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Driv3r
Reviews. Were PSM2 & XBW honest? (Part
II)
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Eighthours
Moderator

Joined: 23 Oct 2003
Posts:
6606
Location: Certainty

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:23
pm    Post
subject:

Cal
wrote:

This is totally on-topic - read
it through and you'll see why.

Latest UK Sales Charts
- Week Ending June 19

The UK has a new
number one this week, but not thanks to any of
the new entries that have appeared in the sales
chart. Instead Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
has seen sales increase by 34% - enough to knock
Harry Potter from the top slot.

The
highest new entry is Shrek 2 at number five,
which is fairly low for such a big license but
likely to be boosted by the film’s imminent
release in UK cinemas. DRIV3R shouldn’t be
out yet, but after numerous stores ignored the
game’s official release date of this Friday it
nevertheless managed to make it to number six.

Atari are unlikely to be happy at this
turn of events though as the game has been
getting extremely negative reviews in the press
and poor world of mouth from anyone buying the
game before Friday could severely impact on the
game’s success.

From: http://www.gamasutra.com/

It's going to be Number 1
for weeks, despite all this. I'd be willing to put
a large amount of money on that. Just look at the
piles of sh*t the movie industry manages to get
hundreds of millions from, just by pulling out all
the stops with
marketing.
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KKLEIN
Veteran Member

Joined: 15 Jul 2002
Posts:
8444
Location: Misery Guts Avenue

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:26
pm    Post
subject:

Cal
wrote:

Atari are unlikely to be happy
at this turn of events though as the game has
been getting extremely negative reviews in the
press and poor world of mouth from anyone buying
the game before Friday could severely impact on
the game’s success.

I don't mean to be rude ( ) but the bastards deserve it.

And it may still reach number one but to
break even they need to sell 4 mill. Number ene
doesn't mean
everything.
_________________
That's a disc drive.
What's been in them you ask? Well:

PS2 - Smackdown
HCTP, PSM2 disc 51.
Xbox - Driv3r

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Eighthours
Moderator

Joined: 23 Oct 2003
Posts:
6606
Location: Certainty

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:30
pm    Post
subject:

KKLEIN
wrote:

And I thought Nell
(McAndrew...sorry) was going to come back on
here today to give his 'hands on' opinion on the
game?

True, but I might not if I
was him, having read the flaming that followed his
initial post. He also could be busy, he might have
been told not to post on here about this subject
anymore (remember Steve got warned by Will last
night)........the possibilities are
endless.
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Bomberman
Starting Member

Joined: 17 Jan 2004
Posts:
31
Location: Beyond good and evil

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:31
pm    Post
subject:

KKLEIN
wrote:

Cal
wrote:

Atari are unlikely to be happy
at this turn of events though as the game has
been getting extremely negative reviews in the
press and poor world of mouth from anyone buying
the game before Friday could severely impact on
the game’s
success.

I don't mean to be rude (
) but the bastards deserve it.

And it may still reach number one but to
break even they need to sell 4 mill. Number ene
doesn't mean
everything.

Just a small point KKlein,
but have you played it yet seeing as you say
you're waiting for the game to turn up in your
signature file?
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GamesMan
Experienced Member

Joined: 13 Apr 2003
Posts:
1144
Location: The secret society of your friends
that actually hate you.

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:36
pm    Post
subject:

_________________

XBOXgamerUK (Cyburn)
wrote:

Johnny STOP F8*Kin replying sh*t
in my topics.

GOD Cant I have ONE topic
which Johhny Bosanova,GamesMan or others Dont
f**k up

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Eighthours
Moderator

Joined: 23 Oct 2003
Posts:
6606
Location: Certainty

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:39
pm    Post
subject:

Is that going
to be DLC?

By the way, I'm sure that an
"uber-fix" would be possible over DLC if
Reflections wanted to regain some
pride.
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GwiDan
Veteran Member

Joined: 16 Jul 2002
Posts:
5957
Location: Hiding the corpses...

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:40
pm    Post
subject:

I tried to post
this earlier, but I'm getting connection
problems...

I know that quite a few
magazines' writers have a three week deadline to
finish their articles, but I haven't a clue about
the publishing and distribution side of things.
That means XBM knew perfectly well their review
copy was the one that would get published, bugs
included, their deadline so close to the release
date of the game. They, as so-caled experienced
journalists should know that Reflections would
never have enough time to iron out even the
tiniest of the major bugs, glitches and flaws in
the game between the arrival of the review copy at
their office and the release of the game
proper.

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Cal
Experienced Member

Joined: 14 Jan 2004
Posts:
1324

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:45
pm    Post
subject:

GwiDan
wrote:

They, as so-caled experienced
journalists should know that Reflections would
never have enough time to iron out even the
tiniest of the major bugs, glitches and flaws in
the game between the arrival of the review copy
at their office and the release of the game
proper.

