Supreme Cmdr Posted February 27, 2002 Report Share Posted February 27, 2002 Talk about double whammy. I didn't even realize that my issue of CGM was also in this pile of garbage I receive each day. I was tossing out all the crap and found it nestled in between the OfficeMax and Microwarehouse catalogues. Anyway, also gave a 3.5/5 stars. I have uploaded a scanned copy of the review. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duncan Idaho Posted February 27, 2002 Report Share Posted February 27, 2002 Seems a pretty good review. I'd rate it higher, but then I am THOROUGHLY addicted to this game. Idaho Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Epsilon 5 Posted February 28, 2002 Report Share Posted February 28, 2002 quote:GENRE Space Simulation, flame war igniterROTFLMAO! Very good review imo, very honest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duncan Idaho Posted February 28, 2002 Report Share Posted February 28, 2002 Hahahah, I had missed that line, had to go look again! For the record, I misread the topic here, and thought it said CGW. Learned my mistake less than 20 minutes after my above response when I checked my mail and found my copy of Computer Games had arrived. Idaho Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emmett.hendrick Posted February 28, 2002 Report Share Posted February 28, 2002 not a bad review all told but I would have one comment. Start of the review - Multiplayer: NONE Bottom of the review(downers section) - "Planetary Combat won't be interesting until Multiplayer is implemented" this is going to confuse some readers as to whethar BCM is/will be multiplayer as it is not mentioned anywhere else in the review. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanethian Posted February 28, 2002 Report Share Posted February 28, 2002 Well... it seems a good review. But it's a pity he didn't talk at all about the impressive supporting role of 3000ad staff, the patches that are released so often compared to other softwarehouses support, the Battlecruiser Community set up by Derek (it's a big positive point!) and the Xtended Play packs that are imminent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supreme Cmdr Posted February 28, 2002 Author Report Share Posted February 28, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Vanethian: Well... it seems a good review. But it's a pity he didn't talk at all about the impressive supporting role of 3000ad staff, the patches that are released so often compared to other softwarehouses support, the Battlecruiser Community set up by Derek (it's a big positive point!) and the Xtended Play packs that are imminent.Dunno what that has to do with anything. Games are expected to be supported and should bear no relevance to the review whatsoever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanethian Posted February 28, 2002 Report Share Posted February 28, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Dunno what that has to do with anything. Games are expected to be supported and should bear no relevance to the review whatsoever.Well, games are expected to be supported only on the chart Remember me another developer so dedicated as you when releasing patches and fixes. I don't remember where, but in another review of BCM the reviewer talks about this aspect. And a reviewer consider many factors when reviewing a game... and it depends on reviewer. Some factors are considered more important than others. IMHO the serious support is a positive factor. It was not a critic, at all. Other reviewers consider mainly other factors, i consider much more the overall project and ideas than the nude code... serious support means ideas continually evolving... a never ending project Well... don't be so humble, Derek... you deserve the glory! You are making a great job! [ 02-28-2002, 18:19: Message edited by: Vanethian ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Grayfox Posted February 28, 2002 Report Share Posted February 28, 2002 i kind of figured denny atkin would do the review. afterall he did the "pre game warmup" a few months back, and did a good job then too. Good job overall on the review. i like his reviews most of all out of the CGM coterie, because hes objective and tells it like it is. there are some others on the staff that are the same (Cindy Yans for example) more so than some other zines... maybe thats why im still subscribing to CGM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanethian Posted February 28, 2002 Report Share Posted February 28, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Grayfox: i kind of figured denny atkin would do the review. afterall he did the "pre game warmup" a few months back, and did a good job then too. I didn't tell he is not a good reviewer. I think his review is one of the best. I'm just saying that... being so good his review, it could have been perfect IF... etc etc etc. That's all It was not a critic. I liked the review a lot. [ 02-28-2002, 18:55: Message edited by: Vanethian ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Grayfox Posted March 1, 2002 Report Share Posted March 1, 2002 oh lol, dont get me wrong vanethian, i was by no means criticizing you at all, and hopefully you didnt take it as such. i was just stating that i have been a longtime subscriber to CGM and find his reviews to be spot on 98% of the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanethian Posted March 1, 2002 Report Share Posted March 1, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Grayfox: oh lol, dont get me wrong vanethian, i was by no means criticizing you at all, and hopefully you didnt take it as such. i was just stating that i have been a longtime subscriber to CGM and find his reviews to be spot on 98% of the time.LOL! ok... