Yak wrote:Indeed, phasers to ignore please; that stuff is inordinately silly and is blatantly trolling for a response. Best thing is not to give one .
Better to spend time picking up your Achievements and getting ready for the reset day LNLM .
Which would be great, except that I suck inordinately, and my wife keeps telling me I'm spending too much time on Space Giraffe... Oh, and how can you see anything with that mess anyway, and it's giving me a headache, here - fold some laundry or something...
I really do stand by my review. Space Giraffe is unique, which is to be applauded, but hostile to the player, which is not. It took a while to understand the game — really, even after taking the tutorial twice and fiddling with the game for a week, the game simply didn’t give me the feedback I needed to learn how to play it. And once I did get a bead on it, I didn’t like it for all the reasons stated in the magazine. No matter what else is said, that doesn’t change. And several people have come forward in user reviews and forums to disagree, and several others have come forward to agree. It’s a strongly polarizing game.
Hostile to the player? Yeah, I know what he means. Needing to learn and adapt to stuff is hard, and should be expunged from any game ever. Just last night in BioShock I ran across my first Big Daddy with a ranged weapon, completely changing the pattern I used to fight it. Now I thing BioShock is a big stinky poo-pile.
He just didn't get it did he. At least gives Llamasoft the opportunity to put their side of the story across.
For the record, there was a private email exchange between Jeff and OXM. Nothing was really resolved — I tried to respond to his points in my reply, but he didn’t address any of those points in his response. We invited him to be on our (or a neutral) podcast to discuss it, and we invited him to state his case in a special letter in Message Center, but to date, neither invite has been taken, and I don’t really suspect they will be.
Any potential damage of the original review is obviously done but a piece explaining how the game works and why Dan may have struggled surely can't do any harm can it?
He's posted something very similar on the XBOX forums. The core of it being he has a good grasp of the game's mechnics but doesn't like them.
His terrible score of 6m for level 31 belies that and is an important detail he's leaving out. It really isn't possible to score so badly if you've an idea how the game works.
I do think he's done a pretty poor job, his rating of the game is the lowest SG has received and there's obviously stuff in there that other critics have managed to get.
Fair enough, every one has a bad day but recounting the tale and leaving out the metric that clearly indicates he hasn't managed to get to grips with the game all the while claiming he was on top of it is pretty poor form IMHO.
I think it's pretty clear what happened - OXM wasn't exactly awash with cred (see the infamous PA strip on the subject). Dannyboy gets ahold of SG, falls into the WAH don't get it camp. Mistakenly assumes that therefore *everyone* will hate SG, a game that has been much talked about and anticipated and which he (more fool me, never NEVER going to give away early review rights to anyone; nor should any sane developer, and stay the *fuck* clear of giving ANY code to that guy) got to look at early due to me being a fool and too damn trusting.
Goes into attack mode thinking he'll gain cred by being the first on the block to attack SG.
Now looks stupid because hey, not everyone loved SG but a lot of people do, and when they do they *really* do.
So, trying to use an attack on LS to gain cred backfires, he looks like a tool to everyone, and now he's just in damage limitation mode - but whatever, continue-bashing your way to a magnificent score of (what was it? 7 mill and I think I'm being generous, IIRC) by level 31 does betray a complete ignorance of how it works. Even his review states something like "100 levels of crap!" or somesuch when he hasn't even seen a third of them by his own admission, and calls the game "failed art, or failed game" *before* the thing was launched and *before* he has any chance to honestly judge its success or failure for real. Lie after lie after lie.
Horrible, nasty, squirmy dishonest stuff, and now he looks a tit and is just trying to squirm out of it. Ugh.
Yak wrote: calls the game "failed art, or failed game" *before* the thing was launched and *before* he has any chance to honestly judge its success or failure for real.
I agree with most of what you said, but I don't think he meant "failed" in the sense of success or failure in the market. I think he was using it in more of the critical sense that it "fails" at achieving the intended effect.
I think he's horribly wrong, but I don't think it's necessarily a lie. I do think certain elements of the review were done in bad faith, and his maintaining that he understands the game is pretty ridiculous.
Let's not drag this thread down into an over analysis of that review please...
Having finished the game over the weekend, I'd like to thank Llamasoft for producing some the finest bang per buck shooty action I've experienced in a long time.
If you haven't yet tried it, download the demo and judge for yourself. Some will love it, some wont.
Perseverance pays off and the elation that one simple word can bring in the game is great.
"Giraffetastic"
Then "left trigger the fuck off the level" and on to the next.
[Sir_LANs-a-lot]
Meat is murder.
Tasty, tasty murder.
gravy wrote:His terrible score of 6m for level 31 belies that and is an important detail he's leaving out. It really isn't possible to score so badly if you've an idea how the game works.
Indeedy. It's laughable and sad at the same time.
'People will forget that a great game was late, but they'll never forget that a game is bad.' - Shigeru Miyamoto
So, if he's right about having offered multiple avenues to talk about this directly with him (via. email / podcast / letters ) why haven't those opportunities been taken up? If he's right it sounds like any email correspondence didn't get very far and those other offers have been ignored. It seems a bit off for everyone (esp. Jeff/Giles), to be so up in arms when lots of assumptions about his chap, his reviewing style, past experience are based on guesswork, especially when there are multiple avenues for an open, reasonable discussion to take place.
I've tried to stay out of this discussion till now, mostly because it's all a bit too political for me, but it is getting a bit stupid now. This guy has posted a pretty reasonable explanation for the review (including the fact that 3 people agreed with him) and still you guys attack, with phasers set to IGNOREALLREASONANDMAKEUPSHIT.
Fair enough it's a labour of love and it's not nice that that was the first review you saw, but this is completely stupid now. You accept that the game is polarising and this guy isn't on the *love* side. Tough. The damage is done.
(Yes, I know how much it sucks, the last game I worked on sold far, far less than hoped (than it really deserved if you ask me), and reading the 'haterz' posts on forums doesn't make you feel good at all)
Yak, I'll have to agree with Mr. Campbell here, I think you are being incredibly paranoid - no one is out to get you, or tar your reputation by giving you a bad review. From this side of the screen, the only person that seems to be out to make you look bad, is you with 'replies' like the post a few above this one.
Yes. Heat of the moment etc. but this is one of the occasions where you should type things like this out, save it, come back tomorrow, re-read and think before you hit 'submit'.
This post has gone on a bit longer than I planned, but the basic question I wanted to ask (again) is:
Is there a good reason that none of the available avenues for discussion have been taken? That would be genuinely interesting, and hopefully not as childish as the curretn state of affairs is.
Planting a flag in the moon doesn't make it yours, 'makes a hole in the moon. //!
RiK wrote:I find the fact he's apparently managed to get the Great Green Arklesizure achievement, but not the Boi Bumba one.
The tutorial mode explains exactly how to get the Boi Bumba one and it's a pice of piss to do it too so how the fuck has he failed to get it?
I've done this. And I've got to level 40-odd with a top score of only 12M (basically because it quite often doesn't save my level start bonuses, and I'm more interested in getting past levels than getting good scores)
And, you know, I've got a fairly good grasp of what's going on, I think. So it's not like it's impossible?
Maybe the guy just wasn't playing for a high score? Or, you know, maybe I just have some bizarre, sucky playing style, I guess.
Last edited by PurpleChair on Mon Sep 10, 2007 10:53 am 0, edited 1 time in total.
"I don't care if you're Bison or sheep! Saikyo style won't lose!"
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