What do you just hate in games...

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet


It's impossible to account for those things when you have maybe two weeks between the time you receive the review-code and the publication deadline.

Besides, anyone who can't tell the difference between a "Good Game" and a "Bad Game" after maybe 10 hours of playing has no business writing a review in the first place. The various shades of grey in between will always be up to the preference of each individual player.

Wise words.

Tbh for a long time I have relied (very selectively) on the reports of fellow gamers whose opinion has some credibility for me.

[FrustratedPoet]

Other problems can arise too. For example, I know first-hand that PC Gamer (UK) has got lots of angry complaints from gamers who are upset that they didn't report any bugs in their review of Championship Manager 4. The problem is that although a lot of people (although still a minority) experience serious bugs with game, none of these problems were experienced on the couple of PCs they ran the game on in the office. Also, since the game hadn't been released yet* they weren't aware that so many people would experience bugs due to their individual system configurations.

(* the Beta was out, which was quite buggy, but they couldn't know that most of the bugs wouldn't be fixed for release. After all, Betas are supposed to be a bit buggy: that's what they're for)

[DrSpike]

Well it's easy nowadays...........you have a wealth of opinions in online communities. Also you have online reviews, many of which are carried out by enthusiasts rather than magazines.

10 years ago the only way to find out whether a game was good was to read the review. They had much more responsibility..........I can't help but think they also took it more seriously then also.

[DarkCloud]

(* the Beta was out, which was quite buggy, but they couldn't know that most of the bugs wouldn't be fixed for release. After all, Betas are supposed to be a bit buggy: that's what they're for)

well, it's just bad reporting to review betas... they should do like Computer Gaming World (or CG Magazine, I think, can't be sure which one) and review only finished products! they owe it to their customers!

integrity of journalism!!!

[FrustratedPoet]

???

They did review the finished product.

[War4ever]

ITS a conspiracy....IMO....

[Space05us]

The only thing I use a computer gaming magazine for is to see three things; 1. What the plot of the game is, 2. What the graphics look like, 3. System requirements. If I see a game that interests me then I go online and look around for more reviews and come here to 'poly to ask opinions. I rarely buy a game that I dont like, then again I rarely buy games

[loinburger]

I hate jumping puzzles. They're fine in games where that's the whole friggin point of the game (Super Mario Brothers), but nothing spoils an otherwise good game like being forced to develop hair-trigger reflexes in order to get one inch close to the edge of the crate before jumping onto the next crate (or whatever). Deux Ex came close to being a prime offender by requiring some goofy key sequence in order to perform a long-jump, but was saved by the fact that you rarely need to do a long-jump. System Shock II had that idiotic "jump from tooth to tooth" puzzle near the end.

[Skanky Burns]

Indeed, that was very annoying.

[Adagio]

Yeah, that's annoying... like when you need a special code to get to next level or something, and you don't have any clue on where to find this code in the game, so it requires you to try 99999+ possibilities before you suceed (This is the last thing you do in Red Faction, before winning the game)

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Indeed, that was very annoying.

Tell me about it.................I nearly didn't bother finishing the game because of it, but in the end I painstakingly made my way through it.

[Urban Ranger]

Stupid endings.

[child of Thor]

Spending many hours(and much money!) on a game and then getting that growing realisation that the game is nothing more than a polished Beta, but was put out to hit xmas sales
Oh yeah buggy console games(as downloading a patch isn't an option for most owners).

[da_hal]

simcity 2000 did have an ending, i believe at 1 mil or 1 bil simdollars or something you got another checkbox with the choice of continuing or not.