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Destructoid review view: What we've got and what we've got coming photo

Over the course of the next few months, we at Destructoid are aiming to steadily improve the review content of our kick-arse Web site. As purveyors of brutally honest videogame reviews and the standard bearers for a true ten point scale, we plan to make sure that Destructoid becomes a review focal point for both gamers and the games industry.

As part of the review team's efforts to keep a spotlight on this expanding department of Destructoid, I'm firing up a weekly little chat with you, the readers, to discuss all the latest happenings, our current reviews, the articles we have in the pipeline, and a number of new features we shall be installing.

I welcome you to share your views and promise we'll take them on board. Since I've taken a more hands-on role in the production of review content, I've heard a lot of people making suggestions and requests for our output. Please share any you have and use the following thread to talk about this sometimes controversial, amusingly volatile area of our work. I love videogame reviewing and want to make sure everyone loves when we do it.

After the jump, you'll get a round up of our latest reviews, plus a preview look at what we have coming in the pipeline. Also, I will vaguely hint at awesome things without you having the first clue what I am talking about.

Current Reviews:

Opoona (Wii): Johnathan Holmes gets one hand on Koei's quirky RPG.

Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword (DS): Nick Gaidens some Ninja as Ryu goes portable.

Warrior Orochi (PSP): How well does this hack n' slash mash up do on the PSP? Well, I'm reviewing it, so it doesn't take a genius to guess.

Wild Arms XF (PSP): We've been rocking our PSPs lately -- and why shouldn't we? It's a great system if you forget the first year or two of its life. Dale takes another portable RPG for a test drive.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP): The only reason Final Fantasy VII is a subtitle instead of Crisis Core is because Square-Enix is pretentious. Colette liked the game well enough, however.

Echochrome (PSN, PSP): Told you we've been showing the PSP some love. Our man in Japan, Brad Rice, brings us this review.

Dark Sector (Xbox 360, PS3): When I said Dark Sector might be decent, Florian Whatever-his-name-is laughed at me and called my intelligence into question. Well, Nick's review says the game IS decent, so Florian can go die in a swamp. I win!

Coming Soon:  

Sega Superstars Tennis: Sega finally started sending us stuff, so we have a wad of Sega games up for review this coming week. I've given this one a quick spin already and the First Jimpressions are actually somewhat surprisingly good.

Viking: Battle for Asgard: Many of you will know I've been trying to make Sega give this to me for a while. I succeeded! Review coming soon. 

Universe at War: Rounding out our Sega reviews is this interesting looking strategy game in which humans are mere distractions. I've been looking forward to giving it a whirl, and we'll let you know how it turns out. 

Hot Shots Golf: Golf is only good when combined with heat and shooting, I hear.

World Heroes Anthology2D fighting nostalgia from SNK.

Sam and Max 205: More episodic glory from the freelance police. Take a wild guess who's writing lead on this. 

Baroque:  It came from Japan! Literally, thanks to Brad. 

Ikaruga: I am so happy for Topher right now. This game is considered just too special to have the one review on Retroforce Go. We'll have a written review up soon.

MLB 08: The Show: Samit wondered if it was too late to review this. We say NEVER!

Features: 

In the future, our reviews are going to be bolstered by some brand new features. Niero has shared some of the plans with me and there are a fair few interesting new toys that will be implemented, some of which will really help out those who might not always agree with our opinions. That's all I am going to say on that matter, but soon you'll get the skinny on some of our new plans.

That's it for this week. Thank you for your support and opinions as we continue to strengthen our Destructoid reviews.


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84 comments | showing # 51 to 84

Churchhills Dog's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 20:14
Churchhills Dog
Big Jim fucking rules.....
Creamsnake's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 20:19
Creamsnake
Okay, here's the pitch: No letters, no numbers... just a picture.

Here is Creamsnake's review for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PS3).

Nogarda's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 21:00
Nogarda
lol this [game] score 3 out of 5 cunts! lmao, its the new standard XD. and you'll know if its really bad cause thier'll be a mention about rather reading wardox's blog than play [game]. lol.
tazarthayoot's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 21:15
tazarthayoot
Credit to Tazar for the amazing photo of Sir Sterling :D
NihonTiger90's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 21:21
NihonTiger90
All reviews will now b rated using emoticons.
tkyy's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 21:30
tkyy
My review: 2/10 for SEGA Superstars Tennis
JJ Rage's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 21:32
JJ Rage
Suggestion: Hire me.
PrinceofCannedPeaches's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 21:40
PrinceofCannedPeaches
I think it'd be neat to have a built in little Java Applet for user reviews. Maybe a Mr. Destructoid head that goes from red to green based on a game's level of win.

Make Second Takes a consistent part of the review. If I go on Metacritic, I read the full reviews for the best and worst scores, and I want to do the same here.
Boolean's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 21:41
Boolean
I want to believe that this photo was not planned in any way, and tazar just happened to walk in on Jim when he was drunk off his face.
Professor Pew's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 21:49
Professor Pew
Yay reviews! I understand that you don't always have time to do multiple views of one game for a review, but it would be cool to have people review a game who love/hate the genre. Like a Jim/Rev review of some Indie game, etc.

Or maybe the community could help to add such viewpoints to a game to make it all interactive.
Elandarex's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 21:53
Elandarex
I think Jim should start accompanying his reviews with a video review wherein he is drunk off his rocker while in a jacuzzi.

