Review Gamebanshee reviews Dragon Age

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: BioWare; Dragon Age

<p style="margin-left:50px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-top-color:#ffffff;padding:5px;border-right-color:#bbbbbb;border-left-color:#ffffff;border-bottom-color:#bbbbbb;">If I had to come up with a single phrase to describe DA:O, it would be very professionally done, with numerous goofy exceptions. The game is smoothly executed. Everything fits together well. It looks good. The faces of the NPCs draw you in. The music stirs the heart. The voice actors are well chosen. The party dialog is vivid. There are strange anomalies, such as hand poisoning, and corpses loaded down with safety net products, and a walking, talking DLC ad in your camp. The latter are the price of the admission for the former, and if you want the game you just have to accept the bizarre flaws as the price to pay for everything else.
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Yet at the same time, I get no sense from the game of a giant creative vision, or even a strong imagination. It is an exceptionally slick hack-n-slash, and a good example of what this new engine and system can do. The structure is there, with some tweaking, for an RPG that could do a lot more. DA:O’s dull, obvious plot, unbalanced, boring combat, rote quests, pay-for-combat AI, and numerous reality breakers simply get in the way too often for me to regard it as superlative. Yes, I moderately enjoy it, but I’m frankly more curious as to where BioWare will take the DA franchise next. Hopefully, it won’t be into the kind of cookie cutter mode that made those SSI gold and platinum games of the 1990s so interchangeable and ultimately forgettable. There’s a great opportunity here to improve upon a first offering, and I hope BioWare rises to the occasion.
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Read the rest <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/reviews/96948-dragon-age-origins.html?start=3">there.</a>
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Why does GB no longer give ratings?
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/96952-gb-feature-dragon-age-origins-review.html">GB</A>

 

[Brother None]

Why does GB no longer give ratings?

Because when we do, all the responses tend to be "omfg they gave it [fill in rating here]" from people who are too lazy to read reviews.

I really don't like ratings in general for exactly the above reason. Trying to summate a big opinion into a small number is kind of silly anyway. We decided to drop 'em a while ago.

 

[Phelot]

I like reviews that don't give a score. They're goofy and don't really follow any sort of formula normally. What is the difference between a 9.2 and a 9.3 besides one decimal?

 

[Silellak]

But if you don't give scores, what will game publishers stick on the box art?!

 

[racofer]

Boobies.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I liked it. At least it doesn't state it's good for what it is

 

[Clockwork Knight]

No scores is good, you don't have to keep track of which reviewer is it so you know if his 10 is "perfect game" or "my favorite game". Shame you don't have things like "8.8", then.

 

[Volourn]

"Why does GB no longer give ratings?"

WTFH An Official Codex Newsposter is crying like a baby that another site doesn't use numbered ratings when the Codex never has. WTFH

That's bullshit.

 

[The Wizard]

:volourn:

yes, asking a question is "crying like a baby"

stop the lies, start the truths, moran.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

He's just being iconic.

iconic > ironic

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

"Why does GB no longer give ratings?"

WTFH An Official Codex Newsposter is crying like a baby that another site doesn't use numbered ratings when the Codex never has. WTFH

That's bullshit.

Stop whining. I was well aware that the Codex doesn't give ratings plus I'm not opposed to that in the first place. I was merely curious.

Because when we do, all the responses tend to be "omfg they gave it [fill in rating here]" from people who are too lazy to read reviews.

Fair enough.

 

[Ogg]

This review is 10 times better than VD's. It's quite fair and factual but still, it gives a real opinion. Not just a description.

 

[Elzair]

"Why does GB no longer give ratings?"

WTFH An Official Codex Newsposter is crying like a baby that another site doesn't use numbered ratings when the Codex never has. WTFH

That's bullshit.

Well, for one thing, the Codex only reviews something once in a blue moon (especially nowadays). GameBanshee has 92 reviews compared to the Codex's 49.

I thought ratings were bunk as well until I read this article. I agree with the author that a review is someone's opinion, and that opinion always contains at least a three star rating (favorable, neutral and unfavorable). Ratings just condense the opinion into a number that makes it easier for prospective gamers to find the games are most worth their time (and, conversely, which games are best for T3H 1U1Z) without having to read hundreds or thousands of reviews.

 

[Elzair]

If you want to try ratings, go with five discrete stars.

*: LOLLERSKATES!
**: Playable but not very enjoyable
***: Decent but has been done better
****: A solid, fun game
*****: MUST PLAY!

 

[Volourn]

""I thought ratings were bunk as well until I read this article. I agree with the author that a review is someone's opinion, and that opinion always contains at least a three star rating (favorable, neutral and unfavorable). Ratings just condense the opinion into a number that makes it easier for prospective gamers to find the games are most worth their time (and, conversely, which games are best for T3H 1U1Z) without having to read hundreds or thousands of reviews."

