Good gaming sites

this_time

Bit of a stupid question but anyone know of any good gaming sites? Apart from the obvious, game.ie and cvg. Something with reviews and features. Have a new job(really quiet for big parts of the day) and need something to kill time so the more updated the site is the better. I suppose I'm looking for ones which are most popular here in Ireland.

Thanks

Dan

tman

Kotaku.com and Eurogamer.net are my two most visited...

Kotaku's reviews are quite good, they don't rely on a scoring system, so you actually have to read the review instead of just jumping straight to the score like I usually do:o

Dcully

http://ve3d.ign.com/

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/

http://kotaku.com/

http://www.bluesnews.com/

http://www.shacknews.com/

http://www.1up.com/

this_time

ha. that's great. hopefully having to read and understand things doesnt prove to be too much of a challenge :P

ShiverinEskimo

Second Eurogamer. Fairly up to date news section while their reviews seem to be in line with my own opinions most of the time.

fasty

Eurogamer think Dead Space is worth a 7 and Fable 2 and Bioshock are 10.

They have reviewers who spend most of their review pointing out the reviewer's problems with the genre of the game they are reviewing. They also publish reviews laden with spoilers.

They also promote that unpleasant flame war thing via the tiresome Digital Foundry column. Which to my sounds like nonsense, something a few game developer friends of mine have confirmed.

ShiverinEskimo

fasty wrote: »

Eurogamer think Dead Space is worth a 7 and Fable 2 and Bioshock are 10.

They have reviewers who spend most of their review pointing out the reviewer's problems with the genre of the game they are reviewing. They also publish reviews laden with spoilers.

They also promote that unpleasant flame war thing via the tiresome Digital Foundry column. Which to my sounds like nonsense, something a few game developer friends of mine have confirmed.

I agree with all of those scores.

Their biggest flaw with Dead Space was that it was one fetch quest after another - which it is.

Fable 2 and Bioshock are both phenomenal games that brought a huge amount of innovation and originality (despite one being a sequel) to their respective genres and IMO deserved a 10.

NeoKubrick

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

I agree with all of those scores.

Their biggest flaw with Dead Space was that it was one fetch quest after another - which it is.

Fable 2 and Bioshock are both phenomenal games that brought a huge amount of innovation and originality (despite one being a sequel) to their respective genres and IMO deserved a 10.

How, in detail, is BioShock innovative or original? The BioShock demo was better than the full game.

fasty

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

I agree with all of those scores.

Their biggest flaw with Dead Space was that it was one fetch quest after another - which it is.

Fable 2 and Bioshock are both phenomenal games that brought a huge amount of innovation and originality (despite one being a sequel) to their respective genres and IMO deserved a 10.

Your observation about Dead Space is totally accurate. It was just hauling ass from one part of the Ishimura to another via lots of Necromorphs but the game has atmosphere and action by the bucketload. It doesn't come close to something like Resident Evil 4 but it's fantastic. How does that issue warrant a 7?

Fable 2. Most of the gameplay involved following a trail you can't disable to the next point in the game where something or other requiring no challenge happens. Why is the trail in the game? Because they focussed on trying to make pretty vistas and game the world no coherance. There's nothing innovative about the rest of the gameplay, not even the characrer development stuff which is just a variation on the usual good/bad meter. In terms of emergant gameplay, something like GTA knocks the socks off Fable 2's trite interpretation of how people react to your hero.

Bioshock. Potentially amazing gameplay spoiled by making you too over powered towards the end and reducing the scary threat of Big Daddies early on. Especially when played on hard. Nothing new about telling the story via recordings found around the place. Plasmids are just like magic and buffs in RPGs

Note. I liked Bioshock and thought Fable 2 was okay. But 10/10 games? No.

ShiverinEskimo

NeoKubrick wrote: »

How, in detail, is BioShock innovative or original? The BioShock demo was better than the full game.

Originality for me was found in the setting and the storyline. The creativity involved in building the story around rapture was impressive and while it still boils down to corridors and guns the presentation was a step above anything I had seen in some time.

If you strip any FPS back all you're left with is guns, enemies and corridors which is why I rate Bioshock so highly - the premise of the situation the developers created was imaginative and was implemented with great attention to detail. The character design, the eccentricity of the characters you had to work with (despite them being intrinsically evil) and the fact you were forced to take on the Big Daddies to progress were all things that for me created immersion.

