The Witcher - Review @ The Escapist

Good honest review.

Originally Posted by Unregistered
Good honest review.

You got the honest part right.

I decided to jump on the 'ban' wagon and throw in my two cents on that thread at the escapist. I'm sure I will be banned shortly as well, hee hee!.. Those silly people..

Originally Posted by Corwin
M$

Wait.

WAIT A SECOND.

Do you mean to imply that Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) only exists to create profit for its shareholders?

Thank you, comrade! Another bourgeois running-dog plot unmasked!

I've been reading over and over again about the crappy translation of WItcher. I agree the translation is not the best in the world but did any of these reviewers play Prince of Qin or Metalheart. Those were crappy translations and the actors in Prince of Qin overacted so much that it was hilarious. I almost wet myself when I heard "We'll see how hard your tongue is!" THAT is a crappy and hilarious translation.

Overall I understand what's going on in Witcher and they mostly use correct English grammar but there are a few times where the crappy translation really shines. Like in Act two, I sometimes didn't understand what was being said during the investigation. Those are only a few times though.

Originally Posted by Brother None
EA would probably buy it.

EA would buy anything, funny how Take Two told 'em to sod off.

Yeah, but EA haven't made a decent RPG since………………… er, I'll get back to you on that!!!!

Originally Posted by abbaon
Wait.

WAIT A SECOND.

Do you mean to imply that Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) only exists to create profit for its shareholders?

Thank you, comrade! Another bourgeois running-dog plot unmasked!

No … M$ is more about the fact that the company has a long history of non-innovative co-opting of other people's work, non-competitive bullying and other barely-legal means of gaining market dominance and then enforcing it by leveraging price and dominance of other markets, of bullying customers and partners, and forcing companies out of business through market practices that are none to nice … even by business standards.

I can only say one thing - if you are reviewer, your damn responisbility is to play game (more than 10 hours ) even if you hate it, it's your work.

Originally Posted by txa1265
No … M$ is more about the fact that the company has a long history of interjecting tedious recitations of corporate history into light-hearted exchanges of jest.

Context. You may want to find another forum niche, Mike. The site already has a Mistress of the Obvious.

Originally Posted by abbaon
Context. You may want to find another forum niche, Mike. The site already has a Mistress of the Obvious.

Sadly, I have had exchanges on other forums with folks defending MS business practices.

Yay for me! I got banned from the site too! Here was my post:

I completely agree with theorb and Brother None, who has been banned. I frequent another site in which Brother None makes very insightful and sensible posts. There was absolutley no reason to ban him from this discussion. That shows a completely hypocritical application of policies installed by the moderators - first ask for peoples' opinions on something and then ban them when they differ from yours.

This "review" was nothing in the sense of the word. It was extremely biased, as reflected by the attacks on issues that are prevelent in nearly every 3D game (e.g. clipping issues with blades of grass and such).

It was also clear that the reviewer does not have a clue as to why the game portrays characters the way it does… Medieval times WERE sexist, and portraying women the way it does is simply staying true to the times, fantasy world or not. I find it unprofessional for the reviewer to draw attention to this aspect without also mentioning the negative light the MEN of the game are cast in as well. As for Geralt being sexist, this is also unreasonable, as there are many situations in which he has the opportunity to SAVE women from those sort of characters.

The overall tone of this piece made it seem the reviewer has a personl vendetta against CDProjekt.
This entire affair, the review and even moreso, the way forum members are handled by the moderators, is completely unprofessional.

…Now, was that really so bad??

BTW that entire thread has now been locked because of so many people agreeing with what has been mentioned here and above.

You tried to discuss a ban, you're not supposed to discuss moderator action there.

But yeah, they're basically just done discussing. Letters to the Editor are then the last resort.

Oh… well, I didn't take the time to read up on their policies because I didn't care anyway. Still, surely the other editors and mods of the site must recognize something is fundemantally wrong with a review when it sparks such heated discussion that they have to close the thread?

No, they don't. They're immune to criticism. Their Fallout 3 preview and Fallout: From BIS to Bethesda pieces were also filled with factual inaccuracies and caused a way bigger shitstorm than this review (the Fallout 3 preview had more than 300 comments, almost all negative).

