YakYak

I just got my subscription copy in the mail, ripped open the wrapper – scanned to page 74!



Least we forget the OXM review score structure of 0.00 – 2.5 range.

Oh wow, this is gonna get nasty.

Calling it "rubbish" is harsh, but that isn't a 'bad' review, really. He and his friends evidently played it a lot and came to the conclusion that for them and on their setup they found it difficult to make out what was happening.

Have to admit that doesn't make good reading as, like it or not and agree with it or not, he at least makes some attempt at justifying his reasons for giving it a low mark. And he does indicate that he isn't the only one that played it which would suggest he did get a second opinion.

Put it down as one of the odd scores that something as left-field as SG could always generate and wait for the other, no doubt better, scores to come in. However frustrating it might be it's done and really not worth stressing over.

It's just lies to cover his incompetence, is all. It plainly *is* possible to determine what's going on, as evidenced by the good scores of other players. Learning to see what's happening is part of the game. The guy played it like an idiot, completely missed the point, and just fell back on "wahh wahh it's only Tempest and I can't see what's going on" which is pisspoor and lazy.

"Senior editor"? Senile, maybe. Lazy, useless reviewing.

1/10.

Playing the game made them angry? They must be doing it wrong.

Seems like a strange thing to say... {shrugs} Each to their own, eh.

I'm colour blind and it was no problem to me when I first played a few months back.

From the Llamasoft site:

"Suggest" doesn't mean it's true, though. I suspect it's more a case of the "royal we" in this case where he's just trying to make himself look more credible through invoking OXM as a compound entity rather than individual shit gamer that he actually is.

And "failed game"? They've reviewed it before it's even out, how can they call it "failed" anything?

I've seen loads of people play SG by now and most of them have loved it. I've *never* seen anyone score so spectacularly badly as "OXM Dan" on the Partnernet leaderboards.

I know that SG simply won't be liked by some people; the way in which it works to put players in the zone is a kind of insistant synaesthesia, something with which the player has to willingly collude. For those people who enjoy that, SG will be the best thing they've ever played. For those who hate that kind of thing then I guess they'll moan and whinge about how they can't see anything and, well, boo-hoo, sucks to be you, but hey, that's what downloadable demos are for.

Doesn't make SG a "failed" anything. Doesn't make it bad at what it does - it does that very well indeed, as you can see from Sickers' review and the opinions of those who "get it".

The fact that someone calling himself the "senior editor" of *anything* can't understand that, and tries to claim that somehow SG is intrinsically bad rather than just something that he personally doesn't like, is simply shameful, and if I thought he might be a shitcock before, I *know* he's a shitcock now, and a hugely incompetent one to boot.

Anyway, the game will speak for itself. There will be people who really enjoy it a lot, and there will be people who don't care for it, and like I said, that's what demo downloads are for.

This is my personal view.

That review is not nice because is smells to me like they've tried to use a small independant and, amongst the big budget titles coming up, probably insignificant title to squeeze some "editorial or journalism" in through their reviews pages.

The reviewer is basically taking issue with Jeff's "Space Giraffe isn't Tempest" statements and coming back with "Oh yes it is" and then using that as a hook for half his copy in the review.

The other half of the review is probably fair, if cruel in that he's saying he couldn't get on with the visuals and presentation style, there are always going to be people who prefer the cleaner style of T2K to the more anarchic presentation of T3K (forget gameplay). He backs up his claims by intimating that other people had a similar views. I still think it's incredibly cruel to print what he did and give it the low score because it's obvious o anybody who has been following SGs development that Jeff usually knows what he doing, and some people really really love SG.

On balance I think they've used the fact that they are going to be one of the first, they actualy managed to be the first, magaznes to get a review of it out there to make some milage and stir up some controversy. After all you'd be hard to say it's "Totally Broken" and nobody should buy it.

I so hope the guy gets proved wrong by a stream of favourable reviews.

It's going to be tough for Jeff and Giles to thicken their hides and simply take it, but for now I'm afraid it's out there and I'm not sure how you'd come across if you start a vendetta against the review.

