Dean Takahashi apologizes for bad Mass Effect review

Dean Takahashi of The San Jose Mercury News, January 1st, 2008:

"When so many readers wrote in to tell me that I messed up my review of Mass Effect, I had to take a second look. It turns out, you were right. I was wrong. I owe an apology to you for writing a bad review. I also apologize to BioWare, which made a better game than I thought, and gulp, to Microsoft. The game play is not as flawed as I thought."

When Dean wrote his last Mass Effect review, he did not know that he could level up his characters in the game. For this new review, he replayed Mass Effect and followed readers' suggestions that he uses talent points (i.e., skill points) to upgrade his characters and companion AI. Now he has some new opinions about the game.

[Winter47th]

And another hit to videogames journalism credibility.

[ktchong]

He's not even a RPGamer... he didn't even know that he could level up his characters and distribute skill points in Mass Effect. He didn't level up, and then he complained about the game being too goddamned hard and poorly balanced. LOL.

[mintaro]

wow, didnt even know he could lvl up his characters?
but if he's a reporter why is he reviewing, than harshly critisizing mass effect?

[gamesR4fun]

Mass Defect is one of the most flawed console games Ive ever seen If Id paid for it I'd want my money back.

But that guy shouldn't be reviewing games ever either...
Cause if anything ME does well its in the story and some of the rpg elements. Just them damn frame drops insane load times and driving that Mako (wich was fun for like 2 mins) make this game not worth buying for me.

[BrianC6234]

Wow, I always knew Dean Takahasi was a Microsoft fanboy but this is just bad. He wrote a review and gave his opinion and Xbots forced him to apologize. This is why I no longer trust any reviews. This just proves they aren't worth a thing.

[BrianC6234]

TheRoundPeg - I agree Dean Takahasi is a writer and not a reviewer. But then, that's true of just about every game reviewer on the Web now. It seems like every site has some numbnut review games. Dean Takahasi though is a Microsoft fan. He even wrote books on the Xbox. He seems more like a game reviewer when it comes to the 360 than most reviewers. I guess from now on he'll just need to email his review to Microsoft to get it approved.

[smturner68]

Dean wrote books about the xboxes. He wrote..."Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft's Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution"
And..."The Xbox 360 Uncloaked:: The Real Story Behind Microsoft's Next-Generation Video Game Console"
I did a search on him on msn and the first wikipedia summary was this...
"Dean Takahashi is a journalist working for the San Jose Mercury News as a technology commentator and consumer electronics reviewer. He also writes a gaming blog for the newspaper."
Either way, I found it funny people on here that haven't heard of him.

[i Shank u]

what a f***ing NOOB! i was one of those commenting on his site, not to flame him but to defend the game and give suggestions about it. glad to see he listened and reconsidered, it takes balls to admit you are wrong, especially to thousands of people. but as far as credibility in recommending games, I'll ask my sweaty foot what to play before i ask this monkey.

if this "journalist" would have taken a few minutes to flip through the instruction book, there would of been no issue for him.

@BrianC - youre an idiot. he claimed there were problems with the game that didnt exist, and existed only to him because hes an idiot that paid more attention to whining about the game then trying to learn it. xbots or MS or whatever crap you can come up with didnt have anything to do with it; it due to his n00b status being off the charts

[toughNAME]

Isn't Bill Gates leaving in 2008?

Looks like Microsoft made his replacement in the payroll already

[power of Green]

Holy sh*t this guy tried to give a valid opinion about this title and didn't even know you can upgrade the charactors with experiance points. WoW The difference makes the games seem like two different games from start vs finish.

Later on in the game I don't even use guns I use the ((((FORCE)))).

This isn't some air tight standard action adventure game or shooter its a huge RPG that happens to be a hybrid RPG a bran-spanking new type of game plus tech behind it(interactive movie game lol)

#1.1 leave that fanboy alone.

[Bladestar]

There... a bunch of fools reviewing games that they don't even understand... and Sony fanboys agreed with him... now is asking for mercy... too late... now we know your reviews suck and is the last place people should go to.