And it's one of the self-perpetuating
myths of the gaming press that any game developer
'sorts out the bugs' before release. It doesn't
happen (DE:IW was a complete disaster on PC, so
bug-ridden it is quite literally unplayable on my
perfectly capable Alienware).

If
developers genuinely sorted out the bugs they'd
have to add on another 3/6 months of tweaking
time. Unfortunately shareholder pressure and the
tax year don't allow such 'luxuries'. So the gamer
comes off worst (unless you work for
Core).

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GwiDan
Veteran Member

Joined: 16 Jul 2002
Posts:
5957
Location: Hiding the corpses...

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:48
pm    Post
subject:

Cal
wrote:

So the gamer comes off worst
(unless you work for
Core).

Bullshit! I don't remember
them selling their musem's worth of Ferraris, do
you?

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rokhed00
Starting Member

Joined: 23 Jun 2004
Posts:
1

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:52
pm    Post
subject:

nellis
wrote:

Well then. Our review score for
Driv3r seems to have created quite a stir and
with half of you baying for blood and demanding
a response from XBW, I thought I'd brave the
forums. Ulp.

First off I'd like to
totally refute the suggestion that magazines,
and specifically XBW, take bribes - monetary or
otherwise - to inflate review scores. Sure we
might get the odd T-shirt sent to us or a pint
bought by a PR but never, in 4 years of working
at Future, have I ever given a game an inflated
score because a/ I've been ordered to or b/ I've
been thrown a bung. Sure I've over marked games
- 9/10 for MOH: Rising Sun in OPS2 I will freely
admit was a grave error of judgement but an
honest mistake. But that's another story
entirely.

Further to this, the
allegation that there is some grand conspiracy
between ourselves and Atari - 'you give it a
nine, we'll lob a sticker on the box and a page
in the manual' - is again wrong. The sticker was
agreed on only after the review had been written
and sent to press.

So to Driv3r. It's a
great game and we stand by the review. Our
staffie played it to completion and loved it, as
did the man who wrote our tips guide. However,
with regard to the technical issues raised on
this forum then you may have a point. Because of
the long lead times for magazines and the fact
that it was an exclusive review, the code we
reviewed from was not final. We were made aware
of some bugs in the game and were promised that
these would be sorted by the time of release. I
cannot comment on whether these were fixed or
not but I have an unopened boxed copy of the
game on my desk and will endeavour to check it
out this evening - there's been too much footie
on for serious gaming sessions at home! If it
transpires that what was supposedly going to be
fixed wasn't, then we will speak to Atari. But
like I say, can't comment on that yet. That
said, the old PS1 games were greeted with
rapturous applause and they were pretty ropy
technically in places - slowdown and pop-up
aplenty - but had the killer gameplay that we
believe has carried over to the latest Driver
incarnation.

So with this in mind
perhaps a 9 was a little too enthusiastic.
Perhaps. But for gamescentral to score it a 3 is
just plain rubbish. A 3, or even a 6, would
suggest that the game is fundamentally broken
and the gameplay offers little if anything in
the way of enjoyment. This is simply not true,
far from it. If we were to review from the boxed
copy and found that all the technical issues had
not been resolved then I believe we still would
have scored it an 8 or 9 but again, this is pure
conjecture and I'll comment when I've played it.

At the end of the day, Bob, much of this
is surely down to personal opinion and taste.
Can I point you in the direction of OXM's Shadow
Ops review in their current issue? This is in no
way a personal attack on Gavin Ogden (we'll
leave the petty bitching to Xbox Gamer) but 8/10
is, in our opinion, a very very high score for
the game. We've only just gone to print with our
review so I wont give out our score but I only
mention this to illustrate that games, like most
things in life, are so often down to the
reviewer's/gamer's taste. An another example -
I'm currently having a heated discussion with
the boss about Leilani and whether she's hot to
trot or not. She is, he's entirely wrong, I am
entirely right.

Right, I'll stop
rambling on now. Hope this goes someway to
answering your points. I await responses with
extreme trepidation...

Please note this
post is speaking for XBW and not PSM2.

Nick Ellis
Deputy editor,
XBW

Just goes to show, gaming
journalist are no different from the regular kind,
full of **it.

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Eighthours
Moderator

Joined: 23 Oct 2003
Posts:
6606
Location: Certainty

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:55
pm    Post
subject:

Can I just, at
this point, reiterate the reason why I was soooo
suspicious about PSM2's review from the outset. It
was this outrageous headline on the cover....

"Driv3r review....ten crime drenched pages
on The Game of the Year"

Now in anyone's
terms, in anyone's language, in anyone's opinion,
THAT STATEMENT IS BOLLOCKS.

