So aside from the reviewsreviewsreviews talk, people are digging this? I'm looking forward to playing when I get home today, I've got a short workday so as to enjoy it the moment it reaches my house.
Everyone that I know who has it says it's very good. The only issue I've seen that was analogous to a complaint I read in a review was the issue of one level having a choke point that's difficult to get past. However, once people really start figuring out classes and skills this may not be as much of an issue. Like TF2's 2Fort. Stalemate and eventually someone will figure out where the other team is weak and exploit it to eventually get a win.
Played a little bit last night, just the first Rebel mission and the first challenge mission. It was absolutely infuriating trying to find objectives... for a while. The ingame tutorial kept telling me to press Tab to pull up the objective wheel, yet every time I pressed it all I got was the damn scoreboard. After going into the keyboard settings and finding out that it remapped the objective wheel to my scroll mouse the game became far more accessible.
I haven't had much time to play around with the guns but the Greeneye Scope is hella nice for a preorder bonus.
If reviews like the joystiq review are so bad why not explain why? All i see here are people missing the point entirely.
That review seems well presented and measured. It doesn't lack, and it's not subjective. That plus someone here has already validated one of the criticisms it raised to do with map design.
Lots of people are defensive because they got on board the Hypetrain to Hopetown, instead of derailing that shit and making the long, shitty, uphill walk to Cynical Junction
You can't blame them. We're all pretty hungry for the next big thing to come out and show Call of Duty what's what and have everyone copy that nonstop for the next four years
It just wasn't Brink, is all
Of course others are simply smarmy buggers who think it makes them discerning when they crap over a game other people seem to like.
Is the above a ridiculous statement to make? Yes. So is accusing people of not having reasonable opinions in themselves, but merely of holding them in a "defensive" manner because they gave into the "hype" that you, the wise sage, did not.
I haven't even played Brink to make up my mind on it yet, but I mean come on, that's a pretty crappy post by all reasonable accounts. And it's certainly not unreasonable to call tripe on a review that may have been based off of 2 just hours of play. He's getting paid to review the game, and he may not have even played it enough to make a reasonable opinion on it, which is what OhmWrecker in the VE3D piece was calling him out on.
A stance of "Oh but my overwhelming cynicism means that I wouldn't have expected the game to be good, or even expected them to play it anyway" is pretty much besides the point.
I shouldn't have to play a full quarter of a game before it "gets good". What I played was awful and did not leave me wanting to even play a tenth more, let alone a full quarter.
There are very few games that hit the ground running at 100%. If you lack the patience to take in what a game is all about, then that's an issue with the player and not the game. Hence why playing a few hours of a game and then reviewing it is a cop out.
Yeah, besides not actually playing the game the cardinal sin for me is when a game reviewer fails to sit down and ask the question: "What is this game trying to do - and does it do that well?"
Which is why "single-player kind of sucks" is nothing more than a bullet-point IMO. SD spent way too much time talking about SP but anyone who thought SP would be much more than a fun tutorial or time-waster between MP bouts missed the point.
If these reviews are complaining that you have to change roles once and awile to play to the objective instead of sitting on a generic loadout for the whole match, then they just haven't played enough ET.
The issue reviewers have with this is that when you skill your character, you have to choose class specific things, thus meaning you have to invest more into one class than another. Thus, you're more likely to play specific classes, discouraging you from switching classes depending on what the team needs. If you invested all 20 skill points in passives and being an engineer, you're much more likely to want to stay engineer than help the team. In fact, you're probably better off staying that one class rather than switching versus someone who has specced their character more evenly across the classes.
Essentially the game both rewards and punishes you for picking a favourite class and investing your skill points into it.
Why don't they just give you 20 skill points for every class? That way, you can invest those 20 skill points in Engineer specific things, and then when you want to switch to Soldier, you can invest 20 skill points in Soldier specific things.
It seems like a good solution. There's no downside to this plan. I like it.
Presumably because they want there to be a significant feeling of player investment. That's why you are given 10 character slots. You can respec your character from the main menu, at the cost of 1 level. The problem is that you can't change these things during the game.
At the bottom of the Joystiq review, it actually says that he played 12 hours. Is that enough time to evaluate a multiplayer shooter? I dunno, but at least it isn't two hours.
