Offical X-Box Magazine

Rnger

The recent thread PC gamer made me write this...

A friend got this last weekend, and I had a quick read. Amongst the reviews and crap was - Enter The Matrix : 8.5/10

What a load of crap. 8.5+ in that magazine means its an "Elitle" game, which they can slap across the front of the box of the game if they feel like it, to make it look better to your granny for christmas/birthday.

IMHO they were paid to give such a good review of this game. I'm sure this happens all the time, but this is the only time I have clearly seen it myself.

You disagree? Think Official X-Box magazine etc. tells nothing but the truth? (Your wrong btw) Think Matrix deserves 8.5? (FANBOY!)

Retr0gamer

Remember that an official magazine has very close ties with the maker of the machine. It probably said it was better on xbox as well even though all versions are identical to the PS2 version. Never ever buy official magazines you can't trust their reviews.

dloob

Some of their reviews are very suspect.
They gave blinx 9.3/10, eurogamer gave it 6.

They do have playable demos which are nice, but I don't think the reviews can be trusted.

Retr0gamer

None of their reviews can be trusted. Just play Blinx and Matrix and you will see.

40coats

I don't think they're any more guilty of this then any other official mag (or non official mags with exclusive reviews for that matter), it's all part of the business. I remember reading about some Dutch playstation magazine which couldn't get a review copy of Vice City cause part of the contract with Rockstar Games was a score of at least 9 before they even got to play it, which they refused to do. A could place for reviews is http://www.gamerankings.com
They give an average score and links to lots of different reviews on line and in mags. And as for eurogamer, I clearly have different tastes to them, they gave Halo an 8 and Medal of Honour a 10. Lunatics.

Shinji

Hmm. Few things to bear in mind about that;

Firstly, the guy who reviewed both of those games no longer works at Eurogamer, so it's a bit harsh to judge the site based on his reviews.

Secondly, while the Frontline review is a bit unexpectedly gushing (it's a great game, but I don't think it's a 10 personally), our Allied Assault review was just about on the money (8/10) and the Halo review was also on the money (8/10). People gushed WAY too much over Halo, it was a pretty average game compared to the broad spectrum of FPS stuff out there. And 8/10 is a pretty damn high score to get from Eurogamer, since we regularly hand out scores under 5/10.

40coats

No offence meant Shinji, the lunatics comment was a bit strong. I do like the site but I will never look on Halo as an average FPS. I will concede that this argument may only hold up when talking about a console FPS, because I'd have to admit I know nothing about the PC market. I've never got comfortable with the keyboard and mouse controls you see, so Halo got me into a whole new genre which I always wanted to play but could never enjoy. It's the same reason why I like my Xbox so much, as I've aged the quirky Japanese stuff just doesn't do it for me anymore, so now I get to play more PC like games designed with a controller in mind. I'm not sure which one of the MOH was on the PS2, but whichever it was I didn't think it was any better than any of the crappy console FPS I'd played before.

Shinji

No offence meant Shinji, the lunatics comment was a bit strong.

No no, I'm not disagreeing with the concept that we're lunatics, just defending some review scores is all

Halo got me into a whole new genre which I always wanted to play but could never enjoy

Whereas for myself and the majority of other people, it was just a progression of a genre we've been playing for well over a decade - so it's a perspective thing. Clearly for you it was a landmark game, but that's for very personal reasons, and it's a bit unfair to expect a review site to pick up on that, surely?

as I've aged the quirky Japanese stuff just doesn't do it for me anymore, so now I get to play more PC like games designed with a controller in mind.

Which is fair enough obviously, and I think in general we're pretty fair to that kind of game on Eurogamer. That said, well, I'm a big fan of the quirky Japanese stuff personally... It's just a matter of striking a balance. We have four journalists working full-time, and we spend a LOT of time discussing how best to achieve that kind of balance in terms of coverage and reviews - it's very difficult when you're a multi-format publication.

It's like a swan, we may appear to be gracefully drifting along through a world of quality gaming editorial on the surface, but underneath our legs are thrashing like crazy

40coats

Originally posted by Shinji
Whereas for myself and the majority of other people, it was just a progression of a genre we've been playing for well over a decade - so it's a perspective thing. Clearly for you it was a landmark game, but that's for very personal reasons, and it's a bit unfair to expect a review site to pick up on that, surely?

I understand what you're saying and in fairness I can't really argue, I don't have much I can compare it with. I don't think however that the majority of console gamers are PC gamers, sure people on games boards would be, but in general your average console gamer does not spend a lot of time playing PC games. I just think console games should be rated against other console games and likewise for the PC. I'd imagine that can be pretty difficult if you play both however.

Tusky

GAMESTM gave "enter the matrix" 3/10 , (my fav games magazine )

Seifer

Shinji, I on the other hand do have something to compare it to as I am quite a fan of the fps genre. Halo is not a "pretty average game". It is the best game ever.
If those are your thoughts then you just haven't spent enough time with the game. Have you done a 16 player lan game?
As for the mag, the reviews are inconsistent at best. I only get it for the demos.

Shinji

I on the other hand do have something to compare it to as I am quite a fan of the fps genre. Halo is not a "pretty average game". It is the best game ever.

You are both mad and wrong.

(It's all about opinions at the end of the day, of course. No review is ever anything more than one person's opinion, and it never can be - which is why I find mags like EDGE trying to pretend that their reviews somehow carry more weight and are representative of the entire magazine laughable. This is why on Eurogamer we've started reviewing really major games twice, with two different journalists - it gives a different perspective and lets people seperate opinion from fact more easily.)

Seifer

Although a good argument your reasoning hasn't wholely convinced me.
You're right about the mag thing though. Edge has been around for longer so thats why they claim they're reviews carry more weight ie. they're more experienced but even then its still only opinions.