Why are you assuming I'm personally against review ratings? I'm not. I was simply stating the Official Codex Stance since it odd an official codex newsposter would give another site flak for something the Codex officially does themselves.

Does. not. compute.

 

[Elzair]

It's quite fair and factual but still, it gives a real opinion. Not just a description.

I get the feeling that you are aiming that comment at me.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

and that opinion always contains at least a three star rating (favorable, neutral and unfavorable). Ratings just condense the opinion into a number that makes it easier for prospective gamers to find the games are most worth their time (and, conversely, which games are best for T3H 1U1Z) without having to read hundreds or thousands of reviews.

The favorable or not rating sounds okay. The problem is that most people already have an opinion of sorts on the games and see the ratings as a competition - if their favrit gaem isn't a perfect 10, the rating becomes the center of the discussion. AND there are people who will bitch if the rating is higher than they think the game deserves.

So there will always be butthurt on both sides because rarely will people agree on that 8.8 ("wtf, why not 9?" vs "wtf, why is it almost 9?").

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I was simply stating the Official Codex Stance since it odd an official codex newsposter would give another site flak for something the Codex officially does themselves.
Does. not. compute.

There was no "flak" intended. FFS

 

[Ogg]

It's quite fair and factual but still, it gives a real opinion. Not just a description.

I get the feeling that you are aiming that comment at me.

Codex made a paranoid out of you. Your review wasn't the greatest read I had (too much useless context, bioware history and all). But the second part was far more pleasing than VD's analysis. You didn't claim being objective, you stated your point of view. I don't mind your not being categorical on DA:O. I wasn't either. Mixed feelings are understandable, but they are better than no conclusion.

And that's where I agree with you on a need of a basic rating sysstem. Stars are ok. 4 or 5, not more.

 

[Elzair]

Thank you for your clarification.

 

[Elzair]

Why are you assuming I'm personally against review ratings? I'm not.

I was not. I was also trying to respond to the rest of the posters in this thread in that one comment.

 

[Elzair]

The favorable or not rating sounds okay. The problem is that most people already have an opinion of sorts on the games and see the ratings as a competition - if their favrit gaem isn't a perfect 10, the rating becomes the center of the discussion. AND there are people who will bitch if the rating is higher than they think the game deserves.

Yes, but that is a problem even without a rating. I remember there were people here (including myself) who thought VaultDweller's review of DA:O was far too positive. Reviews inherently have a rating, and trying to hide it seems silly.

So there will always be butthurt on both sides because rarely will people agree on that 8.8 ("wtf, why not 9?" vs "wtf, why is it almost 9?").

Yes, this is why I think a discrete five star rating system is best. This gives reviewers five broad choices, and that is probably the maximum human reviewers can truly handle. Accurately ranking things on a decimal system or (*SHUDDER*) a percentile system is beyond the capabilities of humans beings.

 

[Ogg]

Elzair is in multi post frenzy!

 

[Silellak]

Elzair is in multi post frenzy!

C-C-C-Combo breaker!

 

[Brother None]

I thought ratings were bunk as well until I read this article.

Article quickly loses itself in lulzy personal attacks and contradictory bullshit. If refusal of review ratings are a tool for non-critical reviewers to hide behind, then how are they also meant to force you to read their text, in other words actually going through their arguments on liking it or not? Heck, easy enough to turn upside down, to say ratings are a way to hide, as many reviewers do, by pointing out flaw upon flaw in a game before giving it a "surprise" 5/5.

That article is anti-mainstream reviewers. Yes, GB reviewers are "professional" reviewers in the sense that we get paid so he's technically targetting us as well, which is exactly where the article becomes nonsense. He's painting a canvas with one brush and his colours got muddled; he kind of ignores how review ratings are a tool, and neither the use of them nor the refusal to use them is unique to critical reviewers.

So: "lulz, bullshit". Dude hides his inanity behind wordiness, his opinion is still a stupid one.

Hilarious equating arguments like pretending asking for a friend's opinion is the same as reading a review (newsflash: it isn't, and I don't write reviews pretending that I'm talking to a friend whose opinions I'm very familiar with), or that somehow his 5-star rating wouldn't fall under his own complaints of 10 decimal points equals hilarity +1.

Also also, some sites do use "buy it try it leave it", as it's called by one site. It's ok. I'm not against ratings in principle. I don't think using them makes the Watch reviews worse, nor not using them makes the Codex reviews better. They simply do not serve any purpose for us, specifically, so we don't use them anymore.

But if you don't give scores, what will game publishers stick on the box art?!

GotY awards? GameBanshee's GotY is one the Witcher's Enhanced Edition box.

We've thought about giving a "Gold Rating" to games that would have got/did get a 9+ rating in our old system, which is King's Bounty, Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur's Gate II, the Witcher and...dunno, think that's it. Meh. We'll see.