Unexpected bonus when I picked my copy up: a pretty sweet Security patch. The other choices were the "Revolution R" and a tiny one of the title. I went with the Security emblem because it'll go nicely with my UNSC patches when I get around to finding something to affix all of my patches to.
At the bottom of the Joystiq review, it actually says that he played 12 hours. Is that enough time to evaluate a multiplayer shooter? I dunno, but at least it isn't two hours.
However, according to his Xbox gamertag, he has only played it for 3 hours.
At the bottom of the Joystiq review, it actually says that he played 12 hours. Is that enough time to evaluate a multiplayer shooter? I dunno, but at least it isn't two hours.
However, according to his Xbox gamertag, he has only played it for 3 hours.
That's the problem.
Yeah but remember he got so ashamed of playing this game he couldn’t corrupt his poor profile any more and used another tag. (well I think he did. That's the only reason I see for playing a game for 2- 3 hours and then switching your tag.)
You can't review a game if you haven't really played it.
Doesn't get any more simpler.
So where does his review go wrong? What is incorrect about that review?
If he didn't seriously play the game, then the entire review is suspect. I'm apt to believe this is the case because people have linked to sources that explained "Hey, this guy's only logged a couple of hours with the game, and from what I can tell, most of those hours were him playing preview code with me a month ago."
At the bottom of the Joystiq review, it actually says that he played 12 hours. Is that enough time to evaluate a multiplayer shooter? I dunno, but at least it isn't two hours.
However, according to his Xbox gamertag, he has only played it for 3 hours.
That's the problem.
If gamertags were attached to people's hips at birth and admissible as evidence in court, and if they kept track of total time played, you might have a valid point.
see this is why the idea that people review games with multiplayer components before the game is publicly available is silly to me
you should be spending enough time with the game to have a good understanding of how all the parts work and I think that's too hard to do pre-release when the game revolves around interaction with teammates
that being said I also think Brink is going to end up in the same vein as L4D2 and have a good fanbase, but a niche fanbase.
If gamertags were attached to people's hips at birth and admissible as evidence in court, and if they kept track of total time played, you might have a valid point.
What's more easy to believe? That his known gamertag has three hours and conflicts with his claim that he played it for 12?
Or that he played three hours on his known gamer tag and then played the other nine hours on his top secret gamer tag that only he knows about, so there...?
At the bottom of the Joystiq review, it actually says that he played 12 hours. Is that enough time to evaluate a multiplayer shooter? I dunno, but at least it isn't two hours.
However, according to his Xbox gamertag, he has only played it for 3 hours.
That's the problem.
Yeah but remember he got so ashamed of playing this game he couldn’t corrupt his poor profile any more and used another tag. (well I think he did. That's the only reason I see for playing a game for 2- 3 hours and then switching your tag.)
Except it's far more likely he merely lied and is being called out on it.
Of course others are simply smarmy buggers who think it makes them discerning when they crap over a game other people seem to like.
This is pretty much the definition of Jeff Gerstman. I know he's like the sacred cow of video game reviewers but he never misses an opportunity to crack wise. Yea it's funny but sometimes it feels like he's working hard to find material to joke about.
At the bottom of the Joystiq review, it actually says that he played 12 hours. Is that enough time to evaluate a multiplayer shooter? I dunno, but at least it isn't two hours.
Honestly, I reckon trying to say something more about a multiplayer game than "watch this space" before the first couple of months is hopeless (with exceptions for the clearly brilliant and clearly terrible). You can never be sure where the metagame will go, or whether the mad fun of the first few days will tucker you out in a few weeks' time.
Of course others are simply smarmy buggers who think it makes them discerning when they crap over a game other people seem to like.
This is pretty much the definition of Jeff Gerstman. I know he's like the sacred cow of video game reviewers but he never misses an opportunity to crack wise. Yea it's funny but sometimes it feels like he's working hard to find material to joke about.
Anyways I'm going to head out and pick this up.
see I just think Jeff is picky about games and happens to be a sarcastic
arthur gies falls into what subedii was talking about
If gamertags were attached to people's hips at birth and admissible as evidence in court, and if they kept track of total time played, you might have a valid point.
