|
Damn, I'm really procrastinating with all these new games coming out. However, that Final Fantasy X review is nearly finished and I promise to have it out soon.
Here's my most recent, though, hope it helps some people out who are unsure about whether to pass on this one. I don't cover extreme details like balance issues and the like, but hope it's helpful from a casual perspective. Feedback is always super appreciated!
-------
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/z5I4frY.jpg?1)
Call of Duty: Ghosts Review
Activision, Infinity Ward 2013
Risen on the battlefield as if from the dead, covered in sand and the blood of their fallen brothers, fifteen soldiers take on a force of hundreds. After the dust settles, these elite warriors stand victorious with but only one enemy escaping their wrath. He is found later in the desert, delirious, muttering something about ghosts. Call of Duty is back, and clearly still shamelessly dripping with testosterone.
It's the sort of pubescent nonsense you'd only hear in a middle school cafeteria; just a relentless glorification of wartime badassery that in Call of Duty: Ghosts is just really hard to stomach. Despite the 'M' rating, it's clearer than ever just how aggressive the marketing towards children is with this series. Just listen to the game's premise: The middle east runs out of oil, crippling the world and leaving the United States to defend her homeland against the rising force of the Federation. Oorah!
Still, playing the first twenty minutes of this campaign is enough to treat you with its best sequence, briefly controlling an anonymous astronaut as his space station is infiltrated by Federation forces. Zero gravity firefights in claustrophobic corridors, bodies and blood suspended in their chambers as you toss empty magazines into the vacuum of space, the scene is a must play. Afterword, back on earth and in the devastated cities of the U.S., its a story about meeting up with the legendary Ghosts. You'll slide behind the cover of blown out cars and concrete slabs, and essentially engage in the usual duck shooter, occasionally controlling machine gun turrets, drone strikes, or remotely controlled sniper rifles. The much touted use of dogs in Ghost extends little past some cookie cutter stealth sequences, sneaking a German Shepherd through certain areas, having him bark to distract enemies, and viciously mangling their jugulars.
It all certainly lies on the lower spectrum of campaigns this series has offered in the past -- narrow as that spectrum may be -- but it serves as a cool backdrop for the game's multiplayer features. Though you don't directly control it, the dog reappears as a killstreak reward and aptly lives up to the title of 'man's best friend'. It follows at your heel, growls when it senses enemies, and is a fairly efficient killing machine as many fail to see the dogs before it's too late. When you hear that your furry bro is killed in action, it's hard to stifle a quiet whimper of your own, and from the other point of view it's also kind of sad having to kill the animals. Once you get pounced enough times it's easier to pull that trigger, though. The little shits.
One of the biggest stylistic changes Ghosts brings to the table is larger map sizes, and with it a shorter time to kill. This somehow still creates the fast paced and unforgiving circus shooting the series has always been played for, but the nature of the new maps demand some subtle changes to the CoD player's mentality. Not in just memorizing the new and mostly bombed out locales, but becoming aware that each contains so many vulnerable lines of sight from any given position. Many maps like Freight are large but still cluttered, each corner you turn greeting you with multilevel warehouses, hollow shipping containers, and train carriages that could all house an enemy, whether from up close or down range. Double that with your meager amount of hitpoints and the often ridiculously random spawn points, and every step you take in Ghosts will be one that sets you in the lethal view of an enemy's iron sights.
Truthfully, this hurts some of the more classic multiplayer modes. Team Deathmatch might as well be Free For All because enemy seem to spawn right up in your team's grill, meaning that the presence of allies is no guarantee for safety, and that the map will never offer any kind of map control that you and your friends can gain. This does, however, make awareness a key factor to success in Ghosts. The smallest kill streak of 3 can reward you with SAT devices to lay down, and these are quite nifty. The more your team has on the ground and can protect, the better you can manipulate the radar. Having one down will ping enemies you see on the map, having three down will give your whole team a constant radar sweep.
The 360 degrees of danger you're always in will force some interesting ultimatums in your class customization. You can assign a limited amount of perks, some taking more space than others. 'Amplify' will allow you to hear footsteps more easily, allowing you to hover around a position and better protect it from multiple angles. 'Off the Grid' makes you untrackable by enemy devices, while 'Wire Tap' let's you those enemy devices, a nasty strategy in Free For All. Of course, you could opt out of all these perks in favor of improved gunplay, giving yourself faster aiming, better control at the hip, or quicker reload times.