I also think that you won't find too many shooters than combine what are essentially super-powers with realistic weapons. The fact you could combine alot of the plasmids with the weapons to greater effect was excellent too. The various ammo types also forced you to use only what suited lest you run out of ammo a lot quicker.

I'll never know why people fail to see innovation within a genre - a lot of people want their innovation and originality but then complain when it falls outside of the genre they love. Fallout 3 is a great example - FPS fans hated it for being an RPG, RPG fans hated it for being a FPS but again, it was an innovative form of both.

Zeouterlimits

www.giantbomb.com
www.eurogamer.net

K.O.Kiki

I can't stand Kotaku these days, they're like Edge now.

Pretentious & full of air.

fasty

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

Originality for me was found in the setting and the storyline. The creativity involved in building the story around rapture was impressive and while it still boils down to corridors and guns the presentation was a step above anything I had seen in some time.

It's a mix of Ayn Rand novels and System Shock 1 and 2's setting.

If you strip any FPS back all you're left with is guns, enemies and corridors which is why I rate Bioshock so highly - the premise of the situation the developers created was imaginative and was implemented with great attention to detail. The character design, the eccentricity of the characters you had to work with (despite them being intrinsically evil) and the fact you were forced to take on the Big Daddies to progress were all things that for me created immersion.

But Big Daddies, which could've been the star of the show by making them as hard to kill later in the game as they were in the beginning would've made the game more innovative ended up being easy to rip to bits. They don't scale with out. The challenge is all over the place. In the end it just decends into a pretty by the numbers FPS.

I also think that you won't find too many shooters than combine what are essentially super-powers with realistic weapons. The fact you could combine alot of the plasmids with the weapons to greater effect was excellent too. The various ammo types also forced you to use only what suited lest you run out of ammo a lot quicker.

But loads of games have things that supplement a character's abilities be they simple things like the gravity gun in HL2 to all the powerups in Deus Ex. Not original.

I'll never know why people fail to see innovation within a genre - a lot of people want their innovation and originality but then complain when it falls outside of the genre they love. Fallout 3 is a great example - FPS fans hated it for being an RPG, RPG fans hated it for being a FPS but again, it was an innovative form of both.

Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns. Are you confusing innovation and 'well made'?

ShiverinEskimo

fasty wrote: »

It's a mix of Ayn Rand novels and System Shock 1 and 2's setting.



But Big Daddies, which could've been the star of the show by making them as hard to kill later in the game as they were in the beginning would've made the game more innovative ended up being easy to rip to bits. They don't scale with out. The challenge is all over the place. In the end it just decends into a pretty by the numbers FPS.



But loads of games have things that supplement a character's abilities be they simple things like the gravity gun in HL2 to all the powerups in Deus Ex. Not original.



Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns. Are you confusing innovation and 'well made'?

You can write off anything by stripping it down though. In your line of thinking the only original FPS in history is Wolfenstein 3D and everything since then is just "wolfenstein 3D with <insert improvement here>"

Fact is First Person Shooters are exactly that - you cannot look for originality in their genre-dependant features. Where innovation and originality comes from is how certain aspects of them are implemented and how the scene is set and implemented. Most people's favourite games are the ones which touched them on a higher level than just technical merit be it characters they relate to, addictive storyline or immersive settings/themes. IMO Bioshock had all these things - equally comedic and light as it was tragic and dark. Had enough RPG elements to give the player a sense of advancment without having to muddle too much into stats and skill progression.

What the developers did they did extremely well and while some people say the Big Daddies were too easy near the end others would say "why did the same big daddies suddenly get stronger at the end" had it been the other way around.

NeoKubrick

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

Originality for me was found in the setting and the storyline. The creativity involved in building the story around rapture was impressive and while it still boils down to corridors and guns the presentation was a step above anything I had seen in some time.

If you strip any FPS back all you're left with is guns, enemies and corridors which is why I rate Bioshock so highly - the premise of the situation the developers created was imaginative and was implemented with great attention to detail. The character design, the eccentricity of the characters you had to work with (despite them being intrinsically evil) and the fact you were forced to take on the Big Daddies to progress were all things that for me created immersion.

