Review RPG Codex Review: Dead State

[Crooked Bee]

So yes, we should have a competent editor making sure the shit the codex (site), produces has quality not only writing wise but clarity wise, something this review sorely lacks.

Sure, good idea, if you're willing to pay the average salary for such an editor.

Also the review seems absolutely clear to me - and with regard to the "well-designed" comment, it's also in the eye of the reviewer and not something the editor would mess with even in an ideal case - so maybe the problem is on your end?

 

[Kem0sabe]

Sure, good idea, if you're willing to pay the average salary for such an editor.

Also the review seems absolutely clear to me - and with regard to the "well-designed" comment, it's also in the eye of the reviewer and not something the editor would mess with even in an ideal case - so maybe the problem is on your end?

It's most definitely on my end but I've read similar posts in reaction to reviews but.

With the infrequent releases of reviews, interviews and other written original content in the codex, I think a staff round table approach would work as a stopgap measure.

Check articles for consistency in their message, the biggest issue with zombra review is his ambiguous tone throughout, you would expect a recommendation at the end until he hits you with the opposite.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I think a staff round table approach would work as a stopgap measure.

this is in theory taking place by default, it's just that people probably don't read reviews of shit they don't care about

i know i don't

 

[Crooked Bee]

Check articles for consistency in their message, the biggest issue with zombra review is his ambiguous tone throughout, you would expect a recommendation at the end until he hits you with the opposite.

Fair enough I guess, but I dunno, the conclusion seems, uhm, balanced to me -- interesting mechanics, poor balance. The reader is free to draw his/her own conclusions as to whether to pick this up immediately or not, with Zombra's conclusion erring on the side of cautiousness.

In general, if we exclude all ambiguity from reviews, and demand they be fully positive or negative, we will block off pieces like Sceptic's MMX (in b4 DR) or VD's Wasteland 2 review, too; personally I don't see that as something positive. The "ambiguous tone throughout" seems more like a positive to me, too; this is, incidentally, also the tone I took for my and Zed's South Park review, so again, personal biases may be at play here. Reading Zombra's review, though, I can see that there's an interesting game at the heart of Dead State, but I also have to make the decision myself w/r/t purchasing it now or not. Had it been fully positive, I would've been tricked into buying an unbalanced game. Had it been fully negative, I might have given it a pass altogether, which would've meant missing out on a potentially interesting and unique title.

Of course, I wouldn't mind us having a dedicated, thorough editor to check the reviews for consistency down to the minor detail, but that would require the kind of professional that we, as an amateur review site that doesn't pay its staff, cannot really afford or demand.

 

[Zombra]

Check articles for consistency in their message, the biggest issue with zombra review is his ambiguous tone throughout, you would expect a recommendation at the end until he hits you with the opposite.

Definitely - ambiguity is one of my hallmarks and this is intentional. Again, naossano got it right in his post above. And I'm completely OK with the arc of the review not following the expected trajectory. When the brain receives a signal that is not necessarily predictable, it's called "information", and I strove to be informational in every paragraph of the article - by which I mean, honest about each subject, regardless of assumptions that may have built up on the part of the reader. To me, that's more important than soothing them with a repeating lullaby. Otherwise, I might as well just write the first 10 words and then say, "etc., you get the point".

I agree that if The Powers That Be didn't want to post an article that uses my style and my voice, they shouldn't have asked me to do the review at all. I'm completely with you there.

Where I disagree with you is on the subject of "consistency of message" if I'm reading you right; that is, that every article on the Codex must have the same point of view and must agree with the opinions of some ambiguous grouping who "really represent" some imaginary unified vision. If the admins only want their opinions to be admissible, they should write all the stuff themselves; otherwise it'd be flat out censorship. Is my article somehow nonkompliant because only 80% of the staff who've commented liked it?

But that might not be what you mean ... if, instead, by consistency of message you mean that every article can only be positive or negative, and refuse to explore the bad in good things or vice versa, I disagree with you there even more strongly. When I read a review, I mean really read it, I don't just want to see no no bad or yay hooray good. I want an honest examination of each significant facet of the subject. I want information.

Note that if I had had to choose a simplified, "consistent" message for the article, I would have gone with "Dead State good ungh ungh buy now" and you guys would be even more pissed off. I'm sorry if you're disappointed that I chose honesty instead.

 

[Ninjerk]

 

[tuluse]

In general, if we exclude all ambiguity from reviews, and demand they be fully positive or negative, we will block off pieces like Sceptic's MMX (in b4 DR) or VD's Wasteland 2 review, too; personally I don't see that as something positive. The "ambiguous tone throughout" seems more like a positive to me, too; this is, incidentally, also the tone I took for my and Zed's South Park review, so again, personal biases may be at play here. Reading Zombra's review, though, I can see that there's an interesting game at the heart of Dead State, but I also have to make the decision myself w/r/t purchasing it now or not. Had it been fully positive, I would've been tricked into buying an unbalanced game. Had it been fully negative, I might have given it a pass altogether, which would've meant missing out on a potentially interesting and unique title.

Of course, I wouldn't mind us having a dedicated, thorough editor to check the reviews for consistency down to the minor detail, but that would require the kind of professional that we, as an amateur review site that doesn't pay its staff, cannot really afford or demand.

Ambiguity is good. Dead State sounds like a bad game with interesting ideas from reading the review and that seems fair.

Not everything has to be great or terrible, there is middle ground.

 

[Absinthe]

Definitely - ambiguity is one of my hallmarks and this is intentional. Again, naossano got it right in his post above. And I'm completely OK with the arc of the review not following the expected trajectory.