And the gunplay is as good as ever, the firearms always well detailed -- perhaps more in look rather than feel -- and offering the usual slew of sick looking holographic scopes, silencers, underbarrel grenade launchers, and other attachments. Otherwise, the weapons you unlock offer little variance of performance amongst their class. The low health counts of players mean that any one Assault Rifle will work about as effectively as another provided your aim is on, and overall seem to outclass SMGs given the size of the environments. A robotic manufacturing plant probably offers the closest quarters for apt shotgun use, while 'Marksman' and Sniper rifles can prove nasty on the larger maps, especially in Hardcore game types where your position won't be given away by radar or the franchise's pesky killcam.
Worthy of mention is a tutorial like feature called Squads, and though it's geared towards new players, it's an excellent way to practice various game modes against bots, outfitting your own personal squad of computer players to fight alongside you. Extinction is another mode that pits players against aliens, asking you to drill into their mounds of goo as you defend the device's progress. It's of the typical quality that Zombies players will recall, but takes even longer for an interesting challenge to ramp up and seems even more lazily produced and graphically dated than the rest of the game.
Most of all though -- the selling point of Ghosts, really -- are a few game types in particular. A new one called Cranked incorporates a brilliant emphasis on kill satisfaction by getting you 'cranked.' Once your juiced up, you have considerably faster movement and reload speed and are given 30 seconds to get another kill before you self detonate. It's an incredible form of the franchise's high octane hilarium, and Ghosts only has more to offer. Domination utilizes the larger map sizes by asking your team to fight for control over 3 points, environmental variety now appearing as more strategic than confusing. Team games typically forming a 6v6, it's one of the few modes that create a rewarding sense of teamwork beyond that of racing for highest kill count. Finally, Search and Rescue serves as the elimination, defuse-the-bomb setup, but with a twist. To keep an enemy from respawning, you'll have to put yourself at risk and pick up his corpse's dogtags before his allies do. It forces player movement on both sides, keeps an interesting pace, and a adds fun layers of approach such as baiting enemy dogtags to lure another out.
By now it's clear Call of Duty is sticking within its own boundaries, and by that standard, Ghosts is yet another solid entry. It's beginning to feel notably lazier in many aspects, but it's still the same stress relieving shooter it's always been. An old by loyal friend.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/rbKJ9qO.png)
 
|
Did you really just give ghosts a 7.5/10? Strong doge
|
|
|
If every purchase of a generic military shooter instead became a $40 donation to James Harding, FPS would regain its dignity in less than a year.
|
I don't think a person in their right mind can give COD:Ghosts a 7.5/10 if they bother to consider that it's an insultingly iterative game that is sold at full price. In a vacuum, 7.5, fine. But considering the circumstances, nope.
Given the severely outdated graphics, the old engine mechanics that can be traced back to at least cod4 and the lack of innovation, all in relation to the pricepoint, this game shouldn't be rated out of 10, it's theft.
|
Canada16217 Posts
On November 09 2013 14:55 Djzapz wrote:
I don't think a person in their right mind can give COD:Ghosts a 7.5/10 if they bother to consider that it's an insultingly iterative game that is sold at full price. In a vacuum, 7.5, fine. But considering the circumstances, nope.
Given the severely outdated graphics, the old engine mechanics that can be traced back to at least cod4 and the lack of innovation, all in relation to the pricepoint, this game shouldn't be rated out of 10, it's theft.
I agree with everything except the last part 
|
I think it is still a good corridor shooter game.
If a player like me who hasn't really played cod before, it is quite good.
But 7.5 is definitely too high, it didn't really impress me in any way.
|
Didn't realize people would be so dramatic over this. I had a decent time on MP and reflected that in the writing.
but thanks for reading, i guess?
|
Thats being a little melodramatic yourself, wouldnt you agree?
