I would say yes if anyone cared what I thought. If you do should be interesting to read, never trusted game reviews though as normally they are so wrong, so woefully wrong.

This is why I started writing them in the first place. I found that 99% of all reviews were done up within 40 odd minutes of the release of the game. While that might be fine for the magazine/site/whatever in question, it does no service to the game or the people who will play it. It means the review can only be relevant to initial gameplay, probably 5 or 6 minutes worth. It says nothing about nothing regarding: replayability, hardcore enthusiasts, genre enthusiasts, or anything else. It's strictly for the casual gamer, who buys maybe one game a year, and plays maybe 20 hours worth of games in that same year. It also means that many reviews contain blatantly false information, as you might start off without abilities that you will later gain, and the reviewer will not realize that until a week after his/her review has already been published.

4 for, 0 against. Looking good.

Btw, I'm sure Sapient cares about your opinions. You might be surprised at what he pays attention to. I've had at least a couple discussions with him that I never would have expected to have were he not an administrator who actually pays attention to and cares about the site he administrates.

FFVIII is one of my favourites myself. I know I can still play it and have fun, because I just did within the last year. I personally score it higher than 85, but not a lot higher. 95 maybe. But then, it's my favourite in the series after VI, so I have admitted bias. 

I agree that there are some pretty high scores for some mediocre at best titles. There's only a few games out there that I've given top marks to. Tetris, The Id Anthology(Doom, Doom2, the Keen series, and a bunch of other games as well all wrapped in one package, with accessories!), and Final Fantasy VI come to mind. I'm not sure I've marked any other game at full marks. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've played any other game that would deserve them. Hell, Tetris got it in part due to nostalgia(and really, how can you fuck up with Tetris?). Noone has yet gained bonus marks to go over 100(bonus marks maybe, but they were suffering in score before they picked them up), and I have always wondered if anyone could pull it off. Even some of the best games have flaws and bugs, as well as examples of poor design and corner cutting. Corner cutting especially pisses me off, because there is always remnants left over to tease the gamer like the whole reviving Aeris of FFVII shit. Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks is a perfect example. The game was nearly flawless in gameplay, music, and voice acting. But they fucked up the story hard core, and rushed it to print leaving a few side quests and secrets noticably unfinished. A possible 80-90 drops down to the 40-60 range.

Damn.. I'm rambling...

Yeah, but the effect is the same. And I didn't want to go to the trouble of typing all this out too.

Yes, and this is more than half of the problem I think. The infamous beta test has become a standard in the industry. Once it was nearly impossible to get in on one without experience. Now even major programs(see Windows Vista) are released as beta products. It's the industry getting ahead of itself, and sooner or later I think it's going to catch up with them like that whole 90's .com....fun. However, that is another discussion entirely...

I stand by the opinion that one cannot properly review a game unless one has the final, off the shelves, product in hand. Furthermore, one cannot write a proper review on a game unless they have sunk at least 10 hours worth of gameplay into the game. Preferrably 20 hours. Even Tetris would take a 5-10 hour session before a proper review could be done. A Fable or a Final Fantasy or a Dragon Quest (etc) should take at least a month. Obviously this causes a financial and strategy issue for publishers in both games and magazines, but they're the ones who tend to support unfinished and crappy products that don't live up to the hype.

100% agreed, to fully get a grip on a game(review standards) you have to of played it through, the final product, for an rpg game like FFVIII that is 50 hours atleast and even then you haven't played though the game to its fullest. You need to play the game to the fullest to give a proper review. Not just rush through the game.

Don't look for a score, I've been thinking of a scoring strategy for quite some time now, but I haven't settled on one yet(way too many factors to squish into a legible scoring card). Until I do, scores are impossible for me to give. Also, I didn't go quite as far into it as I might have were I being paid to write reviews. So if you think I left something out, that's probably why.

Final Fantasy X-2
So much potential......
This game could have been even better than Final Fantasy X. But somehow it was mutilated.

