What’s wrong with game ratings?

So,  I’ve decided that I pretty much hate video game reviews.  I can’t exactly say what should be the ideal format, but I sure know what I don’t like. Here’s a sampling.

 

No Sense of Scale

Most game reviews have scales that are so broad that they practically invite arbitrary scoring.  Take gamespot for example.  In the past, they had a one hundred point scale, 0.0 through 10.0.  Of course, this is ridiculous.   Let’s say that you have a game that rates 7.7, and another game that rates 7.8.  I challenge any reviewer to point to some finite, verifiable aspect of a game that separates the 7.7’s from the 7.8’s.  When you consider also that there are several reviewers at gamespot, with each reviewer bringing their own likes and dislikes to the table,  it becomes impossible to believe that a game which rates a 7.7 from Reviewer A is markedly inferrior to a game which rates a 7.8 from Reviewer B.

Recently Gamespot updated their rating system such that they still have0-10 rating system, but all scores divisible by 0.5.  A step in the right direction, but that still leaves with twenty possible rankings for a game. In my opinion it would  still difficult for a reviewer to point to a particular feature that made them arrive at 8.0 as opposed to an 8.5.

 

Just like my Hyundai Tiburon,  Game Ratings Experience Rapid Deflation.

Generally speaking, as gaming platforms mature the games for that form get better.  That’s to be expected, since game houses have more time to work with a game and learn the intricacies of the platform. However, game reviews don’t reflect this increase in quality.    Any xbox owner will tell you that Blood Wake is, well,  shit.   However,  IGN gave it an 8.4 (again with the 100 point scales, ugh).  How can this be?  Is IGN corrupt? Well, maybe,  but the problem here is that Blood Wake was a launch title, and when you compare blood wake to one of six other launch titles, your opinion of "good" can get a little skewed.   Advance the clock by three years, and things might change.  For example, Indigo Prophecy is another 8.4 game according to IGN.  By IGN’s own rating system these games are equal in terms of quality.  Wait. What?  No, no, no!

 

Some Game Reviews Have More Documentation Than the Games Themselves.

Check out the 1-Up review for Halo 3.  It’s 1,364 words.    For comparison,  Roger Ebert’s review of Doctor Zhivago is 841 words. Now, I’ve never been a big fan of the Halo 3’s plot,  but I can safely say that it’s maybe, just maybe,  a bit less complex than David Lean’s 1965 epic about of a trials and tribulations of a Doctor/Poet living through the Bolshevik Revolution.  

 

Seriously, how long does it take to tell me whether you like a damn video game? 

In conclusion

Alright.  So video game reviews need to be better.  Better how?  Well, I don’t know that yet.   Still working on it.  But when I do pin it down,  I’m sure you’ll give it at least a 98%!

Dreaming about Dreaming in Code

Okay, so I’m reading Dreaming in Code and I feel like I should hate it because some guy at Sun said something about it being whack. I don’t remember the details. But Scott Rosenberg (the author) responded to the Sun guy (who I remember as being pretty smart because of how cool DTrace is) and the Sun guy responded and it was really good reading. Okay, not that good . . . I don’t remember most of it as you can tell. Anyway, the point is that it got me to start thinking about how I need to read this book. I already had the book . . . ordered it when Joel mentioned it in his blog (even though it’s not on his reading list). And, yeah, I called him Joel . . . he may not know me (though I did meet him but I guess I didn’t make much of an impression . . . I flew to SFC to see a demo of Fogbugz . . . that can be another post!) but I know him just from reading all his stuff. Beside, to me, “Joel” is like the “Linus” of software developer blogs so it’s cool to just say “Joel” in the context of software development even if you don’t know the man.

I found myself really liking the book. As a developer, I figured I must be, well, missing something because right in the beginning of the book Scott says he wrote the book for non-developers . . “normal people”. As I read it I kept thinking to myself: “most normal people probably wouldn’t understand”. Anyway, I kept reading.

I have a bad habit of only reading books when I fly . . . I don’t set enough time aside for “real reading”. Sure, I read RSS feeds and Time and Linux Journal and even Fine Woodworking. But that’s more casual than something like a book. So once I started the book I had the urge to fly . . . or at least I didn’t mind the prospect of a two hour flight. So I decided that I should go to the Google GEO Developer Series that some fine people at the Googleplex decided to put together for the locals. Two hours of reading to and from San Jose . . sweet! The GEO stuff was pretty cool too by the way . . I’ll write about that later.

