When Reviews Go Bad, con't.
Why Good Games get Trashed While a writer will never be accused of toadying up to game companies when he or she rakes a game over the coals, trashing a truly high quality game is lousy writing nonetheless. Again, here we�re not talking about honest differences in opinions among qualified people � we�re referring to inaccurate reviews. One good example: while the EA Sports NHL series has long been criticized by NHL fanatics for having flaws that destroyed its ability to serve as a true hockey simulation (while still selling a quazillion copies, by the way,) NHL 2001 was highly praised by many of these same critics. The reason: the inclusion of sliders that allowed the player to adjust almost every facet of game play and physics, and thus adjust the same factors about which hockey aficionados had complained. The result was a program that, while not a perfect sim, was a truly great game. Yet in a review of NHL 2001 in what is arguably the top gaming web site and perhaps the highest paying gaming outlet, the reviewer repeated the complaints of the sins of past versions of the game � flaws that were addressed by the breakthrough feature of the adjustment sliders. In fact, while most reviews called for all sports games to include these versatile user adjustable control sliders, this harsh review didn�t even mention them, thus missing the core feature of the game and resulting in a low score. To the credit of the site�s chief editor, once letters came in decrying the inaccuracy of the article, he quickly had the review corrected. But here was an experienced writer, on a top web site, with professional editors, completely missing the un-missable key features of the game and trashing it as a result. How does this happen? Hard to tell in this case, although it appeared to be a rushed review. There are several factors that can result in good games being unfairly criticized. By far the most common is the factor mentioned in the previous section: writers without the experience and/or background to accurately judge a game. Case in point: Combat Mission is one of those very rare games that completely revolutionizes a genre. It�s a 3D wargame, accessible enough that non-grognards can jump in and play but with enough hardcore verisimilitude to please the historical simmer. Combat Mission is the first wargame in as long as most old timers can remember to be good enough to be seriously considered as an overall Game of the Year candidate. Yet more than one review attacked the game because the writer was simply clueless and thus interpreted realistic gameplay as a "flaw." "The game simply cheats � the AI German ALWAYS killed my American tank, even when I got the first shots off�" is a typical example of a reviewer with no understanding of the real world comparison of a Tiger and a Sherman, yet that didn�t result in the slightest speedbump in the unwarranted criticisms. The same can be said for flight sim reviewers that don�t understand why a slower plane out-turns them or what retreating blade stall is and why it can cause their chopper to suddenly fall out of the sky; sports game reviewers who can�t understand why they can�t score a soccer goal routinely from mid-pitch or why a golf shot out of the rough won�t spin back on the green like one from the fairway; business sim reviewers who�ve never spent a day fighting in the corporate wars and are pissed when simple price/demand relationships don�t seem to work; and so on. In some cases you�ll see a good game trashed because the reviewer is just too damned lazy to actually play the game in depth and RTFM. Perhaps he read a number of posts on Usenet that trashed the game (there is far too much "Usenet Plagiarism" these days, in which a reviewer merely collects Usenet posts and then parrots them into a review � inaccuracies and all.) Perhaps he�s in a rush due to a deadline and thus tries to play the game for a couple of hours and extrapolate the results of those first hours, missing intricacies that only come after playing the game in depth. Perhaps he just assumes that a game stinks because predecessors of the game stunk. All of these are simply sloppy writing and inexcusable � and far too common.
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