So your review is like a postmodern critique of the notion that a review should actually review shit?

When the brain receives a signal that is not necessarily predictable, it's called "information", and

This kind of armchair neuropsych explanation is intellectually vacuous and serves no practical purpose - other than to fool others to think more highly of your intellect. If you deluded yourself into thinking that was a genuinely intelligent perspective, then I pity you because honestly, it's pretentious trash and you'd've fallen for your own pretenses. If you are actually stuck in the kind of academic circlejerk which lauds this nonsense, then you need a change of environment for the sake of your acumen.

I strove to be informational in every paragraph of the article

Yes, good idea. You didn't need to wrap this statement in mumbo jumbo to make it sound like a smarter decision somehow.

- by which I mean, honest about each subject, regardless of assumptions that may have built up on the part of the reader.

This is mainly a stylistic choice but do note that you're the one who is building up a reader's expectations and a reader generally prefers to know what you're doing if you want to maintain his attention. If this is an understated way of saying "screw the reader; I do things my way and he should just figure it out" then I think you're badly suited as a writer because while a writer does not need to cater to the reader's likes and preferences per se, he does need to establish meaningful communication and that often includes establishing some expectation of the text that is delivered upon. Like, in a review the expectation is that you deliver perspective and evaluations. Not that you put some ambiguous opinions and info out there then say "make up your own mind."

To me, that's more important than soothing them with a repeating lullaby. Otherwise, I might as well just write the first 10 words and then say, "etc., you get the point".

This is a strawman logical fallacy. As in, you attacked a position nobody was arguing in an attempt to score points. It also sounds like a false dichotomy, in that clearly there are more options than these two.

Where I disagree with you is on the subject of "consistency of message" if I'm reading you right; that is, that every article on the Codex must have the same point of view and must agree with the opinions of some ambiguous grouping who "really represent" some imaginary unified vision. If the admins only want their opinions to be admissible, they should write all the stuff themselves; otherwise it'd be flat out censorship. Is my article somehow nonkompliant because only 80% of the staff who've commented liked it?

It's nice of you to paint yourself as the lone dissenter willing to speak out against an angry horde striving to silence the unorthodox opinion, but the truth is less flattering. Like, your review sucks at being a review. And considering this is your first review, consider the possibility that maybe you really do just suck. You could have a review that orgasms about how glorious Dead State and it could do a better job than your shit not because it has "the right opinion" but because it brings clear evaluations and cogent thought to the table. You could also have a review that merely considers it tolerable, mildly entertaining fare and that can work too.

But that might not be what you mean ... if, instead, by consistency of message you mean that every article can only be positive or negative, and refuse to explore the bad in good things or vice versa, I disagree with you there even more strongly. When I read a review, I mean really read it, I don't just want to see no no bad or yay hooray good. I want an honest examination of each significant facet of the subject. I want information.

...You are very hung up on this point about "pros only or cons only" which a moment's reflection would tell you nobody seriously endorses. Yes, pros and cons are good, but they need to be called out for what they are. If you have a perspective on the issue (which you do), it is often better to mention your personal perspective than to leave a general ambiguity. It's not much of a review without perspective.

And we feel that honest examinations require actual standards. It often feels like your standards slip lower to create a more positive impression of the good aspects and higher when discussing what's wrong with the game. Your goal may be to present a balanced impression with these weighted scales but largely it seems like you are just being a fanboy faggot afraid of admitting what's wrong and only making piecemeal concessions.

Note that if I had had to choose a simplified, "consistent" message for the article, I would have gone with "Dead State good ungh ungh buy now" and you guys would be even more pissed off. I'm sorry if you're disappointed that I chose honesty instead.

That's a false dichotomy and if these are your only two methods of reviewing, you should not do reviews. Also this reeks of passive aggression, which plays back into the point of cancerous biases undermining your points.

Ambiguity is good.

Not in a review, you fucking moron. When people read a review, they expect him to actually review things and appraise its aspects. We read a review to clear up the ambiguity surrounding the subject. A deliberately ambiguous review only gives the impression of a half-assed, pusillanimous, and noncommittal reviewer.

Dead State sounds like a bad game with interesting ideas from reading the review and that seems fair.

That is my weak impression as well, but I think it is inadequate for me to judge the game based on Zombra's review.

Not everything has to be great or terrible, there is middle ground.

Yes, but that middle ground should not come at the expense of having real opinions. It is possible to have a real opinion that the work is simply average, mildly entertaining, etc.

 

[Zombra]

Definitely - ambiguity is one of my hallmarks and this is intentional. Again, naossano got it right in his post above. And I'm completely OK with the arc of the review not following the expected trajectory.

So your review is like a postmodern critique of the notion that a review should actually review shit?

It's a review. A review done in a style you don't like, but still a review. Deconstructing the idiom wasn't my idea, but I can play the game if that's what y'all want.

When the brain receives a signal that is not necessarily predictable, it's called "information", and

This kind of armchair neuropsych explanation is intellectually vacuous and serves no practical purpose ...

Don't like it when I justify my writing style? Fine. In that case: I just write that way, so lump it.

I strove to be informational in every paragraph of the article

Yes, good idea. You didn't need to wrap this statement in mumbo jumbo to make it sound like a smarter decision somehow.

That wasn't for your benefit, but for those who are mad at an article that continues to inform as it goes.

- by which I mean, honest about each subject, regardless of assumptions that may have built up on the part of the reader.

