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BCM Review @ Game Genie


JaguarNMT
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Totally lame review IMO despite the seemingly good scores...

Here's a quote from the review that shows me that he didn't play it for more than a few minutes.

" I was outraged at the total lack of other traffic in space, other than space stations that are manually placed, and enemy craft that seem to magically appear when you fire upon their stations. This is by far my biggest beef with the program. Is there absolutely no other traffic in space besides military craft? What about trading? What about transporting goods?"

mmmmmkay...

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You have some guts boy, showing your face around here.

well its a good review for all it says. The problem is the game is new and theres a lot of interest for new thiengs. The question is, does this game have legs? How popular will it be in 6 months.

I have loved the series from day one. The saddest day was when I had to buy a new system and could not get the old game running. Now that I have this version I am exited about its future. The value here is in the creation of new scripts, I am more involved with games that let you slip under the hood to create your own material. This extends the basic value beyond the shelf price.

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Crafts magically appear when you fire on enemy station? I guess he doesn't know that stations can launch their own craft, oh yea, he has the only ship with launchbays. No trafic, only military ships? Again, he probably doesn't know what those blue dots on radar are, nor how to use the radar.

He encountered some hostile units while he had his destination coordinates in the NID display. Instead of canceling his destination coordinates he wanted the AI to fly to the hostile units and NOW he is wondering why his ship just continued to his destination. WHY are people who don't even read the manual are allowed ro review the game? He is supposed to be a game reviewer, not some amateur who just bought the game and posted his 2 paragraph opinion.

[ 11-28-2001: Message edited by: Soback ]

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Ok, I guess the review is overall ok, he didn't cover all of the game, nor all of it's features, he is entitled to his opinions about the graphics, gameplay, and music, but what he shouldn't do is write something as a negative side of the game (no neutral traffic, traders, enemy craft appearing around the stations from nowhere, him unable to fly to the enemy when he set his destination through navitron and didn't cancel it first) when it's obvious that he wouldn't have those difficulties if he just read the manual and understood how to do things and what is going on around him first.

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quote:


Originally posted by James Allen:

As the author of said review, let the fun commence!

'Jaguar' James Allen

Game Reviewer, GameGenie.com


James,

Were you been drinking, uhm, tea, prior to reviewing that? I mean seriously

No dynamic traffic???!???

Destroyed objects (e.g. you mentioned stations "It does not break up into distinguishable parts:"), don't come apart?????

As for this "Now, the space in Battlefield Millennium may be more accurate"

The game is Battlecruiser Millennium. OK??

I can understand that the game is not everyone's cup of tea and even reviewers are *gasp* human gamers - but unfortunately, I have to say that it doesn't seem as if you spent much time with the game. Were you in a hurry or something?

...and to the rest of you, don't forget the rules, this is a NO FLAMES board. So, keep the rhetoric down.

[ 11-28-2001: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

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But he did give a 90% though. Okay a lack of multiplayer for this kinda game may penalize the score a bit but we all know it's coming Q1 next year. Oh it's an upgrade and not a patch for the multiplayer btw.....or am I mixing the two reviews up.

Bah don't mind me I'm just cranky cause I had a terrible exam today. Funny thing is the delay by one day did worse to me than if it went as planned yesterday.

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quote:


Originally posted by Fendi:

But he did give a 90% though. Okay a lack of multiplayer for this kinda game may penalize the score a bit but we all know it's coming Q1 next year. Oh it's an upgrade and not a patch for the multiplayer btw.....or am I mixing the two reviews up.

Bah don't mind me I'm just cranky cause I had a terrible exam today. Funny thing is the delay by one day did worse to me than if it went as planned yesterday.


What are you talking about? How does 4/5 equate to 90?

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quote:

It did up until the point it was changed on the reviews page to 4/5.


That's what I thought at first. But then again I might have mixed the two up. Besides 5/2 people have problems with fractions.

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quote:

4/5 = 80%

Okay okay I made a mistake. And to think that I'm going to be an engineer (preferebly aerospace). Just imagine your vehicles being designed and maintained by the Fendi. {{{Shudder}}}

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  • 3 weeks later...

The review at that site is completly bogus. The guy doesn't know what he is talking about. Check this out

1. "All of the different species all speak in clear and concise English. "

No lets let them speak english like in the first X-Tension, the aliens were so hard to understand that if not for the text you wouldn't even know what they were saying, or better yet, why don't we have some of them speak Arabic.

2. "The enemy AI will more than likely just run straight toward you from great distances, not thinking to hide behind buildings or even get into a prone position."

Oh, he is trying to bash the AI here. Interesting, last time I played the enemy was very smart, not only did the enemy marines duck but they also tried weaving as to avoid my fire. So where he got that I have no idea.

3. "See, the planet flight engine falls for exactly the same reason the space simulation does: the lack of a truly dynamic world. In a game like Independence War 2, you would be hard pressed to find areas where neutral traffic wasn’t present. "

I don't even know what to say here. Maybe he can start by pulling his head out of wherever he might keep it and try reading the manual as to understand how to identify neutral traffic, and he is comparing BCM to IW2, that is just so funny, now we can tell why he didn't read the manual.

4. "I was outraged at the total lack of other traffic in space, other than space stations that are manually placed, and enemy craft that seem to magically appear when you fire upon their stations. This is by far my biggest beef with the program. Is there absolutely no other traffic in space besides military craft? What about trading? What about transporting goods? It baffles me that something like this could be overlooked."

