Quake mod reviews?

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leileilol
Posts: 2783
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:23 am

Quake mod reviews?

Post by leileilol »

There isn't any active Quake mod review site so I made one

xept this can allow anyone to write reviews and I simply validate.

I gave it an old-school QCA'ish look to it as well
i should not be here
FrikaC
Site Admin
Posts: 1026
Joined: Fri Oct 08, 2004 11:19 pm

Post by FrikaC »

Looks, umm...
hmmm...

The reviews are, well... to put it bluntly...uhhh.
leileilol
Posts: 2783
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:23 am

Post by leileilol »

crap, i know
i should not be here
FrikaC
Site Admin
Posts: 1026
Joined: Fri Oct 08, 2004 11:19 pm

Post by FrikaC »

"No One Likes a Critic"
My Review of Qeview, a Review Website

As with any review site, the first and most direct thing one looks to is the quality of the reviews. Obviously being the meat of such a site, a good quality, detailed review can make a poorly designed and an eyesore of a page a complete success. So I shall endeavor to examine each review in turn and render my unbiased and unfiltered opinion.

Borg Bots Review Review

This review is fairly well detailed and you get the sense the author knows what he's talking about in regard to this mod. More detail could be put in under "Idea", such as: what could improve the mod would be helpful, some tips, notes on difficulty, etc. It seems like the other sections are really rather glossed over, but as the mod seems simple, I don't suppose there's much that can be added. How does it compare to other trek mods, like NCC1701D? One mention of another trek mod is in there (the borg mod), but there could be more. Overall, a decent and somewhat well thought out review.

Rating 6/10

DNL Review Review

This review is grammatically challenged: no caps and quite a few missing commas. This makes the text somewhat more difficult to read and process, at least for me. The review starts with something completely out of left field: attacking Future Vs. Fantasy. And proceeds swiftly into the idea section. This section then asks us to review the Idea ourselves, completely shirking the responsibility of the reviewer. The Idea section would seem to be a section wherein the reviewer should pitch us the idea and then discuss the concept's implementation into the mod - first the idea, the reviewers opinion of that idea, then how well the modder managed to pull it off. Instaead, this review throws a single brief sentence which is about as vague as can be, then we're left hanging wondering what the hell that meant. Proceeding to the graphics section, we again encounter a baffling statement: "Beyond what QME can do" is not what I'd call and objective rating of the graphics. qME can do some amazing stuff in patient hands and besides that, you cannot expect the average reader to know your benchmarks of quality based on arbitrary things like the tools used to render it. The frequency of the word 'awesome' in the rest of the review, despite citation of serious flaws (e.g. packet overflows) indicates the reviewer has lost any semblance of objectivity. At this point, we're now reading more of an advertisement than a review. The job of critic requires you to actually delve deep, point out the good and the bad and weigh them against one another, saying "X is awesome, Y is awesome" doesn't exactly achieve this. The end conclusion is "stop playing fvf and play dnl", which is not only lacking any kind of professionalism in the fact it's both uncapitalized and unpunctuated, but it's again an attack on FvF with no prior explanation. I mean, it would make sense if somewhere in the review the reviewer has said "This mod is similar to Future Vs Fantasy, but oh so much better, here's why:" but instead we're treated to put downs of other mods out of the blue. It also doesn't help that the audience may not be familiar with Future Versus Fantasy, in which case they'd glean next to nothing from the entire review due to that being about the only solid comparison contained in it.

