Castle Paradox

[Friend]

I'm sick of this review business, really. At one time one of the reviewers said he's going to base his review on a basis of commercial games and going to grade everything professionally. But what happens in his other reviews? he graded a game an A pretty much because of the story although he did say the gameplay is a lackluster. On another, the comedy factor pretty much warrant the "A" grade despite the absence of gameplay. Where's this reviewing based on commercial standard again? none. Now, we're not nazi admins, nobody's going to form a committee to review reviews. We're just sick of inconsistent bias by the reviewers.

Now, there's another issue I want to point. Regarding Yellowman's zelda games. No they're certainly not games, but so is OMG IT ROXOR5. Yes I understand it's a joke game, but that's not the point. If you're going to bash the zelda "game" for not being a game, might as well said the same thing about OMG IT ROXOR5. By the same logic, OMG IT R0X0R5 and the review should've been deleted. The author of the game probably couldn't care less if we delete this game, but it's such an irony that he bashes YM because of it and doesn't seem to see his mistake in posting OMG IT ROXOR5.

So I think what Squall is trying to say here is, We don't want you to write reviews according to our standard. There hasn't been such a thing. We just want you to write your reviews according to your bias (or your "standard" or "point of view" if you will.) No one's going to stop you from writing your point of view, but _PLEASE_ be consistent.

Friend,
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"I am Collins. From my position in the moon's orbit, I watched Armstrong and Aldrin land and walk on the surface. I was so close to the ground of the moon, and yet I returned without having trod upon it... I am Collins." -Friend

[Pepsi Ranger]

I know I haven't been much in the review game lately (still have Gilbert's game and a couple others to finish), but fortunately the standard doesn't change much over the years, so I'll throw out my opinion just because I can.

Even though letter grades are a nice accent to an existing review, the criticism needs to be accurately reflected IN THE WORDS of the review, not the overall letter. It really shouldn't matter what the letter grade says if the review itself can accurately inform both the designer and the player what impression a certain game leaves behind.

Take Autumn Dream for example (my only CP exclusive review):

I gave the game a C- because I wasn't that impressed with it. It had its strengths and it had its weaknesses, and I think I mentioned in the review what each of those strengths and weaknesses were. Some of those strengths and weaknesses may have been well received by other reviewers, but to me I wasn't impacted. If I had I thoroughly enjoyed the game, then I would've given it a B or higher. But because it didn't really add greatness to my day, I gave it a grade to reflect that.

Let's change game focus a bit to reinforce the point I'm about to make:

Red Triangle's Maze Madness has subpar graphics, no story line, and a character that's becoming more overused than Mario. But I had a blast playing it. The gameplay was very crafty, and each puzzle was diverse enough from the one before it that I legitimately needed to think how to get through a level every so often. It was fun. Graphically it paled to Autumn Dream. The characters were far more trite than Autumn Dream (which that in itself is hard to do). And the story was non-existent, where Autumn Dream at least had something. But I'd still give Maze Madness at least a B because I had more fun playing it. Now unfortunately I don't have a review handy to compare it to the former, but the point is that the letter grade reflects my "take home value" or enjoyment.

Are we making a connection here?

In short, the designer and gamer need to be influenced by the content of the review and NOT by the letter grade. The letter grade is an exclusive opinion of the reviewer, and not the sum of all the game's strengths and weaknesses. It's the content (meat) of the review that delivers the facts for the gamer to draw his own conclusions from. If the reviewer can't make his point in the body of the criticism, then he or she failed at reviewing. Letter grades are the equivalent to "Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down." You either liked it, or you didn't.

And that's the way it is. Now get back out there and start writing some more.
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The Adventures of Powerstick Man: Extended Edition

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[Aethereal]

Orchy, the only problem is that the standards of some people change over time. I used to review games with very different standards back in the days of O:OHR, and even in the early CP days. Inconsistency isn't a great thing, but people do change, and as they are revealed to more and new things their ideas and biases may change.
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[Friend]

I like to think that there's a distinction between growth and inconsistencies. It's no doubt that our standard/point of view will change in the future, but that's growth. Inconsistencies is going back and forth between arguements, it's the ability to make things up just for the sake of refuting arguements, even if it means contradicting yourself. Inconsistencies is when you blame someone of something you're similarly guilty of but takes no notice of it. That's inconsistency; that's hypocricy. Nobody's going to give you a death sentence for being a hypocrite, we've all been there before... but for crying out loud, know when to swallow your pride.

Here's a case of what I would classify as inconsistent. Suppose there's this guy who has been arguing all design cases that gameplay is the key to a great game and is second to none in the past. However, it's just strange that he then leniently overlook the gameplay factor of his two favorite games. On another recent review, he went on back boasting about his standard of reviewing OHR games according to commercial standard, here again he stresses that gameplay is the ultimate ingridient to make a good game. He's going back and forth between his arguements. This is not growth, it's just plain inconsistency.

Friend,
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"I am Collins. From my position in the moon's orbit, I watched Armstrong and Aldrin land and walk on the surface. I was so close to the ground of the moon, and yet I returned without having trod upon it... I am Collins." -Friend

[msw188]

This is more a reply along the lines of Squall and MCW's arguments. As far as I can tell, Squall's idea is that in order for letter grades to have any meaning, they must be based on the letter grades of other games. MCW's reply seemed a little unclear, but I think the idea is that a reviewer cannot necessarily look at grades of other games, because he or she might NOT have given that grade to that game. I'm not sure how much clearer that is. Hmm, let's say I'm reviewing game X, and I feel it's better than game Y. I see that game Y currently has a grade of B. Now, myself, I would give game Y something like a D, and give game X a C. Should I give game X a B+, just to show I think's it's better than game Y?

