SMAC: it's the LIMITED demo not the game...

[MarkG]

After hours of playing SMAC I've come to the conclusion that I can say if SMAC is good or bad, cause I played the limited demo and not the full game.

It's not the limit of the turns(which through some magic disappeared) or techs, but the of possible victories. There are 4 more ways to win in the full game. With only the conquest way, I found myself doing the same thinga again and again.

If the demo WAS the full game I would say that SMAC isn't the outstanding game we were all expecting. I'm now waiting for the FULL game to see if it is...

Markos, Apolyton CS

[fred]

MarkG if you are going to look at the reviews when the game comes out I can all ready tell you the people are going to be estatic. You can see this happening already and it's just the demo!

If you go to I believe the CGW site (forget the name. Is it gamespot?) they gave the SMAC demo something around 94%.

If you read this and think I don't like SMAC you're totally wrong! I belive I is an amazing came and has the potental to be the best game of the year among CTP, C&C TS, possibly BotF and some others.

fred

p.s. MarkG you got 14 posts in the SMAC forum might I add WOW you are actually posting in the SMAC forum

[Daniel Frappier]

fred, don't tell me you give any credibility to CGW reviews or PC Gamer or most reviews out there when it comes to strategy game. They probably looked at the specs, looked at Sid name's, played about 10 turns and rated it.

I have just bought Axis & Allied from Hasbro wich CGW said it had a very good AI. The AI has a strategically lost position after 3 turns in about every games....

[MarkG]

I was talking about PLAYING the full game, not reading reviews...

As for my posts on the SMAC forums, I watching them(and post every now and then) since June...

Markos, Apolyton CS

[Mentat]

A quote from Dec. 1998 issue of CGW:

Here is the editorial process we go through in order to see that each product, no matter what we think of the people at a given company, is treated fairly. First, we seek to match the game and the reviewer. There is no point having a person review a soccer game if he hates soccer. Likewise, we wouldn't use a person who doesn't know anything about the sport. There must be both interest and expertise in the subject matter and the style of the game.
Second, we expect the reviewer to play the entire game. There is no way to adequately judge the play balance, pacing, and fatigue/frustration factor in a game other than to play it. Sneak previews aren't based on play-balanced, paced, and finished code, so we don't require the previewers to finish the game. However, it is vital for reviewers to do so.
Third, a section editor (the editor with expertise within a given genre) edits the review. This edit is not merely to fix grammatical errors, but to ask questions of the article.... Sometimes, this requires conversations with the reviewer to hash out all of the details. Sometimes, changing the copy to reflect a more precise wording is necessary.
Fourth, all of the editors who have played any of the game formally consider the recommended rating from the reviewer. The main points of the reviewer's criticisms are considered and debated among the editorial staff before the final rating is set and the review is published. Sometimes, two or more editors will go back to play the game to settle a given point. The rating is not decided until a consensus is reached.

[Daniel Frappier]

Well I suppose that the amount of advertising bought by the developper of a game weight heavily on the final review.

It's the only way I can explain how they could have say from a game (Axis & Allied) that the AI was good and my 9 years old cousin that never played a game before beat it at the hardest level (and he had never had played before!!!) . Against an experience player the game become a joke at the second turn!!!!

[Daniel Frappier]

I meant (and he never played before!!!)

That is only the most recent examples, the first game I bought was Monopoly for windows 3.1. CGW gave it over 90% rating saying it was a masterpiece. It is hard to play really badly at Monopoly, this AI does, always using ALL of it's cash to build even if you are far of it's houses and then he as to sell everything the next turn because he doesn't have any cash left.

I beated it about 10 times before I got tired of the game.... (it is impossible if you are honest and have played a bit with the 2 games not to have notice this, I don't know how CGW did)

[Mentat]

That passage was an excerpt from an article entitled "With Friends Like Us...: Do Editors Pander to Their Friends and Skewer Their Enemies?" about how CGW rates only the product and not the company.

90%? They rate on a five star system.

[Daniel Frappier]

Yes you're right, I confused CGW review with the PC GAMER wich was 90%. I am unsure how many stars Monopoly got but I am quite sure to recall that it did also got great reviews from CGW.

By the way is there someone who knows if they have improved that horrible AI on later versions (Monopoly/Windows 95), the retailer could not tell me and I might by it if they did.

[Blade Runner]

I think everybody is right with the AI. This is way I want to get learning AI. In this case even a not well balanced game engine can close the leaks. Let say you find a weakness of the game engine. You can use this position 2-3 times. Later the system will find out what you did and try to use your tactics against you. So you need to find something else. When you find another weakness everything start again from the beginning.
IMHO most of the games got what I can called AU (Artificial Unintelligence). One of the exceptions is the CIV, CIV2 (compare to the rest).

Blade Runner

[St Leo]

1) I loved the SMAC demo.

2) I like referring to the syndrome as AS, or Artificial Stupidity. I find it very annoying, especially in productivity stuff like MS Office.:-(