Not everybody has to agree with your reviews. CoD as a franchise is extremely controversal. It hasnt had significant changes in the last 5 games, they just release the new one year after year milking the cash. Nobody denies that CoD is a solid shoot em up, maybe not to some peoples tastes but thats regardless, the thing is that the differences between Ghosts and black ops 1 and modern warfare 2 are completely minimalistic, even compared to cod4, the first cod of the current gen, the changes are minimal. Based on that, ghosts is really not a strong entry into the FPS scene or even the franchise, its just more of the same. Like someone said, in a vacuum, your review makes sense, but things arent in a vacuum.
Surely you must have realised CoD is a controversal game before writing this.
Even with BF4 now, people are gritting their teeth while buying it. EA basically took the CoD route, release a ton of map packs then release the next game with nothing more then a facelift. BF4 is a glorified mappack / update, just like the last 4 cod games have been.
|
OP: I probably wouldn't have said anything because I don't really care for ratings out of 10, they're too subjective and it's hard to know what a person really means when they give a score until you've seen a lot of reviews from the same person. That said, given that your review of The Last of Us gave a 8/10, just a half a point over COD:Ghosts, I have to say that your game reviews aren't very credible to me, and I don't think they should be credible to anybody who values objectivity.
And certainly there's a bit of a TLOU fanboy in me, but even if I try to take a reasonable and objective stand, there's no way in hell TLOU is only 0.5 above COD:G. TLOU had an interesting story, functional gameplay, mechanics which can't be said to be innovative but they weren't so iterative.
In other words, I think your reviews scores are useless, like most are, which casts a doubt on the writeup itself. Once again, a "reviewer" is just dumping fully fledged opinion pieces with no attempt at objectivity whatsoever. And it's no secret that all reviewers have their own preferences, but when it's too pronounced, it just means they can't be trusted.
On November 09 2013 21:26 holdthephone wrote:
Didn't realize people would be so dramatic over this.
Did you actually not expect it?
|
On November 10 2013 01:43 Djzapz wrote:
OP: I probably wouldn't have said anything because I don't really care for ratings out of 10, they're too subjective and it's hard to know what a person really means when they give a score until you've seen a lot of reviews from the same person. That said, given that your review of The Last of Us gave a 8/10, just a half a point over COD:Ghosts, I have to say that your game reviews aren't very credible to me, and I don't think they should be credible to anybody who values objectivity.
And certainly there's a bit of a TLOU fanboy in me, but even if I try to take a reasonable and objective stand, there's no way in hell TLOU is only 0.5 above COD:G. TLOU had an interesting story, functional gameplay, mechanics which can't be said to be innovative but they weren't so iterative.
In other words, I think your reviews scores are useless, like most are, which casts a doubt on the writeup itself. Once again, a "reviewer" is just dumping fully fledged opinion pieces with no attempt at objectivity whatsoever. And it's no secret that all reviewers have their own preferences, but when it's too pronounced, it just means they can't be trusted.
I really wish people sould stop complaining about a "lack of objectivity" whenever they encounter a review that doesn't match their own opinion. Let's get this over with once and for all; There is no such thing as an objective review. The experience you have playing a game will always be subjective - and since a review is nothing but a summary of your own opinions, there's no way to write a review without making it subjective.
I mean, try to look at it from the other side and see what happens. If he's not writing a review based on his own opinions, what should he base his assessment of the game on? Someone elses opinion? What he expects that the average opinion amoung the readership will be? Of course not, that would be ludicrous. If he enjoyed the game, he will write a review where he tells you he enjoyed the game. Anything else would be dishonest.
The only "objectivity" you can expect from a review is for it to be honest about what the game is and not outright lie about features in it, etc. Stating that Ghosts is an RTS, for example, would be a factual error. Factual things about genre, features and functionality and so on can be seen as objective, but having a good time with Ghosts and then writing a mostly negative because that's what people want to hear would make the reviewer a liar.
Don't get me wrong, you don't have to agree with him. There's nothing wrong with thinking Ghosts sucks (assuming you've actually played it and are not just lashing out because of a pre-concieved idea of what the game is like based on negative publicity surrounding it before launch. But that would just be silly). There's nothing wrong with critizising a review you think is unfair, factually incorrect or poorly written. There's really nothing wrong in avoiding a reviewer because you realize you often disagree with him either. But please don't complain to a guy for writing a review based on his own opinions and preferences. That's what a review is.
