Review 1UP torpedoes NWN2 - 5/10

[Bradylama]

Electronic Gaming Monthly always has three different reviews for every game (one of them almost always being drawn from 1up). It's an interesting approach, but the downside is that they're not very informative at all, since they get the same page space any normal magazine would give.

 

[The Vanished One]

I think someone should always read more than one review. The whole review of course, a mark does not mean that much.

 

[suibhne]

I think someone should always read more than one review. The whole review of course, a mark does not mean that much.

Sure, but part of the problem is that, unless publications seek out a diversity of viewpoints, you're likely to get basically the same perspective at each major outlet - so reading various reviews won't do much for you until you start digging into more indie sites.

 

[KreideBein]

EBGames' rag GameInformer always has a "second opinion" on their big reviews (which is to say, everything except their small capsule reviews). I don't think they make any effort to ensure they're distinct perspectives, but it's still nice to see two totally different reviewers adding different points and even disagreeing with each other.

GI's reviews are worthless though, so having a smaller second one is pointless. It would be a nice way of doing things if their reviews were anything other than drivel, though.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Leave it up, bare the criticism and move on. It was an opinion given by a single reviewer.

This type of thinking causes mischief.

Que?

Reviews are not mere 'opinions'. If they were, they'd be called as such. Reviewers have certain responsibilities they must discharge for their work to qualify as reviews. A 'review' must be objective in evaluating something against fixed criteria, irrespective of the author's personal feelings about the actual genre itself.

"Fixed criteria" like how "awesome" the graphics are, whether the sound is "good" or "bad" and whether you "like" the game-play or not. Given each and every one of these things is purely subjective and personal, to expect anything other than "someone's opinion" when you read a review is retarded. How do you "objectively" evaluate whether the interface is good or not? To "objectively" evaluate anything, you need a score card and measurements. How quickly can I do X action? How many individual steps are involved to perform Y action? I'm yet to see any review implement such a method. To properly determine whether the graphics are a 9 or a 5 out of 10, you need to measure elements which exist in all the games you review. How many polygons are there per model on average? What's the highest resolution the game will run in? Mind you both of those might be high yet the game might have "poor artistic style". How is that judged? Subjectively.

First thing I do when I'm looking for reviews on a game is find all the reviews that bag the game. The quality of those reviews lets you know whether the game is any good or not. If they're bagging the genre, you can dismiss them. If all they say is "OMG tihs gaem sukzorz!", you can ignore them. If they actually raise some valid points and explain why those points make the game a bad game, they're usually worth the read. A lot more so than all the "OMG this gaem si AWSUM buy it now LOL" which is what most positive reviews are. There are good reviews and there are bad reviews. The only reason this review got taken down was because it critiscised the game and "the majority" threw up a stink. 1up decided to appeal to the masses and take the review down. Isn't that exactly what happened with that Russian review of Oblivion? Did we ever see Part 2 of that?

 

[suibhne]

The only reason this review got taken down was because it critiscised the game and "the majority" threw up a stink. 1up decided to appeal to the masses and take the review down.

Did you actually read the review? I agreed with your entire point until this last assertion, but the fact is that the review was bad - maybe not bad enough to be pulled once it was posted, but certainly bad enough that it never should have been posted in the first place. In terms of style, it was very poorly written. In terms of content, it criticized the D&D "genre" without providing specifics; it criticized NWN2 without providing specifics aside from unsupported generalities about D&D; and it even had the temerity to end by saying "The game's a 5, but if you like D&D it could be a 9 or higher" - basically abandoning even the slightest pretense that the game rather than the game system was being reviewed. Tbh it was one of the sloppiest pieces of "game journalism" I've seen in a long time.

Every review has an implicit disclaimer along the lines of "Here's what I think; if you like the game, tho, you'll like the game". Que sera, sera. But it's still the reviewer's job to support her arguments, to provide evidence for why she holds the viewpoint articulated in the review - and this guy didn't even make much of an attempt.

