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Christmas Cheer Entertainment Games

How Not To Buy Crap Games This Season 143

Posted by Zonk from the who-needs-presents-that-aren't-good dept.
The Guardian Gamesblog has a short guide on avoiding bad games and helping the games industry. From the article: "Say no to film and TV tie-ins - These are generally belted out in nine months by newcomers treated little better than sweatshop workers. If you're fed the line, 'the director was fully involved in the making of this game', beware. This means, roughly, 'The director sent his lawyers to the studio with a 300-page guide, warning that if it were breached, the team would be shot.'"
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How Not To Buy Crap Games This Season More

How Not To Buy Crap Games This Season

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  • Film and Movie Tie-ins (Score:4, Insightful)

    by csbrooks ( 126129 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @09:37AM (#14062226) Homepage

    Even though Spiderman 2 and The Incredible Hulk were both really awesome games? This sounds like crummy advice.

    Here's what I do: never buy a game until you're read some good reviews. NOT previews, which are always suspiciously glowing. After getting burned buying a few $50 games the first day they came out, I stick hard and fast to this rule.

    Even then sometimes I wait a year or so until they're $20 at Wal-mart.

    • As a general rule the avoiding movie/tv/comic book tie-ins is good advice. Sure, there are exceptions (as there are to any rule), but keeping it in mind as a guideline can save you a lot of pain and suffering (Aquaman anyone?).

      The best advice you could ever get for purchasing games is (assuming you know what kind of games you like to play):

      - Read reviews. Not just one review from Gamespot or IGN (I find their reviews to be garbage more often than not), but from other places as well. Try a site you

      • Re:Film and Movie Tie-ins (Score:4, Informative)

        by pnice ( 753704 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @10:08AM (#14062481)
        What do you think about http://www.gamerankings.com/ [gamerankings.com]? It seems to work pretty good if you are looking for multiple review scores for one game and it puts them all together in a handy location. Then you can just follow the link to read the actual review. I use it when I am really serious about wanting a game but I want to check with multiple review sites to see if they all gave it the same general rating.
        • Hey, any site that aggregates reviews like that gets a plus in my book.
          • Laugh if you want, but I've found that the quality of X-Play's reviews has been pretty solid. They're tied to a lousy TV network, but they post all of their reviews at the website. Good stuff.
        • I looked at your link. However compare that site to GameTab's Reviews area. http://www.gametab.com/reviews/ [gametab.com] Also be sure to check out GameTab's customizable news area. I only found this site recently and already am liking it.

          Personally, I hardly ever need to check reviews by the time a PC game has hit stores. I'll know way before that point if I'm interested in buying or not. Everything gets preview'd beforehand. If somehow a stinker slips by me and onto my PC, I'll return it if possible and get my money

        • Re:Film and Movie Tie-ins (Score:5, Interesting)

          by badasscat ( 563442 ) <basscadet75NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:49PM (#14064219)
          What do you think about http://www.gamerankings.com/ [gamerankings.com]?

          Everybody knows about gamerankings.com and I think a lot of people put too much stock in them.

          The problem is review scores - even aggregated ones - tell you nothing. Reviewers often get so caught up in hype themselves that they can't (or won't) see a game's faults, and of course there's the issue of paid advertising at almost every publication. That's not to say reviews themselves are useless, but just looking at a score - even an average of the scores from a bunch of publications - is not going to tell you anything.

          But for some of the same reasons, simply reading one or two reviews is not going to help you either. What you need to do is read between the lines when you read these reviews. Ask yourself "what is this reviewer not telling me about this game?"

          For example, before I bought NFL 2K5, I read a bunch of reviews about it. None of them spent more than a couple sentences talking about the franchise mode, which is the main mode I play in every sports game I buy. If they said anything, it was just about it being more "fleshed out" than the year before. Still, they all said the core gameplay was great, so I bought the game. Sure enough, franchise mode was so buggy that it was literally impossible to play more than a couple seasons of it (destroying the whole point of that mode). The developer forums were flush with complaints about numerous game-stopping bugs, several of which I personally encountered pretty quickly, but none of which were mentioned in any review I read.