What's more easy to believe? That his known gamertag has three hours and conflicts with his claim that he played it for 12?
Or that he played three hours on his known gamer tag and then played the other nine hours on his top secret gamer tag that only he knows about, so there...?
I don't know the guy, so right now each one's about 50/50. I like keeping an open mind about things. You know what happens when you assume, doncha?
At the bottom of the Joystiq review, it actually says that he played 12 hours. Is that enough time to evaluate a multiplayer shooter? I dunno, but at least it isn't two hours.
12 hours is enough. That's a good week's worth of play for the average human being.
ghost whistler on
0
Options
FiggyFighter of the night manChampion of the sunRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
See, this problem is a tale as old as time.
Around seven years ago, I freelanced for a small games website. They would send me boxes of swag, free games, and pay me $50 per review. It was a pretty sweet deal, and it exposed me to all kinds of games I never would have given a chance.
One day, they asked me to review a certain MMO. I did. I did not enjoy this MMO, and I made this clear in the body of my review as well as the score (6.5). This particular game was one of the current advertisers on the site.
A few days later, I received an email from the woman I had been dealing with at the site. "The text of your review really doesn't reflect the score, so we've adjusted it."
I had a look. Sure enough, my 6.5 was now an 8.5.
I stopped writing for that site after that. A few years ago, I was googling my name and came across a forum where people were talking about my review. Some of them were pissed off that I gave the MMO such a high rating, despite its many, many flaws. Others were saying, "Yeah, but read the damn review. He points out those very flaws!"
Moral?
1) Review sites need to feed their families, and they will eventually bow down to the advertisers. Is it a bribe? Well, let's just say that if Company X doesn't like how his game is portrayed on your site, he won't be buying an advertising block ever again.
2) Some people don't even read the reviews, and they go purely on the score.
3) It's not always the writer's (Note how I didn't use the word journalist.) fault if a review is obviously slanted. I did not have the access to change my review back, and the all-powerful gatekeeper decided I was too hard on their advertiser.
Still, if I was a developer, damn right I'd take advantage of the power my advertising dollars hold. Why stop at influencing reviews of your own games? If another game comes out in the same genre, you better trash it in your review, or else! I think print/Internet media in general is in trouble, and it's because of the all mighty dollar. Advertisers know how to manipulate the people who depend on their money to eat. If there was some sort of revenue stream that didn't depend on the very people you're trying to be objective about, we wouldn't have this problem.
see this is why the idea that people review games with multiplayer components before the game is publicly available is silly to me
you should be spending enough time with the game to have a good understanding of how all the parts work and I think that's too hard to do pre-release when the game revolves around interaction with teammates
An absolute tonne of people lambasted Blizzard for this and started whining about how it was a clear indicator of how crappy Starcraft 2 was, but it was eminently the right decision for them to take, and for precisely those reasons.
That said, I'm pretty certain that with Starcraft 2 as with most multiplayer games (and especially multiplayer RTS's or any sufficiently complex online games), almost all the reviewers were simply mouthing off about how "SUPER AWESOMES!" the multiplayer was without understanding anything of the nature of the gameplay, they always repeated the same vague platitudes about how great it was without going into why. Because they didn't understand why, they just knew a lot of hardcore players loved it, and praised it accordingly.
To be honest, I feel that happens with a lot of games. In a way it's not really unexpected, game reviewers can't really play most multiplayer games to the kind of depth necessary that will give a meaningful assessment of them. So they either just base their opinion off of a shallow understanding of the game, or else simply repeat whatever they believe the "right" response is supposed to be. For the most part however, it's extremely rare for a review to ever actually acknowledge that a comprehensive review of the multiplayer pre release (and with some games, pre "a decent amount of time invested") isn't really possible.
Wouldn't really know which category to put Brink into until I've played it myself.
that being said I also think Brink is going to end up in the same vein as L4D2 and have a good fanbase, but a niche fanbase.
If gamertags were attached to people's hips at birth and admissible as evidence in court, and if they kept track of total time played, you might have a valid point.
What's more easy to believe? That his known gamertag has three hours and conflicts with his claim that he played it for 12?