I also think that you won't find too many shooters than combine what are essentially super-powers with realistic weapons. The fact you could combine alot of the plasmids with the weapons to greater effect was excellent too. The various ammo types also forced you to use only what suited lest you run out of ammo a lot quicker.

I'll never know why people fail to see innovation within a genre - a lot of people want their innovation and originality but then complain when it falls outside of the genre they love. Fallout 3 is a great example - FPS fans hated it for being an RPG, RPG fans hated it for being a FPS but again, it was an innovative form of both.

The problem is that BioShock didn't innovate the genre. For all First-person Shooters, combat is the core of the game and if that doesn't work, the game is failing to match the requirements of a good genre game, before attempting to innovate the genre. The combat system in BioShock is intricate, and it's all for naught, because the AI is the opposite. The enemies have no interesting dynamics, including the Big Daddy and are predictable. The combat system enables the player to have flair while playing, but, because the enemies are not dynamic, the actual combat never challenges the player. I haven't even mentioned a fundamental and huge and the biggest flaw in the combat: penalizing the player's death. If you die, you're not penalized other than that you're sent to the Vita-Chamber and are free to resume your game. Thus, the game failed to keep in-check the integrity of the player: the penalty of failing must be adequately strong enough to encourage players to optimize their play to avoid situations with a high chance of dying and get into situations with a low chance.

Aside from the gameplay, the main selling point of the game was the moral choice the player had. This also had a fundamental flaw. In my first playthrough, I naturally saved and harvested a Little Sister to see both their effects, and after that I saved all the Little Sisters. In the end, I received an ending which was in total contrast to how I played throughout the game, which undermined my choice and the concept of giving the player the choice.

The hacking mini-game was a tedious exercise. A welcome distraction at the beginning of the game when it's a fresh experience, but the repetition of having to play it all the time through the usefulness of its reward turned it into a dull mind-numbing task gradually resented. This only stands out, because the game design, haphazardly, makes it close to essential.

The story was great up to a certain point. Unfortunately, the game was consistent in undermining itself by building a character throughout the game to eventually transform him into an unrecognizable monster in the ending battle. How is the player supposed to be satisfied by defeating a different form to that of the antagonist the player has known for 95% of play-time? She/He isn't satisfied. This wouldn't be too greatly a flaw if the story wasn't supposed to be a selling point of the game, but it is.


No game with these flaws and poor implementations of its own ideas can be considered top of the genre let alone changing it. It's a good game, but nothing more.

ShiverinEskimo

All fair points and I appreciate your angle except I think I've found the problem here. You seem to have overlooked Eurogamers rather important article describing it's scoring system:

http://www.eurogamer.net/scoring_policy_v1.php

The perfect ten?

A score of ten reflects a game that, within the reviewer's estimation, is something you must buy: this is the message we're trying to convey. On a basic level it's almost certainly the best quality game ever seen within the context of its genre, and that's why Eurogamer doesn't dish them out very often. A score of 10 usually applies to less than a trio of games in any given year.

But all 10s are not born equal. For starters, you might consider that a ten in the RPG genre still isn't as appealing as an FPS that we scored an eight, or be mystified how we could score a football management game a nine when we only gave that survival-horror game you loved an eight. The best rule is to simply rate like with like, and use your own personal taste barometer to gauge whether the genre is of interest to you. Even so, if you're new to a particular genre then something scoring a ten is a very safe bet indeed. As a starting point, the message is you can't get a better game of this type.

Let us make absolutely clear that a 10 is not and probably never will be "the perfect game". There's always something criticisable about a game, however small.

A 10 will inspire the reviewer because it gets so many things correct. It will be something truly groundbreaking and aesthetically successful, be consistently enjoyable, get the balance right in difficulty terms, be technically very impressive, and be polished to a shine. It will leave the player in no doubt that they're playing something special right from the word go and will continue to inspire and amaze throughout. As we've said, this doesn't mean it's perfect, and we'll be sure to say where it goes wrong too, but maybe those niggles are just so minor that you can let it off. Look at anything under a microscope for long enough and you'll see the flaws. But would you kick a supermodel out of bed for farting?

