So you're saying that when a company puts out a demonstrably bad game like Rome II, instead of calling it out as such, we should pat them on the head, give them a blue ribbon for participation, and put the crap they made on the refrigerator?
Fuck that noise. You live in a weird world, dude.
Finally an actual CRITIQUE of this game and not just an ass-kissing advertisement special by some jackass who didn't even play the game. Bravo!
The game isn't bad and even if somebody wants to make a point about the bugs, this is not the score to do it. Instead, it makes the reviewer look like throwing a childish tantrum. If a good game doesn't work out for CA, that's on Metacritic bombers. If a reviewer acts totally irresponsible, people like me will call it out.
Epic's change was definitive, everyone else also dropped the platform or couldn't even afford to continue further down the road. Why are you even on a PC review page if you're to call its gamers neckbeards, I don't know.
It's not a bad game, it's a buggy game. Games don't get 2/10 from any respected reviewer just due to some bugs. You have to check what games are given such scores, it's for only the worst of the worst of the worst. If honestly claim that Rome 2 is such, you've got it all wrong. And that I'm saying rather objectively.
The idea that you can't criticize a game for its bugs in a review is INSANE. Reviews are exactly the place to do it. Where else would you do it?
This is the game Creative/Sega is trying to sell to us (gamers). It costs money. Any reviewer who doesn't portray an accurate experience is doing a disservice to his or her readers.
If you don't want to get criticized for releasing a buggy game, don't release a buggy game.
You are insane. There is little challenge from the AI on every single level. They took out the best features of RTW1 and as many have stated, the battles are like an RTS now.
I have no idea how someone as educated as yourself in these titles can say RTW2 is the best of the series. It is depressingly bad and my only thought is that you haven't spent enough time in the game to see that. I've spent 60 hours in it. Every hour it gets more depressing how many shortcuts were taken. When I say shortcuts, I'm not saying "factions or art", I'm talking about strategic gameplay, collision detection, campaign scripting, etc.
I'm not playing 60 hours because it's fun, but to find out of it's salvageable via my modding.
There are AI bugs, that much is apparent but as for challenge, no grand strategy game has any level of challenge once you get to a certain size. That goes for any CA, Firaxis, Paradox game. Enemies only live because I let them live.
TW battles were always RTS, what are you talking about?
I've spent 65 hours in it so far. It has the best strategic layer for certain, several steps up in both scope and design. The map is comprehensive and built to allow for strategic gameplay rather than play Benny Hill with AI as in previous TW games. I also welcome the first TW game since RTW1 to have packed battles rather than soldiers having a 1vs1 or 1vs10 duel even though there are 1000 men pushing behind them.
To be honest, I like the game so much that I want to ignore all these replies and go back to it right away. It's been a long while since a game made me feel like that.
The idea that just because you're a reviewer, you're free to bomb it like a 4chan dweller is INSANE. There's a certain ethic to it, you can't just ramble on incoherently and expect it to be treated as fair criticism.
There are many good points raised by people on the game's official forums and even though they are harsh, they have a point and basis. This above review however is a mishmash of conflicting and baseless thoughts that can simply be reduced to "I have no idea what I'm talking but the game is buggy, here is 2/10".
He doesn't portray an accurate experience. If anything, he sounds off as one of those organized Metabombers that throw a 0/10 on anything they don't like.
Can somebody get some water for this plant? We don't want it to start leaving dead crumbly bits all over QT3's nice new page design.
Why the hell are you bringing school grades into it? This isn't school, it's a product being reviewed so consumers can make an informed choice about whether or not to buy it. Movies, music, TV shows, and even books are generally reviewed on a four- or five-star scale. It is standard for the entertainment industry. THAT is the relevant point of comparison, not that poli sci class you pulled a C in because you showed up and spoke every day.
If games want to be taken seriously as a medium, they need more rigorous reviewing standards than those given to a hungover pre-med major taking a gen-ed class entitled "Mind, Matter, and God." If you tie yourself to a juvenile grading system, you shouldn't be surprised when people refuse to take you seriously. Tom takes games seriously, and every time Metacritic-scanners pile onto his reviews, they just prove that there's a large number of gamers out there who think games aren't ready to be taken seriously as art, entertainment, or culture.
He didn't bomb it like a 4chan dweller. He gave a broken game one star, just like you'd give John Carter or some other box-office flop one star. You might not agree with him, but that does not make him a troll.
And seriously? He presents a very accurate experience for me. I have observed every single thing he references in the article in just one thirty-hour campaign. So, even if you write off the (several and severe) crashes and glitches that make the game at times unplayable as "just needing a little polish," there's still the total lack of documentation and feedback systems for most of the game's mechanics. How the faction politics work and how generals' skills work are black boxes that make playing this game strategically a virtual impossibility. The only reason that more people aren't complaining about it is because the AI is so completely unable to put up any sort of fight that you don't need to understand the finer points of the building trees or the agent skills. Tom mentions all these things and you can't just write them off as baseless, not with so many people in the comments giving their agreement.
