Wow! A game review worth reading

[mutt]

http://www.wargamer.com/reviews/korea_forgottenconflict/

This is how games ought to be reviewed--with the author simply stating his biases and giving his honest opinion. And not a ratings star in sight. Kudos, Bill!

I particularly liked the couple of glimpses into Trotter's personal life and history. Since they were relevant to the review and not simply vainglorious, they helped me get the measure of the man whose opinion I was receiving, which in turn aided me immensely in vicariously experiencing the game the way he experienced it. I think I'll be reading The Wargamer much more from now on, if Trotter's column is any indication of the quality of the rest of the site.

[chet]

50 pages to say he doesn't like the game, while being forced to read about his son's birthday and other trivia in his pathetic life? No fucking thanks. I would trade a review like that for no words, 3 screen shots and a 1-5 star rating any day. That was just nothing but boring masturbation.

Chet

[TheWombat]

That was just nothing but boring masturbation.

Which, presumably, leaves open the possibility of not-so-boring masturbation, but you won't find that on The Wargamer. I think www.thehun.com [WARNING: Not Work Friendly] is a more likely spot.

[JeffL]

Different strokes, I guess. The last thing I want to read is an entire page of rambling details on an installation problem in a game review - a simple statement of the problem and the workaround is sufficient for me. And I'm not a fan of massive personal tangents in a game review. After three pages of reading all I knew about the game was that he hated it, he had a problem installing it, and the game doesn't attempt to be historically accurate - I gave up at that point, since at one point per page I assume it would take about 30 pages to learn what I wanted about the game.

I used to read Trotter a lot in PCG, so that review surprised me.

[Severian]

Nope, I disagree. The review was a good read. Some of the language is overly flowery and he repeats a few flowery terms more than once, but I liked it.

The review, not the game.

[Jason McMaster]

Yeah, too long-winded and ranty. We all know he hates the game from the beginning, so why read it.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

I used to read Trotter a lot in PCG, so that review surprised me.

It's part of the eternal review syndrom that is on some websites. With space almost infinite, there is no reason to narrow your review down to a few major points. This is a major issue with Wargamer, which is really a shame, because they have some damn fine writers. The guys know their stuff, and maybe their target audience really likes scroll buttons. But give me 1000 words or less - 1500 at the most.

I don't have a short attention span by any means, but I have no desire to read a 6000 word review of a movie I love, let alone a game I have little interest in playing. If it was more general game criticism than a review, sure, no problem. But spending five sentences on why the "blow up the tanker" mission is historically inaccurate(!) is a sure sign of bloat. And you don't need to spend a whole page setting up that you hated the game.

The pain of it is that a lot of the points are interesting. (I liked the one about how a special forces unit is supposed to keep going when people die, not abort the mission).

Troy

[Alan Dunkin]

It's kinda amazing that they posted a negative review at all.

I like the Wargamer and I like the writers, but it just seems to be they are all overly positive. The writers know bad games.. so I wonder where it comes from.

--- Alan

[Chris Nahr]

There was some talk about The Wargamer's happy bias on war-hysterical lately... apparently it's the decision of the folks who run the site now that vile negativity must not be allowed.

Anyway, I loved that review, too. That's how the virtually unlimited space on the Internet should be used!

[Union Carbide]

We did this already: http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8310&highlight=korea+forgotten+conflict

[mutt]

50 pages to say he doesn't like the game, while being forced to read about his son's birthday and other trivia in his pathetic life?No fucking thanks. I would trade a review like that for no words, 3 screen shots and a 1-5 star rating any day. That was just nothing but boring masturbation.

Well, some of us want to know WHY the reviewer doesn't like the game, and find it further helpful to know WHERE the reviewer is coming from so we can judge whether his WHY's have any basis that we care about or not. There are plenty of sites out there with reviews by kids who simply "didn't like the game." That ain't enough.

I agree that the review was long, but I enjoyed reading it. I was not "forced to read" a goddamned thing. I was free to quit at any time. By the same token, I am not forced to read the pablum that passes for most mainstream game reviews, either. And that's why I don't.