Or that he played three hours on his known gamer tag and then played the other nine hours on his top secret gamer tag that only he knows about, so there...?
I don't know the guy, so right now each one's about 50/50. I like keeping an open mind about things. You know what happens when you assume, doncha?
I'm not the one that's assuming. His gamertag said he played it for three hours. Imma go with that instead of the alternative.
And just as a reminder to people who want to assume the IGN review is credible. The guy complained about forgetting what class he chose. Twice. And complained about having to swap classes. I can't think of many current FPS' that have a catch all class that you never need to change from.
Unless he's the kind of douche nozzle that picks Heavy in TF2 and refuses to change even though you totally need a demo to take out that sentry.
Still, if I was a developer, damn right I'd take advantage of the power my advertising dollars hold. Why stop at influencing reviews of your own games? If another game comes out in the same genre, you better trash it in your review, or else! I think print/Internet media in general is in trouble, and it's because of the all mighty dollar. Advertisers know how to manipulate the people who depend on their money to eat. If there was some sort of revenue stream that didn't depend on the very people you're trying to be objective about, we wouldn't have this problem.
QFT
I used to work in the advertising business on an auto account (agency side, basically worked on behalf of the auto manufacturer as middleman to the media like websites, TV, etc etc) and we would weild our ad dollars like a fucking hammer.
Oh, your auto editor gave our vehicles a nasty review and called us stupid? I think we're just going to go ahead and remove the $2 million we had planned with your publication for 2011.
It was a common thing, and we used the threat of ad dollars almost everyday to get our way. Its the nature of the beast and it's obviously had an impact in the gaming industry as well.
2 hours played, all challenges done to 2 or 3 stars, a few solo maps done.
There's bits that I'm unsure of atm (like SMART, I just don't use it is part of the problem, I'd also prefer a faster buffing/interacting system), but on the whole it seems to be something I will enjoy. Time will tell.
If you did not like Enemy Territory, you probably won't like this. If you did not like Quake Wars, you might not like this (depends on why you didn't like QW).
If gamertags were attached to people's hips at birth and admissible as evidence in court, and if they kept track of total time played, you might have a valid point.
What's more easy to believe? That his known gamertag has three hours and conflicts with his claim that he played it for 12?
Or that he played three hours on his known gamer tag and then played the other nine hours on his top secret gamer tag that only he knows about, so there...?
I don't know the guy, so right now each one's about 50/50. I like keeping an open mind about things. You know what happens when you assume, doncha?
I'm not the one that's assuming. His gamertag said he played it for three hours. Imma go with that instead of the alternative.
And just as a reminder to people who want to assume the IGN review is credible. The guy complained about forgetting what class he chose. Twice. And complained about having to swap classes. I can't think of many current FPS' that have a catch all class that you never need to change from.
Unless he's the kind of douche nozzle that picks Heavy in TF2 and refuses to change even though you totally need a demo to take out that sentry.
His gamertag doesn't say he played it for three hours. I don't believe gamertags display time played. Secondly, he might not have played his entire game on that gamertag. Or, maybe Xbox Live takes a while to update someone's gamertag. I have no idea how Live's system works, so unless it's instantaneous, which is certainly possible, that could be a possibility.
Posts
Everyone that I know who has it says it's very good. The only issue I've seen that was analogous to a complaint I read in a review was the issue of one level having a choke point that's difficult to get past. However, once people really start figuring out classes and skills this may not be as much of an issue. Like TF2's 2Fort. Stalemate and eventually someone will figure out where the other team is weak and exploit it to eventually get a win.
I haven't had much time to play around with the guns but the Greeneye Scope is hella nice for a preorder bonus.
I don't think I can take much more of these bots though, so I'm going to need to play online with actual people. Steam invite please: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197998873063
waiting for this. looking forward to PAlying
The popular game "journalism" sites are mostly bullshit hype engines and shit fountains, but they do have people's attention.
Of course others are simply smarmy buggers who think it makes them discerning when they crap over a game other people seem to like.
Is the above a ridiculous statement to make? Yes. So is accusing people of not having reasonable opinions in themselves, but merely of holding them in a "defensive" manner because they gave into the "hype" that you, the wise sage, did not.
