If you ever need to defend a castle from a seemingly endless swarm of angry ginger Vikings, you better make sure you have plenty of tools with which to defeat the bearded buggers. Thankfully, in Castlestorm, the new downloadable tower defence title from Zen Studios, you get all the goodies you could wish for.
The idea is simple, and one that has been done plenty of times before, defend your own castle from onrushing attackers whilst you simultaneously try to strategically dismember your opponents castle. Where Castlestorm shines however, it in the sheer variety of tools it gives you to this and in the quirky, comical nature in which the game is laid out.
Here at Zero1Gaming we thoroughly enjoy playing video games and proceeding to write about their merits and downfalls for 1000 words, give or take. At the end of these reviews there is usually a summary, gathering our thoughts upon what we have just played and occasionally an accompanying video. Go to most other websites and you’ll see something we like to avoid. A number. Sitting there at the bottom of the page like an overbearing shadow that invalidates the hours toiled on the piece of writing that has just been read by you, sitting there on the computer at home. Sometimes it’s worse. A few websites don’t even have the common courtesy to print the number which rescinds the masterpiece sculpted by the writer at the top.
This disgusts me, as I feel when I read a review I get an entirely different story than I do from the score on most occasions yet people still judge a game by its cover, or rather its metacritic. I’m going to tackle the issue of review scores head on, discussing the good and bad, what could possibly be done to improve the way they work or if we should just get rid of them altogether.
To prove that I shall be unbiased whilst writing this I’ll provide proof as to why they have a positive impact on review sites and the industry in general. Firstly, the website you visit to see the review still gets the revenue from ads regardless if you only read the score or scroll through the whole review, so they don’t lost money from it. Secondly, you get information quickly. Suppose you have to go out in 3 minutes and you’re not sure which game to buy. Review scores help more than the reviews themselves and the convenience speaks for itself. Believe it or not everybody wants to read 1000+ words upon why Resident Evil 6 deserves its own little spot in hell and an article that is actually just a device for flirting with Ken Levine (we’re looking at you Polygon) and I respect that. Each to their own, as they say, and I respect that.
On the other hand, review scores can hurt games. Some games aren’t that polished or deep, but have a charm about them which is referenced often in the written review but forgotten when it comes to the score. This prevents indie games from achieving greatness in the eyes of consumers who now most likely won’t give them a chance.
The inclusion of a review score can cost more than just a sale though; Bethesda’s bonuses are decided upon the metacritic score of the game, and in the case of the developers of Fallout: New Vegas cost them a whole lot. $1,000,000 in bonuses to be precise. If they game recieved a metacritic of over 85 then they would get that bonus. The game fell just short, achieving a taunting 84 on PC meaning that the devs who toiled for years upon attempting to create the best game possible got simply their straight up fee, no royalties.
Metacritic isn’t a great way to see review scores either, as some sites use the whole of the score spectrum, from 1 all the way to 10 yet some only appear to use the upper 5 numbers to judge a game as even the buggiest, most hated wrecks of a game achieve something which can be conceived by others as an average score (for instance Aliens Colonial Marines on PC for IGN). The only real way to tell what the reviewer in question thought of the game his opinion on the entirety is to read the review. If you’re only interested in the singleplayer in Call of Duty then the score is probably an unfair judgment for you, as the result for such a game is usually more based upon multiplayer than anything else, so it could still get an 8 despite the singleplayer being appalling, which would mean that the review score misguided you and your expectations and caused you to waste £40/$50/however much a game costs in your currency on a title you don’t enjoy.
The next problem with review scores? 9’s and 9.5’s are given out too lightly. If you read IGN’s Bioshock Infinite review then you get the impression that it is maybe a 9, possibly an 8.5 but alas when you look at the score you see a whopping 9.5. Review scores are easily bought and payed for, unlike the reviewers opinions and although I’m not suggesting that Irrational did such a thing but that game, albeit an exquisite game did not deserve a 9.5 from anybody.
In the case of Fallout: New Vegas it suffered unnecessarily, as the bugs that were holding it back on the day of release were fixed within a few months, making the reviews criticizing it almost entirely invalid, yet they still put people off purchasing what is an otherwise brilliant game.
So in the end I say begone with review scores, begone with the stipulations to adhere to what makes a 9/10 and begone to the days of people just scrolling to the bottom, because opinions matter a whole lot.
In most sci-fi books and movies humans appear as naive, stupid and greedy beings, and machines created by them usually rebel against them as soon as they get “smart” enough. In Primordia, debut game made by not really famous Wormwood Studios and Wadjet Eye Games and released on December 5, 2012, everything is different: robots do not want to harm humans; on the contrary, they believe that humans are supreme beings, perfect machines.
These holidays I played Primordia for the first time. I was tired of playing The Witcher 2 and waiting for its new installment or Cyberpunk 2077 to be released, so I wanted to try something new. I didn’t think I could ever like a 2D game with bad graphics, but… Read more …
Having garnered something of a reputation for himself in the still-fledgling computer gaming market, Richard Garriott found himself in an unenviable position: how to follow Akalabeth: World of Doom. While not the most sophisticated or visually stunning game made up to that point, Akalabeth was, as detailed in my article on the game, a game of considerable character and charm, one that had caught the imagination of many of the new group of people soon to be called Gamers. Read more …
Japanese RPGs: they divide opinion, arguably, like no other. While any genre of game has its lauders and its detractors, JRPGs seem to have something of a bipolar effect on gaming as a whole. Offer one to a gamer and they will probably have one of two reactions; utter revulsion or eager anticipation. Few games garner such a cult following as some of luminaries of this gaming sub-section and even fewer garner such utter dismissal and ridicule from those who dislike them.
The games industry has an image problem. Some people may protest, but you know it, I know it and, boy, does the media know it. Computer games and, by extension, gamers are often derided in the general consciousness, seen as a group of social outcasts, misfits who just aren’t like ‘normal’ people. It may be grossly unfair, but the stereotype of a gamer who lives on his own (and he’s always male) or with his parents, doesn’t wash and doesn’t really interact with other people prevails in many people’s minds. In the mental image, he’ll most likely be teenage or early twenties too, sitting for hour upon hour at his computer, playing his games. Read more …