But as Russ Pitts put it "Or perhaps I ignore questions of my journalistic integrity because I'm confident enough in my qualifications and abilities to not need reassurance from the peanut gallery that I'm doing the right thing."

You see, he's better than you, he's better than me, and he doesn't need approval from the "peanut gallery".

One would think public accountability is a journalistic standard, even amongst gaming journalists. But hey, it's the Escapist, they're better than you.

Originally Posted by Brother None
No, they don't. They're immune to criticism. Their Fallout 3 preview and Fallout: From BIS to Bethesda pieces were also filled with factual inaccuracies and caused a way bigger shitstorm than this review (the Fallout 3 preview had more than 300 comments, almost all negative).

But as Russ Pitts put it "Or perhaps I ignore questions of my journalistic integrity because I'm confident enough in my qualifications and abilities to not need reassurance from the peanut gallery that I'm doing the right thing."

You see, he's better than you, he's better than me, and he doesn't need approval from the "peanut gallery".

One would think public accountability is a journalistic standard, even amongst gaming journalists. But hey, it's the Escapist, they're better than you.

When I read that in the thread on their forum (the quote from Russ Pitts) I was blown away by his arrogance.

One thing I've learned from reading this thread, and the one on the Escapist is that I will stay far, far away from that site. They obviously have no journalistic integrity, and if they insist on following their own rules of journalism, and care nothing for their readers… they are not a site for me.

I saw no good reason to ban you BN… I read your posts and you would not have been banned here.

Once again… proof and reason that this (RPG Watch) is the only site that I regularly visit for news and good forum conversation. This site (RPG Watch) is well moderated, filled with thoughtful, intelligent, passionate posters, and reports the news with proper integrity… and the reivews here are as good as any you will read in any professional mag.

We may not always agree here, and things may get heated… but 99% of the time nobody personally assaults anyone for their views… and you never get banned for having a valid view.

Just my 10 pennies…

The Escapist is a business. Controversy is a known tactic to increase traffic. More traffic means more money. Questions about quality and integrity are of secondary importance.

Pride goeth before a fall. We´ll see if that´s still true.

The "review" is based on an unpatched review version from ATARI and it is some weeks old:

Corvus.E at the Codex

Well, here's more fuel for the fire. After considerable run-around in getting a copy of the game to run successfully on my machine (auth code mixups on the promotion company's end), my preview code expired. Atari graciously forwarded me a full copy to review. I wanted to get something to the Escapist in a timely fashion and completed the article within a week.

This was back when the game was just released. If I'd known it wasn't going to press right away, I would have taken more time with the game.

Anyway, the patch wasn't out then. So no, I didn't run it with the patch.

Whether to review a patched (and them which patch?) or unpatched version of a game is a controversy in and of itself. I think that reviewers should review what is actually released. If the company releases a buggy, incomplete mess they deserve a bad review. Maybe it would get companies to do a little more QA before release.

If later they fix things up a "second look" review could be done.

The Witcher was released with a patch available at release date.

Are you guys for real? What bugs? What patch? The release day patch only fixed minor bugs because there were not any major bugs to fix. The Witcher is the most bug-free and polished game released this year. Just compare it with NWN2, Bioshock, Mass Effect etc. Performance-wise it runs smooth as silk, even in low-end systems. There are only two major problems, loading times and crashing with certain configurations, both of which promised to be addressed in the next patch.

He played for 10 hours? I doubt he played for 10 seconds. In fact, I doubt he even played at all. He says nothing about the actual gameplay, his review might just as well have been an assembly of troll posts he came across surfing the net. Exaggerating the unimportant, making up facts and not talking about anything of essence, that's what this review is. Of course one can make a fair judgment after playing for 10 hours, most journalists do so. But to argue on that basis is giving him more value than he's worth.

Originally Posted by BillSeurer
Whether to review a patched (and them which patch?) or unpatched version of a game is a controversy in and of itself. I think that reviewers should review what is actually released. If the company releases a buggy, incomplete mess they deserve a bad review. Maybe it would get companies to do a little more QA before release.

Arguably, but if the review is released a month after the game's release, it's fairly ridiculous to present the player with an unpatched version, unless you have a grudge against the company. It's simply not relevant anymore to the user, since the game has been patched for weeks.