Topic: EDITORIALS: A Note about Our Reviews

[therat]

HES INSANE-O! well, seems that the sheets are finally being takin off peoples faces. this happens in the governmet as well. why do you think life sucks right now? corporation ruin everything! including nintendo! (friend codes!)

[Caliban]

At first I thought "why is NWR publishing such an editorial?". I thought something happened in the forums or they got some hate mail. I read the editorial and thought "well duh, it's NWR like it has always been". I start reading on other sites about some guy that was fired from gamespot because of one review..."ah, I see. That will never happen at NWR. They're piss poor, and they rely on volunteer work. Everything's the way it should be".

[IceCold]

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."ah, I see. That will never happen at NWR. They're piss poor, and they rely on volunteer work. Everything's the way it should be"

Ahahahahaa.. great backhanded compliment.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Gerstmann gets axed, kairon's onboard, so is all this all an elaborate scheme to propel kairon's internet status?

Yes

[Crimm]

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Originally posted by: Kairon

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Originally posted by: GoldenPhoenix
So you are going to it that 6/10 it so sorely needs?

Grrr. I'll give you a 6/10!!!

OMG WHAT DID YOU DO TO GP!?

 

[Spak-Spang]

"Our entire staff works for free, including editors and the Director. We have nothing to gain or lose by inciting controversy for its own sake. We have no job security to jeopardize or protect. No person has ever been removed from the staff over a review."


I have more respect for the amount of work and dedication every single member of the NWR staff puts into every aspect of the site after reading the above statement.  

Bravo.  And your reviews have always been some of the best reviews I have read on the web.  Great scoring system, Great Summary System, and most importantly it is too the point and not filled with pointless fluff to bloat the review and waste the readers time.

 

[oohhboy]

95% of the time I wouldn't base my purchase decision on a review since most of the time I already want to buy it, but what it does do for me outside of entertainment purposes is set how much I am willing to pay for a game. For a game like RE4 that gets a 10, I happily paid full price for it and continue to be pleased by it.

PGC/NWR has served me well over the years with their continued unpaid, unparalleled professionalism that is rarely seen on the Web. It serves me so well in fact that unless a review is no here at all, this is the primary and effectively the only place I need to go for those needs. Don't change a thing.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

NWR can change for the better by reviewing BWii.

[Jonnyboy117]

Thanks for the last few posts, they have really warmed my heart.

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Originally posted by: insanolord

Yeah I went back and checked after I posted that, so I knew it was you. That wasn't meant to be taken seriously so I hope you didn't take it that way. Those are just 2 NWR reviews I happened to disagree with. And the thing about TA is that you need to be at least somewhat of a Trek fan to appreciate the game, not in the sense of being a Trek fanboy and loving any Trek thing, but in understanding the reasons for it being the way it is and wanting it that way. I can understand that looking just the gameplay mechanics as someone who isn't a big Trek fan it wouldn't seem like a very good game.

Don't worry, I wasn't at all offended, but I will back up my review.  I am actually a "big" Star Trek fan, in that I have seen nearly every episode of the original series, absolutely every episode of Next Generation, most of Deep Space 9, half of Voyager, and almost every movie.  But this game is fan service at best.  I totally understand that Star Trek's star ship battles are slow and strategic.  However, they also last thirty seconds on the show.  Playing these out for ten minutes at a time is brain-melting due to the pace, and the strategies are not nearly complex or interesting enough to sustain such long battles.  Also, the combination of bad camera + insta-death asteroids resulted in at least half a dozen incredibly frustrating mission failures for me.

[Kairon]

Just because NWR forum members heavily criticize the occasional NWR review doesn't mean that we don't appreciate and respect your integrity!

[NWR_insanolord]

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Originally posted by: Jonnyboy117
Thanks for the last few posts, they have really warmed my heart.

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Originally posted by: insanolord

Yeah I went back and checked after I posted that, so I knew it was you. That wasn't meant to be taken seriously so I hope you didn't take it that way. Those are just 2 NWR reviews I happened to disagree with. And the thing about TA is that you need to be at least somewhat of a Trek fan to appreciate the game, not in the sense of being a Trek fanboy and loving any Trek thing, but in understanding the reasons for it being the way it is and wanting it that way. I can understand that looking just the gameplay mechanics as someone who isn't a big Trek fan it wouldn't seem like a very good game.

Don't worry, I wasn't at all offended, but I will back up my review.  I am actually a "big" Star Trek fan, in that I have seen nearly every episode of the original series, absolutely every episode of Next Generation, most of Deep Space 9, half of Voyager, and almost every movie.  But this game is fan service at best.  I totally understand that Star Trek's star ship battles are slow and strategic.  However, they also last thirty seconds on the show.  Playing these out for ten minutes at a time is brain-melting due to the pace, and the strategies are not nearly complex or interesting enough to sustain such long battles.  Also, the combination of bad camera + insta-death asteroids resulted in at least half a dozen incredibly frustrating mission failures for me.

