Bad review in PCGamer (USA)

[Kirby]

Quote from review:

 

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Highs: Good tactical system; solid RPG soldier-system; well-designed and color-coded interface.

 

Lows: Terrible AI; no multiplayer; silly story; ugly, low-resolution graphics; repetitive base construction.

 

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PCGamer gave UFO-AM a 63% score when it came out. AS is a much better game and it just shows how subjective game reviews can be.

 

Lets look at the "Lows":

 

1- Terrible AI - The AI isn't great but it isn't terrible.

2- No multiplayer - WARNING: FPS fanboy alert!!! I don't care about MP at all, how many squad based strategy games are MP?

3- Silly story - Completely subjective. This guy obviously never played AM or he would know that it picks up the storyline from that game. I think that the story is solid and if you are going to comment on the story you should do a little investigation into the previous game.

4- Ugly, low resolution graphics - FPS fanboy in the house!!! This tells me all I need to know about this reviewer. He just got done playing HL-2, Doom 3 and F.E.A.R and got a game to review that he had to actually use his brain to play. I don't know one person who likes this type of game that is enthralled with graphics. I worry more about gameplay, atmosphere, and actually using my brain.

5- Repetitive base construction - This I don't understand at all. <possible SPOILER alert> I'm about two days away from the alien ship landing and am having a blast shuffling labs, factories, and knowledge buildings to maximize my economy.

 

I think that this guy played matbe 25% of the game (right before he loaded up Quake 4) and had to get his review in before the deadline.

 

I subscribe to PCGamer and usually agree with the full time editors when they review games, but these free lance guys are all over the map.

 

Sorry about the rant but I got pretty steamed.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

1- Terrible AI - The AI isn't great but it isn't terrible.

 

Agreed. The AI is decent enough for my purposes. In fact, isn't it better than Aftermath? I don't recall wounded enemies running away back then, nor setting traps for my troops.

 

2- No multiplayer - WARNING: FPS fanboy alert!!! I don't care about MP at all, how many squad based strategy games are MP?

 

Also agreed. Like I'd want to deal with some l33t speaking twelve year old.

 

3- Silly story - Completely subjective. This guy obviously never played AM or he would know that it picks up the storyline from that game. I think that the story is solid and if you are going to comment on the story you should do a little investigation into the previous game.

 

Well, to be fair, the story is a bit silly.

4- Ugly, low resolution graphics - FPS fanboy in the house!!! This tells me all I need to know about this reviewer. He just got done playing HL-2, Doom 3 and F.E.A.R and got a game to review that he had to actually use his brain to play. I don't know one person who likes this type of game that is enthralled with graphics. I worry more about gameplay, atmosphere, and actually using my brain.

 

Well... I like graphics. For instance, the main detracting points for AM, for me at least, were the overuse of the color brown and the lack of ability to manufacture weapons and especially ammo. The former was really what got me though.

 

As for the low resolution: I use a cheapy LCD screen that can't go any higher than AS' native resolution. I didn't mind, since I play all my games at such a 'low' setting.

 

5- Repetitive base construction - This I don't understand at all. <possible SPOILER alert> I'm about two days away from the alien ship landing and am having a blast shuffling labs, factories, and knowledge buildings to maximize my economy.

 

It gets better later on in the game. My only complaint with the base construction was that some buildings didn't seem to do much. Eg: Secret Service and Militia buildings. Yeah, I know that secret service makes my bases more resistant to cultist conversion, and that the militia buildings produce militia units of varying grades, but the problem is that even without an SS office, my bases never seemed to go over to the cult. As for the militia: They're all well and good, but I would have really liked to have the ability to deploy them on missions, like 'go take this cultist territory!' Kind of like the old 'delegate' command in AM. In fact... I'd have liked a return to the delegate button, except that there's a counter that counts how many militia units you've got, so if you don't have any, you can't delegate. (Yeah, I know you can do this if there's a cultist/wargot/starghost incursion, but I would really like to have my militia be able to take the offensive some times. Say what you want about the Council of Earth troops, but at least they didn't just sit at base all day because Pheonix Company/The Commonwealth A-Team has exterminated all nearby foes. )

 

 

I think that this guy played matbe 25% of the game (right before he loaded up Quake 4) and had to get his review in before the deadline.

