Curmudgeon Gamer
05 December 2007
Croal nails it
You have to read N'Gai Croal's take on the enthusiast press and the CNet/GameSpot/Eidos/Gerstmann episode. For background and ongoing coverage, Kyle is tearing it up at Joystiq. Here's Tuesday's update as a starting point.
Added: Comparison of the original and edited text review of Kane & Lynch.
Added: Comparison of the original and edited text review of Kane & Lynch.
--jvm at 09:14
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03 July 2007
Not Ready for Prime Time
GameSpot recently changed how their site handles reviews. Among other things, the 0.1 granularity in scores is gone. Tonight they reviewed the PS3 game Super Stardust HD and the page I got came up with a score of 0.0. Here's the screenshot:
Looks like the system needs a little work guys. Although, if the score stays at 0.0, I'll at least give them credit for sticking it to (what appears to be) a copy-cat game with a thick layer of eye candy. (Of course, by the time you read this, they will probably have updated the page to show the correct score...)
Looks like the system needs a little work guys. Although, if the score stays at 0.0, I'll at least give them credit for sticking it to (what appears to be) a copy-cat game with a thick layer of eye candy. (Of course, by the time you read this, they will probably have updated the page to show the correct score...)
--jvm at 21:07
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21 February 2007
Gamespot Virtually Reviews Virtual Console game
Gamespot's review of last week's foremost Virtual Console release, Kirby's Adventure, is deficient in a surprising way. In particular, I'm not sure they played the game. The result is that they say something clearly false, something that a reviewer should know after playing the game.
After taking pains to tell us that the game's major fault is its short length, that it can "be beaten in a single evening" (possible, if you do nothing else for several hours) it tells us that the game has a bit of replay value since, by finding all the hidden switches, the player can get a better ending.
This is not true. More recent Kirby games have instituted this as the incentive for finding all the secrets, but the ones directed by Kirby creator Masahiro Sakurai (the Smash Bros. guy), which includes Kirby's Adventure, use new game modes as their super-lockables. In Kirby's Adventure, this is the challenging "Extra Game," which is the answer to Gamespot's other problem with Kirby's Adventure, that it is too easy.
But let's stick with the true problem, why Gamespot's review is wrong:
It also casts doubt on the validity of their score of 7.3, for what is one of the best games on the NES.
After taking pains to tell us that the game's major fault is its short length, that it can "be beaten in a single evening" (possible, if you do nothing else for several hours) it tells us that the game has a bit of replay value since, by finding all the hidden switches, the player can get a better ending.
This is not true. More recent Kirby games have instituted this as the incentive for finding all the secrets, but the ones directed by Kirby creator Masahiro Sakurai (the Smash Bros. guy), which includes Kirby's Adventure, use new game modes as their super-lockables. In Kirby's Adventure, this is the challenging "Extra Game," which is the answer to Gamespot's other problem with Kirby's Adventure, that it is too easy.
But let's stick with the true problem, why Gamespot's review is wrong:
There is no better ending. They did not play the game through.Maybe someone relied on a faint memory of the game from the NES era, but considering that they say the game is short, there is really no excuse for them not having played through it again. The reviewer should have known there was no better ending to be had.
It also casts doubt on the validity of their score of 7.3, for what is one of the best games on the NES.
Labels: gamespot, media, nintendo, virtual console
--JohnH at 15:45
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