This is mainly a stylistic choice but do note that you're the one who is building up a reader's expectations and a reader generally prefers to know what you're doing if you want to maintain his attention. If this is an understated way of saying "screw the reader; I do things my way and he should just figure it out" then I think you're badly suited as a writer because while a writer does not need to cater to the reader's likes and preferences per se, he does need to establish meaningful communication and that often includes establishing some expectation of the text that is delivered upon. Like, in a review the expectation is that you deliver perspective and evaluations. Not that you put some ambiguous opinions and info out there then say "make up your own mind."

It's not "screw the reader", and I did deliver my perspective and evaluations, and I stand by my refusal to dumb down my conclusions. Reviewing is not a simple tally of 1+3+5+4=13 therefore this game is a 13 GOOD. That's childish. A good review is: this game* had bad graphics, excellent controls, and hackneyed writing; and yes, it is up to the reader to decide whether that sounds GOOD or BAD to them. Maybe you're hung up on graphics so good controls won't cut it for you. Maybe gameplay is most important in your mind. Maybe you can put up with mediocre gameplay if the story is good. Maybe everything needs to be A+. If you want me to tell you exactly what to think - to just say this game is a 13 GOOD and be done with it - tough. I expect the reader to participate in the decision.

*Not Dead State. Hypothetical example.

To me, that's more important than soothing them with a repeating lullaby. Otherwise, I might as well just write the first 10 words and then say, "etc., you get the point".

This is a strawman logical fallacy. As in, you attacked a position nobody was arguing in an attempt to score points. It also sounds like a false dichotomy, in that clearly there are more options than these two.

If nobody wants a one-note review, then you people are going to need to practice a little more clarity yourselves, because that's what it sounded like (and still sounds like) to me.

You could have a review that orgasms about how glorious Dead State and it could do a better job than your shit not because it has "the right opinion" but because it brings clear evaluations and cogent thought to the table. You could also have a review that merely considers it tolerable, mildly entertaining fare and that can work too.

"Just tell me in one sentence whether it's GOOD or BAD, then stretch that out to 5000 words."

You are very hung up on this point about "pros only or cons only" which a moment's reflection would tell you nobody seriously endorses.

Then your point is not clear.

Yes, pros and cons are good, but they need to be called out for what they are. If you have a perspective on the issue (which you do), it is often better to mention your personal perspective than to leave a general ambiguity. It's not much of a review without perspective.

I did mention pros as pros and cons as cons, and as I mentioned before I think I declared any bias pretty clearly. Not sure what your complaint is here.

And we feel that honest examinations require actual standards. It often feels like your standards slip lower to create a more positive impression of the good aspects and higher when discussing what's wrong with the game. Your goal may be to present a balanced impression with these weighted scales but largely it seems like you are just being a fanboy faggot afraid of admitting what's wrong and only making piecemeal concessions.

I didn't admit the game's problems? Funny, I could have sworn ...

Not everything has to be great or terrible, there is middle ground.

Yes, but that middle ground should not come at the expense of having real opinions. It is possible to have a real opinion that the work is simply average, mildly entertaining, etc.

See? You really do endorse a simplistic "iz gud" "iz bad" summing up, without those pesky nuances of pros and cons. Think about it.

And despite my continued disagreement with you - thanks for settling down a bit with the Codex Rage Case Poo Poo Head voice. Your increased signal:noise is appreciated.

 

[Absinthe]

It took me a while to work up the inclination to respond to this post.

It's a review. A review done in a style you don't like, but still a review. Deconstructing the idiom wasn't my idea, but I can play the game if that's what y'all want.

It isn't.

Don't like it when I justify my writing style? Fine. In that case: I just write that way, so lump it.

Look, I shouldn't have to spell this out for you, but some decisions don't need to be justified. And your justification was pretentious tripe. In fact, your need to justify a decision like that only belies your fragile ego. And your inability to respond to this criticism without shutting down merely reinforces it.

That wasn't for your benefit, but for those who are mad at an article that continues to inform as it goes.

...

...

...Going back to the point about establishing meaningful communication above - establishing meaningful communication also requires a common threshold of intelligence. This right here was the kind of mindblowing stupidity that made me take an entire fucking week before I could muster the inclination to write back. If making me feel like I am demeaning myself by communicating to you is how you like to score points in an argument, then congratulations, you've succeeded.

Do you really believe that was a complaint about your writing?

It's not "screw the reader", and I did deliver my perspective and evaluations, and I stand by my refusal to dumb down my conclusions.

If lucidity constitutes dumbing down in your mind, then you have some serious unlearning to do.

Reviewing is not a simple tally of 1+3+5+4=13 therefore this game is a 13 GOOD. That's childish. A good review is: this game* had bad graphics, excellent controls, and hackneyed writing; and yes, it is up to the reader to decide whether that sounds GOOD or BAD to them. Maybe you're hung up on graphics so good controls won't cut it for you. Maybe gameplay is most important in your mind. Maybe you can put up with mediocre gameplay if the story is good. Maybe everything needs to be A+. If you want me to tell you exactly what to think - to just say this game is a 13 GOOD and be done with it - tough. I expect the reader to participate in the decision.

*Not Dead State. Hypothetical example.

False dichotomy. Providing information and providing qualitative evaluations aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, the demand is that you do both. And people like to read such reviews because the reviewer can make insights that the reader might have missed. I don't read VD just for the facts or for the comedy. I read it because he contributes a meaningful perspective to the table which is unlike my own. Believe it or not, informing the reader of your personal perspective and opinions does not invalidate their capacity to draw their own conclusions.

If nobody wants a one-note review, then you people are going to need to practice a little more clarity yourselves, because that's what it sounded like (and still sounds like) to me.

