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The Ryan Davis Memorial Giant Bomb Thread
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When he pronounced it like that I assumed at first that the game pronounced it like that since that's pretty much how you'd pronounce the word azure if it were Japanese instead of French. Then Jason corrected him and I had a headslap moment.
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[edit] Oh god, that Into the Stars ending.
The ending on that thing, my chest hurts from trying not to laugh like a crazy person at my desk.
Honestly a little surprised?
I've never enjoyed a Remedy game to date but the GB guys generally seem to be down for their games
I like their ambition and think the TV show idea is totally awesome, but I can't get over how bad the gunplay always feels
This is why Jeff gave it 2 stars I'm sure. He's very concerned about mechanics and how a game feels.
Man Max Payne was so good back in the day.
On the other hand, they gave The Witness a five out of five, which boggles my mind, so what the hell do I know?
It's not really any more complicated than that.
Excluding when they send up five weather balloons and see which one they shoot down first.
Giant Bomb, having been formed by ex-Gamespot people, specifically chose to avoid the "REVIEW EVERYTHING EVER" mindset. They only do a few dozen reviews a year and typically they only review things that spark them to review it. By that I mean they usually only review things if they had particularly strong feelings about, or have conflicted views about and want to sort them out on paper.
Witness is probably my game of the year, so far. Loved the shit out of it. I'd have given it a 5/5 too.
i do not think that any member of giant bomb would have given the witness less than a 4/5, save those that simply would not have played it because they're not into puzzle games
everyone who was looking to play it was very high on it, and even the most critical member Austin criticized the surroundings and trappings of the witness way more than the game content of it
Nothing wrong with being in good company. I absolutely would not have given it that score, even though I have no trouble conceding it's a darn good game.
That's actually a reason I don't like the 5-point system personally: I can't shake the feeling personally that 5 out of 5-point games ought to be very rare (and hit a certain point that The Witness didn't for me, not even close, while still being a good game).
It's works for them though. They certainly have reviews I agree with: I thought their Titanfall score was spot-on (I definitely wouldn't have given that a 5 out of 5 either).
I think they have more writing staff then they've had in a long time.
But yes, having basically two full staffs surely helps.
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Yes, I just meant that personality and taste of the reviewer are going to impact the review given. There is no site standard or scoring rubric, nor should there be. For example, assuming they reviewed it, I think that Brad's DotA 2 review would vary wildly from Dan's or Jeff's. And that's a good thing.
There was some review site from back when that obstinately had a 10-point rating scale, but was made it a proud point to say they'd never give out a 10 because that means it's a perfect game which cannot exist. Well, now your 10-point scale is actually a 9-point scale, which doesn't change anything other than making yourself self-satisfied and seem meaningful than impart any actual usefulness to your metric.
Since GB is personality-based, have little staff-specific icons that you can attach to game pages. "Jeff Recommends!" "Brad does not recommend!"
That should tell you everything you need to know about a game given the site's personalities and what you think of their personal opinion
If a game gets the recommendation of the entire staff, it gets a unique gold icon
It aligns well with awful/bad/fine/good/great, so it works fine. It also makes it easier to realize that one 4 star game isn't necessarily of the same quality as another 4 star game, whereas a 10 point scale or a 100 point scale gives enough granularity to make that (dumb) comparison. It's "we think this is a good game", rather than "this is what this game is objectively ranked on a defined scale".
For objective rankings you need to go... elsewhere.
Like... into a different plane of existence.
Does the game work? If so, I can go look at a stream of gameplay at virtually any time to see if it's something I'd be more interested in (if I haven't already decided I want to play it). If no, let me know when it works so I can do the things I mentioned earlier.
But I don't go to GB for reviews (or really anywhere else for that matter). I go for Beastcoast shenanigans these days and the GOTY deliberations.
That's one way to describe the SE++ Podcast thread, yes.
That said, I think the more points of granularity on the scale, the worse it is for the most part, GB's five point scale is probably the absolute most variation you need, and ten point scales are virtually always utilized badly. I'd argue you could probably go down to a three point scale although at that point you lose some minor differentiation between a good and great game, or a truly bad game and one that is just sub-par.
Was kind of sad to see Easy Allies throw a half star out in their first review, speaking of which.
Huh, I noticed that too. I thought maybe they changed their setup and something went wrong, but it was an isolated incident and they only claimed to fix the lighting rig.
3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00
3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00