 

Most likely. I don't read PC gamer anymore, since they seem to rate more on shininess and graphics/MP than actual gameplay.

[Zager]

You know, 51% is NOT a bad review. It's less than thirty percent where they think you shouldn't even bother. According to PC Gamer itself, a game DOES NOT have to have a score in the nineties to be considered a good game. You are judging this rating based on your own thoughts of what the scale means, rather than the PC gamer scale.

[Kirby]

You know, 51% is NOT a bad review. It's less than thirty percent where they think you shouldn't even bother. According to PC Gamer itself, a game DOES NOT have to have a score in the nineties to be considered a good game. You are judging this rating based on your own thoughts of what the scale means, rather than the PC gamer scale.

 

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Uhhhh.......on the PCGamer scale 51% means that it is "Merely okay". I happen to believe that it is better than OK.

 

The game is far from perfect but I think almost everybody agrees that AS is a better game than AM, and AM got a 63% from the same mag. I know that the games were reviewed by different people but a little consistency would be nice.

[GuiJay]

Instead of trying to discredit the reviewer, just take this review for what it is - a review.

 

Scores are opinions. What's important is how impartial the review itself was - if the reviewer explained the good and the bad. Trash that, not the score - many people won't like Aftershock and this reviewer just happened to be one of them. So what?

[Accounting Troll]

Some reviewers gave Aftershock a much higher score, so I suppose this shows that you should not base your decision on whether or not to buy a game on one single review.

[Kirby]

Quote:

 

Instead of trying to discredit the reviewer, just take this review for what it is - a review.

 

Scores are opinions. What's important is how impartial the review itself was - if the reviewer explained the good and the bad. Trash that, not the score - many people won't like Aftershock and this reviewer just happened to be one of them. So what?

 

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Well......I reviewed his review so please take my review for what it is - a review of his review.

[GuiJay]

Oh, not saying that there's anything wrong with not agreeing with this review (most people on these forums probably won't agree with most of that review anyway). Just saying that the most important part in a review is the review itself, not the score or the Pros/Cons summary... although many many people just don't care about all the funky hard-to-read words and will just look at the score and go "OMG this game got a 90% IT RAWKS" or "OMG this POS game got a 50% ! IT SUXORZ"

 

Sadly... they don't teach people to think for temselves early enough at school.

 

Kirby: I am -not- directing this at you, I'm just saying what kind of effect this Pcgamer review will have on the uneducated/stupid masses.

[Kirby]

@Guijay:

 

No offense taken.

 

I love games like UFO-AS (and to a lesser extent UFO-AM which was pretty shallow), Commandos-2, Fallout: Tactics which seem to be harder and harder to find. It doesn't help much when they get bashed in gamer mags even though some deserve it.

 

Publishers don't like to support these types of games because they are directed at a "niche" market and don't sell 2 million copies.

 

I guess i'm just a little grumpy about the whole thing.

[GuiJay]

So am I.

 

Though things are only going to get worse. It's been said before, many times, that the game industry is now bigger than the movie industry. This means that the same business plans used for the movie industry is going to be used in the game industry (it's already being used - has been used for a while - but it will become more and more widespread)

 

As numbers increase (game complexity, graphics, content, etc.) production costs grow. As production costs grow, less and less independant studios are able to come up and release a great game that strikes away from the mold and more and more "Suits" come in with their money and their idea of what a great-selling game is.

 

You can see it all around. Games that are clones of each other, only with different names and a few extra tricks - it's the same as with the movie industry (Great, -another- sequel. Great, -another- horor movie. Great, -another- war movie, Great, -another- remake of an old movie.)

 

Granted, there will -always- be small independant develloper to release great and/or innovative games but their production value will be less and the masses don't want that, they want to spend their money on the flashy big-named lots of WOW-graphics. That is the world of consoles.

 

PCs have it a bit easier - it's easier to release games on the PC, you can get away with making games that look a bit outdated since not everyone has the latest hardware. In the end though, the industry is moving towards a cross-platform release plan. Release a game on Xbox/PSwhatever/Nintendo/PC - get the most money possible.

