Blacksite Comments by Kristan Reed

The hilarious thing about the discussion about scores (like Halo 3) is that you assume everyone at EG thinks it's a 10. We don't. We have varied opinions just like you lot, but unless you get the same person to review every single game, the kind of consistency some of you demand simply can never happen. If Tom, Rob, and myself all reviewed the same games every time (not possible, obviously) we'd all end up giving them different scores for our own personal reasons.

@Xerx3s

Im not saying you should trust the reviewer or that he/she has some expert opinion over all others, far from it. I just get fed up of the moaning. Their opinion is as valid as anyone else's for the most part. There are some things which are simply bad design that the majority of people would agree on, but a lot of things in gaming is subjective. I too would trust a friend with similar tastes over a single review.

I read reviews just as general guide. If I'm interested in a game I normally read more than one to get a good idea if it's going to be worth me getting it or not.

@ krudster

Why not add scores of the other reviewers as well then, alongside 2 or 3 sentences motivation, Problem solved. Seems far more balanced IMO.

So true Krudster.

I've said it loads of times. Its not a case of EG's reviews suck or are a great, or Gamespots reviews suck. It's the review of one person who writes for that site, and because of that perfect consistency is impossible.

@Daymore
"And every time I hear "it's only some bloke's opinion" I wonna kill someone.. Opinions are not equal, get that in your thick heads!"

Agreed. While I think, generally, all opinions are valid, not all are equal. I hope that a person reviewing a game is totally subjective and is not in anyway a "fanboy" or easily influenced. I would also hope they have extensive knowledge of games, and as the nature of theior job probably played a hell of a lot more games than me. And of course that they can write well to to properly review the game.

I read reviews to get, erm, a quality (cant think of a better word) opinion on a game I guess.

Thats a good point menage. Except for you are expecting every reviewer to play every single game to completion, in time for the review to get posted. That's quite a task, especially at this time of year. Im sure they have other things to do at work than just play games and write reviews.

Also kind of complicates the review a bit imo. I can only imagine the comments thread with 3 or 4 scores for every game...

@ Menage - in a perfect world, we'd all play the same games at the same time (to completion, and 15 hours multiplayer) and have a panel viewpoint, with 12,000 words of detailed analysis looking at every version, with technical comparisons.

But the reality is, there are dozens of games coming out all the time, and everyone's doing their own thing, trying to get their specific job done. Even expecting a second opinion of a few paragraphs is nigh on impossible because we get one copy of the game, and are scattered across the country.

What we offer, for free, with such limited resources is a miracle if you actually saw how the machine works :)

krudster, you do this for free?

The content is free. Of course I don't do this job for free ;)

@Krudster

I don't mean for every game, but massive releases like AC or Halo 3 or going to be discussed in such a huge way it would be advisable to add another viewpoint, especially when dealing out a Halo 3 10 or a AC 7. If like you said Halo 3 wasn't a 10/10 for everyone, I would have liked to hear that.

In theory, yes, and for Halo 3 I wanted a dual opinion, but Tom and I were in Tokyo covering the TGS, so Rob had to do it.

With Assassin's Creed, Ubisoft could only let us have one copy of the game, and at the time I was reviewing no less than three triple A games at once. It simply wasn't practical. We do try to give second opinions on the big games, but generally those big games come out at the very point when we're at our busiest.

I do think that is a waste of time to talk again about Halo 3 score... but i must say, that game is pretty average and don't deserve 10/10.... on the other hand, Gears of War got 8/10 when it should be higher.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Maybe it's yet another dull cliche ridden fps made by a mediocre developer.

@krudster

I don't think you need to explain anything. The typical whinger that brings up these score based moans on a regular occasion isn't going to be swayed in the least by rational explanations of how Eurogamer has to operate.

Jeez.

Since when are Halo 3, Orange Box, CoD4, Bioshock, the Darkness, etc half assed generic repetitive FPS clones. have you been living under a rock or are still waiting for the second coming.

I never said they were half-assed. :p Just generic and repetitive. I'm sure they spared no expense writing pretty HDR effects and creating epic cutscenes and moar bigger guns.

It'd be good to see a "games revisted" type article where all you guys give a general input score for the bigger games. At the end of the month or quarterly or something.

"I don't think you need to explain anything. The typical whinger that brings up these score based moans on a regular occasion isn't going to be swayed in the least by rational explanations of how Eurogamer has to operate. "

For the record. I'm not a typical whinger. But he said himself that not everyone on EG shares the same viewsd on games. Seeing as EG is still a medium which presents itself as a whole, I was just suggesting that they clarify if some views of the crew differ. If possible of course.

"
I never said they were half-assed. :p Just generic and repetitive. I'm sure they spared no expense writing pretty HDR effects and creating epic cutscenes and moar bigger guns."

Like every soccer game has a ball in it or what?

What do you expect then from a FPS for god sake. Some truly original shit that nobody would buy (like Oddworld)?

Good call, I hate soccer games. :)

Seriously though, surely even you can't deny that something could be done with the levels other than "get from A to B while killing stuff". Like in, oh, Doom 1? That had more creative level design than any standard FPS recently. Seems like we've regressed instead of moved forward. Then again, the same could be said for other genres. :(

Maybe A & B should come to us goddammit.

I agree to some point, but the A to B mantra is present in a lot of games. Mostly caused by narative which needs a solid timeline.

I actually think games like Mass Effect or Metroid are a great place to start to make it different. Less linear without losing story.

"I do not understand the Hype around Killzone 2. The first game sucked. So why would the sequel get any kind of hype?"

Because Sny commision a CG movie, lied their lying asses off preteding it was running on Playstation 3 (which did not even EXIST off a fucking blueprint at that stage) and all the mindless weak-wlled Sony fanbois beleived Sonys lies just like they did on the Playstation 2 because they have the memory of MAGGOTS. And they smell.

When KZ2 limps out at the tail end of 2008 and makes this lump of generic shit just reviewed look like deep-fried genius I'm going to laugh my bloody head off.

After purchasing this game and trying it there's only one thing to say about it. PC owners steer away from this title, avoid it like plague, in case you're one of the unfortunate who bought it ( like me ) there's a 90% chance it wont work on your computer.

This game is a perfect example of craptastic quality control on multiplatform releases especialy on game that's developed primarly for console and ported over to pc, menus barely work if they work at all, settings sometimes revert back to default after chanching them, sound issues, crash issues.. anything you can think of, this game deserves a 1/10 score not 5/10.

oh i should mention that even the patches released for the game wont necesarily patch the game and in case they do patch the game, chances is that it wont work still.

@Raiten - So it should be called Blackshite then? LOL

Krudster said "Eurogamer: rubbing up people the wrong way since 1999...
ignore poster"

Thanks, that's all the proof I needed based on your so called review.