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[Count Dookkake]

The tears and the good impressions have convinced me to buy this game. Thanks, GAF!

 

[dark10x]

Hmmm, I thought April Fools jokes were supposed to go in that other thread?

Wait, this is real?!? :|

 

[JetSetRadio]

O really? :lol

 

[Draft]

It should also be the posterchild for Natal and Move.

Agreed.

 

[Raide]

The tears and the good impressions have convinced me to buy this game. Thanks, GAF!

We demand pictures!

 

[GregLombardi]

Wasn't Ubisoft just 2 months ago or something blaming the Wii for its financial problems?

Foot. In. Mouth.

 

[hokahey]

This game sold well because of an amazing ad campaign. Every time the commercial came on every female in my family said "oohh I want it!"

 

[pakkit]

We demand pictures of your sister playing the game!

Fixed.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

Whatever happened to reviews of a game, taking into consideration if its actually fun to play? Nowadays you can read walls of text about production values and platform exclusivity - no casual gives a shit about. If the production value makes the score, and not the fun part, then reviewers shouldn´t wonder why readers turn away and they consequently lose their jobs.

This is unfair. Should every movie reviewer who slammed Transformers 2 and Avatar lose their job for slamming the narrative over the spectacle? Again, their job is not to tell you why the stuff you like is awesome, it's to put every product they review in a frame of reference to the medium, and act as a guiding hand. "Fun for your kids, 2 stars", "decent popcorn flick, 2 stars", "forgettable licensed CGI spectacle, 2 stars" are common complaints levied at movies that become insanely popular - it doesn't mean the system needs a shakeup, it just proves that a) most people don't care what reviewers think outside of forums, and b) the most popular products are not always recognized as the best.

Just Dance does not retroactively deserve a review revision simply because it latched on with the masses.

Don't get caught up on merely the production values. Sam made well-reasoned arguments that the song selection is poor (15 songs, in this day and age, for any music game is about 1/3 of the industry standard) and that the game does not register your movements correctly (for a game, this amounts to the gameplay being broken).

The appeal lies largely in the concept - it gets people off the couch and gets them to dance, which makes it a great party novelty, much in the same way Wii Sports and Guitar Hero are. It falls short in the interactivity and replayability of those titles by being utterly unresponsive and barebones.

I don't see how any reasonable reviewer could say "if you completely ignore what's happening in the game, have some beers, and dance your head off, you'll love this game."

A great riff track movie is not a great movie.

 

[Count Dookkake]

Fixed.

:lol

Sorry to disappoint, but she prefers stuff like House of the Dead.

Anyway, this seems like a good segue to :lol :lol :lol at Acosta for crying about 'unfair' tags. What a bitch.

 

[GregLombardi]

This is unfair. Should every movie reviewer who slammed Transformers 2 and Avatar lose their job for slamming the narrative over the spectacle? Again, their job is not to tell you why the stuff you like is awesome, it's to put every product they review in a frame of reference to the medium, and act as a guiding hand. "Fun for your kids, 2 stars", "decent popcorn flick, 2 stars", "forgettable licensed CGI spectacle, 2 stars" are common complaints levied at movies that become insanely popular - it doesn't mean the system needs a shakeup, it just proves that a) most people don't care what reviewers think outside of forums, and b) the most popular products are not always recognized as the best.

Just Dance does not retroactively deserve a review revision simply because it latched on with the masses.

Don't get caught up on merely the production values. Sam made well-reasoned arguments that the song selection is poor (15 songs, in this day and age, for any music game is about 1/3 of the industry standard) and that the game does not register your movements correctly (for a game, this amounts to the gameplay being broken).

The appeal lies largely in the concept - it gets people off the couch and gets them to dance, which makes it a great party novelty, much in the same way Wii Sports and Guitar Hero are. It falls short in the interactivity and replayability of those titles by being utterly unresponsive and barebones.

I don't see how any reasonable reviewer could say "if you completely ignore what's happening in the game, have some beers, and dance your head off, you'll love this game."

A great riff track movie is not a great movie.

Guys, let's just apply some simple business sense to this situation:

In economics, the willingness to pay (WTP) is the maximum amount a person would be willing to pay, sacrifice or exchange for a good.