          Obviously, these reviewers simply hadn't played that mode. They looked at the options and assumed they knew how it worked and that was enough for them. I should have known better, because not a single one of these reviews mentioned anything about playing more than a couple games in franchise mode.

          It's not just about bugs, though. Reviewers are paid to review what's there, not what's not there. Ask yourself what you're expecting out of a game and whether the reviews you're reading are speaking directly to those wants or not. If you're looking for an adventure game and you find a game you think you might be interested in but the reviewers just talk about how much fun it is to shoot zombies, then even if the game gets a high score, it's probably not for you.

          Beyond that, though, there is definitely real corruption in game journalism, whether intentional or not. I think a lot of it is actually not intentional; reviewers get wooed and wowed by big publishers with trips and gifts and whatnot, and all the while the publisher hammers into their heads how big a particular game is going to be, how awesome it is, how everybody's looking forward to it. Eventually it becomes a self-fulfilling thing, and you see more preview coverage and more hype. The press themselves buy into it. The game comes out and in order to justify themselves, all of the press gives it a ridiculously high score. Look at a game like The Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker, which even Shigeru Miyamoto now calls "boring" and basically unfinished. But it has a score of 94.9% on GameRankings, because the press bought the hype that they themselves helped create.

          So my point is you cannot rely on scores (even aggregate ones) and you cannot rely solely on "sound bites" culled from reviews. You need to read reviews carefully and think about why reviewers say certain things and why they are not saying other things. Basically, just use some critical thinking skills - skills that a lot of game reviewers lack.
          • It often helps to seek out the review with the lowest rating and look at the complaints, perhaps contrast it with on with a very high rating.

            Look at a game like The Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker, which even Shigeru Miyamoto now calls "boring" and basically unfinished. But it has a score of 94.9% on GameRankings, because the press bought the hype that they themselves helped create.

            Miyamoto said it "wasn't all that it could have been", boring is something completely different. It could have used more dungeo
          • "The problem is review scores - even aggregated ones - tell you nothing. Reviewers often get so caught up in hype themselves that they can't (or won't) see a game's faults, and of course there's the issue of paid advertising at almost every publication."

            It should be noted that gamerankings.com and sites like gamespot.com have user ratings in addition to the media outlet ones. As in any open forum some user reviews are written by blithering idiots, but others are very insightful and make note of points the r

          • Re:Film and Movie Tie-ins (Score:5, Informative)

            by edwdig ( 47888 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @04:17PM (#14066255)
            Look at a game like The Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker, which even Shigeru Miyamoto now calls "boring" and basically unfinished. But it has a score of 94.9% on GameRankings, because the press bought the hype that they themselves helped create.

            Miyamoto did not say Wind Waker is boring. He said the triforce hunt section of the game was boring. He did have a list of things he would do differently if he had more time to work on the game, but every game designer has a list like that for every game they have ever worked on.

            The triforce hunt does get boring, but it's not that big a section of the game. The only other significant flaw in the game is that you have to get pretty far into the game before the enemies do a significant amount of damage to you, which means that once you get a couple hearts you pretty much can't die unless you're trying to. Despite the claims of the people who only played Ocarina of Time, the graphics fit in with the style of the rest of the series perfectly and are very well done. Quite honestly, if the development team had another 3 months or so to work on the game, it probably would have easily topped Ocarina of Time. In the end, it definitely is one of the better games in the series.
      • Personally I always check Gamespy.com first. Seen the reviews for the Shadow the Hedgehog game? Checked a few sites and many are suspiciously glowing, whereas Gamespy and Eurogamer seem willing to be honest and say it's a terrible game. Dunno which is right but Gamespy seem to be a lot more critical of games.
      • "Rent it first!" - Once upona time I'd wholeheartedly agree with you. Nowadays, I don't think that's such good advice. Where I live, it costs $7 - $10 to rent. Granted, that's for a whole week, but my rental store options don't offer weekend rentals anymore. That's about 1/5 the cost fo a game. When games were $4 rentals and $40 purchases rent-before-you-buy made a whole lot more sense. Now when I look at a title, I rent the ones that I'll only play for a week or two at most. For example, X-Men Legen
      • Rent it first is only a good idea half of the time. Living purely by this rule means you will never get independent or games that have little advertising budgets.