I've highlighted the bits in bold which explain that while Eurogamer do give the odd game a 10/10 they are by no means saying it is perfect. A 10/10 is as good as saying it is essential that fans of the genre play the game. It means it is an important game.

While I understand that you felt it was flawed and didn't provide enough challenge I have to say I agree to some extent but I felt it was such a landmark in terms of narrative and scope that it was a hugely welcome addition to the FPS genre and showed in the same way that Half Life did in 1998 that when developers choose to abandon the clichés of FPS (hard-ass up against wave after wave of rogue soldiers in a mysterious underground complex for example) that the rewards can be immense.

Bioshock was thrilling for me - sufficiently creepy in places to have me on the edge and yet dazzling and artistic enough to keep me exploring every nook and cranny.

Every game has it's flaws, it's just I found Bioshock's to be extremely forgiveable because of all the things it got right.

fasty

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

You can write off anything by stripping it down though. In your line of thinking the only original FPS in history is Wolfenstein 3D and everything since then is just "wolfenstein 3D with <insert improvement here>"

So why strip Dead Space down to repetitive fetch quests and give it a 7?

NeoKubrick

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

All fair points and I appreciate your angle except I think I've found the problem here. You seem to have overlooked Eurogamers rather important article describing it's scoring system:

http://www.eurogamer.net/scoring_policy_v1.php



I've highlighted the bits in bold which explain that while Eurogamer do give the odd game a 10/10 they are by no means saying it is perfect. A 10/10 is as good as saying it is essential that fans of the genre play the game. It means it is an important game.

That's irrelevant to my argument, which has no reference of how to score the game in whatever scoring system proffered. I simply refuted your assertion, and any person/publication in concert, that it innovated the FPS genre.


On the topic of scoring systems and perhaps indirectly of this thread, the purpose of scoring systems is to make it more desirable for game companies to buy advertisements with publications: it's easier to persuade gamers to buy a game by slapping a number on a game than it is to convince gamers, by constructing a debate arguing it's pros and cons. Contrary to popular opinion, publications make money by selling their readers to companies through advertising, not selling magazines.

ShiverinEskimo

fasty wrote: »

So why strip Dead Space down to repetitive fetch quests and give it a 7?

Because the fetch quests and the subsequent levels you performed them in were by and large extremely similar.

I was playing and I honestly didn't care what I was getting or why I was getting it - I just knew I had to get it. The rewards for doing the fetching were insufficient for the effort required. To compare to bioshock you generally got a new plasmid and weapon for completing the fetch quests - something useful and tangible. In dead space the real reward was what you found lying around on the way there and back so you could trade up for better weaponry.

Dead Space had it's merits but it was limited and most of it's tricks were in the one basket - tension. And I don't even think it was as tense as some other games out there. F.E.A.R is prob the most tense FPS out there, or perhaps the original AVP as a marine. Flashlight OR motion sensor. THAT was the cruelest thing ever in a game.

NeoKubrick wrote:

That's irrelevant to my argument, which has no reference of how to score the game in whatever scoring system proffered. I simply refuted your assertion, and any person/publication in concert, that it innovated the FPS genre.

Enlighten me then - give me some examples of what you deem to be innovative titles in the FPS genre.

NeoKubrick

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

Enlighten me then - give me some examples of what you deem to be innovative titles in the FPS genre.

I've excluded multiplayer games, because they're irrelevant:

Marathon (Mac); System Shock 2 (PC); Quake (PC); Half Life (PC); Perfect Dark (N64/Xbox 360); Deus Ex (PC); Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox); Metroid Prime (GC); Far Cry (PC); Half Life 2 (PC/Xbox 360); F.E.A.R. (PC); S.T.A.L.K.E.R (PC); Fallout 3 (PC/Xbox 360); Left 4 Dead (PC/Xbox 360).

ShiverinEskimo

Half Life 2 (PC/Xbox 360); F.E.A.R. (PC); S.T.A.L.K.E.R (PC); Fallout 3 (PC/Xbox 360); Left 4 Dead (PC/Xbox 360).

I'm going to pick the more modern ones but can you give me reasons for the above being innovative. Everything you listed there are good examples of FPS but few are groundbreaking or innovative by your high standards. Half Life 2 just expanded HL1 and added (a lot) of vehicular combat.

