Games benchmarking

[Matt]

Do you think that there should be a benchmark when it comes to the overall quality of games?

As you probably know by personal experience, there are some great games, and then.....there are Army Men games. I personally think that there should be some kind of benchmark to ensure that a game being developed is a good quality.

What do you guys think?

[imported_Anonymous]

What? Who is to say that the game is good or not? There will be the group of people who love the game and the group who hates the game regardless of what it is. It's all a matter of taste. If a game looks shit, don't buy it.

[Scott R. Mraz]

What? Who is to say that the game is good or not? There will be the group of people who love the game and the group who hates the game regardless of what it is. It's all a matter of taste. If a game looks shit, don't buy it.

That is true to an extent. However flaws in a game can make it bad as well. The Getaway comes to mind, while the game had the potential to be one of THE greatest games of all time, the voice acting is superb, the graphics are some of the best ever seen on ANY console, the movie like feel and the overall astehtic is amazing! However the game sufferes from some of the worst control this side of "The Crow" for PS1!!! The shooting sequences are iditotic, and while the attempt to make it as realistic as possible by removing anything the remotely resembles a game, they made it a pain in the ass to accomplish anything. To gain helth you must set up against a wall and rest, which you inevitibly get shot while doing, there are no map to tell you where to go while driving, you must look at your blinkers... It things like that, that really kill a great videogame.

That is why a game can suck universally, no one can dispute facts. However I think merely saying this game is good, worse, or equivilent too, is not going to work because simply, there are to many facits to consider. There is no way your going to be able to say this game is as good as that, that is simply personal perspective. A good review should have 90% facts and 10% perspective. This will give the reader a good understand of the game and a videogaming newbie a good understanding as to why they should listen.

But hey thats just my opinion... i could be wrong :)

[Matt]

I agree with what you're saying there Scott. I just think that there should be a group of people who iron out potential problems in games, or to point out to the developers what problems they find so that they can be improved, if you get what I mean.

[Scott R. Mraz]

I agree with what you're saying there Scott. I just think that there should be a group of people who iron out potential problems in games, or to point out to the developers what problems they find so that they can be improved, if you get what I mean.

Ok that makes more sense... however that is already done. They are called testers. The simple fact is that not many companies have the balls to delay a game based on a few flaws. Which is stupid. Personally I say once the game is near completed, give out copies to press for suggestions on improvements and then IMPLEMENT those improvements. That will get rid of all of the stupid flaws that shouldn't exist. However there will always be the occasional flaw that will slip through, FFX boss battles??? Jesus, one hit! and i killed most the bosses in the final game, including the WEAPON!!!! My god what a dissapointment... completely ruined the whole game. If weren't for the fact that they gave us those monsters to fight in the valley I would have banished FFX to the trash can. Those kinds of flaws are that which are in place intentionally by the developer and you probably wont change most of those. However if you can change the crappy ass controles of the Getaway, something Im sure the developers never INTENDED, you could save a lot of games.

Of course you'll never save the likes of army men or dear God! the Crow... *cough* *hack* ...it hurt just say the name. But that is really where a developer needs to say, "Ok, we fucked up... lets kill this game before it embarresses us."

Anywho... thats just my opinion... i could be wrong.

[Matt]

Good point about the testers. But, who exactly tests the rubbish games? Are they going to be brave enough to go up to the boss and say, "This game is a pile of s**t"?

[Scott R. Mraz]

Good point about the testers. But, who exactly tests the rubbish games? Are they going to be brave enough to go up to the boss and say, "This game is a pile of s**t"?

Well that is PART of their jobs. But yes to an extent they can't go up to them and say it that way. However they sure can detail every flaw. And after 20pgs of flaws a developer starts to wonder... hrmm... is this really a good idea :) But you are right a lot of valid opinions get pushed to the way side to save an ocassionly sh*tty, 12$ hr. job.

[Stormracer]

Yes there should be a certain benchmark for the quality of games. Maybe some sort of system to pick random testers from a pool of average gamers could help.