It was recently announced that the PS4 exclusive game "Driveclub" will not launch with weather effects in the game; they will be added later via a patch. It's also been announced that the Xbox exclusive game "Forza Horizon 2" will have weather effects included on the game disc. Since these two driving/racing games will inevitably be compared to each other based on their close release dates and similar arcade-racing styles, I offer the question:
How should Driveclub be reviewed?
This may seem like a simple question. A game journalist pops in the game disc, plays the game, and writes a review. Unfortunately, I doubt it will be so simple. How do you handle the lack of weather in the initial review?
Naturally, without the weather system present, it's impossible to judge it in any way. There's no way to know how it plays and affects the game. So, with weather effects present at the competition's launch, how should reviewers rate Driveclub with no weather?
Mark my words. When the reviews start rolling in, N4G will explode with criticism of any review that deducts points for Driveclub's lack of weather. "We all know it's coming", they will scream. "You can't penalize them for it when it will be here soon". Many will take it even further with comments similar to "that biased reviewer was paid by MS to criticize a PS4 game".
So, should a reviewer review what's actually there, or should they hold off on criticism because a future patch will add the missing elements? Besides, what about the millions of people who don't have internet, and therefore can't download the weather patch? We know there are millions because people here used that number when Xbox One was announced to be always online.
There are options, but none are ideal. Some will say that points shouldn't be deducted for lack of weather because we know it's coming, but that would mean intentionally ignoring an important omission from the disc that many people will be buying, as well as a feature that the competition offers immediately.
Some will say the game should be re-reviewed when the weather patch is released. This would open a can of worms because no other games are re-reviewed when content is added. Look at Forza 5 for Xbox One. One major criticism in initial reviews was it's lack of content. Since launch, there has been a lot of free content added to the game. Yet there has been no re-review of Forza 5 to include the new content.
People who complain that Driveclub should be re-reviewed will speak of the supposedly biased media singling out a Sony game for criticism, when in reality they want an exception to be made for a Sony game that is not made for any other game. The same thing happened at Gran Turismo 5's launch. After a few patches corrected some initial issues, people were screaming for a re-review (mainly because it scored lower than it's main competition).
Besides, what about the non-internet gamers? If they read a review that includes weather, that weather won't be on the disc that they buy, nor will they have access to the patch. That would be very misleading to a lot of potential buyers.
My feeling is that the game should be reviewed in it's launch state. EVERY other game is reviewed this way - there's nothing special here that deserves an exception. Whether reviewers want to deduct points for certain missing elements is entirely up to them, and their feeling about how important each game element is to the final score. It does, however, need to be addressed in any serious review. I would greatly oppose an effort to re-review ANY game. In the era of DLC, this would simply be a dangerous precedent to set.
Sony Interactive Entertainment and Shift Up's upcoming action adventure game, Stellar Blade, will not offer a photo mode at launch.
Gamereactor: "We got a sneak preview of the free demo of Shift-Up's upcoming title and were very surprised."
VGChartz's Evan Norris: "Felix the Cat won't catapult the cartoon feline to stardom once again, but it should shine a light on an underplayed, underappreciated licensed game from the waning days of NES. With inventive transformations, diverse levels, and charm to spare, it's one of the better platformers on a system defined by them. It's just a shame this modern release doesn't do more to contextualize, enhance, and celebrate it."
That's an interesting observation. A lot of the reviews may depend on how good the actual game is, and how quickly the content arrives post-release.
You can't review something that's not there. Reviews are meant to help consumers assess a product before they purchase it.
It's not the fault of reviewers if DriveClub's weather is unaccounted for. If reviews praise Forza's weather effects, that's because it is available to review.
It's difficult today with patches and DLC support that improves games past the date of a review... but people looking to criticize reviewers for failing to review something that is not there are being unreasonable.
He should review it. The same way games are reviewed, in whatever style or method he sees fit. Reviews are just glorified opinions anyway. Stop worrying about what people think. Especially if you are in the know about the weather being added, then what do you have to worry about some review score affecting your experience?
Ohhh.. I get it... You're worried about how it will make the Playstation look?
Sad. Just play it, don't worry about how people view something YOU have already established as valuable to yourself.
It will be reviewed like any other game dont expect that simple updates will mark a huge diference in the game because it wont.
did forza 5 have points knocks down for no weathers effect ? or night cycles?