That is only because you are mentally dumbing down your detractors in order to preserve your illusion of personal superiority. A less charitable interpretation would be that you are incapable of perceiving complex thought. Then again, to be fair, these interpretations are not mutually exclusive.

"Just tell me in one sentence whether it's GOOD or BAD, then stretch that out to 5000 words."

Then your point is not clear.

By your own admission you have not fully read my posts. Now you are complaining that you do not understand my points. This is your own fault. And there were a lot of individual criticisms over the span of my posts. If you were expecting me to dumb that all down to one line for you, then you are underestimating the extent of my criticism.

I did mention pros as pros and cons as cons, and as I mentioned before I think I declared any bias pretty clearly. Not sure what your complaint is here.

Hmmm:

• "UI does the job but is inefficient and wasteful": "does the job" is not a pro. Also, inefficient and wasteful are opaque terms to describe the flaws of the UI.
• "Graphics and Sound: Not AAA but surprisingly good." is also not a pro, despite trying to sound like one. If you can't say it's "good" without qualifying it with "surprisingly" and "for an indie" then it's not actually good.
• "Combat: Well-designed. Too easy." Well-designed is also not a pro since the bottom line in a review is not the design but the execution.
• "Technical: Some bugs, but nothing gamebreaking." This is an amazing downgrade from your earlier admission of "serious bugs" and iirc there were reports of game-breaking bugs.

There's more.

I didn't admit the game's problems? Funny, I could have sworn ...

That is not a correct interpretation of my text. Reread the paragraph you just quoted.

See? You really do endorse a simplistic "iz gud" "iz bad" summing up, without those pesky nuances of pros and cons. Think about it.

You think you're scoring a point here, but really you're just displaying the limits of your intellect.

And despite my continued disagreement with you - thanks for settling down a bit with the Codex Rage Case Poo Poo Head voice. Your increased signal:noise is appreciated.

I see you're still as idiotic as ever.

 

[Zombra]

It's a review. A review done in a style you don't like, but still a review.

It isn't.

I guess this is where I say "Yuh huh" and you say "Nuh uh".

Look, I shouldn't have to spell this out for you, but some decisions don't need to be justified.

Great, then I'll stop. Unless you want me to justify why I was justifying what I justified.

And your justification was pretentious tripe. In fact, your need to justify a decision like that only belies your fragile ego. And your inability to respond to this criticism without shutting down merely reinforces it.

So should I respond or shouldn't I? Make up your mind.

...Going back to the point about establishing meaningful communication above - establishing meaningful communication also requires a common threshold of intelligence. This right here was the kind of mindblowing stupidity that made me take an entire fucking week before I could muster the inclination to write back. If making me feel like I am demeaning myself by communicating to you is how you like to score points in an argument, then congratulations, you've succeeded.

"U R STUPIEN. I EMME SMART" You sure like repeating this.

It's not "screw the reader", and I did deliver my perspective and evaluations, and I stand by my refusal to dumb down my conclusions.

If lucidity constitutes dumbing down in your mind, then you have some serious unlearning to do.

"I don't like your style." Yep. I get it.

Providing information and providing qualitative evaluations aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, the demand is that you do both. And people like to read such reviews because the reviewer can make insights that the reader might have missed. I don't read VD just for the facts or for the comedy. I read it because he contributes a meaningful perspective to the table which is unlike my own. Believe it or not, informing the reader of your personal perspective and opinions does not invalidate their capacity to draw their own conclusions.

"I don't understand your perspective, therefore it is your fault for not lowering it to our common denominator." Too bad.

If nobody wants a one-note review, then you people are going to need to practice a little more clarity yourselves, because that's what it sounded like (and still sounds like) to me.

That is only because you are mentally dumbing down your detractors in order to preserve your illusion of personal superiority. A less charitable interpretation would be that you are incapable of perceiving complex thought. Then again, to be fair, these interpretations are not mutually exclusive.

You're still not communicating anything except that you want a dumber, easier to understand perspective. Is it my fault for being too dense to understand your other, cleverly hidden message, whatever it is, or your fault for not being able to articulate anything else? Seems like we're both beyond caring at this point.

By your own admission you have not fully read my posts. Now you are complaining that you do not understand my points. This is your own fault. And there were a lot of individual criticisms over the span of my posts. If you were expecting me to dumb that all down to one line for you, then you are underestimating the extent of my criticism.

I fully read that last one, and you're still saying only two things:

* "Dumb down your perspective to make it easier for me to understand."
(No.)

* "You are dumb."
(Um, okay. Keep on beating that drum!)

"UI does the job but is inefficient and wasteful": "does the job" is not a pro. Also, inefficient and wasteful are opaque terms to describe the flaws of the UI.

Did that summation communicate anything to you, or not?

"Graphics and Sound: Not AAA but surprisingly good." is also not a pro, despite trying to sound like one. If you can't say it's "good" without qualifying it with "surprisingly" and "for an indie" then it's not actually good.

Already fully addressed this in a previous post. Of course, you know that already, since you are a big advocate of never skimming.

"Combat: Well-designed. Too easy." Well-designed is also not a pro since the bottom line in a review is not the design but the execution.

The bottom line is at the bottom. The middle lines can describe things that are not the bottom line.

"Technical: Some bugs, but nothing gamebreaking." This is an amazing downgrade from your earlier admission of "serious bugs" and iirc there

were reports of game-breaking bugs.

You were "amazed"? Really? I addressed the one gamebreaker as easily fixable. I am not responsible for other people reporting bugs. Oh right, I forgot that it's my job to hire a QA team and read every other post in the world before reporting on what you've been demanding all along - my perspective.

u dumb
u dumb
u dumb

Yeah. I get it. Real constructive.

