OXM April issue GRAW 9.0, The Outfit 8.5, Oblivion 9.5, FN3 10!

[Brevity]

OXM April issue GRAW 9.0, The Outfit 8.5, Oblivion 9.5, FN3 10!


Taken from Teamxbox forums:
http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=422163


Demo Disc - Demos
Call of Duty
Kameo
Quake 4
Condemned
Full Auto
King Kong

Themes Condemned, GRAW; Art Galleries Prey, Oblivion; Feature Prey; Video Wik

We Love Xbox - Brothers In Arms 3

2006 Year In Preview - tons of games previewed, I'll list them later... no Halo 3

Rumor Mole - Vanguard no longer on 360, Phantasy Star Universe is possible, no Starcraft Ghost on 360, no World of Warcraft

Idol Chat - Bioware questions Bungie

Untold Story of 360 Launch

Reviews:
Oblivion - 9.5
Fight Night - 10.0 - WTF!?
Tomb Raider - 8.0
GRAW - 9.0
Burnout - 8.5
College Hoops 2k6 - 8.0
The Outfit - 8.5

Oblivion:
+ Pick any synonym for fun, deep, or huge.
+ Stunning presentation w/ luscious viduals and a memorable music score
- The envelope pushing comes at a price
? If you took a week to play, would it be enough?

Fight Night:
+ No HUD
+ The ripples in a guy's face when you punch him
- Kinda light on the number of venues and real life boxers
? If games look this good now, what will they look like in 5 years?

GRAW:
+ Fantastic Multiplayer
+ Awesome presentation; graphics are amazing and sound effects are up to the excellent Clancy standard
- Ghost AI is lousy
? What's with the jarring EA Trax-inizing of the in-helicopter soundtrack?

Burnout:
+ Save and Share Mode
- Not enough new content. How about a new city?
- Graphics, espec damage models, leave us wanting more
? Could EA Trax maybe hire someone who doesn't love only pop punk?

Hoops:
+ Plays great; excellent coaching options
+ Terrific presentation and animations
- Awkward controls, particularly in the post
? What's with the scary, Barbi-doll faced cheerleaders?

Outfit:
+ Great concept executed well. Not great, but well.
+ Multiplayer modes up the yay-hoo
-Jeeps handle more like tanks
? Will a sequel that works the little kinks out be made? We hope so.
http://www.unleadedlogic.com/apriloxm.jpg
Where's The Outfit and GRAW demos if this is true? Unless I read his post wrong.

[CarGuy]

Fight Night a 10? I wonder how much EA payed for that.

[Kyle Static]

No way is that game better than any game I've ever played...damn you OXM and your over-rating.

[vman]

well, im glad to see that OXM thinks that Oblivion has lived up to all the hype!

[mrmp3]

Fight Night is a remarkable accomplishment, but still, it's only boxing, and there's no Rocky Marciano. Defintely my favorite X360 game right now, but I doubt I'll find it more fun after playing either Outfit, Oblivion, or Warfighter. Oh and BF:MC 2 got delayed. Least we'll have a demo to tide us over in the middle of the month.

[pitt4ever]

I just got my new OXM. Man, the reviews were cool.

It's true, there's no GRAW or BF2 demos. All of the 360 demos are not only from past OXMs, but all on the Marketplace. I was interested in the XBOX demos (Arena Football, NBA Ballers 2, Driver 4), but I already sent my XBOX to my brother. ARRRRGH!!

[mattgame]

FN is great but it is not a 10. It is more like a 9 or 8.5. How can they justify making FN their highest rated game ever?

[Yellowlab]

FNR3 is good, but NOT a perfect 10. Especially considering they have never given out a 10 before (they say it's better than Halo 1 and 2?!?! :huh: ). It is good (I scored it a 90%), but it needs some fine tuning in the training department and a little improvement on the overall presentation (less repetitive commentary, jazzed up replay highlights, something more cohesive/interesting in between fights), and a heck of a lot less in game advertising.

Even if all those were fixed, it would still be hard to score a boxing game a 100%.

[Goku_69]

I think they just broke there own rule. by no standards can any game be a higher score now, and i know the games on 360 are gonna get wayyyyy beter. I haven't played FN cause i am not really into boxing.

Maybe there are going the Gamepro style now where any game that is good will get a 10. I sure hope they don't because the scores they give impact whats games i buy by a great deal.

[mattgame]

Really, they should change that score asap. It's ridiculous to give that game a 10. It's a sports game, sports games should never be a 10.

