This year, I played a game called 3D Dot Game Heroes on my PS3. If you were to believe reviews, it is a game probably not worth playing. Gamespot and Destructoid gave it a 75/100. 1Up gave it a 67/100, and Eurogamer, Edge, and Giant Bomb all gave it a 60/100.
However, I played 3D Dot Game Heroes and loved every minute of it. Not once did I lose interest. To me, it's a great game. But the reviews would say that I should have been disappointed by it.
Later this year, I played a game called Call of Duty: Black Ops. The single-player suffered from a few glitches, but it was the multiplayer that was downright broken. I first played it on the PS3 on loan from a buddy, and then - to see if it was just the PS3 version - I also played it on my neighbor's 360. Both versions were a mess, and I can't imagine how broken it is on the PC.
Yet, this game received a great deal of 9/10 and 10/10 scores, leading readers to believe that this game is excellent and should be played by everyone.
Nowadays, reviews are less about informing the reader and more about getting hits and advertising dollars. As "journalists", those who write video game reviews are obligated to inform their readers about game-breaking glitches, graphical problems, bad gameplay mechanics, and so forth. It's beyond me how 75% of the glitches in video games never seem to get mentioned, as it's beyond me how in the world a broken game like Fallout: New Vegas ever managed to get scores above a 5/10. And then, we have reviews that are poorly researched or even state false information (Gran Turismo 5 reviews are a fantastic recent example).
The inconsistency of reviews makes it even worse. I'll use IGN as an example, since they're so popular around here: their reviews of The Fight and Tumble would make you believe that those games aren't even playable. However, having played both of these games, I am confused. Neither of these games are broken. Not even close. It's their opinion, though, and I suppose they didn't like those games. Oh, but wait. This same "opinion" that dislikes inaccurate controls, lack of content, bad menu organization, and whatnot apparently vanished when it came time to review Kinect's games like Kinectimals, Joy Ride, and Kinect Adventures. These Kinect games suffered from many of the exact same problems the IGN reviewers claimed The Fight and Tumble suffered from, and yet these games get a pass. This has also happened with multiplatform reviews, when in one case, there will be big differences between two multiplatform games (Final Fantasy 13) yet the scores will be the same, but in another case there will be slight differences and the reviewers feel the need to mark one version or another version down a few points. Huh? How can we take reviewers seriously when they pull stunts like that? And when IGN is advertised on Xbox Live dashboard and belongs to Gamestop, it gets even harder to take their views as objective.
But it all goes back to 3D Dot Game Heroes and how listening to review scores could have robbed me of playing one of my favorite games of the year. I'm sure many of you have similar experiences with video game reviews. As gamers, we've been idiots by siding with various reviewers in "teh console warz" and using their arbitrary and useless numbers as our ammunition. Instead, we should be telling "professional" reviewers to shut the hell up and let us gamers enjoy our games. Sure, if reviewers actually reviewed games and gave us important information such as...
- any game-breaking glitches?
- is the online mode smooth?
- roughly how many hours of content is there?
- are the controls sloppy?
...we'd be inclined to lighten up. But reviews are covering these topics less and less.
"Professional" reviewers need to wake up and do their job. Yeah, I know that's really tough to do when Konami is flying you to a private playing of Metal Gear Solid 4 or when Microsoft is handing you free video game consoles, but if reviewers want gamers to take them seriously, then reviewers need to start taking their job seriously.
Shaz from Pixel Swish: "The ROG Xbox Ally is another step towards Team Xbox’s 'Play Anywhere' strategy, and perfectly embodies the company’s future and how we’re all going to be playing an 'Xbox' in the future."
The funny thing about Xbox going more PC-like is that I’ve been saying this for over a decade and finally seeing it come to fruition. People use to hate the idea, but now are embracing it, and all I want is to be put on the payroll lol.
On a serious note, I think this is the best route going forward for MS. They don’t have to get out of the hardware game altogether. They can make their home console $300 entry & $600 premium home consoles and from there partner with other hardware makers for anything beyond that. Focus on being a publisher and creating a strong OS / Cloud option for other devices like desktop, handheld PCs, streaming devices, etc…
I honestly think they should also look into NVIDIA as well, with NVIDIA starting to make their own CPUs. Their CPU is already on par with AMDs best laptop CPUs of the previous/current generation which is more than enough, and a RTX 5000 / 6000 laptop GPU hybrid (DLSS 4 / DLSS5) could do wonders for them, and bring some much needed diversity back to console hardware.
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I don't know why you'd expect them to still develop new consoles at this point. Ditching all exclusives and putting the Xbox logo on a ROG Windows device is a pretty clear message.
This isn't a good thing for Xbox. It's a long winded goodbye.
For the same reason they still have a laptop hardware lineup even though they have Windows.
