• 1Dec 07

  Are you satisfied?

  Well, are you? I know that you're too damned high and mighty to read the post of a user, but what you've done to GameSpot as a community and as a website is unforgivable. By firing Jeff as you did, you ripped out the soul of GameSpot and caused the entire userbase to question every review posted from here on out. People won't be able to see a 9.0+ review and not wonder if some corporate drone was responsible.

  I understand that GameSpot and CNET is a business, and businesses need money to stay afloat and pay the staff. However, this is different. For a review to matter, the reviewers need to be trusted. Their opinions need to be honest and well-presented. They need to be readable, and they need to speak truthfully, even if the truth isn't something that the game publishers and developers in question want to hear. By letting Jeff go, you've sent the message that these facts aren't important to you, and that youd rather keep your advertisers than reader loyalty.

  And believe me, I was loyal to your website for years. I trusted GameSpot's reviews on a more consistant basis than any other review source available. I've been a stand-up member of the GS forums and community, and for a while, I was even a forum moderator. Thanks to you, all of that's being thrown away. I've already cancelled my Total Access subscription, and I may very well take my posting elsewhere, once I know where it is that I want to go.

  More than anything though, I feel depressed for what your betrayal has done to good people like Jeff, Alex, Bethany, and Kevin. May they all find happiness whereever life takes them.

  Is this how you treat intelligence? Is this how you treat honesty? You're pathetic; you've managed to destroy what took years to create, and all the while, you're tucked in your office counting Eidos's money. If you aren't satisified with what you've done, if your destruction of everything that the GS editorial staff stood for isn't enough to quench you, then you are nothing, and I hope that your greed-fueled actions come back to haunt you.

  As this will most likely be my final posting on the GameSpot blog system, allow me to close by telling you one last thing. Whether you understand the reference or not is unimportant to me, but that doesn't change my sentiment:

  Don't go to Heaven.

  • Posted Dec 1, 2007 11:52 am GMT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 13Nov 07

  The worst-written review ever posted on GameSpot.

  I wish I were writing about the worst review in terms of worst game ever reviewed. After all, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is barely deserving of the single point on the scale that GameSpot gave it, if only because they don't hand out zeroes. Also, "You're Winner" still has some punch when delivered properly. But no, what I'm writing about is the worst review in terms of review quality that I have ever read on this website. The GameSpot review of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.

  Now, to start off, and to be fair, I have yet to finish the game. I'm in the middle of Part 3 and still have a ways to go before I reach the end. Even so, there are so many inaccuracies, misplaced criticisms and obtuse comments that it's absolutely mind boggling. Did Lark play the same game that I'm playing? I assume he did, but wow. Where to begin.

  I suppose a good spot to start would be in the closing statements that summarize the review: "Ultimately, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is a huge disappointment. It seems that nothing was learned from the making of Path of Radiance, and as a direct follow-up, Radiant Dawn can't even live up to its predecessor's epic story."

  That's actually one of the more sane-sounding statements, if still off-base. I'll get back to that in a moment. Let's try this one: "Despite being a Wii game, it doesn't make any attempt to use any of the system's strengths, such as Mii support, online support, or motion controls and pointing, even though the advantages of such integration should be plainly obvious."

  Mii support? He's complaining about the lack of Mii support in a Fire Emblem game? If that's a valid complaint, I should start complaining about the lack of sword combat in Madden. I mean seriously, Mii support? What benefit could that possibly bring? Why is it a negative that it's not in there? Huh?

  That bit of lunacy aside, what about online support? I admit that online battles between players in the game would be fun, but here's the thing. Once again, is it something that the game needs? The vast majority of strategy RPGs I've played don't even feature multiplayer components of any kind, and those that do (such as the GBA Fire Emblem titles) I never bothered to use. I play Fire Emblem games for their challenging campaigns and interesting storylines and characters. Not online multiplayer.

  And the controls? Well, the Wii provides plenty of control options. There's the Wii Remote turned sideways, the Cla$$ic Controller, or if you really liked the Path of Radiance controls, GameCube controller support. Would it have been nice if units could be moved using the pointer on the Wii Remote? Maybe, but once again, why knock a game for not using such a scheme when there are three perfectly good control schemes to choose from?

  Next? More gameplay discussion, in which there is whining about the difficulty: "Although some may see this as a boon, the difficulty ventures beyond the realm of challenging and into the bitter waters of maddening, and it will easily overwhelm even experienced tacticians. The ability to save in midbattle is a welcome new feature that helps to mitigate the punishing difficulty, but because you are essentially forced to rely on it all of the time, it cheapens the overall experience greatly--unless you like the idea of starting entire battles over again upward of seven times until you can complete them without losing precious allies. There are three difficulty settings, but as previously mentioned, even the easy setting is extremely tough."

  As an experienced Fire Emblem player, I find the difficulty on Normal a challenge, but not overwhelmingly frustrating. I originally thought that the Battle Save feature was nothing more than a way to make the game easier for newcomers, but it's really a tool for everyone because the of the steep difficulty climb compared to Path of Radiance. And you know, as someone who has gotten used to the particulars of Fire Emblem gameplay, that increased difficulty isn't so bad. That the game threw me into the fire instead of a series of increasingly complex tutorials disguised as missions is great. Newcomers still have tutorials to reference, and it is an admittedly steep hill to climb, but is the fact that the game doesn't hold your hand really a bad thing? Some missions have been tense, but the mission design and variety in Radiant Dawn is miles ahead of the missions in Path of Radiance with a greater variety of objectives and environments.