[FirstknighT]

Keep the reviews stictly from gamers and not some non gamer from a random newspaper.

[hades07]

Totally agree. I thought people were suppose to know their subject matter when they reviewed products. Thats like me reviewing an airplane and stating I don't like it because I cant land the thing.

[DARK WITNESS]

well in some ways i can understand how he could make the mistake.

i have a friend who just bought the game and told me he thought it was rubbish. I asked him why and he went on to tell me about how he has to run around for ages and doesn't know what to do. then he went on to complain about the guns, how he could not hit anything with the rife etc. i told as he leveled up the aim gets better, also come classes are better with some guns then others.

he didn't understand. i said you do know its an rpg not an action shooter ? he said he didn't know, he just went out and bought it and had never heard of it and didn't know anything about the game ( don't ask me where he had been for the last 2 years ).

Anyway, its taken him time but he is starting to get it.

[TheTwelve]

He got COMPLETELY humiliated. I would love to say that Microsoft paid him off to say this, but the fool just forgot to level up....lol.----12

[EZCheez]

To a guy who can admit when he is wrong. People like that are few and far between nowadays, and he's a bigger man for it.

Too bad the "real" gaming websites can't go back and question their own reviews. That why mags and websites with the multiple review system seem a little more reliable. For example, Game Informer and the "second opinion" they give for reviews provide that backup that this guy obviously needed.

[KidMakeshift]

Durp

[gogators]

complete the game without spending any of your ability points. I can't even imagine how hard that would be.

[name]

I don't see how he could have even completed the game. Something sounds suspicious. That's like saying I beat pokemon without catching any pokemon. Sounds like someone threatened to kill his family.

[icechai]

yeah, i think this is one big issue that people here are quick to put aside. CAN YOU BEAT THIS GAME WITHOUT LEVELING UP AT ALL (he did beat the game for his first review apparently)? If someone with a 360 will try it for a bit and reply here so we know this isn't some BS re-review to get his advertisers back, it'd be greatly appreciated.

[Legion]

In his first review he commented that he had NOT beaten the game. That he only got to a certain point and that he knew the game got more dramatic due to seeing a scene from further in the game.

In this review he still states he has not finished the game and hasn't even put in a full 12hrs on the game yet.

He should have called it a preview instead of a review, or something.

[osirisomeomi]

The fact that the tutorial system was so bad he didn't even know he had talent points says a lot of negative things about the game too.

Also, his retraction was way too over the top.

[wageslave]

Get lost man.

"The fact that the tutorial system was so bad he didn't even know he had talent points says a lot of negative things about the game too. "

The game has a metacritic score of 9.1 / 10

http://www.metacritic.com/g...

One reviewer misses out and gives a bad review -- but there are DOZENS of reviewers who didnt have any problem and gave the game a average score better than *ANY* exclusive PS3 game ever.

So, go back to playing Lair on your PS3 and stop trying to FUD ME.

Not only is this story a testament to the *real* quality of Mass Effect, but that the user community emailed to tell him he he must have made a mistake -- and they were right! and he said he was wrong!

You PS3 owners just cant stand that the Xbox 360 library is head and shoulders above the Wii or PS3.

[QQcrybaby]

Read the manual moron.

[Dukester101]

How can you not know to level up your characters? Even if you've never played an RPG... the flashing icons, soft tones, and eve a message that says "level up" should be apparent enough.

[gamesR4fun]

This guy aint...

[IGNFTW]

NOT PERFECT,BUT GOOD NONETHELESS.

[jaja1434]

Ahh good old Mass Effect. Only RPG I have played through 3 times...
Yea I wanted to try all the classes. For a side note beat it once on soldier and get the achievement point, then go back and play as an Adept with rifle(comes unlocked after you get rifle achievement) and holy hell it become fun. All those fun bionic powers with that some nice rifle.

Its even more fun if you do all of the side quest first. I did most of them before I did 1 mission and got to level 22. That of course made the real missions all the more fun.