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supreme Cmdr Posted March 1, 2002 Author Report Share Posted March 1, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Vanethian: Well... don't be so humble, Derek... you deserve the glory! You are making a great job! Its not about that. Reviewers for print mags have very little print space and word counts to work with; and I for one would rather they used it to talk about the game, rather than something that is expected of ANY and ALL game developers : support of their games. Overly praising a developer for tech support of a game they are REQUIRED to support, is just as ludicrous as praising the Pope for believing in God. Some online web reviewers can afford to waste pages on crap not worth reading; padding it with fluff and nonsensical horseshit because they have the space to do it in. [ 02-28-2002, 20:52: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanethian Posted March 1, 2002 Report Share Posted March 1, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Online web reviewers can afford to waste pages on crap not worth reading; padding it with fluff and nonsensical horseshit because they have the space to do it in.Fluff... nonsensical... horseshit. Ok... tomorrow i'll tell my chief at Multiplayer.it: "Hey Boss, ever thought we write fluff, nonsensical horseshit? Cool, uh?" I'll post here his answers... it will be funny I know i'll never change your ideas but gamers often send us (reviewers at Multiplayer.it, and i'm proud to be a web reviewer, but i'm sure you forgot that) complaints about bad game supports. It is not so obvious as you think. Gamers consider it an important factor when they wanna buy a game. It is not crap. At all. [ 02-28-2002, 20:46: Message edited by: Vanethian ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supreme Cmdr Posted March 1, 2002 Author Report Share Posted March 1, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Vanethian: Fluff... nonsensical... horseshit. Ok... tomorrow i'll tell my chief at Multiplayer.it: "Hey Boss, ever thought we write fluff, nonsensical horseshit? Cool, uh?"Of course not all web reviewers do that; I'm only saying that when compared to print mags, the online web reviewers have more leeway in what they can write about. So, if they want to waste the space talking about something that is supposed to be REQUIRED of game developers, then thats their problem. For ME (and I don't give a toss about anyone else's opinion), I would much rather see review space spent discussing the game in question and what the gamer NEEDS TO KNOW rather than on material that is a given. I don't know about you - or anyone else - but I'm not particularly part of the bandwagon that thinks a gamer is supposed to thank God that the developer supports the game. No, it should NOT be that way. You sell a game. Someone buys it. You are REQUIRED to support it. PERIOD. END OF STORY. Now, if the reviewer wants to waste print space talking about it, thats fine; but when it comes to print space, the PRINT reviewers do NOT have that luxury. Even when some KNOW that they don't have this luxury, they still blow the review and fill it with garbage. [ 02-28-2002, 21:00: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanethian Posted March 1, 2002 Report Share Posted March 1, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: I don't know about you - or anyone else - but I'm not particularly part of the bandwagon that thinks a gamer is supposed to thank God that the developer supports the game. No, it should NOT be that way. You sell a game. Someone buys it. You are REQUIRED to support it. PERIOD. END OF STORY..No, i don't think a gamer is supposed to thank God for game support. But "support" can be mediocre, or bad, or good, or awesome, or exceptional. I mean that there are many degrees of quality. Yes, a developer is required to support its games. But is a quality support? Gamers wanna know that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supreme Cmdr Posted March 1, 2002 Author Report Share Posted March 1, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Vanethian: No, i don't think a gamer is supposed to thank God for game support. But "support" can be mediocre, or bad, or good, or awesome, or exceptional. I mean that there are many degrees of quality. Yes, a developer is required to support its games. But is a quality support? Gamers wanna know that.Like I said, if the reviewer has space for that, then its up to him to use that space for that. Print reviewers RARELY have the space to do that. And again, if even they did, I'd rather that they spent it on discussing the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urza Posted March 1, 2002 Report Share Posted March 1, 2002 Whoa, off-topic alert! Shame on you SC! Nice review, BTW. I noticed that virtually all the reviews I read mentioned the superb accuracy of scale. Even print reviews with such limited word counts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supreme Cmdr Posted March 1, 2002 Author Report Share Posted March 1, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Urza: Whoa, off-topic alert! Shame on you SC! Not really. We are discussing reviews/reviewers, are we not? quote:Nice review, BTW. I noticed that virtually all the reviews I read mentioned the superb accuracy of scale. Even print reviews with such limited word counts.Its a critical component of the game; so its good that they mention it. Most games do not give you an accurate sense of scale. At all. [ 03-01-2002, 07:54: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanethian Posted March 1, 2002 Report Share Posted March 1, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Urza: Even print reviews with such limited word counts. [ 03-01-2002, 07:39: Message edited by: Vanethian ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jefflackey Posted March 2, 2002 Report Share Posted March 2, 2002 My two cents worth, as someone who writes for print (Computer Gaming World, Computer Games Magazine) and web (Gamespy, Computer Games Online). Why not normally mention support when reviewing a