        More often then not places that you can rent games from will not have a lot of the games that you want to try out. For example, Katamari Damacy was not available to be rented until the industry was already screaming rave reviews. Or a different example, Guitar Hero, the game is getting nothing but great reviews but no one carries it for rental.

        Gene
    • The best movie->game in recent memory is Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay.
    • 'Course, you could always wait a year until after the release date. By then the marketing department is done flooding the market with biased previews and reviews, the price has dropped from ~$60 to ~$30 and the biggest patches the game will receive have been released. With that in mind, is there any reason to buy a game on its release date?

  • How to avoid bad games? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LehiNephi ( 695428 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @09:51AM (#14062345) Journal
    Wait for the review at least.

    Seriously, I've found that waiting on both hardware and software purchases saves loads of money. Wait a few months until after the game has been out. Then go ahead and buy it if it turns out to be good/popular.

    I see no validity in the implication that just because it's released right before Christmas, you must buy it for Christmas. There are plenty of other games that have been out for a while and proven their value. Don't be a lemming.
  • Even sweatshop workers can work miracles under the threat of being shot.

  • Download the game first. If you like it and play past an hour or so: buy it. Otherwise trash it.
    • Yeah, I've heard this logic used before. Some people I know use this same argument. They download a game, find that they enjoy it for several hours past the one you suggest, and then don't buy it, even though they said they would if they enjoyed it. Instead, they just sit there with this "I'll buy it later" or "I have other things to spend my money on" mentality while the game never actually gets purchased but continues to get played.

      This is obviously not a problem with people who honestly purchase games

  • Counter examples (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 2008 ( 900939 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @10:00AM (#14062419) Journal
    Say no to film and TV tie-ins:
    Tie Fighter, Chronicles of Riddick

    Avoid gangster adventures:
    GTA (OK, maybe they meant to exclude that themselves)

    The second world war is over:
    Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory - maybe not an incredible game but it's great value.

    Try an original title:
    Many of these suck too...

    Download an independent game:
    Most people seem to think Darwinia isn't much fun to play. Certainly there are plenty of awful flash games.

    terrible games based on cartoons:
    Astro Boy (GBA). It's by Treasure!
    • Yeah, but say no to film and TV tie-ins this christmas season. Tie Fighter's a ghost of xmas past dude.

      Same for GTA. Don't avoid GTA -- avoid GTA ripoffs.

      And WWII. WW2 games got a kick in popularity from Band of Brothers, and we saw a bunch of ripoffs of that series. Now we're seeing the ripoff of the ripoffs.

      Original and indie titles do often suck -- hell, they're often much worse than the McSoftware that EA vends. But you *might* find something good; and if you don't, well, at least you can be smug and
    • Movie game THIS season: King Kong. This looks quite good, especially since the developers behind this game made the awesome Beyond Good and Evil! The rule should be: Avoid movie/tv games made by EA.

      WWII: Call of Duty 2 is quite an awesome looking and playing game. It, and its' original are a blast.

      • The rule should be: Avoid movie/tv games made by EA.

        I dunno, their Lord of the Rings games are really good (except for that Third Age RPG), and some of their Bond games aren't bad either (Everything or Nothing was excellent, although not strictly a movie tie-in).

        I think you mean: Avoid movie/tv games made by THQ [metacritic.com] or Activision [metacritic.com]. ;)
  • ...Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay? the movie sucked ass, but the game was absolutely fantastic (on my Xbox at least) One way to avoid rubbish games is to avoid smart ass general conclusions like the ones touted in TFA
  • This article isn't about saying ALL military FPS games, licensed stuff or whatever are rubbish. It's a call to buy something a bit different for a change, and save us from the monotony of being faced with a Christmas lineup in 5 years that just reads:

    Tony Hawk's Extreme Wheelchair, Brothers Of Duty: It'll Be Over By Christmas 2100, GTA: Homicide Village, Every Sport 2011, Big Film 3 or Ricer Racer: Street Edition.

    Buy something a bit different, and see what happens. It might suck after all, but at least it w
    • Best way to try something new, is to rent it. It usually give you a good opportunity to play the game for a fair price. After you just choose to buy it or not. Like this you not only know if you like the game, but also if it is worth to spend more than a week on it. Certain game have a short gameplay and are only good to rent. You can also make your own idea other than the one from th review already out. Sometime a popular and well rated game isn't always something you'll like. For myself GTA wasn't really

  • Story icon coincidence? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @10:17AM (#14062558) Homepage Journal
    It looks as if there is a Christmas tree perched on an Atari joystick.