 

[amurath]

You know what the best thing about all these recent NWN2 reviews is, whether they're good or bad?
- No one is comparing NWN2 to Oblivion (unlike in, say, Gothic 3 reviews), which leads me to hope that the Oblivion debacle will be forgotten and it will soon dethroned from its supposed "greatest Rpg evar" perch.

 

[draexem]

You know what the best thing about all these recent NWN2 reviews is, whether they're good or bad?
- No one is comparing NWN2 to Oblivion

Correction, only the stupid people are... like the moron who wrote the previous 1up review *points down*

Worse -- and blame this on games like Oblivion -- NWN2's levels feel pint-sized

It's worth pointing out that he didn't compare TES's lame toolset to NWN2's powerhouse, but that would have been unfair, wouldn't it .

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Did you actually read the review?

Hey, it got pulled before I got to read it.

Irrespective of that though, the point still stands. The community threw up a stink, 1up pulled the review. No community stink, review would still be there. If you publish a bad review, I think you should damn well stick by it irrespective of any backlash you might get. There are plenty of unsupported comments made in all reviews. It's part and parcel of the process. I don't think the reviewer should be expected to explain in minute detail what or why he doesn't like something. Especially if he himself doesn't exactly know beyond "I just don't like it". Let the reader be the one to judge the value of those reviews and whether they're willing to accept any broad statements made within it.

The cowardly thing to do is to run away when you're hit with the negative feedback. "Well gosh, we uhh... just didn't read it. Nope but thanks for telling us it's all wrong, we'll go right ahead and fix that for you now". From what I understand the best thing they could've done in this case is have the reviewer write a follow-up article which explains his position on what he said. Presuming he knows why he has that position.

 

[Hazelnut]

DU, feel free to take a read of the text of that 'review' if you like... http://www.penny-arcade.com/docs/nwn2review.html

I can't understand why you think it would be a good thing to leave that up under the banner of a review... and if you took the time to read the blog you'd know that it may well have been left online if that had not have meant that it would go into print for a magazine as well.

It was not pulled because it criticised the game, it was pulled because it was as much a Review as Oblivion is an RPG! I think they should put it back up as an opinion piece/article (i.e. not a review) once they have a real review up, but it's up to them. We're constantly criticising the standard of reviews, so how this can be seen as anything but a positive step in the right direction, however small or insignificant, I really don't know.

 

[Micmu]

He hated rules in an RPG... maybe because it's an RPG and not an Action "RPG" he would like to play where only rules are collision detections.

Rule-playing game
In all fairness, it's not entirely developer Obsidian's fault. D&D certainly puts the "rule" in role-playing, and a madcap base of D&D aficionados is no doubt ready to string me up for suggesting that faithful is here tantamount to folly (to these people, I say: "Go for it, NWN2's all you've ever wanted and more"). Call me crazy -- I guess I'm just finally weary of being led around on a pencil-and-paper leash and batting numbers around a glorified three-dimensional spreadsheet in a computer translation that should have synthesized, not forklifted.

 

[suibhne]

To be fair, I agree with his contention that NWN (and other D&D games) are "rules-heavy" - compared not just to Oblivion, but to Bloodlines, the Gothic titles, even Fallout and Arcanum (tho a little less so). There's a real learning curve. But there's also a learning curve in flight simulators, and you don't review a flight simulator by bitching about the realistic controls.

 

[Greatatlantic]

Indeed, reviews get criticized all the time, especially slightly negative reviews of popular franchises. Still, reviews are rarely pulled due to such criticisms. It takes a special kind of blunder to get a review pulled, or at least reworked, such as factual mistakes. Now, for a review to get pulled with out any actual mistakes, there just has to be something wrong about it. Its an admission on the part of the editors that they screwed up royally.

I think this review certainly qualifies. Looking past the low score (I remain very doubtful of 1up's commitment to use the full 1-10 spectrum), his complaints were about the DnD nature of the game. Thats like complaining about a FPS not allowing you to see around yourself in the third person.