Waiting for your posts to graduate from 60% insult to >80% insult. Guess what prize you win then?

Until that happy day ...
u a meany head
u a meany head
u a meany head

EDIT: P.S. Thanks for the thread bump! :D

 

[Morkar Left]

Sure, good idea, if you're willing to pay the average salary for such an editor.

Also the review seems absolutely clear to me - and with regard to the "well-designed" comment, it's also in the eye of the reviewer and not something the editor would mess with even in an ideal case - so maybe the problem is on your end?

It's most definitely on my end but I've read similar posts in reaction to reviews but.

With the infrequent releases of reviews, interviews and other written original content in the codex, I think a staff round table approach would work as a stopgap measure.

Check articles for consistency in their message, the biggest issue with zombra review is his ambiguous tone throughout, you would expect a recommendation at the end until he hits you with the opposite.

I thought the codex has the approach that there isn't a single review to rule them all. If you absolutely can't agree with it write your own review for the codex offering your point of view?

 

[EG]

I thought the codex has the approach that there isn't a single review to rule them all. If you absolutely can't agree with it write your own review for the codex offering your point of view?

We need this. This ineffectual, contentless bitching isn't enough.

 

[Western]

If people don't like Zombras review someone should put in some effort and submit their own perspective. There is no conspiracy or dictatorship at the Codex, but there seems to be this strange expectation that submitted content and an authors view need to reflect the readers own opinion and manner of expressing that opinion. Zombras tone may not be negative enough for some but there was enough information given in the review for an intelligent reader to draw a conclusion about whether or not they would enjoy the game, and I say all this as someone who overall did not enjoy Dead State.

 

[Absinthe]

I guess this is where I say "Yuh huh" and you say "Nuh uh".

I actually meant that pomo isn't for you. The fact that your shit is not a decent review has already been made clear by this point.

Great, then I'll stop. Unless you want me to justify why I was justifying what I justified.

So should I respond or shouldn't I? Make up your mind.

You should use your head, something which is apparently rather difficult for you. I said that some points do not need to be justified. Some decisions are self-evidently good without the need for a further justification. "I strove to be informational in every paragraph of the article" is such a decision. But "clarifying" it with that pretentious bs is a retarded decision that only reveals you for the overcompensating insecure fuck you are. So you ought to judge on a case-by-case basis, rather than treat it all as the same. But I am willing to concede that perhaps you are incapable of distinguishing between which decisions are obviously good and which ones aren't. In that case, you're fucked.

"U R STUPIEN. I EMME SMART" You sure like repeating this.

Thank you for proving my point. Your idea of scoring points in an argument is to treat them as a race for the bottom, where you "sarcastically" go for rock-bottom yourself and try to drag others down to your level. My idea is to actually present valid points, but I guess that's the difference between someone who is in it to protect their fragile ego and someone who is in it to contribute some sense of standards.

"I don't like your style." Yep. I get it.

No you don't. Ambiguity is not a question of simply style but quality. The function of a review is to be informative and evaluative and muddling the waters is counterproductive to this task, imbecile.

"I don't understand your perspective, therefore it is your fault for not lowering it to our common denominator." Too bad.

This persistent pattern of misconstruing arguments has the distinct whiff of trying to strawman your way out of actually answering any points. Or maybe your reading comprehension is just shit. Either way, let me stick the real point to you: A) You do not need to remove info to provide perspective B) If you want to like a game, then by all means fucking explain what made you enjoy the game and if it is unlike our own perspective, then at least we gain some insight into what made the game enjoyable for others. But you barely explained what you liked about the game, you just went on about general pros and cons. C) Sharing your reasons for liking the game doesn't mean you are stopping the reader from thinking for themselves.

The overriding concern was that this is a much healthier way of expressing your appreciation for a game than to skew all the fucking bars around to make the game sound better than it really is just to justify your personal bias.

You're still not communicating anything except that you want a dumber, easier to understand perspective. Is it my fault for being too dense to understand your other, cleverly hidden message, whatever it is, or your fault for not being able to articulate anything else?

Definitely your fault for being too dense. You can't see various arguments because you only want to lump it all together into a single point. But the issue with your review isn't any single point, you simpleton. It is a confluence of various errors and poor judgment-making which all joins to become possibly the sorriest piece of shit review the codex has ever seen fit to publish. Read the posts.

Seems like we're both beyond caring at this point.

I don't give much of a shit for you, it's true. But I give enough of a shit that the codex actually published this trash to go over why you need to either step it up or get the fuck out.

I fully read that last one,

I will take that as a tacit admission that you still didn't fully read my posts. So go read them if you aspire to any hope of your complaints about not understanding my point getting taken seriously.

Did that summation communicate anything to you, or not?

It meant precious little. Inefficient and wasteful are terms that don't really draw any image to mind when describing user interfaces other than a general sense of negativity, and stating this in the same breath as "the UI does the job." makes the whole con sound like a load of nothing. So yes, you failed at calling pros and cons as they are.

Already fully addressed this in a previous post. Of course, you know that already, since you are a big advocate of never skimming.

"Fully addressed" would imply that you responded to the point that shifting around standards supposedly for the benefit of a casualized mainstream audience is moronic on the codex. And your pathetic attempt at "indie or pixar" is also daft considering the $300K gives you more than enough money to spend a tenth of it on obtaining decent texture, model, and animation packs for instance. So yeah, decent graphics is not a fucking accomplishment at that budget, and even if it were, none of us would give much of a shit since because we just care if it's good for the player, not if it's good for the company.