I haven't even played Brink to make up my mind on it yet, but I mean come on, that's a pretty crappy post by all reasonable accounts. And it's certainly not unreasonable to call tripe on a review that may have been based off of 2 just hours of play. He's getting paid to review the game, and he may not have even played it enough to make a reasonable opinion on it, which is what OhmWrecker in the VE3D piece was calling him out on.
A stance of "Oh but my overwhelming cynicism means that I wouldn't have expected the game to be good, or even expected them to play it anyway" is pretty much besides the point.
So where does his review go wrong? What is incorrect about that review?
Yeah, besides not actually playing the game the cardinal sin for me is when a game reviewer fails to sit down and ask the question: "What is this game trying to do - and does it do that well?"
Which is why "single-player kind of sucks" is nothing more than a bullet-point IMO. SD spent way too much time talking about SP but anyone who thought SP would be much more than a fun tutorial or time-waster between MP bouts missed the point.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
I've recieved two more this morning, still havent recieved my psycho pack code, but I guess I'm sitting on $30 worth of credit now?
I cant find where to check this in my account
1) That's kind of silly, since it's a multiplayer game.
2) The singleplayer portion deserves those low scores because good christ the AI is fucking thick.
The singleplayer is borderline unplayable.
Presumably because they want there to be a significant feeling of player investment. That's why you are given 10 character slots. You can respec your character from the main menu, at the cost of 1 level. The problem is that you can't change these things during the game.
Twitch Wed-Sun, 2-5pm CST
However, according to his Xbox gamertag, he has only played it for 3 hours.
That's the problem.
I seriously doubt whatever demographic "frat boys" falls into reads games review sites in the first place.
For that matter, what the heck is a real nerd?
im a real nerd its me
Yeah but remember he got so ashamed of playing this game he couldn’t corrupt his poor profile any more and used another tag. (well I think he did. That's the only reason I see for playing a game for 2- 3 hours and then switching your tag.)
If he didn't seriously play the game, then the entire review is suspect. I'm apt to believe this is the case because people have linked to sources that explained "Hey, this guy's only logged a couple of hours with the game, and from what I can tell, most of those hours were him playing preview code with me a month ago."
If gamertags were attached to people's hips at birth and admissible as evidence in court, and if they kept track of total time played, you might have a valid point.
you should be spending enough time with the game to have a good understanding of how all the parts work and I think that's too hard to do pre-release when the game revolves around interaction with teammates
that being said I also think Brink is going to end up in the same vein as L4D2 and have a good fanbase, but a niche fanbase.
What's more easy to believe? That his known gamertag has three hours and conflicts with his claim that he played it for 12?
Or that he played three hours on his known gamer tag and then played the other nine hours on his top secret gamer tag that only he knows about, so there...?
Except it's far more likely he merely lied and is being called out on it.
This is pretty much the definition of Jeff Gerstman. I know he's like the sacred cow of video game reviewers but he never misses an opportunity to crack wise. Yea it's funny but sometimes it feels like he's working hard to find material to joke about.
Anyways I'm going to head out and pick this up.
Honestly, I reckon trying to say something more about a multiplayer game than "watch this space" before the first couple of months is hopeless (with exceptions for the clearly brilliant and clearly terrible). You can never be sure where the metagame will go, or whether the mad fun of the first few days will tucker you out in a few weeks' time.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
see I just think Jeff is picky about games and happens to be a sarcastic
arthur gies falls into what subedii was talking about
and I just
I can't handle it
I don't know the guy, so right now each one's about 50/50. I like keeping an open mind about things. You know what happens when you assume, doncha?
12 hours is enough. That's a good week's worth of play for the average human being.
Around seven years ago, I freelanced for a small games website. They would send me boxes of swag, free games, and pay me $50 per review. It was a pretty sweet deal, and it exposed me to all kinds of games I never would have given a chance.
One day, they asked me to review a certain MMO. I did. I did not enjoy this MMO, and I made this clear in the body of my review as well as the score (6.5). This particular game was one of the current advertisers on the site.
A few days later, I received an email from the woman I had been dealing with at the site. "The text of your review really doesn't reflect the score, so we've adjusted it."
I had a look. Sure enough, my 6.5 was now an 8.5.
