PC Gamer reviewed NS2
sheena_yanai
Join Date: 2002-12-23 Member: 11426Members
Join Date: 2002-12-23 Member: 11426Members
Comments
By the way, this review is terrible and if you people who hated Gamespot's score have any self respect you'll hate this one as well. Something like 75% of the text is just a generic description 'in a nutshell' of what the game is. It's like reading the back of the box. It's like reading a review of Apollo 13, and the guy just tells you about the Apollo space mission and what went wrong, and then at the very end says: "Oh Tom Hanks was great. Gary Sinise was cool too I guess."
Here's the review with everything that isn't strictly a REVIEW removed.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><strike><!--coloro:black--><span style="color:black"><!--/coloro-->It’s taken almost a decade for the Natural Selection 2 developers to bond an FPS to an RTS and make it work. The original mod was fun, but this sequel is a wonderful one-off, where asymmetrical teams fight on the ground while a commander prompts and preps from above. And although 90% of its audience will be buying it for the shooter, like the rug in The Big Lebowski it’s the RTS that ties it all together.
It would be easy for each side’s commander to just be a spambot for the grunts on the ground, but the relationship is truly symbiotic. The whole point is to protect this person – a soldier who volunteers from the usual sci-fi castes of human and aliens at the start of the game. They disappear into their command module and then the orders start coming down. While trying to destroy the command module of the other team, you must spread your race’s structures through the level to gather resources.
The commander chooses what to place and where it goes, but it takes the grunts to make it happen. The commander on the marine side asks for tech to be built so he can both protect himself and upgrade marine weaponry. On the alien side he doesn’t need his troops to build things for him, but to protect his infestation as it spreads in an awful, dynamic gloop across all surfaces. The reward for everyone is toys.
Everyone collects resources that go into a pool. The commander spends these to research upgrades that the players buy. For the marines that’s shotguns, flamethrowers, jetpacks and exoskeletons, all of them slick and well-animated. But you can stick with the basic rifle combo if you choose: it does the job.
For the aliens, the upgrades are more fundamental. Aliens start off as Skulks, wonderful speedy little wallcrawlers that are the perfect ambush class. They skitter about in the vents and leap out of corners. If you choose to evolve, you’ll need ever-increasing amounts of resources to hop into the bodies of the Gorge (support), Lerk (aerial combat), Fade (stealth death machine), and Onos (RARRRGH!). Each of these can be modified with perks, but these must be researched by the commander first. It’s an interesting feedback loop to be part of, creating an easy, instant alliance.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></strike>
Most people will have an affinity with the marines, and my own favourite battles have been when the aliens have nibbled on a power node and plunged my area into darkness. The ten seconds where you spin around with your torch, waiting for the back-up generator to kick in, are terrifying. <strike><!--coloro:black--><span style="color:black"><!--/coloro-->If the surrounding aliens haven’t muffled their footsteps, there’s a scuttling, clacking noise as they close in.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></strike> But then the flipside of playing as a Skulk, watching from a vent as a passing squad hunts you down, is equally nervy.
<strike><!--coloro:black--><span style="color:black"><!--/coloro-->When all this comes together the results are not unlike an action-RTS: nothing is just given, and every resource point is a battle.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></strike> The matches are long slogs, some stretching to a tense 45 minutes, but the smaller fights tend to be over quickly, with one team drawing back to regroup as the other repairs whatever damage was done.
Natural Selection 2 needs some crash bugs ironed out, which is bad for the full release of a game that’s spent so long in alpha-testing with its community. Right now command mode doesn’t have re-defineable keys, and I found the current configuration almost unplayable. But I can’t remember an indie shooter that took on such a huge task and nailed it so comfortably.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So the game is worth 90 because:
- It was cool when the lights went out once.
- Skulking is fun, I guess.
- You can't rebind some keys.
- Crashes like woah.
- Variable game lengths.
It's ok, you'll learn. :p
I'm amazed people even bother giving games "journalism" sites pagehits anymore considering the tools and information we have available.
