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Driv3r
Reviews. Were PSM2 & XBW honest? (Part
II)
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GwiDan
Veteran Member

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

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 1:03
pm    Post
subject:

SillySprout
wrote:

Perhaps the PS2 version is
better than the xbox counterpart. I dont see why
PS2 gamers would be more willing to accept an
unplayable game than Xbox gamers.

There was an interesting
letter in Edge a few months back, which went along
the lines of this... A lot of PS2 gamers are the
so-called casuals that only ever buy into
marketing hype, and basically end up buying only
EA games. To these people, the seal of quality is
so much lower than to a Halo owner, for example.
Why? If they've only ever bought EA games, then in
the FPS genre, Medal of Honor Frontline will be
the best FPS they'll have ever played - it'll be
the pinnacle of the genre, for example. It's all
comparative. Experienced gamers that have played a
massive cross section of what the industry has to
offer know better - we really do know what makes a
good game because we're able to compare with
actual Triple-A titles instead of licensed pap.

This is why casual PS2
gamers - not all of them - will be satisfied with
Driv3r: they haven't played a better game in the
genre so won't know better. If you don't know
better, you just accept what's given to you and
ask for more. Of course Driv3r is a notable
exception for the casuals, because of GTA III/VC -
everyone
has some experience with these games, a series
that Driver is up against, so if Reflections'
latest offering isn't up to the standards of GTA,
it'll get noticed. And has.

When the
general gaming public learns that EA aren't the
be-all and end-all of gaming, and start
experiencing true classics, crap games will
ever-so-slowly stop getting bought.

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phAnt0m
buRn
Experienced
Member

Joined: 27 Sep 2003
Posts:
1835
Location: Dunno

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 1:07
pm    Post
subject:

Eighthours
wrote:

Who wants to see a real
car-crash?

http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=62ec214105ea9129c568e82a919fbbac&forumid=310

The Atari forums are full
of deluded fanboys. Have a look and read some of
their amusingly retarded comments!!

We should all go and spam
that forum. I mean, fill it with threads about how
bad Driv3r is, but call it Driver 3!

Just
looking on it then. Is bypassing the swearing
filter in such a way necessary:

Driv3r42391
wrote:

Fuc|< ign they dont know what
the he!! theyre doin... They make you pay Just
for a
membership???????????

_________________
Join the Unnamed Forums!
>click<

NO BASTARDS!

I'm
ready for some MP DoomIIage if anyone wants a
game.

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jamiej
Member

Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts:
288

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 2:06
pm    Post
subject:

Im tempted to
go and spam atari fanboys i really am....

anyone else?
_________________
Carpe
diem-seize the donut.

Currently playing=

Ps2=Final Fantasy X-2/prince of persia

Xbox=voodoo vince/full spectrum warrior

Gamecube=Wind waker/metroid

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Steve
Moderator

Joined: 08 Jul 2002
Posts:
7344
Location: Hill Valley circa 1955

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 2:15
pm    Post
subject:

jamiej
wrote:

Im tempted to go and spam atari
fanboys i really am....
anyone
else?

Oh yes, fabulous idea

It only needs someone to mention
this place and they’ll spam here. Do me a favour,
don’t bother.
_________________
Xbox
Live Gamer Tag: Steve007

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Eighthours
Moderator

Joined: 23 Oct 2003
Posts:
6605
Location: Certainty

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 2:21
pm    Post
subject:

No invasion
squad. If you want to do it, be a lone operative
deep deep undercover, and don't mention
GR.
_________________
Humiliate John Rodney Bennett

Trash CompDeck
Confront Juliet
But do
it quickly....you've only got eight hours to
live

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poser1929
Member

Joined: 20 Oct 2003
Posts:
281
Location: England

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 2:28
pm    Post
subject:

It's sad, given
that most of us have grown up alongside computer
magazines, but I really don't think you can trust
reviews.

I'm a qualified journalist - a
'proper' one, not at a games mag. Several times
I've seen good stories pulled because of
board-level decisions.

There was one in
particular when one of my paper's major
advertisers had seriously mistreated a female
member of staff. We couldn't do the story because
of the financial implications.

To
paraphrase Kevin Spacey in American Beauty, trade
mags are nothing more than whores for the
advertising industry. The idea of a mutually
benficial deal between a softco and a magazine is
a fairly run-of-the mill concept.

The only
thing that surprises me is that this fact
surprises anyone.
_________________
"But I'm
only... [counts on finger] one man!"

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KKLEIN
Veteran Member

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

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 2:39
pm    Post
subject:

poser1929
wrote:

The only thing that surprises me
is that this fact surprises
anyone.

