I'm thinking of doing the same thing ... but it seems that the current issue is still not online .... :/
http://www.zinio.com/browse/publications/index.jsp?productId=500608921
Vinterbird
Member
StevePharma said:
Still waiting for this months issue from Zinio here.
Overall I really enjoy the digital version, but for me I have to zoom and fair share to read the text, since it is not formatted for the iPad screen, and be readable on that without going in closer.
But overall, its a very pleasant experience.
StevePharma said:
$30 for 13 issues is a steal, and I believe if you only read a couple on your computer or device then it's already paid for itself. I don't know what the print mag is like in other countries, but here one issue is $15.95.
The last issue was the first I'd ever read digitally, and I really enjoyed it. Read it from cover to cover in one sitting like I do with the mag, and didn't have any trouble. The resolution could be a bit better, but otherwise it's quite readable.
The big minus right now is that the latest issue hasn't popped up yet. I don't know if this is normal or if something has gone wrong...
Nothing replaces holding a glossy mag in your hands though.
According to the invaluable EDGE reviews database (currently only goes up to issue 221), during the entire run of EDGE (1993 - 2011), only 30 games have received a 2 and only one game a 1. I guess the reputation that EDGE has of being unreasonably critical is without merit after all.obonicus said:
Strummerjones
Member
infinityBCRT said:
Actually, I'd say PC gaming was an extreme minority interest in Europe until the mid nineties. Before then the C64 and Amiga were the dominant platforms, and in the UK especially the Spectrum was even bigger than the C64. The death of the Amiga in particular decimated the UK's developer scene that had grown up from the '80s with many unable to adapt to making console games and others struggling to make it on PC.
That 1UP podcast also sounds hilariously misguided.
StevePharma
Member
Mar said:
Thank you for the impressions. If I take the online sub I'll save about 50 euros. Since I'm in Europe I usually have to wait a bit longer for my issue to arrive anyway, so that's not a big problem for me. If there ever was an issue i'd want a physical copy of I could just buy it (11 euros a piece here in Holland) and still save some money.
I think I'll do it. No more dead trees for me I guess :-D
Vinterbird
Member
Aguirre said:
Sales will determine a sequel.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
MMaRsu said:
Bulletproof was pretty damn terrible.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Suur Tõll said:
I'm not sure that's really true.
We can logically assume that reviews from any outlet roughly fall on a bell curve. Where the curve centers is going to depend on the site naturally, but it should still be a curve, right? We can further logically assume that a hypothetical score curve for all games not reviewed by an outlet would be centered further on the left of the scale than one for all games reviewed by the outlet, because no outlet passes on reviewing high quality games if they can help it, and everyone passes on reviewing Calvin Tucker's Redneck Jambouree games. So the non-use of the 2/1 doesn't imply that EDGE isn't harsh, it implies that EDGE simply doesn't review terrible games.
But secondary to that, I think the essence of why people feel EDGE reviews are different is not that they use the 4/5/6 part of the scale more than other outlets, it's what they use it for. There is a perception, true or not, that EDGE is more willing to give a low score to a highly produced boring derivative push-A-to-win game than other outlets and more willing to give a high score to a rough-around-the-edges innovative gem than other outlets. I can't speak to whether or not that's true and I'm sure this post will be replied to with a laundry list of LOL HALO GOT A HIGH SCORE EDGE DESTROYED style complaints, but I think that's the root of the perception
Stumpkapow's right about EDGE having been a subscriber for years. They reward innovating games, they don't give any game that isn't innovating higher than a 9 even if it is perfect for what it is. IIRC they have said the Goldeneye and Resi 4 were the only games they wished they had given a 10 to
Halo 3 got a 10 because of it's innovations beyond the core gameplay. It intoduced theatre mode, saved films, forge and file share which made it much easier for custom games to be shared. Also their Bungie.net integration is unparalleled to this day almost 4 years since launch. The above may have been in PC games prior to H3's release but I doubt it was ever as easy and intuitive as how Bungie implemented it.
I'm not a big fan of open world games so I'm not sure what GTA 4 did but it has the best city I have ever seen in videogames it is so well realised.
krYlon said:Halo 3 did get a 10 as did GTA IV... just saying
Halo 3 got a 10 because of it's innovations beyond the core gameplay. It intoduced theatre mode, saved films, forge and file share which made it much easier for custom games to be shared. Also their Bungie.net integration is unparalleled to this day almost 4 years since launch. The above may have been in PC games prior to H3's release but I doubt it was ever as easy and intuitive as how Bungie implemented it.
I'm not a big fan of open world games so I'm not sure what GTA 4 did but it has the best city I have ever seen in videogames it is so well realised.
StevePharma
Member
Detox said:
Also they gave Bayonetta a 10 so EDGE is legit enough to me.
Whatever the scores, I just read the mag for the articles. The review section is actually the least interesting bit of the entire mag for me.
gofreak said:
Indeed. I love that you can preview the entire mag with 3 zoom opportunities if you're a non-subscriber. I also like the hotlink bookmarks so I can skip to an article.
Sold. Saving the environment one bit at a time.
infinityBCRT
Member
You're right. I'm Canadian so I was thinking in North American terms. Even for me, who mainly grew up with the C64 and PC (with a sprinkle of Sega Genesis), PC gaming in the mainstream was a dying breed by the mid 90s. And when the Xbox came out, even the developers who were steadfast in staying on the PC platform finally started jumping to consoles.Strummerjones said:
Neon_Icarus
Member
Suur Tõll said:
I think one the reasons why you don't see so many really low scores for games in Edge is that they have a policy of only reviewing "important games" (however they choose to define them). They ignore most of the obvious shovelware that might get a review by magazines like Gamesmaster. They also tend not to review ports (which is why they didn't review the 3DS version of Street Fighter IV).
The current issue of Edge is full of goodness btw. At least for anyone who loves Japanese games.
Yes, but that isn't necessarily proof that they don't use the whole numbering system. The vast majority of truly shitty games won't ever get reviewed by them to begin with, right? Also, it's pretty safe to say that the vast majority of games released by any of the major publishers will have been polished up to a particular level so a "5" or "6" will be about as low as most of them will get to.Suur Tõll said:
Edit: I'll be jumping on the Zinio service once it appears on the Android marketplace!
Neon_Icarus
Member
soldat7 said:
Do you mean plot-wise? I don't think they talk about the story at all really. Even gameplay-wise it is all very general. The article is mostly about the directors approach to game design.