The gameplay is excellent. A couple of new features make the battles even more enjoyable than ever before. Having the ability to make combo attacks was a beautiful addition to the gameplay.

The graphics are top notch. The PS2 was really pushed to the limit with this title. Environments and characters look great.

The music is...different to say the least. If you're looking for Final Fantasy style music, it's not going to happen. They even changed the winning tune at the end of battle. The music isn't bad necessarily, but it's not as good as it was in previous titles(in my humble opinion).
 

Yuna's voice actor must have taken some classes, because she's not as annoying to listen to in the sequel as she was in Final Fantasy X. And the other voice actors do a good or great job.

Even the story was impressive. At least, the basics behind it. It could have been a far more gripping and memorable story than it was. But the biggest flaw with this game is presentation. I almost don't know how to put it into words, but this game feels like Final Fantasy up until people start talking. Then all of a sudden you're propelled into a Charlies Angels soap opera. I have to wonder if the team who worked on this game even knew what Final Fantasy is supposed to be like. The atmosphere just was never there. It didn't feel like a Final Fantasy game, even though it was the sequel to one of the greatest Final Fantasy games ever.

The thing this game did the most for me is want to play the prequel again. More and more. If ever a game was designed to make people want the previous title, this was it. FFX-2 succeeded in making the events of FFX an epic for the people of Spira. But it didn't do a whole lot for itself.

--------------------------------------------

Fable

Lots of fun, for a while.
Fable is one of the most fun games I've played. How unfortunate that it is bogged down with some major flaws. 

The first is gameplay. The levelling system and all the skills were better designed for a game that would take 20 odd hours to beat. But the absolute most you can get from the story is about 13. The average person will probably finish it by 8-9 or less. An expert can probably do it in less than 6. 

Another problem here is that there are really too many magic spells for the design of the magic system. It would work fine if it weren't an action/rpg, but in the middle of a battle with 10 creatures, switching magic menus is the last thing you want to have to do. On the plus side, you will probably pick only 6-9 spells for general use throughout the game, so switching the menu's isn't as bad as it could be. Beyond that, the gameplay is excellent. Mini-games, side quests, npc interaction is all good. It's easy to do what you want your character to do in a fight as well.

The story is rather mediocre. There's nothing exciting about it, though it can grab you emotionally at times. Mostly depending on your own actions. But there's another problem. Most of your actions do not make a difference to the story. And almost none of them really matter to the direction the game will take. Yet Fable was supposed to be big on the choices, having your experience change greatly by killing this guy instead of saving him, or some such activity. Character interaction with NPC's is the only major change.

There aren't nearly enough side quests. Getting teased by 3 really cool looking ones, that you can never do, is aggravating. To say the least. 

With the sounds, there is perfection. I never noticed a problem with the soundtrack, and never felt that something was off. The music itself rather depends on your taste, but it worked well for me.

While the graphics are great overall, there are some frame rate issues. Every now and then the game will slow down significantly. It reminds me of lagging on a MMORPG more than anything. I have to consider this an inexcusable problem. Something I might expect on a PC, where I can change settings or upgrade my system. Not on a static console where you just have to deal with it.

It's pretty cool being able to choose whether you're a good or an evil person, but it has next to nothing in impact. 2 or 3 quests you can take one or the other side of. For the rest, your choice in morals is irrelevant. You can play the entire game as an angel, only to turn viciously evil in the last second of gameplay and see the evil ending instead of the good one. That strikes me as strange, to say the least.

Beyond that, the endings aren't particularly impressive. Comparable to Doom really. The first Doom. Static picture, bit of narration, credits. All in the span of 60 seconds or less. And here I thought it was the 21st century.

The game is rather addictive. Not too hard, not too easy, and should be at least tried for it's innovations and because it is fun. Though I wouldn't recommend buying it before trying it. Easily the biggest flop of the year when it comes to living up to the hype.