  Enough about the gameplay for now. Let's get to the story: "With your army, you will battle a series of villains that are for the most part so laughably one-dimensional that they might as well be cackling while tying young damsels to railroad tracks and twirling their handlebar mustaches."

  Huh. All right, then. The review states that the villains do get better later in the game, but let's put the focus on the villains in the early portion, specifically Part 1, focusing on the Dawn Brigade's battle against Begnion. To recap, at the end of Path of Radiance, Begnion took control of Daein, and an occupation force was since put in place. Doesn't it strike anyone else that realistically, a corrupt military commander in such a powerful situation might get his jollies from putting his boot down on the populace? It was already well-established in Path of Radiance that Begnion's senators are corrupt, so why should that corruption not extend to members of the military ranks?

  To touch on the story of Radiant Dawn in general, the game is much more event-focused than the previous game, which was focused entirely on Ike's maturation. Path of Radiance introduced the major players, and most every surviving character from the game makes an appearance in Radiant Dawn in one form or another. For people that have played the previous game, these are characters that we already know, and so there's no need to reintroduce them. Rather than a personal story like Ike's, this is a story of the continent, putting focus on specific groups of characters depending on the section, and even leads to some surprises. For instance, there's one chapter in which two minor player characters from PoR, Nephenee and Brom, become the leads in what turns out to be a very tense boss fight. That's just awesome.

  One more bit about the story, quoth the review: "Without any way of tying one stationary backdrop into another (given that cutscenes are so rare), events often occur inexplicably, such as one case early in the game when Micaiah is in a forest one moment and in a prison the next."

  This is the reviewer being either willfully ignorant or just plain obtuse. I mean really. In the part of the game described here, Micaiah is alone in the forest when her group has split up to look for someone. She falls into the enemy's trap. Naturally, she's sent to a prison. What was the reviewer expecting? What do you normally do with criminals? Hire them to sell junk on QVC?

  And on and on. Don't get me wrong. The author of this review has written plenty of reviews that I've either had no quarrel with or have found informative, but his review of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is so abnormally poor that I'd advise anyone looking into buying the game read reviews from other sources. This is a shame because I normally consider GameSpot one of the more trustworthy review sites out there, but in this case, it's a pass. Radiant Dawn is a much better game than the review lets on and the text is inaccurate in so many ways that it's amazing to me that it made it to publication. To respond to the first quote above, the game is not a disappointment to me in the least. Radiant Dawn isn't perfect; it has some flaws here and there, but to consider the game a disappointment or a disaster, particularly with the points as presented in the review, is absurd.
  • Posted Nov 13, 2007 11:17 pm GMT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 6Nov 07

  Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn impressions.

  After getting out of work, I took the bus out to the mall to pick up my Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn preorder and have spent the evening playing through the first few chapters. I've played up to the point where the shop and management screens become available, so I think I'm ready to give some impressions of the game.

  First off, Radiant Dawn is, from the start, a much more difficult game than Path of Radiance. Through the first several missions at least, the battle is lost if any of your characters die, rather than just the main character. I had to restart Chapter 3 several times because one of my weaker units would get picked off. It's still a fair challenge, however, and the whiners...er, newcomers will be glad to know that there's a Battle Save option, which creates a permanent save during battle so you don't have to restart if you don't want. (Though you're still screwed if you Battle Save right before an enemy unit kills one of your guys.)

  Radiant Dawn also allows uploading clear save data from Path of Radiance. By loading a clear file, you'll get some boosts to returning characters and unlock all of the support conversations from Path of Radiance that were unlocked on the save file. I'm not sure what else if anything it does, but given what a help a particular returnee was for me in Chapter 3 (once I started putting her to use, that is), it's definitely a nice boost.

  Speaking of supports, the support system has also been tweaked. Each character is now limited to one support relationship, so if you want to create a support relationship between Micaiah and Laura, for example, you'll need to break the support between Micaiah and Sothe that exists from the game's start. I have yet to see any support conversations, however, so I'm not sure how else the supports come into play. I may find out the further I play into the game. However, there is a character tree in the library that displays the relationships of all of the characters as each new character is revealed, which is a nice touch, along with a list of terms that should be of help to anyone that didn't play Path of Radiance.

  Otherwise, the game is Fire Emblem through and through, with some tweaks here and there that enhance the gameplay and presentation. For instance, any time support effects go off during battle, a brief animation will play before the start of a skirmish to highlight the affected characters. Also, the names of skills and skill effects appear as they go off, so you don't have to feel mystified when a character suddenly does something completely awesome seemingly at random. Elevation also plays a role on the battlefield, and characters can climb up or drop down certain ledges to access shortcuts or to give a height advantage to archers. The overall quality of the graphics and animation has also been increased over Path of Radiance, with more detailed character models, a sharper cel-shaded look, and more impressive combat. The same goes for the one FMV cutscene I've seen so far.

  I've been playing the game with a Classic Controller, and it works great. I asusme that when a GameCube controller is plugged in, it uses the Path of Radiance controls, which were also nice, but I doubt I'll bother with the Wii Remote-only option. There isn't any use of motion control in the game whatsoever, but that makes perfect sense because strategy RPGs don't need waggle.

  Overall, Radiant Dawn is a larger, much more impressive game than Path of Radiance. If you have a Wii, it is totally worth picking up. I imagine that this is a game that will be keeping me occupied for quite a while.

  • Posted Nov 6, 2007 11:22 pm GMT
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