deadairis said:
I appreciate the "not-personal" note, but no worries. I'm happy for the feedback.
Here's a question: How could that link to our scale be more clear? It's in big letters: "what these scores mean." It's linked right under each score. It's the same system we've used for years. There's a summation of how we feel about the game right under the score.
That doesn't address the issue of those who take your score out of its original context. Since you can't ensure your little scale carries over to any references made to your score, why not replace your system with something simple and unambiguous? Besides, the argument of "we make it perfectly clear" doesn't hold much weight. You shouldn't have to make it clear.
I agree that the video game review scale is inflated towards the 7-10 range, but again, if everyone knows it -- if it's publically available knowledge -- then it serves its purpose. Do you really look at school grades and not understand them because a 50.5% isn't a "C"? I presume not. Good or bad, right or wrong, it's a commonly understood system.
Well actually, I don't know a lot about the system the American education system uses, but using it to parallel a subjective review is a fallacy and actually works against your own idiotic system. Presumably, the school grading system works the way it does, because 50% is assumed to be the acceptable minimum showing of knowledge, and the degree of failure is irrelevant, so why factor it into grading?
In that system, you have one grade to measure an unacceptable standard - F. You have 12 (?) for measuring success. The "inflated average" is simply a reflection of more people succeeding than failing.
In your own system, you have 3 grades for measuring that which is above the norm, and 7 for that which is below the norm. Since you are also in the same boat as the education system, in that the average is "inflated" due to more success than failure, the bias should go the other way so you have a better measure for the degree of success. You've got your system arse-backwards.
People who don't know it -- say, are looking at metacritic to get a gift -- are still going to look at the ones at the top of the scale, not the 70s. Because they'll look at the 70s and think "eh, a C!" or "Hey, I could get a 94 instead!"
Is it perfect? Probably not. Does it work? Yeah. Well enough? It seems like consensus here is "no," but why not?
That in itself is subjective. How many people approach gift buying with the simplistic overview of "Jimmy likes games, I'm going to get him the best rated game I can find!" vs the people who take an approach like "Jimmy likes games, and Jimmy likes Spiderman. Let's check the metascore for Spiderman 3 - the game."
Honestly, it's still an editorial based an incredibly early hands-on.
Is it really? The closest I get to representing a point of view is "Let's hope", which is irrelevant in this case - favourable if anything, because I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. Is the inclusion of factual information from outside of that preview session what's getting you? I see nothing at all wrong with putting the information into context.
Besides which, it's still perfectly factual. I refrained from jumping to the conclusions I could have easliy jumped to given Bethesda's tragic MO - "Bethesda will almost certainly fuck this up utterly, given their slack design methods and desire to pander to the lowest common denominator."
And even if I did make such statements, who is going to prove me wrong? Certainly not Bethesda.
Sorry, to be more clear, I wasn't actually like "Oh, my hair is now white!" surprised. More 'Wow, I'm surprised they opened themselves up to showing anything at this point, since it'll be barely more than a taste and they can't have a ton of stuff locked in.' It's not that they *physically* shouldn't have anything to show; it's that they are being very daring showing so much, so early. That may not be your experience with publishers and developers, but it sure is mine.
So, a triple A developer with a multi-million dollar turnover, employing hundreds of people who are all working full-time for eighteen months with an existing engine they have the good part of a decade's experience with, in addition to a significant amount of pre-production in advance, shouldn't have much to show for their efforts? Get your hand off it.
Developers in much less fortunate circumstances will be pushing out a gold master in that sort of time frame.
deadairis said:
b) previews need to cover what the reader didn't get to see, but we did. There was plenty of content in the hands-on time our previewer got to fill four pages without getting into editoralizing.
The "we haven't played it yet," for what it's worth, is a polite way of saying "this could be anything." Without hands on, we don't know how it actually plays. How it survives being tweaked. If we can actually do what we've been told. I can see how that's unclear there, but it's an attempt to make clear that a) there's promise and b) that promise could be anywhere, since we're seeing the damn thing so early.
Although, note I didn't write that preview.
