azrm2k said: ssj12 said: I agree with RP that the review system is broken. I think reviews need to become more critical like Yahtzee's reviews. His reviews are truly masterpieces.  I dunno.  I love Yahtzee as much as the next guy but part of what makes him so great is he's a refreshing cynical bastard in a sea of brown-nosing reviewers who aren't critical enough.  He even jokes about how people only watch his reviews to see how he tears the games apart.  If all reviewers were like that it would just get annoying, not to mention piss of the developers like crazy if a major player spent the entire review tearing apart AAA games like yahtzee does.

 I was generalizing critics there. Look at movie critics, there are about 10 or so well respected critics. There are the other reviews but the real reviews on movies fall to people like Ebert & Roeper. There needs to be more critics that will straight up tell it as they see it.

ssj12 said: Xponent said: MontanaHatchet said: Xponent said: In what way is GTA4 revolutionary? Revolutionary in what way? That's a very open-ended question. Revolutionary for the series? The genre? All games? All art forms?    I was responding to Roadkillers opinion that it is revolutionary. Maybe we should ask him.  The game is revolutionary due to what it has done in taking the franchise and genre to the next level.  From a technical standpoint the game is a marval all the things going on and happening at once. The amount of AI in the game is amazing. Each of the 700 different civilians have a different personality, movement, etc. Each car drives differently. All the weapons fire more realistically. Not having 1000 health pickups and having to make the player actually use his head in times of combat. After combat have it so the only way to heal is hunt for a randiom health pack or spend money on food. Thats what is revolutionary about GTAIV.

IMO, despite those technical advances you describe, there is nothing fundamentally different about it compared to previous iterations. It's more evolutionary IMO. Great game nonetheless.

 

Here come my ideas about Galaxy, Halo 3, and GTA4. None of them should be 10s. The review system is broken for showering them all with 10s. I think out of these 3, Galaxy was the biggest leap forward in its particular genre, but then again, 3-D platforming was a stagnant pile of crap with no competition, basically waiting for the next Mario anyway. The FPS genre is completely flooded, so it's hard for games to stick out and get 10s. They better be damn good. Sandbox games haven't really changed since GTA3. There's a couple 8s and 9s in the genre, but I don't think a single sandbox game should get a 10 outside of GTA3. And even then, the graphics sucked, the controls sucked, and it was glitchy as hell, so I should lower it to a 9.5 on principle.

Galaxy: I think Galaxy did leaps and bounds for 3-D platforming more than anything since Mario 64, so I'd say it's pretty revolutionary, but... not as revolutionary as Mario 64. So I'd say Mario 64's a 10 and Galaxy's up there, in 9-9.5ish for being almost as historically epic. A damn fine leap that truly transcended its genre and raised the bar, but not as amazingly revolutionary as Mario 64.

Halo 3: I think Halo 3 was a really solid polished console FPS, but it wasn't a gigantic leap from Halo 2 or even Halo 1. The jump between Halos was not as big as the jump between Marios. I'd give it a 8.5-9-ish for being a damn good FPS, but not as genre-transcending and revolutionary as other FPS games like Doom 2, GoldenEye, Half-Life 1, and Portal.

GTA4: I think GTA4 didn't completely revolutionize the sandbox genre. That was GTA3's job. They have the same graphical problems, and car chunks and trees appear out of nowhere. A game that has TECHNICAL issues that jarring and distracting shouldn't be a 10 any way you look at it. I'd give GTA3 a 10 or close to it, and give Vice City a 9.0 and San Andreas a 9.4 for continuing and improving the series in nice ways, but they don't get 10s because they didn't transcend and improve in the gigantic leap that games like Mario 64 and GTA3 did. GTA4 had really high hypes and hopes for debuting the series into the 7th generation, and well, it delivered, but still has horrible technical problems, so it should be a solid 9.0.

THESE ARE RUBANG'S THOUGHTS. Sue me.

rocketpig said: Squilliam said: Perhaps you could say the review system is broken, just like all subjective reviews are broken. It depends too much on feeling and hype. Here's the article in case you didn't read it. http://vgchartz.com/news/news.php?id=1124 I mention how other review systems seem to approach how they review material much differently (and maturely). Anything that is subjective will ultimately be flawed in some way... But that doesn't mean it has to be broken.

I read about 3 quarters of it and then I ran out of time. I agreed with a lot of what you said there. Perhaps though, if you edited it and rewrote a few bits to make your thoughts a little more coherant then you'd have a great piece. :)

 

tombi123 said: Hardly anyone mentioned that the review system was broken until GTA4 came out. Thats what annoys me. A game comes out that looks like it might replace LoZ:OoT as the number 1 game, and suddenly everyone is saying the review system is broken.

