Should I get the expansion? Why are you excited for it?

[Jazzterisk]

Hey everyone, long time no see. As some may know, I wans't happy with Civ V when it came out, Hated it actually. I admit they did fix it up with their last patches where I would recomend to play it now.

My laptop crashed a while ago and finally got it fixed up. I see now there is an expanion for Civ V now. Is it out already? Would I like it? One of the main things I complained about was no Espionage and spies to steal tech and sabotage other countries. From what I read this is included now, but as you may know, I do not trust gaming sites anymore so want to see what fellow gamers feel. I do like Civ V now. Or I did till my laptop went poof.

Just like with Civ IV, I hated it, didn't get the first expansion but got Beyond the Sword after good reader reviews. I didn't get any DLC, so was wondering if this G&K expansion will be like BtS?

So do you think I would like the expansion? I want to here player reviews. If the game is not out yet, then Why are you excited for it?

Good to have you back Davor.

I bought the expansion a few minutes after it was available to purchase on Steam. The Dev team has put a ton of work in making Civ V better and even if the expansion ends up being less than ideal I trust them to make it right.

You had a pretty bad experience with the vanilla game so my advice to you Davor would be to wait it out and see what the fanbase says. Avoid the review sites at all cost because if you recall they were throwing 90% around when the game first came out which was a total crock. I wouldn't give Civ V a 90% now nevermind 18 months ago. The only site that gave an honest review in my opinion was 1UP which threw the game a C- which may have been a little low but certainly much more representative of the true quality.

Anyway, welcome back.

[SamBC]

One thing about waiting for what the fanbase says... whatever they do, some people are going to dislike it, and some will be very vocal about that. Worth bearing in mind.

[Jazzterisk]

One thing about waiting for what the fanbase says... whatever they do, some people are going to dislike it, and some will be very vocal about that. Worth bearing in mind.

True but I remember several polls created by forums members when the game was first released and the average ratings were in the low 7's which I thought were pretty accurate with respect to the vanilla version. Yes, there were the haters who gave the game a 1/10 but on the other extreme some gave the game a 10/10 so they cancelled each other out.

By in large, I think the fan reviews/ratings were much more reflective of the vanilla version than most of the 'professional' review sites. When in doubt, I would always refer to the opinion of the fanbase since more often than not the review sites seem to give AAA games better ratings than they deserve.

[Davor]

One thing about waiting for what the fanbase says... whatever they do, some people are going to dislike it, and some will be very vocal about that. Worth bearing in mind.

That is so true. When I go to Gamespot or any other site to read viewer reviews, I always ignore the 10s and the 1s. There are either fanboys or someone with an axe to grind. I still read them but you can sure tell what type they are.

With all the fighting/arguing/DEBATING we have done on the 2K forums, I can say most of us gave honest reviews on what we thought the game was like. We either gave it a 5-7 for who didn't like it and 7-8s for who did like it very much.

All the 9's and 10's, and 1's-3's could be ignored. That is why I am sure after G&K is release I can come here and see what we have to say and see if it's a first week purchase or not.

[stethnorun]

True but I remember several polls created by forums members when the game was first released and the average ratings were in the low 7's which I thought were pretty accurate with respect to the vanilla version. Yes, there were the haters who gave the game a 1/10 but on the other extreme some gave the game a 10/10 so they cancelled each other out.

By in large, I think the fan reviews/ratings were much more reflective of the vanilla version than most of the 'professional' review sites. When in doubt, I would always refer to the opinion of the fanbase since more often than not the review sites seem to give AAA games better ratings than they deserve.

Even if 7/10 was an accurate score, the fact that a forum poll came up with that is simply a happy accident of averages. Fan reviews, forum poll results, etc....they are all completely worthless. The ones that are worth considering are quickly drowned out by the nonsense, making the whole system impossible for an objective-minded person to take seriously.

[Keloo]

Even if 7/10 was an accurate score, the fact that a forum poll came up with that is simply a happy accident of averages. Fan reviews, forum poll results, etc....they are all completely worthless. The ones that are worth considering are quickly drowned out by the nonsense, making the whole system impossible for an objective-minded person to take seriously.

I agree. Games are such a subjective thing that I think is imposible to come with the ultimate rating system that can apply to all games, or whatever. Games aren't math, where let's say from 10 problems done right you get a 10/10, for half of them you get a 5.
In math a problem can't be interpreted in many ways such as games, there 1+1 = 2 and that's it.

Each of us rates their games in his own way, there isn't an universal objective rating system.

If a site like metacritic has a rating system from 0 to 10, everyone gives how much he/she think the game "deserves".
Let's say I'm pissed that the diplo AI is annoying and that weights alot for me, so out of 10 I deduct 3 points, others might not be so annoyed by the AI and deduct only 1 point or whatever.