The bottom line is at the bottom. The middle lines can describe things that are not the bottom line.

This is the dumbest attempt at semantic pedantry I have ever seen. "Summary and final thoughts" sounds like a conclusion to me.

You were "amazed"? Really?

Nice evasion, you chickenshit. Now to the point, yes, it is quite contrary to rational expectation that you would downgrade "serious bugs including a gamebreaking bug I deem fixable" to "some bugs." It's pretty fucking dishonest.

I addressed the one gamebreaker as easily fixable. I am not responsible for other people reporting bugs. Oh right, I forgot that it's my job to hire a QA team and read every other post in the world before reporting on what you've been demanding all along - my perspective.

I already explained above that you ought to both contribute information and insight. And when it comes to evaluating bugginess, other people's experiences give more information, rather than just limiting it down to your own non-comprehensive experience. If you would like to pretend your experience accounts for everything, then yes, go quality test the whole thing when casting judgment on the quality. Otherwise, make some space for the shit other people had to deal with. Your limited assessment by itself resulted in a more favorable coverage of Dead State's bugginess by leaving out the shit other people deal with than is fair. Although you evidently went the extra mile and insisted your experience means others are full of shit when they say there are game-breaking bugs. And then you dishonestly downplayed what bugs you did experience in your final blurb.

Overall, looking over these responses, props on refusing to admit or dig into the question of whether or not you could have possibly dropped the ball in your review and instead opting to resort to some of the most feeble deflections and counterarguments to desperately pretend your shit's all golden.

Yeah. I get it. Real constructive.

You're welcome to respond to me sometime, you know. If you're just going to waste time answering your own silly impressions of me, I'm sure there are better ways for you to play with yourself.

Waiting for your posts to graduate from 60% insult to >80% insult. Guess what prize you win then?

Your self-righteous cowardice? Grow the fuck up and learn to take it like a man.

Until that happy day ...
u a meany head
u a meany head
u a meany head

So how's that rock bottom strategy working out for you?

EDIT: P.S. Thanks for the thread bump! :D

You're more than welcome. I actually appreciate increased discussion on this thread, whether it is a discussion on the merits of Dead State, a discussion on your lack of merit as a reviewer, or a discussion on the need for editorial standards. All of these are far more valuable than your review in a vacuum.

 

[Infinitron]

I think we're reaching the point in this debate where doubts of sanity begin to undermine the arguments made

 

[Vault Dweller]

 

[mindx2]

This could all be solved Absinthe if you wrote your own review. There is no "official" Codex reviews so I encourage you to write your own... until then you, unfortunately just sound...

 

[Ninjerk]

I think we're reaching the point in this debate where doubts of sanity begin to undermine the arguments made

It seems strange to me to question interest in editorial quality (zealous as it may be).

Agree that Absinthe should write a 2nd take.

 

[EG]

Absinthe there's a whole fucking section dedicated to explaining what makes the UI ineffective and wasteful . . . Though the bickering over a concluding statement really is delightful, maybe you should read some of the review. Here, let me find it for you:

UI

My first impressions of the controls and feedback left me frustrated. For example, the camera controls feel unnecessarily restrictive, prohibiting the vertical tilt up to a top-down view or down to over-the-shoulder for no evident reason.

Inventory and management screens are very clean and handle well, but the controls themselves are often unintuitive. Certain commands can only be issued with the mouse, using a weird right click cursor icon rotation, while other commands have convenient hotkeys. It's common that a given screen will not have relevant information, entailing a lot of flipping back and forth – for example, you can't look at an ally's stats when choosing their equipment, which ended up wasting a lot of time in my playthrough. The game clock can only be accessed from the world map screen, which is only accessible on map exit grids, making it needlessly difficult to plan ahead. And so forth.

The text area at the bottom of the screen prints everything in white, with no translucent window or drop shadow, which can make text difficult to read on the sunny desert backgrounds.

All of this was annoying at first, and I frequently felt held back by the various inefficiencies, but functionality is smooth, so once I learned where everything is, making it work wasn't a big problem. Reading the manual helped a lot.

 

[Absinthe]

Infinitron, at a basic level I share Kem0sabe's concern that there was insufficient editorial oversight on this review. I think the language was indeed overly vague, I think he doesn't have a good sense of what is important to a review, and I also think in many cases he veered indistinguishably close to being an outright apologist. And my problem with that last one isn't his bias, but his terrible, cancerous way of sharing it. And with this thread, I can tell you that Zombra simply lacks the mental fortitude to accept his fuck-ups and instead just resorts to nonstop deflections, damage control, and some of the worst reasoning I have ever witnessed. The primary reason why I was giving him so much shit wasn't because I somehow hate dead state or crap like that but because I wanted to drill it through his head that when his review gets called shit that isn't just some friendly codexian greeting, that is a genuine condemnation of his work as a failure which he needs to come to terms with. The other part of the reason why I give him shit is because he relentlessly digs himself deeper and reaches new lows in critical thinking.

Overall, I think the review is trash. And mindx2 doesn't seem to have been following my posts too well but my issue isn't that there needs to be an "official" perspective or crap like that, but I do think there needs to be some standard for what constitutes an acceptable level of quality in a review before it is published. And I'd like to see you guys do better than this, given that the codex and tcancer are some of the only sites which I still respect for their news block. So I feel like this was a major decline of the codex news section, and I really do not want to see that become an acceptable trend.

 

[Zombra]

Well, at least one of us is learning to be a better communicator. Let's see if you can keep that signal:noise up again for your next post.

