Adventure Gamers - Forums

I agree with most of the points other people have said. I think that reviews are almost a waste of time to review these days because of the problem of them either being too positive, or so far from my own taste as to be pointless.

I was never a super active forum member, but I have lurked randomly over the years and always find myself coming back. It’s nice to see so many people still posting that I remember posting years and years ago. I hope people come back and the people that are still here now stick around. This really is one of the nicer forums left on the greater internet in general.

It is also nice to have some context of what happened to the site. I used to love the site back in the day and would check out the Aggie awards every year. I hate the new layout of the main page, but it is what it is.

Let’s stick together everyone!

Doom - 20 June 2023 05:01 PM

Hey, giom, great to see you back! Jack and Ivo got into a fight over Adventuregamers, Ivo won, Jack left and founded his own website, Adventure Hotspot, with most of the former AG authors following him. I don’t know the details, nobody was told anything, including the remaining contributors. It seems like Ivo recruited a number of new authors somewhere (I have strong suspicions that the most active of them is a Chatbot because of the way they put their thoughts together, people just don’t write like that), there’s almost no quality control now and, as a result, many reviews are extremely short and uninformative. And with this rating policy they make even less sense.

Though I read articles at Hotspot, and it seems like they follow the same “generous” rating route, maybe for the reasons you described. It also feels to me that with AG they lost some spark that helped Jack’s team shine, they are more concerned with promoting the new site and attracting people rather than producing great content. Also both websites now actively cover games unrelated to the genre, such as Tomb Raider, Lord of the Rings, Alone in the Dark, Zelda, action-RPGs, stealth, etc. The AG community is still strong though and might be the best thing left, connecting all spots, dots and epochs. Too bad a number of great active forum members also left during the last couple of years for different reasons — I put some of them on my avatar in commemoration.

Hey Doom, thanks! Yeah, it’s nice to be back I missed coming over here and I do love the community here. Pity that some people are missing.

It’s good to understand a bit more what happened. I came across an article on AG that’s pretty much pure blogspam linking to essay writing services https://adventuregamers.com/news/view/the-educational-benefits-of-adventure-games . Can’t imagine that ever happening back when the previous team was there. This explains how it could have happened. Pity, because AG was the site that most replicated the experience of opening my favorite game magazine back in the day and reading the game reviews (but AG was even more objective).

I checked out Adventure Hotspot and the reviews are more of what I’d expect but I do feel that they’re still trying to find their footing. The only game that’s more of an RPG I could find that they covered is Gamedec but it does seem to have puzzles so it’s maybe more of an hybrid? One of my favorite adventure game in recent years , The Captain, was not covered here because it was an hybrid, despite 70% of the playtime being point and click adventure puzzles… So, as long as a significant part of the game includes puzzle solving, it’s not a bad policy.

Going back to this topic, I did compare the reviews of Golden Idol. Adventure Hotspot was great. For AG’s review, it’s not bad, the reviewer makes some fair points about what he felt playing the game and all reviews are subjective. But,
I kind of feel that maybe it makes more sense to distribute reviews to people who are not going to be biased against the game they are playing. So, for example, if there’s a game with pixel art and a bit of a retro look, don’t give it to someone who doesn’t like this sort of look. It’s the same with old game magazines where usually the person most excited about a game got to review that game… I also do disagree with the reviewer about the purpose of the epilogue, I saw it as a summary of what happened instead of revealing anything.

i was going to make this exact thread if this didn’t exist, you took the words out of my mouth. i was just catching up on this site, and it’s 4/5 star reviews across the board on clearly middling games, and then golden idol, EASILY one of the most exciting and original and incredibly well conceived games in years, gets 3 stars and more criticisms than 80% of the games reviews??? i’m like actually offended at how bad that review was.

unlike others here who keep trying to say reviews don’t matter and it’s all subjective, i say no. reviews do matter especially in this niche, and it’s the central purpose of this site for me and i’m sure others. i trust the site to get it largely right and have good taste, if something gets 4/5 stars and has some bullet points that appeal to me, it’s going on my wishlist. i can’t try every single game. giving return of monkey island 5 stars when it was glaringly unfinished and this game 3 stars is just shamefully bad.

There are basically two games that truly test your deduction skills in this way, obra dinn and golden idol. that’s kinda it. both should be held as total breaths of fresh air for the genre and the return to playing to the top of our intelligence and making it thrilling.

golden idol’s story made perfect sense, you just had to really think through it and pay attention. you had to go back and look at the clues. it was ALL there, perfectly fair. for the reviewer to say it didn’t make sense is just flat out wrong and a disservice to an amazing developer and to us AG lovers.

if this is true what i’m reading about a mass exodus in talent on this site, then this makes sense and is very disappointing. this review in particular really calls it into question.

crunchycrispy - 17 August 2023 03:32 AM

golden idol’s story made perfect sense, you just had to really think through it and pay attention. you had to go back and look at the clues. it was ALL there, perfectly fair. for the reviewer to say it didn’t make sense is just flat out wrong and a disservice to an amazing developer and to us AG lovers.

We had a community playthrough of The Golden Idol + DLC here at AG a couple of months ago and more than one of us participants had some small issues with the writing, not least regarding some of the characters’ motives for acting the way they do in the story. I agree with the reviewer that not everything makes complete sense. I think the game could have made a better job of explaining some things that I felt kind of were left hanging when the credits rolled. Great game though, regardless.

You should easily be able to find the CPT-thread. If You could fill in some or all of the blanks we discussed there it would be interesting.

Ive made peace with reviews. A review is a snap shot in time on how somebody experienced a game. So read it if you want to and know its not a declaration in stone, just like you might not feel the same way about a game in 5 years. Dont let # scores define a game.

zane - 22 August 2023 11:49 PM

Ive made peace with reviews. A review is a snap shot in time on how somebody experienced a game. So read it if you want to and know its not a declaration in stone, just like you might not feel the same way about a game in 5 years. Dont let # scores define a game.

reviews don’t define a game, but they do define a review site.

Veovis - 18 August 2023 09:17 AM

crunchycrispy - 17 August 2023 03:32 AM

golden idol’s story made perfect sense, you just had to really think through it and pay attention. you had to go back and look at the clues. it was ALL there, perfectly fair. for the reviewer to say it didn’t make sense is just flat out wrong and a disservice to an amazing developer and to us AG lovers.

We had a community playthrough of The Golden Idol + DLC here at AG a couple of months ago and more than one of us participants had some small issues with the writing, not least regarding some of the characters’ motives for acting the way they do in the story. I agree with the reviewer that not everything makes complete sense. I think the game could have made a better job of explaining some things that I felt kind of were left hanging when the credits rolled. Great game though, regardless.

You should easily be able to find the CPT-thread. If You could fill in some or all of the blanks we discussed there it would be interesting.

 

I cannot possibly go through that entire thread and correct every person who doesn’t get something. I finished the game with no hints myself, and it was exceptional. I think that’s enough for me.