 I've brought it up many times before GTA4 came out.  People just ignore me because I don't have my name in red.

Xponent said: ssj12 said: Xponent said: MontanaHatchet said: Xponent said: In what way is GTA4 revolutionary? Revolutionary in what way? That's a very open-ended question. Revolutionary for the series? The genre? All games? All art forms?   I was responding to Roadkillers opinion that it is revolutionary. Maybe we should ask him. The game is revolutionary due to what it has done in taking the franchise and genre to the next level. From a technical standpoint the game is a marval all the things going on and happening at once. The amount of AI in the game is amazing. Each of the 700 different civilians have a different personality, movement, etc. Each car drives differently. All the weapons fire more realistically. Not having 1000 health pickups and having to make the player actually use his head in times of combat. After combat have it so the only way to heal is hunt for a randiom health pack or spend money on food. Thats what is revolutionary about GTAIV. IMO, despite those technical advances you describe, there is nothing fundamentally different about it compared to previous iterations. It's more evolutionary IMO. Great game nonetheless.

 So, it's essentially the same as a sequel in any series.

The Ghost of RubangB said: Here come my ideas about Galaxy, Halo 3, and GTA4. None of them should be 10s. The review system is broken for showering them all with 10s. I think out of these 3, Galaxy was the biggest leap forward in its particular genre, but then again, 3-D platforming was a stagnant pile of crap with no competition, basically waiting for the next Mario anyway. The FPS genre is completely flooded, so it's hard for games to stick out and get 10s. They better be damn good. Sandbox games haven't really changed since GTA3. There's a couple 8s and 9s in the genre, but I don't think a single sandbox game should get a 10 outside of GTA3. And even then, the graphics sucked, the controls sucked, and it was glitchy as hell, so I should lower it to a 9.5 on principle. Galaxy: I think Galaxy did leaps and bounds for 3-D platforming more than anything since Mario 64, so I'd say it's pretty revolutionary, but... not as revolutionary as Mario 64. So I'd say Mario 64's a 10 and Galaxy's up there, in 9-9.5ish for being almost as historically epic. A damn fine leap that truly transcended its genre and raised the bar, but not as amazingly revolutionary as Mario 64. Halo 3: I think Halo 3 was a really solid polished console FPS, but it wasn't a gigantic leap from Halo 2 or even Halo 1. The jump between Halos was not as big as the jump between Marios. I'd give it a 8.5-9-ish for being a damn good FPS, but not as genre-transcending and revolutionary as other FPS games like Doom 2, GoldenEye, Half-Life 1, and Portal. GTA4: I think GTA4 didn't completely revolutionize the sandbox genre. That was GTA3's job. They have the same graphical problems, and car chunks and trees appear out of nowhere. A game that has TECHNICAL issues that jarring and distracting shouldn't be a 10 any way you look at it. I'd give GTA3 a 10 or close to it, and give Vice City a 9.0 and San Andreas a 9.4 for continuing and improving the series in nice ways, but they don't get 10s because they didn't transcend and improve in the gigantic leap that games like Mario 64 and GTA3 did. GTA4 had really high hypes and hopes for debuting the series into the 7th generation, and well, it delivered, but still has horrible technical problems, so it should be a solid 9.0. THESE ARE RUBANG'S THOUGHTS. Sue me.

*High fives Rubang*

100% agreement, right down to your individual scores (if I was forced to arbitrarily attach a number to a game, that is). 

ssj12 said: azrm2k said: ssj12 said: I agree with RP that the review system is broken. I think reviews need to become more critical like Yahtzee's reviews. His reviews are truly masterpieces. I dunno. I love Yahtzee as much as the next guy but part of what makes him so great is he's a refreshing cynical bastard in a sea of brown-nosing reviewers who aren't critical enough. He even jokes about how people only watch his reviews to see how he tears the games apart. If all reviewers were like that it would just get annoying, not to mention piss of the developers like crazy if a major player spent the entire review tearing apart AAA games like yahtzee does. I was generalizing critics there. Look at movie critics, there are about 10 or so well respected critics. There are the other reviews but the real reviews on movies fall to people like Ebert & Roeper. There needs to be more critics that will straight up tell it as they see it.

In my opinion, it's not so much "Call it as they see it" as it is that good reviewers know that

Personal Opinion =/= Review.

Reviews SHOULD NOT be the reveiwers opinion.

Film Critics can tell the difference between a good movie, and a movie he likes. He could, if he had time break down every single aspect of the movie down to individual characters worth and compare it to the other movies in it's genre etc.

A food critic may perfer a Big Mac to a Steak. He still isn't going to give Mcdonalds 5 star status.

Current game reviewers are just more like regular gamers playing a game and saying "yeah I liked it.  It's the best!"