If you really want to know what a game is like, go read the Metacritic user scores rated between 3 and 7, and then watch a gameplay or Lets Play video to finalize your decision. The sooner you detach yourself from parasites like IGN, Kotaku (and the entire Gawker network), Gamespot, Destructiod, Escapist, 1up, Gametrailers, Joystiq etc. (I could seriously go all day), the better off the entire gaming community will be for it.
Good work, Temphage.
I personally think the score is too high, just as the score of the GS review was too low. But the actual content of the review is fine - so what's the problem? (GS review was inaccurate, this isn't?). It described the game, and he described a few things he liked, and a few outstanding issues. Content-wise that seems pretty fair?
As for the score, it is likely that it is rated 90/100 because all of ns2's issues aside, it is an extremely enjoyable game to play. If it isn't for you, and can't fathom ns2 getting a good score, why do you even play? Plenty of incredibly dull and boring games get over 90. This is the only game in years that has got me interested and engaged enough to play regularly, so definitely deserves it purely in terms of enjoyment and replayability.
I'm just happy for UWE that it pushes the metacritic score above 80. Let's not sh!t on every good review just because you don't agree with the community's reaction to gamespot.
I personally think the score is too high, just as the score of the GS review was too low. But the actual content of the review is fine - so what's the problem? (GS review was inaccurate, this isn't?). It described the game, and he described a few things he liked, and a few outstanding issues. Content-wise that seems pretty fair?
As for the score, it is likely that it is rated 90/100 because all of ns2's issues aside, it is an extremely enjoyable game to play. If it isn't for you, and can't fathom ns2 getting a good score, why do you even play? Plenty of incredibly dull and boring games get over 90. This is the only game in years that has got me interested and engaged enough to play regularly.
I'm just happy for UWE that it pushes the metacritic score above 80. Let's not sh!t on every good review just because you don't agree with the community's reaction to gamespot.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No one is talking about the score. They are talking about how piss poorly written the actual review is. The guy should not be getting paid to write. He wrote like 3 short paragraphs with no review content and said, "NINETY OUT OF ONE HUNDRED ME WRITER NOW MOMMY."
Well...
<a href="http://www.freeimagehosting.net/vatos" target="_blank">http://www.freeimagehosting.net/vatos</a>
I'm amazed people even bother giving games "journalism" sites pagehits anymore consider the tools and information we have available.
If you really want to know what a game is like, go read the Metacritic user scores rated between 3 and 7, and then watch a gameplay or Lets Play video to finalise your decision. The sooner you detach yourself from parasites like IGN, Kotaku (and the entire Gawker network), Gamespot, Destructiod, Escapist, 1up, Gametrailers, Joystiq etc. (I could seriously go all day), the better off the entire gaming community will be for it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Even the gamespot review is better written than this one. At least he has criticisms and tries to justify them, even if he was wrong. The gamespot reviewer at least REVIEWED the game. What I think the review sites need is simple organization- First, what the game is and what are the indisputable facts. Second, the actual review with opinions. Temphage is right in pointing out this reviewer barely did anything at all, because contrary to your post, this ISN'T an industry standard. Maybe for the magazine industry, but online the reviews are usually at least twice as lengthy and they actually have opinions.
Go read metacritic user reviews? Horrible suggestion. Think about the demographics reviewing each game. Would you trust a COD metacritic user review, or an NS2 metacritic user review? Don't even get me started on user review scores like 1 or 10 that are there purely to boost an average rather than review a game sincerely.
At least the good reviewers from websites (and yeah I agree, there are definitely some pickles), at least they have a objectivity and treat games fairly with less bias since they play a ton of them for a living.
Which is why I suggested sticking to the 3/10 to 7/10 range, you're far more likely to find honest opinions and genuine grievances in a game rather than what you would read out of someone fellating it with a 10 or trolling with a 0.
I would definitely trust the opinions of a user over a critic. It just takes a keen eye to see past all the trolling (which is why you should also glance at a Let's Play before making the purchase).
I won't speak for everyone else but I'll have my say.
Your negative outlook on everything regarding this game is awful and no one likes being around it.
This is a nice thread. It's very informative, it links to a review. It's nice.
