Rating the ratings -
November 17, 2000 - Chris Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot. There is a hole in your mind. Don't say we didn't warn you.
Once more, lots to do, not a lot of time to do it in, so minimal
intro. However, there are some announcements with regard to the
column below, so you should read that if nothing else.
Onward.
| An appeal for the
lowest common denominator to be well executed... no, wait, that's
backwards... |
| Since David's letter brought up reviewing in general,
it's time I got something off my chest. Some games deserve a perfect
rating despite the fact that not everyone will like them. Vagrant Story
is my favorite example of this. Vagrant Story has a near perfect translation,
a more than healthy dose of innovation, very in-depth gameplay, and an excellent
storyline. However, the gameplay is perhaps overly complex, and its pace is too
slow for some people's comfort. As David put it in his letter, some people find
the game "downright tedious."
Is this a flaw? The very things that make it tedious to some- the need spend
much of one's playtime in the game's workshops experimenting and the methodical
building of weapon power over many battles- are what some consider its greatest
virtues. Were those aspects to be toned down, what made its gameplay great would be gone.
Of course, there's also an argument for a well executed appeal to the lowest
common denominator, but that's another letter.
-Davon |
Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Like I've said in the FAQ, you
should expect to get two things out of a review - the basic facts
about the game, and their subjective interpretation of those facts. I'm
not one of those people to whom a 5 (or 10, or four stars, or what
have you) means absolute perfection, I'm just looking for something
that significantly raises the bar on what we expect out of gaming. And
by and large, I think just about all of the games we've rated as 5s
have accomplished that... in my opinion.
| Parlez vous francais?
You damn well better. |
| Laughs or news, this is up to you -
In a rush to distribute Final Fantasy IX, the third party that has been
inserting French Manuals into the canadian-bound copies made a mistake.
They forgot to include the *English* manual.
Despite this, all shipments were delayed by a day, resulting in courier
deliveries late Thursday afternoon. English manuals are expected to arrive
by courier for purchasers early next week.
I can't say for sure if this has occured outside of my city (Calgary), but
its interesting nonetheless.
Richard "KZ" Knight |
I'd seen one or two letters on this, but only today has word
started circulating (at least to my ears) that the problem was
widespread. Major bummer, my Canadian friends, but fortunately if this
FF's like the last few the majority of the game mechanics are explained
in-game anyway, so it shouldn't be a total loss. And hey, at least the
game itself wasn't delayed.
| D'oh! Missed one! |
| FF Tactics and Xenogears the only 5-level RPG's in '98? You forget,
Jones-san, that Panzer Dragoon Saga (still the best RPG of all time) was
also released that year.
While I'm throwing my two cents in, I don't think Xenogears was quite all
that.
-Anson (I have opinions, but am not driven to back them up) |
Ah, right, the legendary PDS. I surely wouldn't have forgotten about
it had I ever been able to find it and play it, but alas, that's not
the case, and I surely don't have the time to do so now even if I
could find it. Still, point taken... although you're pushing it with
that Xenogears thing.
| Clash of the Titans |
|
"Sakaguchi (FF creator) and Horii (DQ creator) talk about DQVII
Famitsu: Mr. Sakaguchi, you are currently playing through Dragon Quest VII,
right?
Sakaguchi: I was hoping to finish it by today, but I couldn't do it. (Laughs)
It's a really long installment to the series.
That's from
Gamer's.Com's translated Famitsu
interview with the two grandfaters of RPGing. Turns out the FF creator is a
DQ fan... Sorta. No mention of Yuji Horii playing FF9, but it's only part one
of three. Check it out -- it's a good read.
As for my impressions of FF9 -- It's great. I haven't been able to stop playing
it, except for those annoying college classess that keep getting in the way.
All in all I love it -- the FMVs are still there, but they're in managable
(ignorable) chunks and only happen during extremely important events -- they
don't totally interrupt the game like in FF8. Cut Scenes are back in the form
of Active Time Events which beat FMVs all out.
Everything reminds me of Pre-PSX FF games. Of course, since a lot of the FF
fans in America started the series at 7 or 8 no one will recognize things like
the opening beat to the fights, Moogles or Dragoons, but that's their loss.
The "learn abilities" reminds me a LOT of Vandal Hearts however. Still, it's a good way to balance the party's abilities while still having the characters keep some sense of individuality -- no matter what you do, Dagger is going to be your cleric. No changing that by just changing a materia.
The only worry I have is that it will get credited for being innovative...
Unlike FF8 it's fairly standard Final Fantasy fare (note: this is a good thing)
but since the American mainstream isn't used to old school FFs... I donno.
It'll sell well in the US -- that's a given -- but there's going to be a lot
of people surprised, I think. Either plesantly so (like me) or "*Whine* this is too hard, lemme go to GameFAQs" so.