And one more thing; I think what bothers me most about your post is that you start off by complaining about numbered scores, and then spend the rest of the post falling into the same "you only gave x 0.5 higher than y WTF"-reasoning that all those people before you who hold review scores as factual measurements of quality rather than subjective summaries of someone's opinion did.
|
On November 10 2013 03:00 RaZorwire wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2013 01:43 Djzapz wrote:
OP: I probably wouldn't have said anything because I don't really care for ratings out of 10, they're too subjective and it's hard to know what a person really means when they give a score until you've seen a lot of reviews from the same person. That said, given that your review of The Last of Us gave a 8/10, just a half a point over COD:Ghosts, I have to say that your game reviews aren't very credible to me, and I don't think they should be credible to anybody who values objectivity.
And certainly there's a bit of a TLOU fanboy in me, but even if I try to take a reasonable and objective stand, there's no way in hell TLOU is only 0.5 above COD:G. TLOU had an interesting story, functional gameplay, mechanics which can't be said to be innovative but they weren't so iterative.
In other words, I think your reviews scores are useless, like most are, which casts a doubt on the writeup itself. Once again, a "reviewer" is just dumping fully fledged opinion pieces with no attempt at objectivity whatsoever. And it's no secret that all reviewers have their own preferences, but when it's too pronounced, it just means they can't be trusted. I really wish people sould stop complaining about a "lack of objectivity" whenever they encounter a review that doesn't match their own opinion. Let's get this over with once and for all; There is no such thing as an objective review. The experience you have playing a game will always be subjective - and since a review is nothing but a summary of your own opinions, there's no way to write a review without making it subjective. I mean, try to look at it from the other side and see what happens. If he's not writing a review based on his own opinions, what should he base his assessment of the game on? Someone elses opinion? What he expects that the average opinion amoung the readership will be? Of course not, that would be ludicrous. If he enjoyed the game, he will write a review where he tells you he enjoyed the game. Anything else would be dishonest. The only "objectivity" you can expect from a review is for it to be honest about what the game is and not outright lie about features in it, etc. Stating that Ghosts is an RTS, for example, would be a factual error. Factual things about genre, features and functionality and so on can be seen as objective, but having a good time with Ghosts and then writing a mostly negative because that's what people want to hear would make the reviewer a liar. Don't get me wrong, you don't have to agree with him. There's nothing wrong with thinking Ghosts sucks (assuming you've actually played it and are not just lashing out because of a pre-concieved idea of what the game is like based on negative publicity surrounding it before launch. But that would just be silly). There's nothing wrong with critizising a review you think is unfair, factually incorrect or poorly written. There's really nothing wrong in avoiding a reviewer because you realize you often disagree with him either. But please don't complain to a guy for writing a review based on his own opinions and preferences. That's what a review is.
I made a point to explain that I don't think people should be perfectly objective in their reviews but good critics try to be as unbiased and legitimate as possible. If they don't even try that, their "reviews" become worthless opinion pieces that are unrepresentative.
Also I'll be honest and no, I haven't played COD:Ghosts, I've played the previous games though and I've seen enough footage to have an idea of what it's like. Like its predecessors, a semi competent highly iterative shooter. I could play it, but frankly I have already. And if you've played say MW2, you've played this game in spirit anyway.
And one more thing; I think what bothers me most about your post is that you start off by complaining about numbered scores, and then spend the rest of the post falling into the same "you only gave x 0.5 higher than y WTF"-reasoning that all those people before you who hold review scores as factual measurements of quality rather than subjective summaries of someone's opinion did
You don't understand me.
I don't usually like scores because they're usually too subjective, until you get some understanding of how a certain person rates games. For instance, certain specific good critics or just my friends are consistent with their personal rating systems, and so if they give me a number rating, I can get an idea on whether the game is good. Their scores are inevitably biased to their preferences, but GOOD critics try to be objective. They can't be. They try, and some of them are good at it.
If a person slaps a number about how they feel with no regard for reality, then it's irrelevant... Scores are inherently flawed, but in the hands of people who aren't even trying, it's completely useless and even pretty deceitful.
|
On November 09 2013 14:55 Djzapz wrote:...Given the severely outdated graphics, the old engine mechanics that can be traced back to at least cod4...
