Lawrence.com

Video Game Review Roundup

If you are going to do a "roundup", then wouldn't that be good criteria for it? Games that don't get a lot of attention ("no-name") that aren't very good ("crappy") that aren't really worth our time reading about, but you received the game for review and feel that you owe it to the readers, and the publishers, to review the game? That would make sense, or at least consistent. You seem to list both poor (6.0) and great (9.0) titles together, so it isn't just the "crappy" or unknown games that have gotten the roundup treatment. I'm just wondering what criteria makes a game "roundup" material as opposed to a game deserving of a full review.

Halo is a top five franchise. Good or bad, there are millions of fans out there interested in this title. Aren't you doing both the game and the readers a disservice by burying such a title in a "review roundup" as opposed to giving it the same treatment that games like "Active Life Outdoor Challenge" have apparently earned? Isn't the goal of the video game reviews section to inform and educate gamers on new titles that enter the market (or at least those that Lawrence.com receives from publishers), not just to entice them to read more articles?

March 31, 2009 at 11:07 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Video Game Review Roundup

Quick question. Why do some of these obvious big-name, big publisher titles get only a "review roundup" paragraph instead of a full fledged review? Especially when lesser known, far crappier games like Rygar, Raving Rabbits: TV Party, or Namco Museum Virtual Arcade get full reviews? Or seriously, "Active Life Outdoor Challenge"? Through what system are these decisions made? Again, just curious, thanks.

March 30, 2009 at 10:25 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

State of the Industry - Spring 2007 Edition Part One

Chris,
Well... If that is the case, then it just goes to say that the Nintendo rep who manned one of the Excite Truck booths at E3 was wrong. I could believe it either way, as I wouldn't be surprised if the developer (who is motivated to sell copies of his game) would say that his game was built from the ground up for the Wii, whether it was or not, but it really makes no difference. It's a very good game regardless, so we are in agreement.

June 11, 2007 at 2:05 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

State of the Industry - Spring 2007 Edition Part One

While I can't cite a specific printed source, I can say that when I played the game at E3, the Nintendo rep who manned the Excite Truck kiosk did tell me that it was originally in development for the Gamecube but switched over to the Wii not long into it's development cycle. Of course programming for the Wii isn't much different from working with the Gamecube, so this wasn't difficult.

And yes I have played it, owned it in fact (till I sold it). I did not write the review for it, but it was strictly a low B grade title at best. It was fun and exciting at first, and the best driving game on the Wii among several paltry offerings from 3rd parties, but it lost my interest rather quickly. Aside from the relatively well tuned Wii controls, it is a very average, if not unique, racer. While not a classic, it was a great first effort for the new hardware, I'm sure we can expect more from the sequel, which hasn't yet been announced btw.

May 27, 2007 at 2:49 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Review: NCAA March Madness '07 (360)

Odd that their likenesses can't be represented well. The College Hoops 2K series has always tried to use the model that most resembled the player that it is supposed to represent, which they are perfectly allowed to do. In fact, the only thing they're not allowed to use is their names, but using their jersey numbers, stats, hair styles, etc. is all fair game. And while getting an NCAA license to produce a college basketball game does not give them the rights to use the coaches names and models, they did manage to sign several hundred of them to deals allowing this use, probably for little or no fee. (Except in the cases of a few of the big boys, like Roy for example)

February 12, 2007 at 8:37 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Review: Chromehounds (360)

I haven't played Chromehounds yet, so I can't comment on the score really, but looking at Game Rankings, it would appear that the rest of the gaming community would agree more with Jack. However, if all of our game reviews were based on voting by reviewers and consumers alike, all of our reviews would contain 7.0 ratings or something like that. As journalists (which we are in this capacity, regardless of our "day jobs"), we strive to look at a game from as many perspectives as possible in order to be fair to both the game and the readers. We can only try to give each game a fair shake and then we have to score them according to our best objective opinions, regardless of how close we are to the mainstream views. That is what sites like gamerankings are for, to average out a wide array of different opinions.

Hopefully, based on the level of our video game experience/intelligence, for which we were chosen to be reviewers, we can produce reviews and scores that truly represent the individual game's level of quality. Certainly there will always be people who agree and disagree with us, but all we can do is stand by our work and remind others that they are entitled to their own opinions just as much as we are entitled to ours.

Sooo... I think I just said that I agree with all of you, lol.

July 27, 2006 at 1:34 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Controller Breakers: The Most Infuriating Games Ever

Well if none of you have heard the story of E.T. on the Atari 2600, you should read up on it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._(vi...)

At one point, Atari produced more copies of the game than the number of actual 2600's in existance. They were that confident that the game would sell so well that it would sell thousands of additional 2600's just for that game. They gave the developer a matter of weeks to make it and paid millions for the video game rights from Steven Speilberg and Co. It is the perfect example of how the video game market crashed in the 80's because of Atari's complete lack of a good business marketing ability. Back then they felt that they could produce just about anything and they would sell millions of them, which for a while was relatively true. But consumer confidence in the company and in gaming overall began to decline to the point that the company effectively killed the game industry during the first half of the 1980's. It wasn't until Nintendo and their little red plumber came along that the industry was revived. Atari even pulled their 7800 hardware off the shelf to try to compete with Nintendo but failed miserably, releasing generally crappy software on a hardware that was far less advanced that the NES.

I could go on forever, but the bottom line is that it wasn't so much a case of E.T. being a hard game to play, as it was an issue of the game being virtually unplayable. Atari was forced to bury a few million copies of the game in a landfill when it failed so miersably that they needed to clear out the space that they were taking up in their warehouses. I still have a copy in very good condition, which I will always treasure as an example of what happens when you become too over confident and under estimate your customers.

July 25, 2006 at 1:48 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

E3 Wrapup: Dan's Take

Well, the N64 was definately more successful than the cube in terms of marketshare, where it garnered around 30% of the market, with Gamecube attaining less than 15%. In terms of the number of copies of games sold and profit made though, that I don't know, and I wouldn't be surprised if Gamecube did outsell N64 just because of the increase in the overall size of the video game market and the higher profit margins on the GC disks over the N64 carts. I'm sure that there are some numbers out there that can clear that up though.

And yes, the Wii Controller was awesome.

May 30, 2006 at 12:54 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Review: Rampage Total Destruction (PS2)

They should just release the original Rampage on XBLA for $5 in HD and call it good. I'd buy it.

May 25, 2006 at 4:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

E3: Super Mario Galaxy - Wii

I agree with Kevin. Clearly price is going to be a big issue in this nex generation with Sony launching at 2-3 times the price of it's competitors. So I can't imagine that Nintendo would sell their games or even let their 3rd parties sell for more than $50. Afterall, the development costs for Wii games are going to be much much lower than that of PS3 games and to a lesser extent, Xbox 360 games.

May 16, 2006 at 11:57 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )