Jaero

Oooo! I do declare, Jake's new avatar does in fact me.

I realize I may be asking too much. Given that I'm new to these forums, and have aforetime lacked the proper venue to express thoughts such as these, I'm makin' this up as I go. It's raw opinion, of course, that I would enjoy discussing so that I may refine these ideas. If you noticed by the timestamp on my posts of late, you might notice something fun. I have not slept at all. Eyes bloodshot and all. I've been reading a lot of articles and lectures by veteran designers, sucking up their advice and ideas like a sponge. Here's an interesting snippit from Ernest W. Adams' lectures, Will Computer Games Ever Be A Legitimate Art Form?. It relates to the topic, though is naturally tangential.

Well said. I don't think it's very bad to have a score for a game, however I have yet to find a place that does it totally fair, honest, etc. That's not a bash to Thumb because they don't score games. In my opinion, you'd have to weigh the pros and cons, document every reason why the score for X is 9.7 instead of 9.5, etc. This makes for a lot more brainstorming and work for the author, so I suppose that's the reason right there. Opinion does factor in, so the Overall score really wouldn't be one number, it would be a range. San Andreas would be between 9.0 - 9.9 for example, with the author's personal score standing at the latter end of that spectrum. Think about this - when a person writes a design document to sell it to a publisher, they must really sell it. Few publishers (in their right mind) would take on a project that is a clone of another (save maybe a start-up, or Electronic Arts). Even so, no game is a total separation from existing games. When writing that document, you compare your design to games that have been released, namely ones that are very successful. If I were the author of the design document for Mafia, I would like GTA III for example, and compare how my game is similar to it (though of course, not identical... Mafia actually had a story) - and how because of that, Mafia would do well. That's selling the game to the publisher. Similarly, it's my opinion that the same could and should be done when reviewing a game. Were I to review Mafia, I might compare it to GTA III - a title in the same class, in this regard or that, but depending on how it holds up in that comparison, I would also illustrate how it was better or worse. These are things that would help solidify whatever score I might give it. On a similar note, today my life was between 5.5 and 6.0 - tomorrow I expect to be better. I anticipate the graphics being more advanced, and my phone conversations less boring. That could bring it up to 7.2!

Oh, how I wish I'd attended. I have my ID badge and everything, and had to cancel last minute because it was basically either E3 or my relationship with my other half, and I stayed back because I'm both smart and yet whipped. But I would have had a lot of fun with that situation.

I meant that the scores don't necessarily have to reflect personal tastes. I would much rather read a review where the 'production values' are rated at face value, rather than based on some schmoe's personal tastes. I find my own tastes to be rather unique (clearly), thus when my friend tells me he would give Doom 3 a 10 and it clearly isn't worth that when you weigh every facet of the game as one should... I would rather put my money on an honest editorial. That doesn't mean 'no personal feelings' - it's in fact quite hard to do that, as per the reviews at the Thumb, many tell of personal experiences with titles alike to the one in question, for instance. However, if a site such as IGN is going to lay out very distinct categories such as the following, there should be distinctions between what is opinion and what is more factual. For the most part, these are things that could be represented by comparisons to other titles, examples, proof, etc... one should be able to score these categories within a smaller range than something such as Gamespot's "Reviewer Tilt". Let me walk my talk by saying that the contents of this post are wrought by my own personal opinion, and not by infallible facts. As I said, no article should make you have to read between the lines to figure out exactly why the reviewer gave it the score he/she did - the "why?" is what should be spelled out in the review itself. I believe though that if a game is going to be rated by a network that gives one review to each game, and the scoring system is based on the production values, which can easily be compared to other like titles - then the score needs to reflect what the game deserves, not necessarily what the reviewer thinks it deserves. Hell, it can do both, as long as the review reflects what the game actually deserves aside from the author's personal preferences. Ideally, the two wouldn't be so far apart, but when the review has little tangible information and a lot of prejudice, you get the huge gap I mentioned about the Neverhood - the review scoring a 4.9 and the user rating being 8.8. In Gamespot's review of Doom 3 on the other hand, both the official review and the viewer ratings were exactly the same - 8.5. Maybe my tripe on the matter is needless, and I don't speak out against every reviewer, and about every review - some are more unique and imaginative, and more importantly, have a consistant format for reviewing, scoring, etc... I don't believe that's true for IGN though. And Gamespot I find flawed simply because the mingled ratings of things such as "Value" and "Tilt" with production values like "Graphics", "Sound", and "Gameplay". Hell, I'm just going to stop right here. I'm starting to scare myself. I'm reviewing how people review things. It's 4:33am, so that scares me. Were I feeling more clever, I might come up with a score card and rating system for reviewing reviews.