Unless.......hang on a minute...the score
was a crime....the review
was a crime.....they were indeed
ten crime drenched pages. Was the PSM2 headline
writer having a sly dig?? Was that knowing
humour??
Whaddyathink??
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Pell
Veteran Member

Joined: 30 Sep 2003
Posts:
2689
Location: Modding at The Fun House

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:57
pm    Post
subject:

To rokhed00:

Forgive me whilst I stay stunned at your
impeccable critical analysis of an arugement. Good
to see valid points being raised.
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GwiDan
Veteran Member

Joined: 16 Jul 2002
Posts:
5957
Location: Hiding the corpses...

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 5:00
pm    Post
subject:

Eighthours
wrote:

Was the PSM2 headline writer
having a sly dig?? Was that knowing humour??
Whaddyathink??

From what I've read on
various forums today, subtle piss-takes are one of
the most popular ways a journalist uses to get
back at the publisher for predefining review
scores, so I wouldn't be taken aback if you're
right.

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KKLEIN
Veteran Member

Joined: 15 Jul 2002
Posts:
8444
Location: Misery Guts Avenue

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 5:01
pm    Post
subject:

Bomberman
wrote:

Just a small point KKlein, but
have you played it yet seeing as you say you're
waiting for the game to turn up in your
signature file?

Yes. I'm just waiting for my
copy so I can see how bad it is 'fully'. But yes,
I have played it.
_________________
That's a disc drive.
What's been in them you ask? Well:

PS2 - Smackdown
HCTP, PSM2 disc 51.
Xbox - Driv3r

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Sprite
Machine
Starting
Member

Joined: 23 Jun 2004
Posts:
8
Location: London

Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 5:02
pm    Post
subject:

KKLEIN
wrote:

mrclam
wrote:

With regards to mario kart DD..
I'll say it again.. and stick up for merian
(soz, if i spelt that wrong).A review is an
opinion, and opinion can never be wrong as it's
not factual.
.. In other words.. I hate
metroid prime, although most people disagree
with me.. I would give it 4 out of 10.. Im not
wrong in saying this, this is my personal
thoughts. To get the most out of a review, you
read the words and dont just look at the score..
If you read my whole page review and felt you
could live with the things i've slated then you
could disagree with my final score and go out
and buy it..Now I have less a problem with
magazines giving low scores when they deserve
more than vice versa.. as if it happens the
other way around i end up buying a game i dont
like.But this ISNT the reviewers fault.Just
because one magazine gives a game 1/10 and
another 9/10 doesnt mean one is wrong and the
other is right.. its.. an..
op..in..i..on...

That's not the point. If XBW
& PSM2 enjoyed it fair enough, but both
magazines didn't tell us about any of the
faults, both magazines made the game seem almost
faultless. The only thing PSM2 said was, & I
quote:

Quote:

Minor pop-up, robotic
pedestrians, the odd clipped animation frame -
but that's the price of
ambition

&:

Quote:

Tanner can escape the confines
of his clunker & scurry around outside.
Unfortunately, this is the weakest part of the
game, BUT it is completely
competent. Let's not get carried away, the on foot sections
work. They're all
there.

Reading that I wouldn't of
had a clue. That is all they said. Reading that
the game does actually sound like an 8 or a 9/10
game. We of
course, along with lots of other people that
paid £45 for the game, know
different.

No, we have a difference of
opinion. What they said is totally truthful, not a
lie.
If they didn't mention any other 'faults'
it's because they didn't think it had any others.
It falls quite happily into that 'subjective trap'
again, you see.
"The framerate is bad, the
pop-up is bad, the on-foot controls are bad" - are
these facts? Are these factual faults that have
been ignored? No, they are a matter of opinion.

For the record, I don't consider the framerate
or the pop-up to be a problem in Driv3r (PS2
version, by the way), so by that reasoning, I
could happily say that aren't that many technical
faults with the game, or at least not that many
that make a blind bit of difference to the
gameplay. I'm not ommiting anything, I just have
different standards.
Driver 1 had loads of
pop-up, occasional slow-down, glitches, bugs (most
of them were more 'funny' than anything else) and
so forth, and yet that gets widely praised (and
rightly so, I might add - see my Driver 'Retroview' on Gamestyle
for a drive down memory lane...)!

It's
well within anyone's rights to score Driv3r a 9
out of 10 if they want to, if they believe, in
their opinion, it is worth such a score; though
personally, I don't (my issues with the game stem
from rather infuriating design decisions and
over-harshness).

However, this isn't the
point. If someone wants to score it a 9/10, then
fine. I think the issue here is that someone didn't want to
score it a 9/10, but had to anyway, and that they
didn't actually review the finished game either.
The latter has already been proven. How long 'til
they admit to the former, eh?

GamesMan
wrote:

http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/9467/driv3r.jpg

That's great!

BTW, my review of
Driver 3 will be appearing on Gamestyle shortly. And for the
record, I think 3/10 is slightly too
harsh.

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