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Driv3r Reviews. Were PSM2 & XBW honest? (Part II)
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Eighthours
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cal wrote:
This is totally on-topic - read it through and you'll see why.

Latest UK Sales Charts - Week Ending June 19

The UK has a new number one this week, but not thanks to any of the new entries that have appeared in the sales chart. Instead Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow has seen sales increase by 34% - enough to knock Harry Potter from the top slot.

The highest new entry is Shrek 2 at number five, which is fairly low for such a big license but likely to be boosted by the film’s imminent release in UK cinemas. DRIV3R shouldn’t be out yet, but after numerous stores ignored the game’s official release date of this Friday it nevertheless managed to make it to number six.

Atari are unlikely to be happy at this turn of events though as the game has been getting extremely negative reviews in the press and poor world of mouth from anyone buying the game before Friday could severely impact on the game’s success.


From: http://www.gamasutra.com/


It's going to be Number 1 for weeks, despite all this. I'd be willing to put a large amount of money on that. Just look at the piles of sh*t the movie industry manages to get hundreds of millions from, just by pulling out all the stops with marketing.
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cal wrote:
Atari are unlikely to be happy at this turn of events though as the game has been getting extremely negative reviews in the press and poor world of mouth from anyone buying the game before Friday could severely impact on the game’s success.

I don't mean to be rude ( Wink ) but the bastards deserve it.

And it may still reach number one but to break even they need to sell 4 mill. Number ene doesn't mean everything.
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

KKLEIN wrote:
And I thought Nell (McAndrew...sorry) was going to come back on here today to give his 'hands on' opinion on the game?


True, but I might not if I was him, having read the flaming that followed his initial post. He also could be busy, he might have been told not to post on here about this subject anymore (remember Steve got warned by Will last night)........the possibilities are endless.
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

KKLEIN wrote:
Cal wrote:
Atari are unlikely to be happy at this turn of events though as the game has been getting extremely negative reviews in the press and poor world of mouth from anyone buying the game before Friday could severely impact on the game’s success.

I don't mean to be rude ( Wink ) but the bastards deserve it.

And it may still reach number one but to break even they need to sell 4 mill. Number ene doesn't mean everything.


Just a small point KKlein, but have you played it yet seeing as you say you're waiting for the game to turn up in your signature file? Confused
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote


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Johnny STOP F8*Kin replying sh*t in my topics.

GOD Cant I have ONE topic which Johhny Bosanova,GamesMan or others Dont f**k up
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is that going to be DLC? Very Happy

By the way, I'm sure that an "uber-fix" would be possible over DLC if Reflections wanted to regain some pride.
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I tried to post this earlier, but I'm getting connection problems...

I know that quite a few magazines' writers have a three week deadline to finish their articles, but I haven't a clue about the publishing and distribution side of things. That means XBM knew perfectly well their review copy was the one that would get published, bugs included, their deadline so close to the release date of the game. They, as so-caled experienced journalists should know that Reflections would never have enough time to iron out even the tiniest of the major bugs, glitches and flaws in the game between the arrival of the review copy at their office and the release of the game proper.
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

GwiDan wrote:
They, as so-caled experienced journalists should know that Reflections would never have enough time to iron out even the tiniest of the major bugs, glitches and flaws in the game between the arrival of the review copy at their office and the release of the game proper.


Very Happy And it's one of the self-perpetuating myths of the gaming press that any game developer 'sorts out the bugs' before release. It doesn't happen (DE:IW was a complete disaster on PC, so bug-ridden it is quite literally unplayable on my perfectly capable Alienware).

If developers genuinely sorted out the bugs they'd have to add on another 3/6 months of tweaking time. Unfortunately shareholder pressure and the tax year don't allow such 'luxuries'. So the gamer comes off worst (unless you work for Core).
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cal wrote:
So the gamer comes off worst (unless you work for Core).


Bullshit! I don't remember them selling their musem's worth of Ferraris, do you? Smile
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

nellis wrote:
Well then. Our review score for Driv3r seems to have created quite a stir and with half of you baying for blood and demanding a response from XBW, I thought I'd brave the forums. Ulp.

First off I'd like to totally refute the suggestion that magazines, and specifically XBW, take bribes - monetary or otherwise - to inflate review scores. Sure we might get the odd T-shirt sent to us or a pint bought by a PR but never, in 4 years of working at Future, have I ever given a game an inflated score because a/ I've been ordered to or b/ I've been thrown a bung. Sure I've over marked games - 9/10 for MOH: Rising Sun in OPS2 I will freely admit was a grave error of judgement but an honest mistake. But that's another story entirely.

Further to this, the allegation that there is some grand conspiracy between ourselves and Atari - 'you give it a nine, we'll lob a sticker on the box and a page in the manual' - is again wrong. The sticker was agreed on only after the review had been written and sent to press.

So to Driv3r. It's a great game and we stand by the review. Our staffie played it to completion and loved it, as did the man who wrote our tips guide. However, with regard to the technical issues raised on this forum then you may have a point. Because of the long lead times for magazines and the fact that it was an exclusive review, the code we reviewed from was not final. We were made aware of some bugs in the game and were promised that these would be sorted by the time of release. I cannot comment on whether these were fixed or not but I have an unopened boxed copy of the game on my desk and will endeavour to check it out this evening - there's been too much footie on for serious gaming sessions at home! If it transpires that what was supposedly going to be fixed wasn't, then we will speak to Atari. But like I say, can't comment on that yet. That said, the old PS1 games were greeted with rapturous applause and they were pretty ropy technically in places - slowdown and pop-up aplenty - but had the killer gameplay that we believe has carried over to the latest Driver incarnation.

