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Thread: Reviewers: Gave Duke Nukem a bad review? No more games for you!

  1. #61
    ServBot (Level 11) TonyTheTiger's Avatar
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    My own personal take on the "it's good for it's time" argument is that there's some unquantifiable element that people tap into when judging games, or any medium for that matter.

    I don't necessarily think that a game is merely the sum of it's parts. You know that vague and oft-parodied concept of "it"? Why does one game have "it" while another doesn't? Call it some kind of sixth sense for quality, call it some emotional trigger, call it whatever you want. But I think most people have some way of connecting with a piece of entertainment that they need activated in order for them to consider the product anything beyond "decent" or "pretty good."

    Mega Man 9 is one of my favorite games of recent memory. And I'm not naive or blind enough to not acknowledge that there are some meta reasons for that. You could say the same thing for people who really love the Scott Pilgrim stuff.

    I think Duke Nukem Forever was meant to trigger something similar. If it failed to do so then that could mean one of two things. 1) The game didn't do enough to harken back to those early FPS days or 2) Duke Nukem as a product just doesn't have enough behind it to trigger it in general, and was merely a fun relic of the 90s most people are satisfied to leave there but needed a new game to come to that realization.

    I don't know the answer. But I don't think it's as simple as Duke Nukem Forever not being a match for Call of Duty and getting assaulted for it. If it had triggered those unquantifiable things, even being the exact same game it is now, it would not be getting lambasted.
    Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 06-24-2011 at 03:19 PM.

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    Well, I played the demo yesterday. Yes it's a duke nukem game, no it's not worth fasting for 14 years over. Honestly it just reminded me of every other duke game I've played, nothing less/nothing more.

    I'm sure all the hype over it for a decade didn't help when people were making their reviews. To be honest I'll pick it up when it hits $20. And am glad I didn't drop 60 clams on it like some other people, or $100 for the limited collectors edition that they only made 6 million of.

    *me throws in Splatterhouse

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    Kirby (Level 13) Leo_A's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Icarus Moonsight View Post
    I responded to your standards question. What he says doesn't bear to me. What I say does. Obviously, I think you are both mistaken. Time is irrelevant in regard to quality.
    I wasn't really asking a question. It was a rhetorical question in an attempt to make him realize just how odd the thing he was proposing was (That reviewers should rate a game released in 2011 like it was actually 2005, just because of the long gestation period of the game; although I hardly think the fps genre has really changed that much in the past half decade).

    So you're suggesting that time should be irrelevant when it comes to review scores? I couldn't disagree more and I don't think you'd find much support for such a concept. I think it's a near sighted suggestion to even propose such a thing. It might be a fine concept in something like a philosophy class, but this is the real world and not your classroom. People rate games by how they enjoy them. And when something like a new technological advancement or new game concept is a critical component to someone really enjoying a game, it's easy to see why the passage of time can diminish that opinion as people take a concept, advance it, and improve upon it.

    That's why some people actually really enjoyed a poor game like Cybermorph in 1993, and almost no one comes to its defense in 2011 (Beyond a handful of rabid Jaguar fans). It's not because of these corrupted reviewers that you seem to think are fooling us into liking bad games or are making us think a good game is actually subpar, or even because review standards aren't correct somehow. It's because it's value was almost completely based upon it's technology. People were positive about it because it introduced to many people a new way to play a game and had them excited thinking about possibilities in the future as people built upon it. Once the march of technology progressed and made it obsolete, it's value quickly disappeared.

    And I don't see the harm in that at all. That said, I think a great game will always be a great game. There are some games that are so well done that they're timeless. And I think a really good game will always be a good game, even if advancement in the art of gamemaking has somewhat diminished its value.

    That's why I'm a classic gamer.
    Last edited by Leo_A; 06-25-2011 at 12:39 AM.

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    Not should be, is.


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    Kirby (Level 13) Leo_A's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Icarus Moonsight View Post
    Not should be, is.
    And that's nonsense.

    Have your personal standards for quality of writing changed as you've grown older? Or do you still view your own writing exactly the same as you did when you were 5 or 6 and were learning how to write?

    Standards are always in shift. That's life, my friend. They're not static and they never will be. To suggest that not only should they be static, but actually are, is just ignoring reality. People's taste are always changing and game development is always changing. It's an impossibility that how we view games isn't also changing right along with it.
    Last edited by Leo_A; 06-25-2011 at 12:36 AM.

