What's a "Review in Progress" (aka RIP) ? A RIP is a review of a game I have not finished but have played enough to make some judgement calls about. Be aware that a RIP can change drastically before it is finished as the game may offer some suprises, patches, etc to change the outcome.
SPORE™
Developer: William Wright, Produced by Electronic Arts
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I received Spore™ as a Christmas gift and just now had the time to try it out yesterday. I have played through the Cell stage and have gotten to the land stage.
As of this moment the game just doesn't hold me. There's plenty to do, a lot of "evolving" work to do, but honestly I don't feel like messing with it much. I would say the graphics are too childish but that's not it. The whole game takes a huge back burner in the reality department. It feels like I don't have to even try to succeed in the game. No matter how many times I fail or die I get to try again with no repercussions. That's not evolution. Something better would have been if I died then I would lose some body parts that caused me to die. Like say I have a flipper that doesn't let me swim fast enough away from predators so I die 3 or 4 times in a row. The game could then think.. hmmm this fin he has is causing him to die. Remove it and lets see if he can "evolve" enough to use a better suited one. To me if your going to make an evolution game your going to want to stress the evolving aspect. Evolving isnt running eating enough stuff until you have enough money to upgrade, which is why this game fails.
Visuals: I'll give the graphics a solid C (7 points) . They do the job but are nothing to write home about. Actually they look very GameCubish.
Audio: First thing I had todo was click to the options screen to turn off theenoughing fairy music. The ingame sounds are fair do what they should but again are average and nothing special. Another C (7 points)
RE-playability: There I would have to give them an A (15 Points). There is tons of replayability. Wether it is something you actually want to play is not the point of this grade. But there is plenty to re-do here.
Multi-player: This is actually in a way built in. If you online when you play then your getting the benefit of other players right away. Creatures, planets, etc are auto populated and evolve around you from other players. The actuall MP part I have not tested so For now I have to get it a solid A as the parts I did see worked.
Added Functionality: Again this is something the game seems built for. Very robust tools and potential for something better to be done with the engine. Another A
Immersion: Now here is where we hit a brick wall. Does the game pull me in? ot at all. All I could wait for was the next "upgrade" so I could get out the cess pool. Now that I'm on dry land I can't want to get somewhere else as I'm bored more than a monk in Tibet. This one gets an F for Failure. (1 point)
Fun: Again another brick wall. Not fun. I'm 35, have studyed evolution and personal beliefs aside, if this is how things were thenI'm surprised animals wanted to thrive. Dull as my Grandpapppys Axe. It's not an F as I have to take my age into consideration so I'll give it a D (4 points)
Recognition: This game was hyped to the stone age (lol) and back. The game is/was popular until you actually play it and then most people don't play it past the first day.
But ask someone about the game Spore™ and they know what your talking about.
They get an A+ on name brand. (16 Points)
Remember this is a RIP review so it's short, and not finished but as of Day +1 of playing it the score stands at:
C+ (80 Points)
Jan 29, 2009
Review in Progress - SPORE™
Afro Samurai (Xbox 360) Xbox 360 Game reviews - CNET Reviews
Afro Samurai (Xbox 360) Xbox 360 Game reviews - CNET Reviews
A decent review about Afro Samurai.
Sounds too much like Heavenly Sword for me to plunk $60 down.
A decent review about Afro Samurai.
Sounds too much like Heavenly Sword for me to plunk $60 down.
Pay Download Sites - GRIPE
I apologize beforehand for the language and the spelling. When I'm pissed I just write as it comes. So no emails telling me how to spell.
Let me start off my saying I myself have made many mods for many games over the years.
Only twice did I ever charge for them and this was AFTER I had released it for free for awhile first, OR made a fully functional free version. Just look up GunMod or GunSlinger's Mods and you will find mods I have designed for Sports Car GT, Janes Flight Sims, Operation Flashpoint, Hornet Korea, Grand Theft Auto 3, San Andreas. The list is frankly too long for me to remember. My point being I make mods for 2 reasons. One to better the game for myself. Instead of complaining about a game not doing XYZ, I fixed XYZ. Secondaly to give others who didn't have the time or abilities to mod games a chance to play a better game. Keep in mind these are all PC games. I assume I could mod console games but one it's illegal and two you need special hardware that not many people would solder into their consoles.
Getting back to my point U want to bring up something that really "Grinds My Gears". That would be Pay to Download sites that A) Host OTHER peoples work on their sites and B) Charge YOU to download what someone else released elsewhere for free. I had that happen to one of my products once. I sued and sued big. They ended up paying me a whopping $800 for something that should have been free in the first place. Because I signed a document I can't go to much into detail, however the monies I recieved I invested into modding software and donations to websites who don't ask for money. Too make a long story short, in the end the only one who suffered was the idiot game company who tried to profit off my kindness.