Several methods have been developed to measure consumer willingness to pay. These methods can be differentiated whether they measure consumer hypothetical or actual willingness to pay and whether they measure consumer willingness to pay directly or indirectly.

I think we can be safe in our assumption that Just Dance is a "good" enough product that people are willing to pay $39.99 for it even if they only use it 5 times. It's just like taking your four person family to the movies, once! Whether it ranks up there with the best gaming software ever created from a artistic, theatrical, graphical, or play control perspective is an entirely different beast. But clearly it ranks high in terms of end user casual enjoyment.

 

[Mael]

This is unfair. Should every movie reviewer who slammed Transformers 2 and Avatar lose their job for slamming the narrative over the spectacle? Again, their job is not to tell you why the stuff you like is awesome, it's to put every product they review in a frame of reference to the medium, and act as a guiding hand. "Fun for your kids, 2 stars", "decent popcorn flick, 2 stars", "forgettable licensed CGI spectacle, 2 stars" are common complaints levied at movies that become insanely popular - it doesn't mean the system needs a shakeup, it just proves that a) most people don't care what reviewers think outside of forums, and b) the most popular products are not always recognized as the best.

Just Dance does not retroactively deserve a review revision simply because it latched on with the masses.

Don't get caught up on merely the production values. Sam made well-reasoned arguments that the song selection is poor (15 songs, in this day and age, for any music game is about 1/3 of the industry standard) and that the game does not register your movements correctly (for a game, this amounts to the gameplay being broken).

The appeal lies largely in the concept - it gets people off the couch and gets them to dance, which makes it a great party novelty, much in the same way Wii Sports and Guitar Hero are. It falls short in the interactivity and replayability of those titles by being utterly unresponsive and barebones.

I don't see how any reasonable reviewer could say "if you completely ignore what's happening in the game, have some beers, and dance your head off, you'll love this game."

A great riff track movie is not a great movie.

No the review fails because we learn nothing from it and it tries to be a gatekeeper of some gaming movement against the masses.
In short it doesn't follow what a good review should be.
Again it's not that hard, there's even people that formalised it better

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give enough direct quotation—- at least one extended passage—- of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy précis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser. Do not accept for review a book you are predisposed to dislike, or committed by friendship to like. Do not imagine yourself a caretaker of any tradition, an enforcer of any party standards, a warrior in any ideological battle, a corrections officer of any kind. Never, never... try to put the author "in his place," making of him a pawn in a contest with other reviewers. Review the book, not the reputation. Submit to whatever spell, weak or strong, is being cast. Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys of reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.

 

[Lijik]

Wasn't Ubisoft just 2 months ago or something blaming the Wii for its financial problems?

Foot. In. Mouth.

I'm pretty sure the same day Pachter made his "Wii Third Parties" thread where Ubisoft had a then recent quote along the lines of "We don't know how how to make a success on the Wii, so we won't focus on it anymore" was the same day where Just Dance was noted as lighting up the sales charts.

They've been tasting that foot for a long time.

 

[GDGF]

No the review fails because we learn nothing from it and it tries to be a gatekeeper of some gaming movement against the masses.
In short it doesn't follow what a good review should be.
Again it's not that hard, there's even people that formalised it better
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Updike#Literary_criticism_and_art_criticism

I wish John Updike's ghost posted on this forum

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

So John Updike would have given Just Dance an 8/10?

 

[gerg]

This is unfair. Should every movie reviewer who slammed Transformers 2 and Avatar lose their job for slamming the narrative over the spectacle? Again, their job is not to tell you why the stuff you like is awesome, it's to put every product they review in a frame of reference to the medium, and act as a guiding hand. "Fun for your kids, 2 stars", "decent popcorn flick, 2 stars", "forgettable licensed CGI spectacle, 2 stars" are common complaints levied at movies that become insanely popular - it doesn't mean the system needs a shakeup, it just proves that a) most people don't care what reviewers think outside of forums, and b) the most popular products are not always recognized as the best.

What do you mean by this?

I don't think that reviewers should create an arbitrary set of elements that they feel that every game should include; reviewers should try to understand the objectives and goals a game sets itself, and review it in respect to those and those alone.

Don't get caught up on merely the production values. Sam made well-reasoned arguments that the song selection is poor (15 songs, in this day and age, for any music game is about 1/3 of the industry standard) and that the game does not register your movements correctly (for a game, this amounts to the gameplay being broken).

