Joey Aires writes: "Activision describes Cybertron Adventures as a mix of flight, driving and a rail shooter, but make no mistake; the flight is more linear and limited than After Burner on the Genesis, the driving is reminiscent of the free Xbox LIVE Arcade game Yaris and the shooting itself is basic point, fire, and continue. At least shooting would be fun if the player felt like they were in some kind of control. The camera pretty much points you to the exact point of your targets. Since the enemies on both sides of Cybertron Adventures have never fired a weapon in their virtual lives, you never have to worry about getting hit."
Activision has shared news about two new Transformers bundles being released just in time for the Christmas holidays. Under license from Hasbro: Transformers: Ultimate Battle Edition and Transformers: Ultimate Autobots Edition will be made available this winter for Wii and Nintendo DS respectively.
Bitmob: A game reviewer ponders the ups and downs of being completely honest with your audience, and wonders 'Should you have to finish a game to review it?'
A reviewer should finish the game and relay what seetings were used. I don't want to pay 60 bucks for a game and find out that it rules for 50% and uscks for the last 50%.
it just adds a bit more credibility to the review given if the person has beaten (or came really close) the game.
You wouldnt want to read a review of a movie if the reviewer only watched the first half hour or worse...just the trailer.
We all know that in the end however, reviews =/= opinions and those can differ with everyone.
I do like it if a reviewer tries not to give away so much of the plot of the game/movie within the review itself. That can be hard when you know they want to tell everyone that it was col mustard in the library with the lead pipe but they can't.
The reviewer should play the game to completion or state otherwise.
If the game is more focused on multiplayer, IE MW2, Reach, MAG, etc. The game shouldn't have a multiplayer review until the reviewer has had a chance to play with the actual community instead of other reviewers.
Yahtzee writes critiques, not reviews. The difference is not a question of quality or class, but one of goal.
The goal of a review is to help a reader decide whether or not he wants to buy/rent/borrow a game.
The goal of a critique is to ask in what areas did this fail, and why; and it what areas did it succeed, and why.
A review talks directly to consumers, whereas a critique talks to the realm of game development as a whole.
Now, whether or not any mainstream "reviewers" succeed as reviewers or whether Yahtzee succeeds as a critic is an entirely different question. But to analyze Yahtzee's efforts as you would analyze a review is a mistake.
This is why I like Kotaku's review SYSTEM, if not always their reviews.
Likes
Dislikes
What was played
Perfect system. No stupid scores or guessing games. A review is an opinion, but I expect it to be at least ACCURATE. Efficient? Well then, its just an impression if the entire experience is incomplete, no?
These recent Gaming sites today are made up of a bunch of fanboy and nonprofessional journalists Kotaku and Gizmodo for example. Gaming journalism and game reviews were only respectable back in the days when it was just Gamespot and a few other sites.
Game-Boyz writes: "I admit that I was a little concerned when reading through the instruction manual; I soon realized that Transformers Cybertron Adventures didn’t feature a button to transform. Created exclusively for the Wii, Transformers Cyberton Adventures (TCA from now on) shares only a release date with its console brethren. Let’s get on with finding out if my initial concerns were justified or not."
