So I just bought Morrowind: Elder Scrolls III last week. Great game, but I sure wish it had multiplayer!! (Or that it would run on my computer without straining the virtual memory to new alltime highs.)
Well, I think I’m gonna go play something online now.
Online gaming does pretty much suck. LAN games and split-screen console games are my favorites. Unfortunately, my lan consists of mostly non-working p-166 machines.
Co-op mode. Such a GREAT way to play (Halo proved this), but it’s SO under-utilized. I remember the original Quake, and how much GODDAMNED FUN it was to play through the single-player missions in co-op.
I love Morrowind. I love single-player games, actually, as long as there’s some meat to them (I think EVERY single-player game should have at least 20 hours of play… preferably double that). Of course, again, I’d love a co-op option… it’d be a blast to, every now and then, run into someone.
I tend to skip right over any review of a game that is multiplayer only or internet only. I tried the internet thing many times. After having a blast playing Diablo, Diablo 2, Starcraft, and Quake 2 by myself at home, I’d hop onto the internet, find a game an join up, only to have the vets play gang up on the new guy, destroy him, and make fun of him. I remember going onto a board that had a Starcraft forum to ask for advice, only to be told that the single player game was really just a newbie tutorial and that multiplayer was the real game.
Any review that has a line such as “The solo play is involving, but much too short, but this is more than made up for by the excellent multiplayer mode” has just lost a sale for the game that is being recommended. Every review of Return to Castle Wolfenstein said the solo game was much too short, but so what, what people are really interested in is the multiplayer.
Solo and multiplayer are such different experiences that they really should get separate reviews.
Deadly - Geneforge (and in fact all of Spiderweb Software’s games) are excellent examples of what I am talking about. Firstly, they make shareware games at affordable prices, they do not hire full teams of hi-end graphics professionals, nor make any point of suggesting that they do.
Secondly, they deliberately make their games compatible for older models. The download sizes are stunningly small. I have seen interviews with CEO Jeff Vogel where he explicitly says they avoided including a lot of multimedia files (eg soundtracks) to keep the file sizes small.
So while I understand your comment on their graphics to some extent, I think it is unfair to use the term “dated.” The graphics aren’t dated, they are simple. “Dated” has a negative connotation IMO.
I would advocate game reviewers omitting the graphics category for such games (and stating so) and providing a final score based on the other categories. Because it isn’t really fair to judge a game for not being something it never even set out to be.
Number - yes - the blanket categorisation is what is unfair. Games should be given separate scores for their worth as a single player, or as a multiplayer title. And in no way should a game be marked down for NOT being a multiplayer, that’s just absurd! It’s like marking something down for not being a first person shooter, or for not being a strategy/sim.
I have to admit, I have never read a video game review I disagreed with. I always check up on Gamespot.com for reviews… but I tend to stick to console gaming so I don’t know what you PC nerds do. I understand if the game only crashes about once per play period it should score extra points or something (:p).
I’ve seen Tetris get good graphics reviews. Get some better reviewers.
Well, all the good points have been touched on above, but I just want to say that I thought I was the only person annoyed by this online trend. I much prefer single players like GTA, Deus Ex and such.
The only exception to that is the co-op that someone mentioned above. My son and I still have a blast playing Quake II in co-op mode.
As someone who remembers the 96% review they gave to Outpost, I must ask: when could you ever trust a PC Gamer review?
The graphics are dated. They may be deliberately so, but in the graphics department Spiderweb games are behind the times. That didn’t have anything to do with my score. In fact, I just checked my old review of it. I gave the game an 89/100.
Our number 1 criteria for reviewing a game is, “Is it fun? And is it worth you the gamer spending your money on it?” I always think of the gamer first and foremost, and if I feel graphics or lack of multiplayer need mentioning, I do so. It depends on the game.