The appeal lies largely in the concept - it gets people off the couch and gets them to dance, which makes it a great party novelty, much in the same way Wii Sports and Guitar Hero are. It falls short in the interactivity and replayability of those titles by being utterly unresponsive and barebones.

I don't believe that applying some concept of an "industry standard" is the right thing to do, especially in that Just Dance is quite unlike any other game out there on the market. (Most musical games are rhythm games at heart; Just Dance is not.)

That aside, I agree that some of those complaints may have merit. I agree that the game portion of the software may not be responsive enough to properly function as a game, but even in that case my answer is "So what?" If Just Dance isn't a good game, then how does it function as a piece of software?

And, although I haven't played the game myself, anecdotal reports seem to prove the last statement wrong in themselves.

I don't see how any reasonable reviewer could say "if you completely ignore what's happening in the game, have some beers, and dance your head off, you'll love this game."

Because they might understand that the game sets its own goal as enabling a large amount of entertaining social interaction, which it does in spades?

So John Updike would have given Just Dance an 8/10?

Probably.

 

[GregLombardi]

I'm pretty sure the same day Pachter made his "Wii Third Parties" thread where Ubisoft had a then recent quote along the lines of "We don't know how how to make a success on the Wii, so we won't focus on it anymore" was the same day where Just Dance was noted as lighting up the sales charts.

They've been tasting that foot for a long time.

:lol

Gotta love this industry. But, then again, PR people and the essence of a company appear to be generally separated by a schism, so I guess we can't blame Ubisoft.

 

[Mael]

I wish John Updike's ghost posted on this forum

Forget about that, I'd settle over his ghost still writing!
At first I hated Rabbit redux but damn it's really awesome!
Now onto Rabbit is rich!

Spoiler

No I'm not at school having to read it, I just like good novels well writen and I'm in current US writer phase with Roth and Auster.

Seriously though I find it appalling that with all the litterature over art criticism NO game 'journalists', that are so smug about gaming being an art, never manage to actually treat it as one.
I guess that's why I consider them as sycophantic fools :-/.

Now to wonder if I finish Updike before starting with Milton...

 

[Acosta]

:lol

Sorry to disappoint, but she prefers stuff like House of the Dead.

Anyway, this seems like a good segue to :lol :lol :lol at Acosta for crying about 'unfair' tags. What a bitch.

Seeing your tag, I am not sure you should be laughing at anyone. But be my guest.

Given you value my opinion about tags so much, I will say that yours is perfectly fair.

 

[Mael]

So John Updike would have given Just Dance an 8/10?

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy précis.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser. Do not accept for review a book you are predisposed to dislike, or committed by friendship to like. Do not imagine yourself a caretaker of any tradition, an enforcer of any party standards, a warrior in any ideological battle, a corrections officer of any kind. Never, never... try to put the author "in his place," making of him a pawn in a contest with other reviewers. Review the book, not the reputation. Submit to whatever spell, weak or strong, is being cast. Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys of reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end

I don't know how to make it clearer.

 

[AceBandage]

:lol

Gotta love this industry. But, then again, PR people and the essence of a company appear to be generally separated by a schism, so I guess we can't blame Ubisoft.

Of course we can.
They know EXACTLY how to sell a game on the Wii.
You make a fun, quality product, and you MARKET IT!
And that's exactly what is happening with Just Dance.
It's gotten a gigantic marketing campaign. Festivals, TV ads, magazine, internet, demos.
If they had put the same effort into No More Heroes, I bet we'd be looking at a million seller.

 

[Count Dookkake]

Seeing your tag, I am not sure you should be laughing at anyone. But be my guest.

:lol


You are not very good at understanding things.

EDIT- Nice edit, but your failure will be saved here for lols.

 

[Hammer24]

This is unfair. Should every movie reviewer who slammed Transformers 2 and Avatar lose their job for slamming the narrative over the spectacle?

I hope I don´t get you wrong - but isn´t this exactly what I said, just the other way around? IMO something like production values should be something that should make maybe 0.5 of a score, not more. The question: is it fun to play (or watch, to stay in your example) should weigh way more.

it just proves that a) most people don't care what reviewers think outside of forums,

So, what are reviews good for, then? If I can ignore them right away, as they don´t give me any useful insight.