So really, I think you're here because a game you like, against all odds, got a negative review. I am here because this "negative" review, along with the Guardian review, is the only one that actually reflects my experience of a game that Creative Assembly sold me on staged videos and empty promises.
Are you trying to prove that you're smarter than James? Anyone who starts his post with 'so you think (something the other person didn't say was great) is great?', sounds like kind of a dick, no offense. I guess you just wanted to criticize the game, but the best way to do that isn't by making a straw man of someone who happens to disagree with you.
Ethics? You know what's not ethical? Charging $60 for a broken-ass game.
This game is getting killed everywhere I see. My guess is that a lot of people agree with Tom. As I said in my other post, I am glad he called out this game. It saves me money. He is doing his readers a service.
Not testing and optimizing properly is a mistake on CA's behalf and rambling incoherently and score-bombing is a mistake on this reviewer's behalf. One doesn't excuse the other. The game is good, need patching. Not exactly the first time it happened but none of those others get bombed like this, as long as they could be played.
It's not just the score but the whole review that's in shambles. I explained why before.
In-game encyclopedia tells about most systems and you can find also find skills trees for generals etc, every agent ability is described thoroughly. If he doesn't know what a stat works for, he just had to look it up but it appears he didn't even put the time to read a couple of paragraphs. How more lazy can a reviewer can get? This is why even the most mundane gameplay mechanics are deemed as 'too complicated' by most companies and we get braindead games that look like they were conceived by kindergarten children.
I first came here because I wanted to see what the fuss is about and what's the reasoning behind a 20/100 score. All I found was some guy who wanted his 15 mins of fame on the Net. Guardian isn't even a publication that I would even bother with since I'm already aware that it's no authority.
If you really want a critical yet objective review, check out Kotaku. It's blunt yet fair, says "don't play it yet". I'm quite alright with that. Unlike this doomsayer here, that review properly addresses the bugs yet acknowledges that the game itself is decent and will be great once everything's fixed.
Thank you, I've never heard of this site before but if you're one of the few places to give an accurate review of this game then I'm willing to check it out.
There's a difference between "complex gameplay" and "inadequate documentation." Conflating the two could be seen as an attempt to distract from Tom's actual and valid criticisms.
For instance, the "Total War Encyclopedia" is a joke that doesn't cover half the new systems and mechanics, especially faction politics, with anything approaching the necessary breadth or depth. The significance of Ambition, the acquisition and impact of Gravitas, and the point of Influence, especially in relationship to civil wars, are explained only in the vaguest of terms. How am I supposed to play and enjoy a game that doesn't even understand itself? Not to mention, when they do put the full information about stuff like skill trees in there, it's still inexcusable. Why is one of the most important aspects of character development, in a game where said characters form the basic building blocks of all player interaction, hidden inside a slow, laggy online manual? And that's just what's wrong with the user experience, as opposed to design flaws like battlefield victory points and armies that fight better than navies at sea.
So really, how can you criticize this review for being a mishmash of unrelated complaints when the Kotaku review is made up of bullet points that I could have written without having played the game? He almost talks more about Shogun 2 than Rome II, and talks more about how both games "look" and "feel" than about any specifics. That, along with your second use of the word "objective" in reference to the entirely subjective process of writing a review, tells me that you don't really have a point to be made here.
I'm bringing grades into it, obviously, because the original poster basically said "nothing in the real world spots you 6 out of 10 points." However, this simply isn't true. Many school courses -- which everyone has exposure to -- typically only use the 6-10 scale, with 60s being Fs and 100s being As.
You seem to have a real chip on your shoulder about Tom and grading games critically. That's nice, but I'm really not sure why you are mentioning it. I also like Tom's reviews and critical reviews in general, but the technical scoring isn't an important component of that. I care more about the text..to me, Tom could have had the same effect giving this a 6/10 "F" and saying the same thing he did. Makes no difference, other than giving people like you a hardon whenever they see a ridiculous score like 20% or whatever.
Incidentally, the reason games aren't taken seriously as cultural works is that most of them are simply bad. Review scoring is sort of a red herring (a symptom, not a cause). Hopefully the next generation will help resolve this issue, but many AAA games fail badly in either the gameplay or story departments. Activision seems especially aware of this, since they are boasting about having the writer of 'Traffic' do the next Call of Duty.
Hello there. I am a Total War fanboy. I own every single one of these games. I have played Rome 2 for 52 hours. Tom is spot on in his critiques. This game is indefensible.
However, it's not like this is some huge surprise. It's always the same problem. The AI can't play the game. It can't even feign playing the game. It never could. It's less obvious when they keep the focus tight (i.e. Napoleon and Shogun 2) and more obvious when they aim high (i.e. Empire and Rome 2).
The AI issues I expect, but what really grinds my gears about this game is the totally shit real time combat. Battles are more like 3 minute races. Why?
Typically when you iterate you want to move forward, or at least laterally, but here we've got some big missteps and it's important this gets vocalized back to CA. That place needs a shakeup - whoever greenlit all these stupid changes needs to go.
wow you got all your traffic you wanted for your site from Metacritic, happy now??