Call of Duty 2, bro. In fact, IW's engine is built on idTech 3 (Quake 3), so it's fucking OLD.
|
On November 10 2013 04:04 Djzapz wrote:
I made a point to explain that I don't think people should be perfectly objective in their reviews but good critics try to be as unbiased and legitimate as possible. If they don't even try that, their "reviews" become worthless opinion pieces that are unrepresentative.
"Unrepresentative"? Of what? The review doesn't have to represent anything, in fact, than the opinions of the reviewer. Again, what do you expect? For him to write what he thinks people will agree with him on? To lie and say he didn't enjoy the game?
On November 10 2013 04:04 Djzapz wrote:
Also I'll be honest and no, I haven't played COD:Ghosts, I've played the previous games though and I've seen enough footage to have an idea of what it's like. Like its predecessors, a semi competent highly iterative shooter. I could play it, but frankly I have already. And if you've played say MW2, you've played this game in spirit anyway.
Obviously you can get a feel for what a game is like by playing its predecessors and looking at trailers and stuff (especially in a franchise like CoD), but how much credibility do you think you have arguing objectivity in a review of a game you havn't even played? A lot less than 7.5/10. How "objective" is an assessment of a game by someone who's never seen anything beyond promotional material?
-"After playing for a dozen hours, I can say I enjoyed Ghosts, and I'd give it 7.5/10."
-"I've never touched the game but you are obviously wrong because my completely uninformed opinion obviously trumps yours because of reasons."
Wat.
On November 10 2013 04:04 Djzapz wrote:
I don't usually like scores because they're usually too subjective, until you get some understanding of how a certain person rates games. For instance, certain specific good critics or just my friends are consistent with their personal rating systems, and so if they give me a number rating, I can get an idea on whether the game is good. Their scores are inevitably biased to their preferences, but GOOD critics try to be objective. They can't be. They try, and some of them are good at it.
If a person slaps a number about how they feel with no regard for reality, then it's irrelevant... Scores are inherently flawed, but in the hands of people who aren't even trying, it's completely useless and even pretty deceitful.
"No regard for reality"? The only thing you are basing your criticism about his scoring on is your personal opinion that The Last of Us deserves more than 0.5 points more than a game you havn't played, which is completely subjective. The number in the review doesn't have to do anything than summarize what's in the review. As long as it doesn't deviate completely from the text, there's nothing deceitful with it. Having the reviewer write an opinion that's not his own, however, would be.
|
On November 10 2013 07:50 RaZorwire wrote:
"Unrepresentative"? Of what? The review doesn't have to represent anything, in fact, than the opinions of the reviewer. Again, what do you expect? For him to write what he thinks people will agree with him on? To lie and say he didn't enjoy the game?
That's amusing to me to be perfectly honest. Sure, you can write a "review" where you don't take into account anything other than your little feelings, and then it becomes an opinion piece. But nobody reads opinion pieces, unless they've got something to offer. People read opinion pieces that are intelligent and intriguing. This is not that. And people read reviews from people or sources that they feel they can rely on. This is not that either. IMO, critics which give 7.5/10 to iterations of the same shit are bad judges and they can't be trusted. I can't trust OP to buy a game, whereas there are some critics who'll give a game a 10/10 and it'll prompt me to look into it an pick it up. Likewise, when TB says a game is pretty much shit, I'm likely to believe him and it allows me to make the choice of not buying a game because TB is probably right when he says it's shit.
Now, the solution for writing a decent review is not to lie about what you felt, because writing a GOOD review is not about limiting yourself to what you felt. It's about going beyond that. There are games that, if I reviewed them, would get a 4/10. 4 out of 10 and yet I enjoyed it - and I would explain how that's possible in my review. It would be a little bit like "this game is objectively shit but some mechanics are enjoyable despite the dated graphics, etc. It's about recognizing what devalues a game: Dated graphics, too much like the previous games which are now cheaper and less buggy, dated mechanics, the feeling of been-there done that. It's about valuing what's good, whether or not it's for you.
