PC Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (MMORPG) 5/20 Mass Effect (RPG) 5/27 PS3 Haze (FPS) 5/20 Wii Boom Blox (Puzzle) 5/6 Wii Fit (Sports) 5/21 Multi Speed Racer [Wii, DS, PS2] (Drag Racing) 5/6 The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian [Everything] (Adventure) 5/15 Enemy Territory: Quake Wars [360, PS3] (FPS) 5/27 You know it is a slow month when I'm trying to find movie-based games and ports of games released 6+ months ago. Maybe I just missed the good games somehow. Previews (or old reviews in some cases): Spoiler <object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="gtembed" width="480" height="392"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=28091"/> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <embed src="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=28091" swLiveConnect="true" name="gtembed" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" allowFullScreen="true" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="392"></embed> </object> <object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="gtembed" width="480" height="392"> <param 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type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="392"></embed> </object> <object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="gtembed" width="480" height="392"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=30038"/> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <embed src="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=30038" swLiveConnect="true" name="gtembed" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" allowFullScreen="true" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="392"></embed> </object> <object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="gtembed" width="480" height="392"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=33476"/> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <embed src="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=33476" swLiveConnect="true" name="gtembed" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" allowFullScreen="true" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="392"></embed> </object> <object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="gtembed" width="480" height="392"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=32201"/> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <embed src="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=32201" swLiveConnect="true" name="gtembed" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" allowFullScreen="true" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="392"></embed> </object> <object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="gtembed" width="480" height="392"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=26091"/> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <embed src="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=26091" swLiveConnect="true" name="gtembed" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" allowFullScreen="true" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="392"></embed> </object> On a side-note, I was wondering if you guys would like a CF reviews thread. When I started making these threads, I thought we could post reviews here, but that hasn't really worked out too well due to a variety of reasons. I think it would be interesting to see what other people on the BBS think about certain games, especially given the current state of professional reviews. I just don't know how many people would like a thread like this, both in terms of reading reviews and creating them (can't have a review thread without reviews). Personally, I'd like to make reviews for most of the games I play, but I go through weird cycles of playing games, making it difficult for me to post reviews consistently (not to mention that a lot of them might be niche games or games released months/years ago...or both). Thoughts? Spoiler And if anyone from EA is reading, I think I could give a few positive reviews for some of your games in exchange for an early copy of Mirror's Edge. I'm pretty sure NBA Live 09 will be awesome.
I think they've only mentioned it as a 2008 release. I'd guess that it probably wouldn't come out until the end of the year. A delay to 2009 wouldn't surprise me either, although hopefully it would be early 2009.
I'd enjoy it and am prepared to contribute, though obviously, I seem to be one of the bigger gamers on the board along with you, so I'm not sure if my opinion really counts, haha. This isn't a videogame board, so I'm not sure if enough people care or not. I sort of think some people might appreciate a thread full of short, to-the-point reviews of particularly good games... and perhaps some big-name games that should be avoided in favor of smaller-name alternatives. Or perhaps even a list of ranked recommendations by genre instead of reviews, like the treatment I gave PS2 games in this thread. I think a lot of people would find recommendations by system, and then by genre, very useful as far as planning their next purchase. We could do short descriptions of what makes the game cool/unique, with spoiler tags for a more detailed review, maybe? Warning: multiple uses of the words "NBA Live" and "awesome" in the same sentence, even in jest, may send Drexlerfan22 into a bloodthirsty rage. (F*** EA trying to get NBA 2K off the market)
I think a review thread is a great idea. I'm not the gamer that some of you are, but I could contribute a little to that. I agree, concise reviews are key though. Oh yeah, NBA live DEFINITELY sucks.
The people I've talked to about in the open beta for Conan have all said it was pretty bad. They said it wasn't the errors, but just the lack of innovation, of the game, and the overall boredom. I have no idea myself. I know that Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was unplayable during open beta and even after release. Now that game is one of the best MMORPG's I've played. The only problem is there aren't quite enough players all the time.
