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[Jocchan]

Tetris, by GAF definitions, is totally a non-game.

1) Sells well
2) Massive casual penetration
3) Super-simplistic

But it's not made by Nintendo

Spoiler

only

, so it can't be a non-game.

 

[Salazar]

Us old school gamers have learned to recognize a good title from a crappy screen of a magazine, tired of spending our money on bad games.

Much wisdom, no room for irony.

:lol 'old school gamers'.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Generally they just put an embargo on reviews that are less than [x] grade though, not refuse to provide review copy of any kind.

True, but I was just pointing out that there are various forms of manipulation that companies do. Gamasutra actually ran an article after the whole GTA4 review situation started to come to light. It was about how different companies try to manipulate reviews

In the weeks prior to GTA IV’s release, Rockstar made promises that print and online publications would receive early review code so that they might fully ingest and digest Liberty City in order to deliver mature and balanced opinions on its day of launch.

In reality, this was not the case, with precious few publications getting to spend prolonged time with the game ahead of release. The first review of the game came from the UK’s Official Xbox magazine bearing the worrying caveat “based on unfinished code”.

Eurogamer, wise to the fact promises of AAA title retail code ‘a week before release’ are rarely upheld, arranged to play through the game over a period of days in Rockstar’s offices instead (along with a couple of other UK publications). From speaking to other editors (some of high profile titles) this was not an opportunity offered to all and, when review code failed to turn up the week before release, many were left panicking about how they were going to serve their readers in a timely manner with any integrity.

The reason for the withholding of review code was, according to Rockstar, a result to the game’s leaking onto the internet seven days before its release. Speaking to the company at the time it was claimed that this leak came from an unscrupulous journalist.

As a result, there was a lock down on all review code: everybody would get their copy just one day before the game’s release, and, despite the wonky logic (after all the game had already leaked to those with the capability to play it so why punish the many for the indiscretion of the few) there were to be “no exceptions, no arguments”.

The BBC noted the phenomenon saying: "Most reviewers were not sent advance copies of the game, and instead had to attend Rockstar offices or sit in booked hotel rooms to play the game,” where Rockstar could keep an eye and some pressure on them. While these few admitted the partial and necessarily subjective nature of their reviews, how many passed off their impressions as being definitive of the whole?

Rockstar aren't the first ones to handle big title reviews in this way. Nintendo’s recent ploy, in the UK at least, is to require reviewers to visit the ‘Nintendo Flat’ in London, a place where one can book slots to review titles for a period of time (depending on what slots are left over from the prioritised lifestyle mags and newspapers) from the comfort of one of the company’s armchairs.

For the reviewer it’s an inconvenience at best, at worst a pernicious and blatant attempt to colour their opinion in as short an amount of time as possible. Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart Wii: all big name titles (in both size and stature) only supplied to many games reviewers a few days before their release.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18761

These companies know exactly what they're doing with things like this. They just aren't doing it in such a "in your face" sort of way.

 

[tahrikmili]

Depends on your definition of game.

Tetris to me is as much a game as a jigsaw puzzle is. If you broaden the definition so much then by all means it's a game. So is dicerolling, birdwatching and masturbation.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions of course.

Being a non-game is not an insult. Tetris is possibly the most addictive piece of software I've run, right next to Minesweeper. It just isn't what I percieve to be a game.

If that's retarded interesting, then I'm glad you're easily amused.

 

[Aaron]

Assassin's Creed is a non-game, unless you consider walking and getting smacked by retards a game-like experience. Heck, you do most things in this so-called 'game' by simply holding a single button down. It's like tetris without the puzzle-solving aspects.

 

[Jinfash]

Search it for.

you didn't get it.

 

[Jocchan]

Depends on your definition of game.

Tetris to me is as much a game as a jigsaw puzzle is. If you broaden the definition so much then by all means it's a game. So is dicerolling, birdwatching and masturbation.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions of course.

Being a non-game is not an insult. Tetris is possibly the most addictive piece of software I've run, right next to Minesweeper. It just isn't what I percieve to be a game.

If that's retarded interesting, then I'm glad you're easily amused.