Okay, back to the book. Later on in the book there is a section about one smart guy who thought programming should be as easy as English and everyone should be able to do it. While reading that I thought to myself: writing isn’t all that easy and most people can “read and write” but what they might write wouldn’t be all that interesting and I certainly wouldn’t call it good. This post is a perfect example . . . I mean, even that colon is out of place! And what’s with the . . . . all the time? Anyway, not 4 pages later is the example the of the writer who tries his hand at programming and ends up with the opinion that programming is harder than writing. Then it goes on to say about how English majors have to study great writing but programmers don’t study great code. All very insightful!!! I’m saying it all wrong but I’m trying to be brief.

Anyway, I’m not quite done with the book and I hope to go to the next Geo conference on Wednesday so I can finish it up. After that I’ll write something a little more comprehensive. I just wanted to have something up on this website! And since I’m almost done I need to grab up a book from Joel’s reading list that I haven’t read.

Sheldon

Published
Categorized as Review

I Camped

The Wii came out on Novemeber 19th. On November 18th Jim and I decided it was worth it to CAMP for the Wii. It was a tough decision in light of all the media attention the PS3 was getting and the lack of attention the Wii was getting (beside “that funnily named Nintendo thingy”). We did some scouting and the lines were forming everywhere but even at 9pm on the 18th there was never more than 10-15 people in line at “normal” places.

The short version of this story is that after camping we felt like idiots and decided it would be a secret we would never tell our children, let alone co-workers and friends. One month later and the Wii is still hard to get and anyone who plays my Wii wants one. Now I don’t feel so bad about camping for it.

Wal-Mart and Best Buy seemed like the best options because they were open at midnight and were going to sell them then. No waiting until 7am in the cold at night (“cold” is a relative term . . . it probably only got down to 55 F that night but it was still sweater weather and I was grateful for my blanky and air matress). But the Best Buy lines were much longer than at, say, Target, and Wal-Mart is just plain scary. So, we decided on Target.

We went to a Target that was out in the middle of nowhere (and it was a Super Target so we figured they’d get more) even though I was already in line at a Target closer to town that had more than 40 consoles where I was 15th in line. I left my Target and headed for the Target on Power and Ray. I stopped at home to get the mattress and tent and other camping supplies. It was probably an hour before I got there and guess how many people showed up. Zero. Jim was still at the end of the line (and he was farther back than I was at the other store).

There was a lot more room at this Target though and it was nice because we set up the tent for Jim and outside of the tent I had an air mattress that I slept on (well, I would have slept but they turn the lights off but keep playing the music and the music was driving me crazy).

As time passed we felt more and more like crazed fools. But the Wii seemed so much more useful than the PS3 and any other console ever. So we waited. At 6am I gave up trying to sleep and rolled off the matress and started putting everything back in the car.

At 7am the “Target Guy” came out and started giving out tickets. After all that waiting there was probably another 20 people in line behind us 15 of which showed up sometime that morning. I had been negotiation with the family in front of us to get me an extra ticket because between the three of them they only wanted one. But they got screwed at Wal-Mart because they were handing tickets to 3 year old kids and they didn’t want to be like that. I understood when the dad wouldn’t let them get me an extra ticket. But I had a plan of my own. I got my ticket and then quickly disappeared to the back of the line. The guy who showed up behind me said “Hey, glad to see I’m not the only one who had this idea”. I put my head down and the guy counted out tickets 41 and 42, the last two tickets for me and the guy behind me, who also possessed #4 and had been there since noon on Saturday.

Of course Jim was freaking out and he had that look of fear on his face. I thought for sure the Target guy was going to approach me with the “one per customer sir”. Once the Target guy left Jim was telling me how I was taking a Wii out of the hands of a little kid and all this other BS. Only after hearing that I took a Wii out of the hands of some other genius who had the same idea did he calm down.

