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Arma3: Metascore 73 | Spelunky: Metascore 91 | what the fuck?

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If mainstream reviewers would like it, it wouldn't be Arma any more.

Bad scores are a good sign, provided the game plays as it should.

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By that rationale, we should demand 120 fps from FSX because performance is performance! Despite the fact that it's simulating hundreds of ai planes and thousands of sq miles, and persistent real world weather patterns.

If you try to put one and two together and you still come up with the conclusion that Arma 3 absolutely should be getting 60+ fps at all times without question, then you're failing at a 2 piece logical puzzle.

Comparing apples and oranges is only going to waste your time. Until you start comparing your apples to other apples, you're never going to be happy.

better yet how about comparing core to core?....1 is at almost %100 and the others are at...%30! its one thing for a game to max out available resources to the point where you have to upgrade but its an entirely different issue when the game can not use available resources.

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If mainstream reviewers would like it, it wouldn't be Arma any more.

Bad scores are a good sign, provided the game plays as it should.

Oh that's just BS.

73 is a too good score for ArmA3 already. 73 = ~4/5 = good. ArmA3 doesn't deserve even that in its current state. 6.6 userscore is much more representative of the state of A3.

But I guess reviewers should've ignored a ton of issues and bugs with the game, the total lack of SP and MP content, cut out features and give it 10/10s. Oh wait but they didn't and yet went way too easy on the game as it is.

And maybe Spelunky got its 91 because it was up to standards in its own genre? Maybe it was just a finished game and not a beta with a $60 pricetag?

Just a thought.

Edited by metalcraze

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Oh that's just BS.

73 is a too good score for ArmA3 already. 73 = ~4/5 = good. ArmA3 doesn't deserve even that in its current state. 6.6 userscore is much more representative of the state of A3.

But I guess reviewers should've ignored a ton of issues and bugs with the game, the total lack of SP and MP content, cut out features and give it 10/10s. Oh wait but they didn't and yet went way too easy on the game as it is.

And maybe Spelunky got its 91 because it was up to standards in its own genre? Maybe it was just a finished game and not a beta with a $60 pricetag?

Just a thought.

Fully agree.

The only reason i've stuck with ArmA despite of tons of extremely annoying issues/bugs it comes with is because no other game is even close to offering what ArmA does.

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Fully agree.

The only reason i've stuck with ArmA despite of tons of extremely annoying issues/bugs it comes with is because no other game is even close to offering what ArmA does.

I agree. One of the things that gets me is that ArmA has no direct competition to "steal" players away from it. I mean there are games in the same genre as it, but nothing that has the "feel" or scope of ArmA. I think the developers have a lot of leeway on how hard they need to work on improving the game, versus a game that has some form of direct competition.

---------- Post added at 08:14 ---------- Previous post was at 07:56 ----------

i'm very saddened by the lowest score on the MC being QuarterToThree which really surprised me ...

While it does seem like a low score coming from a critic, he hits on A lot of the issue's plaguing ArmA 3 and ArmA as a franchise and series as a whole. There's really no arguing that pretty much everything he mentions is both right on and either a game breaking issue in the case of performance problems, or an immersion killer in the case of things like copy pasta assets or the extremely clunky action menu that should have died years ago.

A lot of the critic reviews hit on the same things, they're just much more forgiving in their scores. I mean the French review Pelit gives A3 a 90 but literally starts out by saying "Arma 3 is an improvement over the previous ones, but the game still suffers from clunky interface and lackluster AI.". It's an improvement but then again maybe it's not.... He even admits that he's a big ArmA fan, which you can somewhat attribute to the generous review score. Who knows, if he wasn't a fan of the franchise, would he have given it a 70 or an 80?

I generally don't even pay attention to scores, I actually read the reviews, Even the user reviews. You would be amazed how terrible some of the 10/10 user reviews are and how informative some of the lower rated ones are. I'm not saying I agree with the scores, but I definitely agree with the actual reviews themselves mostly.

