[Jackal]

Originally Posted by Ninth

Even a professional reviewer is only a man, and alternate views help put his perspective into... perspective. It's easy to be blind to the failings of a game that one loves.

That's why we have an editor.

Actually, I'm only half joking. I never ever impose my own opinion of a game on a reviewer, and no one will ever see my input to an article, but I do represent a second perspective that will challenge anything that's too subjective (having made a point of playing the game or at least a demo whenever possible). Which is why hopefully our reviews present a very balanced perspective despite the "lone reviewer" reality.

Of course, this only matters to people who read the reviews. But I still wanted to point that out.

I wouldn't. Not if I considered a review as the official, and serious, stance, and alternate opinions as means to help recalibrating it.

Well, I think that's a dangerous game to play. It's easy to shoot from the hip, but it's tough to hit the mark that way. And if people are offering opinions with no real accountability, it actually runs the risk of undermining the official, serious stance. If two of three second opinions differ from the official stance, are we not more or less telling people to disregard it? To me the real (potential) value of second opinions is offering a different perspective, not a different judgement.

For that matter, I don't see our reviews as telling people whether or not to buy a game, except in extreme cases, for good or bad. What they do is provide people with enough information to decide for themselves whether it's for them. That's the goal. So I'm not actually sure that having more "opinions" is really furthering that goal, or moving away from it. We don't want to do people's thinking for them, just give them the information they need.

Anyway, I'm just debating this as an exchange of views, because as I said, this is an idea that definitely has merit, and has been considered. It's just on a long list of other good ideas that may or may not be realized some day.

You see it as floppy, because you want to be as serious as possible as an editor, but I'm pretty sure people would forgive a teeny bit of sloppiness that would help them figure out the game.

Argh! Never tell an editor that sloppiness is okay. But really, it's not just presentation I'm concerned with. How about fairness to games and their developers? Is it okay to have some games fully fleshed out and others not? Maybe so, but I'm not overly comfortable with it.

I'm really curious on what would be problematic in adding a forum poll to provide alternative grades, so if you feel like addressing that even though I don't feel slighted in the slightest... be my guest.

Well, JUST adding a link to a forum poll would be (relatively) easy enough. But having to follow a poll and update the review long after it's out is a pain in the butt for very little benefit. I'm also not convinced that a forum is a proper representation of the adventure community at large, so tying ourselves to a potentially skewed (albeit interesting) number isn't very appealing. At the very least, you'd need a minimum number of votes required for it to be of any benefit at all. Same problem with the second opinions, really. Until you're up into numbers where statistical averages start to matter, you could really just have two or three wildly divergent opinions with no overall relevance.

What I'm suggesting and what reviews are about is basically about the same thing, yes, but it's a different way to address this issue. As I said, I'm not fond of reviews in general; I'd rather read small summaries, and preferably have alternate opinions. Or even better, have review and alternate opinions, and all in the same place (as opposed to having to survey all the adventure sites).

Sure, and I understand that. But at some point, that kind of variety may indeed be better suited to the forums. Plenty of opinions here.