Another Five for Tribes

[Angelspit]

The Eurogamer review of the Tribes of the East expansion is up and the reviewer was not impressed, to say the least. Here is his take on the standalone nature of the expansion:

"(...) it's £20, and you can buy the original for about £9 from Amazon. Or the original and the other expansion for £12. Moreover, if you wanted to buy the game before, you would have already bought it; the paltry extra nobs and polish in this aren't going to sway you over to it. Finally, the people who are going to buy it, the frothing-at-the-mouth HOMM mob, already have the game. And the expansion. So they're shelling out yet again for the original game. It's a desperate repurposing of a rapidly-withered product, further confirming Ubisoft's position in this reviewer's eyes as the new EA."

It appears the difficulty of the campaigns was, again, the deciding factor behind the poor final score (5 out of 10), which makes me wonder if the tutorial and the game manual were appropriate for the new players out there. The article is a good read though, like most content on Eurogamer.

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1195438663

[Pol]

Well, ranking mixage on the mobygames is currently at 76.

[Muszka]

I have a Deja Vu feeling about these reviews. You don't?

[ywhtptgtfo]

Personally, I'd give ToTE an 80% for content and 20% for performance. This averages to 70% in my mind since I care more about content.

[rdeford]

My wife and I love TOTE and give it an 8 out of ten. We have experienced the often mentioned slow-down, and traversing large maps can be a bit tedious. We are both average HOMM players from HOMM2 through HOMM4, and have not had difficulty finishing the first three maps in the campaign.



Angelspit is right on target in suggesting that the tutorial and the manual are inadequate for new HOMM players. But that is not the only problem, I think.



I believe the main problem is that these reviewers are too used to tactical-oriented, real-time game play and do not like turn-based strategy games. I see this problem reflected in most of the gamers I know who are into FPS and RTS. I is sort of like asking a football player to evaluate a chess game. They are not going to appreciate what is going on, even if they manage to stay awake.

[Moragauth]

FIVE out of ten? FIVE? Are these guys playing the same game as me?

[Angelspit]

Personally, I'd give ToTE an 80% for content and 20% for performance. This averages to 70% in my mind since I care more about content.

You math teacher would be impressed.

[Metathron]

Well, d'oh, someone calling himself Egon Superb is bound to be hard to please. His preposterous claims are making me froth at the mouth. Lynch 'im!

[Corribus]

I don't see it. Nevermind that calling serious fans "frothing at the mouth" is insulting, but the game is no more expensive than any other expansion, and you're not just "shelling out for the old game".

Oh and the game really isn't THAT hard. It definitely is a little more challenging than the original game.. but... that's a good thing, isn't it? I rather enjoy actually having to THINK for once when I'm playing the game.

Edit: the review is also very unprofessional. Why can't these game reviewers just write a serious review? Why do they have to be sarcastic and try to be "funny". Example: "Since then Nival have released an expansion pack called the Anvil Chorus or the Hammered Fete or something..." Instead of trying to make a funny joke, why don't you just look up the right name and use it? I hate these reviews that cater to the immature 12-14 yo crowd. Just further goes to show you that the reviewers do not understand the demographic that TBS games are geared for, and thus the rating really means nothing.

[Omega_Destroyer]

I still don't know why everyone cares what some reviewer thinks.

[Corribus]

It's not that I care. I like the game and that's enough for me. But I just find it amusing that these people are PAID to write this crap.

[Angelspit]

I care about reviews. If a site such as GameSpot says that a game (other than Heroes) is only worth a 6, I'll have second thoughts about buying it.

[Corribus]

They do have a responsibility to be professional and fair. That review was neither.

[Kareeah Indaga]

Anvil Chorus lol. Corribus is right, though, they should have used the proper name--Farmers of Hate!

[Zamolxis]

Corribus: "They do have a responsibility to be professional and fair. That review was neither."

There are political decisions, taken in some of the most 'developed' countries in the world, which are anything but responsible or fair sometimes. And you expect that from a game review?

The poor guy is bound by his target public, in avarage probably 10yr younger than many of us (hence the "trying to be funny" style), and influenced by his own subjectivity, and by what impression the game had on him after maybe not more than half a day of playing.

Nowadays, when a game comes on the market every other day, you can't expect these game reviewers to lock themselves in a room for days, and play the game till they discover all tricks & details that probably took us weeks (to say the list, and including tips from forums). And for what? To write a "professional" review, so professional that his mostly teenage readers will find boring and unrepresentative?