Rating 2/10

Killer Quake Pack Review Review

Once again poor grammar and lost punctuation, but now we get typos to boot! I happen to know the author of the KQP put some of his previous weapon mods together and made a rather successful (for it's time) mod. Some other submissions were also added. The author didn't 'steal' anything. The assertation that he stole a bunch of stuff and put it together as a crap compilation shows that the reviewer, blinded by his dislike of the mod, has simply not bothered to investigate the origin of KQP. Yes, the models are borked, I'm confused by 'doesn't know how to manage memory properly', since it's not the modders responsibility to manage memory. Indeed, it was his responsibility to get decent, unscrewed up models, but the engine takes care of memory management. That is, barring any entity leaks, this is simply an invalid complaint. Mod sound effects are often stolen from movies and television shows. In fact, two mods back, in the Borg Bot review, it was mentioned that all sounds come from The Best of Both Worlds episode of Star Trek The Next Generation wherin Captain Picard is assimilated and becomes Locutus. That fact did not count against that mod, but here, standards have completely shifted. Again, any kind of objective analysis is lost. Details are never taken into account - we're simply hurdling to the conclusion with no analysis along the way. If one were to read this review and had never played KQP, one might assume the KQP zip contained nothing but a bunch of horrible, irredeemable models and movie sounds. Since this is a compilation, a more in depth review of the pros and cons of each weapon would seem to be in order. The Fun section of this review is a perfect example of how this review is lacking. Issues are raised but are completely unexplained. How is the weapon scheme unbalanced? "People keep bowing me" is your answer, but then you never covered whaw/why/how the bow is unbalanced. This is a review where the reviewer merely wanted to say "KQP is shit" and fully expected the person reading the review to have already played it. Negative reviews, it's true, give you a measure of credibility, but in this case, you picked a target that neither deserved so much rancor, nor did you explain the roots and causes of your opinion. Complaints against the Zeus bot ought to be somewhat seperated from the main review then factored into the overall, as they're an option available to the player and if the player doesn't intend on using them they ought to not count against the mod. It's remarkable for a pack of this age to even include bots, so that also must be accounted for.

Rating 1/10

Obsidian Review Review

At least, with this review, we have a return to proper grammar and capitalization. It seems like the quality of the reviews fluctuates with the percieved quality of the mod. This review is an almost mirror image of the KQP review. Wherein everything was said to be shitty in KQP, everything here is said to be great. The reviewer mentions old versions of the mod in his opening paragraph, this is again a sure sign of bias, compounded with the fact the audience will not have access to the old version and thus the whole comment is pointless. The reviewer ought to be giving their opinion of the version in front of him to the exclusion of all else. The primary objective as a reviewer is not simply to give an audience who's already played it and the author of it your opnion, but also intitiate people who have never played the mod into it. The end of the Idea section ends with "The execution is spledid". Why? How? The pros and cons of the mod aren't really examined. We hear about a couple of modes and we see an unsubstantiated opinion, again, about how great the mod is. Graphics get an 8/10 despite sounding rather lackluster. The sound is mentioned to be great for the mere fact it is 22khz. The mention of a stolen sound again is used in support of the mod's sound. I'd imagine a sound effect from the Simpson would more hurt than help the mod. Again, in the Fun section the issue of it being completely unbalanced is touched on, as in the KQP, but in this case it's used in support of the mod. Finally the review ends with shameless pimpage of the reviewer's own project.

Rating 4/10

Knee deep in Zdoom Review Review

We go from complete lack of capitalization to an insane amount of it. Swears, mispellings, incorrect words, completely lacking in any kind of intelligence. This is so bad, one must assume the reviewer is intentionally being a jackass, in much the same vein as Lowtax's JeffK character. I personally, do not find such things funny. At least not anymore. All objectivity is thrown asunder in the first sentence of the review wherein the reviewer professes the wad is "AWESOME". Details as to where, why and how ought to be forthcoming, but instead we treated to hyperbole after hyperbole. The overall review is beyond any form of salvation, it's assertion that gameplay is "fukin awesums!!!" shows the mental state of the reviewer. The net result of reading this drivel is that of lowering my opinion of the entire site and negating, in my eyes any redeeming qualities the initial concept may have potentially had, if such reviews are allowed to be posted.