[BORNGD]

Really, they should change that score asap. It's ridiculous to give that game a 10. It's a sports game, sports games should never be a 10.

i think a sports game COULD be a 10, havnt played one yet though

a 10 for FN3...thats HORRIBLE! should be a 8.5 in my opinion

[ShadedNine]

Definitely out to lunch on FN. Sure the game is fun, and while the graphics are pretty, that's because it only has to render two characters, with a surprisingly limited number possible movements. The game's flare wears off pretty quickly, and soon you're just left with a boxing game that, while fun, is still...well...an EA game :p

But then that magazine has always been a little off the ball.

[mrmp3]

Definitely out to lunch on FN. Sure the game is fun, and while the graphics are pretty, that's because it only has to render two characters, with a surprisingly limited number possible movements. The game's flare wears off pretty quickly, and soon you're just left with a boxing game that, while fun, is still...well...an EA game :p

But then that magazine has always been a little off the ball.

I never liked them to begin with. I think people really only talk about them cuz their the magazine with the demos in it. If they never had a demo disc, that magazine would not sell, period.

I forgot to finish my post earlier, the game is really great, and yea it's still my favorite X360 title, but the audio just sucks. The commentator, though repetitive, I can deal with. it's better than John Madden going "whichever team moves the ball effectively and finds the endzone the most often will win the game". The trainer's though are ridiculous. There's like 8 lines of dialogue. I hate hearing "that was a great round kid" followed by "what was that?!?". 8.5-9.0 is a better range.

[swivel]

FNR3 is good, but NOT a perfect 10. Especially considering they have never given out a 10 before (they say it's better than Halo 1 and 2?!?! :huh: ). It is good (I scored it a 90%), but it needs some fine tuning in the training department and a little improvement on the overall presentation (less repetitive commentary, jazzed up replay highlights, something more cohesive/interesting in between fights), and a heck of a lot less in game advertising.

Even if all those were fixed, it would still be hard to score a boxing game a 100%.

Agree. Agree. Agree.

I agree with everything you guys are saying that is critical of this score. Here's what should have happened, to restore order in the game-scoring universe.

OXM should have come out with a big cover story sometime during the hype months before the XBox 2 was released. The cover story should have explained their new scoring system, which was to start grading games by using the entire range of numbers, from 1 to 10. They could have started using the number 5 as a number that is halfway between 1 and 10. How novel would that be? So the first games they review, would all get scores around 3 - 7. A game that gets a 5 would be an average game. Not bad, and not great. Anything over 5 would be a game that you would want to check out. Less than 5, perhaps not.

The problem you have now is that the scoring range is too compressed. Everyone wants any game that is any good to be a 9, 9.5, or 10. This makes all the scores pretty meaningless, in my opinion. It divides games into two camps, 9 and above, and everything else.

5 is the average, at least it should be. A 5 game would be something like King Kong. The best launch window game could get a 6.5 or even a 7. And that would leave room for the next generation of games.

This reminds me of "Dancing with the Stars". There were three perfomances one night, and after the first performance, all three judges gave the couple a 9.9. I almost threw up. That meant, that if the next group was much better, they could give them a 10, but if the third group was even better than the first two, they could not be judged accordingly. Basically, the judges gave up their powers to score the performances right from the beginning. There is an entire range, from 1.0 to 10.0, and the first thing they see is a 9.9.

How can people be so stupid? Shouldn't the first performances, each night, get a 5.0? You haven't seen anything else yet, you have nothing to compare it to, so you must start off assuming it is average, and leave yourself equal room to each side.

[ShadedNine]

Agree. Agree. Agree.

I agree with everything you guys are saying that is critical of this score. Here's what should have happened, to restore order in the game-scoring universe.

OXM should have come out with a big cover story sometime during the hype months before the XBox 2 was released. The cover story should have explained their new scoring system, which was to start grading games by using the entire range of numbers, from 1 to 10. They could have started using the number 5 as a number that is halfway between 1 and 10. How novel would that be? So the first games they review, would all get scores around 3 - 7. A game that gets a 5 would be an average game. Not bad, and not great. Anything over 5 would be a game that you would want to check out. Less than 5, perhaps not.

The problem you have now is that the scoring range is too compressed. Everyone wants any game that is any good to be a 9, 9.5, or 10. This makes all the scores pretty meaningless, in my opinion. It divides games into two camps, 9 and above, and everything else.

5 is the average, at least it should be. A 5 game would be something like King Kong. The best launch window game could get a 6.5 or even a 7. And that would leave room for the next generation of games.

This reminds me of "Dancing with the Stars". There were three perfomances one night, and after the first performance, all three judges gave the couple a 9.9. I almost threw up. That meant, that if the next group was much better, they could give them a 10, but if the third group was even better than the first two, they could not be judged accordingly. Basically, the judges gave up their powers to score the performances right from the beginning. There is an entire range, from 1.0 to 10.0, and the first thing they see is a 9.9.