Sam made well-reasoned arguments..

I´ve got no problem with them. Even if I don´t agree, they are at least partly reasoned.
Yet in the end, the review should have read like: This thing is fun, but could have been much better with more.../different.. etc. Score 7 (I mean, we are talking IGN scores here, right?).
Telling people to outright stay away from it just shows how far the disconnect between reviewers and their target audience has come.

The appeal lies largely in the concept - it gets people off the couch and gets them to dance, which makes it a great party novelty, much in the same way Wii Sports and Guitar Hero are. It falls short in the interactivity and replayability of those titles by being utterly unresponsive and barebones.

Who are we to judge? Obviously 2 mill people think otherwise, and going by the trends Wii software is selling, there´ll be a couple more when everything is said and done.

 

[ShinNL]

If you listen to "professional" reviewers too much you might start thinking the game actually fails at registering your movements.

 

[Acosta]

:lol


You are not very good at understanding things.

EDIT- Nice edit, but your failure will be saved here for lols.

I edited it because I liked more the second sentence alone. But don't worry I'll edit back.

 

[A Twisty Fluken]

John Updike is the best poster on GAF.

 

[phisheep]

One thing that amuses me about all this is how many journos feel free to scoff at and downgrade certain sorts of game for their lack of gamer-appeal, and often bolster their views with stuff about lack of story/waggle/imprecise controls/can play it on the couch/graphics/'laziness' and so on. But the very same people, if someone complains about say too-small text when playing a blockbuster game on SDTV come out with "Gnaaagh, you're not playing it the way it's meant to be played!". It cuts both ways.

 

[Son of Godzilla]

If you listen to "professional" reviewers too much you might start thinking the game actually fails at registering your movements.

It's funny reading such nonsense over and over again. I'm pretty sure the game's biggest flaw is that it requires too much precision, not that it doesn't have enough.

 

[phisheep]

It's funny reading such nonsense over and over again. I'm pretty sure the game's biggest flaw is that it requires too much precision, not that it doesn't have enough.

Indeed. We've seen the same sort of thing over and over, from putting in Wii Sports golf, to flailing in Wii Music - both of which had wonderfully subtle controls.

Thing is, the controls take some learning - they aren't a simple pick-up-and-play as everyone seems to think. And the odd thing is that non-gamers seem to have no trouble with this at all, because they expect to have to learn how it works. It's the so-called expert gamers that can't do it right.

 

[mentalfloss]

Indeed. We've seen the same sort of thing over and over, from putting in Wii Sports golf, to flailing in Wii Music - both of which had wonderfully subtle controls.

Thing is, the controls take some learning - they aren't a simple pick-up-and-play as everyone seems to think. And the odd thing is that non-gamers seem to have no trouble with this at all, because they expect to have to learn how it works. It's the so-called expert gamers that can't do it right.

Heh, noobs.

 

[Omiee]

woow 2 million is pretty good

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

I read the Updike quote the first few times it was posted. Reviewing something for what it is, not for what it isn't, is not to say you should praise a product for what it does right and completely dismiss what it does wrong.

Why should a reviewer ignore the standards set by previous games in the genre? Was this not the same argument used to defend Wii Music? They could have easily put 3x as many songs on the disc, they don't get a free pass for being cheap.

Of course we can.
They know EXACTLY how to sell a game on the Wii.
You make a fun, quality product, and you MARKET IT!
And that's exactly what is happening with Just Dance.
It's gotten a gigantic marketing campaign. Festivals, TV ads, magazine, internet, demos.
If they had put the same effort into No More Heroes, I bet we'd be looking at a million seller.

Now that AceBandage has posted, the narrative rewrite is complete.

NMH 2 is the lazy, cynical cash-grab with little effort or innovation. Just another trite poster child for the hardly cores.

Just Dance is the stroke of plucky genius being gift-wrapped to a starved audience, that reviewers just don't get.

 

[Swittcher]

I read the Updike quote the first few times it was posted. Reviewing something for what it is, not for what it isn't, is not to say you should praise a product for what it does right and completely dismiss what it does wrong.

Why should a reviewer ignore the standards set by previous games in the genre? Was this not the same argument used to defend Wii Music? They could have easily put 3x as many songs on the disc, they don't get a free pass for being cheap.