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why is everyone up in arms about this? i get that you're a fan of the series, but please, they released arma 3 is an awful state. games are judged on their retail state, not on hypothetical "what happens a year from now?" state. i'd say they were actually generous with arma 3 as it deserves a far lower score.

no movement animation when rotating on a turret. same as for intermediate stances. you can do a 180 while prone in .001 second. the dead aim is terrible. standard current gen tech like shadow maps for characters is missing and we have this late 90s stencil shadow tech instead. the multithreading is the worst implementation, performance wise, i have ever seen on a studio developed game, possibly even worse than dcs. a bunch of clipping issues and low quality work like the green shemagh which looks like crumpled christmas wrapping paper where it meets the neck(poor visual effect aggravated by the terrible stencil shadows). characters still sliding around when you move right after performing an action involving animations, poor ik system that simply shortens the leg rather than bend it at the ankle and knees. copy and pasted vehicles across factions that don't even make any logical or political sense(why is nato and csat using exact same model of uavs, ugvs, and light recon drones?). nearly identical level of interaction as the past series, general lack of improvement or progress. poor attention to detail, such as the ghillie suit simply being a bunch of grass foliage meshes stuck to the normal bdu of the soldier rather than it being an actual suit with a burlap front. a "3d scope" system that simply zooms in the whole screen rather simulate what a scope actual does, something 2004's red orchestra already did. again arma 3 seemingly has not progressed beyond 2005, in terms of gameplay mechanics and innovations.

and i don't expect to see any of this changed because many of these issues would require massive engine rewrites, complete overhauls and other things too difficult for bis, so i don't expect the customers at those review sites to believe that these issues will be fixed. they won't. and anyone sitting around waiting for them to be fixed is, i think, going to be disappointed.

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I generally don't even pay attention to scores, I actually read the reviews, Even the user reviews. You would be amazed how terrible some of the 10/10 user reviews are and how informative some of the lower rated ones are. I'm not saying I agree with the scores, but I definitely agree with the actual reviews themselves mostly.

I tend to not read the zeros or the tens, they are either haters or fanboys. If I want a picture of what a game is like, I go for the middle, 2-8 in score. Those reviews usually list the good/bad stuff in a civilized manner instead of just spouting nonsense and giving a ridiculous score based on a feeling of "I believe the hype and am blinded by it" or in case of zeros "I didn't buy the hype, you suck".

I also feel QuarterToThree was dead on. Think he gave 2/5 stars, thats more than 20 points 'imo', more like 40.

The bottomline I got from that review was: "Come back in a year and try Arma3. Until then..."

I trust user-reviews more than magazine-reviews.

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Oh that's just BS.

73 is a too good score for ArmA3 already. 73 = ~4/5 = good. ArmA3 doesn't deserve even that in its current state. 6.6 userscore is much more representative of the state of A3.

But I guess reviewers should've ignored a ton of issues and bugs with the game, the total lack of SP and MP content, cut out features and give it 10/10s. Oh wait but they didn't and yet went way too easy on the game as it is.

And maybe Spelunky got its 91 because it was up to standards in its own genre? Maybe it was just a finished game and not a beta with a $60 pricetag?

Just a thought.

I have to agree with this. Many people here think that mods should be considered part of the game, so that quality mods can boost Arma 3's score. Some here think that Arma 3 should be rated on it's "potential". I'm sorry, BF4 has potential to be a realistic shooter if they'd make certain changes. It has the potential for mods. Same with COD. Should they be rated based on their so called "potential"? No. But certain users here just can't stand to see this game rated poorly. It's like they really want this game to be rated the same as or higher than other AAA shooters.

I'm sorry, but I don't care about what many people see as the potential of Arma 3. Because that's a lot of what's said here. It has the potential to be great because of modding. It has the potential to be great based on past games. That shouldn't factor into the game's reviews. Because that's not the state of the game at this point. And that's what reviews are for. If Arma 3 is much better in a year, then in a year's time it can maybe get a better review.

Also, about people criticizing the low user scores, as if there's some conspiracy to make Arma 3 and BI look bad. Look, guys, most casual shooters don't give a crap about Arma 3 or BI. Seriously, they just don't. Arma games will never compete consumer base-wise or financially with the success of twitch shooters. They just won't. Most people won't even deem it worth to try to ruin BI's reputation. So the only ones who will be contributing to Arma 3's scores will in fact be people who have at least tried the game, meaning that they have some interest in the game. So I'd be more willing to trust user scores as well.