Rating 0/10

Conclusion

The quality of the reviews, combined with horribly bad and so few screenshots makes it clear the reviewer has no interest in actually showing or critiquing the mods properly, and is more or less stating their overall and sometimes ill informed opinion on a collection of mods & wads. Site design is poor and overly simplistic, completely lacking in color. The site doesn't flow well, news items aren't deliniated in any way and some text is hard to discern as being part of one heading or another. The logo is atrociously ugly, worse than would be acceptible even in 1997. But as being a review site, the reviews are the things that make or break the site. And with reviews like these, the site is barely worth your time.

Overall 1/10
leileilol
Posts: 2783
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:23 am

Post by leileilol »

you're top material. write for me!
i should not be here
RenegadeC
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Location: The freezing hell; Canada
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Post by RenegadeC »

FrikaC, good job! That rocked.
Tei
Posts: 193
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:22 pm

Post by Tei »

I think the text its funny :D
133t speek example wrote: INTRO _

OH SHIT KDIZD IS FINALLY RELEASED well not rly BUT I HAVE EXCLUSIVE BETA and it's AWESOME so detailed much better than doom3 very realism!!!!

GRAPHICS_

holy shit thers so much detail god i came on the spot without touching myself gawd i mean look at it you've got all zdoom features used SKYBOXES SLOPES PARTICLES whoa i mean who cares about any wad infact after playing this wad i'm going to get a gun an d shot miself OKAY LOL (aftor revew of curse ROFL)

SOUND_

music has replaced with HARDCORE TECHNO SOUNDTRACK and it's so awesome it makes me want to go to mosh pit and KILL KILL KILL and the soudns are like 5000000000000000000000000000000x better than original its like BPPWOWOPWOPWOPWOP

GAMEPLAY_

it's like doom but 500x as big and cooler and awesomer and rad mad you get guns and shoot stuff but there's scripted sequences and its all scray because it goes dark and RED IMPS COME OUT OF NOWHERE and killl uuuu!!!! fukin awesusms!!!! i kill imps 4 cool!!! alsooooo it is very deep where yo can carry 600000 keys and you get two new weapons not in original doom YOU GET RIFLE AND GRENADE LAUNCHER AND PENIS GUN i made last one up I'M FUCKING HIALRUSOS

OVERALL_

BEST DOOM WAD OF 2007
Gilgamesh
Posts: 67
Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:08 pm
Location: Brazil
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Post by Gilgamesh »

Tei wrote:I think the text its funny :D
133t speek example wrote: <insert that review here>
Me too!
BUUUUUT i would not like to be one of this mod authors.... Very rude reviews, make me think about if i should ever release a mod again to be bashed like that
#EOP
leileilol
Posts: 2783
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:23 am

Post by leileilol »

Gilgamesh wrote:
Tei wrote:I think the text its funny :D
133t speek example wrote: <insert that review here>
Me too!
BUUUUUT i would not like to be one of this mod authors.... Very rude reviews, make me think about if i should ever release a mod again to be bashed like that
i didn't even write that
i should not be here
Gilgamesh
Posts: 67
Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:08 pm
Location: Brazil
Contact:

Post by Gilgamesh »

CheapAlert wrote:
Gilgamesh wrote:
Tei wrote:I think the text its funny :D
Me too!
BUUUUUT i would not like to be one of this mod authors.... Very rude reviews, make me think about if i should ever release a mod again to be bashed like that
i didn't even write that
Neither did i said that you wrote that. A q1 mod review site is something that was missing in the current scene, good luck with it!
#EOP
Dr. Shadowborg
InsideQC Staff
Posts: 1120
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 3:34 pm

Post by Dr. Shadowborg »

I'll look into writing you a Wyrm Beta 2 review soon. :wink:
leileilol
Posts: 2783
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:23 am

Post by leileilol »

ok cool

for those who hated some of my reviews they're purely satire and not serious, really the opposite of overjoying

since i've rearranged my room a bit helping my motivation around, I can get SERIOUS NOW MORE OFTEN

oh and don't mind tawmdee, he's 0% serious and he only reviews doom stuff, so he's not really involving with the site directly
i should not be here
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