May I ask you what's your definition of game then? Is Minesweeper a non-game too? And what about Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo? Is there a puzzle game you'd define game, or are they all non-games?
I'm asking out of curiosity.

 

[GhaleonQ]

Depends on your definition of game.

Tetris to me is as much a game as a jigsaw puzzle is. If you broaden the definition so much then by all means it's a game. So is dicerolling, birdwatching and masturbation.

My feelings...What I feel is what I imagine my grandparents felt when popular music took over the term "music" in common parlance.

 

[duckroll]

This thread is going places.

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

If repetitiveness disqualifies something from being a game, Tetris is the most popular non-game ever.

Agreed.


To be honest, the only game related writer that managed to pinpoint the misrepresentation issue (of the game) with AC1 is not a reviewer. It was PennyArcade's Gabe.

I think the biggest complaint I saw was that the missions become repetitive and boring. I actually didn't understand this complaint at all until just the other day. I had gotten an early copy of the game just like everyone else in the media but I was just playing it for fun. I'd cracked into it over the weekend and when I got into the office on Monday I started seeing these negative reviews. When I saw the low scores I was actually really upset and I wanted to talk about the game here on the site. I wanted to tell everyone that these guys were full of shit. However, since so many of the complaints were based on the ending I wanted to beat it first so I was sure I wasn't missing anything. I attacked the game again but this time with the goal of beating it as fast as I could. I was determined to get a post up on Tuesday and I was pushing through the game as fast as I could. I went from finding every high perch in a district to only getting the ones I needed to advance the story. I stopped saving every citizen and avoided any unnecessary confrontations. The informer missions that I had really enjoyed before, I now avoided because I knew they took too long to complete. I did the bare minimum of missions to progress the story and anything that "hindered" my progress was frustrating. Monday night after skipping over another combat (something I used to really enjoy) I stopped myself. What the fuck was I doing? I wasn't playing the game because I wanted to I was playing it because I had a deadline and I needed to beat it. I stopped immediately and decided I'd write about the game whenever I got around to beating it. I spent another day and a half with it and during that time I hunted for hidden flags and explored the cities again. I came in this morning and finally did beat it but I did it at my own pace and I enjoyed every part of it.

Imagine what an open ended sandbox title must look like to a reviewer especially right now. How many games do they have piling up on their desks? A game like Assassins creed isn't meant to be played under a deadline. You shouldn't be trying to beat it as fast as you can so you can move on to Mass Effect or Mario Galaxy. As soon as I gave myself a deadline all of a sudden I understood all their complaints. It was like a fucking Escher painting. I had put myself in their shoes and suddenly the landscape flipped and I could see games from their perspective. In the end I wasn't angry at them for their bad reviews. I actually just felt bad for them.

-Gabe out

from: http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/11/14/

 

[Funky Papa]

Right in the cover.

 

[Deleted member 30609]

My feelings...What I feel is what I imagine my grandparents felt when popular music took over the term "music" in common parlance.

haha. I don't agree with everything you post, but this is right on the pulse.

 

[slidewinder]

My feelings...What I feel is what I imagine my grandparents felt when popular music took over the term "music" in common parlance.

What were your grandparents listening to beforehand?

 

[Eyemus Lutt]

The last time something like this happened it was with Eidos over Batman and some reviewer stating pretty much the same thing as in this instance. And people automatically jumped to the conclusion that the game must be shit and the first exclusive review must have been money hatted.

Assassins Creed was a decent game with some obvious problems but that also means they are not that difficult to rectify, and from what I have seen from previews they seem to have fixed nearly all of them.

 

[GoDLiKe]

Worst cover ever? Jesus the CoD MW2 art is asking to breathe :lol

 

[Jocchan]

http://www.computerbild.de/imgs/103107340_55f885a52c.jpg[IMG]

Right in the cover.[/QUOTE]
Needs more text, or everyone will think this issue has little to no content.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

The last time something like this happened it was with Eidos over Batman and some reviewer stating pretty much the same thing as in this instance. And people automatically jumped to the conclusion that the game must be shit and the first exclusive review must have been money hatted.