And, like you metalcraze, I actually am appalled by this willingness of people to suggest that reviewers ignore key issues with the game. And unlike some have said in other threads, finding issues with the game doesn't mean you hate the game. It means you actually want to enjoy the game (otherwise you would just leave). And modding in a customizable sandbox environment really is the only thing that's keeping me with this game at the moment.

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imho my only comment was that there are only like 3 scores below 50 who gather all the negative about Arma 3

(QT3 is actually quite nasty to every title so i assume stuff like Colonial Marines and DNF got 5%)

people ignore the massive difference of magnitude of budget / teams behind BF3/4 vs Arma 3 ...

and lot of people simply expect they get what they got in other games , from A to Z ... not realizing it will be just another clone of clone of clone

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Mods kept Arma 2 alive for me for 4 years, or i should say quality mods, the sandbox part is true and the toys will come, It's all about the potential! It's no like bf/cod where you get one set of everything forever and play the same shit maps... forever, so cannot compare, sure A3 is a game but with so many different levels it deserves it's own category to be judged upon, but at the end of the day who cares, it's out now and everyone is trucking along, well mostly everyone.

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Apples vs oranges

Go.

Games are reviewed and scored respective to what they are trying to achieve.

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imho my only comment was that there are only like 3 scores below 50 who gather all the negative about Arma 3

(QT3 is actually quite nasty to every title so i assume stuff like Colonial Marines and DNF got 5%)

people ignore the massive difference of magnitude of budget / teams behind BF3/4 vs Arma 3 ...

and lot of people simply expect they get what they got in other games , from A to Z ... not realizing it will be just another clone of clone of clone

Even if i understand the huge problems of the developers with the release, i still don't understand why customers should care?

i don't usually read reviews but usually i look youtube videos befre buying games, OR i trust the devs because the previous iteration was a game that i liked..

i repeat that i understand the fact that this is not a multi-billion dollar company but for the customer (i speak for myself) this is not something to rely on.

and don't feel that the "quality over quantity" politic went so well...hence the mixed reviews.

personally i expected more, as should i do, as a customer.

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imho my only comment was that there are only like 3 scores below 50 who gather all the negative about Arma 3

(QT3 is actually quite nasty to every title so i assume stuff like Colonial Marines and DNF got 5%)

people ignore the massive difference of magnitude of budget / teams behind BF3/4 vs Arma 3 ...

and lot of people simply expect they get what they got in other games , from A to Z ... not realizing it will be just another clone of clone of clone

I don´t know if you are allowed to answer this Dwarden, but how much effort went into Arma 3 PR? I ask because I didn´t really notice anything PR related apart from Trailers, a few tidbits of info on some gaming news sites and the forum stuff.

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I don´t know if you are allowed to answer this Dwarden, but how much effort went into Arma 3 PR? I ask because I didn´t really notice anything PR related apart from Trailers, a few tidbits of info on some gaming news sites and the forum stuff.

when we have budget of 100s millions be sure there will be more PR than articles on main media and some trailers ...

until then we prefer to spend that on workforce ...

@GottyPlays as custom you don't care, you either accept it or play something from another arcade factory, you get plenty of titles each 6m

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@GottyPlays as custom you don't care, you either accept it or play something from another arcade factory, you get plenty of titles each 6m

Aaaand here lies the problem, isn't it?

With such an attitude, the day may come and there will be 20 die hard players / customers left to develop the game for. I'll be very honest, if you allow - BI has got very spoiled by their incredibly loyal, tolerant and supportive fanbase. It could be just me but I have not come across more supportive folk like on these forums. Yes, there are many rant threads from people who are pissed at something and those that are pissed but don't post or post but do so in a constructive manner.