Now to the subject back at hand. Every 6 months or so I get an inching to fly Microsoft's latest flight sim, MSFS. And everytime I end of stopping because of the sheer greed of the community. It's one thing to take 2 or 3 people, time, money and effort to create a product for a program. It's something else entirely to do something 5000 have done and charge money for it. About 70% of MSFS websites either charge for access to the "free" files or make your downloads super slow while slamming ads in your face to "donate" for faster speeds. Greed stinks hard. I can remember the days when people made things like this because it was fun, hekped them, and helped keep your hobby alive. Now the Greed Stinkers are slowing killing PC gaming. Remember going to your local EB, GameStop, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and seeing at least 3 or 4 complete rows of PC software? Not today. Now PC games are either phased out completelty, or if they do have them they update the New sections once every 4 months with one or two WOW add-ons or SIMS Cash Cow stuff. WHY? Because of Greed Stinkers and Pirates. Personally I think the same people who pirate games are more than likely the same ones who throw up a web site to host other people's work and charge your a fee of $20 a month to download the crap. And do not get me started on "But they have to charge for access and web fees and blah blah blah" No they dont. No one made them put that website up. No held a gun to there head and said, spend this money on a Pentium 1 PC with Windows 2000 on it that cost you $80 and then charge people $20a month to access files that you never even look at. How is that different than the game pirates? Actually the game pirates aren't as bad. They steal the game for themself but they don't turn around and sell the copies to everyone on the net (Ok a few idiots TRY... but then they get smart and put up a New Napster type site that charges a monthly fee to... blah blah blah.) See the cycle here. Joe Blow makes an add-on that adds new lighting for runways. He submits it to 2 or 3 free sites. People like it. Next thing you know he finds his file on 50 other websites. 40 of them are charging people to access his free file. Well that's illegal you say. Maybe. But what the heck is he going to do. I made something for free, told people they could have it, and some decided to actually sell it to some suckers. Judge says, Well dont make anymore free ones. And pretty soon the Greed stinkers and the Pirates win, only they lose because they lose the very thing that made them. Games and people to play them.
Gripe over.
I'll be listing websites I find that host free MSFS stuff and charge or seriously cripple your connection if your not a paying member in this message. Just so I can know to stay the fuck away from the jerks.
1) Simnetwork.com
Here is there pathetic excuse for WHY:
It takes lots of hard work and money to keep one of the web's largest Flight Simulation sites running, therefore we are asking our members to pay a small monthly fee of $5 In order to keep Fly Away running. The payment entitles you to a full account and a user account here at Fly Away. The user account gives you full access to Downloads section, which is regularly updated with quality flight simulation downloads. The fee is a lot cheaper that other flightsim sites such as Surclaro, that offer one month member ship for $18, while we offer a monthly membership for only $5.
Slam someone else who is doing the same as you to get customers. Yeah your honest and trustworthy.
Bite me.
More coming. Much more.
Jan 26, 2009
Game Review Guide
I rate my games like a teacher rates a test. I grade it accordingly from A+ all the way down to big fat ZERO. How would a game get a ZERO? Easy, look at "Duke Nukem Forever". I take this very seriously, so I wrote a guide on how I do it.
Here is the Grade Scale:I grade on the following subjects:
- 101 to 105 = A+ Camp out overnight!
- 96 to 100 = A Stand In Line!
- 92 to 95 = A- Buy It
- 90 to 91 = B+ Good Buy
- 87 to 89 = B Decent
- 85 to 86 = B- Okay
- 80 to 84 = C+ Mediocre
- 75 to 79 = C Maybe Rent First
- 70 to 74 = C- Definitely Rent first
- 68 to 69 = D+ Wouldn't Rent It
- 64 to 67 = D Don't Rent
- 60 to 63 = D- If a Gift, Return
- 58 to 59 = F+ Stay Away
- 50 to 57 = F FAIL
- 1 to 49 = F- RUN AWAY!
- 0 = ZERO/VAPORWARE
Those are about all the big points I score on when I review a game. I try and use this method with every type of game that I come across.
- Visuals. How well does the game appeal to the player visually? Is the art style consistent with the game? Do the graphics mask a poor game? Does the graphic style feel realistic? A game's graphics are not the whole meat and potatoes folks, but it is important. I could play some awesome ASCII text games, but to be honest who wants to look at just text all day? You can't rule out the visual appeal graphics play in gaming, so yes it will be graded. I just wanted you to know it's not the most important aspect.
- Audio. Now I'm not a big BGM aka Back Ground Music type gamer.