You come in here, and you ###### all over it.
Why? Why do you feel the need to make everything around you negative, bad and miserable?
Please, just please go do this somewhere else.
I like this game, the person who posted the review likes this game, the reviewer from PC gamer likes this game.
This is what the thread is about.
I know you don't like this game. Keep it to yourself. You obviously can't have a reasonable discussion either. I've seen too much of the opposite.
Somehow you misread General Discussion as The place to spill your sorrows and make everyone as miserable as yourself.
It's cool though, brother. Everyone makes mistakes. Just please stop bothering everyone else with your bad attitude.
I'd also like to mention that you can review a game without mentioning all the little things that made you give it the score you did.
He might just not be the best writer. At least he played it and scored it.
Temphage mentioned the score, the post I was replying to. I'm guessing the implication was that either it wasn't worth 90/100, or the review content didn't provide enough basis for the 90/100 score (which is fair, although IMO is just a symptom of the review being a bit brief rather than pages long), or both.
I don't know where you learnt to count, but the reviewer wrote 8 paragraphs, not 3. And whilst a lot of it was dedicated to simply describing the game rather than offering opinions on it, there certainly is review content.
I don't think it's a great review by any means. Could have been way more detailed, though perhaps at the expense of being too long-winded. It certainly isn't so bad that is warrants the crude all-caps impression of a child and his mommy.
I'm just disappointed that we celebrate a good review without the first reply immediately getting all cynical at what happened with gamespot. It may not be a masterpeice that covers all of the ins and outs of the game, but it's fair. I think calling it worse than the GS review is a gross exxageration. I get the whole 'double standards' thing, and we certainly shouldn't be praising innaccurate and horribly-written reviews just because they have a good score... but this review aint one of them. That's just my opinion though. I guess people are welcome to write off the review as a peice of garbage. I just don't see it..
Believe me, I know, I've torn up the ridiculous 'curve of quality' in numeric reviews and how biased reviewers are (sometimes through no fault of their own - EA for example didn't give advance copies of BF3 to reviewers whom they didn't think would give it at least a 9/10). I'm just making fun of the epic ######storm of tears that rained down from this forum when the game got a 6/10 for a review that was no better in any real capacity except screenshot quality and final score.
<!--quoteo(post=2040697:date=Dec 6 2012, 01:55 AM:name=m0rd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (m0rd @ Dec 6 2012, 01:55 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2040697"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Which is why I suggested sticking to the 3/10 to 7/10 range, you're far more likely to find honest opinions and genuine grievances in a game rather than what you would read out of someone fellating it with a 10 or trolling with a 0.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed. Frankly, when it comes to a game review, I want to hear what sucks. I want to know the worst parts. Prometheus, if I just described the good parts of the movie and how cool some of the scenes were, would sound like a good movie. But the ****-list is a mile long for that movie and you can tear it apart. I want to know, no matter how good the reviewer thinks the actual game is, that the loading times are ridiculously long. I want to know that it can feel repetitive and the controls are bad. All this tells me more than "I thought ____ was cool". For example, in Mark of the Ninja, not one review bothered to mention how bad the story is delivered, even though it is delivered quite ham-fistedly.
People dump on Yahtzee as a 'comedy' but I put much more faith in his reviews than anything, because if the game has some sort of flaw, he'll let you know.
Movie critics are described as critics - we expect them to be critical and harsh. There's no e-drama when a critic gives a movie a rough score. Game reviewers just sound like they're spitting out advertisements, and even the general public seems like they'd rather hear the good parts praised than the bad parts trashed.
I don't get it at all.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think calling it worse than the GS review is a gross exxageration.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm sure PC Gamer gave this guy a Cray to play the game on, but the game has performance issues and something like that is a VERY serious mark against *ANY* game. There's not a mention of it. And yet, I doubt anyone here would deny that performance can get pretty bad, especially around lots of infestation. If he had dedicated three paragraphs to describing the game, and five paragraphs to tearing into it, he may have had room to mention in at least one line that on his brand-spanking-new rig it was pushing the temps pretty high even with the engine's view limitation that sometimes makes enemies in open areas invisible if they're too far away.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Please, just leave these forums Temphage.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/3B0wV.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Well that one was factually wrong and very biased or rather his personal opinion. Although this "review" is more of a description of NS2 than a fully fledged review.
