i take issue with your scores. you slate the PC version of the game and give it a five. you then go on to say the wii version is pretty decent but not exactly a worthy addition to a gamer's collection. and it gets a seven?
is it me or is it strange that a game you find almost nothing positive to say about gets an average score? to me, a '5' is middling. you know, OK, nothing amazing, pretty decent all round but nothing really to recommend it. exactly the kind of score the wii version of the game should have gotten, reading the review, tbh.
it's time to put an end to the massive positive skew in the distribution of marks we see in all reviews, everywhere. when was the last time you saw a game review use a 1 or 2 in a review? yet we see 9s and 8s being handed out left right and centre.
and i don't take the argument that the bar is raised these days. so what? that just shifts our expectations as consumers, too. just because EVERY game is good, doesn't mean there are still games out there that define the superlative, and hence the extremes of the points scale. the fact remains that an average game should get an average score, not a 7, which in my view is actually pretty good (i mean, 70% at uni is a first class degree, ffs!)
Well, the score system we use has a seven as an average game. If you pick up a game off the shelf then you expect it to give you a few hours of fun and enjoyment, maybe without being anything really special but otherwise appealing to your interests (why else would you look at it?). This is what a seven represents.
A five suggests a game one or two notches below this, but which a die hard fan will get anyway. Anything below a five has decreasing levels of redeeming qualities. We use a negative marking system mostly, assuming every game is a 7 and adding a plussing points based on the games merits and cons. The Pc version had more cons obviously, while the Wii version was buoyed up by it being on the Wii.
Oh, and as for games getting ones or twos - the rarity of these is because most of the games we review are triple A games built by professionals. It's rare then to see a professional team of hundreds stumble so badly, though it does happen (Hellboy, anyone?). We do get a number of games in that would probably get very low scores (I have some sitting in my desk at the moment), but because they are such clearly budget titles made by amateur companies we often don't believe they merit the time to review them. They do slip through though occasionally, such as El Matador.
see, that's my point. why choose 7 as a median when you're using a 10-point system? why reserve more numbers for 'bad' games than good? surely the better ones deserve to be differentiated as well?
it it were me, i would ditch numbers altogether and just have a 10-word summary at the end of a review. it would stop all those gameSpot retards arguing over a percentage point, for one thing, and would be far more reflective of the subjective and personal nature of game reviews. (another pet peeve - sites that mark out of a ten-point scale and give decimal scores. WHAT'S. THE POINT.)
perhaps the game graphics doesn't look so realistic, because spiderman naturally is a comics. Who would expect GTA to look super-relistic? I see that the graphics of spiderman look nearly like in my faforite GTA San Andreas. Moreover the trailer for GTA 4 also takes place in New York.
What's this smell... eww... Oh now I remember it, it's the terrible smell of a license-game! They have this generic license-game template where they just slap the new textures.... And the template has been the same for the last 10 years or so :E
This game looks nothing like San Andreas. Trust me. Unless you try to run San Andreas on a 486 it's always going to look better than this. But, hey, why not prove me wrong and buy it to find out ;)
As with all other games that get the licence. I wouldnt touch this or waste £30 - £50 for it on what ever platform. These game companies compete for the licence and then spend as little money as possible to create a game and then depend on the licence to sell loads of games with maximum profit.
I just wish they made a real game that is playable and fun and not use a licence to sell a poor game. Im still waiting for a really good Btaman, Superman, Spiderman, Xmen game that ill keep playing over and over again like GOW.
Did you miss the Xmen Legends I and II boat? I thought those two were excellent, along with Ultimate Alliance, and I heard that the JLA game wasn't too bad either.
Good review, but I find it odd that you seemed to mostly avoid any talk on the Wii versions graphics, which most other reviews have stated are atrocious. I've also read complaints of the game having a chug-tastic framerate and the city seeming devoid of civilians.
Now, we know that the Wii isn't the most powerful system, but this is clearly developer laziness. There is really no excuse for the game to look this awful.
"Swinging about Manhattan is fun on the Wii, but this has more to do with the innovative design choices Nintendo made with the Wii than it does with game itself. The choice of how these control were taken advantage of didn't require any ingenuity or imagination after all."
Umm what? It didn't require any ingenuity? You say it as if it's a bad thing. Maybe they should have made the player swing his arm three times for each web while simultaneously pressing a series of buttons that imitate the release of web through the skin and also having to tug on the web after each hit so that you know it stuck to something.
Originally Posted by Neogumbercules Good review, but I find it odd that you seemed to mostly avoid any talk on the Wii versions graphics, which most other reviews have stated are atrocious. I've also read complaints of the game having a chug-tastic framerate and the city seeming devoid of civilians.
Now, we know that the Wii isn't the most powerful system, but this is clearly developer laziness. There is really no excuse for the game to look this awful.
That can not be the finished game on WII is it???? I mean the SNES FX games look better
Originally Posted by Fozzy "Swinging about Manhattan is fun on the Wii, but this has more to do with the innovative design choices Nintendo made with the Wii than it does with game itself. The choice of how these control were taken advantage of didn't require any ingenuity or imagination after all."
Umm what? It didn't require any ingenuity? You say it as if it's a bad thing. Maybe they should have made the player swing his arm three times for each web while simultaneously pressing a series of buttons that imitate the release of web through the skin and also having to tug on the web after each hit so that you know it stuck to something.