So with this in mind perhaps a 9 was a little too enthusiastic. Perhaps. But for gamescentral to score it a 3 is just plain rubbish. A 3, or even a 6, would suggest that the game is fundamentally broken and the gameplay offers little if anything in the way of enjoyment. This is simply not true, far from it. If we were to review from the boxed copy and found that all the technical issues had not been resolved then I believe we still would have scored it an 8 or 9 but again, this is pure conjecture and I'll comment when I've played it.

At the end of the day, Bob, much of this is surely down to personal opinion and taste. Can I point you in the direction of OXM's Shadow Ops review in their current issue? This is in no way a personal attack on Gavin Ogden (we'll leave the petty bitching to Xbox Gamer) but 8/10 is, in our opinion, a very very high score for the game. We've only just gone to print with our review so I wont give out our score but I only mention this to illustrate that games, like most things in life, are so often down to the reviewer's/gamer's taste. An another example - I'm currently having a heated discussion with the boss about Leilani and whether she's hot to trot or not. She is, he's entirely wrong, I am entirely right.

Right, I'll stop rambling on now. Hope this goes someway to answering your points. I await responses with extreme trepidation...

Please note this post is speaking for XBW and not PSM2.

Nick Ellis
Deputy editor, XBW


Just goes to show, gaming journalist are no different from the regular kind, full of **it.
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Can I just, at this point, reiterate the reason why I was soooo suspicious about PSM2's review from the outset. It was this outrageous headline on the cover....

"Driv3r review....ten crime drenched pages on The Game of the Year"

Now in anyone's terms, in anyone's language, in anyone's opinion, THAT STATEMENT IS BOLLOCKS.

Unless.......hang on a minute...the score was a crime....the review was a crime.....they were indeed ten crime drenched pages. Was the PSM2 headline writer having a sly dig?? Was that knowing humour?? Whaddyathink??
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

To rokhed00:
Forgive me whilst I stay stunned at your impeccable critical analysis of an arugement. Good to see valid points being raised. Rolling Eyes
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 5:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Eighthours wrote:
Was the PSM2 headline writer having a sly dig?? Was that knowing humour?? Whaddyathink??


From what I've read on various forums today, subtle piss-takes are one of the most popular ways a journalist uses to get back at the publisher for predefining review scores, so I wouldn't be taken aback if you're right.
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 5:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bomberman wrote:
Just a small point KKlein, but have you played it yet seeing as you say you're waiting for the game to turn up in your signature file? Confused

Yes. I'm just waiting for my copy so I can see how bad it is 'fully'. But yes, I have played it.
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 5:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

KKLEIN wrote:
mrclam wrote:
With regards to mario kart DD.. I'll say it again.. and stick up for merian (soz, if i spelt that wrong).A review is an opinion, and opinion can never be wrong as it's not factual.
.. In other words.. I hate metroid prime, although most people disagree with me.. I would give it 4 out of 10.. Im not wrong in saying this, this is my personal thoughts. To get the most out of a review, you read the words and dont just look at the score.. If you read my whole page review and felt you could live with the things i've slated then you could disagree with my final score and go out and buy it..Now I have less a problem with magazines giving low scores when they deserve more than vice versa.. as if it happens the other way around i end up buying a game i dont like.But this ISNT the reviewers fault.Just because one magazine gives a game 1/10 and another 9/10 doesnt mean one is wrong and the other is right.. its.. an.. op..in..i..on...

That's not the point. If XBW & PSM2 enjoyed it fair enough, but both magazines didn't tell us about any of the faults, both magazines made the game seem almost faultless. The only thing PSM2 said was, & I quote:
Quote:
Minor pop-up, robotic pedestrians, the odd clipped animation frame - but that's the price of ambition

&:
Quote:
Tanner can escape the confines of his clunker & scurry around outside. Unfortunately, this is the weakest part of the game, BUT it is completely competent. Let's not get carried away, the on foot sections work. They're all there.

Reading that I wouldn't of had a clue. That is all they said. Reading that the game does actually sound like an 8 or a 9/10 game. We of course, along with lots of other people that paid £45 for the game, know different.


No, we have a difference of opinion. What they said is totally truthful, not a lie.
If they didn't mention any other 'faults' it's because they didn't think it had any others. It falls quite happily into that 'subjective trap' again, you see.
"The framerate is bad, the pop-up is bad, the on-foot controls are bad" - are these facts? Are these factual faults that have been ignored? No, they are a matter of opinion.
For the record, I don't consider the framerate or the pop-up to be a problem in Driv3r (PS2 version, by the way), so by that reasoning, I could happily say that aren't that many technical faults with the game, or at least not that many that make a blind bit of difference to the gameplay. I'm not ommiting anything, I just have different standards.
Driver 1 had loads of pop-up, occasional slow-down, glitches, bugs (most of them were more 'funny' than anything else) and so forth, and yet that gets widely praised (and rightly so, I might add - see my Driver 'Retroview' on Gamestyle for a drive down memory lane...)!

It's well within anyone's rights to score Driv3r a 9 out of 10 if they want to, if they believe, in their opinion, it is worth such a score; though personally, I don't (my issues with the game stem from rather infuriating design decisions and over-harshness).

However, this isn't the point. If someone wants to score it a 9/10, then fine. I think the issue here is that someone didn't want to score it a 9/10, but had to anyway, and that they didn't actually review the finished game either. The latter has already been proven. How long 'til they admit to the former, eh? Wink


GamesMan wrote:
http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/9467/driv3r.jpg

Laughing That's great!



BTW, my review of Driver 3 will be appearing on Gamestyle shortly. And for the record, I think 3/10 is slightly too harsh. Razz
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