chuckd21

I don't subscribe to the theory that a game reviewer has a "responsibility" to the industry. On a 1-10 scale, 5 is average. Gamers changed that scale to suit their own agendas. Doesn't change how math works. If the reviewer thought the game was average, then it's average.

You've lumped "mediocrity, rushed production, sub-standard graphics and game-ending glitches" all in together, but those are four very different things. A game with game-ending glitches is not mediocre. It is bad. Mediocre is a 5. Bad is a 2.

I remember when Garnett Lee was at EGM and gave Assassin's Creed something obscenely low like a 2. He gave valid reasons as to why he thought that. Reviews aren't to justify your opinion, they're an expression of one person's opinion.

chuckd21

No one should ever consider reviews anything but personal opinions. I don't know how and why the notion of what a review is ever changed in anyone's mind.

Decker

I've heard that argument that a 5 is "Average" before, but I don't buy it. 50% on a test is an "F". Show me one non-terrible game with a Metacritic score in the 50s. Even Deadly Premonition got a 68%.

I'll help you out - here's a list of 360 games with Metascores in the 50's. They're not close to Average in quality -- they're all terrible. I guess "mediocre" is a word subject to some interpretation, but I don't consider it synonymous with "average" or "okay". I consider it one step above bad.

flashburn

I suppose, but I think some reviewers take a more objective approach and try to keep the opinion stuff to a minimum, or at least make it blatantly obvious when there is any sort of bias going on.

Not that I care much about the matter, I rarely even read a review, yet alone put any stock into one.

Adam Tyner

While I agree with you in theory, the number of sites using the full scale approaches zero. Score inflation puts 'mediocre' more around the 6.5 / 7.0 range (maybe even as high as 7.5?). That's one of the reasons why, when Video Game Talk first launched, I lobbied not to have scores at all -- just a "rent it / buy it / must have"-type summary. We had to add in numeric scores because they were (and unfortunately still are) considered essential.

chuckd21

That's low for what Deadly Premonition deserves.

chuckd21

Why would anyone want to read a review devoid of opinion?

chuckd21

Metacritic says a 5 is "mixed to average". Does that work with your definition of mediocre?

Groucho

I see the other PS+ freebies for PS4 up at the store, but no #driveclub demo.

slop101

What the hell is going on in this thread?

Did anyone buy this - are you enjoying it?

chuckd21

You have to remove the pound.

Music

"hashtag" #dumb

Adam Tyner

I burned off some Reward Zone certificates to get this for my wife since she's a racing game fanatic and isn't into open world racers. Her copy doesn't look like it'll be here until Thursday, tho'. (We just got back from our honeymoon and haven't set up the home theater in our "new" place yet, so it's anyone's guess when we'll actually be able to play it.)

chuckd21

flashburn

Seriously? I'm out.

#Driveclub is downloading as we speak. Woooohoooo.

Music

I was saying that hashtags were dumb... not you.

flashburn

Here's a link to buy it with the PS+ discount, I don't think the PS+ demo is up yet...
https://store.sonyentertainmentnetwo...XXXXXDRIVECLUB

chuckd21

I know, I was saying pound it.

astrochimp

So where's the fucking demo for this pos?

Groucho

Given the poor reviews and lack of demo, I'm out.

flashburn

I played a few races, and here are my quick impressions...

Positives:
+ Amazing graphics. They are so good they are distracting.
+ Great sound. Engine sounds are pretty spot on from what I've heard so far, but I've yet to drive anything I've heard in real life.
+ Incredible sense of speed. Holllly shit. Play in bumper view and it's intense as hell!
+ Controls are actually pretty good. I'd say it's in between Forza and PGR. Pretty arcadey but still somewhat realistic.
+ AI seems pretty solid, they are very aggressive, but not complete assholes like Forza 5's drivatards.

Negatives:
- Servers are down. So annoying, especially with so much of the game being online and club related.
- No customization. That is really disappointing.
- No weather (yet).
- Unless I missed it, there's no real control settings other than manual/automatic. This to me is a big deal.
- Really irritating getting penalized for the AI rearending me. That just doesn't seem right.
- Penalties in general seem really random. The speed penalty for cutting corners seems too harsh.

Bias:
* No rewind... man it's hard getting used to this. Twice I lost a race like two turns away from finish. First time I spun out and came in 6th, and the second time I got passed at the last turn and got 2nd.
* They really should add settings for assists, because I think you could make this feel a lot more like a sim pretty easily.

Once again... play with the bumper view. It's pretty intense!

Overall it's about what I expected after reading other people's impressions. It's definitely not perfect, and needs some work, but it's a fun game so far and I'm sure in a few months it's going to be even better.

Decker

Flash thanks for the impressions. Did you just buy it without trying the demo?

flashburn

Yep. I bought it just to drive the 4C, yeah I'm lame... . I didn't feel like waiting to see it show up at some point in FH2.

Oh, I like the "fame" system for XP as well. Similar to FH2 and of course PGR's Kudos. The little mini challenges during races is neat.

Load times are almost non-existent, very nice.

Decker

The Playstation Store Update blog post is now a string of 200 people asking "Where is the Playstation Plus version of Driveclub?" without any answer. It's pretty funny.

Seriously, get your shit together Sony! You've been trumpeting this freebee since you "won" E3 in June of 2013. To not have it out with the store update on the incessantly advertised release date is pretty inexcusable. Did they really think people weren't going to notice?

flashburn

I have a feeling they are delaying the PS+ version until the servers are up and stable. They probably don't want to make things even worse, especially if they are trying to sell people on this game through the PS+ demo.