Revisiting...a truly bizarre EDGE #131 (Christmas 2003)

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Irene Demova
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PostRe: Revisiting...a truly bizarre EDGE #131 (Christmas 2003)
by Irene Demova » Thu Oct 04, 2012 3:35 pm

rudderless wrote:
Irene Demova wrote:
Fishfingers wrote:Why do people over analyse these magazines

Because their job is to give you accurate reviews to help inform purchases


No. Their job is to give you their professional opinion. Whether you use it to inform purchases is up to you.

And when said "professional opinion" lacks one iota of credibility there's clearly something wrong

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Jamo3103
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PostRe: Revisiting...a truly bizarre EDGE #131 (Christmas 2003)
by Jamo3103 » Thu Oct 04, 2012 3:54 pm

Carlos wrote:
Coconut Bob wrote:I thought Famitsu lost all credibility back when they awarded 40/40 to Nintendogs, I'm sure at one point they were considered THE source for gaming reviews but that time has long passed!

I wouldn't say Edge is a whole lot more reputable these days either, they've given out some dodgy scores over the years and some of their more recent 10's are a key example of that, some wholly undeserving games being massively overscored.

Mario Kart: DD's score on that list is unnecessarily harsh, its the weakest in the series but its still a comfortable 7 for me.


Perhaps Nintendogs deserved 40/40. I know of a few female gamers (my wife included) who bought a DS just to play it. I'd consider it Nintendo's first real casual success and the game that opened the doors for titles like Brain Training and the success of the Wii.


Did it though? Commercially sure it was a major success with the non-traditional gaming crowd but as games go it was little more than a 3D Tamagotchi.

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Skarjo
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PostRe: Revisiting...a truly bizarre EDGE #131 (Christmas 2003)
by Skarjo » Thu Oct 04, 2012 3:58 pm

Coconut Bob wrote:
Carlos wrote:
Coconut Bob wrote:I thought Famitsu lost all credibility back when they awarded 40/40 to Nintendogs, I'm sure at one point they were considered THE source for gaming reviews but that time has long passed!

I wouldn't say Edge is a whole lot more reputable these days either, they've given out some dodgy scores over the years and some of their more recent 10's are a key example of that, some wholly undeserving games being massively overscored.

Mario Kart: DD's score on that list is unnecessarily harsh, its the weakest in the series but its still a comfortable 7 for me.


Perhaps Nintendogs deserved 40/40. I know of a few female gamers (my wife included) who bought a DS just to play it. I'd consider it Nintendo's first real casual success and the game that opened the doors for titles like Brain Training and the success of the Wii.


Did it though? Commercially sure it was a major success with the non-traditional gaming crowd but as games go it was little more than a 3D Tamagotchi.


But isn't that exactly what it intended to be?

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rudderless
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PostRe: Revisiting...a truly bizarre EDGE #131 (Christmas 2003)
by rudderless » Thu Oct 04, 2012 6:44 pm

Irene Demova wrote:
rudderless wrote:
Irene Demova wrote:
Fishfingers wrote:Why do people over analyse these magazines

Because their job is to give you accurate reviews to help inform purchases


No. Their job is to give you their professional opinion. Whether you use it to inform purchases is up to you.

And when said "professional opinion" lacks one iota of credibility there's clearly something wrong


It only lacks credibility in the eyes of the terminally paranoid. A lot of people think dodgy stuff is going on when it's really not.

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PostRe: Revisiting...a truly bizarre EDGE #131 (Christmas 2003)
by rudderless » Thu Oct 04, 2012 6:53 pm

Skarjo wrote:That said, you do expect a certain degree of accuracy of comment being applicable to the final product. If, for instance, I said reviewed Mario Kart by saying it was an excellent survival horror (as a deliberately extreme and ridiculous example) then that would be an inaccurate review. Obviously, not a realistic review, but comments about functionality can certainly be reviewed with an eye to the accuracy of the comment, which especially causes an issue when we consider famous poor quality reviews like Driv3r; it claiming a level of technical proficiency that the end product simply didn't reflect.

Am I right in thinking Famitsu's first 40/40 was Ocarina of Time?


That's fair comment - I think there are certain objective qualities in games that perhaps don't apply in other media. Things like frame-rate, control responsiveness and various other technical concerns that can have an impact on a game's quality aren't subjective - even if they may matter less to some critics than to others.

I can understand why events like Driv3rgate might foster a certain amount of distrust, but these are rare, isolated incidents that aren't indicative of common review practice. It's like denouncing film criticism based on the work of Alan '10/10' Frank.

