While I'm a fan of EGM's reviews, they seem to be giving a lot of high scores lately. I read a few in the December issue to check how well the scores and text match up. Usually, their text agrees with the score. Sometimes there are notable gaffes, such as when all three reviewers said that the plot of MGS 2 was terrible, yet gave the game 9.5's across the board. This despite their claim that the plot was the most important part of the game.
Well, in the December issue, they spend almost 100% of the pre-review text trashing Shemue II with what seems to be very valid criticism. Namely, the game is a life sim, yet much of life's activity is boring. They describe tasks such as carrying crates back and forth, cleaning books, picking up all the antiques (about 50 of them) in a store in order to find a key, endless inane dialogue, etc.
The reviews pretty much corroborate this. They say almost NOTHING positive about the game: "The gameplay is a miserable failure," "boring," etc.
But what to they score the game? 6.5, 7, and 7.5!
They say someting along the lines of "it's good at what it does, though." I suppose they were saying that the game echoes true life enough. That's shitty logic. I can make a game with an Oddysey 2 character running around on a blank screen, but it's GREAT because that's what I intended for the "game" to be!
The first reviewer seems concerned that "sega fanboys are already writing me hate mail for 'only' giving the game a 6.5." It's as if he KNEW he wanted to give the game a low score, but he didn't becuse of how people will react, so he was being overly generous about the score.
Well, in the December issue, they spend almost 100% of the pre-review text trashing Shemue II with what seems to be very valid criticism. Namely, the game is a life sim, yet much of life's activity is boring. They describe tasks such as carrying crates back and forth, cleaning books, picking up all the antiques (about 50 of them) in a store in order to find a key, endless inane dialogue, etc.
The reviews pretty much corroborate this. They say almost NOTHING positive about the game: "The gameplay is a miserable failure," "boring," etc.
But what to they score the game? 6.5, 7, and 7.5!
They say someting along the lines of "it's good at what it does, though." I suppose they were saying that the game echoes true life enough. That's shitty logic. I can make a game with an Oddysey 2 character running around on a blank screen, but it's GREAT because that's what I intended for the "game" to be!
The first reviewer seems concerned that "sega fanboys are already writing me hate mail for 'only' giving the game a 6.5." It's as if he KNEW he wanted to give the game a low score, but he didn't becuse of how people will react, so he was being overly generous about the score.
Crawl and 1000 