I think a question that must be asked is, when you are writing a review, who are you writing it for, and why? To be sure, you write it especially for the maker, so you put in ideas on how you would improve it, but you also write for the community. Is it so that they can judge, without having played many games, whether they want to download this one and give it a shot? If so, a standard must indeed be set. However, if you are reviewing to let people know how YOU feel about a game, regardless of what other people might think of it, then a standard does not become as plausible, and grading against the grades of other games pointless. The real solution, as already pointed out to some extent, would be for there to exist a great many reviews for each game, and for a single reviewer to review many games, so that he could make it his own opinion, but at the same time be judging it against other grades that HE has given.

[JSH357]

I've said this before, but I really, really dislike the review system on this site. The OHRRPGCE Community, as far as I can remember has never had a purely opinionated review system. Let me explain what I mean: I give game X a D. Lazy gamer reads review's scores and not review since there is a letter grade. Say lazy gamer had played the game before reading the review and enjoyed it very much- my review wouldn't affect his opinion on Game X at all. Reviews are written for two reasons: A. For the game's designer to draw some idea of issues in his/her game B. To keep the public from playing games that they do not want to play. Now, here's the problem. What if the public WANTS to play Game X? They wouldn't know if they only read the scores on my review. Now, if there WERE NO SCORES then the gamer would have to read why I thought what I did, and make his judgement from there. It sounds like a much fairer review system to me. Hundreds of OHR games go completely unplayed, either because of lack of advertisement or because the game got an F- in a review. I'm not saying all the games in said situations are worth playing, but what if one out of four WERE? Another issue with the current review system is reviewer style. I like to base my reviews on ALL games that I've played as opposed to only OHRRPGCE games. If an RM2k game is better than an OHR game, I'd rather play the RM2k game. Same for all consoles and such. I'd rather play Final Fantasy V than Walthros, but I'd rather play Walthros than Final Fantasy VII. However, although this is MY Review philosophy, it isn't the same as everyone elses' and CERTAINLY not going to be the philosophy of all the review's readers. I've said my piece. Toodles ~!

[MultiColoredWizard]

Goddamn JSH beat me to what I wanted to say.

[msw188]

Just a small problem with JSH's post, I'm not even sure he meant it to sound this way, but he said something along the lines of: 'A review has two purposes. One, to inform the game designer, and two, to prevent people from playing games they wouldn't want to play." I'd just like to add that reviews also encourage people to play certain games, just as they may discourage others.
However, I would like to say something else. JSH brings up the problem of "lazy gamers" who only read the letter score, and don't bother reading the actual review, and are then misled by someone else's idea of a fitting final grade for the game. To me, this is NO reason to get rid of letter grades. If lazy gamers are that easily misled, it's their own fault I think, and I believe that decisions should not be based on accommodating such people. What I'm saying is that it may not be the letter grade that is the problem, but the people who attach too much importance to it. It's like any statistic. It doesn't MEAN anything until people take a meaning from it. But just because some people take too much meaning from it doesn't necessarily mean it should be done away with; some other people may make good use of it.
Now, whether any good use can come from a final letter grade, that may be a more difficult question. It's already gone through quite a bit of debate, it seems.

[JSH357]

If a single person were doing all the reviewing, then the letter grades would make more sense sense they would reflect the beliefs of the sole reviewer. However, so many people review games on this site, that this is not the case.

[Shadowiii]

But the purpose of a letter grade is to show a certain person's opinion; that is also where the 'final remarks' come in. If done correctly, a person can tell WHY they gave it a bad/good grade, and even a 'lazy gamer' should be able to read that.

Personally I think the rating system is as good as it is going to get, even though it most certainly isn't perfect. If a gamer is lazy then that's too bad for the gamer; you should read the actual reviews (or at least the final remarks) on a game before you download it.

Frankly here is how I see the reviews:

First, there are the long, paragraph length answers that come before the actual grades. Now, who (besides the game creator) actually reads these? I usually read other people's long answers before I REVIEW the game in question, but if I'm downloading I usually don't. Why? Becuase that's too much information given for an OHR game. Why do you think Amazon.com reviews have a length limit? Because no one reads really long reviews. You can SAY you do, but most likely you don't read every word of it.

So what do I read? I usually scroll down to the final remarks, then read over the number grades next to each value (Graphics, Music, etc.) and look at the screen shots. Then I decide, from those, whether or not this is a game I want to d/l. If one of the ratings says something I don't understand, I usually scroll back up and browse through that section of the review, but I never really read an entire review.

Whats the point? I dunno, I forgot. But I think what I'm trying to get at here is that, even if there are lazy gamers, we still need to have reviews, if for the game-makers themselves. Though personally I think quite a few reviews have been pretty low quality, having a review for your game is certainly better then NOT having a review.

*cough* Anyway, I'm off to download some games. No, not OHR games, you fool, Icy Towers! That game rocks! A+!
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But enough talk, have at you!

[Shadowiii]

Ok, I don't want to revive a dead thread, but I looked over some reviews and saw this (names and games withheld)

Graphics: 5.0/10.0
From the lack of buildings that have rooftops, to just plain atari style buildings I must knock down this score.

Graphics: 5.0/10.0
I won't completely bash the graphics too bad. But the battle graphics are what really killed them...

Gameplay: 6.0/10.0
Too easy really.It hits its frustrating-but-motivating parts, but those are too easy themselves as well. Then again I like easy games, so it's really saying something when I say it's too easy.


These are from actual reviews. I don't to critize scores here, but aren't those a bit high for the comments under them?

Seriously, at least TRY to match the numbers with opinion...
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But enough talk, have at you!