Assassins Creed was a decent game with some obvious problems but that also means they are not that difficult to rectify, and from what I have seen from previews they seem to have fixed nearly all of them.

Of course, it also happened with Kane and Lynch, and that turned out... not so good.

The actual quality of the game is irrelevant, though. It's the practice of deliberately trying to impede honest evaluations that people are finding abhorrent.

 

[[Nintex]]

omg, Disney Micky Epic

 

[Eyemus Lutt]

Of course, it also happened with Kane and Lynch, and that turned out... not so good.

The actual quality of the game is irrelevant, though. It's the practice of deliberately trying to impede honest evaluations that people are finding abhorrent.

But every single publisher does it in their own way. Whether it's Rockstar with GTA 4 and the lack of hands on time with the game for reviewers, or Gears of War 2 with no reviewer basically having played the game online and only LAN before it came out and so none of them fail to mention the big problems.

I'd rather Publisher do what Ubisoft or Eidos do and force the reviewers to be more critical of the game and be thorough as they don't have to rush as much, than be put in the situation where they have 3 days in a controlled environment to review a game.

 

[Doubledex]

Needs more text, or everyone will think this issue has little to no content.

Dude, that's a typical BILD cover. Nothing new. That's their style

 

[Jocchan]

Dude, that's a typical BILD cover. Nothing new. That's their style

I know, it was a joke.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

But every single publisher does it in their own way. Whether it's Rockstar with GTA 4 and the lack of hands on time with the game for reviewers, or Gears of War 2 with no reviewer basically having played the game online and only LAN before it came out and so none of them fail to mention the big problems.

I'd rather Publisher do what Ubisoft or Eidos do and force the reviewers to be more critical of the game and be thorough as they don't have to rush as much, than be put in the situation where they have 3 days in a controlled environment to review a game.

I wasn't aware that this was a binary choice. You can't think of any scenarios that might not involve extremely dishonest behaviour?

 

[Shiggy]

omg, Disney Micky Epic

He's called Micky in German
www.micky-maus.de
Disney Micky Epic appears to be the German name, at least you can find it written like that in various German gaming outlets - don't know why they swapped Epic and Mickey.

 

[Jocchan]

He's called Micky in German
www.micky-maus.de
Disney Micky Epic appears to be the German name, at least you can find it written like that in various German gaming outlets - don't know why they swapped Epic and Mickey.

Mickey Epic is a much cooler name than Epic Mickey.
Germans have good taste.
Except Haunted.

Spoiler

I'm still waiting to play some Uncharted 2 with you, man.

 

[truly101]

I was going to make a LTTP thread on AC since the sequel hits in a couple of weeks and I finished AC1 last month. Laziness has prevented me from doing it.

All in all, I enjoyed the game but if I was using the 10 point scale to what it its supposed to actually represent, AC1 wouldn't get much higher than a 7 from me. Its a good game, but it can wear on you big time.

I loved the world, the atmosphere, I liked the story with the whole genetic memory thing and the Templars, world ambition, etc. Its relatively unique without getting too bogged down in esoteric bullshit.

The game itself, well, the climbing is fun, the counter based combat is cool (nothing beats killing 10 guards and having the last one left run in terror). Outside of that, this is where the snags start to show up.

Lost of people have complained about AC1's repetitive nature, but I've never seen anyone really describe it well. If you've never played AC, then you really can't imagine how the mission structure really is repetitive. I'll try to break it down.

The bulk of the game is spent in 3 cities, Dasmascus, Jerusalem and Acre. Outside of some aesthetic differences, they're fairly identical and I wish more was done to differentiate them. Each city has 3 sections, the rich side of town, middle class, poor, you get the idea. Again, there is nothing really to differentiate them, cept maybe Acre's harbour. Each section has a set amount of tasks to do, they include:

1. Spires, steeples and minerettes to climb to syncronize veiwpoints (usually 8-10 or more in each section)
2. Citizens harassed by the town guard that you need to save (by killing said guards, also about 10 or so each section)
3. One or two eavesdrop spots per section to pick up info for your target.
4. One interrogation target where you follow some speech giver and beat him up for info.
5. One or two pickpocket targets where you follow someone and swipe documents for info as well.
6. One or two undercover Assassin agents who want you to either capture flags in a time limit or kill his targets for him for info.

in addition to this you can also hunt out templar knights and hidden flags in the cities and surrounding countryside.