[iup=3595962]KB[/iup] wrote:People like Glen Whelan have a proper face!
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Irene Demova
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PostRe: Revisiting...a truly bizarre EDGE #131 (Christmas 2003)
by Irene Demova » Thu Oct 04, 2012 7:08 pm

rudderless wrote:
Irene Demova wrote:
rudderless wrote:
Irene Demova wrote:
Fishfingers wrote:Why do people over analyse these magazines

Because their job is to give you accurate reviews to help inform purchases


No. Their job is to give you their professional opinion. Whether you use it to inform purchases is up to you.

And when said "professional opinion" lacks one iota of credibility there's clearly something wrong


It only lacks credibility in the eyes of the terminally paranoid. A lot of people think dodgy stuff is going on when it's really not.

Edge as shown here has some less than positive incidents in it's history, as shown in the other thread it employs some right tits; when these two factors are combined with the refusal to name the reviewer then yes there is a problem. There's no reason not to provide the name aside from the weird pretense edge holds, if I have the reviewers name I can see what he has reviewed in the past and whether I came to agree with his general views on those games, without this name I am left reading reviews which may have come from any edge writer/freelancers. This represents a complete lack of credibility to me, the only way the issue of a bad review can be addressed are internally and this is deeply troubling to the reader who ultimately expects to at least receive an indication of how good/suited to them the game is.

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PostRe: Revisiting...a truly bizarre EDGE #131 (Christmas 2003)
by KK » Thu Oct 04, 2012 7:38 pm

rudderless wrote:I can understand why events like Driv3rgate might foster a certain amount of distrust, but these are rare, isolated incidents that aren't indicative of common review practice. It's like denouncing film criticism based on the work of Alan '10/10' Frank.

The Driv3rgate one is always brought up, to the point of tedium in fact - & okay it's probably the most blatantly wrong score of all time - but there are so many other reviews over the last 20 years or so that are preposterous, alleged shenanigans or not. And they don't even have to be scores, they're just poorly written crap from people that don't know the subject matter and evidently haven't played the game properly.

When you've read the same "men in pants" joke and homophobic remarks about wrestling games for the 500th time, you realise you're reading a preview or review from someone who evidently has great disdain for the subject matter and the game, so it begs the question what the hell he's doing playing it in the first place. That's not to say nobody covers it properly, as Oliver Hurley, Ben Wilson & Matthew Pellett (all from Future) know what they're doing, & they're actually fans.

NASCAR is another one that features the witty "everyone turns left" gag, or NFL games the tired "fake football" cliché (something that again doesn't happen any longer in OPM as Ben Wilson is a massive American football fan).

And if we move off reviews & onto news, more specifically trade magazine MCV, Ben Parfitt makes so many bloody mistakes it's turning into a running joke. I've noticed it, Mafro's noticed it, Shadow's noticed it, people on NeoGaf have noticed it. He runs a story, completely without factual merit, & that story is changed repeatedly as the original headline was bollocks. Latest one was using Resi 6 to have a pop at UK journalists for their "hive mind" mentality. The reviews were all over the place. He then had the audacity to state the game was good. Clearly. He'd barely played it!

X360 magazine last month ran a feature entitled 10 Ways Sony Cocked Up The PS3!. 2012 & this is still what passes for intelligent writing? This was gooseberry fool in 1996! When Official Xbox 360 magazine launched in 2005, every month the news section was Sony this & Sony that. Or such scintillating articles like 'Colgate launches 360 toothbrush! Nothing to do with Xbox, but it's got 360 on the brush handle!!' Half a page. The Official license is supposed to be a stamp of quality & authority. Why? Because that's what Official PlayStation, Official Dreamcast and Official PS2 signified. People that constantly criticise the Official licenses do so because the writing and quality fell so drastically through the floor for so long it's almost impossible for the current lot to turn it around.

Speak to the majority of people online and the number 1 myth that is constantly perpetuated is that Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo games get guaranteed high scores in Official Magazines. Do people remember Sony published Spawn getting 4, or the much hyped Rascal 5 in OPM? No - what they remember is The Getaway Black Monday being given an 8 in OPS2, or Official Xbox rating everything 9.5/10. Fast forward to the current OXM, and both Halo 3 & Gears of War were given 9, and boy did Future give the reviews editor at the time gooseberry fool for it too (as he posted on his blog). And they could have just as easily awarded them 10.