I don't consider games objective, and never will, it's basically imposible, because everyone judges based on his own expectations, experiences, tastes, interpretation etc...

Even bugs which are technical problem some get them others don't, or any other obvious technical problem. If some say oh that game has that type of bug and I can't play it, I might not get that bug, and that person calls me a fanboy a liar because I like the game and I didn't experience the same problems he has.

My advice is make up your own mind, and learn to decide by yourself if you like that game or not, because in the end that's all that matters, not what others say, because those might like it or might not, and there is small chance you agree with them.

You buy the game, you should be happy with it, not others.

[stethnorun]

I agree. Games are such a subjective thing that I think is imposible to come with the ultimate rating system that can apply to all games, or whatever. Games aren't math, where let's say from 10 problems done right you get a 10/10, for half of them you get a 5.
In math a problem can't be interpreted in many ways such as games, there 1+1 = 2 and that's it.

Each of us rates their games in his own way, there isn't an universal objective rating system.

If a site like metacritic has a rating system from 0 to 10, everyone gives how much he/she think the game "deserves".
Let's say I'm pissed that the diplo AI is annoying and that weights alot for me, so out of 10 I deduct 3 points, others might not be so annoyed by the AI and deduct only 1 point or whatever.

I don't consider games objective, and never will, it's basically imposible, because everyone judges based on his own expectations, experiences, tastes, interpretation etc...

Even bugs that are undeniable some get them others don't. If some say oh that game has that type of bug and I can't play it, I might not get that bug, and that person calls me a fanboy a liar because I like the game and I didn't experience the same problems he has.

My advice is make up your own mind, and learn to decide by yourself if you like that game or not, because in the end that's all that matters, not what others say, because those might like it or might not, and there is small chance you agree with them.

You buy the game, you should be happy with it, not others.

When reading professional reviews (don't bother with user reviews, EVER), it's all about weighting. When I read an IGN review, I completely believe that most of it will be objective, truly objective. That doesn't mean I need to put equal weight behind every positive or negative thing. For instance, in their Risen 2 preview, the IGN writer said he was disappointed that naval combat or sailing mechanics were absent from the game. To him, this was a reason to "knock" the game points. But for me, I could care less about that, so while true, it's also unimportant to me. Likewise, when people read my reviews, I fully expect them to weight everything I say accordingly. If you don't mind organizing inventories and tons of logistics, then absolutely you should buy Jagged Alliance: Back in Action.

This is why it's so important to FORGET the score. The score is complete opinion. The TEXT of a review is all-important because it lets the reader pick and choose what they want to focus on.

[SlickSlicer]

I disagree with you on not reading user reviews. I've seen some insightful ones, even if the majority are crap.

I totally disagree with you that IGN gives truly objective reviews. I've noticed them being hardly objective at all in the past, even though I like the site personally. They also seem to be an odd outlier when it comes to reviews a lot of the time. I noticed that their scores tend to be kind of inflated compared to other game review sites. There's one or two cases where they are an outlier in the other direction (god hand being most famous), but generally speaking, I think they give scores that are way too high.

On the other hand, when I saw this thread, I was going to post exactly what you said at the end of your latest post. I tend to brush aside the score and focus on what the reviewer is praising or criticizing. I noticed once, for example, that the reviewer of a game I liked gave this game a 6, which seemed a bit low to me. I decided to read his review and ended up agreeing with everything he said. Imagine that! In the end, I thought it was a good assessment.

[stethnorun]

I disagree with you on not reading user reviews. I've seen some insightful ones, even if the majority are crap.

I totally disagree with you that IGN gives truly objective reviews. I've noticed them being hardly objective at all in the past, even though I like the site personally. They also seem to be an odd outlier when it comes to reviews a lot of the time. I noticed that their scores tend to be kind of inflated compared to other game review sites. There's one or two cases where they are an outlier in the other direction (god hand being most famous), but generally speaking, I think they give scores that are way too high.

On the other hand, when I saw this thread, I was going to post exactly what you said at the end of your latest post. I tend to brush aside the score and focus on what the reviewer is praising or criticizing. I noticed once, for example, that the reviewer of a game I liked gave this game a 6, which seemed a bit low to me. I decided to read his review and ended up agreeing with everything he said. Imagine that! In the end, I thought it was a good assessment.

I used IGN as an example, but really, you could put any professional review site in its place and my statement still holds. And when I say that those reviews are objective, I mean that they list the features (eg. the combat is XYZ, the graphics are ABC, the controls are JKL) in an objective way. It's actually quite easy to remain objective when listing off the features, and even when comparing said features to games in the same genre.

The subjective part comes from "fun factor" - did I enjoy the experience. Games can, to varying degrees, be greater than the sum of their parts or worse than the sum of their parts, depending on the person playing. That's where the x/10 score comes in. But the parts themselves can, to a large degree, be listed and judged objectively.