Shadowrun Returns - Review Roundup #4

Every one can rate something.
This is a subjective process, because most people have different tastes and preferences.
To be more objective in a rating process, the reviewer have to tell his audience what his tastes and preferences are and how he values them.
If he don't change his preferences over time, his audience gets a pretty good picture of every thing he rates.

Easy!

… and we don't need to discuss this every time when a new review comes in, because this is common sense.

1) Define your ideal game
2) Rate/measure a new game against your ideal game
3) Tell your audience about your ideal game and your rating of the new game

Silent Storm should have been a GREAT game (in total) BUT it was absolutely ruined by the Panzerklein thing. Gah! I still get pissed off about that. Did they have them in SS2?

As for the difficulty of SRR I think it really depends on the kind of character you play. A dedicated decker could have trouble in much of the game because there are only so many places to use those skills. Someone completely dedicated to combat and narrowly focused in just a few skills will eventually run rampant over all the opposition I imagine. I had trouble (normal difficulty) in just a couple of spots and only had to reload once due to everyone dieing but my character wasn't narrowly focused.

HiddenX said:

Every one can rate something.
This is a subjective process, because most people have different tastes and preferences.
To be more objective in a rating process, the reviewer have to tell his audience what his tastes and preferences are and how he values them.
If he don't change his preferences over time, his audience gets a pretty good picture of every thing he rates.

Easy!

… and we don't need to discuss this every time when a new review comes in, because this is common sense.

1) Define your ideal game
2) Rate/measure a new game against your ideal game
3) Tell your audience about your ideal game and your rating of the new game

Click to expand...

That doesn't look so easy to me. In fact it seems quite complicated.

Is there only one ideal game per reviewer?
If so is it possible that there will be elements that would hurt this game but would work really well in others?
If yes would you lower the rating of a game because it has elements that your ideal game doesn't have even though they work well in it - and the oposite: would you lower the rating if a game lacks an element that would obviously hurt it because your ideal game has it?
And if yes, then shouldn't you have several ideal games to be able to handle such situations? Or do you just adapt you idea of an ideal game on the spot whenever necessary overlooking the unavoidable inconsistencies.

And what if you come across something new and unexpected that you like a lot even though it doesn't fit your 'ideal' specifications? Do you change your ideal game on the spot? Wouldn't that be confusing? Or do you reject it for convenience.

.

I really don't understand why it's so hard for people to accept the value of experience and education in developing a good taste and critical ability.

DArtagnan said:

Fair enough - but how about useful?

Click to expand...

Fair enough. I agree that such a review can be useful, if you consider buying a game or not. I seldom use reviews that way, but read them for entertainment and possibly enlightenment. I'm uslually more inclined to seek out reviews after I've played a game and have formed my own opinion already. I find it interesting to learn about how other people perceive the same thing in different ways. That's probably why I find more general and supposedly "objective" assessments boring.

DArtagnan said:

I don't remember you saying that, but if a game doesn't provide challenge - you actually prefer that to a game that provides challenge?

Click to expand...

How much challenge I want from a game varies wildly, depending on other aspects of the game. I have no absolute preference, but as a general rule, the better everything else about the game is, the more challenge I can accept. Also, games can be challenging in very different ways. Challenge has no intrinsic value to me. I played Kingdoms of Amalur, for instance, on the easiest setting, and it was no challenge at all. But I didn't feel that even the slightest challenge would enhance that game for me. On the other hand, I remember playing the original Doom on the hardest difficulty and enjoying it immensely.

holeraw said:

That doesn't look so easy to me. In fact it seems quite complicated.

…

I really don't understand why it's so hard for people to accept the value of experience and education in developing a good taste and critical ability.

Click to expand...

Certainly you have to learn about the objects you want to review.
More knowlegde leads to deeper insight.

But the reviewer of meal can be

a) a customer
b) a cook
c) a chef
d) a restaurant critic

I still want from each reviewer to tell me against what he is measuring.
The ideal meal of the retaurant critic is maybe more refined than the ideal meal of a regular customer, because he has more knowledge and experience.
Nevertheless a customer review can be helpful for me, if the customer tells me his tastes.

***

Some Watchers, Wulf, Arhu and I summed up our preferences of an ideal CRPG in this Definition and a Nice to Have List.

Everyone can see what we expect from a CRPG, and we can measure a given CRPG against these checklists.
GhanBuriGhan already used these Checklists loosly in his
Expeditions: Conquistador Review and it was a very balanced and comprehensive review.

HiddenX said:

I still want from each reviewer to tell me against what he is measuring.
The ideal meal of the retaurant critic is maybe more refined than the ideal meal of a regular customer, because he has more knowledge and experience.
Nevertheless a customer review can be helpful for me, if the customer tells me his tastes.

Click to expand...

A restaurant critic needs not only to know about more about food than a customer but to understand his audience too and be able to communicate effectively with it in order to be able to offer advice of any use. It's a crucial part of his job and an ability he needs to learn. And that's a skill one acquires through training and experience.

A random customer is not required to have such skills to give an opinion but whether that opinion would be useful, useless or even hurtful is a matter of pure dumb lack. That's the whole point - that's why a proffesional gets paid to his opinions while a customer pays.

I'm certain you hate it too when people that don't have your proffesional skills and knowledge go past standard feedback and start criticizing your work and telling you how to do it.

I dislike it if a reviewer wants me to hate or to like something - someone on a mission - regardless of his skill level.

A perfect reviewer
a) makes it clear what his experience level in the target object area is
b) tells me his tastes and preferences (even better: defines his ideal)
c) tells me in detail about the object he reviews (to his best knowledge and belief)
d) makes a rating with a), b) and c) in mind
e) makes a recommendation for his target audience

HiddenX said:

I dislike it if a reviewer wants me to hate or to like something - someone on a mission - regardless of his skill level.

Click to expand...

Naturally, so do I and so does everyone else.
That's because that's a reviewer that covers his inability to communicate with his audience by talking about himself and not about his subject.

Mr Smiley said:

Fair enough. I agree that such a review can be useful, if you consider buying a game or not. I seldom use reviews that way, but read them for entertainment and possibly enlightenment. I'm uslually more inclined to seek out reviews after I've played a game and have formed my own opinion already. I find it interesting to learn about how other people perceive the same thing in different ways. That's probably why I find more general and supposedly "objective" assessments boring.

Click to expand...

I can appreciate that, but I think an official review SHOULD be a guide for the target audience.

How much challenge I want from a game varies wildly, depending on other aspects of the game. I have no absolute preference, but as a general rule, the better everything else about the game is, the more challenge I can accept. Also, games can be challenging in very different ways. Challenge has no intrinsic value to me. I played Kingdoms of Amalur, for instance, on the easiest setting, and it was no challenge at all. But I didn't feel that even the slightest challenge would enhance that game for me. On the other hand, I remember playing the original Doom on the hardest difficulty and enjoying it immensely.

Click to expand...

I'm the same way - as in, it varies

Yme said:

This thread isn't about the game anymore is it? Haha

Click to expand...

Seems so.

EDIT: Came here to read some words around the game and instead I felt upon some abstract debate about ladders of values and reviews and rates, all stuff I ignore entirely because I'm confident in my tastes.

You must be very confident in general because you post on a CRPG board with the username " I hate RPG". This is equivalent with going into a rocker/biker bar and saying "Folks, I don't like motor bikes I prefer bicycles"