Obviously you can get a feel for what a game is like by playing its predecessors and looking at trailers and stuff (especially in a franchise like CoD), but how much credibility do you think you have arguing objectivity in a review of a game you havn't even played? A lot less than 7.5/10. How "objective" is an assessment of a game by someone who's never seen anything beyond promotional material?
Promotional material? Come on. I've seen a fair amount of gameplay, notably from Totalbiscuit and other people who I consider to be reputable. It's evident that the game is extremely similar to what we've had before, and you'd be disingenuous if you said otherwise just to support your shoddy argument.
-"After playing for a dozen hours, I can say I enjoyed Ghosts, and I'd give it 7.5/10."
-"I've never touched the game but you are obviously wrong because my completely uninformed opinion obviously trumps yours because of reasons."
Wat.
I've touched the game through its predecessors and if you dismiss this argument, you are full of shit. And if you're not outright lying, you don't know what you're talking about. COD is the most iterative shit since sports games. Hell, it might be worse.
"No regard for reality"? The only thing you are basing your criticism about his scoring on is your personal opinion that The Last of Us deserves more than 0.5 points more than a game you havn't played, which is completely subjective. The number in the review doesn't have to do anything than summarize what's in the review. As long as it doesn't deviate completely from the text, there's nothing deceitful with it. Having the reviewer write an opinion that's not his own, however, would be.
You're acting like it's inherently wrong for somebody to assume themselves to be more objective than somebody else. I'm human, so when it comes to objectivity, I can only try to do my best. I think this review is useless according to my arbitrarily selected standards, but I believe my reasoning for them to be pretty good. There are plenty of things which make a game good or bad, and they differ for everybody, but I think OP failed to consider a bunch of things that needed to be considered.
Bottomline, fine, maybe OP is writing opinion pieces. If he wants to do that, it's fine. If that's your opinion of a "review", okay. And we can argue the hell out of the meaning of the word "objectivity" here, but for one OP wasn't even trying to be objective, and I think that COD is just largely a game without merit at this point and you or OP would be hard pressed to argue otherwise. 7.5/10 for a game which can be summarized by saying "dumb fun and explosions" is an insult to the work of the other game devs who are actually making shit happen. And I'm not saying not to post those reviews but I think it should be fine to point out that I feel the 7.5 is unjustified. Note that I would be willing to accept a 7.5/10 from other reviewers who hand out high ratings easily, but yeah.
And I want to say that I don't bitch out every reviewer who's reviews are different from mine. I don't really like SC2 (despite being on this site), and yet I understand why it's a well appreciated game. I don't like it, but I know it's a good game. I didn't like BF3 at the time, but I still recognized that it had things going for it, things which weren't my taste. And if I myself reviewed those games, I wouldn't give them a score on the basis of how much I enjoyed them, I would rate them for what I think they deserve.
This has gone too far at this point and I come off as if I were mad at OP. I guess I am pretty rude, and I want to apologize for that. But I don't think this is a good review, not just because of my personal feelings about that franchise, but because I think reviews like this are both deceptive and don't take all the right things into consideration.
And you know what, I'm a flawed human, perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps COD is actually a great game. But I sincerely, sincerely doubt that.
This is my last post here, I'm sorry OP if I derailed this. I think that what you're doing is cool. You write well and your reviews are pleasant to read, despite my opinion about your ratings of the games. Cheers.
|
On November 10 2013 08:18 Djzapz wrote:That's amusing to me to be perfectly honest. Sure, you can write a "review" where you don't take into account anything other than your little feelings, and then it becomes an opinion piece. But nobody reads opinion pieces, unless they've got something to offer. People read opinion pieces that are intelligent and intriguing. This is not that. And people read reviews from people or sources that they feel they can rely on. This is not that either. IMO, critics which give 7.5/10 to iterations of the same shit are bad judges and they can't be trusted. I can't trust OP to buy a game, whereas there are some critics who'll give a game a 10/10 and it'll prompt me to look into it an pick it up. Likewise, when TB says a game is pretty much shit, I'm likely to believe him and it allows me to make the choice of not buying a game because TB is probably right when he says it's shit.