It's annoying because the likes
of Future Publishing, a company that you want to
trust, allegedly lies to its readers that are
keeping them in business in the first place. All
their magazines promise honest articles &
sensible buying advice, with that they should
deliver. I don’t spend £5 to be fobbed off with a
load of old bollocks that I could of read, for
free, on the net.

Another thing that has
greatly surprised me is the reviewer at PSM2,
Andrew Kelly – apparently a normal reader of PSM,
who reviewed the game only joined the mag 2 months
beforehand. I’d put money on it that he didn’t do
this under his own free will. I bet he was,
‘allegedly’, forced too. I mean you don’t lie
unless you have to right?

*Rings up BBC so
they can go
undercover*
_________________
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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nellis
Starting Member

Joined: 18 Jun 2004
Posts:
5

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 2:45
pm    Post
subject:

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

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phAnt0m
buRn
Experienced
Member

Joined: 27 Sep 2003
Posts:
1835
Location: Dunno

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 3:50
pm    Post
subject:

nellis
wrote:

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.

I see what you mean about
Shadow Ops, having just read your preview.

You know what? I think a great feature for
a mag to have would be a reader's comments section
where the last issue's scores are discussed.
You'll probably get inundated with emails about
this controversial review.

Just goes to
show that exclusive isn't always the
best.
_________________
Join the Unnamed Forums!
>click<

NO BASTARDS!

I'm
ready for some MP DoomIIage if anyone wants a
game.

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KKLEIN
Veteran Member

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

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 4:03
pm    Post
subject:

nellis
wrote:

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.

Well I think that about says it
all.

How in the hell can you review
unfinished code, it's giving totally the wrong
impression to the reader. That 'review' should
have gone under the preview section of the
magazine. You've basically just proved that
exclusive reviews are a load of old tosh. "But
they said they'd fix it" - well what's the bloody
point of reviewing it then if it wasn’t even
finished? If I had gone by your review I would of
not only went into a shop & wasted 40 quid I
wouldn't have even known about any of the major
problems that plague the game whatsoever. That's
the whole point of a review. You just so happened
to ignore them all while playing the game &
take the developers word for it. Your review,
along with PSM2 was misleading, dishonest, left
out all of the games main faults, which I might
add affect gamplay to an unbelievable extent &
basically was a total load of old bollocks. And
you wonder why I don't trust early
reviews....
_________________
That's a disc drive.
What's been in them you ask? Well:

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

Last
edited by KKLEIN on Tue Jun 22, 2004 4:07 pm;
edited 3 times in
total

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Stephen
Member

Joined: 25 Dec 2003
Posts:
156
Location: Japan

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 4:04
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.

Quote:

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

Why is that another
story? Really - sod off and get a paper round.
Useless ****

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Thanatos
Veteran Member

Joined: 28 Oct 2003
Posts:
4252
Location: The Quiet Place

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 4:08
pm    Post
subject:

Stephen
wrote:

Really - sod off and get a paper
round. Useless ****

Nice to see people are
being constructive and backing up their arguments
here.
_________________

>The
Sprouty place<

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Stephen
Member

Joined: 25 Dec 2003
Posts:
156
Location: Japan

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 4:13
pm    Post
subject:

Sorry - but
anyone giving that particular game a nine ( and
possibly parting anyone from their hard-earned
cash) is a prick.

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Eighthours
Moderator

Joined: 23 Oct 2003
Posts:
6605
Location: Certainty

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 4:13
pm    Post
subject:

Seriously,
don't flame the guy. I respect him greatly for
coming on here and giving us an honest and
detailed response.

At least we now know
that it was unfinished code, and that there were
no enducements offered!

One question I do
still have: how was it arranged for Xbox World to
get the exclusive review? Is it just a case of
your staff schmoozing with the Atari PR? The only
reason I'm asking this really is that Atari have
asked other publications not to print reviews
until after the game's release date, and I'm just
interested in how the process of getting the
exclusive works.
_________________
Humiliate John Rodney Bennett

Trash CompDeck
Confront Juliet
But do
it quickly....you've only got eight hours to
live

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Cal
Experienced Member

Joined: 14 Jan 2004
Posts:
1324

Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 4:15
pm    Post
subject:

More and more
I'm coming to forums like this first to get the
low-down on new games, as opposed to magazines. I
just can't trust them any more - and the post from
the guy at XBW just backs this suspicion up
(playing unfinished code and marking the game on
that is just not fair to the readership to whom -
especially the younger members - 40 quid is a
large amount of money to gamble).

GR
proves it's worth on this one issue alone - you
wanna hear the truth about a game, hear it from
real
players, with real experiences
of the game.

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