There was only one thing I didn't change...but that would be a spoiler to tell.

[MK_Red]

His initial review proved that he had no real experience with classic RPGs but at least he has confessed and apologized. Not too many people and reviewers do this anymore.

[JokesOnYou]

seriously, I don't know how you can play ME without looking at your charachter stats and then clearly knowing that those "flashing points" are used to level up your characters abilities and weapons, ha ha no wonder he was so frustrated and NO he did NOT finish the game as he said in the first review. Still some fans obviously wrote in an informed him about how "off" some of his comments seemed and he obviously went back and tried the game again, obviously this guy is not a typical game reviewer/journalists, but either way I can respect anyone who admits they made a mistake and I know it takes alot for a professional in the news business to admit he was wrong on especially about something that is *subjective anyway, he could have just stuck with his original comments.

JOY

[RecSpec]

He made a mistake and admitted it. Reviewing something you don't normally do isn't so easy. Imagine reviewing an opera for instance. You wouldn't know what to look for.

In fact, call this a review for people who don't know about gaming. Most people who read the paper don't normally read other video game publications, so this is a perfect review for them, because they wouldn't be familiar with games like the rest of us.

[Skerj]

Dude if you don't know what to look for when reviewing an Opera (or game genre) then you shouldn't be reviewing it. That's like me trying to review Madden which would probably go like "You call some plays, and then press some buttons to toss the ball to another guy and try to run to the other end, but this game sucks because you can't switch styles go play Devil May Cry 3". Which is essentially what he did in the first ME review.

Granted I have enough sense to not review something in an area I'm not familiar with but if I had to then I'd try to bring myself up to speed within the parameters. I think I just expended my real life American football knowledge with that sentence too hah. In any case he gets a point for admitting he was wrong, but he's still a tool for doing it to begin with. RTFM kids, it's not that hard.

[Strife Lives]

360, ps3,wii,ps2, psp, ds gamers.essentially we're all gamers. We need the council to take one of our own into their ranks lmao damn I love mass effect. Havnt played awesome game like it,rpg wise,since final fantasy 10,8,7

[InMyOpinion]

"When Dean wrote his last Mass Effect review, he did not know that he could level up his characters in the game."

I wonder if he's just retarded or if he even played the game at all?

[Strife Lives]

Had something to do with i lmao. J/k

[FCOLitsjustagame]

I am not sure how you can give a reveiw of a game when you havent completed the game. Some games get better as they go, some get worse. A good or bad ending can make the difference between a great game, good game, Meh game or bad game.

On the other hand, if you werent leveling AND were playing this as a Halo run and gun then I guess the gameplay would seem quite broken and I have stopped playing games when I felt the gameplay was broken (mostly in my PC days).

[titntin]

Respect for admitting his mistake, but you have to say, his first review is extremely sloppy work. To have played so little of the game, and to have missed what is a major part of ANY rpg (leveling up is hardly a new concept), almost beggers belief...

[Strife Lives]

Is a bit boring,bt thts the 1st 5 minutes of the game. Once u gt bk to the Normandy,wow,then it takes off and the real scope of the game is shown. This game rocks,using the Normandy and doing the sidequests is awesome and nostalgic,reminds me of the Highwind of Final Fantasy 7. This game deserves 9,8 out of 10.the 0,2 isnt there cuz of the texture pop up,bt i dnt mind that

[essien]

how can you call yourself a gamer and not know that you level up and distribute talents in an rpg? that makes no sense at all.

[aba]

This f**king retard needs to kill himself.

[BoneMagnus]

Most RPGs take a bit to figure out - FF skill trees for example, and take a few hours to get hooked into the story, but this guy's review in inexcuable - because he's supposed to be a professional.

[GITPWNED]

Eden Prime is the tutorial level, and has tutorial pop-ups detailing everything in the game.

Yet another person talking about Mass Effect without actually playing it. What an amazing coincidence!