Now that AceBandage has posted, the narrative rewrite is complete.

NMH 2 is the lazy, cynical cash-grab with little effort or innovation. Just another trite poster child for the hardly cores.

Just Dance is the stroke of plucky genius being gift-wrapped to a starved audience, that reviewers just don't get.

YOU'RE a lazy cynical cash-grab with little effort or innovation.

 

[Mael]

I read the Updike quote the first few times it was posted. Reviewing something for what it is, not for what it isn't, is not to say you should praise a product for what it does right and completely dismiss what it does wrong.

Why should a reviewer ignore the standards set by previous games in the genre? Was this not the same argument used to defend Wii Music? They could have easily put 3x as many songs on the disc, they don't get a free pass for being cheap.

Who said they should ignore the standards? And as far Wimusic goes which previous game have a similar gameplay and have more music?
If your answer is Daigosso Band Brother, most reviewers never played it so it cannot enter their standards.

What I find galling is more in relation to this :

Do not accept for review a book you are predisposed to dislike, or committed by friendship to like. Do not imagine yourself a caretaker of any tradition, an enforcer of any party standards, a warrior in any ideological battle, a corrections officer of any kind. Never, never... try to put the author "in his place,"

The whole Wiifit will kill gaming and Wiimusic will my balls fall off that Just Dance suffered in that review.
I don't follow reviews to hear that we must make a stand to support whatever developer crap out or how we must punish all theses that makes stuffs we should hate.

Seriously I find it stupidly unprofessional for the Conduit and I'm having a similar feeling for this.
How is it possible to take the reviewers seriously when they're making their best to look like complete fools?

 

[mentalfloss]

Why should a reviewer ignore the standards set by previous games in the genre? Was this not the same argument used to defend Wii Music? They could have easily put 3x as many songs on the disc, they don't get a free pass for being cheap.

You could say the same thing about NSMB Wii not having online. Or even better, MW2 PC not having dedicated servers. It's all about perceived value for your dollar. And that perceived value depends on each player.

I would disagree about your Wii Music criticism, actually. I'm not offended at all by the game not keeping up with the 'de facto' standard number of songs - it was the general experience itself that gave me enough value to buy that game.

So, no a reviewer should definitely not ignore previous standards. But, if they are aware that the value of that product can supercede it lacking some feature, that should be articulated as well.

 

[Mael]

You could say the same thing about NSMB Wii not having online. Or even better, MW2 PC not having dedicated servers. It's all about perceived value for your dollar. And that perceived value depends on each player.

I would disagree about your Wii Music criticism, actually. I'm not offended at all by the game not keeping up with the 'de facto' standard number of songs - it was the general experience itself that gave me enough value to buy that game.

So, no a reviewer should definitely not ignore previous standards. But, if they are aware that the value of that product can supercede it lacking some feature, that should be articulated as well.

You're expecting WAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to much here, at this point let's be happy if the review of Wiimusic doesn't consist of the reviewer flailing like a madman, making horrible music and then deeming the game unworthy.

 

[WrenchNinja]

Simply 2 million people can't be wrong

Sales = Quality now? In that case Twilight, Avatar, Transformers 2 must be the pinnacle of what the movie industry has to offer.

 

[Mael]

Sales = Quality now? In that case Twilight, Avatar, Transformers 2 must be the pinnacle of what the movie industry has to offer.

About Twilight there must be something that's done right for it to be such a massive success.
I mean I'm serious here

 

[Owzers]

About Twilight there must be something that's done right for it to be such a massive success.
I mean I'm serious here

Attractive men without shirts who are in love with a girl and she's distraught over which one she loves. It's the equivalent to " giant robots smashing things" for men.

 

[WillyFive]

Attractive men without shirts who are in love with a girl and she's distraught over which one she loves. It's the equivalent to " giant robots smashing things" for men.

But what is Avatar? A good movie?

 

[Mael]

Attractive men without shirts who are in love with a girl and she's distraught over which one she loves. It's the equivalent to " giant robots smashing things" for men.

Yeah but what I mean is why is there not more quality stuff using theses premises?
I mean do you really think it's great to have that cattered to lowest common denominator?
I know that if I was a competent writer I'd sure as hell would want to work on something like that just to see how far you could push it (while still raking the millions).