As for the three shots and a star rating thing, I take it you're the proud owner of the collector's edition of Black & White then? It got like, what, a 94% or something from PCG? You musta run right out and snatched that baby up! (Ok, I admit it. I did. Which is why I wish someone had devoted as much time and care to reviewing it as Trotter did to reviewing his game.)

[Jason McMaster]

Yes, us simpletons who review games for mainstream sure are stupid! We can't manage to review anything correctly! I must remember to write all of my reviews to include what I had for lunch and if I'm grumpy.

[mtkafka]

I didn't enjoy reading it. It was boring and needed a severe edit. The guys no Pauline Kael that's for sure.

etc

[chet]

Muttbunch, the length of the review has nothing to do with the game rating. Were you aware of that before you posted?

If I am going to read a story, I will have Erik read aloud from Mad Magzine for me, but I don't want a story, I want a review. Which is why I would be reading the review in the first place.

Chet

[Peter Olafson]

Gawd.

[Pie4Foo]

It's part of the eternal review syndrom that is on some websites. With space almost infinite, there is no reason to narrow your review down to a few major points. This is a major issue with Wargamer, which is really a shame, because they have some damn fine writers. The guys know their stuff, and maybe their target audience really likes scroll buttons. But give me 1000 words or less - 1500 at the most.

First a disclaimer: I'm the content director at The Wargamer (which means I run the site day-to-day).

There are two major points for which our review format is most often criticized: voluminous length and a lack of a numerical score. The latter is a little easier to defend, but the length our reviews is not (and is the point brought up here). Frankly, our method is a reflection of the wargaming genre, as well as the mentality of the wargaming populace: details = a good thing. It seems to suit our audience well enough, and frankly, that's our aim. We have no interest in competing with GameSpot, GameSpy/IGN, etc., nor do we have any notions that we somehow outclass those sites because our reviews are longer than theirs.

Ironically enough, we spent quite some time discussing the length of Trotter's review of K:FC (heh), in part because he went on one of his infamous tangents explaining some particular personal history that is a touch of out of place in a normal game review, but we concluded the piece was better with it.

As for tightening up the piece, I'll point this out to our editors for further discussion.

It's kinda amazing that they posted a negative review at all.

I like the Wargamer and I like the writers, but it just seems to be they are all overly positive. The writers know bad games.. so I wonder where it comes from.

--- Alan

Since we don't offer a score for our reviews and your conclusion is the result of interpretations from a mix of reviews, that's a perfectly reasonable response. (And here's more on why we don't offer scores: http://www.wargamer.com/articles/fifth_column_5/ )

I will, however, offer two potential explanations:

1) We don't have the resources to review all the PC games we'd like to, let alone all the games that are released. That means our limited review staff focuses their energy on above-average titles, and generally let the crappy titles sit in our pile of unreviewed games.

2) Although we don't offer scores in our reviews, we do encourage our writers to include recommendations for whom the particular game might be most interesting. An excellent example of this is Victoria (review is here: http://www.wargamer.com/reviews/victoria/ ), which the reviewer recommended, but only to the most hardcore of hardcore Paradox (the developers of Victoria and EU) fans. From the conclusion:

Paradox should be congratulated on toning down their system so small powers can't conquer the world. They should also be congratulated for making prestige points the goal of a game so that players can feel good about improving smaller countries that never had the chance of gaining "Great Power" status. Yet, without further patches, Victoria can only be recommended to serious students of the period or gamers already familiar with Europa Universalis I/II and Hearts of Iron. Until Paradox carries through with their usual good patches and somehow clarifies some points in the manual, the average gamer will be as befogged as the Heights of Chulm during the battle of Sadowa.
Is that positive? I honestly think it's possible to see it both ways.

There was some talk about The Wargamer's happy bias on war-hysterical lately... apparently it's the decision of the folks who run the site now that vile negativity must not be allowed.
Are you talking about our forums? Because, yes, it has been pretty nasty there lately. There are quite a few radicals there who like to show off their opinions.

We'd rather the forums not become completely assnine, but well, some people are just idiots.