As someone mentioned above Fallout 3 was 'just oblivion with guns' and could even be argues that it was a better hash at Stalker (though that's down to opinion). L4D is largely multiplayer but again could be compared to any number of zombie or co-op games. 4-player co-op halo was as groundbreaking.

fasty

Hmm, your gamercard says you only did about 4 chapters of Dead Space. Methinks you should probably play a bit more than 2 hours of it!

fasty

Half Life 2: Narrative, Physics implementation, Storytelling, Facial Animation

F.E.A.R.: Well, I think it's crap so nothing

S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Atmosphere, visuals (at least at the time)

Fallout 3: Nothing, it's just a good game

Left 4 Dead: AI director, movie/episode format, clever use of post processing

God, all of this is so subject which is what I think you don't get. Plus, pining after innovation in games as a yardstick for them being worth a 10 is stupid.

ShiverinEskimo

fasty wrote: »

Half Life 2: Narrative, Physics implementation, Storytelling, Facial Animation

Narrative and Storytelling are of course subjective and were equally as absorbing for me in Bioshock. Physics and Facial animation were technical leaps but were more to do with modern technology than originality/creativity.

F.E.A.R.: Well, I think it's crap so nothing

I loved this game. But again - it had it's flaws. The office levels were, well, corridory and had been done to death a thousand times. Not a major criticism but one that surely puts a dent in any original/innovative arguments. A game of literally corridors/guns/enemies with the odd freaky vision/noise thrown in. But excellent nonetheless.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Atmosphere, visuals (at least at the time)

Atmosphere yes, visuals yes. Bioshock has both in abundance yet according to posts on this thread that does not count for originality or innovation.

Fallout 3: Nothing, it's just a good game

I say Fallout 3 was original in it is possibly the best example of a blend of FPS and RPG as yet. But it had to go outside it's genre to achieve this. Remove the levelling up and it would have been a really average game.

Left 4 Dead: AI director, movie/episode format, clever use of post processing

I've not dabbled much in L4D so can't really comment.

God, all of this is so subject which is what I think you don't get. Plus, pining after innovation in games as a yardstick for them being worth a 10 is stupid.

So so far what we've boiled it down to is personal opinion. Shocking stuff altogether lads.

I played 4 chapters of Dead Space and got absolutely bored and just never picked it up again. It's still sat there ominously staring at me every time I go to play a game but I just don't have the urge as yet to get back into it. If you look at my other game stats fasty you'll see that when a game is good I play it to death and in one go. For example Red Dead Revolver was in my xbox for about a month solid and played through completely.

If a game isn't immersive after 30 to 40% odd of it's play time then for me, it's not a great game and it doesn't get my time.

fasty

Alright, so no we just need to tackle how a lot of 10/10 games on EG don't meet their own criteria!

NeoKubrick

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

Half Life 2 (PC/Xbox 360); F.E.A.R. (PC); S.T.A.L.K.E.R (PC); Fallout 3 (PC/Xbox 360); Left 4 Dead (PC/Xbox 360).

I'm going to pick the more modern ones but can you give me reasons for the above being innovative. Everything you listed there are good examples of FPS but few are groundbreaking or innovative by your high standards. Half Life 2 just expanded HL1 and added (a lot) of vehicular combat.

As someone mentioned above Fallout 3 was 'just oblivion with guns' and could even be argues that it was a better hash at Stalker (though that's down to opinion). L4D is largely multiplayer but again could be compared to any number of zombie or co-op games. 4-player co-op halo was as groundbreaking.

The one trait common to all the games I cited was that they had interesting and engrossing combat, or at the time of the respective game's release least of all.

Half Life 2 is one of the smartest designed games in the history of gaming. I'll give one example of its genius in explaining its subtle progress reward system. The introduction of characters first via a visual display establishes an obstacle, goal and reward for the player. The player is first introduced to Dr Kleiner on a monitor where the player is set the goal to travel to his lab. The distance is established by their needing to communicate via visual and audio link, the goal is communicated to the player and as well as the obstacles to overcome. The reward is established in meeting Dr. Kleiner in-person. This is mirrored in the introduction of Eli Vance and Judith Mossman: setting the player the reward for arriving at Black Mesa East. Dr. Breen is first introduced to the player via monitors and is the first character you see apart from G-Man, and this mirrors the establishment of an obstacle, goal and reward even if it extends over the course of the game and won't be achievable until near the ending of the game.