So, I had two tickets and I called my fiance to hurry over and buy the thing for me. I knew *someone* would want it. So Sarah rushed over in her PJ’s (it was a 30 minute drive and she got there in 35 minutes). Target had a “buy 3 games get a $20 gift card” so we got 3 games and an extra controller and nunchck. Thank goodness because anything Wii related is nearly impossible to find (I did get another Wii Remote from a K-Mart in Show Low and at Wal-Mart they had like 5 of them on the shelf on the Friday after Thanksgiving and I thought about buying them all but didn’t) .

A friend bought my extra Wii for $300 and he was so excited to get one he showed up not even an hour after I got home. He probably played he Wii before I even got mine set up (I was tired). I made $30 profit though!!! I was in line for 10 hours so that was about $3/hour. I joked it was probably more per hour than the 10 year old kid who actually made the thing in China.

I sold it to Juan Carlos who was willing to bring supplies and check on me to make sure I was okay. His brother, Jorge, had dibs on the extra machine but was MIA when I was trying to round up troops to wait in line. I couldn’t get a hold of him the night before or the morning of and he didn’t even call until 9am . . . way too late to get himself a Wii . . . but was it? He ended up getting one from Costco after waiting in line for about 8 minutes. I was happy for him and relieved that I didn’t screw a good friend out of the getting a Wii and end up selling it to his brother . . . that would have been a mess. But I was also kinda pissed that it was so easy to get for him after I waited in line for 10 hours.

Jim and I decided we would never tell. But now we can because *we were right* and the Wii was worth camping for.

Sheldon

Word of the day: theist

I was discussing religion with a friend a few years ago at a time when I wasn’t sure what my “true” beliefs were.  At the time I was sounding like an *atheist* and this particular friend was frightened.  It’s really hard to explain but she was convinced that I *must* believe in God and wouldn’t let the conversation go until I admitted it.  I’m pretty sure I said “Yeah, sure” but I was thinking “why does it matter?”.  The fact that she was scared was starting to scare me.  And for a long time that conversation haunted me.

Later on I decided that I didn’t believe but that I would tell the believers to put in a good word for me when they go to heaven.  That’s been my line up until recently.
Then George W. Bush comes along and I read how he’s a believer and how he “listens to God” when he makes decisions.  I didn’t know if it was true or not . . . I think I saw a clip of it . . . but it wasn’t in the news and to me it seemed like a big deal.  I figured if it was true it would come up again.

About the same time I talked to someone who *believed* that Bush was chosen by God and that all leaders are chosen by God.  WHAT!?!?  I kept quizzing and sure enough that’s what this person believed.  And they were happy that Bush listened to God (even after I said “Osama listens to God too”).  Even though there were unrelated one person believing that God “elects” the leaders was enough for me to allow for the fact that Bush did say he listens to God.

I know it’s strange but those events, along with a Time article about Richard Dawkins, convinced me that I am *not* a theist that’s for sure.   But I still don’t like the label “atheist” . . . it scares people.  It’s strange to see the look on a theist’s face when you say you’re an atheist.  I’m sure it’s not as “bad” as saying you’re gay, but it’s right up there.  Saying you’re an atheist evokes the look of discust.  A look of “so, you’re one of those”.
Seems to me being an atheist is the easy way.  You learn about science in school with facts and you don’t have to twist it all around to conform to what you learn on Sundays.   Peoples way of taking two opposing thoughts and somehow making them both true (I believe the term is “rationalizing”) always amazes me.

Before now I used to think to myself that I must be wrong about God because most people in the world are theists so I’m the oddball and somehow I’m wrong.  But Bush got reelected and he was the wrong guy (okay, that’s just a jab at Bush . . . I don’t know enough to *know* he was the wrong guy but he certainly made several mistakes . . . I don’t think he’s was trying to be malitious but I don’t think he’s exactly smart either).  So my believe in “democracy” was starting to fall apart.  Then I read that democracy works great for governments but it’s worthless in science.  I decided that democracy wasn’t a good way to decided if I *should* be a theist or not.  I mean, *most* people used to think the sun travels around the earth and that the earth was flat (though, there is debate about whether people thought that or not) but certainly a demacratic majority is not equal to truth.
So, am I an atheist?  Well, not really.  If anything I’m probably more agnostic since in general don’t care enough to gather all the evidence I need to make up my mind.  But what I do wonder is if religion is a scourge or if it does add something to humanity.  I’m not going to waist my Sundays but is it bad that other people do?

Sheldon

P.S.  I know this is rambely.  It’s late.