Nervous about the upcoming reviews?

[Dr.breen]

I know the reviewers from their respective magazines wouldn't dare give this a low score.......but....still.... it's tense times.

we have all given a part of ourselves to valves project, I wish I had just given them my time and money but as you all will know it's much more than that.

we have come along way over the past 12 months and still it's not over, but we can smell it....we can feel it.....we can see the light, we just need Gabe to let go of our hands and set us free.


You know the saying ' the final straw broke the camels back'

well we are seeing this take place right in front of us, this Valve vs VU battle has been the final straw and has broken the back of the community.



But once it's released all this will seem like a distant memory.

we will look back and think

"Ooops, did I really send that E-mail?.........Sorry about that e-mail Gabe, your not fat, your just big boned"



Anyway, have you got butterflies in anticipation of the reviews?

 

[Ownzed]

No I don't because I don't know what you just said.

 

[Ballsaccio]

I think DOOM3 scored lower than it should have because they were waiting for this release. I think they left room for HL2 to beat it. If it scores less than 93 then the wait was for nothing. Like Dhikatana.

 

[razorblade kiss]

I'm nervous because I fear it won't live up to the incredible hype I've gained for it. Mis-hype you might say.

 

[Letters]

Maybe... but they're butterflies of rage. Someone's playing a reviewable version of Half-Life 2... and I'm not! :flame:

 

[Dr.breen]

I hope someone gets a review Mag early!(in the next few days)


It'll spread round the web like wildfire!

 

[razorblade kiss]

When does the PC Gamer hit news stands, and when do subscribers get it? I'm not a subscriber so chances are I'll be running down to my local borders. But I'm just curious.

 

[butternuts]

Disregarding everything besides your last sentence:

What do I care if some magazine gives it a bad review? Is my game experience going to be affected? No. Then who cares!?

I saw a lot of reviews of Doom3 that were like, 90+, 9/10, etc. I thought that game was mediocre at best. Yes, amazing graphics and whatnot. Still the same gameplay found in Doom1. I bought it, played through it in 2 days, haven't touched it since.


Game reviews are often like movie reviews and any other review, sometimes they reflect your own opinion, most of the time the reviewer is full of crap.

 

[Concept]

The majority of videogame magazines usually just tell their audience what they think they want to hear.

The only print magazine opinions which concern me are Edge's and GameTM's, and they aren't going to be the first reviews available. On the web it'd be Eurogamer and Gamecritics when it comes to Half-Life 2 reviews.

I expect it's going to get high scores, but I know some won't be satisfied unless they see tens and 98% + scores.

As a rule of thumb, I generally don't tend to trust single-format publications which have a vested interest to sell more copies of their work through positive coverage of such a high profile game.

 

[tokin]

Well I mean i know it's going to be a great game, and even though valve says it's better than the first, i dont know if it will give me the same experience. I was/am alittle worried because from the recent issues of those magazines about saying how they will have the HL2 review on the stands soon, they didn't really say much about "THIS GAME BLEW US AWAY" or "I'M STILL MESMORIZED" or stuff like that. I really hope this game has scenes like every 30 minutes that are just like amazing as hell and my mouth just continues to drop...doom 3 couldn't really do that for me. Then when TF2 comes out, i hope that online gameplay will really make me drop my mouth!

 

[Asuka]

Not worried at all. I know when this game comes out it will be more fun then doom3/Far Cry/Painkiller/ (Not puting those games down, Like all of them) Its just Half-Life 2 is well Half-Life 2.

 

[aeroripper]

I think it would be very hard to have that effect on PC gamers today. I mean if it came out in sept 2003, sure definitely i'm sure it would have been mind boggling (remember watching the e3 video back in summer '03?????)

But now we have more modern games out like far cry, doom3, stalker soon, and others that have taken that "Wow" edge off.

I'm sure it will still be a great game but I really don't think its going to revolutionize the genre again. Although the physics gun will probably be fun to play with :-P.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

they didn't really say much about "THIS GAME BLEW US AWAY" or "I'M STILL MESMORIZED" or stuff like that.

I found that interesting. The Doom 3 reviews were hyped to the shisen whilst these hl2 reviews have been announced with a certain feel of hesitancy and "matter of factness"

Either they know they don't need to hype it because it's already huge or they don't want to hype because after playing it...it's just not that special?

 

[Ballsaccio]

With Far Cry and DOOM3 released, just how is HL2 going to "blow us away"? Graphics? Gameplay? The original HL blew us away because of the story line. It was a game with a real story. That will be how they score, high or low.

 

[Concept]

I think it would be very hard to have that effect on PC gamers today. I mean if it came out in sept 2003, sure definitely i'm sure it would have been mind boggling (remember watching the e3 video back in summer '03?????)

But now we have more modern games out like far cry, doom3, stalker soon, and others that have taken that "Wow" edge off.

I'm sure it will still be a great game but I really don't think its going to revolutionize the genre again. Although the physics gun will probably be fun to play with :-P.

I pretty much agree with that sentiment. There isn't the technical gap there was between Half-Life 2 and the rest of the pack this time last year. Creatively I've no doubt the game is going to be top notch even if titles like Stalker are seriously starting to bare down on it.