Barring that however, I like the idea of multi-reviewer reviews and I hope you stick with a 1-10 grading scale as opposed to doing away with it completely.
portastad's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 22:40
portastad
While I'm dissapointed in the lack of monocle, that picture is EPIC--I'm just going to tell myself something suprised you enough that your monocle popped right out and landed in your glass of champagne.
Colette Bennett's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 22:42
Colette Bennett
@Boolean - that is exactly what fucking happened. We came back to the room and Jim was drunk in the hot tub. It was amazing.
portastad's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 22:46
portastad
Oh yes, I forgot to post something useful. I kind of like the review system as it is thought it IS nice when you have two people on a game (though much harder to do and not a must). I also like the combination of a number score and whether it should be rented, bought, or avoided. Very useful. *golf clap*
Kyousuke Nanbu's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 22:47
Kyousuke Nanbu
Not letting rev review anything would be a good start toward changing things.

His Condemned 2 review is a joke.
tazarthayoot's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/07/2008 22:54
tazarthayoot
@boolean

That was exactly how it went down. We got back from Chichen Itza, and the first thing we hear is Sterling singing showtunes with 2 glasses of wine in his hot tub.
fallaxdraco's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/08/2008 01:32
fallaxdraco
Numerical review scores are a waste of time. If you want to get a feel for something you need a LOT more details than that. Besides, doesn't it just encourage people skipping to the bottom of your page and just seeing the score?

What is the point of even writing the review, if you're going to make sure most people do that?
TheToiletDuck's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/08/2008 01:38
TheToiletDuck
what kind of hotel puts a bath that close to the bed??
Knives's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/08/2008 02:13
Knives
@ToiletDuck

A fucking amazing hotel <3
Fronz's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/08/2008 03:32
Fronz
That jacuzzi was 90% water, 10% alcohol, and 100% awesome.
0bshaky's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/08/2008 03:51
0bshaky
Well for one I would like to bitch a little about how you do reviews because this website is good for everything but reviews. I would like to present you Sterling's review of Patapon...

54 reviews and on the very bottom lies the Sterlings "venomous and pretentious" review... It was a bad review dressed in "kewl" and witty words but still bad as shit. Even when the ppl that agreed to the review were fans of the Sterling, when you include a something like this: "I like it, and I'll sure as Hell play it a lot, but I can't rate it that highly if I'm being honest, simply because of the volume of problems found within."

So do you like the fucking game or not? Were the things experienced so annoying and unpleasant to you that it slashed 4.5 points? Did you learned how to play the game or the gameplay was frustrating for any reason at all? I'll give you an example of something awful, Virtua Fighter 5 online matching system. Sure it sucks when you want to change characters going back a few menus, no spectator mode, quarter match like features just a half assed online, etc., sure is annoying but still that thing was a 9.5 here on Dtoid... Yes a review is an opinion. Its supposed to be "just" an opinion but hey, that thing sell games just ask Eidos.

But still yes the review gig here needs to get redefined. Have editors reviewing games they are familiar with. Have the RPG guy the FPS guy the sports guy... You can even put a little bio like Name, fave genre... not too much just to give ppl an idea that the dude is familiar to that genre. Also include playtime or if the game was beaten or if the online was tested... Give numbers because ppl many times dont want to read such "reviews" and just skip to the bottom and number. Give a second opinion. You can even put some blog user from here and have him write a paragraph about a second opinion...

Bottom line: If you want reviews because they get hits, at least be the difference and do something that feels researched you can still have your "witty style" whatever but at least for me this is not the site for reviews, is the site of funny pictures attached to video game news.
Anus Mcphanus's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/08/2008 04:37
Anus Mcphanus
Jacuzzi + Booze + Jim = Amazing!!!

I love the reviews so the one thing I would like to see more of is the same content that I'm seeing right now. Please don't change! Although there's a few things I think could be added to make them a little bit easier to handle:

I would like to see a return to the 2 man reviews. I know this is very problematic but I always like to see more than one opinion on pretty much everything I read or hear about.

Perhaps you could have short bio of the reviewer which says their favorite games, genres, sexual positions etc so that we get a feel for who the review is.

A review summary at the end would be cool. A pros and cons kind of section at the end would fit nicely. Maybe you could get a few community members to write a really short review/summary at the end as well.

Maybe you could have at the end a kind of "if you liked this you will like this" kind of tag line as well which would help people still sitting on the fence about a game.
PrinceofCannedPeaches's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/08/2008 05:16
PrinceofCannedPeaches
@Collette
But isn't that 7-Up in the wine glass? I see a can nearby.
Jim Sterling's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/08/2008 05:22
Jim Sterling
PrinceofCannedPeaches: I think it was 7Up and Smirnoff, that particular drink. I was slowing down by that point as I'd come back from the bar where they were serving me stuff I didn't even know the name of, but they knew I wanted it.
PrinceofCannedPeaches's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/08/2008 05:48
PrinceofCannedPeaches
That's Mexico for you. Mmm, anonymous liquor!
Batthink's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/08/2008 06:37
Batthink
I'm looking forward to that Baroque review. :O)
Snaileb 's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/08/2008 07:13
Snaileb
I look forward to the reviews and MOAR PICTURES OF CANCUN!
brad drac's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/08/2008 09:41
brad drac
I agree with I'm OK.
Remo's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/08/2008 11:05
Remo
I think a short synopses at the end of each review would be great
mid3vol's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/08/2008 16:47
mid3vol
no sex in the champaign room
diversionmary's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/09/2008 11:35
diversionmary


If Niero's into new features, y'know what would be really cool? If mobile destructoid wasn't so gimped. Check out mobile facebook, popurls, flickr, or any of the mobile google apps.
Necros's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/11/2008 00:57
Necros
Fucking British, wearing shirts when they bathe.
RAB's Avatar - Comment posted on 04/12/2008 04:46
RAB
i came
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