5punk

Just an idea, but is it worth having a forum for us to review games? Inspired by Spoodie's writeup of Psychonaughts, it occurred to me that we're a pretty large, experienced and diverse group of gamers and would probably be able to write a good report on pretty much any game out there. Anyone gets a new (or old) game can then write a review and stick it in a new thread under the message icon relating to the format.

This serves two purposes: we get a few gamers' opinions of games before buying them (Mags like PC Gamer seem to be increasingly jaded because, being written by proffesionals, they get oversaturated by the amount of games they play and tend to overpraise oddball games for their originality IMHO), and it also might attract people who come to read our reviews (assuming they're done well, rather than "zOMG zis game suxxors lol").

Thoughts?

I like this idea. If we had a proper review section I might be inspired to write more than just a couple of sentances and then link to a proper off-site review.

Get them pokemon reviews ready FatherJack

Yes, this I like. I imagine it would serve both purposes you mention rather well. People could also request reviews of games if they think someone else around here has it.

In fact, theres a few of these around here already like FatherJack's Quake 4 and FEAR ones in the Other FPS forum.

Mine are sometimes a little long, causing people to belm and spack out.

Mnnrrrgghhh! Too many werds!

essential things:

headings in bold, so people can jump to sections, and ratings out of 10 at the bottom

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:essential things:

headings in bold, so people can jump to sections, and ratings out of 10 at the bottom

Ooh, we could have it rated in CDCs!

or cods, or badgers

Dog Pants wrote: a forum for us to review games?

i like this idea...

Lateralus wrote:People could also request reviews of games

...and this idea...

Berk wrote:ratings out of 10

...but im not so sure about this one. If you want to rate it out of ten, then go ahead, but I dont like it as a system myself. I would prefer a brief, one sentance summary, such as: "If you like FPS's, get it, otherwise avoid". That kind of thing doesnt translate well into an "out of ten" mark, if you ask me.

Bloody good idea though, overall.

*puts on reviewing hat*

FatherJack wrote:Mine are sometimes a little long, causing people to belm and spack out.

Mnnrrrgghhh! Too many werds!

As long as the words are well chosen, then the longer ther better. I personally found your reviews informative and if anything, slightly on the brief side of what I'm imagining Dog Pants is suggesting.

Berk is right with his suggestions of headings, and the rating should be a single CDC, with 0-10 spurts for rating, like this:



The futher the game spurts, the better it is!

Edit: I think with reviews then a rating out of 10 for, say, a FPS is always going to be with respect to other FPS games. If you don't like FPS games as a genre, then just cos another good one is made its unlikely to change your opinion. There needs to be more variables than if you like FPS games then get/avoid this one, IMO

I like badgers.

No, I mean, I like the badger idea for ratings. But that's just cos CDC's scare me. At the risk of over-systematarerizing the process, can we have a some sub-heading too? Like Gwafix, Soundage, story, controls and interface, quality of build and replayability. These are the sort of things that can turn a really good concept into a crap game and vicer versa. And uniformity in reviewing would help simpletons like me differentiate between, for example, the myriad of FPS's out there.

JM2C

Yeah this could work well, although do we need a new forum?, couldn't they just go into the relevant game forum?

I sort of agree on the rating out of 10 thing, most of the regular reviews in mags/online etc give marks out of 10 that are based on a limited play of the game, even though they've played it all the way through it's still something that's only been played for a week or so, so ratings out of ten with an explained context are ok such as:

Had this game 3 days, completed it in 15 hours play 8/10

Then maybe you could go back to it later on:

Revised: Had it 2 months played it loads more, better 2nd time through, noticed loads I missed first time round 9/10

or

Revised: Had it two months played it once after originally completing it, boring, no long term replay value 7/10

Lateralus wrote: Edit: I think with reviews then a rating out of 10 for, say, a FPS is always going to be with respect to other FPS games. If you don't like FPS games as a genre, then just cos another good one is made its unlikely to change your opinion. There needs to be more variables than if you like FPS games then get/avoid this one, IMO

uuh, I think you may be missing my point. That was just an example. My point there was that some FPS's (for example) are so great that everyone with the slightest interest in FPS's would like them. Other FPS's are great, if you are a major FPS fan, but if you dont like em more than others, it might not be worth bothering. That kind of thing doesnt get covered by an "out of ten" score.

