I picked up my copy day one. Once placed into the drive, there was a patch, then an install (optional), I chose to install the patch as it stated it would make the load times much less if I did. After that I was able to play the game. First impressions, it is beautiful, realistic feel, and fun. I did have a few gripes. First the menu navigation is slow, and having to back out of everything gets old, however, once used to this, it stopped bothering me. Second, the load times, still JUST SO SLOW even after the 8gig install. No idea why this is, but it is. Of course that's just one persons opinion, and I hadn't really been following the reviews of this game as I had planned to purchase it regardless of score. After playing it a few days and enjoying myself, I decided to go online and see what everyone else thought about it.
Holy crap is this game ever getting torn apart by the critics and the eknow-it-alls. Everyone has something to say about this game, and by some of the media outlets, a lot of it is not good. I wonder if they are even playing the same game at times, as it's getting ripped up about things that I thought were actually fairly fun or looked just fine. Banged on for the graphics, sure it has its flaws and sometimes you wonder why they even put the people that stand along the side of the road cheering you on in the game to begin with (they look like shit if you stop and look at them, graphically that is) and some of the cars are obviously not polished, but those aren't cars you will want to drive anyway, they are step-stone cars, used once maybe twice and tossed aside for an upgrade. Maybe I'm being too easy on this game just because I was excited for it and therefore I turn my head the other direction, but I'm having a damn good time with it so.....
I'm getting to the point where I just don't know if I can even trust the reviews and the journalists that follow the gaming industry. They are super critical of some titles, and then other titles the failures are just put aside and forgotten in the review. I suppose a review just boils down to a matter of opinion in the end, and therefore should be taken as such, but I believe many people put a true value to the number assigned by these journalist and they end up passing on some really great titles because of it. Sad really.
I agree with what you're saying about how the reviewers work nowadays. There's definite bias in the reviews, whether that's from their personal preferences, their editors/magazines, or the game companies/advertisers. What really needs to be done is to have someone play the game that isn't familiar with that style or doesn't have any preconceived notions of what is expected of them in the game. Unfortunately, that's damned near impossible to have happen.
ReplyDeleteyou and your brother are way too similar...
ReplyDeleteanyway im a big supporter of reviews. i dont read/watch them as if they are the word of god, i treat them as a guide.
If a review is overwhelmingly negative i will approach it very cautiously. do more investigation on it than i normally would.
if a review is overwhelmingly positive, its probably for good reason. the game is probably well made, with minor flaws here and there. the game might not be for everybody, but typically highly rated games are very accessable and good for the masses.
reviews arent the final word. they are simply someone elses opinion. being bias'd is a fact of human nature, and no one is truely without bias.