The last adventure title I reviewed sucked. I mean, it really blew chunks. I went out to the message board of the developers and was reading some of their comments on my review. Two I especially liked was, “Well, they’re most geared toward action titles, so they just didn’t understand this game,” and “They just don’t understand a game where you don’t kill anyone.” Not only were both statements blatantly false, but I personally had reviewed about a third of the adventure titles that the site had published in the last year. I love adventure titles, so much so that I took the game hoping it would end up being fun, even though it didn’t look promising (I really wish I’d chosen Avernum 3 instead). It wasn’t.
At least half the games I play have nothing to do with killing. In fact, the last four games I’ve played have nothing to do with killing (maybe more, I can’t remember what I played before those four).
And I agree with whoever mentioned PC Accelerator. I bought one copy and found out they had no desire to have me as one of their buyers, because they made no effort to attract female gamers.
Oh, and remember, some gamers (shallow though you may think them) don’t want to buy games if the graphics suck or it doesn’t have multiplayer. They have just as much right to know about those features as you have to know about the plot and controls.
FTR, I prefer single player games. I’d rather play Deus Ex and Max Payne than Quake 3 Arena any day. My action titles need to have an enticing story to interest me.
I was considering posting a seperate thread rant about my travails and woes as regards X-Box Live. Being mostly sane, I cringed when Beloved Son invested his hard-mooched money in same. I had no idea. Hour after hour listening to soft jazz, on hold to Qwest, on hold to ActionTech, the makers of the modem supplied by Qwest which does not, repeat, does not, support X-BoxLive without a special software download that you cannot get on any site whatsoever.
Special kudos, of curse, to Microsoft for once again foisting an unsupported product on the public. My loathing is as vast as the stars.
That said, after uncounted hours of verbal wrestling with tech support goons (“We don’t do that. Call them. Leave me alone.”) it is, in fact, fully functional as advertised. I am assured that it “rocks”, or it has rocks, or something like that. How would I know, I’ve not touched it. My role is reduced to bringing food that can be eaten without taking ones fingers off the controller and pointing out that one simply must shower occassionally.
Larry Niven was wrong. It isn’t necessary for the wires to go directly into the cortex. Standard sensory routes are entirely adequate.
DA, where do you review? I am so looking for something decent, I can’t trust any of the mags these days, and the sites I liked went under. Though 411wrestling is morphing into IGN 2.0, in a good way. (You know, hardygirl has something to do with there?)
Gamespy is the only place I review nowadays. I’ve found that when I’m interested in a game, the best way to find out if it’s worth purchasing is to read several reviews. GoneGold.com’s Gold Guide and Metacritic.com compile reviews, so you can see at a glance (or click on each individual review) whether a game is worth purchasing or not.
Guys, I realize that single player is often the better way to go, and that online/multiplayer gaming can be frustrating.
But a lot of games deserve the criticism. For one thing, the lack of a multiplayer option doesn’t just mean no online gaming; it can also mean no LAN gaming with your friends. Sometimes that’s a legitimate drawback to the product. The rather obvious recent example of this is the first release of “Civilization III,” which promised MP support in the ads and then came with no MP at all. A lot of people were really looking forward to playing that game on LANs and with friends; I had planned to spend a few days with Mrs. RickJay and Best Friend geeking out on some cooperative Civ. We even had a thread on the SDMB where people were throwing their hats into the ring for a Civ 3 battle. The fact that it was not included was a major weakness in the product.
There are some games I just don’t see an MP value in (Max Payne was mentioned) but a lot of people do like that sort of thing. And there are some games, like Civ 3, where I do see a lot of MP value, and so do many others. Why SHOULDN’T that be part of the review? Should a reviewer not review all aspects of the product?
I like some MP games, and I like some SP games. I love EverQuest and playing Total Annihilation with my buds, but I also like playing SP games like “F1 2002” and my baseball simulations. Multiplayer is an interesting and commonly implemented feature. If it’s not there, that’s something you can’t do with it, and it’s perfectly legitimate to point out that the product is missing a popular feature.
I see having Jennifer Connely appear naked in a movie as a good thing. But how worthwhile would you consider my reviews if I constantly complained about them not having Jennifer Connelly naked in them? I personally feel most movies could be improved with her nude body, even and especially if she isn’t in the movie to begin with, and I know others feel this way as well, but do you really need to know that ‘Out of Africa’ doesn’t feature a nude Jennifer Connelly and should?