And by that I don't mean 'Decepticon's base is actually inside the pyramid' but more like something like Gundam that way less dumb.

And as for Avatar, well we can all say that at least it's not Transformer 2 or 2012!
That's gotta count for somehting, right?

 

[Sadist]

Wow at this thread.

 

[gerg]

I read the Updike quote the first few times it was posted. Reviewing something for what it is, not for what it isn't, is not to say you should praise a product for what it does right and completely dismiss what it does wrong.

Not necessarily.

But you should only criticise it if certain elements or features don't work towards that game's self-determined goals. A correct critique of a game may be if you find that the limited number of song tracks in Just Dance limits the game's potential for social interaction at parties because you and your mates tire of dancing to the same songs. An incorrect critique of a game may be if you criticise NSMB Wii for not containing online multiplayer. This is an incorrect assessment because NSMB Wii is wholly designed around social interaction, and thus the "standard" of online multiplayer is something to which it should not be upheld.

Standards should only be considered if those standards are themselves relevant.

Now that AceBandage has posted, the narrative rewrite is complete.

NMH 2 is the lazy, cynical cash-grab with little effort or innovation. Just another trite poster child for the hardly cores.

Just Dance is the stroke of plucky genius being gift-wrapped to a starved audience, that reviewers just don't get.

You're strawmanning AceBandage's argument.

 

[jorma]

About Twilight there must be something that's done right for it to be such a massive success.
I mean I'm serious here

So what score would you give Twilight if you reviewed it?

 

[rpmurphy]

But what is Avatar? A good movie?

I think RedLetterMedia reviewed it well: it's an enjoyable and tech-heavy movie, but with a cliche and shallow story. Both the positives and negatives he lays out about the film are true.

Not necessarily.

But you should only criticise it if certain elements or features don't work towards that game's self-determined goals. A correct critique of a game may be if you find that the limited number of song tracks in Just Dance limits the game's potential for social interaction at parties because you and your mates tire of dancing to the same songs. An incorrect critique of a game may be if you criticise NSMB Wii for not containing online multiplayer. This is an incorrect assessment because NSMB Wii is wholly designed around social interaction, and thus the "standard" of online multiplayer is something to which it should not be upheld.

Standards should only be considered if those standards are themselves relevant.

I find it interesting that out of all the entertainment media forms, video games is like the only one where reviewers place replay value on the gauge of quality of a product. Why is that?

 

[jetjevons]

To me this is simply the well earned results of Ubisoft understanding the Wii market. They know what Wii owners want, they built it, marketed it, and the results speak for themselves. Hopefully similar third party publishers will follow suit.

 

[charlequin]

You are the one that complain each time a reviewer fails to see the marvelous joy of a "game" that a cat could play succesfully with the wiimote attached to its tail.

I am? Are you sure? I honestly can't think of a Wii party game title I've ever come to bat for before this one (well, since Wii Sports anyway) and I'm a pretty rare sight in GAF review threads in general because I accept that game reviews are the product of a subsidiary marketing industry and therefore only tangentially useful in determining whether a game will be enjoyable.

I certainly wouldn't say I'm "upset" about Sam's review, but in the context of debating his opinion of the game I certainly feel safe responding to its contents.

Anything that gets consoles being played by families and more accepted by the mainstream has a net good effect on the industry, I feel.

Yep. Much like broad mainstream acceptance of movies has led to a world where tons and tons of niche films of every imaginable type are made every year rather than one where only blockbusters and romantic comedies ever come out, stuff like Just Dance only increases the overall acceptance of gaming and therefore the success of the business as a whole.

This is unfair. Should every movie reviewer who slammed Transformers 2 and Avatar lose their job for slamming the narrative over the spectacle?

I think it's pretty demonstrably obvious that a review of, say, Avatar, which emphasized both its nature as an unbelievable visual spectacle and its juvenile and poorly-plotted script, and then recommended seeing it if the former was more important to you than the latter (and there were tons of reviews exactly like this) would be much better than one that emphasized only one of these two points and discounted the other.