My point is, he's right (@GottyPlays). It's understandable BI is nowhere near the budget of BF / COD games but the comparison is not fair to begin with. But as a new customer that he is, the fact that BI is going to finish the game as bug free and as polished within reasonable amount of time is for them nothing but hope of honoring some kind of promise by primarily, business company.

In my humble opinion, as a plain gamer and customer, is that while in no way I am trying to discredit the amount of work of a small-ish team put into arma 3 so far, I have a feeling that the majority expected far, far more polished game and especially attention

to detail, which I'd say BI never bothered with. I deliberately said never bothered, because if management wasn't so tight, the devs would have at least a chance to work on some but the ball still rolling, half assed attempts at every corner of the game but with even less content.

I look forward to how the game progresses though

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when we have budget of 100s millions be sure there will be more PR than articles on main media and some trailers ...

until then we prefer to spend that on workforce ...

@GottyPlays as custom you don't care, you either accept it or play something from another arcade factory, you get plenty of titles each 6m

oh boy i've hit the wrong button? i said that i expected more, not that i want to puke everytime i look at arma 3 :/

and just to be clear, i still payed for your game and i even tested it for you guys in alpha.

maybe you guys don't have the millions in your pockets like the big companies, but you clearly got their attitude with customers.

as per the review scores, i'd like to link a very good read on the matter, and why i think that reviews should be picked with a grain of salt:

http://kotaku.com/the-problem-with-review-scores-part-v-1326561822

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Mods kept Arma 2 alive for me for 4 years, or i should say quality mods, the sandbox part is true and the toys will come, It's all about the potential! It's no like bf/cod where you get one set of everything forever and play the same shit maps... forever, so cannot compare, sure A3 is a game but with so many different levels it deserves it's own category to be judged upon, but at the end of the day who cares, it's out now and everyone is trucking along, well mostly everyone.

But I'm pretty sure most reviews aren't saying "Arma 3 isn't like X game or Y game". And, no, reviews aren't about potential. They are about the product someone is buying. A game's potential should not supercede it's current state. Arma 3 should not get a perfect score because a bunch of other people not on the dev team can make stuff for the game. It shouldn't get a perfect score because of the end state of the previous game. If there's a top-of-the-line computer, it's review shouldn't be based on what state it will be in 5 years from now (worse state than now). No one would expect a review like that of a computer. So why should you expect that of Arma 3? I very much doubt you'll expect that of any other game (which will also see improvements from patches and updates).

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imho my only comment was that there are only like 3 scores below 50 who gather all the negative about Arma 3

(QT3 is actually quite nasty to every title so i assume stuff like Colonial Marines and DNF got 5%)

people ignore the massive difference of magnitude of budget / teams behind BF3/4 vs Arma 3 ...

and lot of people simply expect they get what they got in other games , from A to Z ... not realizing it will be just another clone of clone of clone

When you spend 3 years developing a game and scrap 2 years of work (and throw out a bunch of nice features from previous games) it has nothing to do with a magnitude of budget / teams.

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But I'm pretty sure most reviews aren't saying "Arma 3 isn't like X game or Y game". And, no, reviews aren't about potential. They are about the product someone is buying. A game's potential should not supercede it's current state. Arma 3 should not get a perfect score because a bunch of other people not on the dev team can make stuff for the game. It shouldn't get a perfect score because of the end state of the previous game. If there's a top-of-the-line computer, it's review shouldn't be based on what state it will be in 5 years from now (worse state than now). No one would expect a review like that of a computer. So why should you expect that of Arma 3? I very much doubt you'll expect that of any other game (which will also see improvements from patches and updates).

Maybe they should be saying it isn't like xy game from the beginning, I would imagine any serious review on Arma 3 would state this fact? A review on anything should always include potential if it's applicable, a lot of sales have been made due to an items potential, like a home, land, and in terms of gaming possibily some indie games are sold on their potential?

Anyway anyone serious about buying a game should check out a wide range of reviews and take all of them with a pinch of salt.

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oh boy i've hit the wrong button? i said that i expected more, not that i want to puke everytime i look at arma 3 :/

and just to be clear, i still payed for your game and i even tested it for you guys in alpha.

maybe you guys don't have the millions in your pockets like the big companies, but you clearly got their attitude with customers.