Vastet, it was obvious to me that FFVIII Was your favorite, but most people wouldn't recognize your avatar. When I got my PS2 some years ago I was looking at used games and saw a copy of FFX and I thought that if there were ten in the series someone must like it. It's still the game that I have had the most emotional response to, after all it was my first.

Right now I am enjoying Fallout 3 and I am replaying Elder Scrolls IV. I have also played Most of the Final Fantsy games (except for 3,4,11).

By the way, FFX is a good atheist game, the world religion turns out to be a lie used to keep the world locked in a pepetual cycle.

X-2's gameplay was decent, but the story was disasteriffic.

I was so disappointed by it, the story seemed to be written by the Spice Girls.

I liked X and XII, Dragon Quest VIII, and Radiata Stories

Super Mario RPG for the Wii virtual console is a good one too.

Due to the lack of this generation RPGs, I'm focusing on action titles like GTAIV and RE5 and Mercs 2.

I used to really like the FEAR series until Project Origin basically killed it for me. When the first FEAR originally came out, it was groundbreaking, with the slow-mo and the intricate plot. But there were some problems which Monolith said they would fix. For one, in the original FEAR and the expansion pack, the repetitiveness was so dreary. You would spend the entire time shooting down dark, narrow corridors. Again. and again. and again. The colors were all the same and drab. I was to depressed by it too be scared.

To be fair, FEAR 2 Project Origin did fix that problem. You now get to try your hand at the Replica Exoskeletons and you spend more time outdoors. The previous FEAR did not have a sniper rifle (the utterly unimaginative setting was not conducive to sniping). But this one did, and the combination of sniping and slow mo almost makes you feel sorry for the enemy. The weapons are entirely different from FEAR and the expansion packs, a welcome change. Blowing apart enemy squads of Replicas with what is basically a walking missile launcher with the thermal vision on, this is when FEAR 2 shines. If only it wasn't killed by the color scheme. Monolith did not fix the problem of lack of color that pervaded FEAR and its expansion packs. It was, if anything, worse. Because the whole area had basically been nuked by the explosion at the Armachan vault, everywhere you fucking went was covered with this miserable grey dust and it looked awful, even with the graphics maxed out.

SPOILERS:

But the thing which really killed FEAR 2 for me was the ending. It made no sense. It was ridiculous. There was no way Genevive Aristide could have followed you through a Gauntlet of enemy activity in a city which was completely destroyed, survive unnoticed, and stop you from destroying Alma. The hallucination that followed was equally bizarre. No explanation about what happened to Keegan is made. You have no idea what has happened to your character, Beckett, and the game just cuts on a flat note. After playing for that long I expected an ending that either set up a sequel or actually resolved the problem. Instead, the game just ends and no one has any idea what happened.

I really have to disagree.

Doom was excellent for it's time - but, as the saying among Civilization players goes, "I'm afraid that time is long since passed, my chum,"

First, Halo revolutionized the health status concept in FPS games. Before Halo, you went around a level and sporadically picked-up health items; not particularly immersive, and occassionally troublesome if your level designer wasn't on their game. After Halo, everybody borrowed the idea of simply allowing the player to regenerate lost health between firefights because it's a much simpler and more elegant solution.

Second, Halo's dialogue is very, very tight (Halo 3 slipped just a bit in this department, but remains miles ahead of any contemporary contender). I don't just mean the voice acting, either - the scripts themselves are very well written, the funny and whitty parts coming across as genuinely funny and witty (not surprising, either, given Bungee's prior work with the Myth series).

Third, you couldn't possibly make the argument that it is not fun to just sit down and play some Halo. If it wasn't, there wouldn't be any fanboys.

Anyway, that aside:

I largely agree that most major magazines do not give accurate scores. A lot of scores are essentially paid for by the publisher (Gamespot's review of Perfect Dark, anyone? ), while smaller game companies tend to just get shrugged at and handed mediocre, "Better luck next time, champ!" reviews so that hype can be continually fed into the blockbuster titles of the year.