Here's the rub. If you have down any of these tasks once, you have honestly done them all, the same procedure for success applies for each encounter, the only thing that changes is some of the info you get as a result. This could have been alleviated to a degree if the game actually rewarded you for doing these things, or if the info you received could result in different methods in killing your target. No such luck. So each city may have 30-40 spires to climb, 30 citizens to save, 6 eavesdrop points, with no actual differentiation between them. The encounter with the target is pretty much a scripted event, you do have a couple of options on taking them out, but not really the way you would want.
I liked the overall experience of AC, mainly due to the world, characters, story and combat. I could not really defend the meat of the game itself to the people that really don't like it. I just don't feel as extreme as they do.

 

[Massa]

The last time something like this happened it was with Eidos over Batman and some reviewer stating pretty much the same thing as in this instance. And people automatically jumped to the conclusion that the game must be shit and the first exclusive review must have been money hatted.

Assassins Creed was a decent game with some obvious problems but that also means they are not that difficult to rectify, and from what I have seen from previews they seem to have fixed nearly all of them.

I'm sorry but there's a huge difference between "if your score is bigger than 9 you can post the review before DD/MM, else you have to wait for the embargo date" and blackmailing a publication to commit to a high score before even playing the game.

And also:

 

[GhaleonQ]

....

This thread is great.

 

[Fafalada]

I wasn't aware that this was a binary choice. You can't think of any scenarios that might not involve extremely dishonest behaviour?

The thing that gets me is that most big companies put a high-value on MetaCritic rankings these days (because business side noticed they matter) but cheating those rankings is only serving the purpose of reducing their relevance again.
Then again I guess self-destructive behavior just runs in the business as a whole (eg. Activision treatment of franchises).

 

[Sqorgar]

I really can't blame publishers for not trusting game reviewers. We've all seen how inconsistent they are. It's almost like there's been a backlash against the middle ground. Games are either awesome or terrible. And when publishers base so much on the metacritic score, stupidly or not, it is entirely within their best interest to do everything they can to get great scores. I don't think reviewers admitting how much they've been bought off will help, since the opposite reaction is likely (They flew me to Italy, but just to show you how much I'm not in their pocket, the game gets a 3/10). I think the only fair way a journalist can make an unbiased review is if he buys the game with his own money the same day everybody else does.

It's just the dance that two organizations that innately distrust each other must go through. It's no different than haggling for the best price at a used car dealership. Personally, I'd start to worry when Ubisoft (or whatever) starts trying to sabotage the reviews of its competitor's games. At that point, it's not haggling, it's market manipulation.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

I really can't blame publishers for not trusting game reviewers. We've all seen how inconsistent they are. It's almost like there's been a backlash against the middle ground. Games are either awesome or terrible. And when publishers base so much on the metacritic score, stupidly or not, it is entirely within their best interest to do everything they can to get great scores. I don't think reviewers admitting how much they've been bought off will help, since the opposite reaction is likely (They flew me to Italy, but just to show you how much I'm not in their pocket, the game gets a 3/10). I think the only fair way a journalist can make an unbiased review is if he buys the game with his own money the same day everybody else does.

It's just the dance that two organizations that innately distrust each other must go through. It's no different than haggling for the best price at a used car dealership. Personally, I'd start to worry when Ubisoft (or whatever) starts trying to sabotage the reviews of its competitor's games. At that point, it's not haggling, it's market manipulation.

Actually, there's a very effective way to manipulate the Metacritic score without resorting to deceitful and immoral activity. It's a revolutionary technique called "don't make a shitty game".

 

[Kintaro]

Actually, there's a very effective way to manipulate the Metacritic score without resorting to deceitful and immoral activity. It's a revolutionary technique called "don't make a shitty game".