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    Well, then all your arguments could be invalid tomorrow if that's true. Sounds like you don't believe it yourself either.


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    Quote Originally Posted by j_factor View Post
    How on earth would this game have been mind blowing 5 (or more) years ago? Today's standards? I really don't think standards have changed all that much in the last five years. Five years ago, the standards for graphics an AI were a bit lower, but that's about it.

    That's not to say every ounce of negativity is justified; some may be going too far. But it's not as though (many) people are saying "old game sucks 3/10".
    the problem is that we'll never know how much of the final game, was in earlier builds

    for instance (like the guy in the video said) some of the parts like the fuel run - drive - fuel run zone, has been done by Half-Life 2.. but if that was in an earlier build of DNF and that got released it would have been "revolutionary"

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    I knew this game was gonna get trashed in the reviews as soon as it hit retail. In all fairness I actually did rent it just for the hell of it and I'm glad I did. It's a mindless and very dated shooter that's gonna be in the bargain bin by the end of summer.

    As far as game reviews overall these days, like someone mentioned earlier, I read them with caution and if I'm not sure about a particular game I simply rent it first.

  9. #69
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    When reviewing a game it's fair to compare it to other games that are also available. For current games, you can compare it to any game that came before it. If you're reviewing older games years later, it's better to compare it to other games on the same platform or general time period when it was released(as well as any game available before it no matter how old).

    It's like reviewing cars. Lets say it's 1994 and you're reviewing a car, compare it to other cars already available in terms of fuel efficiency, safety features, and overall reliability(aesthetics and comfort obviously count too). 17 years later it's obvious that new cars will be more fuel efficient and have much better safety features, does it mean that cars from 1994 always sucked and people just didn't realize it at the time? I don't think so, but if a car is released today and has the fuel efficiency and safety standards of a car from 1994 then it's fair to say it falls well short. With games though what matters most is how much fun it is to play, compared to cars that's like reliability which is pretty much a constant benchmark that doesn't change much over time(Super Mario Bros is fun like Phoenix Wright). No matter what it's still fair to compare it to what else is currently available.

  10. #70
    Mega Man (Level 19) The 1 2 P's Avatar
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    I finally got to play the demo today. From a shooter standpoint I was very unimpressed. If the demo is an accurate representation of what to expect from the full game then I'll be waiting for it to hit the bargin bins before I pick it up. I know that alot of the stuff Duke does is because thats how the character is suppose to be portrayed but his lame one-liners just don't do it for me. And while I can probably say that this game isn't the worst shooter I've ever played it probably should have remained as vaporware. Or at the very least Gearbox could have took the work that was done and crafted it into another Duke game.
    Last edited by The 1 2 P; 06-26-2011 at 02:11 AM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gameguy View Post
    When reviewing a game it's fair to compare it to other games that are also available. For current games, you can compare it to any game that came before it.
    I am just going to jump in and play devil's advocate a bit to disagree with your argument.

    When you review a car, is your purpose to be "fair" to the car? No, your purpose is to find which of the reviewed models meets your criteria. A car made in the 1930s and one made in the 1980s will reach for those points differently. You might style the Model B better looking than the Taurus, but you will probably give the edge in other areas to the "Robocop"-era Taurus.

    So it is (or, as I like to think, should be) with games or any other thing. Is the purpose to artificially weigh the competition so the crap game gets a free pass? Time is limited, and just like some cars are unsafe at any speed, some games are less worthy of being played than others when you only have so many hours of living to do. (And even if that wasn't the case, you could find other things to do with that time, even if it were just replaying your favorite game.)

    It's obvious (to me at least) that any game can be compared, apples-to-oranges, with any other game. For me the major issues are how successful each game was for its format or in its time, after how fun it is to play. A game that really pushed the boundaries of technology, at a time when the developers had to wait on tape drives or an old debugger or worse to even test it out, and is still a fun game, obviously gets better marks than some new era game that may have more art in it and more code but all done in a sloppy fashion while not being particularly fun. Of course, if those categories aren't so clear-cut then you have to do more thinking, sure, but it's just that - not letting some formula of "old = more free passes" that means you get to avoid the hard thinking.

