Reviewers…Need Someone To Hold Your Hand?
Many gamers of the hardcore variety don’t necessarily rely on the big gaming websites to determine if they are to buy a new release or not. Like the recent Gamespot/Gerstmann debacle, you might not be sure when they’re honest. But sometimes there are reviews that are just bad, mis informative, and just downright wrong. The masses pay attention to the big-name reviewers, whether it be IGN, Gamespot, or any of the other reviewers that might be seen on Gamerankings.
Now to my next point. The new Turok is a fun game. Originally I looked down upon it. It was a revived franchise that died off during it’s last iteration. The company holding the IP closed, so they sold it off. We get a new Publisher, Touchstone, and new first-time developer Propaganda games. We then find out the game has nothing to do with the original story, just a guy named Turok and some dinosaurs. Sounds like a recipe for a mediocre cash in.
So not too long before its release, the demo became available on XBox Live. I downloaded it and played it. At first, I was disappointed. Trudging through a dark cave with very little to do. Unfortunatley, not a good first impression for most. But after playing through the whole thing I fell in love. For my review, check out Bluecast Episode 11.
So I buy the game on day one. I had a blast with it. There was so much going on that I would consider it a type of evolution for the FPS genre. It has a few problems, but they are very minor. The game is also very polished, especially considering it’s coming from a first-time developer.
Now I read the reviews and the basically point out the game as being dull. Now, they’re not bad scores, just very slightly average, when in my opinion the game deserves better. But see, I said it, opinion. But reading through the reviews I found some errors. One reviewer states the game’s environments are all the same. Are we even playing the same game? The one thing that stood out the most for me was how different every level was. From jungles, to rocks, to water filled caverns, wrecked spaceships, underground installations, and lava-filled, meteor-shower scenery. The game has it all.
But the real issue here is different. You know what reviewers are doing to dock points on a game? Complaining about difficulty. Complaining about not being told what to do. From Gamespy:
Of course, it was the vents that were explosive, but would it have killed Turok to have one of our team mates mention this or drop some kind of hint?
Well considering half the level you use these vents to destroy enemies, and you’re pretty much by yourself down there, I don’t see a problem with giving the player a chance to figure something out for themselves. I want the chance to play the game.
This wouldn’t be so bad if the checkpoints flowed a little more freely, as most of the difficulty spikes tend to arrive after a protracted battle has already left you tattered and bleeding. Thus we frequently found ourselves trapped in a near-infinite loop of slogging through a few minutes of fighting only to be insta-murdered by the same swarm of annoyingly deadly giant gnats, giant scorpions or any of the myriad versions of velociraptor found in the game.
Oh ok, so now you just want this game to be easy so…you can beat it and move on to the next game you’re reviewing? Or are we as gamers now at the point where we don’t like a challenge? Conclusion: Lame review. Balls necessary.
From Evil Avatar:
The bigger problem is when an explosion goes off near you and knocks you off your feet. You become disoriented, and can’t shoot or move for a few seconds. The even bigger problem here is most times an enemy will be able to get off another rocket or grenade before you even get back to your feet, thereby knocking you back down before you really get back up. Before you know it your screen is a blurry red mess and suddenly you are dead.
The above right here is an indication that someone isn’t taking their time. There’s only one time in the game that I died from getting knocked down, and that’s when the T-Rex knocked me against a wall, and before I could move, she ate me up…which is fucking epic. If a grenade comes at you, use the ‘dive mechanic’ that the developers put in the game for you. That right there creates a whole new level at which you can play the game. Getting knocked on your ass is the game’s way of telling you, “Sorry, but we’re throwing dinosaurs and baddies armed with grenades at you. Don’t stay still, or at least use our ‘dive mechanic’.”
But to go back to my previous point, I believe a lot of the negativity came from the initial thoughts of the game. Most people had not much to think about it. When the time came to play the game, the mindset was already set to ‘meh’. And then we have reviewers complaining about difficulty.
Complaining about difficulty.
Yes, the flow of the gameplay.
It being difficult.
It being a fucking game.
When I see a reviewer complain about a games difficulty to the point of knocking down its score, it furthers my point that most of us as gamers are becoming pansies. That is fine, I guess, but what bothers me even more is that some of these gamers are on the inside. I came in here with only one point, but I guess I have a few. The game’s background already had it coming from the negatives. Reviewers might be rushing to work on other games, so it’s easily to pass through some that might have come from low expectations. That, coupled with difficulty, is a reviewers worst nightmare. Ninja Gaiden is fucking hard. But it generaly did not receive bad reviews because of that, but it had expectations set on high from the start.