H3 got me hooked after just a couple of hours (though it took me months to learn how to play it). If this guy wasn't hooked, it's because:
- the game may not have what it takes to hook a non-veteran at start
- the difficulty may be too high for a non-veteran
- the documentation provided was bad in content or presentation
All areas which fall pretty much under the responsability of the developer. I'm not defending the guy or his review - I just don't find the motivation to blame him, considering the fact that Ubival didn't do their job to my satisfaction. If he is too harsh or too sarcastic now that the game is out, that's just to compensate the 'bullshit' we were sometimes fed by the developer in official interviews before the first realese (which would have made a naive think H5 will top previous titles in all possible aspects).

[arturchix]

I care about reviews. If a site such as GameSpot says that a game (other than Heroes) is only worth a 6, I'll have second thoughts about buying it.

Not me, if I'm considering to buy a game, I almost always read the player reviews, what are general thoughts, pros and cons and only then decide myself. Actually the game sites shouldn't even bother reviewing the games since their judgement in most of the cases is simply biased, whatever the reason.

[Corribus]

Nowadays, when a game comes on the market every other day, you can't expect these game reviewers to lock themselves in a room for days, and play the game till they discover all tricks & details that probably took us weeks (to say the list, and including tips from forums). And for what? To write a "professional" review, so professional that his mostly teenage readers will find boring and unrepresentative?

A good writer can draft a review that is informative, professional and interesting to a wide demographic. I don't expect a reviewer to spend days on a single game, or get every detail right. What I do expect is that they treat their job seriously and stick to what they're supposed to do: tell us about the game and why we should or should not buy it. The review in question is written terribly. Aside from the snarky jokes, the reviewer goes on wide paragraph-long tangents that have little to nothing to do with the game content. For those of us who (would like to) use game reviews to help make a decision about what game to buy, reviews like this are as irritating as they are unhelpful.

And I'm not just saying this because I happen to like the game in question. That's sort of beside the point, although it does reinforce my contention that this reviewer doesn't know what they heck he's talking about and doesn't understand the proper way to talk about it even if he did.

H3 got me hooked after just a couple of hours (though it took me months to learn how to play it). If this guy wasn't hooked, it's because:
- the game may not have what it takes to hook a non-veteran at start
- the difficulty may be too high for a non-veteran
- the documentation provided was bad in content or presentation

Or:

He doesn't like TBS games.

Furthermore, this is a review of an EXPANSION of H5, not the core game. Obviously, the content in an expansion is harder to appreciate if you didn't play through the original game. Which is why reviews of expansions are next to worthless.

[Zamolxis]

>> AS: I care about reviews. If a site such as GameSpot says that a game (other than Heroes) is only worth a 6, I'll have second thoughts about buying it.

> arturchix: Not me, if I'm considering to buy a game, I almost always read the player reviews, what are general thoughts, pros and cons and only then decide myself. Actually the game sites shouldn't even bother reviewing the games since their judgement in most of the cases is simply biased, whatever the reason.

I doubt anybody buys often a game based just on a couple of reviews.

When it comes to games I'm already interested in (sequals of games I like mostly), of course I dig into user reviews and forums before making my decision.

But AS has a very valid point, especially whan it comes to new games or sequals to games I overlooked in the past. For these it's usually a review in a computer magazine that catches my attention, followed by keeping an eye on other review, and later on - if most reviews positive - on user reviews or forums and so on, ending with the decision of buying the game or not.

So yeah... if I never played Heroes before, why would I even bother to look for user reviews - after 2-3 of these reviews giving only 50 to 70% rating to the game, when there are already 5 games out there I'm interested in, and 5 others I don't know much about, but which got 90%?

[arturchix]

So yeah... if I never played Heroes before, why would I even bother to look for user reviews - after 2-3 of these reviews giving only 50 to 70% rating to the game, when there are already 5 games out there I'm interested in, and 5 others I don't know much about, but which got 90%?

That's why creating a hype is so important. For example, I hear about a game called Bioshock I've never heard before - some guys here at CH have been talking about it for months, I've seen several advertisements, everywhere lots of information about it, lots of gamers are saying it will be a GotY. They've already got my attention, just by the hype. So I don't listed what the major reviewers have to say because either they lick a certain place of the developer, praise the game and give it 96/10 or kick it hard with a 4/10.
In Dark Messiah's case there was a chain of unfortunate events (NA reviewers hate Ubi, the game was very unstable for part of the NVIDIA users) and after several months since the release noone was even mentioning it again, no more patches were coming, SDK was cancelled.

I don't think an add-on can attract too many new players - everybody always is looking for the original game in the first place.

[Zamolxis]

> arturchix: I don't think an add-on can attract too many new players - everybody always is looking for the original game in the first place.



That's also true. To take the side of those annoyed/frustrated by the review :p - I'm now thinking that add-on reviews should better be written only by ppl who are relatively veteran of the original release (let's say sb who played through all the campaigns at least once, or spent over 50h in SP or MP). Matter not if the person eventually liked the game or not. Either that or the review should come with a warning: "from newcomer's perspective".



:p