ORIGINAL: ceyanORIGINAL: LarryPORIGINAL: sfbaytf
Not that I really give a rat's you know what about what the reviewers think, I was pretty surprised to see HOIT3 get such high ratings from the online game sites.
GameSpot gave HOI3 an 8.5. Clearly the reviewer knows nothing about history of that time period. They also did not play the entire game or for very long, else they would have rated it much lower.
Past reviews have shown that the regular gaming sites do not have the right people to review war games that are not pure action, like Call Of Duty and Supreme Commander types. They would NEVER do AE justice, and they would just belittle the game with their ignorance.
I hope they don't review AE. 'They' meaning GameSpot and similar, including PCGamer magazine.
Unless its an FPS, I trust most reviewers about as well as I trust a crook, so I agree with you on that respect. Actually, from a in-depth game perspective, I really only look at Wargamer.com and Outofeight.info who have proven to be a pretty reasonable and straight-forward with their reviews.
But, on the other hand, I think you're missing the point of a game review based on your comments. For example, you imply that Hearts of Iron 3 is deserving of a bad review, but why? It has some bugs, sure, but now-a-days you can't rate a game on its bugs because I can count the number of games that have been released in a reasonably playable/stable state over the past several years on one hand. With that in mind, I'm assuming you're talking about the nature of its historical representation, or lack there of currently.
The problem with that idea is that you may care about that in your game, but that doesn't necessarily mean everyone does. As with Hearts of Iron 3, you obviously would rate it low, but there are people (who have posted on the Paradox Forums at least) that absolutely love the game and would probably rate it higher than what Gamespot has. For all its current faults (in my opinion) I think Hearts of Iron 3 offers an insane amount of improvement for the gamer who isn't interested in micromanagement (local AI control of your units, better air mission coverage and less air/naval mission micromanagement), which is something your average Gamespot subscriber probably cares about.
I don't hate/distrust Gamespot's reviews because I feel their reviewers are incompetent (although I will admit I've thought that a few times on specific cases), but because they cater to a point of view drastically different than mine. That doesn't necessarily make them bad or wrong, and there has been times when they've crossed the line into outright ridiculousness, it just makes them different.
Long story short, you shouldn't outright dismiss game reviewers just because you feel they're dropping the ball or missing something critical. Challenge the review if you feel its out of place, but recognize that sometimes the reviewer is looking at factors you don't consider important anymore, because you've gone past that or just don't care about those details anymore. I would hope that an honest review of WitP:AE would generate a good score with a well written write-up, but even if it doesn't you shouldn't hold the opinion that "regular gaming sites do not have the right people to review war games that are not pure action." They do have that right, because otherwise how would the gaming world grow? If Gamespot (or the others) gives it a good review, it generates more attention for the game from people who normally wouldn't have even know about it. If they give it a bad review, then the game still gets exposure and may attract attention from people who are interested in the game despite the bad review. What is more likely, that a bad review on a "regular gaming site" would cause someone who was interested in the game to be put off by it or that a bad review on a "regular gaming site" would cause people who never even heard of the game to have some exposure to it and be a potential buyer in the future? (After all, even some of the worst games ever made still have some sales)
I have been a member of Gamespot for many years and I use their reviews constantly as a guideline for some games. I have watched how they review certain genres of games compared to the others. I also have subscribed to PCGamer since the mid 90's and I usually ONLY read the review section, every month. I am not ignorant to game reviews.
Thank you for your kind words. [&o]
on IGN. (Can´t never imagine I´ll use this smiley)
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I miss a "f@&% you" smiley here!