Viva la Vivi! Viva la #DQ!
Mark Cantrell
[KiTA]
...Yeah, this is the DQ fanatic saying FF9's good. Get over it. =) I liked FF8 the first two weeks as well, and we all know how THAT turned out. =/
|
Looks like a very cool review, but unfortunately I can't spare the
time to read it at the moment. Thanks for the heads up, tho. Glad to
hear you're enjoying FF9... it'd be a kick in the head if we've finally
got a game that both DQ fans and FF fans can enjoy, but only time'll
tell if that's the case.
| Reviews reviewed, part
1 |
| Chris,
David's letter yesterday finally helped me identify a rub I've had for a
while. I've also have been a bit disenfranchised with GIA's review scores
lately, but I couldn't lay a finger on what exactly displeased me.
The problem lies primarily with the five-point scale in use. Correct me if
I'm mistaken here, but to me it implies 1-terrible, 2-poor, 3-OK, 4-good,
5-great. This doesn't provide a great deal of description, and lends itself
to misuse fairly readily. When attempting to condense an entire game into a
single five-degree score, it becomes extremely convenient to say "This game
does have a few flaws, but they're dwarfed by its strengths," for a
preferred title; likewise, "It had a couple cool features, but the effort as
a whole was fruitless," becomes an easy cop-out for a disliked game.
The question at hand is whether a review's responsibility ends at reporting
of a game's strengths and weaknesses, or if it extends to passing judgment
on the quality of the finished production. The very name review
suggests the answer to this question--the reviewer's obligation is not to
judge the game, but to evaluate it.
Subtle distinction? Absolutely. Pointless hair-splitting? I believe
not.
Overall scores are, overwhelmingly, highly unreliable indicators of whether
an individual will enjoy a particular game. Why? Video games have dozens of
attributes. Graphics, music & sound effects, difficulty, and so on ad
infinitum. Each and every gamer measures the different categories
differently. More important still, each individual weights them differently.
I enjoyed 7th Saga quite a bit when I first played it. I can't stand it now.
What happened?
Well, it came out back when domestic RPG's were few and far between, so my
standards were much softer then. Second, despite its thin story, which I
cared much less about then than now, it had solid gameplay, which was
critically important then but can be taken more for granted today. The seven
year transition from then to now resulted in different measurements, and in
shuffled priorities for those measurements. The same can be said of
the transition from quasi-professional reviewer to Joe Gameplayer.
The problem with overall scores is that they typically represent, rather
than the cake that comes from baking a game's ingredients together, a static
snapshot of how much the reviewer enjoyed the game. Let's go back to 7th
Saga for a moment--most reviewers would assuredly give it a 1 on GIA's
scale. By my old standards, however, it would have warranted a solid 3. If
individual scores are given on a game's characteristics, the overall score
becomes unnecessary and the entire review much more accuratively depictive
of the game on the table. Some might say that GIA's primary focus on news
and media relegates its reviews to a secondary role--but if something
remains important enough to do in the first place, it should remain
important enough to do well, or at least better than now.
--Bill Johnson |
Good letter, Bill, and it's certainly a valid way of looking at
reviews. This is a man who puts his money where his mouth is: Bill's the
one-time editor of TotalRPG, and their excellent reviews run very close to what he's
outlined above.
But as valid a viewpoint as it may be, it's not one that I particularly
agree with. For me, opinions in reviews tend to be seen in much the same way that
engineers see error signals in systems they design. In both cases something
other than the desired output is creeping into the system, and in both
cases there are two basic options: remove the opinion/error entirely,
which isn't generally possible, or accept it and find ways to deal with it,
and if you're really smart, incorporate it into your system.
The fact is, no one can ever be truly objective about a game, although
they might come pretty close in some cases. Hopefully the people writing
the reviews enjoy playing games in general, which means that they'll get
caught up in the excitement, or the hype, or the general disappointment
that might be surrounding a game. We could always opt to have non-gamers
review games, but in that case the cure would be worse than the disease.
The people playing games will always harbor their own thoughts and
feelings in a game, and there's basically no getting around it.
What the
readers of reviews can and should do is balance their sources - read many
reviews, from multiple sites, to get an impression of what people on
average feel about a game, and keep in mind how specific reviewers match up
with their own tastes. Those of you who have been reading this column for
a while should know by now what types of games I do and don't tend to
favor, so if I were to hail a game as being the next Vagrant Story
hopefully some of you would stand up and take note, whereas if I attack a
game as being as archaic as the DQ series, others would just (perhaps
correctly) blow my opinion off. Just remember that you can't plot a curve
from a single data point, and by and large you'll be ok.
| Reviews reviewed, part
2 |
|
Mr. Jones:
I'm not one to buy games based on reviews. A review is an opinion that's
supposedly more sophisticated than that of the average person. While Siskel
(spell check?) and Ebert are renowned movie critics, they're still just
people that have seen a damn large amount of movies. Just so happens that
they have other movies to compare the new ones to and have an opinion that's
well established.