First off, you should check out Enterprise, at least the 4th season which was way better than the other 3, though they were good too. I guess I just enjoyed TA more than you did. The camera didn't bother me too much, but the fact that you could run into and take damage from asteroids but not other ships was an odd choice. Will NWR be reviewing Star Trek: Conquest, the recent Wii game?

[ShyGuy]

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Originally posted by: Kairon
Just because NWR forum members heavily criticize the occasional NWR review doesn't mean that we don't appreciate and respect your integrity!

What's this "we" stuff? You're no longer one of us, Mr. Switch-sides.

[Kairon]

When I'm on the forums, I am! Or am I supposed to stop derailing threads alongside Golden Phoenix and Mashiro all of a sudden?

[NWR_insanolord]

You can't stop the derailings, the derailings are what make the NWR forums what they are. Like this thread for instance.

[Jonnyboy117]

Yes, planning to review Conquest.  I need to check back with Bethesda to make sure they remember to send a copy.

[wandering]

I love your site, but, no offense, I don't think it is, or could be, completely above the influence of game companies. Maybe it is in the area of reviews, but not in all areas.

From Ty's blog:

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not posting the scoop lol

I was recently reading some comments on the Sony/Kotaku thing and about game journalism in general, and this one really caught my eye:

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To me this is more of a factor of "game journalism" being totally broken than anything else. Mainstream game media is 99% dependent upon playing ball with these big companies and their PR rules. They get free hardware, free games, trips to press events and a lot of other stuff in exchange for being "responsible" and doing what the console companies and manufacturers say. I don't consider this sort of thing to be "journalism" in any way, it's just adding comments to canned media on a schedule set by the PR wings of these companies. This creates an environment where when someone does actually get some sort of scoop you end up at odds with these companies.

This is completely true, and is probably the reason I can't muster the effort to really write anything for PGC (er, NWR) other than a game review or a trolltacular forum thread.

It's some sort of rule that all non-review game coverage has to be largely positive. Even in a preview of this year's next in a series of really shitty games, it's going to be all positive, or at least optimistic. Guaranteed. And then the review comes out, and it's all "it totally sucks, what were you thinking? Ahahahahah."

So, a little over two years ago, I was doing initial impressions of a pre-release game I had gotten (hurr PR outlet hurr) and I felt the need to totally trash it. I mean, hey, I thought it totally sucked, and impressions are impressions. My editor then requested I soften it up, so I/we did (I forget who made what changes). They're still up, here. I re-read them the other day and the article reads terribly. The good news is, I found my original version, and the differences are hilarious. I'm gonna post 'em up!

Click here to read the rest of his post.      

[Kairon]

Shoulda trashed it. For all the praise that others give it, Baiten kaitos made me writhe in agony...

Wait a second, that's the soft version? You were pretty critical of the game in my eyes...

[vudu]

Jonny, you forgot to refute the belief that everyone who works for a Nintendo-specific site is a blithering fanboy.  

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

If you take the time to refute something, you're a blithering fanboy.

[Crimm]

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Originally posted by: Kairon
When I'm on the forums, I am! Or am I supposed to stop derailing threads alongside Golden Phoenix and Mashiro all of a sudden?

As temporary forum goon I have to assert the following:

Do whatever the hell you want.

[Jonnyboy117]

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Originally posted by: wandering
I love your site, but, no offense, I don't think it is, or could be, completely above the influence of game companies. Maybe it is in the area of reviews, but not in all areas.

From Ty's blog:

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not posting the scoop lol

Click here to read the rest of his post.

I had not see this blog post from Ty before, but it bothered me, so I did a little research.  Luckily, I keep copies of virtually every article that has ever been posted to the site... or at least the ones that I edited, but that's most of them.  I do have a copy of Ty's Baten Kaitos impressions that have been edited and look like the ones now on our site.  However, I don't have the original version, and Ty had a tendency to submit articles in plain text rather than in Word format, so the changes could not be tracked.  Therefore, I can't say which parts were in the original version and which were changed heavily in editing -- and Ty did not post the entire original article on the blog.

What I can say is that, like our reviews, impressions and all other types of articles that go through our editing process are returned to the author so that he or she can review all changes and suggestions and post the article only when he or she is satisfied with it.  There are exceptions to this rule but only with the author's prior consent, e.g. "I'm in a hurry, so just post this for me unless it has major problems."  So if Ty had a problem with what was done to his article by the editor, he should have said something and started a discussion at that time.

[Kairon]

There's always regrets that writers develop, I'm sure... "what ifs" that pop up. But the end result was plenty critical as it was, I don't think anyone was done a disservice by it.

[Plugabugz]

It's better to be critical on something and stand by what you say (regardless of the amount of stones, or crocodiles in kairon's case, you'll have thrown at you) than back down and start bending over backwards because someone cried foul about it.

[Saturn2888]

The reason I'm gonna write in is to say that I think NWR is the only website to ever have multiple reviews of the same piece of software. While the amount of multi-reviews have been waning recently, that's probably because there are a ton more games coming out and that the staff seems to agree more (because Bloodworth is gone ). Either way, I site that as my most memorable part of when I'd look at GameCube and GBA games years back.

[Kairon]

Must...find time...to do a third...review...of Zelda:PH...GAH!