I was going to post this in the Bard's Tale thread of the Site Feedback forum, but this topic speaks more to my point... The big review sites have it all wrong. There is one that I know of which breaks off from the norm, and that is GamersInfo.net - though their format is alrogether inconsistant as well, and I don't much care for the staff, they do not abide rankings and arbitrary scores. And rightly so. They've gotten a lot of attention, including from groups such as Incan Monkey Gods Studios, which is responsible for writing quite a few game guides. Still, there is a very obvious reason why many readers base their judgements of games around the rank and score of a game instead of the actual review (not just the fact that they are lazy, good for nothing, and always right). They want a summation. I find myself often even skipping to the conclusion of a review, to 'get to the point'. IdleThumbs doesn't do 'scores', and their reviews are honest, well written, educated... stellar all around. Perhaps we are on to something though? Arbitrary or not (or both), perhaps a review might have instead of a 'score', something akin to "Thumb! Thumb! Thumb!", where the pros and cons are laid out, a few good quips are made, that sort of thing. What do ya think? You're just full of good ideas, Mr. Cantankerous Thumb! Jesus Tapdancing Christ? Your time would be better spent teaching gramma to suck eggs.

No, your rant makes quite a bit of sense. There have been a very select few people, let alone websites dedicated to revealing the 'absurdity of the system' in this industry. Idlethumbs is one. Lum the Mad was another (which is archived and gone). Outside of the industry, the Daily Show is another. Jon Stewart and his posse have remained utterly steadfast in that vision, although they are becoming more 'mainstream' and popular. I disagree that IdleThumbs can not share a similar fate, and become quite popular while having the sorts of reviews they do. The site's still fairly new, though. I spoke of some of my 'intents' in my quest to get into the game industry in my introduction - I also share the wish to become 'deviant', and God willing, put something valuable out on the shelves. I'm very humble though, and well aware of the obstacles I will face, and the length of time that will fly by before I achieve what I am really striving for. This is why "I kill you." is one of my favorite articles. And yes, The Neverhood will run on XP. it's about a 10mb install, plus the CD to run it. If you have problems with it, try right-clicking the .exe, go to Properties, to the Compatability tab, and set the operating system intended (probably Win98). I've not had problems with it on XP though ever, and I've beaten it two or three times since I've had XP on my computer.

Well, on a similar note to the post I made on the IGN review of GTA: San Andreas, Gamespot's review rating system is flawed as well. The "reviewer tilt" as they call it, which is what is used to justify the knocking up or down of the overall game rating score based on the experience of the reviewer - they say, to represent the appropriate rating based on their feelings towards the aspects of the game which go beyond it's 'production values' (ie. the things you can't cram into neat little boring categories). It's another example of inconsistancy, akin to IGN's rating system, in that the scores of those production values are clearly defined, the "tilt" in the case of "A Bard's Tale" can also work against the game - in this case, it's a mere 1/10th of a point. But one wonders, "For that much, why is the deception even worth a freaking 1/10th of a point!?" Why not have in the ratings a little field you can check off for something like "Reviewer recommends this title" (or doesn't). It's a simple 'Yes' or 'No' that is more easy for the viewers to ingest, and perhaps if it's more complicated you can have a 'Maybe', which is further explained in the text of the review. As it is now, a viewer such as myself has to read between the lines of the scores, and wonder at why the reviewers are too lazy to properly open the Calculator application and do some simple math to find an average. It's my opinion that personal feelings for a game should be separated from the formal/professional review, and that is why I said IGN's system too is inconsistant. But of course, that does too depend on the manner of the review. As far as who to trust, you should never go on just one review. That almost always leads to disappointment. I do prefer, in any case, agenda-free reviews. Having worked in online journalism myself, sometimes a critic (be that a fan site, news network, review site, whatever) is asked to give a good review, sometimes ad revenue is a factor (it's not generally good to give a game that's paying you a bad review, unless it would be worse to give it a good review, if the game so calls for that). That's not necessarily the case here or there, but it's possible and has happened. This point though, is more of a shameless plug for the Thumb. There are no agendas behind it, nothing but educated and honest diatribe, albeit harsh and (yet) deserved at times. As far as hackery, this is a review I would shake a stick at. It harps on the humor (or apparent lack of it), for which this hack has no taste for, yet from what I gather it isn't so different from the humor you might find in World of Warcraft, which is not something Gamespot would put a 6.7 on. My avatar is of The Neverhood's hero - that is a game which was in many ways brilliant, and is one of my all time favorites. No game is without flaws, but I generally take with a grain of salt reviews on big networks - and the reason why is the rating Gamespot gave The Neverhood (4.9). Not only does it show how inept Joe Hutsko is at recognizing the greatness of certain titles that aren't mainstream, but it shows how out of touch a lot of reviewers are. Consider that the Overall score of the Community Reviews was nigh twice the score Gamespot gave it - an 8.8 - with about 43% declaring the game "Superb", and about 23% saying "Perfect"... overall, only 10% of their viewers said anything below a 7.0, let alone a 4.9. This isn't the norm of course, but at Gamespot it's one review per game. When Warcry first reviewed Doom 3, the retarded author gave it a 10! A freaking 10! It may have been good, and I would never have been so generous, but we did realized that since Warcry.com's reviews are heavily marinated in personal opinion, and steamed with yet another imperfect scoring system, the game was reviewed a second time and given an 8.5 - which I find much more fair.

