Ben-DutkaWhen a publisher admits a game was a "disappointment," you know it has to be underwhelming.
In speaking to Joystiq at an event promoting the new SyFy film, "Red Faction: Origins," THQ business development director Lenny Brown called the recently released downloadable title, Red Faction: Battlegrounds , a definite "disappointment." The critics certainly didn't like it but Brown did say that the text of some reviews didn't match the low scores:
"I think what's most disappointing for me, is how sometimes the prose of the reviews don't match the final score. Someone will say something not necessarily glowing, but you think you're tracking along a 7, and then you get a 4." Our own review gave the game two out of five stars.
That's not talking about the fairness of the score of this game in particular. It's not the best game in the world, but it's not a 5. It's a satisfactory experience that leads into the bigger game. And I think just because of what we're trying to do, that's innovative, and I think that alone deserves a 7."
…well, Mr. Brown, for the record, the text in our review most certainly denotes our final score of 4.6 and to be perfectly frank, I'm not sure what was "innovative" about the game. Because it used vehicular combat? Okay. Pretty sure we've seen that before. Brown did add a definite fact, that bad reviews don't really affect movies, but they affect the game industry "in a weird way."
What's "weird" about gamers simply not wanting to play a mediocre game and doing their research before buying? We know the sheeple will go watch any movie where something blows up but when you're interacting with the entertainment, things are different.
Related Game(s): Red Faction: Battlegrounds
Agree that RF:Battlegrounds was nothing special, but after giving it a couple of hours, I'd say my views are much closer with Lenny Brown's than the reviewers on this one. It's not innovative, but it does what it sets out to do very well (vehicular combat, with a really robust and tweakable set of options for the games). It feels with this one that a lot of reviewers criticised a $10, smash'n'bash shoot 'em up for not being a $40 shooter with complex, deep set of controls and a good storyline.
PSXExtreme is generally pretty good at nailing reviews, but the mainstream review press are almost useless these days unless you're a CoD or Burnout Paradise Fan. Any games more complex than or too different from these tend to get mauled for no good reason.
Listening to talk of "5's" versus "7's" makes me sigh. Is there really that much of a difference between them that it's worth discussing? Are people really this blinded by a simple numerical value presented at the end of a lengthy review? I would have been more interested if he had cited complaints critics had against it, and to whether he agreed; but, alas it's only the number that matters.
I can't speak for other critics, but at PSXE, there's a very significant difference between a 5 and 7.
A 7 is basically a recommended game, provided you like the genre in question and are willing to deal with a few shortcomings that we outline in the review.
A 5 is questionable for anyone, even hardcore fans of the genre or franchise in question.
All people care about is the number, is my point, and it's strange to see a "business development director" speak as so many kids do in comment sections of reviews.
well I can see this game getting fun when you have a few friends over and your a little drunk. Or at least that is the impression I got from the beta
I don't think this game would be worth wasting the booze on Mr. Jesusraptor
The game wasn't good in beta and from what I've heard from a few people is that it still isn't good out of beta.
I thought the demo sucked badly.
Return Red Faction to its FPS roots… PLEASE! The first two games are classics that I will love until the day I die. The third-person route and now this… ugh. 🙁
I'm sorry Sir, but giving out 7's as the new 5's is very tiresome. If it's a 5 then give it a 5, publications these days often just slap a 7 on anything they don't quite know what to do with and isn't an FPS. If it's mediocre then it's not a 7, a 7 is worth playing… and ACTUAL 7 that is.
Mr Brown has got to be THE only guy on earth to care about this. Nobody who's spending $10 on some digital download Red Faction is expecting the best game on earth. Nor dare I say, do the grand majority even bother reading critic reviews for such a piece of tripe. They see the $10 price tag and they buy it on impulse or name recognition or both, if they even buy it at all.
<<<<<Our own review gave the game two out of five stars.>>>>>
OK, this statement by THQ's Lenny Brown just begs the question…..
If you are the publisher & you already know the game is a 2 from your own review, then why in the Hell would you ever let this game out of your sight without red-flagging it until it's either fixed, patched, and/or polished????
And what's that say about your role in all of this????
Last edited by BikerSaint on 4/16/2011 1:12:37 AM
Good point man, I mean THQ is always saying how great they are gonna be. Well you can't be great when even your basic downloadables aren't any good.
Come on BikerSaint, Brown doesn't work for Joystiq. That comment is not in quotes.
Alienange,
You're right, I just went back & re-read it & now I realize that it wasn't his quote.
So that whole paragraph makes more sense now.
But dumb-a$$ed Joytick should have separated their line from that main quote so others wouldn't have mis-read it like I did.
Unless of course, Joystick meant to do that just to stir sh*t up.
Last edited by BikerSaint on 4/16/2011 9:51:19 PM
Since i got it on psn plus for free i cant really complain. But its definitely not worth more than a 5. Even so, i had fun playing the game. Not for long stints but for quick bursts of gaming when board it was pretty good.
Sadly though i also found it to be quite buggy online..People going under the map and winning since you cant hit them, maps not booting and having to quit the game.
Not good really.
hes got a point, if i had a nickle for every time i read a review and it had nothing but negative, or nothing but positive words in it, then the score did not reflect that, id be a multibillionare by now!
IGN and G4 mostly, almost every review they do reading the text makes me thing ok its going to get a 2/5 then it gets a 4.
or its going to get a 4 then it ends up getting a 2.
i hope Armageddon does not turn out like this, after guerrilla i got very high expectations for this!
This game was oozing low quality to begin with. As a dev making a game and you know you're not making it a top priority, don't complain when everyone points that fact out.
The game sucks, you blew it, no point crying over it THQ, just do better next time.