You don't have to trust him, that's not what I'm saying. Go ahead and not trust him all you want; the point is, just because you happen to disagree with his assessment on COD it doesn't make sense to complain about a lack of "objectivity". In addition to the issues I've already pointed out with that reasoning, it's also a lazy stock-complaint that gets thrown around because people think it has more weight than saying "I disagree because I don't think the game is any good", which is the only issue you have been able to point out with this review. Your accusations about a lack of objectivity fall flat when they are based on nothing more than "everyone can see that the game is iterative so something is obviously wrong if you liked it".
On November 10 2013 08:18 Djzapz wrote:Now, the solution for writing a decent review is not to lie about what you felt, because writing a GOOD review is not about limiting yourself to what you felt. It's about going beyond that. There are games that, if I reviewed them, would get a 4/10. 4 out of 10 and yet I enjoyed it - and I would explain how that's possible in my review. It would be a little bit like "this game is objectively shit but some mechanics are enjoyable despite the dated graphics, etc. It's about recognizing what devalues a game: Dated graphics, too much like the previous games which are now cheaper and less buggy, dated mechanics, the feeling of been-there done that. It's about valuing what's good, whether or not it's for you.
But if you find a game to be enjoyable, doesn't that by itself make it not shit? Being enjoyable is the sole purpose of the game, and if you find something to be enjoyable, it's done what it's supposed to. Now, there's nothing wrong with pointing out that a game you find to be enjoyable might not be for everyone, and pointing out flaws even in a game you enjoyed is a core part of reviewing it, obviously, but again, you can't give it a score based on what you believe others will think. "Valuing what's good" doesn't make sense in itself to me because what is good is, again, subjective. What's good to one guy might not be to the next one. Maybe person A likes iterative shooters, but person B doesn't.
I'm obviously not saying a review is beyond criticism, and you should obviously express your opinion if you can find a good reason why the review isn't "intelligent and intriguing". For example, if A writes a positive review of an iterative shooter, you could maybe criticize that review by, for example, saying that it didn't do a good enough job of pointing out things other people might not enjoy about the game. Maybe you could complain about how the score doesn't match the impression given by the text, or how the text itself does a poor job of conveying an opinion, etc. But you havn't done any of that. The only flaw you've managed to point out is a "lack of objectivity", and because of that, your beef with the review reads as nothing more than "I don't like the game you like so obviously you lack objectivity".
On November 10 2013 08:18 Djzapz wrote: Promotional material? Come on. I've seen a fair amount of gameplay, notably from Totalbiscuit and other people who I consider to be reputable. It's evident that the game is extremely similar to what we've had before, and you'd be disingenuous if you said otherwise just to support your shoddy argument.
Not at all what I meant; I'm not here to defend Ghosts. Whether it is similar to previous installments in the series or or not is almost irrelevant in this case; the point is, your credibility when accusing someone else for having a lack of objectivity when arguing a game you havn't played is really low. Using your definition of the word, there's nothing "objective" about complaining about a review based on many hours of gameplay without even touching it yourself. No offence, but I'd go so far to say that it's hypocritical, even though I usually hate that word.
On November 10 2013 08:18 Djzapz wrote:I've touched the game through its predecessors and if you dismiss this argument, you are full of shit. And if you're not outright lying, you don't know what you're talking about. COD is the most iterative shit since sports games. Hell, it might be worse.
Again, it doesn't matter. Let's see if I can explain this better so you don't have to misunderstand me again:
Does playing previous CoD-titles and watching first impressions videos give you an idea of what a game is like? Sure. Does it give you as much credibility in assessing the quality of a game as someone who has played it for a dozen hours? Absolutely not. Is it "objective" to complain about a review of a game without even having played it yourself? Not at all.
On November 10 2013 08:18 Djzapz wrote:You're acting like it's inherently wrong for somebody to assume themselves to be more objective than somebody else. I'm human, so when it comes to objectivity, I can only try to do my best. I think this review is useless according to my arbitrarily selected standards, but I believe my reasoning for them to be pretty good. There are plenty of things which make a game good or bad, and they differ for everybody, but I think OP failed to consider a bunch of things that needed to be considered.
Your reasoning? No offence, but the only reasoning you've put forward so far is "you're not objective because you gave The Last of Us 8.0 and CoD 7.5 even though everyone knows CoD is iterative (not that I've played Ghosts, but other people tell me it is)" and so on. I don't think that's a lot to go on.
