Way to go, Atari!

[DrSpike]

It is a role playing game. You play the role of the chump who forked out £35 on that rubbish.

[DarkCloud]

CGW seems to be a good bunch, though.

CGW has always seemed a little fishy to me. I subscribed 1996-2002... now I'm only subscribed to CGM... they have much higher quality writings.

PC Gamer is actually better written than CGW nowadays (as far as I'm concerned) Though I frankly worry if they are bought off sometimes.

I think that CGM is safe, however.

...Evil Atari... ... ... ...

[MattH]

I can't stand any of them. Filled with all this hyped up crap- I understand excitement and interest over upcoming hardware and games but it's so obvious the way they overdo it. Right now the only reviews I read are from you guys and www.metacritic.com, which does an ok job of balancing the votes.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by DrSpike in ref of Civ3
It is a role playing game. You play the role of the chump who forked out £35 on that rubbish.

That was so evil Dr.Spike (i know you were half joking)

I understand Civ3 does have some good qualities and did add to the genre, it could of course have been so much better(or atleast thats what many Civ2 fans wished it to be). But yes the hype machine got its fangs into Civ3 too.
I cant believe 'Vanhelsing' myself - according to various 'top ten' sales tables i've looked at it seems to be in the top 5 mostly and is the xbox's best selling game???
This cant be anything other than corruption laced hype surely - i heard even the film was naff...........

[evil atari ]

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by child of Thor




That was so evil Dr.Spike (i know you were half joking)

I don't blame Dissident at all. I've been drawn in by hype and let down, as have everyone here probably. It was much worse a while back when 'testing' a game before buying wasn't really possible.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by MattH
Right now the only reviews I read are from you guys and www.metacritic.com which does an ok job of balancing the votes.

Nice site. Thanks for pointing it out.

Oh, and companies that pay for better review scores:

[DarkCloud]

can't stand any of them. Filled with all this hyped up crap- I understand excitement and interest over upcoming hardware and games but it's so obvious the way they overdo it. Right now the only reviews I read are from you guys and www.metacritic.com, which does an ok job of balancing the votes.

Interestingly enough, I've found that the magazines don't usually review 'indie' games like Baseball Mogul or Hollywood Mogul that are actually better than games like Sammy Sosa High Heat or other games... and yet, about 2-3 years after the game is out, they'll mention in some small feature how it's the epitome of its field... but they STILL won't review later iterations of it!


(oh, and if you like our reviews- I suggest "AIRLINES TWO"... it's really low-budget, but it's marginally fun, and for $5 well worth the cost of running an international airline (think: Transport Tycoon with spreadsheets) [I just purchased it 2 days ago ]

[pg]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
but they STILL won't review later iterations of it!

why waste a review on a company that doesn't buy ads...

[Arnelos]

I used to love CGW but even I have to agree the mag has gone significantly downhill over the past decade. The glory days of CGW were the 80s and early 90s - it was THE gaming mag.

Now, I just visit the various online sites/mags to see what's IN the games. For games that I *really* want and have been waiting on for years, I'll take the risk of buying them when they come out (Civ3 , MoO 3 , Deus Ex 2 , Thief 3 , etc.). For anything else, I either wait for the price to drop or until enough costumer feedback is available on various gaming forums to form a more informed opinion about how good/bad the game probably is (though most such opinion is just drivel and flames between people who can find no fault in a game and people who can find nothing right with a game).

[Bkeela]

I will never get used to the way infogrames has appropriated the famous name, famous icon that was Atari. It's so creepy.

[child of Thor]

Yeah i loved that little icon, it used to give me a big smile when loading a game(i knew something good was about to happen)....

Now it does nothing for me those responsible for this should be on trial with Saddam..........well ok maybe thats a bit strong

[SnowFire]

This is a bit old, but for what it's worth, Penny Arcade did a comic on this issue.

I can also somewhat sympathize with the magazine writers. They have to compete with the Internet- IGN, say what you will, can offer looong reviews (pixels cost a lot less than paper) with lots of screenshots the day before release, having played a final version for 2 weeks. The magazine people would be a month or two behind that and be hopelessly out of step. Cutting quality controls and hoping no one notices is their only choice to keep up the pace without looking behind the times.

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by Bkeela
I will never get used to the way infogrames has appropriated the famous name, famous icon that was Atari. It's so creepy.

Atari, still famous!!!? Once renowned perhaps, but famous?

Perhaps until crash of 1983/84 and after that it was dropped by Warner and split into the arcade division Atari games (later Tengen) and Atari computers. The latter of which was taken over by Jack Tramiel. Who was, oh dear irony, the founder of Commodore.

Like Commodore it's just a historic brandname with a logo, nothing more.

[DarkCloud]

Atari is famous... even more so than the Commodore.

So many of everyone's favorite games from the 80's originated from the Atari.

I know it was still pretty famous until 1989... then in the 1991/2 its game console system tanked (The atari jaguar)... I sold My atari in 1995/6 because the controllers kept dying.

[Dis]

I just remember the Atari 2600

I can't remember what games they did. Pitfall? I think that was activision. I know they created games like Combat.