NWN2 - 1 Up 'Review' Pulled & Recanted @ 1 Up

Kalia

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1 Up posted a review yesterday scoring NWN 2 a paltry 5/10. After an internal meeting with magazine and online review editors, it was decided to pull the review and recant the score:<blockquote> We have made a mistake.
The 1UP Network review of Neverwinter Nights 2, authored by Matt Peckham, has been officially retracted from 1UP.com and will not appear in the January issue of Games For Windows: The Official Magazine.
Upon further review of the author's text, listening to the feedback from our community and others, and after internal discussion between the 1UP and GFW editors, we have determined that the text of the review did not live up to our editorial standards. We respect the opinions of Mr. Peckham and all of our writers, but we felt that this particular review of Neverwinter Nights 2 did a disservice to fans of the RPG genre.
We have commissioned a new review by a different author to be published next week on 1UP.com, and in the January issue of Games For Windows.
We truly regret our error, and apologize to you, our readers.

Andrew Pfister
Reviews Editor, 1UP.com</blockquote>
More information.
 
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I guess someone forgot to tell the original reviewer who pays the bills!! Long live Freedom of the Press!! We can't have censorship, can we!!

Not having read the review, I can't comment on it; it's the principle involved that bothers me. I might disagree with what you say, but as someone else once said, I'll defend to the death your right to say it!!
 
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Evidently he is fresh from having trashed HoMM5, which, whatever its problems, hardly deserved the low score he gave it. It may be, as he laments, that we live in an age of grade inflation, but he alone is hardly going to hold the line.

And the fact that he posted his review of HoMM5 without even knowing that one could scroll the map in the tactical battle phase is more than a glaring error - I just don't see how one could miss something that obvious ....
 
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free speech is one thing.. but passing off emotional outbursts as "game reviews" is another

at best, its a meaningless rant... and theres plenty of space in the B L O G O S P H E R E for that bullshit
 
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Here's the review as originally written. It was (luckily) posted on the official forums:

Quote: By Matt Peckham
This review appears in the January issue of Games For Windows: The Official Magazine.

----

As everything-the-original-did -- and more -- follow-ups go, Neverwinter Nights 2 deserves a banner&something like "mission accomplished." Think the sequel to Jurassic Park, where Spielberg's all "You want more dinosaurs? I'll show you more dinosaurs..." As a contemporary CRPG, on the other hand, NWN2 leaves a lot to be desired, and that's too bad, because these are the guys who brought us Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale 2...and therefore they are the guys I'm least inclined to take issue with.

But issues exist, and defining them is really no more complex than saying, "Hello D&D superchrome, buh-bye storytelling and character development (you know, those things you're supposed to "immerse" yourself in)." The idea seems to be that we're meant to rah-rah about a superabundance of feats, spells, races, prestige (advanced) classes, and math-equation tickers full of the usual "I attack you with a +4 sword of --" booooooring. Fine, sure, dandy...but when is a "role" not a "role"? Simple: when it's a rule to a fault.

Edited by Dhruin pending an internal discussion of the copyright of the article.
 
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Yeah, I can see that this is a bad review... he didn't review the game subjectivly but he just pulled it down because he doesn't like D&D rules.

This is like giving a shooter a bad score.... because you don't like shooting in real-time you want something new... a turn-based shooter instead! IMHO, and his review doesn't really say much about the game! Really horrible review.

Don't know about the score since I didn't try this game yet...


Well, I think someone is looking for a new job :D
 
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dude is a bonehead.. this game has one of the most complex worlds ever in terms of how NPCs react to you and how events unfold according to what actions you take.. although it is clearly modular design based, tiled system, decorative buildings (that you cant enter) and so on and so forth... but the game is just a showcase for the mod tools - thats the REAL point

what a dumbass.. go back to subway dude
 
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He reminds me of the old Scorpia reviews of the 80's. She seemed so jaded that she found fault in just about every facet of games by the end. Though in defense of Scorpia, she built her reputation up for a long time before she started to lose it. This guy is a no name.
 
Well, 1Up is apparently trying to break the shackles of the '7-9 scale', as witnessed first by their 4/10 Dark Messiah review and now this. In the 7-9 scale, 7.5 is average ... but in the 1-10, 5 is average.

I don't care about the scoring, and think that if they just said 'meh' and re-scored it as a 7.5 or so then we'd never have heard.
 
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I pulled up a chair and read that thread and the official retraction; it was great entertainment. But I wonder if the mistake instilled the slightest real shred of humility in anyone involved.

The amazing thing at Qt3 is the amount of high profile writers, developers and editors who are there ... there were at least a dozen in that thread alone.
 
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It's funny how much I feel like defending NWN2 and I haven't even played it! I guess I just want a newly released rpg to be a fun experience so badly that I don't want to see a review that's less than 9. I think it's just the frustration of playing so many games with promise but that failed to deliver. What I really want is dialogue and I want choice. I don't want to be an inactive participant in the story (e.g. Final Fantasy -- which, while it has its good points, the ones I've played have no real dialogue choices) and I don't want another hackfest (Titan's Quest). Sigh....which brings me to my conclusion -- I hope Fallout 3 is deeper than Oblivion :p
 
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Why did they even bother to put that in first place? Glittering showcase of internet gaming journalism at best.
 