I know some folks like multiplayer. I know some games don’t have it. But the fact is, bitching about a solo game not having multiplayer and this being a “bad thing” about the game is stupid. That’s not the game. If it doesn’t have multiplayer and doesn’t advertise itself as multiplayer, then what you’ve got there is a solo game, so you and your friends will have to find something else to play. If you want to point out that it doesn’t have it in a review, by all means do so, but to then say this detracts from the game is silly.
The thing that gets me is how often the assumption is made that if a game can even remotely have multiplayer, it should. Why is that a bad thing? Diablo 2. From what I understand, D2 is a lot of fun in multiplaye mode. That’s good, because it’s boring as shit in solo mode. I don’t want to see good solo games suffer developmental problems and release delays while they cram in an unneeded multiplay angle so that reviewers won’t give them a black eye for having one. As has been mentioned before, I don’t want to see a return to the 3D craze where games HAD to have 3D polygonal graphics or else they were laughably dated.
Oh, I completely agree that there are a lot of sucky adventure games out there. There are some that are really boring, and frankly, would be funner if you could kill things. But the reviews I’m talking about have large amounts of praise for puzzles, gameplay, even graphics, but then are insulted because they don’t have enough action. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to dig up a cite; maybe I’ll try later.
I won’t link, but the dire awfulness of some Japanese porn games reviewed on SomethingAwful.com recently makes our complaints pale by comparison.
Give me a shite, unsatisfying, buggy, unwinnable game any day. Just don’t give me a photo-realistic hi-res “adventure” about four Japanese schoolgirls with urinary and fecal disorders
::eek::
I just don’t see that as a valid parallel. A nude Jennifer isn’t a common feature of movies. The common features of movies are sound, film, lighting, actors, sets, things like that. If you were to make a movie that had no sound, that might be a valid point of complaint.
Multiplayer is a common feature of video games. It absence MAY make the game less than it otherwise could have been, and I could in fact cite many examples. Of course, there are also games that could NOT be enhanced by MP, and that’s fine too. Like I said, Max Payne doesn’t need multiplayer.
No, it isn’t necessarily stupid. To use Civ 3 as an example, yes, it was “the game” as released that it was single player. But in that case, the absense of multiplayer capability was a significant drawback to the game; it’s a game that conceptually lends itself to MP play, AND virtually all similar games have multiplayer. The game was a much weaker product without MP than it should have been with it. If I’m handing out scores, I have to count that against it - just saying “well, it’s not the game” isn’t a real counterargument.
Or take graphics. I am personally of the opinion that pretty graphics aren’t really that important; like a lot of people in the thread, I’m more interested in a good conceptual game. I’d rather play Railroad Tycoon with EGA 'phics than a crappy 3D game. I’d rather play Red Baron or TIE Fighter, without 3D graphics, than EF2000, which had 3D graphics but was’t actually any fun. I’d much rather play X-Com, which had sill graphics but was a fantastic GAME, than Riven, which had impressive graphics but was not much of a game. However, it’s still valid to review the graphics as part of the package, is it not? To use an example, “Rollercoaster Tycoon II” is a very fine game, but the graphics are dated and sucky. I still think it’s a good game but it would be better with some post-1996 graphics, and a review that doesn’t say so is incomplete.
Those things can, and in many cases do, DETRACT from a game. When I buy a game I’m paying money for an entertainment product. A lack of common and relevant features detracts from the quality of that product - some more so than others, to be sure. It may still be a very fine product, and in the case of SOME games - not all, but some - the lack of MP might not be relevant. But in many cases, it’s very relevant.
No you don’t.
Fine OP rant. I’ll take a good single player game over a mediocre multiplayer game any day of the week. It’s nice when there is superb single and multi-play in the same game, such as Half-life or StarCraft, but these are the creme-de-la-creme, and I’d rather have a software developer focus on one thing and do it well then focus on two things and do them half ass.