[steve]

Ironically enough, we spent quite some time discussing the length of Trotter's review of K:FC (heh), in part because he went on one of his infamous tangents explaining some particular personal history that is a touch of out of place in a normal game review, but we concluded the piece was better with it.
That's the perfect thing for a sidebar; it's a little tougher to do it online than in print, literally, because you're working with a narrower column, but some of the tangential stuff could be split off into different articles or something.

Just a thought.

[Mark Asher]

I think some writers do forget that the readers really just want to know if the game is good or bad and why, and be told in a succinct manner. Five thousand words can be succinct (I guess) if there's enough detail to get into, but the writer's carving out a difficult task.

I didn't read the review in question, btw. I started to but it looked too long. So I'm not knocking it, other than to say the length is unattractive to a reader like me.

[Jason McCullough]

Dunno, I'm tired of bullet point reviews. It was a refreshing change of pace. Could use editing, though.

That dark-skinned dude with the sunglasses and the anachronistic Rastafarian hair-do? He's a Native American sniper, Night Hawk. "His place and date of birth is (sic) unknown"; what, the Army couldn't dig up that information? "His appearance is unforgettable with sharp eyes and rough, dark skin". Passing quickly over this risible syntax (don't get too close to those "sharp" eyes!), we also learn that "many of his comrades avoid his company, maybe because of his habits." Huh? Absent further information, I tried to keep a close eye on Night Hawk, so I could discover what those unsavory proclivities might be, but alas, was never able to spot him nibbling his boogers or sniffing the armpits of dead Koreans.

Funny.

[Gary Whitta]

Trotter's a great writer and one of the nicest guys I know.

[scharmers]

Trotter's a great writer and one of the nicest guys I know.

So?

[Alan Dunkin]

Are we supposed to be shocked you're backing up one of your own writers? :)

--- Alan

[JeffL]

Trotter's a great writer and one of the nicest guys I know.

Without a doubt one of the best in the wargaming genre. Just for my taste, I dislike reviews where the writers go off on personal tangents that do nothing in terms of describing the game. "Good" or "Bad" is purely subjective relative to review style (when you're talking about a good writer,) as witnessed by the split here of those who liked the review and those (like me) who gave up after about 3 pages because the review appeared to be more about Bill than it did the game.

[Chris Nahr]

Much of the review is definitely about Bill but it's not just about what he had for breakfast or something unrelated. He's relating his personal experience regarding the subject of the game, and that's something I can't value highly enough. We're talking about a wargame here, and quite a few people were affected by this war. I think it we shouldn't completely forget that.

[chet]

So the more people affected the better the game? How does that affect the game? The review?

Chet

[JeffL]

Much of the review is definitely about Bill but it's not just about what he had for breakfast or something unrelated. He's relating his personal experience regarding the subject of the game, and that's something I can't value highly enough. We're talking about a wargame here, and quite a few people were affected by this war. I think it we shouldn't completely forget that.

I was raised in the Vietnam era; my father was in Da Nang (Air Force,) I almost went, many friends went, more than one friend died. I worked in Texas with a fellow who lost an arm over there. I watched the first fully televised war, with all its gore, and saw the effect on the US public. I remember Cronkite and all the others reporting on it.

I could give you pages of the effect of that war on my family, myself, and my friends. How growing up and watching the country around me change as a result of Vietnam shaped many of my beliefs. Watching Johnson on TV anounce he would not run. Watching Nixon's handling of the war.

But I wouldn't relate all of those personal memories in a review of Battlefield: Vietnam. Perhaps at most a sentence or two referring to how the game doesn't depict the real experience in any way, shape or form, but probably not even that. The review isn't about me, it's about the game. Personal details pertinent to the review, perhaps, such as Denny's F-15 flight and how that led him to realize that a padlock is NOT a cheat when reviewing a modern flight sim. But not a page on how he threw up and another page on how he had to go through 10 flight suits to find one that fit him and another page on how different the USAF flight manuals are from today's thin game manuals, etc.

Again, just my opinion - others obviously like reading about how much a technician costs to help solve an installation problem. (and I didn't mean that as a dig.)