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PostRe: Revisiting...a truly bizarre EDGE #131 (Christmas 2003)
by TheTurnipKing » Thu Oct 04, 2012 8:09 pm

rudderless wrote:I can understand why events like Driv3rgate might foster a certain amount of distrust, but these are rare, isolated incidents that aren't indicative of common review practice. It's like denouncing film criticism based on the work of Alan '10/10' Frank.

What's rare though?

It happening, or them being caught?

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Xeno
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PostRe: Revisiting...a truly bizarre EDGE #131 (Christmas 2003)
by Xeno » Thu Oct 04, 2012 8:16 pm

Them being caught.

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Jamo3103
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PostRe: Revisiting...a truly bizarre EDGE #131 (Christmas 2003)
by Jamo3103 » Thu Oct 04, 2012 8:17 pm

Skarjo wrote:
Coconut Bob wrote:
Carlos wrote:
Coconut Bob wrote:I thought Famitsu lost all credibility back when they awarded 40/40 to Nintendogs, I'm sure at one point they were considered THE source for gaming reviews but that time has long passed!

I wouldn't say Edge is a whole lot more reputable these days either, they've given out some dodgy scores over the years and some of their more recent 10's are a key example of that, some wholly undeserving games being massively overscored.

Mario Kart: DD's score on that list is unnecessarily harsh, its the weakest in the series but its still a comfortable 7 for me.


Perhaps Nintendogs deserved 40/40. I know of a few female gamers (my wife included) who bought a DS just to play it. I'd consider it Nintendo's first real casual success and the game that opened the doors for titles like Brain Training and the success of the Wii.


Did it though? Commercially sure it was a major success with the non-traditional gaming crowd but as games go it was little more than a 3D Tamagotchi.


But isn't that exactly what it intended to be?


When a full retail price game offers little more than a 10+ year old LCD handheld costing a couple of pounds I think its hard to justify a perfect score.

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Skarjo
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PostRe: Revisiting...a truly bizarre EDGE #131 (Christmas 2003)
by Skarjo » Thu Oct 04, 2012 8:39 pm

Coconut Bob wrote:
Skarjo wrote:
Coconut Bob wrote:
Carlos wrote:
Coconut Bob wrote:I thought Famitsu lost all credibility back when they awarded 40/40 to Nintendogs, I'm sure at one point they were considered THE source for gaming reviews but that time has long passed!

I wouldn't say Edge is a whole lot more reputable these days either, they've given out some dodgy scores over the years and some of their more recent 10's are a key example of that, some wholly undeserving games being massively overscored.

Mario Kart: DD's score on that list is unnecessarily harsh, its the weakest in the series but its still a comfortable 7 for me.


Perhaps Nintendogs deserved 40/40. I know of a few female gamers (my wife included) who bought a DS just to play it. I'd consider it Nintendo's first real casual success and the game that opened the doors for titles like Brain Training and the success of the Wii.


Did it though? Commercially sure it was a major success with the non-traditional gaming crowd but as games go it was little more than a 3D Tamagotchi.


But isn't that exactly what it intended to be?


When a full retail price game offers little more than a 10+ year old LCD handheld costing a couple of pounds I think its hard to justify a perfect score.


It's an interesting question though, do we rate games against their achievements against other games or do we rate them against their achievements against their intentions?

If it wanted to be a tamagotchi and provided a sublime tamagotchi experience, then why not give it a perfect score if it delivers?

Karl wrote:Can't believe I got baited into expressing a political stance on hentai

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Jamo3103
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PostRe: Revisiting...a truly bizarre EDGE #131 (Christmas 2003)
by Jamo3103 » Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:25 pm

Yeah I suppose that's a fair point - if you're judging it as a game in the most traditional sense (as a medium of entertainment) against other games then it will inevitably fall short but if you are looking for a virtual pet, then yeah. Same could be said for anything really when it comes to reviews, not just in the medium of games, if it does exactly what it set out to do then I suppose you could argue the case for a perfect score everytime.

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Madness
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PostRe: Revisiting...a truly bizarre EDGE #131 (Christmas 2003)
by Madness » Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:56 pm

The timing of this topic is mega weird because on Monday afternoon I too went through a load of old Edge magazines and read....this exact same issue! :shock:

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PostRe: Revisiting...a truly bizarre EDGE #131 (Christmas 2003)
by HSH28 » Thu Oct 04, 2012 10:00 pm

Madness wrote:The timing of this topic is mega weird because on Monday afternoon I too went through a load of old Edge magazines and read....this exact same issue! :shock:


And did you think it was...'truly bizarre'?


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