 

And in the end, the niche markets are shooting themselves in the foot because we're -very- picky about our games, unlike the mass markets who just care about nice graphics and frantic gameplay. (consider the amount of garbage games that sell, on the ground of big hype and graphics, or in the case of certain games, big boobs *cough*doa*cough*)

 

Still, the emergence of new game studios in countries you don't often hear of will give us a small requiem - the game industry in these countries is still young and foreign games don't have much of a foothold, since they rarely get translated, if even released, and the actual publishing of a game doesn't cost much, compared to the develloping.

 

This has all been said before, I'm just re-stating it. Nothing intelligent about this =)

 

One thing that's interesting, in regard to gaming, are cell phone games. They are a booming business for 2 reasons:

1- Cheap to make - so you can sell them for much less.

2- MASSIVE consumer pool.

This results in cheap little games that cost maybe 500,000$ to make, to be released for download for maybe 3$, to a market of about a bajillion consumers (I have no idea what the real numbers are but just think about how many people you know that have a cell phone with a mini LCD screen.) Even if only 2-3% buy your game, that's 2-3% of a bajillion people. Let's just take a random number, say there's 50 million cellphone users in north america (which shouldn't be that far from reality) and 3% of these 50 million people buy the cheap game at 3$, that's 4.5 million$. For a cheap game that cost 500,000$ to make, you get a 4million$ profit, minus whatever distribution fees the publisher has to pay up.

 

Well, that's just a side note, and I like typing random stuff anyway.

[ziggy5540]

To be honest, I agree with the PC gamer review's points... however I would give the game a 70-75% score rather than the 60ish % they gave it.

The games AI is really bad at times, and at times its decent. Its never something to say is better than ok, and you rate based on importance and with a biase bend so saying its terreble is understandable (its terreble at times).

No multi player is an issue, especialy in this genre... lets take it out of the same box its been in for the past 8 years please! There is potential for MP here, and it would have been a VERY welcome addition.

The games story is VERY silly... the ending bit... there is no REAL proof for their hypothosys, and yet its right? I would say the story is almost bad after the half way point.... its good up untill then however.

The graphics arnt great, and its not just in the FPS genre that graphics have taken a giant leap... looking at the RTS genre for instance, games comming out soon are on par with this gen of fps, if not even better due to the high number of things going on at a time.

Repetative base construction is VERY true. The base construction is only interesting for the first bit of the game, and then its just there, serving no real purpose or deep gameplay features.

 

Now why I would give the game a 70-75% rather than the 60ish PC gamer gave it is because of who made the game. This is a small company, and MUCH lower budget than the AAA titles we see in the FPS genre and RTS even... so the game is really good concidering that. And I DO love the game, it was lots of fun (and anoying at times due to gameplay bugs, poor documentation of items [they say one thing and yet dont have that feature], and repetative combat missions).

So yah, I like the game, and still agree with the bad reviews... only because I know how much potential there is, and will continue to buy these games and enjoy the improvements they bring.

[komplex]

hmmm all good points... But hey lets face facts we all love a Genre of game that not of other people love (or even like ).. Its sad but true, I think 51% is good considering most people would rate it a -20% (just not there cup of tea ).. Its not ground breaking (like X-COM was) to give it alitle more % and its basicly the same engine as ufo:aftermath just with a resource/base style added on..

 

Hell even X-COM wasn't even ground breaking! It was a knock off of Lazer squad... So all an all Im happy with the 51% atleast they were open minded enough to know that a bunch of uber strat dorks like us would be foaming at the mouth for this puppy.. but they had to let MOST people know that they'd never get into it..

[ztcamper]

if it's worth anything, www.ag.ru gave aftershock 86.

[Slaughter]

if it's worth anything, www.ag.ru gave aftershock 86.

Hmm, that seems a little high in my opinion. Even if I like the game a lot, it was a little too lacking on the AI and mission variety side to varrant 86. Still, compared to 51% it seems a more reasonable score.

[Azrael Strife]

After playing the game for a while, I'd give it a 65%.