I think what they were getting at was that there's little point in praising the developers for their adaptation of the Wii controls, as they were pretty damn obvious. It's not like they've done anything anyone else couldn't have thought of. Not to say it's bad they did it like this, only to say that they shouldn't be overly praised for it.
On the other hand, I'd have to agree with the comments about the scores. Whilst I don't agree we should see more 1s and 2s when there is SO much crap out there from ametuer and budget developers that would get minus numbers on a re-shuffled scale, giving the versions 5 and 7 is a bit much imho. Looking at metacritic, C&C3 is averaging 85%, are you saying it's only 15 degrees of 100 better than Spiderman 3? The Wii version recieving 5 or 6 and the PC version 4 or 5 would have been more accurate based on the review. I know this isn't an isolated case and I'm not having a go at bit-tech in particular, just making the point. I see what you mean by 70% being an 'average' game, which for as long as I can remember seems a good starting point, but the review gave the impressio of being far less than average, or at least it seemed to.
In my experience, scores have grown to be exponential for games now a days. Two totally shite games slightly apart could easilly fetch say 30% and 40%, but two extremely good games that are seperated by a similer amount in terms of quality may score 90% and 92%. It's almost like the higher you go, the more each percentage means. Actually to be honest I don't mind a system like that, as long as I know how the numbers are differing.
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Ian
is it me or is it strange that a game you find almost nothing positive to say about gets an average score? to me, a '5' is middling. you know, OK, nothing amazing, pretty decent all round but nothing really to recommend it. exactly the kind of score the wii version of the game should have gotten, reading the review, tbh.
it's time to put an end to the massive positive skew in the distribution of marks we see in all reviews, everywhere. when was the last time you saw a game review use a 1 or 2 in a review? yet we see 9s and 8s being handed out left right and centre.
and i don't take the argument that the bar is raised these days. so what? that just shifts our expectations as consumers, too. just because EVERY game is good, doesn't mean there are still games out there that define the superlative, and hence the extremes of the points scale. the fact remains that an average game should get an average score, not a 7, which in my view is actually pretty good (i mean, 70% at uni is a first class degree, ffs!)
A five suggests a game one or two notches below this, but which a die hard fan will get anyway. Anything below a five has decreasing levels of redeeming qualities. We use a negative marking system mostly, assuming every game is a 7 and adding a plussing points based on the games merits and cons. The Pc version had more cons obviously, while the Wii version was buoyed up by it being on the Wii.
Oh, and as for games getting ones or twos - the rarity of these is because most of the games we review are triple A games built by professionals. It's rare then to see a professional team of hundreds stumble so badly, though it does happen (Hellboy, anyone?). We do get a number of games in that would probably get very low scores (I have some sitting in my desk at the moment), but because they are such clearly budget titles made by amateur companies we often don't believe they merit the time to review them. They do slip through though occasionally, such as El Matador.
Hope that helps.
it it were me, i would ditch numbers altogether and just have a 10-word summary at the end of a review. it would stop all those gameSpot retards arguing over a percentage point, for one thing, and would be far more reflective of the subjective and personal nature of game reviews. (another pet peeve - sites that mark out of a ten-point scale and give decimal scores. WHAT'S. THE POINT.)
There's no reason why I would pay for that game.
I just wish they made a real game that is playable and fun and not use a licence to sell a poor game. Im still waiting for a really good Btaman, Superman, Spiderman, Xmen game that ill keep playing over and over again like GOW.
We can dream but its never going to happen.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/Neogumbercules/spider-man-3-20070504032239328.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/Neogumbercules/spider-man-3-20070504032237938.jpg
Now, we know that the Wii isn't the most powerful system, but this is clearly developer laziness. There is really no excuse for the game to look this awful.
Umm what? It didn't require any ingenuity? You say it as if it's a bad thing. Maybe they should have made the player swing his arm three times for each web while simultaneously pressing a series of buttons that imitate the release of web through the skin and also having to tug on the web after each hit so that you know it stuck to something.
That can not be the finished game on WII is it???? I mean the SNES FX games look better
Sad but true.
I thought the movie itself was OK. Probably the weakest of the three and I REALLY didn't like the shoehorned way Venom was in (and out) of the story.
I think what they were getting at was that there's little point in praising the developers for their adaptation of the Wii controls, as they were pretty damn obvious. It's not like they've done anything anyone else couldn't have thought of. Not to say it's bad they did it like this, only to say that they shouldn't be overly praised for it.
On the other hand, I'd have to agree with the comments about the scores. Whilst I don't agree we should see more 1s and 2s when there is SO much crap out there from ametuer and budget developers that would get minus numbers on a re-shuffled scale, giving the versions 5 and 7 is a bit much imho. Looking at metacritic, C&C3 is averaging 85%, are you saying it's only 15 degrees of 100 better than Spiderman 3? The Wii version recieving 5 or 6 and the PC version 4 or 5 would have been more accurate based on the review. I know this isn't an isolated case and I'm not having a go at bit-tech in particular, just making the point. I see what you mean by 70% being an 'average' game, which for as long as I can remember seems a good starting point, but the review gave the impressio of being far less than average, or at least it seemed to.
In my experience, scores have grown to be exponential for games now a days. Two totally shite games slightly apart could easilly fetch say 30% and 40%, but two extremely good games that are seperated by a similer amount in terms of quality may score 90% and 92%. It's almost like the higher you go, the more each percentage means. Actually to be honest I don't mind a system like that, as long as I know how the numbers are differing.