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General Discussion / Re: Review My Guns of Icarus Review
« on: April 19, 2013, 05:28:51 am »As for the review itself, it's pretty soft. There's no mention of the limited and sometimes poorly designed maps (Duel at Dawn and Desert Scrap, anyone?) or the occasional difficulty in actually finding a game much less one that doesn't end in a curbstomp. There's also the somewhat steep learning curve, almost necessitating another player to explain everything to you as the game lacks a tutorial, instead asking you to read a multipage manual to even get a clue of what's going on (though at least the sandbox mode and on-screen tutorial messages somewhat makes up for this). Little attention is paid to the currently existing bugs or performance issues. Major perks like its cross-platform nature and low price also don't get a mention.
As long as that review is, you'd think it'd be a bit more complete with its criticism.
It pretty accurately captures what draws so many people to the game, though, so overall it's a pretty decent review even if it barely mentions its flaws. The games strengths DO overshadow its flaws, after all. It'd be something you'd show your friends to get them excited about the game rather than something that'd actually belong on a review site, and that's fine because that's exactly what I'd use it for. I'm mostly focusing on what's wrong with the review since it seems like you're wanting to make this a hobby, if it's just a one-off thing it doesn't really matter.
That's totally fair criticism. I'm attempting to actually capture the game experiences it provided rather then a clinical review. There are already plenty of 'professional' reviews which did fine jobs of dissecting it to this level but typically failed to capture much, if any, of the games spirit. In writing this, I'm working to not simply have 'another' review, but as others have said, capture some of the spirit of the game. I probably was soft, however I feel that stating that it was a buggy mess on launch that has improved, with some issues remaining, is fair. As long as there is solid efforts to improve things, I feel it's only reasonable to take that into account as there are so many games which don't even make this effort.
As for a hard time finding games, actually that surprised me. I've been playing mostly between 12-5am Eastern time and have always been able to find a game within a couple minutes. Again, that's perhaps not the norm and if that's unusual I'd love to know, but it's what I've been seeing the past week or so. Re: Curbstomps, again, can't really say I've seen these too often. Maybe this is offset by having a fun team, but at least the past 5-ish games I've played were really close one point finishers.
Regarding map issues, that's actually a point and probably warrants a followup 'review update' to note these and this would actually be a pretty fun unique aspect for the reviews as it would make more sense then a review of a 3 year old game that was never again updated. Games change very rapidly and it makes sense that a reviewer should re-review games, especially ones they enjoy.
While I perhaps didn't make the learning curve very clear, and I'll see what I can squeeze in regarding this, really I feel if you have a mic you'll do just fine. Maybe that's just what I've seen so far but most folks are happy to teach a new player the ropes and with the improved tool-tips and in-game messages, It was vastly easier for me to play then it was originally.
In summary, I'm going to see about adding a Pros/Cons footer in to list some of the things that don't quite fit into the prose but are of special note such as the continued performance issues, and in the meantime I slightly strengthened the wording of continued issues to be somewhat more clear.
I'd also like to thank you for taking the time to so clearly explain the issues you saw, as there are indeed weaknesses and it is the first 'serious' review I've yet written. I'm trying to do something a bit different which to be fair may not be to everyone taste, but I also wouldn't want to mis-represent or gloss over truly major issues.