How can people be so stupid? Shouldn't the first performances, each night, get a 5.0? You haven't seen anything else yet, you have nothing to compare it to, so you must start off assuming it is average, and leave yourself equal room to each side.

Such a scoring system might be feasible to a fansite such as this one, with volunteer writers and (relatively) few bills to pay, most of which aren't paid by game adverts. It's pretty hard to find *any* magazine on *any* subject that doesn't tiptoe their scores around their bigger sponsors, and only hammer down on games from reasonably new developers who perhaps didn't advertise like they should have (Advent Rising for example, the first reviews were horribly unfair). It's not that they take a specific bribe to rate game X with score Y, but they're not in a position to be doing anything other than licking the grime off EAs shoes.

[l Maximus l]

I retired my subscription to OXM a long time ago...good thing I did. Perfect 10? Wow...I'll atleast check out Fight Night...but, there's no way a boxing game could be a perfect 10. Back in the day, I was excited about Mike Tyson's Punch Out...and I thought that it was damn good...but, even with my zit faced glee at the time would I have given that game a perfect 10... :D

[swivel]

Such a scoring system might be feasible to a fansite such as this one, with volunteer writers and (relatively) few bills to pay, most of which aren't paid by game adverts. It's pretty hard to find *any* magazine on *any* subject that doesn't tiptoe their scores around their bigger sponsors, and only hammer down on games from reasonably new developers who perhaps didn't advertise like they should have (Advent Rising for example, the first reviews were horribly unfair). It's not that they take a specific bribe to rate game X with score Y, but they're not in a position to be doing anything other than licking the grime off EAs shoes.

I disagree that a lot of magazines do this, or for the reasons that everyone usually gives. You are also remiss to group all gaming periodicals into one bunch. PC Gamer has a system very close to what I talk about. 50 isn't quite the midrange for them, but they do recommend 60+ games if you are a fan of the genre. And so far, the highest score ever given is a 98. That's after 15 years of rating games.

I think there is also a British gaming magazine that is very fair. Magazines like this make their money because their reputation is tops with the readers and the rest of the community. People subscribe to them for life. Advertisers look at subscription base above all else. They care less about the reviews in magazines than your conspiracy theory suggests. No company is going to pull ads from a magazine with 5 million subscribers just because one of their games got ripped. Actually, I would bet any ammount of money that most companies' reaction would be to increase ad dollars in that magazine. Not to buy the company out, but because the good games are getting FREE advertising in magazines all the time.

I think the real reason that most magazines give such high marks to every game is threefold: First, they are trying to make their system of choice more popular by influencing game-purchasing decisions. I doubt this is very conscious on their part. Some of it is competitive with other magazines and other gaming systems.

Second, I wonder how much recipricol advertising helps companies. Product recognition is everything for companies, and the way that gaming mags can get their name splattered everywhere is by being one of the sources that regularly rates games generously. This gets their logo plastered on every single ad for the game, and often right on the game box itself. "OXM: 9.5! 'The BEST LOOKING game of E3!'"

Lastly, there is too much pressure from uneducated gamers to give high marks to every single game. I think this is the greatest factor. Every letters section is filled with disputes over a fan's game getting snubbed. And usually, the review gives it a 9, but the fan can't believe that some other game (which he/she never played, but hates anyway) got a 9.5. By compressing the scoring, all games get sadwiched together, and comparisons create less acrimony. But that is just the problem that I am complaining about. A lesser ability to compare.

[StudioAlex]

As great as fight night is, even if it were perfect in all ways gameplay and graphic related, I would have to deduct points for the blatant and annoying advertising for Burger King. Seriously, is Ronald McDonald going to be a hidden character in Oblivion?

I never really take reviews scores too seriously (I prefer a 1-4 because it suggests a general plateau of quality). The whole thing is kind of insane. FN3 is a ten, I'll probably play it for 15 hours. Oblivion is a 9.5, I'll probably play it for 200. Which is, in reality, the better game?

[thatdude222]

fight night..... its just boxing. there cannot possibly be enough depth in a boxing game for it to be higher rated than any xbox game ever.

[Whisper]

If depth and intricacies mattered... soccer wouldn't be as popular as it is.

All people want is something that is fun, easy to play, and executed well. Doesn't have to have a lot to it.

[Jackyboy]

will xba ever make their scores to 10? 1-5 is really annoying

[CENCEE]

Does GRAW have third person view?

This is a must!

[Jackyboy]

Does GRAW have third person view?

This is a must!
it has a shoulder view which is really cool