GameFAQs tends to offer a better idea of what yu'll actually be picking-up - and, more importantly, all content submitted there is dynamic. Authors can update their reviews as patches come out for the game, as they get a better feel for the game, etc.

Fear's an absolute riot. The developers nailed the most important aspect - it's just so much damn fun to shoot guys in that game. STALKER got this right too, actually - you might consider checkingit out, as it shares a lot in common with Fear.

Well, I have to say: I've had Red Alert 3 almost since it's release, and I haven't put it back in my CD drive since after the first week. It's just not nearly as imaginative as Tiberium Wars or Red Alert 2; the Japanese 'mecha' motif was not as well exploited as it could have been, nothing in the game feel particularly awesome (even the mighty Soviet Armageddon Tank just doesn't hit as hard as it seems it should), the special abilities all seem a tad contrived and some seem out of place (it would've been a better idea to only give a few specialized units more meaningful abilities, even if that perhaps seems 'standard').

The story is definitely just as fun, ridiculous and campy as any Red Alert story is supposed to be, but I just didn't find anything within the gameplay to keep my attention.

Oh, and while we're talking about games n' stuff:

SEGA sucks balls. Like, they put cocks right in their mouths and just go a-gobblin'. It was okay when their shittiness was only destructive to their own stuff, like their consoles and original IPs... but man, what they're doing to new developers who sign on with them is fucking awful.

How many people have heard of Petroglyph's Universe at War? Like, maybe 3 people in the whole world? Not exactly the best game, but really solid and tremendously innovative - and totally ruined by:

A) SEGA's decision to use Games for Windows LIVE, which was a paid-subscription only service at the time, for multiplayer

B) SEGA's decision to do 'grassroots advertising'. The thing is, to do grassroots advertising, you have to, y'know. Do said advertising. SEGA did no advertising at all, but just called it 'grass roots, word of mouth advertising' in order to justify spending no money and doing no work.

Result: Nobody has heard of Universe at War, certainly haven't played it, and it flopped.

Now then: who has heard of Stormrise?

What? Nobody?

SEG fuckin' A.

http://www.sega.co.uk/stormrise/stormrise.php

I know. Awesome, right?

Two months away.

I remember when I used to play console games(from the 2600 to the Nintendo to the Genesis, blah blah). I remember when I used to play stand alone PC games. I remember finding the original Enemy Territory, and learning to be a killer engineer. And so on, and so forth.

That all ended a few years back, when I picked up a DVD trial for a game called World of Warcraft. Goodbye, spare time! I'll miss you, going to sleep before 3AM!

Yeah, WAR. What a WoW ripoff! http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/10/

(I am assuming that we are talking about the same thing, otherwise this whole reply is pointless)

LOL

The quests are quite repetitive. I'm into it for the lore(I also enjoy the books and other media) and for groups. I'm on a PVE server, so I engage in PvP when I'm in the mood. Normally, I'm grouping with guildies for instance runs. Well, that and making horrible jokes about sex and drugs, being the uncouth heathens that we are. I'm currently campaigning to raise money to send one of our tanks out to Nevada to find a hooker. That's just the type of guild we are.

Aids revolutionized how most people see unprotected sex, doesn't mean it was a good thing. It was also the death of the challenging game, I agree health meters were not perfect but they are a dam side better than sitting behind a table for a couple seconds and presto instant heal, it means theres no need it be careful in a fight as when its over you are instantly back to full health. Health meters and health pick ups some how didn't harm immersion with me. Mabe if the system is improved apon il start to like it but as Ive seen it I don't. 

Haven't you noticed there are fanboys for everything? That being said its ok, fun for acouple minutes then it gets boring as hell.