You're right to a point - "this could be anything". So why the fuck are the so called "critics" instantly assuming the best case scenario? Why are you all studiously ignoring the warning signs? As I said earlier, Bethesda obviously think what they've got is worth showing off, so why refuse to comment on the worrisome aspects? You can safely assume the lion's share of the "warts and all" bits have been well covered over for the purposes of showing the preview, and anything else they're conscious of would be commented on:
"Bear in mind that's not how we expect the final iteration of the supermutants to look; our artists are still working on refining them to be closer to the source material."
They didn't say that. Why?
How do you get an objective review for a subjective thing? I gave Oblivion a (gasp!) 9 -- here, I'll make sure none of you have to hunt for it --http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3149203 .
And that's on 1up's "a 5 IS average" scale. I stand by it; you guys don't agree with it, but a review is fundamentally an opinion for anything other than technical fields. I think asking for a review with no editorialising is asking for nothing, honestly, but a feature list.
How is it not?
If you believe you can't be objective about a game, you're dead wrong. There is a big difference between - "I think the graphics look shit" and "The graphics are technically impressive, but stylistically similar to contemporary products". I can't brook this attitude of "find a reviewer with similar tastes". I know what my tastes are, and the reviewer should be able to paint a clear enough picture that I can decide whether the game fits my tastes or not.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying reviews ought to be a dry academic paper, but I don't see the value in being overly subjective. Since it's easier for me to illustrate than explain -
my own Oblivion review. From reading the opening of your own, I can see we'll be at sixes and sevens. For instance:
It builds a foundation of the little things, which are done so well that they grow into big things.
You may have enjoyed those little things, but I can assure you with the utmost certainty that barely any are "done well".
Depends on who's on them, and what they're talking about. You're likely to get a lot more information, for one thing, since you aren't reading a piece that has to meet certain ethical and due diligance standards (which we've talked about). In the podcast? Well, depends on the product. You're not going to hear anyone disagree with my Shadowrun review on the GameSpy Debriefings, because everyone on the show hates it. If it's World of Warcraft (or any Blizzard product) though, you will - Sterling (one of our core podcast hosts) just doesn't like those games.
So, depends on the week. At GameSpy, our edit columns are largely platform wide thoughts -- Sterling on Sony stuff, Gabe on MS stuff, and Bryn on Nintendo stuff. Those tend to talk about higher level stuff than just "this game X, that game Y," using games as examples. The podcast is more of the people on it talking about the week at large, so we tend to discuss what we're working on. You won't hear an editor give a game a 5 and then trashtalk it -- or he wouldn't have given it a 5 -- but you'll probably hear someone disagree with the 5 (those are usually tumultous).
Sounds to me like you guys need more dissenters among your ranks. I'd love to hear the arguments that try to counter the assertions the Fallout community has been making about Fallout 3 looking grim.
Since I haven't seen crap of the preview yet, I'm not sure? I'll get around to reading them soon. I promise.
But could we see a whooole lot change between now and release? Oh yes. The supermutant model? I don't know. Hell, Fasa totally redesigned Shadowrun after a badly received E3 showing.
"Badly received at E3" is entirely different "badly received by the people you expect to hate it anyway." A poor E3 reception means that (predominantly) the media are against you, and that damage has to be undone otherwise your greatest marketing tool now serves a contrary purpose. If any of you guys had the balls or the good taste to speak up and say - "uh guys, this actually looks like they don't actually get fallout and have no intention of even
attempting to surpass the high bar set by its namesake ten years ago," then their arm would be twisted.
Right now, I bet they're more likely to be pleased with the fact the Codex (et al) don't like what they see, because that means they're doing something right by their accountants.
Can it change? Yes. Will it? This early, entirely likely.
And, we once again run into a weird dichotomy: there are the Fallout fans who want to see something similiar to the original games, even if that means compromises to make sure the game gets published, instead of never seeing the light of day. And there are the fans who don't accept that compromise. I don't know there's any way to rectify the situation, honestly, and I hope everyone here can see how hard a situation the publisher is in:
Put out a game that's identical enough to satisfy the hard core and fail to sell because there's not enough done to justify a sequel;
If you don't think a game will sell enough to recoup $20 million in development costs, don't spend $20 million developing it. Alternatively, don't pay $7 million for a core fanbase you don't believe can provide you with $7 million in sales. You fuckers are largely complicit in driving development costs through the roof, by lampooning anything that dares to be anything but a blockbuster.
