Need A Little Help With Game Reviews [school project]

morbo

Just want to ask for a wee bit of help from anyone that's interested. I'm a 4th year student and I'm doing a project about parents guides to computer games. That is points of view and reviews for Irish people by Irish people. Not American religious organisations! So if anyone wants to write a review or critique, drop me a pm.

Anywho! I've been a member of this site for ages, and this is my first post! Now that's lazy!

Also, as Brian will probably read this, hey, it's Wayne.

Also, can someone please get a Morbo avatar? Possible add a search for the avatars too?

TheAlmightyArse

Are you looking for a critical analysis of a game or a breakdown of content and suitability? In case mum is reading this, it's Karl. Hey ma! I'm on the PC's TV!

morbo

Both. The content and suitability side is more important than the critique, but it's nice to have both.

ambro25

Manhunt is extremely violent and not suitable for under 18s. It contains blood, swearing, gun battles.

Grand Theft Auto (insert variant here) is extremely violent and not suitable for under 18s. It contains blood, swearing, gun battles.

DOOM 3 is extremely violent and...

Yoshi's Island is very colourful, stimulates the imagination young and old and is eminently suitable for all ages.

Crash Bandicoot is very colourful, stimulates the imagination young and old and is eminently suitable for all ages.

Yoshi's Island is very colourful, stimulates the imagination young and old and ...

That does it?

Dont be at yourself

In fairness, all this stuff is contained in the PEGI rating, which, in my experience, go completely ignored by 99% of parents.

monument

... http://www.pegi.info/

Syth

I'm sure a quick look at the back of the case for all games will tell you if it's suitable 99% of the time. However it depends on what the parent's think is suitable. Some parents wouldn't mind little johnnie playing a game where you shoot monsters. It all depends on the parents.

rainbow kirby

Then you get the really weird parents who don't mind little jimmy shooting up a city in GTA, but go 'OMG! teh occult!' about little jimmy playing Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban...
/me rolls eyes...

morbo

I'm looking for a bit more detail that a picture of a fist or "@*!" or that stupid discrimination one with the two tall white guys standing either side of the little black guy. It looks like a ****ing poorly made sandwich! Careful now! This game has bread and filling references! We don’t want little Jimmy getting hungry while he’s playing games now do we?

morbo

ambro25 wrote:

Manhunt is extremely violent and not suitable for under 18s. It contains blood, swearing, gun battles.

Grand Theft Auto (insert variant here) is extremely violent and not suitable for under 18s. It contains blood, swearing, gun battles.

DOOM 3 is extremely violent and...

Yoshi's Island is very colourful, stimulates the imagination young and old and is eminently suitable for all ages.

Crash Bandicoot is very colourful, stimulates the imagination young and old and is eminently suitable for all ages.

Yoshi's Island is very colourful, stimulates the imagination young and old and ...

That does it?

I think what you're looking to put after Doom 3 is "extremely violent and... ****! Complete DONKEY BALLS! Not only can't you do anything exciting in it, looking at the same 3 shades of brown will cause anyone, not just children to go completly bat **** ****ing postal!

As you can probably tell, I not a fan of Doom 3. It is a wee bit pooh! It was so easy and... just... crass! Sorry. There's a little built up resentment there.

But having said that, at least you're giving this a go! Now all we need to do is flesh each of these critiques out a bit. Maybe another 500 words or so?

tman

i know you asked nicely and all... but do you seriously expect people to contribute 500 word reviews so that you can finish your homework?

monument

morbo wrote:

I'm looking for a bit more detail that a picture of a fist or "@*!" or that stupid discrimination one with the two tall white guys standing either side of the little black guy. It looks like a ****ing poorly made sandwich! Careful now! This game has bread and filling references! We don’t want little Jimmy getting hungry while he’s playing games now do we?

'18+'
+
"fist"
(etc)
=
NOT FOR UNDER 18s
IT IS THAT SIMPLE

dearg_doom

monument wrote:

'18+'
+
"fist"
(etc)
=
pr0n

guns on the other hand!

monument

Oh, that was bound to backfire.

morbo

I have already written 15 or so critiques and am just looking to see what other people would have to say on certain games. It's all well and good to say "18" + "Fist" = Not for under 18's. BUT!!! Why is it 18's? What is in the game that is unsuitable? What do you think the messages certain games convey is? And so forth. It's not that hard.

monument

Here, look at this to see more about Pegi and what all the icons mean... http://www.pegi.info/rating.jsp

I'm not doing your home work / project. Do your own reserch! If you have any questions contact Pegi directly, if they do not respond contact ELSPA - http://www.elspa.com/

morbo

Look monument, you just don't get it so stop wasting my time.

I'm not looking for someone to do my work for me. I am however looking for what other people thought about games, their content, did they think the rating was fair, etc.