Having some kind of retail presence for visibility and marketing won’t really affect them in any way.
I still expect them to have 1 or 2 SKUs that they won’t sell at a loss but will continue the trend of selling way less than the competition (though its still selling millions), just like they have their Surface laptops even though they could happily coast knowing practically every third party out there (or the end consumer) will pay them for the Windows license
You realise thos indicates that their next xbox will be an xbox branded pc right? And will cost pc prices as a result. So look forwards to a 600 dollar and 1000 dollar version with vast performance differences, with the upper range having similar performance to the ps6 that will be like half its price. The 800 dollar rog ally x makes this abundantly clear.
I saw this years ago. I don't see how it took this long for people actually close to the industry.
I said this years ago, mind you I know nothing about computers, but I always thought Xbox would go more PC-like.
As I said, and always said, I know squat about PCs, so I thought Xbox would become modular. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but I thought they would build a basic frame/shell and gamers would be able to configure their Xbox how they wish, similar to PC and buy motherboards, sound cards and graphic cards. I don’t know if that’s practical or even possible though.
This was when they first entered the gaming space.
I think consoles are so cheap and punch above their weight is because everything is so tightly designed around each component. Opening up to multiple permutations with modules would probably make it more expensive to build, develop for, and manage. It's not impossible, but probably gets in that gray area where it's not much different than a garden variety PC.
Well to clear up my thought process on the matter, I figured they would every so often within a gen like a pro model system, give gamers the proprietary parts.
Let’s say the original Xbox they built it modular in mind, so certain parts they would manufacture newer slightly more powerful components. That way you can either stay with the original configuration, or swap out the parts you choose, building your own pro. Then when the next gen comes around a new even more powerful components that would put the system in the Xbox360 range. Then another half step to tweak your system to a pro of that gen.
I guess similar to how I see people here talking about new 4080 cards, I’m just making up an example, and every so often people mention nother with a number larger than the last indicating it’s more powerful.
I understand what you’re saying about how it’s much easier to just have a closed system, and much cheaper. It was just something I thought might happen when Microsoft introduced the first Xbox.
"First-person roguelikes like Gunfire Reborn and Roboquest can be quite fun when done well. Another such game is MythForce, which comes from Beamdog, the developer that brought Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 to modern platforms (while mostly ditching the co-op). MythForce features cartoon-like visuals and a fantasy theme, making it quite different from most of its peers. It will soon reach its "final form" via the upcoming Version 1.2 update," says Co-Optimus.
Today, SCS Software officially announced Project Coaches, the next evolution for Euro Truck Simulator 2, adding buses to the game.
"However, I played 3D Dot Game Heroes and loved every minute of it. Not once did I lose interest. To me, it's a great game. But the reviews would say that I should have been disappointed by it."
...No they didn't.
It sits at a respectable 77 on Metacritic with mostly positive reviews.
Other peoples opinions that you do not agree with = "killing gaming"?
If 3D Dot Game Heroes received nothing but 9's and 10's I doubt you would be writing a blog complaining about it's high scores. The game received most of those scores because <gasps!> it deserved them.
Stick to writing exclusive game lists, petitions and creating EDGE conspiracy blogs on blogspot, PS3 fanboy pls go.
I think the bigger problem nowadays is that any game that receives any score (be it a sole-review or an aggregate score like on Metacritic) below 80 it's pretty much shit in their eyes, which is just a pathetic case of events for gaming, reviewers and websites alike. Apart from the odd website with real reviewers that don't have a score system that only contains 9/10 out of 10 for 90 out of 100 games like most sites these days (I'm looking at you IGN) unless you read reviews from a certain reviewer which you know or have a similar understanding of then realistically reviews aren't a great source anymore for deciding whether to buy or not to buy a game.
The most I use reviews for is to see common traits in various ones to see if what they're saying is actually true (i.e. for example good storytelling, poor enemy/opponent AI, things like that), but nothing more.
Reviews are opinions, just because YOU liked 3D-Dot hero doesn't mean others will.
It is unfortunate but true that the larger sites that people consider to be the all of the in the know when it comes to doing reviews when it isn't the case. There are so many good games out there that don't get good reviews, why? Those that are writing the reviews are simply not being balanced or fair or simply don't care about the title.
Websites like that of IGN are big corporate owned websites that are selling a product as well and they will do what they will in part that they have a big name and are the big website vs. the no name sites which give good honest reviews and insight into what the game will be like only to be overshadowed in part that they aren't a big corporately owned news site.
Yes, iam one of several partners in one of those no name sites, however the games in which we can and do review we try our best in doing reviews that the player will use in there determination. We don't get kickbacks, we do it in part that we like the different dynamics of what is what in the gaming industry.
Though in the end, it could be about being ethical in your review of the game you are doing a review on.