That was kind of his point. What is a shitty game? One that scores a 7? A C+? Even "8" and "B" are frowned on by people.

Right now, there is only "awesome" or "suck" in the minds of gamers.

 

[BattleMonkey]

I really can't blame publishers for not trusting game reviewers. We've all seen how inconsistent they are. It's almost like there's been a backlash against the middle ground. Games are either awesome or terrible. And when publishers base so much on the metacritic score, stupidly or not, it is entirely within their best interest to do everything they can to get great scores. I don't think reviewers admitting how much they've been bought off will help, since the opposite reaction is likely (They flew me to Italy, but just to show you how much I'm not in their pocket, the game gets a 3/10). I think the only fair way a journalist can make an unbiased review is if he buys the game with his own money the same day everybody else does.

It's just the dance that two organizations that innately distrust each other must go through. It's no different than haggling for the best price at a used car dealership. Personally, I'd start to worry when Ubisoft (or whatever) starts trying to sabotage the reviews of its competitor's games. At that point, it's not haggling, it's market manipulation.

And we are to trust publishers somehow more than reviewers when they seem to be just as dirty?

People act like reviews should all match each other yet we see every day almost every game has differing opinions by it's players. Even the big AAA blockbusters have people who dislike things about them or not like it at all. If they were a reviewer they suddenly would not be allowed to give an honest opinion and it's their duty to match the status quo? Reviews are merely opinions, they should be treated as such.

 

[Returners]

Meh, its getting old. We know Ubisoft is doing that already long before.

Any magazine "exposing" this might be trying to build some "integrity"/sympathy of their own.

 

[Sqorgar]

Actually, there's a very effective way to manipulate the Metacritic score without resorting to deceitful and immoral activity. It's a revolutionary technique called "don't make a shitty game".

I'm probably more critical than most when it comes to game quality, but even I admit that review scores seem to be completely unrelated to a game's actual quality. For instance, my favorite game of the generation is Viking: Battle For Asgard. Somewhat of a niche title that struck me just the right way, but maybe not totally universal appeal. It has a metascore of 65 with sites like 1up giving it a D+. Super Bombad Racing has a metascore of 71.

 

[LiK]

i saw some guys in both my 360 and PS3 friend lists playing it. i guess they will give it an A automatically? will see if it's true

 

[timkunedo]

I'm probably more critical than most when it comes to game quality, but even I admit that review scores seem to be completely unrelated to a game's actual quality. For instance, my favorite game of the generation is Viking: Battle For Asgard. Somewhat of a niche title that struck me just the right way, but maybe not totally universal appeal. It has a metascore of 65 with sites like 1up giving it a D+. Super Bombad Racing has a metascore of 71.

LOVED Viking:Battle for Asgard!! I beat the game twice on PS3 and once on 360. Plan on playing through it again at some point.


As far as this review nonsense goes....AC2 is day one regardless. Can't wait!

 

[Littleberu]

Because there's a reliable history of this sort of thing happening, especially in the case of Ubisoft. And the credibility of the magazine is decent.

Except the case of Kane and Lynch, no other cases had been reported as "true".

Again, how come they're the only one, this magazine, claiming this?

 

[Chrono]

I recently played a bit of Assassin's Creed and hated it, I couldn't believe its metacritic score. And I didn't even get to the repetitive boring parts that people complain about, it just felt clunky, suffocating (ironic, considering freedom is the developer's goal), and creatively bankrupt. It feels like they sort of designed it on paper and just spent their time writing an engine and doing stylish art for PR. It also reminded me of Metal Gear, no wonder Kojima liked it, except in AC's case there was nothing awesome about the game to outbalance the second-rate game design.

However, considering many still love it and the sequel supposedly being fixed, I was planning to start it again and finish it and move on to 2.

Thanks to this OP however, I'll be saving money I can spend on better games and supporting better developers.

 

[John]

review scores seem to be completely unrelated to a game's actual quality.

The sooner everyone learns this, the better. Game critics are useless.

 

[antiloop]

Review scores are so last gen. I just want to hear about what the game offers. No need to put a letter or a number on it.