It's a pretty simple concept! Just try reach on out there and grasp it. Go on… just a little further… that’s it… just there… just to the left of the monitor… you can do it!

Like I have already said, I have already written my own reviews for about 15 games. I am on here to get other points of view from people that understand games and the rating crap. So I can do a comparison with mine to see if I left anything out in my version and so forth.

I have asked people on 6 other forum sites the same thing. This is the only one that has had a negative reaction. It's like asking people to sit still after giving them sugar, the kids (this ****ING forum), just can't do it! But for the adults (the other forums) IT'S EASY!

And this is research you dung beetle! Do you think everything you ever read on a website while doing research just magically appeared on the page? Or perhaps websites are the dropping of some mythical animal thought once to be extinct? Well... Eh... NOPE! It was written by someone else! That's right! SOMEONE ELSE! Just like what I'm trying to do here.

For the love of tables! I've never come across so many lazy, unhelpful, people in my life. And I've been in many Dublin taxis! To anyone who has actually been helpful. Thanks. I know I'm not exactly endearing myself to anyone on here, and that I may come off just a little bit sarcastic, but I couldn't give a monkey!

dearg_doom

morbo.... chill man!

monument has given you help! those two websites have the legal answers to your questions, and two minutes glancing at the GAMES board will give you our(ie: the general gamer) opinion.

also, in monument's sig is a liknky to an Irish games site which could mean that he/she is involved with them... maybe he/she could help you if you didn't come accross as so lazy/argumentative :rolleyes:

morbo

I have already been in contact with PEGI, ELSPA and Games Toaster. I find it insulting that monument would assume I didn't go directly to those sites. They being the most obvious place to get started and all! I have been in contact with PEGI at least once a week for the last five months. I have put allot of work into this project. I am basically looking for extra information to back up my conclusions and so forth. Again, this leads back to my point about a negative reaction. No other forum site assumed I was being lazy. They just helped as best they could. And I started my own thread to get all the info in one place. Strike up an intellectual conversation about what goes on in games and get a little bonding done.

morbo

And all monument has done is give me sarcasm and been pissy!
Do you think this is constructive criticism or in anyway helpful?

monument wrote:

'18+'
+
"fist"
(etc)
=
NOT FOR UNDER 18s
IT IS THAT SIMPLE

I don't.

KdjaCL

Morbo taking your original Q and asking about a review for games for parents almost everyone here has giving you the answer PEGI.

Its a system that works, if you want to know some other info about reviewing games then state that.

I not pissing on you but your original post was answered. Pegi works and works very well when adhered to(but thats a different topic altogether).


kdjac

monument

I apologise for presuming you were trying to get someone to do your work for you, it was wrong of me to do so. In its original form, I misunderstood what you wanted to know.

Actually as you have not gone into any real particulars I honestly do not know if you mean forth year in secondary school or higher education (I don’t go around presuming everything!).

You really should have been clearer about what you wanted. In addition, you should have gone into more detail about what you wanted to achieve with the information you gathered here. The first time you were asking for more information, you did not even say what you wanted.

To start off on a fresh slate - What games have your reviewed and what did you say about them? Even thought I know the list would be 15 games long, it is a lot easer the us all guessing what games you done the work on.

After that, if you have any other questions we children here might be able to answer them (taking the piss, but being constructive!).

BTW I often use a magical (thought to be extinct) mythical animals, mostly the ‘Typing Monkeys of Fleet St’.

dearg_doom

monument wrote:

‘Typing Monkeys of Fleet St’.[/SIZE]

'it was the best of times, it was the blurst of times '

Brerrabbit

as many here have said the PEGI system is a good indication of what is suitable for what ages and should have come in yonks ago. Whether or not parents pay any attention to what games their kids play (beyond the price) is another thing.

give us the list of games you've reviewed and we'll have a look-see.

Incidentally if you are in fourth year of secondary school (rather than college) and some of the games you reviewed are 18+ then in your report you probably should address how you got them in the first place its a point your likely to be asked about.

It seems theres three levels of control; the classifiers, the retailers and the parents. the classification bodies are doing there job, I don't know either way about the retailers (Though they seem to be ID-ing kids trying to buy 18+ games whenever I'm in a shop, so I think they're holding up their end).

The parents though is where the real control is; how can little Johhny go out and buy san andreas - a €50 game; thats a lot of cash to have been saved up from pocket money. I think it's more likely games are given as birthday presents etc in which case the folks should probably know where Johhny's going with his cash. (Unless the little git is shop lifing it or something )
It's very easy for parents to be blamed in these sort of cases (Though it's also easy for them to do the blaming...)

Incidentally theres a parenting forum on this site; it might be worth your while putting a post there asking for their opinion; it might yield some useful angles.