On November 10 2013 08:18 Djzapz wrote:Bottomline, fine, maybe OP is writing opinion pieces. If he wants to do that, it's fine. If that's your opinion of a "review", okay. And we can argue the hell out of the meaning of the word "objectivity" here, but for one OP wasn't even trying to be objective, and I think that COD is just largely a game without merit at this point and you or OP would be hard pressed to argue otherwise. 7.5/10 for a game which can be summarized by saying "dumb fun and explosions" is an insult to the work of the other game devs who are actually making shit happen. And I'm not saying not to post those reviews but I think it should be fine to point out that I feel the 7.5 is unjustified. Note that I would be willing to accept a 7.5/10 from other reviewers who hand out high ratings easily, but yeah.
Hey, again, I'm not here to defend CoD. I'm not a big fan of the series and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't give Ghosts a 7.5/10 either. There's nothing wrong with stating that you think a 7.5 is unjustified, either. The problem is you're doing it in a way that doesn't make any sense.
If you were to say that you disagree with the score because you don't like the game as much, that would be fine. It would also be fine to say that, even though you havn't played the game yet, you think you wouldn't give it 7.5 based on what you've seen of it so far. Pointing out problems in a review such as not mentioning features or not adressing things people might see as flaws might also be valid (altough still subjective) criticism.
But there's a difference between doing those things and complaining about a lack of objectivity. I've already explained why I don't think complaining about a lack of objectivity makes much sense, and if we instead use your definition of the word, that makes your complaints go from not making sense to becoming an attack on the integrity of the guy who wrote the review. "You didn't dislike Ghosts, so that means you lack objectivity and your review is deceptive". It feels like a lazy (and kind of rude) attempt to lower the credibility of someone because you disagree with him.
On November 10 2013 08:18 Djzapz wrote:
And I want to say that I don't bitch out every reviewer who's reviews are different from mine. I don't really like SC2 (despite being on this site), and yet I understand why it's a well appreciated game. I don't like it, but I know it's a good game. I didn't like BF3 at the time, but I still recognized that it had things going for it, things which weren't my taste. And if I myself reviewed those games, I wouldn't give them a score on the basis of how much I enjoyed them, I would rate them for what I think they deserve.
We really do have completely different ideas of what a review is. For me, a review is always about a) having an opinion, and b) explaining why I have that opinion. I play a game, and then I enjoy it or dislike it, and then I try to explain why. Again, it's not a bad idea to point out that some things I enjoy might be flaws to others or vice versa; but ultimately the review is about what I think and not what I think others will think, if that makes sense.
On November 10 2013 08:18 Djzapz wrote:
This has gone too far at this point and I come off as if I were mad at OP. I guess I am pretty rude, and I want to apologize for that. But I don't think this is a good review, not just because of my personal feelings about that franchise, but because I think reviews like this are both deceptive and don't take all the right things into consideration.
And you know what, I'm a flawed human, perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps COD is actually a great game. But I sincerely, sincerely doubt that.
It actually makes me a bit sad that you think part of my purpose in this entire debate was to argue that CoD is a good game. And I don't mean that in a condescending, sarcastic way, it legitimately makes me sad. :|
|
It doesn't legitimately make you sad. Cheers.
I'll respond to you in PM.
|
On November 09 2013 21:26 holdthephone wrote:
Didn't realize people would be so dramatic over this. I had a decent time on MP and reflected that in the writing.
but thanks for reading, i guess?
So when you give your opinion, its fine. When other people give their opinion, they are being dramatic? Noone is even being immature and are genuinely just giving their opinions. Did you not expect most people to disagree with a 7.5/10 for this?
Anyways, I haven't bought a new CoD game since Black Ops 1 and I didn't even technically buy that, it was a gift. I felt like every CoD game since Modern Warfare was just a rehash of MW and it wasn't worth playing. I even started up CoD1 the other day and there are people still playing that, I would gladly save 60 dollars to play that instead. I don't hate on people that like the newer Call of Duties like some do though, but I hold firmly to my opinion that these games are a fine example of the decline in quality of modern video games.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/62y7ARu.jpg?1)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cXAQgXK.jpg?1)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YrCsYzb.jpg?1)