Again. I just don't understand it. Did he really play the game or did he just dream the whole thing up. I don't even know what to say for this one.

5. "Back to flying the planes, they behave like most good flight simulators, but, as I said, you’ll mostly be flying around with nothing to do, which grows old very quickly. It’s too bad, because with dynamic traffic, I’m pretty sure that Battlecruiser Millennium would score at the pinnacle of computer gaming. "

For one thing, if he would have some imagination then he would have found something to do very fast, but the only thing we can blame here is other games that have completly killed the imagination in todays generation and people now need their hands held everywhere. So who can blame him. As for the dynamic traffic, well I don't know what other game he was playing but it sure wasn't BCM.

6. "Once, I selected a destination several wormholes away, but encountered some enemy units halfway through. So, I selected to fly to the nearest enemy unit, but the autopilot continued to the original destination. Weird."

Once again. Reading the manual on how to use NAVITRON would help. How in the world can he review a game yet he doesn't even know how to use it's basic functions I will never understand.

Ok, I am going to stop here. It got me fired up so I am going to go cool down. Needles to say, this guy should get his act straight, read the manual of the game he is about to review is a start.

[ 12-14-2001: Message edited by: Soback ]

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I may not agree with alot of what he said, but I will give him full credit for showing up here after the fact, and even starting a thread with the full knowledge he would be blasted. It would have been very easy for him to dissappear.

I would also like to commend the SC for showing considerable class and enforcing his own rules (re: flaming on the boards) even against someone who wrote what I consider to be a not so favourable review. Not alot of people would be able to do that with someone who had been critical of thier work.

No I don't like the review, no I don't agree with it. However, I do have a little more respect for both the author and the developer based on this thread.

Cheers

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quote:


Originally posted by Menchise:

SC, there have been some changes to the BCM review at Game Genie. The rating is now 3/5.


So I noticed. I've contacted him and waiting for his response.

Thats what happens when every script kiddie has access to a website. It is quite obvious that he didn't even play the game to any great extent.

He got the NAME of the game wrong, fer crissakes.

[ 12-14-2001: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

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The things that make BCM the phenomenon that it is, It's depth of gameplay and dynamic universe, are the things that hurt it in casual review. I bought the game on Nov 21 and have played at least a little while every day,but usually I play for hours daily. I see something new EVERY DAY.....Or maybe I just comprehend something new every day. Anyway my point is that in a single weekend you just don't understand enough of what's going on, to know what your looking at out there. Given the deadlines given to journalist I find it hard believe that any reviewer would be able to put enough time into the game to give it a fair and accurate review.......even if he just happened to be a BCM addict like most of us here.

[ 12-14-2001: Message edited by: Stormshadow ]

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I got this from James 'Jaguar' Allen

For the 30-40 hours I played the game over Thanksgiving Break, I came to my own opinion as to the game. I personally did not see any dynamic traffic (which seems to be most of the complaints on the thread) during the time that I played, other than 3 or 4 other military ships, so I stand by my conclusion.

As for lowering the score, that was done by my editor. The fact was that I originally put a 3/5 overall score for the game, and my editor incorrectly changed the score to 4/5. I only noticed this days after the review was posted (I just posted the link to the review; I assumed that everything was OK), so he agreed to go back and correct it. I'm sorry that I neglected to mention that to you, and that was unprofessional of me.

As for being a "script kiddie," I'm actually a 22 year old Masters student in Geophysics with a B.S. in Geology and a minor in Mathematics. I'm not sure that really means anything

The bottom line is that BCM is for some people, and I just didn't like it as much as you or anyone else on your message board. That's the point of a review, for a game reviewer to offer their own opinions on the game, while striving to be as subjective as possible.

You are free to do whatever you want on your boards and your mailing lists. If you'd like to post this response (or cut and paste it so that I look like a moron) you are free to do so. I'm sorry that I didn't fulfill your expectations of mindlessly giving the game a 5/5 and be on my way.

And this from John 'Storm' Shahbazian

Dear Sir,

I am sorry that you feel this way about Mr. Allen and our site. However, I must state that his review is an opinion. He relates his opinion on *his* playing experience. If he so chooses to alter a score for whatever reason, that is his right, as this is a work of opinion. He does not need to inform anyone other than myself, who will actually change the HTML, about his alterations. I believe it would not be good for journalism if reviewers had to OK scores for games with the people that made those games. As for the amount of time playing the game, I personally know he put a good amount of time into it. Very few people have weeks or months to put into a game, but I know he tried his best. If his playing experience was different than many others, so be it.

You are more than welcome to share your opinion about his review on your soapbox. I fully believe in free speech. You are also more than welcome to remove us from your contact list. However, as you do these things, please keep in mind the degree of professionalism that you expect of others.

I would like to keep these discussions private. If you have any more questions or comments, please feel free to email myself or James.

John Shahbazian

GameGenie.com

P.S. The typo on the name of the game was a mistake that I missed, and I apologize. I have corrected it within the review.

I'm not even going to bother replying to either one of them. So, draw your own conclusions.

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To each his own, I suppose. I'd write a review, but I'm not a game reviewer

But, I'd definetly give it 8/10. It's awesome(duh ) but it's not complete either.

As for the typo, the best jokes are the unintentional ones...

Hmm..Love is a Battlefield Millenium??

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