5081

I don’t agree with Tom so I’m just playing devil’s advocate here, but perhaps the difference is that Oblivion was in 2006 and this is 2011. As in, why didn’t Bethesda learn from the mistakes and improve, rather than making the same missteps all over again, five years and two games later?

I mean that’s kinda how other industries work. You wouldn’t expect a “AAA” TV today to not support 1080p these days, but if you bought one a decade ago then you could get away with 1080i just fine.

5082

I recall trying to make the point to Tom - on his calling ArmA 2 “broken” - that the thousands of players who aren’t experiencing a “broken” game and are having a unique and engaging experience, means the term has dubious value.

I don’t know anything about ArmA2, but as a general rule, critics do not respond to the argumentum ad populum. They really can’t, because their whole function is to present a specific and distinct and personal judgment. Whether 50 million Frenchmen agree or not is beside the point… Though I guess if your point is that “broken” (excepting actual game-stopping bugs) is not a great word for game criticism, I see where you’re coming from.

5083

That’s not surprising. Tom’s never been even moderately receptive to constructive criticism and has grown even less so in recent times. So be it.

5084

You’re a nasty piece of work.

5085

The best part about Skyrim is that the developers release modding tools and encourage players to go nuts. It’s not just a game it’s a platform – the ultimate embodiment of player-choice in an open world game.

Credit to whoever said this, but Skyrim’s world is made beautiful because it is all game space. If you compare it in screenshots to other modern games, it falls short – but it’s NOT just a vista you run through, or a backdrop – it’s a place for discovery and exploration.

5086

Yeah, and has been for a while.

5087

Maybe you don’t like what he said or the way he said it, but it isn’t necessarily inaccurate.

Shit, it’s time to go. I’m eating into my Skyrim time!

5088

To be fair, I don’t know how you intended the comment but it came across to me in reading as confrontational and aggressive. It read more like a “Gotcha!” than trying to engage in discussion.

Again, Blackadar, I’m not saying that’s what you were doing, but that’s the “tone” as I (mis?)read it.

5089

Nope. You’re wrong.

5090

Yep.5

5091

A ‘narrative loom’, as some washed up failure of games writing might have said.

5092

That’s about right. It’s a good review. Unlike some of his other stances, I don’t see inconsistencies that overrule or create problems with the criticism as explained in the review. A 7 seems reasonable in light of what he says about both Oblivion and Skyrim.

5093

I didn’t really express that well, you’re of course right about the fallacy. What I meant was that he didn’t call it broken in a personal sense, but in a more objective sense. So looking back at the review, I see things like:

A tremendously exciting, ambitious game that you cannot possibly expect to be so bad for all the terrible bugs and glitches and unfinished bits and systems that just simply don’t work. But it is that bad, and it will make sure you know it. You cannot avoid discovering what a mess it is.

But I cannot handle the fact that the game is so undeniably, blatantly, shamefully broken.

That’s why I mentioned the thousands of players, which I was one of, who were having immense fun and only experiencing bugs in a minor way. There’s no denying Tom’s experience with the game, but to me there’s little value to a review that paints a game as “undeniably” broken and a mess when it undeniably isn’t for a great many players.

Again, it’s not pointing out the problems that I take issue with - doing so is of course a necessary part of a subjective review - it’s treating what the game does well as a complete sideline to the problems. It feels like a disservice to the game - any game.

Compare this with, say, Jim Rossignol’s review at RPS, and you see the latter does not avoid talking about the bugs and other problems, but does encapsulate what’s great about the game:

Arma II game is already divisive: it was always going to be. It’s impossible to examine this game without seeing it as a kind of exemplar of some of the larger issues about what is good and bad about PC gaming: the unfinished code, the performance issues, the difficulty of breaking into established communities – all these things will push people away. But the sheer scope: the raw materials that BIS have forged for gamers to make their own entertainment, their own stories with. I can’t say that’s a bad thing.

