The most hatred-filled review you'll come across

[Ryuzakku]

Lol woot?! There is a person on Earth that doesn't like Deus Ex?

I don't like Deus Ex... Anything with a stealth mechanic is a turn-off for me, except Assassin's Creed, but I couldn't finish the 1st game for that reason, and it still infuriates me.

 

[Andulias]

a preference like this does not have much to do with credibility.

Arguments do not stand on the weight of a personal stance of "i like or dislike game a". However, when giving positive reviews, it's hard not to sound like a company line.

When giving a bad review or attempting to pronounce a game as bad, you "are trying to demonstrate something", which in this case, is his opinion. He has to explain why the content is "bad" or fails to live up.

There are some games Tom Chick has taken stances against for various reasons, and personally i would rather read something from someone who doesn't "buy in" to everything and is willing to distance oneself from the bandwagons. In a few hours, we can all write our own opinions but for me - i will just take the time to step down from emperor to king and try to take it from scratch. I have a feeling my old strategies won't work anymore and i will try to test the new avenues.

I would rather wait until at least the first patch to criticize too much, and the biggest thing for me is going to be the stability level of diplomatic actions. I personally hope for the better.

I already discussed why reviewing a game isn't about sharing your opinion. There is no way to look at Deus Ex from a gameplay perspective and call it bad. It's biased, and bias has no place in a review. In a good review in any case. And thadian, don't get this the wrong way, but I find your wordy and "high-minded" comments very silly. Do you really feel the need to use the longest phrases possible to say something that could be summed up in a short sentence, and why do you always try to steer the conversation toward abstract ideas about societies and individuals? It has literally nothing to do with the subject matter.

I might not agree with his rating, but he makes a lot of good points. Hate filled? Rant? Nope, I don't see it.

I do. And I already posted a list of reasons why I think it's a rant. Read up, it's on page two.

I don't like Deus Ex... Anything with a stealth mechanic is a turn-off for me, except Assassin's Creed, but I couldn't finish the 1st game for that reason, and it still infuriates me.

That's a personal opinion. The problem isn't in the game, you just don't like stealth. A reviewer should not let his opinion dominate a review. When you review a stealth game you shouldn't be asking yourself "Do I like stealth games", but rather "Does this stealth game offer what stealth fans are looking for". In Deus Ex's case the answer is HELL YEAH!!! Although reducing DE to a stealth game is definitely not doing it any justice.

 

[ezysquire]

He embraces his personal opinion and states it as facts. He ignore new additions to the gameplay and opts to bash the game some more instead. He hates it because it's not what he wants it to be, while he should be judging it for what it is.

Well said. only people who like the civ franchise and have some good history with it (the further back the better) are in a good place to properly judge it.

Roll on June 22

 

[dtolman]

Just wanted to chime in and say Thank God for this review. Most Civ fans don't even bother to play Civ V, and I have personally been waiting for an expansion to fix its inherent problems.

Now thanks to this review I know its more of the same. I'll keep my wallet in my pocket, and fire up a game of... any other Civ version... instead.

Thanks Tom!

--
Or if thats too blunt for the mods, a more polite version:
Some of us find Civ V to be inherently flawed, and are waiting for an expansion to save the release for us. Thanks to Tom, we now know this is not it. Thats a public service, and he should be thanked for it. Thank You Tom.

 

[thadian]

There is no way to look at Deus Ex from a gameplay perspective and call it bad.

Bet? At least one person thinks so, and thinking this does not mean this person has flawed opinions or judgement. From a gameplay perspective, i think Skyrim sucks, lacking everything i liked in elder scrolls and bringing in WoW perks. Ex my opinion, do the perks "work"? Well, anything that makes me choose 2 "bad" things before getting a "good thing" is not good gameplay.

This is where we will disagree then. You think that "there is just NO WAY" - but oh, there is.

 

[Andulias]

Bet? At least one person thinks so, and thinking this does not mean this person has flawed opinions or judgement. From a gameplay perspective, i think Skyrim sucks, lacking everything i liked in elder scrolls and bringing in WoW perks. Ex my opinion, do the perks "work"? Well, anything that makes me choose 2 "bad" things before getting a "good thing" is not good gameplay.

This is where we will disagree then. You think that "there is just NO WAY" - but oh, there is.

Learn the difference between personal opinion and objectivity, because you obviously don't know it. In the case of Deus Ex it DOES mean he has a flawed judgement, PRECISELY because he states his opinion as a fact. Learn to understand what you read as well, I already explained that.