I was just using FPS's as an example there, its equally valid for other genres.

I think what im getting at is that whether you like a game or not is quite subjective, making a simple scoring system not only irrelivant for some games, put a positively damaging thing.

Hmm, games review forum. Cool, mainly because I'd trust you lot a big stretch more than I would some guy in a magazine.

that, and I sence a valid reason to waffle on about eve for many paragraphs without feeling guilty

Joose wrote:

Lateralus wrote: Edit: I think with reviews then a rating out of 10 for, say, a FPS is always going to be with respect to other FPS games. If you don't like FPS games as a genre, then just cos another good one is made its unlikely to change your opinion. There needs to be more variables than if you like FPS games then get/avoid this one, IMO

uuh, I think you may be missing my point. That was just an example. My point there was that some FPS's (for example) are so great that everyone with the slightest interest in FPS's would like them. Other FPS's are great, if you are a major FPS fan, but if you dont like em more than others, it might not be worth bothering. That kind of thing doesnt get covered by an "out of ten" score.

I was just using FPS's as an example there, its equally valid for other genres.

I think what im getting at is that whether you like a game or not is quite subjective, making a simple scoring system not only irrelivant for some games, put a positively damaging thing.

I think I did slightly misunderstand you, and I take your point. However, a simple score in conjunction with the qualitative comments like you suggest would probably be the best compromise.

I also like Fiznit's idea of a standard set of sub-headings to include, beacause it would make comparisions that much easier, and probably boost the overall quality of reviews as a whole.

With regard to needing a new forum, I think a single sub-forum like the PC hardware/software in the 5punk bit would be the best bet, because otherwise the reviews would just fall into the "Other" sections. Also, there isn't a forum for single-player, offline games, which would also be wanting reviews.

The debate over whether to have a scoring system or not is an old and it's not going to be resolved anytime soon, I would say it should be up to the reviewer. But score or not I think the reviews must have a brief summary at the end, as the last paraghraph and the score are often all I look at when reading reviews. Unless I really care about the game and am planning to buy it.

How about this for a rough layout? Section titles could be altered so long as conclusion is kept, score optional, maybe add some pictures stolen from other sites and keep each section short and sweet. That would be my ideal, thoughts?

Game Name - Platform

Introduction
some text

Gameplay
some text

Sights and Sounds
some text

Stuff that sucks
some text

Conclusion
some text

Score: 0/10

spoodie wrote:
How about this for a rough layout? Section titles could be altered so long as conclusion is kept, score optional, maybe add some pictures stolen from other sites and keep each section short and sweet. That would be my ideal, thoughts?

Game Name - Platform

Introduction
some text

Gameplay
some text

Sights and Sounds
some text

Stuff that sucks
some text

Conclusion
some text

Score: 0/10

Looks good. I agree about the score being optional - sometimes it can be misleading and the conclusion will be a much better indicator of whether you'd like a game, but a lot of people rely on the score (rightly or wrongly) so that they don't have to digest all of the review and can see at a glance whether it's worth paying more attention to.

I probably used the wrong word when I said forum, I meant a category like general or hardware/software. That way you can go straight there to look for a review rather than trawling through the individual game type categories where they might get lost. After all, these will be used more for reference than discussion.

I like that, good compromise. Lets use that one, there.

I believe we have a valid suggestimafication!

10/10 (Optional)

Dog Pants wrote:I probably used the wrong word when I said forum, I meant a category like general or hardware/software. That way you can go straight there to look for a review rather than trawling through the individual game type categories where they might get lost. After all, these will be used more for reference than discussion.

Yes.

friznit wrote:10/10 (Optional)

Pfft.

Now lets see what WEY thinks then!