F.E.A.R. innovated AI in games by implementing a more developed Goal-Oriented Action Planning architecture and successfully by Jeff Orkin. It's responsible for the excellent combat in the game. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Fallout 3 also used this system for their artificial intelligence. S.T.A.L.K.E.R., however, was released first and therefore, it's illogical to omit a game that was innovative at the time just as it is to omit Half Life 1, Deus Ex et cetera. Where F.E.A.R. played out this innovative system superbly in tight claustrophobic spaces, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and, later and superior, Fallout 3 played it out in vast environments.

Similarly, Left 4 Dead has the AI director and emergent gameplay. I should have been more specific when referring to 'multiplayer': it should read "excluded competitive multiplayer". Correct, Halo 3 had four co-op before Left 4 Dead, but it's not innovative to implement a good idea badly (case in point: Perfect Dark Zero had a cover system before Gears of War, but Gears of War implemented it better). Left 4 Dead's four co-op is on another level of play to Halo 3's. Actually, Halo: Combat Evolved, which revived co-op, is closer to Left 4 Dead co-op.

Retr0gamer

Eurogamer kind of annoy me. Some of their writers are fantastic, in particular Ellie Gibson, while some are complete idiots. 1up are usually very good and have great articles. Kotaku is the best for news. Giant Bomb is excellent as well.

ShiverinEskimo

NeoKubrick wrote: »

The one trait common to all the games I cited was that they had interesting and engrossing combat, or at the time of the respective game's release least of all.

Half Life 2 is one of the smartest designed games in the history of gaming. I'll give one example of its genius in explaining its subtle progress reward system. The introduction of characters first via a visual display establishes an obstacle, goal and reward for the player. The player is first introduced to Dr Kleiner on a monitor where the player is set the goal to travel to his lab. The distance is established by their needing to communicate via visual and audio link, the goal is communicated to the player and as well as the obstacles to overcome. The reward is established in meeting Dr. Kleiner in-person. This is mirrored in the introduction of Eli Vance and Judith Mossman: setting the player the reward for arriving at Black Mesa East. Dr. Breen is first introduced to the player via monitors and is the first character you see apart from G-Man, and this mirrors the establishment of an obstacle, goal and reward even if it extends over the course of the game and won't be achievable until near the ending of the game.

F.E.A.R. innovated AI in games by implementing a more developed Goal-Oriented Action Planning architecture and successfully by Jeff Orkin. It's responsible for the excellent combat in the game. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Fallout 3 also used this system for their artificial intelligence. S.T.A.L.K.E.R., however, was released first and therefore, it's illogical to omit a game that was innovative at the time just as it is to omit Half Life 1, Deus Ex et cetera. Where F.E.A.R. played out this innovative system superbly in tight claustrophobic spaces, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and, later and superior, Fallout 3 played it out in vast environments.

Similarly, Left 4 Dead has the AI director and emergent gameplay. I should have been more specific when referring to 'multiplayer': it should read "excluded competitive multiplayer". Correct, Halo 3 had four co-op before Left 4 Dead, but it's not innovative to implement a good idea badly (case in point: Perfect Dark Zero had a cover system before Gears of War, but Gears of War implemented it better). Left 4 Dead's four co-op is on another level of play to Halo 3's. Actually, Halo: Combat Evolved, which revived co-op, is closer to Left 4 Dead co-op.

You seem to concentrate primarily on the combat systems as a means to rate games. While I agree it is obviously an extremely important, core component of any FPS it should not be the only metric by which a game is measured. Many of Eurogamer's scores are based not just on how the game plays or it's technical design but what the player gains from playing it.

My personal preference is gaming is storyline. If a game contains a really engrossing story with fleshed out characters and a decent script I am willing to let the odd technical shortfall go the wayside in favour of the fact that I'm not just testing my skills but also interacting in a story.

With the biggest FPS of all time being COD4:MW2 it's easy to see a shift in how the games are being developed with as much character-driven narratives and QTE-driven set-pieces as to bring them closer to cinematic productions and reap the rewards of a more immersive gaming experience.