  12. #72
    Kirby (Level 13) j_factor's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    There are also games that are so unique or innovative when they are released, largely because of technological breakthroughs, that they keep the attention of gamers at the time because of their very innovative or unique nature. Hype might be enough to get someone to buy a game, but it doesn't keep them playing it. I recall getting my Jaguar and being blown away by how amazing Cybermorph was at the time. I played it for days and days. I wasn't reacting to hype or convincing myself it was great. For that time period, it was a great game. It was fun and addictive and let me experience something I hadn't before. Over the years, however, as technology and the skills of development teams have improved, there were many other similar games that improved on Cybermorph in every way. Duke Nukem is like this in many ways. At the time, the humor and uniqueness of some of the gameplay innovations were very addictive to players, including myself. A decade and a half later, however, there are lots of games doing the same exact thing in many, many better ways. As such, Duke Nukem was one of those innovation based games that needed to keep pace with other similar games to be great. It did not, unfortunately, do it with this release.
    I have to agree with Aussie here. Innovation isn't the same thing as actually being a good game. I played Cybermorph when it came out, and I think it was a lot more impressive at the time, but that doesn't mean that it was actually better as a game. Perhaps you didn't see the flaws, but they were always there, and I do clearly remember some people complaining that you can't see very far and the game gets repetitive. (The game was never exactly a sensation after all.)

    Look at Sonic Adventure. The recent release of it (on XBLA) has gotten some pretty mediocre reviews. When it came out it got some pretty glowing reviews. But personally, I disagreed with the glowing reviews, in 1999, pretty much for the same reasons that are outlined in the new reviews. I was arguing about it on message boards 10-11 years ago. Nothing has changed about this game. My opinion of it now is exactly the same as it has always been. People are wrong to say it has "aged badly", and they were wrong to praise it to the extent that they did in the first place.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ed Oscuro View Post
    I am just going to jump in and play devil's advocate a bit to disagree with your argument.

    When you review a car, is your purpose to be "fair" to the car? No, your purpose is to find which of the reviewed models meets your criteria. A car made in the 1930s and one made in the 1980s will reach for those points differently. You might style the Model B better looking than the Taurus, but you will probably give the edge in other areas to the "Robocop"-era Taurus.

    So it is (or, as I like to think, should be) with games or any other thing. Is the purpose to artificially weigh the competition so the crap game gets a free pass? Time is limited, and just like some cars are unsafe at any speed, some games are less worthy of being played than others when you only have so many hours of living to do. (And even if that wasn't the case, you could find other things to do with that time, even if it were just replaying your favorite game.)

    It's obvious (to me at least) that any game can be compared, apples-to-oranges, with any other game. For me the major issues are how successful each game was for its format or in its time, after how fun it is to play. A game that really pushed the boundaries of technology, at a time when the developers had to wait on tape drives or an old debugger or worse to even test it out, and is still a fun game, obviously gets better marks than some new era game that may have more art in it and more code but all done in a sloppy fashion while not being particularly fun. Of course, if those categories aren't so clear-cut then you have to do more thinking, sure, but it's just that - not letting some formula of "old = more free passes" that means you get to avoid the hard thinking.
    I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at, what exactly are you disagreeing with? What you're saying is pretty much the same as what I said, I never meant "old = more free passes" so I'm not sure where you got that from. With reviewing cars, it's pretty obvious that the 1930's one won't be suitable for everyday driving, if someone wants one they'll already be fans of cars from that era and are fine with the extra costs and difficulties with finding replacement parts. If they're set on a car from back then, reviews comparing different cars from that same era might help them decide on which make and model to get.

    I mostly meant that you could compare current games to older ones in terms of originality. If a new game plays pretty much the same as several older games but just looks better, it should be mentioned in reviews. It's great if you want more of the same, but if you've already had your fill then it's nothing ground breaking. If a new game does lots of stuff much better than the older title, that should be mentioned in detail. Explaining why the new game is better and offers something new for people who liked the older game will really be helpful. Like reviewing Arkanoid and comparing it to the original Breakout, it plays like it but adds so much more which makes it worth playing.

    As for reviewing older games, I meant if you're reviewing 20 year old games today then they shouldn't be compared to current ones unless they really have major problems that were corrected in newer games. Kind of giving an example of something that feels wrong in the old game, while giving another example of how those problems were done right in newer games. If someone wants to hear a review about an NES game today then they probably are already fans of that system and want game comparisons to other NES games and other games from that time period, not hear how it sucks compared to a newer X-Box game. I swear I've heard some Youtube review where someone was complaining how some 8 or 16 bit game looked and played like crap compared to Halo or something.

  14. #74
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