Why all the great reviews yet.....

[FNBrown]

The advertising conflict is almost certainly the primary reason why CivIII is getting the glowing reviews all over the place.

One other thing... and, please, help me out here if I'm wrong... but, what other games (of the same genre) does CivIII really have to compete with this year?

It reminds me of the time I won second-place in a chili cook-off at my company picnic....

... there were only two entries.

[Slax]

Originally posted by OneInTen
* Game reviewers play so many games that they're used to bugs and realise that since all games have bugs it's not realistic to mark a game down unless the bugs are very numerous, game breaking, and/or from a company that has a history of not releasing patches.

This is an interesting point. Reviewers usually get only one chance to review a game, and the game may or may not improve with patches.

Do they include the effects of anticipated patches ? If so, then is some of the opinion based on the designers and publisher?

[Heliodorus]

Originally posted by Libertarian
Several reasons, already discussed as we await morsels of information...

1. It takes a bit of time, reaching the modern age with hundreds of workers, for example, to discover the dreadful shortcomings of the game. Reviewers don't have (or take) time for extended play.

2. They have fudiciary conflicts that force them to be nice to publishers.

3. They're morons.

etc...

Damn you, Lib. Now I have nothing useful to add to this post...

this post brought to you by the shameless desire to graduate from whatever level comes after Chieftain...

[FNBrown]

Yeah... I wanna graduate from Chieftan, too...

[Heliodorus]

Having read the review linked herein, I must say:

OMFG I can't believe someone would submit such drivel for publication. This is a writer, as Lib so humorously noted, who seems to have vague familiarity with our language, and who wrote the review on a football helmet...

It's not one of my finest hours, but I wrote reviews for a online site (shall remane nameless, but it wasn't top tier). I took great pride in my submissions, and I ended up quitting that non-paying job for two reasons. These were (in order of importance):

I hated playing crappy or uninteresting games. They assigned me an NBA game to review - and I hate basketball. Then they expect me to play 30 hours of a game I hate to give a good review (not to mention the fact that I'd never even PLAYED another title). Oh, sure, I got to review the original Thief, and Aliens v Predator, and I did good jobs on those. But when it came to reviewing some po-dunk 2nd tier autoracing title when I hate racing games, I wasn't able to generate any interest in the subject, and thus wasn't able to write with pride - so I pushed out crappy reviews just because I was obligated to.

Sounds to me like your reviewer could not care less about TBS games...

Second, because we were a second tier site, we had a lot of crappy writers like THIS guy at Intelgames. Proofreading was the job of all writers and editors - and it about killed me to spend more time trying to teach 3rd-rate buffoons why complete sentences are mandatory. It's one thing to be able to even write cogently. It's another to be able to focus on a subject and relate it successfully. It's another beyond that to do both of these with unique style...

There are very few good reviewers out there. The magazines have it easier in one sense because they can pay better and because they have a slightly easier deadline schedule (they know they can't compete with the online speed, so they get to play a game a little more, usually). I think the magazines are WAY too caught up in their own hype (I personally quit my subscription to PC Gamer because their hardware dweeb, Greg Vederman, couldn't stop telling readers about his love affair with pornography while insulting them for their technical inexperience with hardware). In fact, I'm slowly but surely leaving the PC game arena. I've replaced it with an X-Box, and mountain biking.

One thing I'll say for the editors at my unnamed review site (they still exist, and still rather suck). The editors insisted that we rate a game based on it's status, not reputation. They constantly reminded us that there should be very few 9 reviews, and near impossible to get a 10 (I gave Thief a 10, and by god I stand by that). If you gave a game a 9.2, then you were asserting that it was better than 92 percent of all computer games you've ever played. It ought to be approached that way.

There ought to be a lot more 6 and 7 games out there. The curve on all reviews puts the majority of hyped, popular games into the 85% range.

It's just another sham, isn't it? Like politics and religion and tax codes? Hey, Lib, what is the fable/myth about Cynic (or whatever his name was, Cynicus for all I remember) carrying a lantern in the daytime, and when he was asked why, he said he was looking for an honest man?

Oh, that reminds me... I'm at work. I ought to at least LOOK like I'm doing something to benefit the corporate bottom line.

Yeah, right, as if...

[Raion]

Okay, a few reasons why CIV III is rated so high.
It was the first game like this, that people liked when CIV I came out back in 1991, so it was put in the Hall of Fame of Games, that year, after DOS-CIV.
CIV II was better, but still at first there was complaints, which Sid took to heart and changed the game around with later patches or scenarios.
CIV III is drawing back on the first review, when it was rated high, and also because there is a market still for the game, 10 years later.
So, it has some faults, but some people have been playing this game, with mods, with whatever, for the past 10 years.
Sure there are other games out there, but a few are in the Hall of Fame.
Surely you heard of Hapoon, Hapoon IV is coming out sometime,
its played by the Navy.
Master of Orion == Master of Orion III, due out this year, again, after MOOII.
XCOM - taken over by Virgin, to hopefully be released at the end of this year after being dropped.
Sim City -- another version Sim City Unlimited Edition Gold, whatever, -- about the 3rd or 4th version.

These games have been around for about 10-12 years, and the next version is................................................
Another one some people probably will buy.

[Libertarian]

Helio:

Hey, Lib, what is the fable/myth about Cynic (or whatever his name was, Cynicus for all I remember) carrying a lantern in the daytime, and when he was asked why, he said he was looking for an honest man?

It was Diogenes who carried the lantern. Glad you enjoyed the review of the review.