When I'm playing a stealth shooter I don't feel like rocking to "Eye of the Tiger". But if I'm sitting in a high performance car outrunning the cops or screaming down the Daytona 500™, then yes I want some rocking music. I dissect the audio. Not just the music but how the audio presentation as a whole stacks up to the game. I also look at the audio options; Does the game allow me to turn the audio off? Does it allow me to adjust the audio for my speaker set-up? Does it have support for headphone only sound? If you MAKE me listen to your music in the background when I don't want to I'm going to score low. If it's integral part of the game play then that's another thing, but I have to see that to believe it.- RE-playability. Is this a game that once I've played the campaign through once, I'm going to trade it to GameStop™ or will I pick it up again for the stellar randomness of fresh game play every time? I do NOT count multi-player in this function. Why? Because multi-player is another part of the game. I grade a game on it's "I don't have a net connection or any friends online right now so I want to play by myself" scenario first. As Yoda once said "Multi player does not a perfect game make."
- Multi-player. Most times now every game has multi player. Some games are built around it. Why invest long hours of AI (bot or NPC's) programming when you can just make the players be your "enemies"? To me that's a lazy and cheap way to sell a game but for a small few that actually is the selling point and may be appropriate. I rate the multi-player on that as well as how well the servers are (If they provide any). If not I will describe a few gaming sessions with me. I have a 16 meg download and 2 meg upload cable speed. I may be on the higher end of speeds right now but to some lucky people that might be considered slow. Regardless, if I can't play a decent game at these speeds then something is wrong with the net code.
- Added Functionality. Not to blow my own horn but I hardly ever see other reviewers tackling this part of a review.
This is about mission editors, map editors, mod tools, user generated add-ons. See LittleBigPlanet™ for an ideal "Added Functionality" game). Not sure why reviews don't hit on this much but to ME it is a very important aspect. If the developers/producers are releasing add-ons (aka DLC) every 2 weeks and not sharing the tools then the user/gamer is getting ripped.- Immersion: The WOW factor. The "I could play this game forever it's just so darn cool" factor. I once played a Sub game that played out in real time. I was quite the homebody back then and I had my computer pulled up in my bedroom. I would set the audio up, plot a course through the ocean and... no matter where I was or what I was doing during the day (and night) if I got a sonar contact the bridge in the game would ring out a alarm bell (which was loud enough to be heard through the entire house) and I would come running like I was a real Captain getting interrupted from his sleep to answer a battle stations! call. Yes looking back that was sad. But let me tell you something, during that time I felt like a real captain of a sub looking for the Ruskies in the deep Atlantic. I wouldn't change that experience for anything as it shaped how I play/rate games today.
- Fun.. wee Factor: Whats boring to one person may be (Yeah, you can stop with the Captain in his underwear jokes now) absolutely amazing to another. To me playing the same scene over and over until I get 100% perfect is not my idea of fun. So while this is an important factor in rating I can not score it too high as perceptions of what is fun vary by different people. I want to be a reviewer you can trust so I will not score things in a big way for things that could be seen in a different light. Fun is one of them. However here are some of the things I'll look at;
Does the game make me grind forever to get little trinket/reward?
Does the game have ridiculous goals that the user has to pass to play further? Does the game story sound fun, is the plot engaging enough to make a user actually listen through the cut scenes or do they just hit the skip button?
Is the game too easy/too hard?
In other words does the game make you groan inwardly when you go to load it up or do you salivate at the idea of playing it again?- Recognition: This is a weird area. But basically if no one is playing the game then it's mighty hard to find any add-ons or multi player players online. This factor scores the idea of how popular a game is. It doesn't count if the game is good. It only counts if the game is popular and is being added to by the publisher (DLC) or my the community (User generated content) AND if other people are actually playing it.
Sadly I have seen some very good games go the way of the ghost just because no one heard of it, hence they didn't play it. In today's world he with the big dollars can hype their game to next week. I wait until AFTER the game has released to review this factor and it see how well the world is taking to it, if at all. I also look at games no one is playing and see if they are a diamond in the rough.
Before you read any of my reviews I would like to talk to you again about why I want you to read my reviews. One, I want to be a game reviewer. Two, I want to be known as a trustworthy, non-biased source of solid information for you. At the moment I am not getting any of the games I review for free, nor am I receiving ANY compensation in ANY form for these reviews. In fact most of the game developers or producers probably don't know I exist.
I know the word "trust me" and "non-biased" gets thrown around a lot. However, I hope through my consistent reviews and honesty you will see me as a good game reviewer. Some game companies may learn to hate me. I'm not in this for anything other than to spread truth. If the truth hurts, well that's not my fault.
So please before you read any of my reviews, read through this guide to see how a game was reviewed. If at any time a review will contain a spoiler, I will write the spoiler warning AND write the text in white. This way the only way you can read the review is by highlighting the blank text. So if you see areas with big blanks in them, they are most certainly spoilers. Also if at any time a game was provided to me by an outside source other than my wallet, I will say so, from whom, and what I was compensated for. This way you can make a firm decision of how much of a grain of salt to take the review on. However, as long as I can I will do this for free. If people want to donate I will set-up a way to do so, but know this. ANY donation will NOT sway a review nor can it be used to review a particular game.
Peace, Love and Happiness to you and yours,
Chief CrazyBear
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