tgb123
2763
I keep waiting for the next installment of Rorshach’s tutorials.
Sorry, new games to play because of the holidays. I should have ship design, construction, and fleets up this week.
That’s why I don’t pay attention to PCGamer’s reviews.
tgb123
2768
“It took me half an hour to figure out how to place a space station near a planet.”
That says it all.
It definitely lacks in the intuitive UI and lack of tutorial part, but once you get used to the interface and it’s idiosyncrasies there’s one hell of a game. UI and AI are my only real complaints.
tgb123
2770
Reading your reply I realized my post wasn’t quite clear. I wasn’t knocking the interface, but the reviewer. It sounds like he/she never bothered to look at the manual, and even so, it should not take a reasonably intelligent person “half an hour” to figure out how to place a station.
I’ll offer up a (very) small defense of the reviewer: he probably played the game like most players initially would - never reading a darn thing and expecting it all to be spoon-fed to him. I suppose from that respect, there’s some merit to what he wrote. On the other hand … that was a really poorly done review if he didn’t put in the effort to read. There are also several facets of the game he never even mentioned existed, and frankly it sounds like he just threw up his hands shortly after that “half hour” and decided to write it up. While perhaps that’s not the case, I wish my job would be so easy.
Scamper
2772
Dan, I suspect that general pc game players would throw their hands up after 30 minutes with this game as well, hence the review. These reviews are written for a general audience and not for fans of the game.
Tool tips and tutorials are not “spoon feeding”, in my opinion. If you have to leave the game to figure out how something works in your game, its a problem.
Look at this game with fresh eyes, which is what reviewers have to do.
Personally, I don’t want to spend hours pouring over Wikis and forums. I have a two-year-old daughter that takes up that time.
So, I play SOTS1 instead.
The review is fair. Read through this thread after the EE and you’ll see a bunch of posts from people asking how to just get a basic start. That’s definitely indicative of an issue.
SlyFrog
2774
Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
Not paying attention to his score, the review looks fair. Personally, I also wondered what the heck was going on when manually placing stations. At the zoom level it started at I just couldn’t see the buttons. And I’ve also found myself frustrated with the inability to chain commands. I understand having a the supply constraints on fleet operations away from their home base, but why I can’t do any chaining aside from mission+relocation mission is befuddling.
I still love the game though.
I really wanted to like this game, but the interface is not intuitive to the degree of frustration. It should not be that hard to figure it out.
Steam show that I have 47 hours of playtime, so it is not like I did not try.
I suspect that awesome interfaces do not even require a manual to figure out, the manual is just for reference on deeper elements of the game.
For instance, I did not need a manual to use my Iphone or Nexus 7. But still looked up a few things for deeper reference, when needed.
I did not take me 30 minutes to figure out how to place a star base, but was kind of WTF that I had to select the one and only option, really?
MikeJ
2777
The SotS2 interface definitely has problems, but I think it would be more fair to compare it to other strategy games with a similar number of features. Most game interfaces are harder to discover than iOS, unless you’ve played a very similar game before, and are aware of all the conventions.
War in the East was praised as a great interface ‘for a wargame’, and I defy you to make heads or tails of how that games works without a good long look at the manual. I’d like to see better UI as much as the next guy, but I think we need to cut small developers who make feature-heavy games a little slack.
Why? A sucky UI is still a sucky UI regardless of developer size.
I think CIV 5 UI is the gold standard of UI and which every other 4X games from here onward should be comparing themselves against. CIV 5 has a relatively simple UI that successfully hide the complexities within the game.
I understand the usefulness of a tutorial. I like tutorials. I wish this game had come with one. It does have tool tips, but certainly not anywhere close to enough to take the place of a tutorial. Saying it was too hard or obtuse to pick up without reading the manual is a perfectly valid criticism. It deserves to be harshed upon for such an omission because that’s how many gamers approach things (in a similar manner, many just read scores on reviews instead of their content - there may be some significant crossover, there ;). But then why not pick it up and see if the game is actually decent or not once the reader is done with manual? If a news reporter didn’t feel it was worth reading up on something he or she was doing a report on, I find that pretty sad. Whether the writer is trying to be a glorified buyers guide or as pretentious as an art critic, I’d think presenting a judgement on whether that extra time away from a two year-old is worth it or not (kind of like that time ostensibly spent actually playing some other game). If the payoff is worth it or not, wouldn’t it be nice for someone to let a reader know? THAT would have made for a more resounding critique than what I read.
I don’t know - I don’t have anything invested in this aside from desiring the field to get better and to hopefully see a continuation of an IP that I’ve enjoyed. When I see value in a product that is in jeopardy of being thrown in a proverbial closet, then I worry that perhaps the good things and innovations will be lost along with it. SotS isn’t even my favorite space 4X series, but it’s good and 2 has finally shaped up into a solid (albeit still flawed) game. It’s just too bad that a review like the one linked to above won’t give anyone much of an inkling into what it’s got going for it. If a simple sentence like “After tackling the manual and guide linked to in the startup menu and playing a new game for a few hours, I think the extra time (is/isn’t) worth it” had been included anywhere in there then I would have given a little more credit to the writer. I apologize if I’m being a little too harsh from my end, of course.
Scamper
2780
I hear what you are saying, Dan. Maybe they should say if you are into spending hours on the forums and wikis trying to figure things out, there’s something there.
Yeah, people only read scores. It happens with Movie reviews as well, which is why Roger Ebert hates them, but has been forced into it by his editors.
The reviewer did his job fairly well on this one, in my opinion. And it isn’t an easy job. If you think that, give up your job and become a reviewer (I’m a journalist myself…not a game one though). I am sure Tom is rolling in his Game Reviewer Gold.
Reviews are opinion pieces not reporting. Those are two VERY different forms of writing. You think these guys have time to investigate every game they play? Especially on a second look review (I don’t think they should have done one personally. Now people in the forums are clamoring for a re review of Gothic 3).
Unless one is writing reviews for space game central, you have to write reviews for the whole of your audience.
As someone did mention, the scores did improve.
Its Kerb’s job to bring people into the game not game media (except if you pay enough money to IGN or Gamespot).
Honestly, Kerb needs help as a dev studio. Its seems they have no one on board saying “No” to features. They “ambitioned” themselves into oblivion on this one. I don’t think it will ever get to the point of a really polished game for the masses (I hope I am wrong on that point).
The game does come with a pretty extensive manual. Do you think the reviewer read any of that?
I think the point is that the general audience does not read the manual nowadays and the reviewer is approaching SOTS2 from a general audience point of view.