 

[Data4]

I bet there's more to it that what was explained in that blog. Obsidian isn't just some Joe Blow developer, and a negative review of that magnatude would not sit too well from an advertising dollars standpoint. We like to joke that Bethesda padded the palms of all the other reviewers out there, but to be fair, I'm sure it goes for everyone who can afford it.

I do think the review was bunk simply because the reviewer was a little too biased. DND has rules. We know this. That review was like having some enviromentalist, electric car driving freak doing a review of a Corvette for Road & Track.

-D4

 

[Data4]

Okay, so I was wrong.

Here's their redux.

-D4

 

[KreideBein]

The new review, while vastly better than the original, still isn't great. The game being reviewed is an RPG, so why isn't there a more in-depth discussion of how good the role playing element is? The main focus of the review was the technical issues of the game.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

DU, feel free to take a read of the text of that 'review' if you like... http://www.penny-arcade.com/docs/nwn2review.html

I can't understand why you think it would be a good thing to leave that up under the banner of a review... and if you took the time to read the blog you'd know that it may well have been left online if that had not have meant that it would go into print for a magazine as well.

That's what you're complaining about? Seriously? For starters, it's 7 paragraphs probably because it was published. There's only so much column space to go around. More to the point:

• Paragraphs 1 & 2: NWN2 is a typical run of the mill sequel. Focus on rules over real "role-playing" (role-playing is not just adhering to a set of rules after-all)
  
  Paragraphs 3, 4, 5: Forgettable plots, artificial areas. Pint-sized levels. Stale and linear dungeons. Again all you've got are the D&D rules.
  
  Paragraphs 6 & 7: If you "OMG D&D RULEZ" you'll love it because other than the D&D rules, there's not much there. If you couldn't care less about D&D and actually want a real RPG, it's a 5/10.

All he's saying is that NWN2 implements D&D rules but doesn't actually have any role-playing as such. It's no different to looking at a Star Wars movie and saying "Star Wars fans are gonna love it but for the rest of us... Half a star". He broadly goes over a number of points as to why it's just not a good game. It just seems the D&D fans love their system more than they like real role-playing opportunities so they kicked up a fuss.

 

[Jaesun]

So according to 1UP... Oblivion is a better RPG than NWN2?? :shock:

 

[Pseudofool]

Paragraphs 3, 4, 5: Forgettable plots, artificial areas. Pint-sized levels. Stale and linear dungeons. Again all you've got are the D&D rules.

This would be the only credible part of the review, but alas, I doubt the reviewer played very far into the campaign (note the lack of specific evidence!); I'm much further along than 50hours and not yet finished. I'd classify it as anything but stale and forgettable.

Of course I didn't have any of the technical problems the new reviewer had. I always open the "options" screen before I play, and adjust things right away. The flexibility alone in the settings should be a point of praise.

 

[Volourn]

It very much is stale. At least storywise it is. As for being forgettable. Nah. It's a NWN game, and it does some stuff right (mostly) so I'll remember it.

And, while I was praising the relatively bugfreeness and stability of the game ebfore... not anymore. Just ran into my second pretty major bug. YAHOO!!!

 

[aboyd]

The new review, while vastly better than the original, still isn't great. The game being reviewed is an RPG, so why isn't there a more in-depth discussion of how good the role playing element is? The main focus of the review was the technical issues of the game.

For the very reason you mention, I almost dislike the new review more. Of course, they can't keep pulling reviews, so this one will have to stand, and should. But it still shortchanges the game -- instead of ranting on tangents about D&D rulesets in general as used in all D&D games, we have a rant about the interface. I mean, it's great that they're at least talking about this specific game, finally. But I don't read a review just to hear how the camera handles. I want to know what the hell is going on in the game.

I'm not even sure the reviewer played far enough along to really have much to say about the game itself.