game? First: you normally don't have enough data to write intelligently about the support of a game. In most cases, you're reviewing a game within weeks of release. There's no way to know what the long term support is going to be like. Secondly, as Derek mentioned, when you've got 500 or 700 or even 1000 words, most readers want you to use that space to better describe the game. The other aspect of the question is what do you mean by support? For some people it means fast patches to fix any problems. For others it's having someone hold their hand because they don't know how to turn off the virus program that came preloaded on their Acer and it's interfering with the program running. For others it's releasing free add-ons and feature updates. Just mentioning one isn't going to cover what the others want to know, and if you simply say "Joe's Software gives great support" doesn't really mean a lot. But frankly, the main factors are the fact that you just don't know how a program will be supported at the time of release and readers by and large are a lot more interested in the gameplay. OTOH - sometimes you do mention some specific aspect of support that does relate directly to gameplay. For example, for various reasons Stardock's Brad Wardell had a couple of new and free market/product add-ons available for download at the time the Corporate Machine box hit the shelves, and since that directly impacted the gameplay I mentioned it in the review in CGW. FWIW Jeff Lackey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duncan Idaho Posted March 2, 2002 Report Share Posted March 2, 2002 I'd have to agree with the SC, and Jeff on this one. Seems to me that support should be a given with such a product. Now, if the company is noted for very poor support, that might be worth a mention. Else, it's just a waste of space that could be used to tout features of the game, or somesuch. Idaho Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kush Posted March 2, 2002 Report Share Posted March 2, 2002 Support SHOULD be a given. It's not. At ALL. The SC is being humble, and that's cool, but I have to say, of all the games I play, BCM is the BEST SUPPORTED period. Bar none. Most... no ALL games should be supported as well as BCM. They are not. When we live in a world when all games ARE supported as well as BCM then I agree, it shouldn't be mentioned in a review. Until that day happens, I think it is a good selling point for the game. To be honest, when I read a game review, I've already made up my mind whether or not I'm going to play the game. The most important thing a review tells me is if the game is buggy, and what kind of support I can expect. The reviews for BCM have, and should tell the public that a) the initial release version is VERY stable whatever issues there are in the release version have been dealt with in patches. This hopefully will encourage people to buy the game. There will be no support for Anacronox. Too bad, great game. There will be no support for Sin. Again too bad. There will be no support for the last Ultima. Too bad. Lots of potential. The list goes on and on. BCM is not on that list, and from what I can tell, it won't EVER be. You can be humble all you want SC! You support BCM the way ALL developers should support their software. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Eversole Posted March 2, 2002 Report Share Posted March 2, 2002 Well said Kush, Well said. I can see valid points on both sides of this conversation. I've been gaming in some form or fashion for over 21 years now. In that time I've seen many games that had the potential to be great, simply disappear due to lack of support and development. Others,on the verge of decline,were revitalized by those same elements. I can still remember gamers standing around the bookstore sayin' "HOLY SHIT!!!" when the first "Forgotten Realms" stuff hit the market. I still, am a little awed that the box game I bought back in the 80' called "Battletech" evolved into the massive Battletech universe that exists today, spawning role-playing games,novels, and computer games. In this day of games being developed and then cast aside, I think it is important to the serious gamers to have a game that has a history of continuity. I don't have the time to waste playing a game, that I might fall in love with, with which it is a probability that support will fade and vanish or that it will not evolve. So, while I think that for many of us out here, that type of information is very important. I also realize that those reviews are also targeted towards the more casual gamers and are handicapped by word count. [ 03-02-2002, 01:15: Message edited by: Stormshadow ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Epsilon 5 Posted March 2, 2002 Report Share Posted March 2, 2002 quote:I still, am a little awed that the box game I bought back in the 80' called "Battletech" evolved into the massive Battletech universe that exists today, spawning role-playing games,novels, and computer games.Hehe, in the mw2 manual (I think) it was written that the battletech story was created, because the original game didn't had any, it was a game without atmosphere. Hehe. And I just happen to love the battletech story I don't friggin' care about the technological oddities Shame, mw2 : mercenaries has an end.. I mean... it should have been done so you have contracts.. and more contracts and more and more... until your are dead bored of the game I found the game wayy too short It was cool that you could have employees... until the TWO I had became lost in space in that contract where you have to defend that icesteroid... loosing a fully upgraded jenner and a fully upgraded stalker... a 25 millions credits loss... At least I never lost my Atlas Oops, I'm off-topic couldn't resist [ 03-02-2002, 03:20: Message edited by: Epsilon 5 ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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