Well from what I'm told, the quote in my signature used to be in your Thumb quote archive. I don't think it's entirely too late. A sort of 'he said/she said' article could be whipped up and run on both sites and get Thumbs some good publicity. However, that would require Warcry.com to be online more than it has been in the last 3 days or so. Stupid Lineage II nuts overloading everything. It's always their fault. Now you begin to understand why I am 'cantankerous'.

Well said. But... the thing is, they are rating it arbitrarily. Look at the ratings system they have. The five factors they use to review are as follows (with the scores they gave the game in each category): Presentation (10) Graphics (8.5) Sound (9.5) Gameplay (10) Lasting Appeal (10) You also have to consider this: That being said, the true average of the scores in the 5 categories is not 9.9, but 9.6. That's a relatively small difference, but I think there's a principle they are not able to grasp - and that is the fact that when you have 5 distinct categories with very precise rules on what each of them means, you must be consistent and apply the same justification for an Overall score. If not, perhaps a reason why it got an extra .3 tacked on to the score. I don't care what it is, whether the author of the review felt it was deserved because the hookers looked especially clean and agreeable, or whether it was something a little more rational. There's also an icon there for the "IGN Editor's Choice Award" (though the Award page hasn't been updated with GTA: SA, so it could mean anything at this point). I think it's mildly interesting that the author proclaims the game to be the best PS2 game ever made, which I'm not going to dispute, as I haven't gotten my hands on it myself - but closes the review saying he's only 50% through the game. We can all name games that have been great for the first 3/4ths of it, and have bombed at the end. Not to say San Andreas will do that, in fact I doubt that is the case, but it's a matter of principle and a mild lack of journalistic candor that a game would get such accolades when it's not been fully reviewed. It's like me proclaiming Star Wars Galaxies the best MMORPG after creating a character and running around one of the starting cities, or saying the plot of Knights of the Old Republic is repugnant before the plot actually takes off (for example, after you find out your player's identity).

Hello, fellow thumbs! My name is Jan Bosman (pronounced ). You might remember me from your childhood as the friend who never wanted to go outside, and always wanted to play video games - yet back then, sucked considerably at everything I played. Though it took me years to discover that I'd been doing what I dreamed of all along (video games), while at the same time trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, here I am. I'm 19 years old, and headed for a degree in Game Design starting this Spring. Currently, I run a fan-site for Middle-Earth Online at Warcry.com - but that's just for the experience in 'journalism' and online gaming communities. FYI, I was not among those who went to E3 this year, and I fully condone the following, so don't beat me up: I've been coming to idlethumbs for quite some time, and very much enjoy the editorials and other writing, and am considering offering my soivices as a writer. The articles such as "I kill you.", and well most everything else, including pieces such as Ernest Adams' Philosophical Roots of Computer Game Design (from the GDC) - all of it holds with my beliefs and values, and all of my intentions with getting into the industry (which I may get into later). It's just nice to see a little bastion of such ideals as these, which I too share. Cheers!