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Forums - Gaming Discussion - What Exactly Is Jim Sterling Reviewing? Not Much Apparently

rocketpig on 17 March 2010

I just emailed Jim. He said he never even played Final Fantasy XIII. He based his review on the box art.

Those trophies were earned by his pet chimpanzee.




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Almi on 17 March 2010
Spagoodle said:

I'm going to do this one last time for those of you who don't know what the fuck you talking about.

Developers do not send retail copy's to reviewers. Reviewers have things call debug kits. They download the game from a service like PartnetNet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PartnerNet or the file is sent directly to them. WHEN YOU PLAY A GAME ON A DEBUG THERE ARE NO TROPHIES/ACHIEVEMENTS.

You guys can keep ignoring the facts. those screen shots prove nothing but how far he played it on a retail copy. For those of you who still can't figure it out he didn't review it based off of that play through. You guys are wrong and are talking out of your ass. When you take a shit on someone integrity you should try to not talk absolute shit in the process.


/thread

i couldn't care less about him not finishing the game or giving it a bad review, but are you seriously saying he actually played through that awful 4/10 game again just to get the trophies (which he apparently doesn't care for, otherwise he would be higher than level 6)?



twesterm on 17 March 2010
Spagoodle said:

I'm going to do this one last time for those of you who don't know what the fuck you talking about.

Developers do not send retail copy's to reviewers. Reviewers have things call debug kits. They download the game from a service like PartnetNet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PartnerNet or the file is sent directly to them. WHEN YOU PLAY A GAME ON A DEBUG THERE ARE NO TROPHIES/ACHIEVEMENTS.

You guys can keep ignoring the facts. those screen shots prove nothing but how far he played it on a retail copy. For those of you who still can't figure it out he didn't review it based off of that play through. You guys are wrong and are talking out of your ass. When you take a shit on someone integrity you should try to not talk absolute shit in the process.


/thread

You're partly right, it depends on who is reviewing it, the game, and when they review it. 

  • The Who -- if it's not a big time reviewer, they don't have access to partner net and are forced to use whatever they're given.  Destructoid might be on Metacritic, but they aren't that big.
  • The Game -- Like it or not, FFXIII is a huge game and they had loads of copies printed before release and well before release at that.  Knowing that, it makes sense that they can send retail copies or copies that can be played in retail machines before it releases.
  • The When -- The game released on the 9th and the review was posted on the 16th, if he had an early non-retail copy he would have posted it the day the game released.

Since the game was actually finished long ago I would be willing to bet they just sent him a retail copy early.



 

rocketpig on 17 March 2010
RolStoppable said:
@rocketpig

I think Jim's sarcasm just went over your head.

And I'm pretty sure I just made that up.




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epicurean on 17 March 2010
Almi said:
Spagoodle said:

I'm going to do this one last time for those of you who don't know what the fuck you talking about.

Developers do not send retail copy's to reviewers. Reviewers have things call debug kits. They download the game from a service like PartnetNet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PartnerNet or the file is sent directly to them. WHEN YOU PLAY A GAME ON A DEBUG THERE ARE NO TROPHIES/ACHIEVEMENTS.

You guys can keep ignoring the facts. those screen shots prove nothing but how far he played it on a retail copy. For those of you who still can't figure it out he didn't review it based off of that play through. You guys are wrong and are talking out of your ass. When you take a shit on someone integrity you should try to not talk absolute shit in the process.


/thread

i couldn't care less about him not finishing the game or giving it a bad review, but are you seriously saying he actually played through that awful 4/10 game again just to get the trophies (which he apparently doesn't care for, otherwise he would be higher than level 6)?

This is what I was going to say.  So he absolutely hated this game, yet he played it a second time 75% of the way through just to get the trophies?  You really believe this?  I'd really like to know your opinion on this, Spagoodle.

I don't really care, I'm playing the game now, so reviews don't really matter at this point - but I find your logic hard to believe.



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outlawauron on 17 March 2010
twesterm said:
Spagoodle said:

I'm going to do this one last time for those of you who don't know what the fuck you talking about.

Developers do not send retail copy's to reviewers. Reviewers have things call debug kits. They download the game from a service like PartnetNet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PartnerNet or the file is sent directly to them. WHEN YOU PLAY A GAME ON A DEBUG THERE ARE NO TROPHIES/ACHIEVEMENTS.

You guys can keep ignoring the facts. those screen shots prove nothing but how far he played it on a retail copy. For those of you who still can't figure it out he didn't review it based off of that play through. You guys are wrong and are talking out of your ass. When you take a shit on someone integrity you should try to not talk absolute shit in the process.


/thread

You're partly right, it depends on who is reviewing it, the game, and when they review it.  Since the game was actually finished long ago I would be willing to bet they just sent him a retail copy early.

Speaking to some of the review staff here, it's a mixed bag. Torillian usually gets a early retail copy, but there have been times where he got a special version that did not have trophies.



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Wonktonodi on 17 March 2010
twesterm said:
Wonktonodi said:
twesterm said:

Again, forgive my ignorance since I don't really visit the compare trophies screen, but it looks like he has a lot of trophies. I can't tell if those one below it or locked or not since I don't really know what to look for but he has 63% of the trophies.

That's 22 of the 35 trophies and when 13 of them look to be story trophies it seems like he could have completed most of the game.

I know in most 360 games you can finish with anywhere from 400-600 points so I would assume trophies would be the same deal.

That would be the % he is through  the next "level" it's about total trophy count and not game specific. 

Ah, just goes to show how much I look at that screen.  :-p

And I forgot to mention, while I think it's alright for reviewers to review games they haven't finished, I agree that they should mention that they didn't bother with the rest of the game.

no worries if I had the trouble with trophies like you have had I'd know a lot less than I do myself not to mention being part of the trophy leage has helped me learn more even if I'm only in the top 100



twesterm on 17 March 2010

He has actually posted an answer and it's a good read:
http://www.destructoid.com/the-joys-of-being-a-videogame-reviewer-167383.phtml



 

Hephaestos on 17 March 2010

if you played 10 hours of a game and you think it's worth 4/10, then the game did fail and definitely does not deserve to be played anymore...


Saying you can't review an RPG unless you finished it is the same as saying you can't review chrono trigger unless you played all the endings... it's just dumb.



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Euphoria14 on 17 March 2010
twesterm said:
He has actually posted an answer and it's a good read:
http://www.destructoid.com/the-joys-of-being-a-videogame-reviewer-167383.phtml

OMGWTF?!!! Did you see that article?!!! Did you SEE those pictures?!!!

 

That son of a bitch is playing 3D Dot Game Heroes.



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