I'd still say a review which has simple facts wrong and is based for the most part on an opinion compared to a review that isn't really one, but at least describes the game factually, scores a bit lower on the review quality scale, not that I use them personally. For a game I'm interested in, I tend to slap some youtube footage of some random person playing in me browser and judge it on what I see myself.
Fair enough. Perhaps the biggest problem with this review is that it doesn't mention performance issues at all. That's definitely not something that can be overlooked, and definitely decreases the quality of the review for making such an oversight.
It could also use a little less description, a little more opinion.
He messed up the price (oh no!) and called infestation creep. Which is funny because people *HERE* call it 'creep'. And it works just like creep. And there's pretty much nothing in-game that would dissuade you from the notion that it is just 'creep'.
So factually wrong!
A factually wrong review means you start talking about ###### that isn't even in the game, not screw up $5 on the price and give a generic name that everyone can relate to to something that for all intents and purposes has no obvious name.
Now I don't mind bad reviews, as long as they are backed up by proper research and actual facts. And have close to no bias in them, the readers need to decide, not the reviewer...
<i>But let's not digress, both this one and the pulled one are a bit iffy in terms of being called a proper review. This one doesn't get simple facts wrong and does a good job at explaining what the game is about. It is at fault of not doing in depth thing though, but it doesn't do it in a damaging way. It kinda leaves the door open for comments/discussion</i>
I'm a bit surprised Themphage with you puling <b>that</b> card on me of all people? Ah well to answer you question, it is a bit obvious but here goes :(
I heard and read about complaints in the range of 1.5-2 minutes, not the alleged 5+ minutes... Not saying 2 minutes isn't long and should of course be improved, but that sure as hell is a long ways off 5 minutes... Also lets get this thread on-topic again shall we, I'm done hope you are as well :P
I heard and read about complaints in the range of 1.5-2 minutes, not the alleged 5+ minutes... Not saying 2 minutes isn't long and should of course be improved, but that sure as hell is a long ways off 5 minutes... Also lets get this thread on-topic again shall we, I'm done hope you are as well :P<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I've had this issue specifically only in the maptesting build, on Precaching. It precaches at an average of 1 every second out of /1000+ for some maps. it can take me 5+ minutes to connect, some people complain of having 10 minute load times. turning on texture streaming doesn't seem to make a difference
But to be honest, I seldom look to reviews before purchasing a game. I debate getting something only if it has a very poor score. I prefer hi-res pictures and video of the UI and gameplay, mainly. I do wish I would have listened to everyone's warnings about the AvP reboot though.... *shudder*
I am such a big fan of Aliens/Predator, that I was blinded by my love of the franchise. That grappling melee system was just HORRID.
You can't have this argument both ways! You earlier slated the reviewer for not mentioning poor performance - but what if he simply didn't find poor performance? Just because long loading times are a problem for *some people*, doesn't mean that everyone finds this, and should we *really* expect the reviewer to have tested this game at length on different hardware setups?
Yes, the perfect review is based on hours upon hours of gameplay, getting involved with the community to understand the game better, and providing a balanced and comprehensive account of everything the customer is likely to experience in the game. I for one have never seen the perfect review, and many others have stated already that most people don't really go on reviews to buy their games anyway - word of mouth and in-game footage posted on the internet are by far the most common methods for choosing whether or not to buy a game.
But seriously, trying to argue this point both ways is borderline trolling.
Does a big publisher pay big reviewing sites? Does a company that doesnt pay much for a review only get a lazy one?
Personally I think what UWE have done with such a small team is phenomenal. It will improve, including load times, optimisations and crashing. Just give them a chance and maybe some encouragement to do just that and not just criticise all the time. There are aspects of NS2 I am not too fond of either but trust UW to do whatever they feel necessary for the long term future of the game.
Sal