 

[Sqorgar]

I recently played a bit of Assassin's Creed and hated it, I couldn't believe its metacritic score. And I didn't even get to the repetitive boring parts that people complain about, it just felt clunky, suffocating (ironic, considering freedom is the developer's goal), and creatively bankrupt. It feels like they sort of designed it on paper and just spent their time writing an engine and doing stylish art for PR.

I went back to win AC so that I could play the sequel, and for whatever reason, I enjoyed it exponentially more the second time. I think part of it is that my expectations were more realistic. Another part was that, after learning the system a little better, stealth was more possible and things were less random.

But there are two things that I didn't enjoy. AC has about a thousand hours of two people talking. It's a different two people, but good lord, do they talk. Before you assassinate someone, you've got to talk to the guy at the guild. Get to the assassination spot and listen to them give a speech. Then you kill them and you have to talk with their dying corpse. Then you have to go back to the guy in the guild. Then back to the assassin leader for another ten minutes of talking. And if you're lucky, you get taken out of the machine to listen to Kristen Bell talk before taking a nap and listening to a bit more talking. Each assassination is about thirty minutes of unskippable, captionless cutscenes of two people talking forever and about five minutes of actually playing.

The other problem is that the end of the game has none of the fun city climbing and is entirely about killing an endless supply of enemies in hand to hand combat. The combat was okay, but killing five waves of thirty opponents gets old quick. And then they start talking again!

But other than that, I really enjoyed my second time with the game. Probably put it in my top ten for this generation (it's no Viking: Battle For Asgard though).

Thanks to this OP however, I'll be saving money I can spend on better games and supporting better developers.

The guy who programs the physics engine isn't the one holding the game away from a German game magazine. Don't let the stupid actions of the marketing department color your opinion of the people who actually spent two years of their life working on the game. If you want to support "better developers", ignore marketing completely.

 

[Atrus]

Pacing is a function of time, variety of tasks isn't. If you're arguing that the game didn't have anything interesting to do, that's still not an issue of pacing.

Which, again, is not a complaint with pacing.

I don't disagree that AC had serious issues with its mission design and lack of things to actually do in the world. But I don't see what either of those has to do with pacing.

Even if you chose the bare minimum, the pacing of this game is repetitive and overly long for the amount of substance it had (which itself was little). It's the same damned thing every single time. Interesting the first go, a concern the moment you did it again, and a horror as you realized that's all the game is.

I also don't see your point that the variety of taskes isn't a function of time. It certainly does take time to complete them and there is usually a minimum threshold of time even for optional tasks before gamers learn to abandon them altogether as pointless.

Since the plot itself was overly convoluted just to carry such a simple premise (not helped by the craptacular 'ending'), there was literally nothing there to pace aside from the tasks.

The only reason I attempted to finish this atrocity of the game was to eke some reward from the plot, and even that was a failure thanks to the so-called ending.

 

[pvpness]

These days, next to tv ads, reviews are the most powerful form of marketing that exists for the video game industry. If you want to find an "honest" review of a game you're going to have to go to some unknown site that has basically no traffic, bought the game themselves and has no sponsers. Pubs aren't stupid and they know that 90% of todays "hardcore" demo buy exactly what they are told to buy and shun what they are told to shun. It's no surprise they'll do whatever it takes to make sure the ad they place is one of a positive nature. Everybody already knows this though...

 

[Malio]

Guess I'll treat this one like AC1. Wait till it's below $20, then grab it on Ebay. grats Ubi.

 

[iidesuyo]

Pissing off BILD has never been a good idea... they can get pretty ugly if they don't like you. They are like the the British tabloid press.

But their ciruclation has dropped from 700.000/month to 400.000, so they might not be so powerful anymore. Still they are Europe's best selling game magazine...

 

[I AM JOHN!]

Eidos was also accused of doing this shit with Batman: AA, IIRC.

And Tomb Raider Underworld with the whole "Tomb Radar" bullshit.

Glad to see Ubi's back to their old tricks again, since it's not just enough that they supposedly put in more than two hours of unique gameplay in AC2 and it should probably sell a ton of copies because the last one sold a ton of copies.