Liking Gears of War 2 isn’t difficult but loving it is becoming a task, quite like kissing a venomous cobra (or enjoying Love Story 2050 - the movie and the game). Have the Golden Lancer code but can’t download it? Campaign not starting? Matchmaking giving you nightmares? Developer Epic maintained a stoic silence till now and has begun to resolve any possible issues on its community forums.
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Leave it to Capcom to exploit our Resident Evil frenzy on the big screen as well. After the release of the CG animated Resident Evil: Degeneration in Japan (with the US DVD and Blu-ray release set for December 30th 2008), the company has recently released a 10 minute footage of the English dub on the internet.
The teasers mostly showcase the events leading to the catastrophe of Resident Evil 2. Even though it stars Claire Redfield and Leon Kennedy, the plot is brand new. A bio-terrorist holds an airport hostage and threatens to unleash a T-Virus sample if the US President fails to reveal the truth behind Raccoon City’s zombie outbreak. Claire and Leon team up to eliminate the zombies in the airport, rescue any survivors and ultimately prevent the release of the virus before negotiations break down and it’s too late.
Will the same zombies, responsible for the stagnation of the games before RE4, prove to be decent adversaries? We’ll find out next month but at least the plot sounds better than the inanity that was Resident Evil: Extinction.
It was recently reported that one NeoGAF user recently got his hands on Mirror’s Edge for the Playstation 3. We could only assume the game’s street date was broken. Now we can definitely confirm it - at least in the UK and for the Xbox 360.
If you head to The Pirate Bay (or simply Google “Mirror’s Edge Torrent”), you’ll discover more than enough torrents providing the game. The 360 version weighs in at 5.77 GB. This being the PAL version, the only language provided is English and it’s not region-free. Granted, this may not affect sales in the US but last we checked, India is a PAL-dominated region. One can only wonder what EA and DICE are doing to remedy the situation - or how loud they’re cursing whoever initiated the leak. We’ll keep you updated as the story develops.
by Ravi Sinha
If you’re an Xbox 360 fan, you must have been flummoxed to discover Gears of Wars 2 rated a measly 6.1 in reader scores on Metacritic. If you’re a PS3 fan, you may have been equally bamboozled to discover LittleBigPlanet rated a wimpy 6.2 in reader scores on the same site. If you’re a Wii gamer, you…may be totally bored out of your skull waiting for the next big opus. Anyway, as the recent shake-up in user reviews has taught us, the majority of reader reviews can’t be trusted.
Nowadays, many game journalists are coerced into giving average games high scores. They may also be instructed not to rap a game on the knuckles too much (if at all) with the proverbial wooden ruler of reason. This is where user reviewers excel: They can cut through the hoo-ha and tell it like it is, being under no corporate influence to do the opposite. Epic can you tell how awesome the Horde mode is in Gears 2, but it’s the players who can tell you why fighting for your life against endless waves of Locust is awesome.
Unfortunately, most reviewers are anonymous and inexperienced. They have no set of credentials to adhere to, and aren’t tied to any journalistic ethical objectivity. So, while nothing is stopping them from telling the truth, there is similarly nothing to keep them from stretching it. Or blasting it into oblivion completely.
The quality of a user review also depends on the reviewer’s competence. Did they pop Gears of War 2 into their 360 or feed it to the dog? Were they following instructions on playing LittleBigPlanet or were they reading a recipe for it? Are they fans of the game’s genre? Have they sufficiently reviewed the game, both online and offline? Do they even have network connections? Did they play the game at home, over a period of 50-60 hours or at their friend’s place for 20 minutes? The anonymity isn’t helping.
Looking across the Net, most user reviews often fall into three patterns:
(a) The positives are highlighted in ways disproportional to the negatives, and vice versa.
(b) The user states a personal grudge against the company and/or it’s game as the source of its credibility. e.g. On LBP, one Metacritic user review goes, “I can’t believe that Sony would pull this from the shelves due to a single religious reference in a song that was written by someone of that religion. I’m giving this a 0 vote to boycott Sony’s absurdly insensitive view of reality.”
(c) The fanboy review, where the user simply says the game and its system are useless and that you should buy [insert rival system + current hyped game] instead.
Most reviews subscribing to a single view-point may appear to be from users across different streams. Often, they consist of an individual conversing with himself on the Net when the fish stop talking to him at home.
You could argue that no one just creates five user accounts in a day, pans or praises a title they loathe or love with innumerable comments and escapes notice. And you’d be right. However, never ignore the fanboys whose love for one platform is only outweighed by their hatred for the other. Similarly, never ignore developers crafty enough to sneak in a few good words for their title, incognito (I’m looking at you, Agni).
Fake reviews are liable to real policing. If sites like Metacritic can’t properly filter out the biased reviews, they could take recourse in legal action. And this would land many a user in pretty hot water.
For now, the only thing one can do is remain vigilant of what’s fair. User reviews can’t be done away with completely, but you can at least avoid being tricked by them. Make sure to check at least four different sites, if you wish to go by what the people are saying. Consider the source: be wary of user reviews for a product on it’s company’s site, as some of the nicer ones are undoubtedly planted. Amazon and eBay require users to provide detailed information about themselves and also tracks their reviewing histories. Finding credible reviewers becomes much easier.
Finally, make sure you consult some reliable professional reviews as well to find out if the game suits you and how well. The day may come where juvenile fanboys and desperate developers get a clue, but until then, remain skeptical.
Gabe Newell must be happy. Years of ribbing the PS3, teasing fans with possible future support, harping on about the Wii being superior - and along comes this ultimatum on the upcoming Left4Dead. At a recent Microsoft event, Valve’s Chet Faliszek stated,
“Many people say that they heard rumours that Left4Dead is coming to PS3. However despite telling them this isn’t true they still don’t believe us. What more can we say than it is not?”
So there you have it. Left4Dead is releasing only for the 360 and PC. If there’s any chance now of this zombie action game coming to the PS3, it’s if Electronic Arts decides to pick it up (like they did with The Orange Box). And with the number of things they’re busy with (releases of both games and employees, for instance), that could be a while.
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