  • Metacritic.com is where I shop first (Score:5, Informative)

    by toddlg ( 319712 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @10:18AM (#14062572)
    Metacritic games [metacritic.com] is where I visit first.

    Prettymuch if a game has an 85+ rating on here it's not going to be a total lemon.

    Just last week I was talking with our facilities manager who was lamenting he hadn't played any games on the Xbox lately, but was wanting to get some more FPS and didn't know which games were any good.

    We went to metacritic, used the advanced search, and printed off a list of the top 25 FPS for Xbox, stopped by Gamestop at lunch and he picked up 3 highly rated games.
    • We went to metacritic, used the advanced search, and printed off a list of the top 25 FPS for Xbox, stopped by Gamestop at lunch and he picked up 3 highly rated games.

      Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion to this post, where we learn whether a guy just wasted $150 on a load of crap games, or that a particular website is decent for this reviewing and recommending sort of thing.
    • I just met a top honcho at EA Europe who said in a casual conversation about developers: "this is how you hire people that give you titles with an 85+ score at Metacritic". Basically, they know that you know.

  • Indie Games (Score:5, Informative)

    by the phantom ( 107624 ) * on Friday November 18, 2005 @10:28AM (#14062661) Homepage
    The article mentions indie games, but fails to mention one of the greatest draws -- they are also generally cheap (or at least cheaper than the standard $50 per game of most large releases).

    Mutant Storm is a brilliant arcade style game that combines old school frenzy with purty graphics. It is nice to see that folk are still making games like this (now, if I could find a decent platformer -- the last good game in that genre was Castlevania: Symphony of the Night). Not only is Mutant Storm a great game, but it costs less $20.

    Darwinia is another wonderful game. Sure, it is a bit short (10 levels, less than 10 hours if you go through it at a reasonable pace), but some of the best games ever were rather short (Sonic the Hedgehog is still one of my favorite games, and can be beaten less than an hour -- two hours if you take your time). Add to this that Darwinia has a very different set of aesthetics from most modern games (rather than realistic graphics, Darwinia seeks to produce a very clean, artificial look, something like the movie Tron), an interesting interface, and a compelling story. Price: $30.

    I know that both of these were briefly mentioned in the article, but I thought that they both deserved a bit more praise.
    • Not to forget Armagetron and the famous Uplink that are really good and cheap. I even think Armagetron is free. If you search well you can surely find something good.

      Reading those article remind me it's been a long time since my last uplink game.... Should play it again.
    • A decent platformer [romhack.net], free too! Oldschool style and translated to English.
      And it's weird you mentioned SotN and forgot all about the latest game in the series, Dawn Of Sorrow.

      About Darwinia, they said it'll be availabe for purchase/download at Valve's Steam. I wish them the best of luck, and hope this will open the flood gates for cheap downloadable indie games.
      • Ack! I forgot about Cave Story! Silly me. As to Dawn of Sorrow, I hadn't heard of it. Mayhaps I will buy a DS in a few years when I can get a used one for $50. Don't laugh... I tend to buy all of my games several years after they come out -- they are cheaper that way. I only got Symphony of the Night last year, and didn't get a PS2 until last month (for $70). That being said, I am still very interested in what is coming out now, as I will be playing it in a year or two :)
        • Lucky you. If you tried to get a copy of SotN THIS year, you'd be paying out the ass... Just dropped $60 on a Greatest Hits copy since I wore out my original.

  • What about Shotgun Gaming? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Demon-Xanth ( 100910 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @10:29AM (#14062666)
    I've done this in the past:

    Instead of buying one $50 game, buy 5-10 $5-10 games. You know, games that are a year old, on clearance, etc... Sometimes you find a good game that you otherwise would have overlooked.

    If 80% of those games aren't worth playing, you still end up with one that is.

    Look used.
    GT4: $50
    GT3 (used): $6
    Will you have 700% more fun w/ GT4 over GT3?