I actually meant that pomo isn't for you.

Not familiar with that term.

I said that some points do not need to be justified. Some decisions are self-evidently good without the need for a further justification. "I strove to be informational in every paragraph of the article" is such a decision. But "clarifying" it with that pretentious bs is a retarded decision that only reveals you for the overcompensating insecure fuck you are.

Shrug. When someone attacks me on something, I like to reply. That's my business. If this "reveals" me as a person you don't like (huge surprise, right?), so be it.

My idea is to actually present valid points

Maybe, but you smother them in so much garbage that it's hard to get to them.

I guess that's the difference between someone who is in it to protect their fragile ego and someone who is in it to contribute some sense of standards.

Arguing on the internet is fun. If someone complains about me, responding to that complaint is a natural argument to want to have. I mean this whole thread is basically about me and whether my review was helpful. Why should I not participate?

No you don't. Ambiguity is not a question of simply style but quality. The function of a review is to be informative and evaluative and muddling the waters is counterproductive to this task, imbecile.

Disagree. Presenting good and bad in measures appropriate to the subject is informative. Dummy head!

Let me stick the real point to you: A) You do not need to remove info to provide perspective

This is new. What are you talking about?

B) If you want to like a game, then by all means fucking explain what made you enjoy the game and if it is unlike our own perspective, then at least we gain some insight into what made the game enjoyable for others. But you barely explained what you liked about the game, you just went on about general pros and cons.

Got it - and that's strange. The other complainers in this thread are mad because I was too biased as it was. (I'm more inclined to agree with you than them on this.) I think I explained pretty well which aspects worked for me and which didn't. Waxing subjective about intangibles didn't seem like it would be helpful, and my assumption was that readers will be more interested in concrete observations than indulgence of my personality (although Lhynn's comment that the review was maybe too dry was a point well taken).

C) Sharing your reasons for liking the game doesn't mean you are stopping the reader from thinking for themselves.

I think I substantially did, but I will consider a more personal approach to my next article, if there is one.

The overriding concern was that this is a much healthier way of expressing your appreciation for a game than to skew all the fucking bars around to make the game sound better than it really is just to justify your personal bias.

Now you're talking sense.

Definitely your fault for being too dense. You can't see various arguments because you only want to lump it all together into a single point. But the issue with your review isn't any single point, you simpleton. It is a confluence of various errors and poor judgment-making which all joins to become possibly the sorriest piece of shit review the codex has ever seen fit to publish. Read the posts.

There's nothing wrong with a complex series of arguments, but it helps when they are presented with an eye to clarity instead of smeared into illegibility under a morass of epithets.

I'd be happy to look at each error you see case-by-case, and as we go through I can fit them together into the overall picture you speak of. Of course, if I disagree with your points, I'm not going to agree with the conclusions they imply.

I fully read that last one,

I will take that as a tacit admission that you still didn't fully read my posts. So go read them if you aspire to any hope of your complaints about not understanding my point getting taken seriously.

Actually I did go back and read them all with a fair degree of attention, and didn't see anything worth responding to. If you think something important hasn't been addressed, it wouldn't kill you to reiterate it.

Inefficient and wasteful are terms that don't really draw any image to mind when describing user interfaces other than a general sense of negativity, and stating this in the same breath as "the UI does the job." makes the whole con sound like a load of nothing. So yes, you failed at calling pros and cons as they are.

Really? Describing a user interface, the function of which is to allow the player to communicate commands to the game system, as "inefficient" isn't descriptive to you at all? Let me clarify that for you: if it takes me 4 button presses to enter a command when it could just as easily take 1, that is inefficient. As for "does the job", that is a slightly more colorful way of saying "functional", meaning the buttons are all clearly marked and do what they are supposed to do. This is relevant in a game rumored to be buggy and broken.

Already fully addressed this in a previous post. Of course, you know that already, since you are a big advocate of never skimming.

"Fully addressed" would imply that you responded to the point that shifting around standards supposedly for the benefit of a casualized mainstream audience is moronic on the codex.

I never said I was writing for IGN's audience, but I can't assume that every single Codex reader is familiar with the game's pedigree.

And your pathetic attempt at "indie or pixar" is also daft considering the $300K gives you more than enough money to spend a tenth of it on obtaining decent texture, model, and animation packs for instance. So yeah, decent graphics is not a fucking accomplishment at that budget

"Decent" meaning AAA quality? Or "good for an indie"?

and even if it were, none of us would give much of a shit since because we just care if it's good for the player, not if it's good for the company.

And "surprisingly good for an indie" gives you no idea whether it's good for the player? I think you just have a rage trigger against qualifying clauses. The phrase was perfectly communicative.

Now to the point, yes, it is quite contrary to rational expectation that you would downgrade "serious bugs including a gamebreaking bug I deem fixable" to "some bugs." It's pretty fucking dishonest.

I don't see it.
From the long form section:
There are a few serious bugs, some scripting errors, and animation glitches, but the game is completely playable and enjoyable from beginning to end.
From the summary:
Some bugs, but nothing gamebreaking.
Not exactly a 180°.

I addressed the one gamebreaker as easily fixable. I am not responsible for other people reporting bugs. Oh right, I forgot that it's my job to hire a QA team and read every other post in the world before reporting on what you've been demanding all along - my perspective.

I already explained above that you ought to both contribute information and insight. And when it comes to evaluating bugginess, other people's experiences give more information, rather than just limiting it down to your own non-comprehensive experience. If you would like to pretend your experience accounts for everything, then yes, go quality test the whole thing when casting judgment on the quality. Otherwise, make some space for the shit other people had to deal with. Your limited assessment alone resulted in a more favorable coverage of Dead State's bugginess by leaving out the shit other people deal with. Although you evidently went the extra mile and insisted your experience means others are full of shit when they say there are game-breaking bugs.