I enjoyed it for a bit, could of done with a bit more improvment. Its a shame no one really has heard of it because it really wasn't a bad game. One of the better stratagy games ive played. 

In that case STALKER was fun to bad I got the gold ending, for some reason clear sky didn't click.

Windows 3.1 era was FTW!  I loved playing the blues brothers game back then, but in retrospect It was really awful

What was so bad about Perfect Dark? 

I'm suprised no one has mentioned Half Life, or Half Life 2.

Anyone else play(ed) Starcraft, Warcraft III, and/or Neverwinter Nights?

Haven't played any of the first three, though I've heard good things about them. I play Starcraft alot, Warcraft 2 a bit, Warcraft 3 I didn't like so much. Either I don't get it, or the computer has too many advantages in multiplay. Internet accessibility has been too unstable for me to get online with PC games for the last couple years. The PC that can actually run those games is currently borked with a well implanted virus. I thought it had an anti-virus program on it, but as it turned out no such luck. I can't believe my roomate hadn't had one on his pc. lol. The only real option for me at this moment is to attempt to scan the drive with my older HDD. But I'm not particularly sure how well a Win XP computer will run Win 98 and a Win 98 HDD, let alone whether or not a Win 98 system can scan a Win XP system. So it's just been sitting there collecting dust for the last few months.

Heh. I have tried doing campaigns with computer allies, but the fuckers are stupid. I either obliterate the enemy without contest(sometimes without even participating), or I get obliterated while they're off smacking someone else.

My biggest problem with WCIII beyond the difficulty is the speed setting. One can compensate for the computer's efficiency and even for it's resource aquisition advantages if one can slow the speed down enough to match the computer's ability to do 50 things in one fraction of a second. But with the speed setting stuck where it is, one is very much incapable of keeping up.

A big thanks in explaining what the difficulty levels actually do though. Shit moves too quickly to figure it out by watching replays, like one could do with the previous games in Blizzards inventory.

Neverwinter Nights is based within the Forgotten Realms setting, if I remember correctly? I haven't done much gaming in D&D since the mid 90's. For the longest time I simply didn't have anything capable of playing them. At the moment I still face that, coupled with the number of games that I need to catch up on before getting into the newer ones. lol.

Nope. Good AI?

"People" on gaming nets suck. Sometimes I wonder if they are the spawning point for the somewhat less idiotic theists we usually see. Every time you get into a new game you have to go through the same process of weeding out all the total idiots and troublemakers. Again.

Sometimes going Rambo is the only way to accomplish anything. lol.

I can't begin to describe the number of times I've wanted to reach through my tv and break their game system/pc.

/rant

Sounds pretty sweet, I'll have to take a look into it. 

I've been thinking for the last few years that it may be the gaming industry who finally breaks through some of the hurdles with AI. To my knowledge, no other industry has a fraction of as many people working on it. Granted, a lot of the people working on gaming AI are working with some pretty simplistic tasks, but then you have strategy and action games, where an intelligent and capable AI can be the main focus of the entire game.

I LOVE video games even though I don't have my own console, but I used to obsessively run down my hard drive with PC games.

When I have gotten the chance to use a console, I've found a bunch of truly awesome games. I'm also a lover of the PS2/PS3, and of course many old school games. Thought I'd share:

Shadow of the Colossus - This game is just GORGEOUS. You only fight gigantic bosses, but each boss is one gigantic puzzle/action game and running around the lush scenery is fun in itself.

Grand Theft Auto IV - I don't care if it's overhyped. It's SO FUN.

Resident Evil 4 - AMAZING game

God of War II - just as fun as the first one

Fatal Frame II - a very creepy game where your only weapon against realistic ghosts in a haunted town is a camera

The Sims 2 on the PC - classic, addicting...made me want to fill up my computer with so many custom objects that I had to uninstall it because my computer almost died ...haha

Oh yeah, and I installed the free trial version of WoW and couldn't stop playing. I had to delete it or I'd have no life.