This review seems reasonable enough to me. She made a case for her overall grade. She did not say this is terrible, don't buy it. She just let us know it is largely more of the same. From that you can know a lot about if it appeals to you personally right there. She got into specifics about what she found to be decent and what she found to be lacking and in her view at the end of the day this title came up as just being "fair" because it really doesn't bring much new to the table.
I actually agree with some that the review score was harsh since judging by the content of the review itself (which I found useful) the game sounds more like it should have fallen into the Good but probably not the Great category. Of course, even that is debatable where I can see how some might feel that is enough to call this a great game.
Personally, I like the numerical system as a quick ballpark of how the reviewer saw the game but it really isn't that important. It is the content of the review and what it tells you that has value. Would any of you really buy or not buy based purely on an arbitrary number someone assigned to a game? Wouldn't you want to know why they gave it that number? And in the process of finding out, in a good review you learn information that helps you form your own subjective opinion about it.
For example, I'm okay with it being more of the same for the most part and I'm glad to hear it has a good story. Other parts showed in the video review looked cool to me. So for me, I plan to buy this but I won't pay full opening price. I'll wait for a Steam sale later on. I have plenty to play until that happens.
I appreciate someone with the guts to come out and say, "The Emperor has no clothes." We need more of that in gaming reviews. It's okay for a game to be fair or good. Not everything deserves to be called great or especially superb. These terms lose their meaning if not used judiciously.
There is a portion of the gaming community that are simply ridiculous in more ways than is worth getting into here. This demand for an ending that suits them is just more of the same baloney. Bioware won't be changing anything. I wouldn't worry about that. I'm glad to hear the ending is controversial. That gives me something more to look forward to when I play the game. Thanks for having the class to keep the spoilers out of this also.
What happened to downloadable PDF guides? I just bought into a year subscription to GS largely for those and now I find new ones are only online? How useful is a video walkthrough really? I mean if I want to search for some issue say, 3 hours into a game just how do I search a video for the info I need? Come on guys. If it ain't broke, please don't fix it. Just do what you already did well. I consider the advertising in the sign up marketing which touts downloadable game guides as somewhat misleading now if you aren't doing them anymore.
I have a 7600GTO from BFG that I have been happy with but then, I haven't opened my copy of Oblivion yet either... Between now and new PC with Vista/DX10, etc. I'm thinking that the best upgrade for me is a Nvidia 7950 GT from BFG again, preferably OC'd and warrantied by them. I have never spent over $300. on a video card because it is a waste as they point out here, unless you happen to have deep pockets and don't mind paying a hefty premium for max everything for a year, etc. I always have tended to buy in the performance but never high end category and find that I get a good value doing that. I don't think the visual and performance differences over 300 bucks justify the cost myself as they are not earth shattering by any means. Maybe I am like this because I remember cyan cga displays for games one upon a time so I'm not as hard to please. And yes, I was around when the Pharaoh's were building the pyramids and Charlie Chaplain was trying unsuccessfully to hawk IMB PC JRs to home users who were actually few and far between at that time.
You guys don't know what cool is. Japanese imports? Oh, please. Rare old console games? I think not. Allow me to educate you: Checkers - taught to me by a man (my grandfather) who NEVER lost unless it was on purpose to humor a certain young student. The man was coolness personified. He remains my idol but it runs a lot deeper than the many games of checkers we played. It has more to do with a man who'd spend that kind of time with his grandson. Who knew you could learn things about how to live while playing a game? He did. Baseball - the real thing played outdoors with balls, bats, gloves and stuff. Also taught to me by the guy who was so good at checkers and at life. Chess - taught to me by a friend who NEVER won again once I had learned to play according to his idea of how the game should be played. The student became the master. Hehe... Poker - Strip Poker that is. Yes, I got girls in high school down to thier skivvies playing this classic. You think the Master Chief is cool? When's the last time he pulled that off? OK, I do love PC gaming so of course I have to mention at least one of them now: EverQuest - Stop laughing dammit! I LOVE this game. No other MMORPG has the look, the lore and the gameplay found in Norrath, including EQ2, which should have been the next version of EverQuest but was instead a different game that capitalized on the fame and lore of its predecessor, etc. EQ is for the hardcore. Slackers need not apply. Wow... cough! cough! You know who you are. I know you said 5 games but I'll cheat with an honorable mention to Clive Barker's Undying. There would have been a sequel to this gem if more of you had been cool enough to buy and play this excellent game but no... apparently too many of you geeks were busy playing your Intellivision games, Japanese imports that you can't read, etc. Ha! ha! I'm just fooling of course. It's all fun.
linmukai's comments