What PC games are is a wide open landscape, and that monstrous, uneven terrain is only getting larger by the day. Thank fuck for this twisted little peninsula of realism, without it gaming would be a whole lot less interesting.

That in a nutshell is why I often don’t get on well with Tom’s reviews. He’s astute at articulating the downsides of games but often fails to express the exceptional qualities of a given game.

5094

Obviously I read them. I found them and linked them. Duh? The far more important part of that quote when talking about review scores is this:

I feel pretty strongly that Oblivion deserved the praise it got, as well as the money it made for Bethesda, as well as the spot it’s almost certain to find on my list of favorite games of 2006.

There’s no ambiguity there. Considering that Oblivion was far easier to “break”, then why did it deserve the review scores (94 on Metacritic)? It’s entirely inconsistent with his Skyrim review. Did you even think about what you posted in the entire context of the quote? Also, do yourself a favor. Go search “Tom Chick” and “Oblivion”. Those weren’t the only quotes or posts from him on the issue. Read 'em all, not just one sentence that you can hastily post to try to defend an inconsistent viewpoint.

But hey, if you want to think that the other sentences in that post (and others) don’t matter and that somehow helps you, more power to ya bud.

5095

Good lord, every time I come in here, I regret it…

Anyway, just wanted to make sure you didn’t miss my offer on the front page comments section, Blackadar. Drop me an email at tomchick@quartertothree.com and I will gladly schedule a time to have you on the podcast so we can talk about Skyrim (and even Skyrim reviews, and even review scores, if that’s your thing!). I think you’ll agree that we don’t have the best track record when it comes to discussing games in writing. Maybe we’ll have better luck doing it live.

-Tom

5096

Holy shit! WB Tom! I don’t always agree with your reviews, but I enjoy and appreciate your presence. Thanks a ton for all the hard work you have done in the past on these forums and on the site.

Regards, LT. Ice Cream

p.s., Skyrim is awesome. How dare you not realize this. ;-)

5097

You’re right, there’s no ambiguity. He loved the game… until he didn’t. He said he loved the game and it deserved the reviews and acclaim it got. But he doesn’t love it anymore. He said so in that post. Read it again.

It’s a very brittle system, and if you want to push it, it’s going to give way and completely collapse. Once this happened, I really had no desire to go back to Oblivion. It was like tearing the curtain down and seeing the little man running the show.[…]

But, yeah, I don’t think I can bring myself to play it any more…

Bethesda has made great strides with Skyrim, but what they essentially did was take the Oblivion system and culled the more irritating bits. Yes, they added little skill trees and more crafting and dual wielding. Never the less, the two games are very similar at heart such that if you felt the magic was dead by the end of Oblivion then it’s not surprising to see a lot of that apathy/disinterest/whatever transfering over to Skyrim.

5098

Discussing numerical review scores is the last refuge of the butthurt.

5099

Yip, loved it, 50 odd hours 360 unmodded.

I re bought on steam, havent got round to modding and replaying yet.

5100

This is a really shocking and disappointing thread page.

I’ve played every game in this series for 50+ hours, except Skyrim which I’ve only played about 8 hours. I’ll play more at a later date.

Skyrim is by far the best game in this series, barring whatever might emerge with additional play but none of that I’ve heard about in other reviews.

The big thing with Skyrim is the game engine, which is silky smooth and a real joy, unlike every other engine in the series. Daggerfall for example was a buggy mess.

Every aspect of the game is much improved from Oblivion. Better NPCs, better skill/level system, better monsters, much better and denser questing, much better dungeons.

Consider for a moment the improvement between each of the other games in the series - from Arena to Daggerfall, Daggerfall to Morrowind, Morrowind to Oblivion. Only Daggerfall to Morrowind was even comparable in improvement, largely due to the amazing atmospherics, architecture, and game world that Morrowind offered compared to the much more generic Daggerfall.

But never in any game series have I seen such comprehensive improvement as between Oblivion and Skyrim. Skyrim is finally an Elder Scrolls title done right.