[prowiew]

THE ONLY THING THAT CAME FROM THIS IS THAT DEAN IS NOT A HARDCORE GAMER. I MEAN, HE FORGOT TO LEVEL UP!.

[Reibooi]

The guy is retarded. 99.99999% of the complaints he had in his review were not even valid as they were wrong. Such as not being able to get head shots( why would you have a sniper if you can't), not knowing he could lvl up, not being able to skip cut scenes(x button speeds them up). Among many other things.

[pswi60]

I love how when blog.mercurynews.com write opinion pieces about the ps3 and "the looming mess", bloodmask and RP and tripping over each other to approve it, with PoG, FirstKnight, Genuine, TheMart, and Bladestar all trolling and sniping other commentors, its taken as "news". But ME gets a bad review and the MS war machine makes him re-review and apologize....HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA HAH. Now those same people are questioning his journalistic integrity, when it was fine before now.

Microsoft: "Uh, Dean, we payed you for a good review of this game...what the hell?"

Dean: "Sorry, i didn't see my check in the mail until today. I will fix it."

Microsoft: "Thanks Dean...don't let this happen again."

[THAMMER1]

Mass Effect is a great game.

[Enigma_2099]

...PLAY the game before you review it....

[Nevers]

There's an achievement... Beat Mass Effect without distributing any leveling points. We'll call it "Dee-duh-Deeeeee"...

Did this guy review Super Mario Brothers without using the Jump button as well?

[Bombomb]

How the F$%k you miss that part of the game? did he actually play it?

When Dean wrote his last Mass Effect review, he did not know that he could level up his characters in the game.

[wangdiddy82]

He should stand up for what he said before and not go back on it.. Why should he say he was wrong and sorry because a bunch of people disagree with him.. lol.. What a dork.. You know he probably still hates the game but he's just trying to save his a$$ now so he doenst get fired like that guy from gamespot...

[GITPWNED]

LMAO@ HIM NOT KNOWING HE COULD LEVEL-UP HIS CHARACTER! OMG OMG OMG!!!! WHAT A PIECE OF SH1T. How did HE get a job reviewing games? Truly amazing. What a waste of skin.

[LJWooly]

How come now everybody lets reviews dictate what they play?
Remember when people thought for themselves? God I miss those days...

[aba]

im glad theres reviews. Now i'll know if what im about to pay $60 for is good or a piece of sh*t.

[geminibros]

I'll admit I never read the original review before seeing this. That said... well, I don't really know what to say. If we learn anything from 2007 it's that some standards need to be put in place for game-related journalism. The recently release Videogame Style Guide is a positive step in the right direction, but such a work needs to be embraced by the editors/writers before it can be effective. Perhaps it's time to organize game journos into something more substantial than an online community.

[VigorousApathy]

How dare this person admit a mistake. Admitting a mistake proves you were wrong, thereby destroying the possibilty that you are infallible. What he should have done is insisted he was right anyway, which would create a theoretical chance that he never does anything wrong.

The President knows this, he does it after every decision, that's why there is still a statistical possibility that he is perfect. He's going to maintain that forever, and that's why he is such a great leader.

[geminibros]

...but the fact is, Takahashi ignored a fundamental RPG mechanic as he played the game for review. There is no defense, no justification. Games are built around complex systems of rules; ignoring them alters the gameplay experience in a very basic way. That it is possible to play and ignore them in Mass Effect is besides the point; the ability to "level up" is core to the experience of every RPG and Takahashi should have been more thorough. It's easy to be lazy when "work" falls so close to "play," but that doesn't excuse the mistake. Takahashi owed his readers, not to mention BioWare and Microsoft, a retraction and a clarification, both of which he delivered in the linked article.

I'm not saying this to defend Mass Effect - I came down pretty hard on it myself in my own review for UGO - but rather to defend the ethics of journalism in general. On the most basic level, Takahashi wrote up a critical assessment of a product which he himself had not fully researched. He was called on his shoddy journalism by knowledgeable readers and subsequently came clean.

