Adventure Gamers - Forums

luckyloser - 08 December 2023 03:32 PM

I guess so, Doom, but it is not worthy of a five-star review, to be honest, no game is except 3-4 in the history of the genre, or gaming, imho, a full score means, everything; from the original artwork, story, gameplaying design…etc, all the way until it is given the best original soundtrack. Something unimaginable to conceive, actually.

So true, I was referring to your comments as I would never rely on this particular reviewer’s recommendations - her articles are always poorly worded, short and uninformative, and she seems to be very easily impressed (“Oh, the game has pixel graphics!” “Oh, the game has a hot spot revealer!” and so on). There’s no quality control anymore, I only read user reviews and watch some youtubers when choosing a game these days. This one still looks very inviting.

jsfx - 10 December 2023 11:28 AM

People could post 7 adventures they feel comfortable with being a 10 or which mean something special to them (imo this can include flaws you don’t mind too). Then we could see who has taste and who is just mad.

Alright, I’ll bite. 
Good thing you mentioned flaws. If I have an absolutely marvelous time with a game, I don’t mind one or two flaws. But if they get irritating the game doesn’t get 5 stars from me.

Outer Wilds. What can I say… perfect.
The Longing. Perfect in its niche.
There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension. One flaw: the narrator gives too many unsolicited hints.
The Witness. Thank you, Mr Blow.
Return of the Obra Dinn. One flaw: not enough people to identify, I want more!
Day of the Tentacle. Might have one or two tiny flaws I can’t remember.
The Case of the Golden Idol. Some people see flaws where there aren’t any.
Cube Escape: Paradox. Perfect combination of game and movie.

That’s 8 five-star games. I wanted to add Gorogoa but I hated the music. Stories Untold was also almost perfect but the text parser sucked.
Mad or impeccable taste? 

PS: Machinarium was also flawless.
PPS: The Wolf Among Us had one flaw: the confusing ending that was supposed to be ambiguous but actually didn’t make any sense when you looked at the facts.

jsfx - 10 December 2023 11:28 AM

People could post 7 adventures they feel comfortable with being a 10 or which mean something special to them (imo this can include flaws you don’t mind too). Then we could see who has taste and who is just mad.

I dont think ‘taste’ is what we should be after, however, there must be a standard that could address all adventures, something like rating over their graphics, story, sound, puzzles, and gameplaying or design, because at the end of the day, when a game like The Will of Arthur Flabbington scores above Riven or Edna & Harvey there must be some kind of sense to do so. And about the other point; one time being mad meant something, nowadays everybody is

I rated Syberia - The World Before 4 out of 5 stars. On other grading systems that might be equivalent to 8 out of 10. Was it perfect? No. But did I find it enjoyable in almost every way that a game can be graded, i.e. story, graphics, music, voice acting? Absolutely. In fact, there is no game in AG’s top 100 that is, to me, flawless. Many in the lower half might, today, only get a grade of 7 out of 10. Yet they are very good games.

I think the question of how games are graded today is not a question of taste. It’s a question of editorial policy. If, as noted before, a review of The Will of Arthur Flabbington is rated higher than Riven, there must be a an editorial policy that allows this to happen. Common sense says that if the top rated game of all time, Grim Fandango, is rated 9.5 out of 10, no current game can, or should, exceed that rating. But that happens with some regularity. Why?

Ask the editor!

rtrooney - 11 December 2023 10:55 PM

Common sense says that if the top rated game of all time, Grim Fandango, is rated 9.5 out of 10, no current game can, or should, exceed that rating. But that happens with some regularity. Why?

I think common sense also says that the idea of a “top rated game of all time” is a bit silly if it precludes the possibility of a newer game from being rated higher.

Personally I see no problem rating games 4.5/5 stars (or 1/0.5 stars for that matter) as long as I’m doing this for myself, without giving a second thought about all its criteria (graphics, voices, etc.) or comparing it to all other games I played. I even feel like making it as subjective and emotionally charged as possible when sharing my thoughts on forums or in the user reviews section since nobody stands behind my back.

But when I’m writing for a well-established media, I feel obliged to follow its rules and standards, both in rating and writing, because I’m doing this not just for myself or those who stumble across my thoughts by accident, but for thousands of people who intentionally visit the website to read my articles to decide whether the game is worthy their time/money (or simply to entertain themselves which is also an important mission of a good review).

In this case I certainly must take into consideration other games, the history of the genre, the site’s policy, provide an extended review that covers everything the game has to offer, etc. It’s not just my opinion anymore, it’s part of the website where Grim Fandango is rated 9.5 out of 10

With that said, I’m currently playing Stasis 2 and I see no flaws in it so far. Might just result in a 5/5 star game.

I used to rate games based on the 0-100 scale, and yet there were still several instances when I went for both 1% and 99% — although it was more of an emotional move rather than a logical one. Because, yeah, in this case a 1% game must mean a frozen black screen that blows up your PC, while 99% is some endless adventure that simulate our universe.

I guess everyone understood that none of that was possible, especially if you did your rating “properly”, like, rating each criteria (story, gameplay, graphics, sound, etc.) separately based on the same scale and then counting the average score. So those extremes were usually used not as proper markers, but as some means to enhance the effect from the review itself.

Also I could never bring myself to do this with adventure games during the 2000s when the majority of the devs couldn’t afford even remotely good production values and were doomed to receive low scores no matter how good their script/game design was. Why niche sites like AdventureGamers came out as a salvation — they actually cared. But with reviews like the one mentioned above, when it’s impossible to make any conclusions from those 3-4 short passages written like a school essay, those perfect scores just make things worse. I mean, like,

Players are fortunate that using the interface is so easy. They will need their brainpower for the puzzles. They are challenging but always fit the story. It’s possible for Artie the ghost to possess various characters, which is an entertaining, ingenious solution to certain conundrums.

What the fuck is that? 90% of Steam reviews are more informative and engaging than that.

Charophycean - 12 December 2023 04:30 AM

rtrooney - 11 December 2023 10:55 PM

Common sense says that if the top rated game of all time, Grim Fandango, is rated 9.5 out of 10, no current game can, or should, exceed that rating. But that happens with some regularity. Why?

I think common sense also says that the idea of a “top rated game of all time” is a bit silly if it precludes the possibility of a newer game from being rated higher.

It doesn’t preclude that at all. It simply states that when that happens, there should be some justification for doing so. I don’t see that.

Doom - 12 December 2023 05:36 AM

With that said, I’m currently playing Stasis 2 and I see no flaws in it so far. Might just result in a 5/5 star game.

I think the lack of a memorable soundtrack at Stasis 2 is a flaw, but again, should the game OST have any weight towards its rating, or could that do injustice toward 90% of the indie adventures.. however subjectively, yes, OST is a very important key of immersion and should not be taken lightly…, but if there are some sort of standards written at this site (or any) that say otherwise, I would oblige, but somebody has to draw the line

All this talk about the Will of Arthur Flabbington made me download the demo to see if it’s as good as the review claims. Absolutely not. Nothing remarkable about it, not even the graphics. Uninteresting dialogues, run of the mill puzzles, awful repetitive music. And then the game made me pick up and use some disgusting stuff in the bathroom (guess what… ). I stopped playing after that. I want to be fair, so it is of course possible that the demo is not representative of the game, but I will never know if the game gets better.