I think from the responses it's probably worthwhile to do a review thread. Ain't gonna hurt anybody. The big questions to me, though, are: 1. How do we keep such a thread organized, and 2. What type of format should the reviews be in? So I figure I'll make proposals on both these fronts: 1a. I think the best way to keep reviews organized is for there to be one review per post. Then, whoever started the thread can can edit the first post and post links to each review, with each link citing only the game's name and score (out of 100, I figure). Note that the ability to edit posts goes away after (I think) 24 hours. Someone would need to get some kind of special dispensation from Clutch to be able to edit posts indefinitely. 1b. I figure the games should be divided into sections first by system, then by genre, with the newest reviews at the top of each category. From there, comments on specific games can also be linked in the initial post, people don't have a tough time finding additional information or questions about a particular game. So, for example: PS3 Sports NBA 2K8 (92) Comment Link Comment Link Racing Burnout Paradise (90) Comment Link Comment Link Comment Link 2a. As far as how games should be reviewed, scored, I figure we should grade on the following dimensions: graphics, sound, gameplay, replayability, and reviewer's tilt. I'm of the opinion that the reviewer's tilt and gameplay should have easily the most weight since, let's face it... some games may not be great technical achievements, but poor technical aspects often don't stop a game from being really fun. So, we could weight the categories thus: tilt (30), gameplay (25), replayability (15), graphics (15), sound (15). 2b. As far as the format of reviews, we want to keep it simple, while still providing enough information for people to make educated purchase decisions. So, I'd propose that a review post contain the following: the name, platform, genre, and overall score of the game, with a single small thumbnail image and a 1-2 sentence overview of the game. After that, the following will be contained in spoiler tags: gameplay video (if applicable), a short review (2-4 short paragraphs, I'm thinking... perhaps even just a "pros" paragraph and a "cons" paragraph), and scores for all the individual aspects of the game (gameplay, sound, etc.). So, for example: 360/PS3, Racing Burnout Paradise (90) Overview: Burnout Paradise is an extremely fast, arcade-style, open-world racing game with a special focus on crashing and wrecks. (click spoiler tag for full review) Spoiler <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YuAxXY9o4aI&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YuAxXY9o4aI&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object> Review: .... .... .... .... .... 14/15 Graphics 13/15 Sound 14/15 Replayability 21/25 Gameplay 28/30 Tilt 90/100 Overall Whatcha guys think?
I hadn't really put much thought into it yet. I was sort of planning on making things pretty informal (no real rules or guidelines, just a bunch of posts with reviews), but I do like the idea of making things organized. I'd probably read every post and know where every review was, but I'd probably be the exception. I'm sure a lot of people won't be able to keep up with the thread (nor would they want to), and making it more organized would definitely make it more useful for everyone (especially if the thread catches on and gets pretty long). And on a more minor note, I believe there is also a limit to how many characters you can put into a single post. It is pretty large though, so unless there are a LOT of games, that might not be too much of a problem. Of course, we could always go with a v2.0 thread at that point, or something like that. It is just up to Clutch and the crew to allow for those special privileges. I've always preferred not bothering them with that kind of stuff and trying to figure out ways to accomplish the same thing with "regular" privileges. But of course, that would be kind of difficult in this case. It would be great if we were allowed to edit like that (or even have a current mod do the job), but I don't know if it is something we can count on. Is this under the assumption that there would only be one review per game, or would you be OK with multiple reviews per game. Depending on how many people contribute, this may not be a problem, but I can see some people wanting to review the same game (like GTAIV or NBA 2K8). That would probably be a good thing actually (different viewpoints for the same game). I don't think this would really change things too much, but I thought I'd mention it. I might be in the minority here, but I hate assigning scores to games since I think they're pretty meaningless. It is partly what turns me off from professional reviews. I definitely wasn't planning on assigning any scores to any games I reviewed, although if others feel differently, I'll definitely conform to the review standards. FWIW, I do think it is important that those aspects of a game are covered in a review. I like it, although I don't necessarily think we should limit how long a review is. There should definitely be a section that summarizes the reviewer's opinion (EX: a conclusion and/or a pros and cons section) to help get the point across, but I'd prefer it if the reviewer put as much pertinent information in the review as possible, which may or may not be doable in 2-4 short paragraphs. For example, when I was curious about MLB 07 The Show, I remember checking out the review at 1UP. It actually had 9 short paragraphs, but even that wasn't enough to really say much about the game (especially since 2-4 paragraphs were written to setup or conclude the review). Nothing about the RTTS mode, nothing about the franchise mode, nothing about the create-a-player options, etc. I think I ended up writing a review that I posted on the BBS where I made sure to cover those areas, and I'm pretty sure it was more than 2-4 short paragraphs...although I think I did go little overboard on some details.