[The_Engineer]

the xbot girls prove they are bigger crybabies than "sonydroids"...lol

[JokesOnYou]

this guy stepped up and apologized which means HIS READERS obviously made some VALID POINTS, which he could not ignore,

"sonydroids" often JUST CRY because they don't like the SCORE, but they whine and complain about *everything, and most of them *flip flop so many times with their beliefs that its hard to take anything they say seriously= POINTLESS CRYING (they hate vg chartz, then they use vg chartz when its in their favor, they hate 1up, then they use 1up when they say DMC ps3 version is better, they say sales & reviews dont matter, then flaunt them if they favor ps3, etc etc etc)= which makes them the biggest crybabies the videogame industry has ever seen.

JOY

[LJWooly]

Some people like to think for themselves rather than let reviews dictate what they play.

For instance, if I, like, FirstKnight, let reviews of games dictate what I play, then I wouldn't have bought SmackDown vs. RAW 2008, which is a game (although it's not to everyone's taste), that I thoroughly enjoy; it made me realise that I actually do like pro wrestling.

If I had let the fairly average Metacritic score put me off, then I would have missed out.

There used to be a time that people could think for themselves, god, I miss those days...

[DFresh]

I do think it should be in the hands of gamers to grade only game developers the reason everybody won't grade honestly and just make up a score for a game they think is cool.
Ex.)
Say Kojima Productions releases MGS4
and
they need someone to grade it well obviously you wouldn't get your own people to grade it only other developers and they must grade correctly no bribes from game companies.
The system is messed up and we need a new system.
I mean come on now how can you give Halo 3 a 9.5 (Gamespot) for a game that doesn't have next gen graphics and yet give a game as wonderful as Ratchet 7 Clank (7.5- yet everyone else gave it 10's) and Uncharted Drake's Fortune (8.0- way better than that totally the best graphically and story like game around to date.) low scores just because of a bribe by MS.
I thought the grade was correct because I watched them grade it.
The gun accuracy was poor, the frame rates were malfunctioning, and it was freezing as well.
Hell...in the 1st week of the Halo 3 release on the 360 people had to return their copies because of freezing problems and glitches on the 1st day they bought it.
I'm not hating it was a story here on N4G awhile back in September look for yourself.

[TwissT]

At least he apologized for his sloppy work. But really not knowing that you could level up??? Some one else should have reviewed it.

[Ahhhh]

@gamesR4fun - Have you even tried this game?? Better yet, have you played Lair?? This conversation is over, thank you, and ƒuck off.

[Big Jim]

Wow, video game reviews are a joke. They are just completely worthless. If this guy really didn't know you could level up characters in an RPG, then he shouldn't be reviewing games at all. But I don't think thats what happened. I think his knew how to level up his characters just fine and gave his honest opinion. I think microsoft forced him to change his review. Mass effect is a boring, frustrating chore, and its only getting good reviews because MS is paying everyone off. This has gotten right out of hand.

[Jones Miller]

He better be sorry!

[FrostyMelon]

So...the idiot played all the way through the game with the same guns/ammo as when you start? LOL! RTFM!

GREAT game. I am going back through it, changing a few things (from paragon to renegade), soon as I am done with Bioshock.

[Dacapn]

I wasn't too impressed with mass effect. My roommate got the game and I watched him play most of it. For all the graphical attention it was getting it seemed kinda superficial. Characters and environments look nice from afar but up close it's just nasty.

One thing that really bugged me (I dunno if anyone else noticed this) was that weird haze around characters almost like the colors were leaking off of them or like the characters were evaporating haha.

As for framerate, I haven't seen a game chug like this one. Oblivion was tolerable but this was just bad. At points it looked like he was playing a slideshow. The pop-in was so bad it became funny.

Story was good though, and the voice acting pretty top notch. I didn't like the sound effects of the guns however. None of the the weapons sounded like a weapon should. Most of them sounded like underwater cannons, and the assault rifle was sounded like a small child banging on a water tank...rapidly. The game was meh. I would have given it like a 7.5