And I still feel justified in making that statement. I was one guy playing the game on one computer, which should be obvious to everyone, but if the game runs fine for one person, then it is complete and functional. Everything else is down to getting your configuration straight.

Overall, looking over these responses, props on refusing to admit or dig into the question of whether or not you could have possibly dropped the ball in your review and instead opting to resort to some of the most feeble deflections and counterarguments to desperately pretend your shit's all golden.

I never claimed that my shit's all golden. I responded, and continue to respond, to each individual criticism with individual justifications. When I receive a criticism that I have no answer for, I like to think I will cop to it. So far that's speculative though

You're welcome to respond to me sometime, you know. If you're just going to waste time answering your own silly impressions of me, I'm sure there are better ways for you to play with yourself.

Thank you again for a more lucid post this time - hopefully you will appreciate a more lucid response in return.

Waiting for your posts to graduate from 60% insult to >80% insult. Guess what prize you win then?

Your self-righteous cowardice? Grow the fuck up and learn to take it like a man.

It's not about cowardice; it's about losing the message in the edginess. When your clear goal is to be a dick, sprinkled with little hints of real criticism, it's hard to take you seriously as a real critic, and far more natural to engage you as some guy who just wants to be a dick (i.e. frankly not worth my time). Just as with RPGs, forum posts that force me to do lots of trash digging take me to the point of not wanting to play any more. Eventually I want to move on to something that gives me more value for my time.

Posts like your last one, with reasoned criticism delivered in an only moderately dickish fashion, invite reasoned response. So if you want to continue to have a reasonable conversation, we can do that. If you want to bully me and make me cry and defend my ego, we can do that too. Your choice.

Wait, actually you get the "too much asshole" prize if you go back to the rage dump, so don't do that.

You're more than welcome. I actually appreciate increased discussion on this thread, whether it is a discussion on the merits of Dead State, a discussion on your lack of merit as a reviewer, or a discussion on the need for editorial standards. All of these are far more valuable than your review in a vacuum.

I can dig it.

This could all be solved Absinthe if you wrote your own review. There is no "official" Codex reviews so I encourage you to write your own... until then you, unfortunately just sound... butthurt

I thought so too until his (2nd to) last post, but the ideas buried in there are beginning to emerge. He's not saying the review is wrong and needs a counter-review to refute it - he apparently just has problems with how the review itself was constructed and wants higher quality content for the Codex. Can't fault him for that.

 

[Infinitron]

Infinitron, at a basic level I share Kem0sabe's concern that there was insufficient editorial oversight on this review. I think the language was indeed overly vague, I think he doesn't have a good sense of what is important to a review, and I also think in many cases he veered indistinguishably close to being an outright apologist. And my problem with that last one isn't his bias, but his terrible, cancerous way of sharing it. And with this thread, I can tell you that Zombra simply lacks the mental fortitude to accept his fuck-ups and instead just resorts to nonstop deflections, damage control, and some of the worst reasoning I have ever witnessed. The primary reason why I was giving him so much shit wasn't because I somehow hate dead state or crap like that but because I wanted to drill it through his head that when his review gets called shit that isn't just some friendly codexian greeting, that is a genuine condemnation of his work as a failure which he needs to come to terms with. The other part of the reason why I give him shit is because he relentlessly digs himself deeper and reaches new lows in critical thinking.

tl;dr You saw a review that is apologetic towards a game you don't like, but also apologetic in a way that you didn't expect, which made you feel like you were being "tricked", so you're going ballistic. ("What do you mean, you're telling me not to buy the game?! NUH UH YOU'RE STILL AN APOLOGIST AND I'M GONNA SHOW EVERYBODY HOW!!!")

Okay, so you got tricked. You've been had. Come to terms with that, and get over it. Not every style of review is for everybody. See, you're acting shocked at something that most people here just aren't that shocked by. Most of us always realized that Zombra liked the game. We never felt like we were being tricked by a misleading "cancerous" review. We just soaked up the information contained in it and moved on.

Overall, I think the review is trash. And mindx2 doesn't seem to have been following my posts too well but my issue isn't that there needs to be an "official" perspective or crap like that, but I do think there needs to be some standard for what constitutes an acceptable level of quality in a review before it is published. And I'd like to see you guys do better than this, given that the codex and tcancer are some of the only sites which I still respect for their news block. So I feel like this was a major decline of the codex news section, and I really do not want to see that become an acceptable trend.

The Codex values comprehensiveness. Rambling, out of focus, ambiguous - those things are secondary as long as it's a big-ass wall of text that covers all bases and analyzes all the issues. So yeah, I can't guarantee that the "trend" won't continue.

 

[Ninjerk]

Zombra that little bit about inefficiency is exactly the sort of thing that you shouldn't leave out of a review. When I read "inefficient" with regards to the UI, the conclusion I'm forced to jump to is that the UI wastes screen space--apparently not what you intended.

 

[Zombra]

Zombra that little bit about inefficiency is exactly the sort of thing that you shouldn't leave out of a review. When I read "inefficient" with regards to the UI, the conclusion I'm forced to jump to is that the UI wastes screen space--apparently not what you intended.

Good criticism, thanks. I assumed what I meant would be obvious. Definitely good to know in case I ever do another review, since that's the language I always use when talking about UI stuff.

(And for the record, the HUD in Dead State is fine, no complaints there at all.)