G4 Gives Dark Avatar a 5/5!

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Join Date 11/2002

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G4 Gives Dark Avatar a 5/5!

As reviewed by Col. Tigh

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This next review is our favorite around the office out of all the ones posted so far. G4 turned out a glowing review of the game that really dives deep into the raft of features we packed into the expansion pack. Like many other reviews, this one floats the idea that this is practically a sequel for all the new goodies tossed in. Here's a brief snippit:

"That’s largely due to A.I. wizard Brad Wardell’s hard work retooling the game’s "brain." If you have a powerful enough CPU (multi-core recommended), the A.I. will think much further out in Dark Avatar (as if it wasn’t bearish enough already). Flip the optional switch and the game becomes eerily unpredictable, targeting resources thoughtfully (as opposed to "grab ‘em all"), pursuing tech advances more organically and with a smarter eye on terminal prizes, and building attack fleets that operate much less repetitively (e.g. "Oh look, another wave of right-on-schedule blah")."

But, if you're the video watching type, at the top of the article is a streaming video version of the review G4 ran on its TV show XPlay. It had us in stitches with the added commentary from "Col. Tigh" (you know, from Battlestar Galactica?). He gave us 5 shots out of 5!

Check out the video...

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Iam bit tired of these "look how well our game is doing" front page PR hypes, but what do I know about marketing

I could not give rats ass what some review sites think about the game, the real truth comes out in form of user postings @ forums. Also seeing how these review sites give so easily "perfect" scores nowdays it hardy means anything anymore. There are such flaws in GC2 which in my book prevent it making a perfect game, now 4 or 4.5 would be closer to truth. And if you want to nitpick, no mans creation is perfect, how can you give a perfect score to a game then

Sorry for the negativity but this brings back ugly memories. How can a buggy mess of a game like Medieval Total War 2 get same kinda review praising on multiple site while the game was/is bugged to the root and some gameplay aspects are just missing. Or maybe Iam too demanding

Now slap in a real UP, better diplomacy, ground combat and tactical ship battles and I have no problem giving GC2/DA 5/5 score thats all Iam saying. But maybe thats will be with GC3

I disagree: some users can be extremely picky or overly judgemental over a game that aactually deserves high praise and rate it poorly soley because of a few flaws or 'bugs'. A few may even deliberately downplay the review of a game on purpose as well due to some deep-rooted hatred of something about the game or it's designers (ex. EA Bashers) or even encourage the buying of what they consider to be a "superior" product (believe me, these types of fanboys exsist).

That's why I prefer reviews from sites like GameSpot or PCG: they're pretty balanced and will look at the overall package for judgement, and not blast the game for lacking a few minor features or score it poorly due to one area of the game falling somewhat weakly.

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I disagree: some users can be extremely picky or overly judgemental over a game that aactually deserves high praise and rate it poorly soley because of a few flaws or 'bugs'.

When those few flaws or bugs break gameplay, then high praise might not be totally deserved, don't you think? When a few bugs have been there forever and don't get fixed, even though they're well known, that doesn't look good either. When there's stuff in the game that might as well not be there (almost), it can't be all that thought out. Now, does the game have good gameplay? Sure. Is it a great game? That's where people might disagree. It has something to do with all the hype around it too, and the proverbial bandwagon. If you think that GalCiv, the whole thing, is ~15 years old, and that it still has such basic flaws at various levels, don't you think the criticism is justified?
The fact is, this game isn't a niche game, nor is it a full-fledged "commercial" game. It's something in between. Which means it doesn't excel at what niche games do, and neither at what commercial games offer. Sure it does appeal to both crowds, and that means it's good for business, but in the end it will inevitably leave you with that feeling of "I was expecting more".

they're pretty balanced and will look at the overall package for judgement, and not blast the game for lacking a few minor features or score it poorly due to one area of the game falling somewhat weakly.

But shouldn't the customer be warned of any shortcomings in the game? Shouldn't *he* be the one deciding if that particular feature or weak area is important for him? After all, it's *he* who's gonna buy the product. The "release now, patch later" doctrine cannot be a crutch for developers. Who assures you that they will actually fix that nasty bug or improve that lame feature or add that missing part of a mechanic? You can't base a review on what it will be, eventually, or on what you can mod yourself to make it balanced, or whatever. Reviews pointing out flaws is a way to keep devs in check, and somewhat force them to deliver a quality, finished product.

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Great job Stardock!

All reviews must be taken in context...professional reviewers sometimes have other motives...as do posters on the forums.

You can get a sense of that by reading other reviews by the same reviwer...or other posts by the same poster to get where their agenda, if any, may be.

In the end, the big test is not how many flaws a game may have...but is it FUN. Does it have that "One More Turn" magic...and Stardock has hit both targets in the bullseye IMHO. I have played games that were almost bug free.... and bored me to tears.

In the case of Brad and Stardock, kudos for all the updates to keep improving the product...which was entertaining and imaginative right off the shelf.

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