I stopped writing for that site after that. A few years ago, I was googling my name and came across a forum where people were talking about my review. Some of them were pissed off that I gave the MMO such a high rating, despite its many, many flaws. Others were saying, "Yeah, but read the damn review. He points out those very flaws!"
Moral?
1) Review sites need to feed their families, and they will eventually bow down to the advertisers. Is it a bribe? Well, let's just say that if Company X doesn't like how his game is portrayed on your site, he won't be buying an advertising block ever again.
2) Some people don't even read the reviews, and they go purely on the score.
3) It's not always the writer's (Note how I didn't use the word journalist.) fault if a review is obviously slanted. I did not have the access to change my review back, and the all-powerful gatekeeper decided I was too hard on their advertiser.
Still, if I was a developer, damn right I'd take advantage of the power my advertising dollars hold. Why stop at influencing reviews of your own games? If another game comes out in the same genre, you better trash it in your review, or else! I think print/Internet media in general is in trouble, and it's because of the all mighty dollar. Advertisers know how to manipulate the people who depend on their money to eat. If there was some sort of revenue stream that didn't depend on the very people you're trying to be objective about, we wouldn't have this problem.
Sometimes you have to make a judgement call, sometimes you need more info before the judgement call.
This 3 hours, thing. Where do you see time played?
***
As for the game, reviews are fun to read at sites, but I generally come to places like this to read opinions. How're people liking it here?
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
An absolute tonne of people lambasted Blizzard for this and started whining about how it was a clear indicator of how crappy Starcraft 2 was, but it was eminently the right decision for them to take, and for precisely those reasons.
That said, I'm pretty certain that with Starcraft 2 as with most multiplayer games (and especially multiplayer RTS's or any sufficiently complex online games), almost all the reviewers were simply mouthing off about how "SUPER AWESOMES!" the multiplayer was without understanding anything of the nature of the gameplay, they always repeated the same vague platitudes about how great it was without going into why. Because they didn't understand why, they just knew a lot of hardcore players loved it, and praised it accordingly.
To be honest, I feel that happens with a lot of games. In a way it's not really unexpected, game reviewers can't really play most multiplayer games to the kind of depth necessary that will give a meaningful assessment of them. So they either just base their opinion off of a shallow understanding of the game, or else simply repeat whatever they believe the "right" response is supposed to be. For the most part however, it's extremely rare for a review to ever actually acknowledge that a comprehensive review of the multiplayer pre release (and with some games, pre "a decent amount of time invested") isn't really possible.
Wouldn't really know which category to put Brink into until I've played it myself.
That's what I'm expecting as well.
I'm not the one that's assuming. His gamertag said he played it for three hours. Imma go with that instead of the alternative.
And just as a reminder to people who want to assume the IGN review is credible. The guy complained about forgetting what class he chose. Twice. And complained about having to swap classes. I can't think of many current FPS' that have a catch all class that you never need to change from.
Unless he's the kind of douche nozzle that picks Heavy in TF2 and refuses to change even though you totally need a demo to take out that sentry.
QFT
I used to work in the advertising business on an auto account (agency side, basically worked on behalf of the auto manufacturer as middleman to the media like websites, TV, etc etc) and we would weild our ad dollars like a fucking hammer.
Oh, your auto editor gave our vehicles a nasty review and called us stupid? I think we're just going to go ahead and remove the $2 million we had planned with your publication for 2011.
It was a common thing, and we used the threat of ad dollars almost everyday to get our way. Its the nature of the beast and it's obviously had an impact in the gaming industry as well.
There's bits that I'm unsure of atm (like SMART, I just don't use it is part of the problem, I'd also prefer a faster buffing/interacting system), but on the whole it seems to be something I will enjoy. Time will tell.
If you did not like Enemy Territory, you probably won't like this. If you did not like Quake Wars, you might not like this (depends on why you didn't like QW).
Steam
His gamertag doesn't say he played it for three hours. I don't believe gamertags display time played. Secondly, he might not have played his entire game on that gamertag. Or, maybe Xbox Live takes a while to update someone's gamertag. I have no idea how Live's system works, so unless it's instantaneous, which is certainly possible, that could be a possibility.