ninjabee.com

Yeah, of course I'm pretty happy about the Gnade Games review. It takes a very strong stand on the issue of reviewing the game in a reasonable context.

The IGN review basically said that he didn't like the genre and how the game should have been a different genre. He also complained how you had to use strategy online instead of having a supped up units facing a guy at level 1.
I hatted rainbow 6 for doing that. (allowing people who played the game longer get weapons that are 1-2 hit kills, when newer people don't have the armor unlocked to save them selfs. Really IGN and Game spot can't review.

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Kotaku impressions: http://kotaku.com/gaming/ants-marching/ ... 272473.php

From the comments, Band of Bugs is compared to Beer:



That's maybe my favorite description of the game ever!

It seems that every reviewer wanted somethign to replace FFT. Until FFT and the like offer multiplayer I don't consider them in the same sub-genre myself. The closest you can directly correlate it in my experience is Advanced Wars for DS (which I apparently own and had completely forgot about) and Advanced Wars is a simpler game in many ways.

Every reviewer focused entirely on the single player story. Honestly the story is not the best aspect of the game since it felt like a continous tutorial to me. The actual story was entertaining however. It also had goals which are uncommon in the genre such as the curse level and the barbians hunting spiders.

I love chess, cribbage and games of that sort, but they would be boring playing against just the computer. They are also deceptively simple. If you can count to 15 you can play cribbage, but that doesn't make it simple. I think a lot of the percieved simplicity is in the reduced number of jobs, spells and actions.

You don't need 20 different ways to heal a character. Damage is damage and you do not need duplicate the action with a new name and animation when it is the same thing mathematically. Some people don't see it that way though. Anything less than overwhelming must be simple. It is a perception issue.

Explain to me how Rush N'Attak (I know I missed spelled that...) offers more complex and deep gameplay? It doesn't too me (and I keep my NES around just for sidescrollers) but msot these review sites have rated it higher.

But, I am odd I guess. I think they seriously messed up the GoW controls by making the A button handle so many options. I saw an interview with Cliffy B stating how they didn't have a use for the Y button and so they made it focus on the objective or a dying team member. I wanted to pull my hair out at that statment. In a linear game you know where the objective is and there is aradar for dying team members. What they needed to do was separate run from take cover. They ruined the controls for a gimmick in my eyes (part of the reason I can't get into the game, but I never sell it because I swear I will finish it), but all they got was praise for a "creative use of an unused button".

GRRRR~[/code]

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That monkey is going to pay...

Yeah, that is a great description. Also from the same comment:

And *that* my friends is why I love BoB. And I put over 300 hours into Final Fantasy Tactics Advance so I know all about grinding.

I just read the GameAlmighty review (6.8/10) and was stuck by similar things:

What the hell is "Over Battle"? Did he mean Ogre Battle? Probably. Another well researched article.
Says the gameplay has nothing new (turn structure was new to me...is there a game out there I missed that really did this structure like this?).
Says the gameplay is "too slow for the unititiated". (Huh?!?)
Complains about crashes (understandable and certainly brought the score down)
Says this game will never attract new fans to the genre (I am really tired of these generalizations...how the hell would he know? I've heard at least 2 people state the exact opposite for themselves [i.e. they weren't fans of TBS but love this game].)
This one really likes the art style.
Complains that the music/voice overs get annoying too quickly.

I should stop reading these things...

Yeah, that's what I keep telling myself, too.

It's one thing to read a remarkably well written, well researched criticism of a game that tears it apart and makes sense of why it fails.

But these reviews just seem so cursory. Obviously I'm spoiled since I got so much time to spend with the game beforehand, but it really lowers my opinion of game reviewers. It's too bad too because there are people that are very good at truly reviewing bad games (Alex Navarro's review of Big Rigs comes to mind. "Just how bad is Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing? It's as bad as your mind will allow you to comprehend."). But then the rest of the reviewers are just mindlessly stringing words together... *sigh*

I've actually found that alot with modern reviews in the past few months.

For example Shadowrun was slated by many reviews which all shared ridiculous negative points (however many players of the public have loved it, including myself). Such as the game not having singleplayer - despite it not meaning to have singleplayer on focus on multiplayer instead and is therefore not aimed at singleplayer gamers, therefore the criticism is irrelevant.

It seems this kind of thing has happened with Band of Bugs too. Its certainly one of the top 5 games on the arcade hands down. A great indie title which isnt scared to be different.

That is dumb! That is what makes multiplayer so casual and awesome. Why would you want to play a multiplayer game where one team has level 12 warriors and you are stuck with level 6? It also would screw up so many great creative map ideas!

Another comment on reviews while I am here... Some reviewers are just plain ignorant. I'll leave it at that.

I can't stand how almost every Shadowrun review is so negative, it's really fun and addicting. Thanks to the horrible reviews so many people aren't buying it. I tell a friend they should give it a shot and they reply something along the lines of "No way dude it got like 6's it must suck i want forza it got 9's blah blah..."

Some people can be so gullible and IGN, Gamespot, etc. can go and give a game like Barbie Super Cool Puzzle Collection (Example...) a 9.7 and so many people would end up buying it..."OMG Tetris with pink blocks with barbies face on them *drools*"

I only use reviews for information

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Then again shadowrun isn't worth the 60 bucks. Good game, yes, $60 bucks worth no. $50 bucks worth, no. It really should have been $40.

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MS has a satisfaction guarantee, send it back and pick up a used copy (averaging ~$35 around here) with the refund.

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That monkey is going to pay...

Its worth $60 to me...well £32 i paid

I love multiplayer games and 90% of the time im spending my time on multi player not singleplayer. That for me makes the purchase worthwhile. I couldnt care less about singleplayer in that kind of game.

EG for R6V ive played singleplayer for around 1 hour - the rest of my time went onto the multiplayer. Shadowrun is aimed at people like myself, not those looking for a singleplayer game.

I must say that I am truly disappointed with most big review sites where I have read the reviews of Band of Bugs. They all seemed to expect something else and instead of reviewing the game, they came up with ideas for an entirely different game.

Very bad and I must say - this is one of the few times I have "defied" Gamespot. I don't think I own a game that has gotten bellow 7.0 on Gamespot until now - and i don't regret it at all. It simply didn't justify the low score - because there can be no judstifiction for it - it is simply a great game, full of content - so full that a price tag of 1200 does not seem too much (but NinjaBee, you guys just keep it at 800 )

This is the best about Live Arcade - you can try the games yourself for free - while I can't always get around renting some of those retail games.

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