Yeah, I figured it would be pretty informal at first too, but when I thought about it more, I started wondering how much of a muddled mess it might become if there wasn't some sort of "table of contents." I think it's almost a necessity if it's going to be useful to anybody. Very, very few people are going to read the whole thread. I actually thought of that too. One way to get around that would be to have, say, 5 different initial posts separated by system: one for 360, one for PS3, one for Wii, one for PC, and one for PS2 and other last-gen systems. Might be good to just do it that way from the beginning. I know we can't count on it, and I've really never bothered the Crew with anything before... I just honestly don't see how a thread like that could work without being able to maintain a table of contents, unless we made a new thread for every review and re-did the table of contents... which kind of destroys the point. Unless we made it a monthly thread, maybe? Like your preview threads? That wouldn't be too horribly impractical, I guess, but people may still need to dig through a far bit of stuff to get to the reviews they want before the new thread came out. I don't know. I figure it can't hurt for one of us to just ask the Crew if it's possible to get an "unlimited editing" privilege. It would be much cleaner, more efficient, more useful, and less confusing. I'm thinking that this could be as much a "recommendations thread" as a "review thread" almost. Every game would have at least a short review, but what I'm saying is we should certainly write reviews for older games that we still play today as well... stuff like Def Jam: Fight for New York. Just to make people aware of great games they may have missed (though I'm thinking we should probably limit it to PS/N64 being the oldest we can review, or perhaps even PS2/XBOX). We're not a review site, we're not paid for this... we're not going to be able to write reviews for games a few weeks after they come out all the time. They'll come in sporadically, and that's why I think the table of contents thing is even more necessary... what happens when each of us decides to post 8 reviews in one month? That'd get really cluttered really fast. It doesn't matter either way. There's no reason we couldn't have multiple reviews for each game. It's just one more link to add in the contents section... I personally think it would be fantastic to have multiple reviews for every game. I actually feel the same way, really. I just figured that that would be something a lot of people who don't want to read long reviews or who want to make quick assessments might want. We could just toss that idea out the window... people could use it or not use it. There's no reason we have to have exacting standards for what reviews look like, I just figured it might be a plus if people knew what to expect. That does make sense... maybe we could actually do, rather than a 1-2 sentence overview, a "summary review" outside of the spoiler tags that's limited to one paragraph (4-6 sentences-ish), so people can get a good sense of the strengths/weaknesses of a game, and find out what makes it unique, without having to read a huge review. Then there would be no limits on the size of the regular review inside the spoiler tags.
Good idea, but don't forget handhelds. I definitely agree that unlimited editing would make things much, much better. I just wanted to point out that we might have to look at some alternatives in case this wasn't possible, even if the alternatives aren't nearly as good. Yeah, that's something I had in mind as well. FWIW, I think we should still do PS1/N64 games, even though it seems like they might not get a lot of attention. Nevertheless, it might help people decide on PS1/N64 downloadable games. For example, apparently Suikoden might be hitting the PSN soon, and games like Wild Arms and Twisted Metal are already available (not even sure what N64 games are available for the Wii, but I'm sure there are some good ones). If someone puts up reviews for those games, it could influence someone to check out the games. Yeah, not a big deal, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. I think that would tell them just as much as scores, if not more (EX: a "Gameplay: 8/15" doesn't tell . It isn't a bad idea in theory, but I think it is just better if people spend an extra 30 seconds (if even that long) to read a reviewer's conclusions/pros and cons/whatever. Of course, as you mentioned, people could still use a rating system if they want to (not that there is anyway of preventing it of course ). It just depends on whether a particular reviewer thinks it will help readers make their decision. That's much better IMO. BTW, if you want, feel free to go ahead and make the thread yourself whenever you have the time. You've definitely put more thought into it than I have. Besides, I'll probably be too busy over the next week or so to really work on it. Not that there is any rush, but I don't want to put it on hold for 7-10 days if it can be done sooner. If there's anything else you want to bring up, I'll be happy to give my opinion, although it might have to wait until tomorrow afternoon.
I probably won't be able to start it for a little while either... I've got my brother visiting starting this Saturday for about a week, so I won't be spending time on this stuff right then. But I'll inquire with Clutch about the editing feature and see what he can do. I'm hoping that when one of us posts this thread we can already have a fair number of reviews ready to go, so yeah... I should have a bunch of time starting on June 20th... I'll be on vacation for a few weeks. If you don't get it started before then, I'd probably post it somewhere around May 20th-22nd-ish.
im the biggest ps3 fanboy on these forums by a longshot lol. Im hoping to land a internship with SCEA this summer. Wish me luck
I might be able to get something done at the end of the next week. I have to finish up my final exams, and then I'll probably go home and visit with my family for about a week. But I think I should have a day or two in between there of free time. I haven't been playing many games here lately, although as I mentioned in the other preview thread, I did pickup Persona 3 FES recently, not to mention a few other SMT games. My playthough of the game has been put on hold for now, but hopefully I can finish it pretty soon. I guess I could always put up a few reviews on some older games. Uh...I might be wrong, but isn't it June 12th? http://www.amazon.com/Metal-Gear-So...3600062e&itemPosition=1&qid=1210305483&sr=8-1 If so, you might want to check over your dates again before trying to get a job at SCEA. Of course, they told us that Home would be out in 2007 and that KZ2 would be a 2008 title, so maybe they like hiring people that get their dates wrong.