The type of person that would grant McDonalds 5 star status as a restruant and give some fancy vegetarian sushi place 1 star because they didn't serve any meat. 

ssj12 said: Xponent said: MontanaHatchet said: Xponent said: In what way is GTA4 revolutionary? Revolutionary in what way? That's a very open-ended question. Revolutionary for the series? The genre? All games? All art forms?   I was responding to Roadkillers opinion that it is revolutionary. Maybe we should ask him. The game is revolutionary due to what it has done in taking the franchise and genre to the next level. From a technical standpoint the game is a marval all the things going on and happening at once. The amount of AI in the game is amazing. Each of the 700 different civilians have a different personality, movement, etc. Each car drives differently. All the weapons fire more realistically. Not having 1000 health pickups and having to make the player actually use his head in times of combat. After combat have it so the only way to heal is hunt for a randiom health pack or spend money on food. Thats what is revolutionary about GTAIV.

Caveat: I haven't yet played GTA4.

But... based on what I've been hearing, maybe I just have a different definition for "revolutionary" than some other folks do. That the weapons fire more realistically is an improvement, but not a revolution. In my opinion, this is true for the other changes you cite.

Now, I want to make something clear: I do not insist that a game must be "revolutionary" to be great (which is good, because few are, or can be, by definition). Instead of revolutionizing a particular genre or franchise, I'm always open for attempts to perfect them, even according to traditional ways. GTA4 can be a more perfect GTA game without being a revolutionary one, and I suspect, based on your comments and those of others, that this is the case.

Can a game rate a '10' without being revolutionary? Sure, I think so. And I don't think that being a '10' is necessarily the same as being a "Perfect" game, which I think is something to be aimed at but never achieved. 10 is simply the highest rating. But if we were rating things on a scale of 1 to 2 (which some people do, as in the Siskel/Ebert "thumbs up/thumbs down" scale), we wouldn't ever complain that no game should ever get a '2' because a Perfect game doesn't exist. Many games would deserve a '2.' And, on a scale of 1 to 10, a few games should ultimately deserve a '10,' despite not being Perfect.

It is possible that GTA4 is such a game.

donathos said: ssj12 said: Xponent said: MontanaHatchet said: Xponent said: In what way is GTA4 revolutionary? Revolutionary in what way? That's a very open-ended question. Revolutionary for the series? The genre? All games? All art forms?   I was responding to Roadkillers opinion that it is revolutionary. Maybe we should ask him. The game is revolutionary due to what it has done in taking the franchise and genre to the next level. From a technical standpoint the game is a marval all the things going on and happening at once. The amount of AI in the game is amazing. Each of the 700 different civilians have a different personality, movement, etc. Each car drives differently. All the weapons fire more realistically. Not having 1000 health pickups and having to make the player actually use his head in times of combat. After combat have it so the only way to heal is hunt for a randiom health pack or spend money on food. Thats what is revolutionary about GTAIV. Caveat: I haven't yet played GTA4. But... based on what I've been hearing, maybe I just have a different definition for "revolutionary" than some other folks do. That the weapons fire more realistically is an improvement, but not a revolution. In my opinion, this is true for the other changes you cite. Now, I want to make something clear: I do not insist that a game must be "revolutionary" to be great (which is good, because few are, or can be, by definition). Instead of revolutionizing a particular genre or franchise, I'm always open for attempts to perfect them, even according to traditional ways. GTA4 can be a more perfect GTA game without being a revolutionary one, and I suspect, based on your comments and those of others, that this is the case. Can a game rate a '10' without being revolutionary? Sure, I think so. And I don't think that being a '10' is necessarily the same as being a "Perfect" game, which I think is something to be aimed at but never achieved. 10 is simply the highest rating. But if we were rating things on a scale of 1 to 2 (which some people do, as in the Siskel/Ebert "thumbs up/thumbs down" scale), we wouldn't ever complain that no game should ever get a '2' because a Perfect game doesn't exist. Many games would deserve a '2.' And, on a scale of 1 to 10, a few games should ultimately deserve a '10,' despite not being Perfect. It is possible that GTA4 is such a game.

That's the part of reviews that are broken. 10 (with incriments no less!) is more then enough to where you don't need to bring in a 10.

10 doesn't have to mean perfect. 10 would only mean perfect if it was the "perfect" game that added nothing new.

When you add something new to gaming however, like say a FPS added Head Tracking. That is something new, and unimplemented that has not been seen in FPS.

Since this does not exist in FPS it is revolutionary, and as such your standard 10 point system doesn't grade for it yet. Hence if the rest of the game is good it gets "extra credit" which gets it at 100%.

That's the only way someone should be able to get a 10.  Without being revolutionary you should lose points simply because a game could always be better.