As for the guy harping on the "this is not Tempest" thing in the instructions - obviously that was the *only* thing he read in the instructions because if he'd actually understood the explanation of *why* it isn't played like Tempest then (a) his score would have been better and (b) he might have got at least *one* achievement, the very one which the next page of instructions from the one he quotes actually gives straightforward, step-by-step instructions as to how to get it. On level 2. It takes about 30 seconds. But despite it being given to him on a plate he never even managed *that*.

*If* he'd played it like SG and not like Tempest he might have started to get a clue, but his own recorded performance shows that he didn't. I'll accept his taking issue with what it says in the How To Play part of the documentation when i see one scrap of evidence that he read anything other than the first sentence and simply decided to kick up shit about it without *actually* understanding what was being said.

Well well .. so that's the (in)famous OXM review.

What to say ?

Well one thing AT LEAST certainly can be said "It can't be so UNplayable"
because there are at least 50 people on 500 that made up a quite
resonable good score at SG.

Mind you at position 11 ( quite good ) we have "GiraffeRV2007" so the
guys at Retrovision with a score of 67,596,637 at level 38

We can compare this with ***(him)*** at level 31 in position 51 with 6,795,971

Guys at RV were NOT "professional gamers" or "professional testers" nor "Retrologists" but
"a group of blokes loving games and a nice evening at the pub".

We did instruct them nor told them more than what anyone else could
have know because we really wanted to see "how one that never tried SG before can do at it".

That it's "a super easy game" this NEVER been said about SG, yet if you
really want you can still play it "easy" but not getting big scores.

There are some people I don't have a fucking clue about who they are
that managed to arrive around 50 mil at level 32 other around 40 mil at
level 22 ( that's very good) so to me that proves "it's possible for sure"
so I can't see how one could say "it's unplayable".

Space Giraffe been *EXTENSIVELY* and I mean EXTENSIVELY tested
to be sure EVERY single level can be completed and is "fair".

Not easy sure, but the level curve is well balanced.

It's a game that certainly makes one swear for a while but it's also the
game that really makes you think "damn I MUST have another go, this
time I'll do it".

Some levels took me about 6 ..7 times before to pass them .. I think the
hardest one took me about 12 go but it also depends a bit "how you are that day", anyway, it's really all doable.

I would say even a quite UNskilled player can pass the first 10 levels
with not much difficulties and in doing that you'll get the idea about what goes on.

Besides with level 31 he still missed quite some "more lot of stuff" that
has to come .. if he tought that was difficult he yet has to see the rest of it

The "best evidence" is that despite what anyone could say we know and
we saw quite a number of people enjoying this game very much.

So the moral of the story is "certainly not a game for everyone taste BUT
certainly NOT an unplayable game".

And YES, OF COURSE "that graphic is BY DESIGN" and to be really honest
I could say "some levels could have been even more psychedelic BUT that
really would have been 'for too much hardcore players only ' ".

Final words : well .. considering someone claims to be "a professionist"
about judging games he should have asked himself by watching the LBs
about "how come there are people with scores lot higer than mine ? I
am missing something here .. ".

But anyway ? Who the fuck cares ? The game is playable, is doable and
is fun, for those who likes it

Ok I had to do it because "I can't believe it" ..

The following snapshot is a SG game I played now in the demo game
while I was chatting on IRC with some people, I wanted to have a go
to see ( again ) "how much it takes to make the score of that reviwer"
that he obtained at level 31 ..

I started the game, played about 15 mins and arrived .. at LEVEL 6
with :

- two extra life won
- one achievement got
- no headache or anger

And you can see my score is already bigger than his, I could continue
more but I think that "proves the point" you *CAN* do it



But even more than *ME* is *YOU* that *CAN* do it, really

Aaaah those experts .. what kind of games do they play just to know ?

FIFA $CURRENT_YEAR

That review, along with Space Giraffe and a link to another review, are featured here as well, although they seem to take a bit of a more neutral stance between the bad and the good review.