There is a reason why Deus Ex is generally considered the best PC game of all time. There is a reason why Skyrim has sold more than 10 million copies, and has some of the highest USER Metacritic ratings I've seen.

And while you are at it, you might enrich your gaming knowledge before you make such a fool out of yourself. Because if you think the perk trees in Skyrim have anything to do with WoW, if you think that WoW invented those in the first place, then your gaming culture is just plain pitiful.

Also learn to write in a coherent and well-structured manner. It's almost physically painful to read your posts.

Moderator Action: There's no to be that rude. Please try to discuss on a more civil level.

 

[dtolman]

Learn the difference between personal opinion and objectivity, because you obviously don't know it. .

He seems to have a good grasp of it. A review, by its very nature, is subjective when it comes down to the most important question - is it enjoyable? If a reviewer does not enjoy a game, how is he doing the reader a service by ignoring that?

An "objective" review would be a listing of features and technical requirements. Technical reviews are fine - but do not reveal gameplay or enjoyment.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

He seems to have a good grasp of it. A review, by its very nature, is subjective when it comes down to the most important question - is it enjoyable? If a reviewer does not enjoy a game, how is he doing the reader a service by ignoring that?

An "objective" review would be a listing of features and technical requirements. Technical reviews are fine - but do not reveal gameplay or enjoyment.

True to a point, but if someone is reviewing a Heavy Metal album (for example) and states right off the bat that he hates Heavy Metal, how useful is that review when he says he doesn't like it? Depends on whether the reviewer judges the album on its own merits and within that framework, or just dismisses it because he doesn't like that sort of thing. If he gives a bad review to a Heavy Metal album because he thinks it has too much drums and electric guitars . . . well, that's a problem.

 

[Vatras]

When it comes to reviews, no matter what subject really, it would be most helpful, if the reviewer would list some of his likes/dislikes in that field. That would help the readers to get an idea if what he reviews corresponds to their own tastes.

(And I believe that if there is an objective review of anything, it has not been written yet )

 

[dtolman]

True to a point, but if someone is reviewing a Heavy Metal album (for example) and states right off the bat that he hates Heavy Metal, how useful is that review when he says he doesn't like it? Depends on whether the reviewer judges the album on its own merits and within that framework, or just dismisses it because he doesn't like that sort of thing. If he gives a bad review to a Heavy Metal album because he thinks it has too much drums and electric guitars . . . well, that's a problem.

Not a good analogy here though. Tom doesn't say he hates Strategy. Or even Turn Based Strategy. Or Civilization.

He dislikes Civ V. He dislikes Civ V in a way, and for reasons, that resonates with a lot of people. And he states it upfront so Civ V fans know this reviews not for them - but for people who dp agree with him (the silent majority of civ fans?) that this review _is_ for them.

I can't think of a better way of doing it.

 

[Maktaka]

the silent majority of civ fans

Huh, I didn't know that was still being made up as validation for not liking the game. This is the internet, if people don't like something, they're NOT going to stay quiet about it. It's okay to not like something without calling on an invisible horde to silently, but in a totally real and not imaginary way, back you up.

 

[YohanLeafheart]

There is a reason why Skyrim has sold more than 10 million copies, and has some of the highest USER Metacritic ratings I've seen.

And yet, just Bieber just had a concert for 220k+ people in Mexico City and I would be hard pressed to call him the best musician of all time. USER rating is not a good parameter.

And while you are at it, you might enrich your gaming knowledge before you make such a fool out of yourself. Because if you think the perk trees in Skyrim have anything to do with WoW, if you think that WoW invented those in the first place, then your gaming culture is just plain pitiful.

And yet Skyrim sucks. The story is good, not exceptional but good. The game world is nice but the gameplay itself is simple a bore. Combat is terrible, the Dragons get repetitive after sometime. Skyrim was my first Elder Scroll game, and after putting 40 hours on it, my last definitely. The interface is crap, specially the perk trees on a PC, the controls are as bad as the ones on Dragon Age, and far from a good game like Wytcher 2.

 

[Bridger]

Totally agree with this review. The vanilla game is garbage from an interface, AI, and balance standpoint. It has quite a few improvements over Civ IV, but then completely drops the ball on execution. So many simple things that Thal fixed YEARS AGO remain broken. Then they go and screw up more things.

