Adding an asterisk to game reviews.

It's been awhile but this will be one of the few entries I type up that is not game design related but instead this will focus on game reviews. To begin with I have a few of my stories to tell.

At the beginning of 2010 Supreme Commander 2 was released for the PC. At the start the game did not receive a lot of praise and had around a C+ to B average from game reviews. Issues with the AI and campaign design were some of the chief concerns raised by game reviewers. It was these issues that stopped me from buying the game when it was released. With most games that would have been all she wrote but Gas Powered Games (the developers) had a different idea.

Since the game has been released there have been numerous patches to improve the AI and update the UI along with balancing units. The recent DLC redid the tech trees for the sides for skirmish play along with adding more units.

I bought Supcom 2 about five or six months ago when it was on sale with Steam and did not touch it till about three weeks ago. I found the skirmish AI to be excellent and gave my friends and I a run for our money with how well it works together to create a challenge. I found the UI for the most part to be really good with a few little issues which I won't mention here.

Next example I want to mention is Elemental: War of Magic, this 4x strategy title was released at the start of September and came out with a host of problems. The street date was broken forcing Stardock (the developers) to play catch up with patching the game to be playable and their first true patch sadly was not up to snuff. Many strategy fans including yours truly did not fall in love with the game like we planned. I cited UI, performance and even design issues that kept me from enjoying the game.

Like with Supcom 2 Stardock has committed themselves to improving the game, they hired the lead designer behind the Fall From Heaven mod from the Civilization games to take over as lead designer. They have also promised the first two expansion packs free for anyone who played the game from the start and have said that they will work on Elemental for to get the game up to code. At the time of this entry their first big content patch: version 1.1 is set to be released soon which will restructure a lot of the game mechanics.

The point of talking about these two games is how both titles have been altered considerably from their initial reviews. Supcom2 managed to fix some of the big problems it had at launch and Elemental is set to undergo major changes. The reviews for Supcom 2 are not completely accurate anymore and hopefully the same will be said for Elemental at some point. Which leads me to the point of this entry, should games that are changed drastically since release should be offer a re- review?

Many titles these days receive patches or updates after their release. Most often they fall into minor balance changes or bug fixes. However there are rare exceptions when we have games that are changed to the point that they aren't the same game when they were released. There is one game that could be the poster child for this concept and that would be Team Fortress 2.

TF 2 was released in 2007 and I have been playing the game on and off since 2008 after the heavy update. It has been altered dramatically since release to the point that the original reviews could be considered no longer valid for the game. Here is a brief list of things that have been added to TF 2 since it was released:

New equipment for all classes

New maps and modes

Crafting

In game store

Cosmetic items for all classes.

Achievements

What I just mentioned was not mentioned in any reviews since of course they weren't created yet. For the people who still have not played the game if they tried to get a fair assessment from the reviews they will be greatly mistaken.

One benefit of re-reviewing games is that it can give a game that didn't do well at launch a second chance at making sales and providing free publicity if the game has been improved greatly. However even with this being my idea I can find three big faults that have to be mentioned.

1. Call me a cynic but chances are someone will find a way to exploit this. Such as releasing a game and telling reviewers specifically not to play the game until patch three where everything will be fixed. This could be used to allow designers to release intentionally buggy products to make a quick profit then time the re-review to release a different edition of the game. Will everyone do something like this? Of course not but it has to be mentioned as a potential problem.

2. What would be considered the cut off point for patches? One of the best reasons for games to be reviewed at launch is that all reviewers will be on equal footing with patches. If you wait for a game to be patched at what patch will the game be reviewed?

For example let’s say reviewer A plays the game at patch 15 and finds it bug free and great and gives the game a good score. Then we have reviewer B playing the game at patch 17 which introduced a memory leak and a save game bug. They say that the game is buggy and doesn't perform well and marks the game down for it. If not done correctly this could create a logistical nightmare as reviewers try to time everything to play the game at the correct patch.

Another angle of this issue is that what type of patch constitutes a re-review? Do we wait for a patch that removes DRM or one that adds new features to the UI? This is another grey area as different reviewers may value certain updates more than others and this goes back to the logistical challenge of everyone being on the same page.

3. Lastly is what exactly do we do with the original review scores? It's not like the reviewer was wrong when giving it out at release, they just did not play this version of the game. Erasing the score doesn't seem fair as many gamers based their perception of the game on the original review and telling them six months later that the game is now game of the year material seems like a slap in the face. I could just see the nightmare for game of the year awards when we have updated games added to the mix.

That last point brings us to the title of the entry, for those that don't know what I'm referring to, in MLB if a player who has made it into the record books was confirmed to have been on steroids then their records will be marked with an asterisk to show that there was something involved with getting that record.

For a game review the asterisk would mean something far less damaging but will still show that the latest review score for the game was not played with the original design of the game. As many of us know the age of digital distribution content is here to stay and we are seeing more than just simple patches released for games. Chances are games like Elemental, Team Fortress 2 and Supreme Commander 2 will not be the norm but it does raise this issue.

With that said what do you think? Should we give a second look to games or should we stick to a one shot deal?

Josh