    That's not to say don't buy the $50 game. After all, many are well worth it. (ie: Shadow of the Colossus)
    • I do something similar, my local games shop take 'trade in' games and then sell them for a fraction of the retail price, e.g. Hidden and dangerous cost me 50p less than $1, my girlfriend works for a sister company so I get a 30% discount on that. Battlefield 2 ended up costing £12.
    • Instead of buying one $50 game, buy 5-10 $5-10 games. You know, games that are a year old, on clearance, etc... Sometimes you find a good game that you otherwise would have overlooked.

      There are still a lot of games not even worth $5-$10, I've found many times I'll put down a game after only playing a few levels. It's odd, because if I had paid more money I probably would have felt more compelled to give the game a chance and would have put more effort into getting past a difficult section or more willing t

  • how to not buy crap games (Score:4, Interesting)

    by davez0r ( 717539 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @10:34AM (#14062715)
    two options:

    1. don't buy games
    2. go to http://www.gamerankings.com/ [gamerankings.com] and don't buy anything that gets lower than 90%.

    this isn't rocket science, come on.
  • Not only are they tried and true, tested and reviewed, but they can be had for $15 used at EBgames. Great games never get old.

  • movie games (Score:3, Insightful)

    by truffle ( 37924 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:00PM (#14063589) Homepage

    Knights of the Old Republic
    Chronicles of Riddick

    Two great movie license games.

    Savvy gamers will buy games based on quality of the game, unsavvy gamers won't be reading slashdot anyway so they'll keep buying movie license games.
    • I'm not going to argue that KotOR isn't a great game, but how could it possibly be a _movie_ license? Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a movie license. If anything, KotOR is a franchise license.

      It uses the Star Wars name and concepts, races, and other things established in the films.

      There is no film on which KotOR is based, and there never will be (that I've hear about at least). The events of the game don't impact the events of the films, and George Lucas himself has said that it (and every ot
    • There have been a LOT more poor movie/franchise licensed games in comparison. There was at LEAST 3 different Star Wars games on the SNES alone (episode 4, 5 and 6 games), somewhere around 20~30 games on the PC (not counting expansions) and way too many to count on the Xbox and PS2 (anywhere from Star Wars Pod Racing (or whatever it was called) to Star Wars Battlefront 2).

      Then theres the imfamous E.T. game, the incredibly bad Matrix games and the Batman/Superman/Spiderman comic book games which almost alwa

  • This holiday season I'm investing in a GP2X [homelinux.net]. This device has been reported on previously [slashdot.org] on Slashdot; basically, it's a handheld that's powered by open source software. If this doesn't help the "game industry," I don't know what will... :-)

  • Terrible way to choose a game (Score:5, Interesting)

    by brkello ( 642429 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:50PM (#14064228)
    This "article" reads like it was written by someone who reads the daily gripes about games on Slashdot. They really are guilty of generalizing specific game categories rather than helping anyone find good games. There are good games out there with movie tie-ins. There are great games that take place in WWII now matter how tired they are of it. Independant games are not magically good. Non-Sequels can be terrible. Now, if they said "A large number of games with movie tie-ins are very very bad. There are many exceptions though. Do some research on a title online first and see how people rate it. Check multiple sources." Actually, that's the advice I would give on any game. That article doesn't do much to actually help you. You'd get more out of going to gamefaqs.
  • If only there some reviews for videogames than these kinds of stupid articles would be pointless. ...oh wait...
  • What terrible generalizations.

    It's a shame the author of the article isn't aware of The Guardian Gamesblog [guardian.co.uk] that had an entry several weeks ago titled Peter Jackson - game developer [guardian.co.uk]. It seems the director was unhappy with EA's treatment of the LotR games, so for the game based on King Kong he contacted the developer of Beyond Good and Evil, a great but overlooked title, and even shipped members of the design team to New Zealand, gave them information about the movie and discussed the game with them.

    Yes, game
  • Pick up a DS and Mario Kart. Done.
  • The good reviews are easy to find, and can definitely highlight some good perks of a game. However when I make my purchase decisions I want to find ALL of the negative reviews and problems I can before I make my purchasing decision. That way I can find out what key compatability issues might be, or if things aren't working out like the developers intended (as happens TOO frequently in MMORPGs).

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