So yes... I think Half-Life 2 will be superb and great quality. But revolutionary?

No in all honesty. I expect it to be a good conventional example of the FPS genre at it's best.

If the game broadly achieves 9/10 and +90% scores then I'll be happy.

 

[aeroripper]

With Far Cry and DOOM3 released, just how is HL2 going to "blow us away"? Graphics? Gameplay? The original HL blew us away because of the story line. It was a game with a real story. That will be how they score, high or low.

I don't even think story will give it that huge of an edge anymore either. Doom3 had a okay story (albeit its been done before), far cry had the most detailed, realistic depiction of human-monkey interaction i have ever seen! Wow that story set my socks on FIYA!

Stalker looks promising but even if HL2 has a great story its been picked up by other games. I think Half-Life was one of those "right place, at the right time" kind of games because it just slammed itself in the middle of all these quake-clones without "real" stories and here comes this game that is more like a movie and puts you in the story.

The only way i can really see another PC game really "revolutionizing" the FPS genre again is maybe with virtual reality????

That's more hardware but hey... because i think over the next few years your gonna see better physics, better graphics, photo-realism and the like. But i still don't think its really that ahead of its time anymore. There has to be something in a game that's never been done before to really get that "wow" factor to it. For Half-Life is was its storytelling method that worked wonders for it. That and gameplay was fun too rather than just "run and gun".

 

[FoxDie]

So which of the magazines including a HL2 review is scheduled to be out first? I know they are within a few days of each other, but I can't remember which is first...

 

[Feath]

In case anyone cares, this is the Blog of the guy who reviewed Half-Life 2 for PC Gamer UK: http://rossignol.cream.org/

He doesn't mention anything about Half-Life 2 but it does say that he was away from the 5th of September till the 13th of September.

So I guess that people went to Valve to review the game. Hmm.

Anyway, I'm not worried about the reviews, I expect high scores but if it gets a low score, there's nothing I can do about it.

 

[Feath]

So which of the magazines including a HL2 review is scheduled to be out first? I know they are within a few days of each other, but I can't remember which is first...

5th of October, PC Gameplay and PC Gamer UK are out. PC Zone is out on the 8th of October.

 

[Concept]

I'd expect news of the first English reviews will come around October 1st. Hopefully subscribers will get copies slightly earlier.

 

[gooball]

I know the reviewers from their respective magazines wouldn't dare give this a low score

I know that what I'm about to comment on wasn't your main point, so don't worry.

It's sort of off-topic, but: In general I'd like to see reviewers just be honest, and review the game as they see it - it's better for the truth to come out, good or bad, then to have lies told in fear of backlash of any kind.

This is the problem with a lot of newspapers and magazines in most countries. Probably mostly in the US, thanks to big businesses owning most of the press.

For example, AOL Time Warner.
* Warner Bros. releases movie
* Time Magazine gives it a good review
* CNN runs favourable story on the movie's opening weekend + trailers

I guess this is kind of on-topic, but it'd just be bad if Vivendi/Valve or any other publisher had influence on what are supposed to be honest reviews.

It's like Nintendo Power reviewing their own games, let's just hope EA doesn't buy PC Gamer magazine.

 

[Feath]

I guess this is kind of on-topic, but it'd just be bad if Vivendi/Valve or any other publisher had influence on what are supposed to be honest reviews.

Sometimes a developer (or publisher) won't let a magazine review a game unless it gets on the front cover. I think there is more influence at work than you hope, even if it's just "We won't send them an exclusive review copy of game X, because they gave Game Y a bad review".

 

[Mr. Redundant]

naw as long as the reviews are honest (doom3 shite comes to mind) and truthful.

if it sucks, tell me it sucks.

 

[Feath]

naw as long as the reviews are honest (doom3 shite comes to mind) and truthful.

if it sucks, tell me it sucks.

Well, PC Gamer UK gave Doom 3 90% and they did address its issues in the actual review.

People say that's too high but it's only like 1% off 89%, which sounds a lot lower.

 

[FoxDie]

5th of October, PC Gameplay and PC Gamer UK are out. PC Zone is out on the 8th of October.

Thanks. I guess that some of the subscription holders will have the issue in hand in just a matter of days

 

[Mr-Fusion]

How much earlier do subscription holders get the mag compared to newsagencies etc?

 

[Spoonoop]

What will really affect the score of the game is just how old news it is now... you cant just say, "Hey guess what? HL 2 is comming out" and expect someone to be amazed, they will just say, "Yeah, how bout that", or "I've known that for 2 years buddy". HL 2 is a terrible drag... everyone knows about it, we are just waiting for it. There will be exitment when the OFFICIAL release date is FINALLY said, but it still wont be as exiting as last year when we thought it was going to come out.

 

[wayne white]

new title:"half life 2:gordon freeman forever

 

[evil^milk]

the mag coming out on the 5th... it's pc gamer UK, correct?

edit: oh i just read some of this thread. thanks feath

 

[Feath]

the mag coming out on the 5th... it's pc gamer UK, correct?

Aye.

I'll be getting it but I won't be online then.