Why is open borders thrown all the way to civil service? I basically had to delete about 5 scouting units that got trapped/couldn't explore further because I couldn't get open borders until the middle ages? Why the hell can't I see in a tooltip what bonuses a religion is granting my city? How the hell do I know if I want to use an inquisitor on it if I have no idea what it's doing? Why doesn't the AI know how to fight yet? Why is gold still the best way to make city states like you? (though this is improved a lot, would still prefer City-State Diplomacy mode approach).

It looks like I won't be playing until thal updates VEM for the expansion. I'm very disappointed in myself for expecting more from Firaxis I shouldn't have paid for this.

distancing yourself from your own opinion was key to writing a good review.

Are you kidding me? The goal of any journalism is to present the reader/viewer with truths that they don't have time to research themselves. The journalist has the skill and time to research a subject and come back with a conclusion. That conclusion is the whole point of journalism. Your assertion that the press should try to avoid such conclusions is the very reason we have such crappy press in the U.S.

 

[Sarda]

After playing G&K for a few hours, I agree with most of the review religion is badly implemented here in both creation and execution, as for espionage I have mixed feelings, its not worse or better, its just different. I'm happy I played it at the expensive of someone else, I wouldn't recommend this first day to even a fan since there's not all that much new as you can basically ignore religion outright and it wont make alot of difference. Everything that was broken about the base game is still broken.

 

[Andulias]

I don't feel I really need to explain what I mean any further. Read my previous comments. The heavy metal analogy was spot on and precisely what's wrong with the review. He WANTS to hate the expansion, and he ignores obvious improvements because he HATES Civ V. He can't evaluate how good or bad the game is after the expansion, he hates it by default, he hated it before he even played it, before it was even announced. And I already listed arguments why I think so. I also explained several times that this is not how you review games.

A review does indeed list all the features of the game and then evaluates how well those are implemented and how well they work in the context of the game. Is it impossible to look at Deus Ex, look at its different gameplay mechanics and style, and say it's a bad game? Is the stealth fully functioning? Is the RPG system deep enough, and does it present enough choices? Since the game puts such obvious emphasis on the story, is it good? Does the game allow to accomplish your objective in more than one way? The answer to all of this is yes. It does all of that without every feeling like a specific part of the game has been neglected. The AI is mediocre and the graphics aren't state of the art. Does it affect gameplay too much? Does it negate all the good things the game does? Not really. Then how can he dislike it?

Tom Chick is not a good reviewer. He is a prejudiced hater. Good for him that he called out Civ V at launch, bad for him that he literally dismissed 18 months worth of patching in his review. It's not professional, it reads like a random forum rant.

 

[Sarda]

What improvements was he ignoring, he mentioned every thing they added and how they affected the game, this isn't a overhaul to the core of the game like BTS was for Civ4, this is just a few tacked on features that you can easily sumrise and thumbs up or down.

 

[Andulias]

What improvements was he ignoring, he mentioned every thing they added and how they affected the game, this isn't a overhaul to the core of the game like BTS was for Civ4, this is just a few tacked on features that you can easily sumrise and thumbs up or down.

Read my previous posts. I already said specifically what he chose to ignore. It was discussed at length in fact.

And I don't know if considerably improving the AI, reworking the tech tree, revamping the diplomacy, the combat system, the Great People, City States and Social Policies in addition to adding a religious system that is considerably deeper than the one in 4, and an espionage system that, even if not perfect, adds flavour to the game, if all this can be viewed as an overhaul, but it is a significant improvement.

And BTS was hardly a complete overhaul of the core game. It fixed the core, didn't overhaul it.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

What improvements was he ignoring, he mentioned every thing they added and how they affected the game, this isn't a overhaul to the core of the game like BTS was for Civ4, this is just a few tacked on features that you can easily sumrise and thumbs up or down.

BTS had plenty of tacked-on features of its own. If one were to review BTS and just talk about corporations and events and a few wonders it would come across as pretty bad, not the Ultimate Triumph of Man that some of built it up to be over the years.

 

[mintegar]

This part of the review caught my eye, because in C4 there is a huge effect on Diplomatic relations for having the same, or having a different religion as another AI:

If it has any effect on diplomacy, you’d never know, thanks to the game’s wretched diplomacy, which remains as inscrutably bipolar as ever.

What a bummer! I wonder if the mechanic is not there, or if it's just hidden to the player.

The way you can cheese the AI in civ4 with religions is maybe not realistic but very fun.

Or maybe it's there alright and the review period was just to short for TC to notice.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Or maybe it's there alright and the review period was just to short for TC to notice.

I agree with this. I think it's too early to tell what this expansion means to CivV in the long run.