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This also shows a flaw in sites like gamerankings and gametab (a personal favorite), which average site scores on the 1-10 scale. Blindly pulling scores from individual scales and assuming they mean the same thing in each place is a very broken way to create an average. On GameTab right now, NWN2 has a 75% based on 3 reviews, one of which is the pulled 1up review. GameTab even lists the retractions in their news, but hasn't retracted it from their own scoring system. I would think you'd need to do something similar to rottentomatoes.com where they distill each review down to a positive or negative and then put it on a scale before you have a credible consensus among game sites.

As for people trashing a game for not being an entirely different type of game, I think this happens way too often in even more subtle forms. I've seen this happen with RPGs a lot whenever something new is tried. Many devolutions into "What is a real RPG" could easily fall into a debate on personal preference.
 
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Well I guess I owe everyone an appoligy since I actually kinda of agree with him, not on everything as I couldn't give a score since I have only completed the first Town/Tutorial.
I didn't read the whole thread of the link posted here, just the first post, don't have time atm.
This is just a gereral obersvation at this point since I don't have time to get all the info.

The reviewer specificly mentions as an example the interaction of NPCs and how they seem to just stand around waiting for you to come up so they can be your signpost, ala Morrowind, he even seems to knock/blame Oblivion.
Just a couple days ago I posted on this site in a NWN2 thread how I was disappointed after just playing G3 caring about the story and the NPCs, to NWN 2 which I didn't.
I clearly see him attacking the mundane attiude of most RPG Devs, about inane NPCs, though sadly while I see it and feel it others don't seem to. :(

So often we sit here talking about how great PB's AI is compared to things like Elder Scrolls and honestly most other RPGs, yet when someone bases a review on the foundations we all constantly speak of high praise, everyone turns on the reviewer as he attempts to standup for what we/he beiieves?

Afaik, the 5/10 is proabaly too low, was he trying to take a stand, to stand out for Imersive RPGs by trashing strict by the rules and paint by numbers RPGs, at this point I think so.
As txa1265 mentions, if he would have given it a 7.5 everyone proabably would have blown it off.

As for HoMM5 I really can't comment cause I haven't played it since I am not a big stratigy fan, I can tell you after playing G3 for many hours and have tried to offer info about the game as much as I need help with it I miss things all the time. ;)
After all these hours I still didn't know how to find actual Documents, Recipes and Letters till I was told in the Spoiler section.
There are very small (maybe due to my resolution?) Icons at the Top of the Documents menu which link to each catagory and I know for a fact many people if not everyone can play an extensivly complex game and miss things that seem second nature to someone else.
It goes both ways because games are complex at least RPGs in genreal tend to be, which is one of the reasons they are in the minority of games sales.
Since people have different playing styles noone really views plays these games the same way.

In the short I think he was saying, he doesn't like it when a Dev gives you a paint by numbers and linear game, then adds in a bunch of stats/rules and calls it a great RPG, NWN 2 maybe great but I sure didn't personally feel it at the start as I did with other great RPGs like Gothic and Bloodines.

Carry on. :)
 
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Well it does hurt a site to pull a review. Reading the text off the review it shouldn't been posted at all. I am not sure if i will agree with the sentiment of the post or if I will change my view of the game. But i am all for using the spectra of the points when reviewing. 5/10 its in my point of view a normal game, but the standards at it is now, its far more in the 7 or 8.

If he could have pulled a better text to the number i would have been glad. Reading the text seeing the score even 5/10 was to high.

As of NPCs just standing there doing nothing. I HATE a game where i have to hunt for a NPC just to "do" the mission. (Oblivion and my first mission in the bookstore comes to mind). I like signpost NPCs. I think all games should get higher grades if they just NPCs as sign post.

yeah,
I like NPCS signposts! :)
 
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I have to say I agree with the decision of pulling the review. A meaningful review has to (1) figure out what goals the thing being reviewed is trying to accomplish, (2) evaluate how well the thing accomplishes these goals, and (3) comment on whether the goals were worth trying to accomplish in the first place. The first two are at least somewhat "objective" criteria, and the third is heavily based on the reviewer's personal preferences; often the most interesting part of the review, but also the one to be taken with the biggest grain of salt.

This reviewer only does (3). That doesn't constitute a review; it constitutes a rant. Moreover, he doesn't even appear to do justice to the game within the context of that opinion. If I was the chief editor, I would've had this published as an opinion piece, but not a review.
 
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What are we coming to! - - "Authors and Reviewers for hire" - - choose your own style and flavour! - In recent times i read reviews with even more caution.

There should be an official body of certified reviewers, a review board, a round table of wise just men, an almost impossible reality.
 
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