Broadly speaking, the purpose of a review is to explain as effectively as possible to the customer exactly what they will get by purchasing the title in question. This inevitably involves some level of subjective measurement, but a good reviewer will have the ability to describe a product's qualities in a way that the review is useful both to people who share his opinion and those who don't. Especially in the case of any product that succeeds tremendously in one area while failing in others (Avatar's a fantastic example of this in movies, and games at both sides of the spectrum -- Just Dance and GTA4 alike -- fall victim to this quite often), writing a review that accurately describes how the product fares in each area is much, much more important than getting the numerical score right.

To me this is simply the well earned results of Ubisoft understanding the Wii market. They know what Wii owners want, they built it, marketed it, and the results speak for themselves. Hopefully similar third party publishers will follow suit.

This is, in very similar these words, what I said to my wife when we played Just Dance the first time at a party, and I still agree!

 

[Jokeropia]

seems like the success third parties have on the wii are exercise and little effort party games.

Only looking at new IPs that might be true, but it only follows naturally from those genres constituting the greatest portion of third party new IPs made for Wii. It's a case of throwing a ton of crap and hoping that something eventually sticks.

No wonder third parties are having such a hard time making games for the Wii audience: Their standards aren't low enough.

This makes absolutely no sense, as the developer with the highest consistent standard of quality is also the developer with the most success.

I know you're trying to be sarcastic from a defensive Wii fan's perspective who doesn't understand the majority Wii audience, but you are actually 100% correct.

The market for Just Dance may not have started on Wii, it existed on the PS2 somewhat, but Nintendo cracked this market wide open.

What kind of market does Just Dance signify the cracked-openness of, that Eyetoy Play and Singstar do not?

Dont get upset or surprised when these types of products is all you get from 3rd parties. I dont understand this about Nintendo fans when they think its some anomaly. More will follow.

Just Dance is not the best selling Wii third party game by a long shot.

To me this is simply the well earned results of Ubisoft understanding the Wii market. They know what Wii owners want, they built it, marketed it, and the results speak for themselves.

If by "understanding the Wii market" you mean "release 15 casual games that fail for every one that succeeds" and by "Wii owners" you mean ~3% of Wii owners, then yeah.

 

[nli10]

Reviewing Just Dance:

This guy playing

4/10


This girl playing

8/10 (due to limited songs & fairly short last-ability appeal)



Essentially add 2 points to the games scores if you have girls to play it with (4 extra if you have more girls), take 2 off if the only person you get to play with is your sweaty older brother.

 

[Zachack]

I find it interesting that out of all the entertainment media forms, video games is like the only one where reviewers place replay value on the gauge of quality of a product. Why is that?

It's mostly a remaining concept from an older era. Most games these days aren't really meant to be "replayed", but since it remains as a valuable metric to some buyers (for whatever reason), reviewers include the value. If games were much cheaper on average I doubt that it would come up.

I think it's pretty demonstrably obvious that a review of, say, Avatar, which emphasized both its nature as an unbelievable visual spectacle and its juvenile and poorly-plotted script, and then recommended seeing it if the former was more important to you than the latter (and there were tons of reviews exactly like this) would be much better than one that emphasized only one of these two points and discounted the other.

Not necessarily; when the "interactive entertainment" industry reaches full maturity there should be plenty of reviewers who review movies like, say, Kael did where individual metrics of success or failure for each component of a product are meaningless, and people will want to read those reviews and base purchases on them. Saying that your Avatar example is obviously better is untrue, although I think the majority of current game reviewers would be better served to stick with that. Many reviewers seem to unwittingly attempt both, and that doesn't really work.

Broadly speaking, the purpose of a review is to explain as effectively as possible to the customer exactly what they will get by purchasing the title in question. This inevitably involves some level of subjective measurement, but a good reviewer will have the ability to describe a product's qualities in a way that the review is useful both to people who share his opinion and those who don't. Especially in the case of any product that succeeds tremendously in one area while failing in others (Avatar's a fantastic example of this in movies, and games at both sides of the spectrum -- Just Dance and GTA4 alike -- fall victim to this quite often), writing a review that accurately describes how the product fares in each area is much, much more important than getting the numerical score right.

I think as long as you continue to focus on Avatar you're going to keep missing a major portion of the counter-argument, which is that sales potential can be and frequently are wholly independent of critical reception. My experiences with Just Dance put it much more in line with Transformers 2 or X-men: Wolverine than Avatar or Star Trek.