Games are no longer about a carrot on the end of a stick and a level or obstacle in the way. While I appreciate goal-driven gameplay there are times when the layout of a level or the feel/effectiveness of a particular weapon is superseeded by the creativity of the title in the way it presents the interactive story to the player.

I think it's quite obvious that you like to consider yourself a hardcore gamer - is that a fair assumption? You seem to get a bigger kick out of beating a particularly difficult section than actually absorbing the bigger picture that section is a part of in the narrative as a whole. If this is true I can see why you disliked Bioshock. It's repetitive minigames and largely predictable, unleveled enemies probably had you bored before you even met Ryan. Meanwhile I was happily shooting my way through the enemies just to see where Atlas would take me next, and trying to find out what happened in Rapture before my arrival while wondering why the little girls were as they were.

This is why I found Bioshock so original - it's story for me was unlike anything I had previously played and the cinematic approach of the 1950's themed architecture intrigued me.

It all boils down to the impression a game makes on people and Bioshock made an excellent impression on me and as I originally pointed out I subsequently agreed with the impression it made on Eurogamer's reviewers. I recommended Eurogamer because thus far I've not come across a review that I've drastically disagreed with. If that is because we have similar tastes or because they tend to seek out the same experiences I do when playing a game then so be it. But it doesn't make either of us wrong.

humanji

I don't use many gaming sites, but I do use www.gamespot.com.

Their reviews aren't great, but I rarely go by reviews these days as I've usually made my mind up to get a game before it comes out. After the whole Kane & Lynch fiasco, they seem to make a big effort to not make their reviews too opinionated, which can drag down a lot of reviews. They generally stick to the basics and give a nice overview of the games.

But what I do like about Gamespot is that when you log in, you can track specific games and only get updates about those. I don't know if any other sites do anything like that. I find it pretty handy. And a lot of the info it has is gotten from other sites, so it all filters in here from everywhere else. And it's easy enough to navigate. There's lots of sites out there that don't make any sort of design sense and just look like some amateur aite from the 90's covered in advertising.

Plus, they've also got screenshots, videos, user content (reviews and video uploads) and a forum (that I think doubles up as the gamesfaq forum, so probably best to give it a miss).

Fnz

I like Giant Bomb for their video 'quick looks'.

NeoKubrick

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

You seem to concentrate primarily on the combat systems as a means to rate games. While I agree it is obviously an extremely important, core component of any FPS it should not be the only metric by which a game is measured. Many of Eurogamer's scores are based not just on how the game plays or it's technical design but what the player gains from playing it. [...]
I think it's quite obvious that you like to consider yourself a hardcore gamer - is that a fair assumption? You seem to get a bigger kick out of beating a particularly difficult section than actually absorbing the bigger picture that section is a part of in the narrative as a whole. If this is true I can see why you disliked Bioshock. It's repetitive minigames and largely predictable, unleveled enemies probably had you bored before you even met Ryan. Meanwhile I was happily shooting my way through the enemies just to see where Atlas would take me next, and trying to find out what happened in Rapture before my arrival while wondering why the little girls were as they were.

Games are played: this statement is more relevant to the First-person Shooter than most. I assign weights to whatever a game is designed to be and judge it on its own merits. Combat should not be the only metric by which a game is measured, but if it's the overwhelming dominant component of a game, which it is with BioShock, combat will have a larger weight assigned to it than all the other components of the game. It's not logical to ignore 70% of a game and review 30% because that 30% is allegedly good.

I don't want a game to be difficult: I want it to be, first of all, fun. BioShock had fundamental flaws and which have no relation to how difficult it is: not adequately penalizing the player is a fault of the design, not the difficulty (a game could be extremely hard and make the design flaw of not penalizing the player for constantly dying). By the standards of gaming, it was a good story that undermined itself in the end, but judging the standards of gaming in relation to other mediums, you'll see that's not adequate. Read Shakespeare's King Lear, watch Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket or Leone's Once Upon a Time in America to see where the highest standard is set.

The easiest story to tell is one where the audience doesn't know what is going to happen. It gets progressively harder to tell something to the player a second/third/(...)/Nth time of playing when the plot dissipates.