Again, I don't think there's malicious intent in this, you're just not as discerning or insightful as "the hardcore".
And nice use of "identical enough" there. We've never wanted "idential enough", hence the reason why a lot of us are opposed to the idea of rehashing the BOS and Supermutants. All we want is a respectful understanding of Fallout, and a genuine attempt to make a game that is meant for
us, and not Oblivion fans.
Change the game enough to have made "positive changes" but not enough to alienate the "real fans"; or
Put out a game that will appeal to the current market, a decent chunk of fans, but leave the ones who just will not accept some changes behind.
This isn't a Fallout specific issue; it's a sequel issue.
Homeworld is a great example -- Cataclysm was just too much changed for me, but it did well and kept a lot of the fans happy. I hated it. Homeworld 2 went too far in pandering to the market and misjudged what the market wanted, leaving Sierra with no one but the Homeworld sheep buying it.
As for Fallout 3...we'll see. I'll see the game at E3, most likely, and put some of what I've heard here to Bethesda and see what they think (and talk about it on the podcast). For what it's worth, I think
No, it's not a sequel issue at all, it's an issue with developers and publisher being fucking idiot slaves to an ideology they don't even understand. A developer making a sequel is in an ideal position. You have solid market info on how many people bought your last game and you can use that in combination with peer and user review to get a pretty good picture of what a sequel is likely to do in terms of sales.
And from there, you draw up a budget. For what fucking reason would someone risking bundles of cash ignore that clear precedent in favour of staking a higher investment on a higher risk product in a saturated market? Oh wait, because it's conventional wisdom that consoles and the casual market are the way forward. Give me a fucking break. The only "reason" I can think of is greed. Pure and simple.
I don't think they accidentally showed anything. I honestly think, from what I've heard here, that they've got a build most Fallout fans will like. The quest, as described to me, doesn't sound all that terrible as a way to distinguish how you want to play, nice and early. That means the entire game now has a metric to build upon. Do I want something more complex than nuke or not nuke a town as options? Yeah. But do I want a choice to turn right to white knight or left to jerk right off the bat, even though I can't wipe out the town guard yet?
Yes.
Of course, I replayed both Fallouts to kill every non-random living thing I could, so...
And as for the super-mutants being the most iconic enemies of fallout, I'll take a crazed stance: humans are the most iconic enemies of Fallout. That sounds trite, but I mean it. Humans, doing human things, are what define Fallout. It's the difference between a madcap Unknown Armies game and a Kult game -- you might see the same level of weirdness and horror, but one of them is because of humans, and one because of monsters.
And if the Megaton quest is anything to go by, they've even fucked up the "humans, doing human things" bit.
The guy who wrote our preview has been doing this a Loooong time, and is reaaallly good at it. The thing is, who do you think got sent to write these previews? The guy who wrote our preview is a huge Fallout fan.
I'm a huge Elder Scrolls fan, and I wrote Oblivion previews that are reviled here. I don't think this is a core issue with how previews get done; I think it's a core issue with what the hardcore Fallout fans represented here want and what other people want.
Let's turn that around: Not a "single fucking one of you guys" shares any of the previewers conclusions -- even though you're discussing the same facts. So..."strange."
At least we're offering arguments as to why you guys are coming up with your conclusions. You can try, but it's going to be pretty fucking hard to argue away the vested interest in being positive. What's our angle? What do we have to gain from criticising Fallout? What's our motive?
At the end of the day, it's clear cut. We say we don't like what we see because we legitimately don't like it. And don't try to pull that "you wanted to hate it from the outset! You never gave it a chance!" horseshit that so many others do. All evidence points to this reaction being consistent with our gaming tastes and wants. It's history repeating. We expressed our concerns over Oblivion, were assured otherwise, and in the end our concerns were proven to be well founded.
On the other hand, you guys say you like what you see, but it's pretty hard to take that at face value when we know what is at stake here. Like it or not, the credibility of your opinions and "facts" are forever tainted.