I could've given many games a five that didn't get that high of a score,
simply because the game floated my boat. What matters is why the game gets
that high of a score. If the GIA's reviews are well-written and explain the
grade the game received, I think we could easily look past a five when
another gamer thinks it needed a four. Whoever is reading the review knows
what they enjoy; if the review says it has a good plot but lacks battle
tactics, the reader should take that into consideration. It's a far better
idea to read what follows the grade and base a decision upon that.
Furthermore, I disagree with about every review I read. Just so happens that
I'm a teenager, and most critics aren't. The critics and myself have largely
differing opinions to the point that I assume in some cases if the movie gets
a bad grade and it's directed at teenagers, I'll enjoy it. Most movie
critics who're adults have no idea what teenagers think is humorous. Are all
those reviews wrong then? Nope, they're just another look at the movie.
Same applies to games, I thought Chrono Cross and Vagrant Story were both
amazing and I'd have given them five's myself. I haven't played Zelda: MM,
or OB 64, and am currently playing FF IX, so no comment there.
However, I don't want people to think I'm disagreeing with Mr. David. I, as
well, would suggest going to a ten point rating system simply because it
gives more room for consideration. Moreover I suggest grades based upon
categories such as plot, battle system, interface, music, etc. That more
than anything would give the reader a chance to analyze what they might enjoy
about the game.
Call me Krelyk, over the word limit once again. |
The most common comment we got regarding the review process was that
a 10 point scale needed to be introduced, and although you can
consider the point noted, I doubt you'll be seeing it anytime soon.
Many psychological studies have shown that a scale of 5 is what most
people feel comfortable with, and agree or disagree, I think there's a
good amount of merit to the statement. The differences between a 3, 4,
or 5 ranking are easily grasped by the mind, whereas an 8.9 teeters on
the brink of must-buy and maybe-buy. Famitsu may grade on a 40 point
scale, but mostly that just seems to breed argument in the gaming
community: this got a 34, but that other title scored three more
points! Wow! When you see a single number out of a 5 point scale you
know exactly what needs to be known about it... as long as you keep in
mind that it's the reviewer's opinion, and not holy writ handed down
from up high.
Other than that, you pretty much nailed my views on the subject of
reviews. Good job.
| There's always room for
obscure trivia |
|
Dear Letter guy (Chris??)-
This question has been bothering me for some time now- What were the
ABSOLUTELY LAST games relesed for these systems: NES, SNES, SEGA? I just
can't think of it!! And it would be really neat to know..
-Queen Godzilla, who wonders what Harle's hair-color is. |
Hmm... that is an interesting question, but not one I have time to
look up at the moment. I can tell you this much - by some standards,
all of the above are still viable platforms. Nintendo released the
latest game in the Fire Emblem series in Japan just last year on the
SNES, and it's always possible that someone else will come along with
another serious commercial release for the system. Meanwhile there are those
who toil on homemade NES and SNES roms in a legal gray area, but as
long as there are people out there with the technical know-how to build
a new game for an old system, I don't know that you can ever say that
any particular game is "the last".
At any rate, I hope that covered up my own ignorance well enough
for you folks to focus more on the question than on my lack of
knowledge - I'm sure you'll now flood the weekend columns with the
correct answers to the above questions. Go to it.
Closing Comments:
Ok, one minor piece of news, and two major ones. Let's get the
minor out of the way first: I won't be doing the column next week. I'll
be away from my net connection, I've got to spend some serious quality
time with my family, and every spare moment I have beyond that has to
be dedicated to writing some term papers. Fortunately Nich and Ed have
agreed to guest host for me, so you should still have something to read
in the meantime. And I'll be back on the 27th, so no worries there.
Now for the big news, part 1: Andrew Kaufmann has decided to retire
from doing the weekend column. I don't know the reasons why, but I
know we all wish him the best of luck in the future. AK pretty much
founded the Internet gaming letters column, and his work will surely be
missed... but I'm also hoping that we haven't seen the last of him, so
let's not get too maudlin.
The second big news is his replacement... a gentleman I'm sure
you'll all recognize, a man whose legendary skills are enshrined
forever in our hearts and minds, an individual whose sarcastic wit is
matched only by his dangerously enlarged heart... the one, the only, Mr. Drew Cosner!
Yep, that's right, ol' Drew is now our new weekend guy, so send him some mail to welcome him back
into the fold. One way or another, you're in good hands, so I won't
worry too much. Until I return, here's hoping those of you who
celebrate it have a happy Thanksgiving, and that everybody enjoys
FF9 and Skies of Arcadia. See you when I get back.
-Chris Jones, gone for 9 days |