For example, I've heard here at the Codex that getting the stronghold is fairly cool. The review doesn't mention it. (By the way, is it true when the reviewer says that NWN 1 only allowed 1 companion/henchman? The latest patches allow 3 companions -- maybe unpatched only allowed one?)

I do agree with the reviewer about some things. The dwarf cliche, trouble-in-Forgotten-Realms cliche, and other standard fantasy cliches do apply. And it IS odd that I cannot auto-pause the game each round, or on sight of the enemy.

I'm running the game in 800x600 with every graphic setting off. I have an ATI Mobility X600. It's not as awful as the reviewer makes it seem. Certainly, I'd like better, though. If the goading of a reviewer results in a few optimization patches, it'll be a fine outcome.

 

[suibhne]

(By the way, is it true when the reviewer says that NWN 1 only allowed 1 companion/henchman? The latest patches allow 3 companions -- maybe unpatched only allowed one?)

Yes, it's true. The appropriate comparison for NWN2 is the original NWN, at release - not NWN as it ended up after 3 years of patches and expansions. The original NWN allowed only one companion, with no real control over that companion and virtually no personality beyond a cardboard cutout. NWN also shipped with an eff-ton of bugs and problems, and Bioware released hundreds of megabytes of patches.

 

[aries202]

HI

The new review is not proper review in my book. It basically just states that we (and I) at 1up don't like
D&D games which are very influenced by rules and such.
And we don't like the camera and the UI in NWN2 as well, btw.

No serius analysis about say gameplay or sound/music is given nor does the reviewer seem to be able to give a valid analysis of say the story. He just mentions something about the traditional setting for a D&D game.

It seems to me that the reviewer doesn't understand that a story can be told more than once, and that it depends of how well the story is told.

AFAIK, the story in NWN 2 is a story we have seen told a million times before, but still enjoys to be told, if and when it is told very well.

aries202

 

[Volourn]

"The appropriate comparison for NWN2 is the original NWN, at release - not NWN as it ended up after 3 years of patches and expansions."

Bullshit. I disagree. That does a injustice to the gaming product. NWN2 is not competeting with NWN1 circa 2002. It's competeting with NWN circa 2006.

It's why I laugh at morons who brag about NWN2's graphics being better than NWN1. I say big friggin' whoop. Is that soemthing to be proud of? A 2006 game having better graphics than a game made in 2002 (or 2003/2004? with HOTU's grpahical upgrade?) is no big deal.

And, youa re wrong. The companions in NWN1 OC had personalities. In fact, they weren't as one dimnesionjal as most NWN2 companions. That wasn't the problem. It wa show their quest/story/background/history was handled - in one big paragraph - so they ddin't feel as 'real' since they hardly talked - only when you did a certain quest thing.

So, stop the bullshitting and tell the truth.

Fuckers.

 

[suibhne]

Bullshit. I disagree. That does a injustice to the gaming product. NWN2 is not competeting with NWN1 circa 2002. It's competeting with NWN circa 2006.

Sure, that's a valid comparison in a review. But it's also worth noting that NWN, in its first few weeks, was just as much of a buggy clusterfuck as NWN2 (tho with better performance, at least) - so it's fine to compare NWN2 to what NWN eventually became when you're evaluating whether it advances the series, but it's not fine to pretend that NWN2 is somehow inferior to the original wrt stability and features.

And, youa re wrong. The companions in NWN1 OC had personalities. In fact, they weren't as one dimnesionjal as most NWN2 companions. That wasn't the problem. It wa show their quest/story/background/history was handled - in one big paragraph - so they ddin't feel as 'real' since they hardly talked - only when you did a certain quest thing.

Never mind your ridiculous affection for the NWN OC "henchmen". (At least Bioware had the decency to avoid calling them "companions".) On the one hand, you say they were less one-dimensional - then you turn around and say they felt less real than those in NWN2.

Really, Volourn, you've become a sad caricature of yourself.