I agree with Dwarden. If you (not really you in particular as you seem to be willing to stick with the game but people in general) aren't happy with the product then don't support it. If you want to enjoy the product then your going to have to take the good with the bad. Dwarden is being totally honest. BIS didn't deliver all that you wanted. You mad? go somewhere else. They have limited resources and no amount of talking or complaining or pointing at xyz problem is going to change that. They can't pull content/performance/feautures out of thin air. The only way to polish the game up would be to simplify it (OFP RR anyone?).

as per the review scores, i'd like to link a very good read on the matter, and why i think that reviews should be picked with a grain of salt:

http://kotaku.com/the-problem-with-r...t-v-1326561822

Good article indeed. Especiallly agree with the whole apples and oranges. I find that the actual review of a game is much more useful than the score it gets. And even then those can be twisted especially by official game reviews. I personally have found the user rieview at metacritic to be very helpful at pointing me towards the games I will like. That and reading their forums.

When comparing arma 3 to the genre it is in, what it is trying to be and what is "expected" in the progression of the series I think arma should have scored way lower than most reviewers gave it - 5 out of 10 at best. But if I were to rate it as a game comparing it to other games out on the market - 8 out 10. But that's just my opinion and not something to base ones purchases on. It all depends on expectations and context.

When you spend 3 years developing a game and scrap 2 years of work (and throw out a bunch of nice features from previous games) it has nothing to do with a magnitude of budget / teams.

Disagree. More features/content etc = more potential for bugs and problems= more work to be done. Sounds like BIS went too big (Not only the 2 years but in arma 2 as well) and had to take a step back and reconsider their approach - because of the magnitude of their budget / team. Doesn't mean its not frustrating. But shit happens. Some of it is unavoidable and alot of it is avoidable - but its all in the past. Time to move on and look forward to the future - or pack up and leave.

I personally see more than enough good in arma 3 to wade through the shit. Plus they have my money already and there is no other game with the same goals so I'm here to stay.

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I agree with Dwarden. If you (not really you in particular as you seem to be willing to stick with the game but people in general) aren't happy with the product then don't support it. If you want to enjoy the product then your going to have to take the good with the bad. Dwarden is being totally honest. BIS didn't deliver all that you wanted. You mad? go somewhere else. They have limited resources and no amount of talking or complaining or pointing at xyz problem is going to change that. They can't pull content/performance/feautures out of thin air. The only way to polish the game up would be to simplify it (OFP RR anyone?).

Good article indeed. Especiallly agree with the whole apples and oranges. I find that the actual review of a game is much more useful than the score it gets. And even then those can be twisted especially by official game reviews. I personally have found the user rieview at metacritic to be very helpful at pointing me towards the games I will like. That and reading their forums.

When comparing arma 3 to the genre it is in, what it is trying to be and what is "expected" in the progression of the series I think arma should have scored way lower than most reviewers gave it - 5 out of 10 at best. But if I were to rate it as a game comparing it to other games out on the market - 8 out 10. But that's just my opinion and not something to base ones purchases on. It all depends on expectations and context.

Disagree. More features/content etc = more potential for bugs and problems= more work to be done. Sounds like BIS went too big (Not only the 2 years but in arma 2 as well) and had to take a step back and reconsider their approach - because of the magnitude of their budget / team. Doesn't mean its not frustrating. But shit happens. Some of it is unavoidable and alot of it is avoidable - but its all in the past. Time to move on and look forward to the future - or pack up and leave.

I personally see more than enough good in arma 3 to wade through the shit. Plus they have my money already and there is no other game with the same goals so I'm here to stay.

The problem with taking it and leaving it is that eventually I'm going to get fed up and leave it and you can't ignore the outcry from the community on ArmA 3 as obviously a lot of people are starting to feel that the typical ArmA release debacle is getting old, especially with ArmA 3 because it was toted to be the most quality polished release yet and it's even farther from it than past releases overall, not just in key area's but overall. I love ArmA and I've had a special passion for it since I played OFP. Eventually though that loyalty will wear out, it's already starting to, and with responses like that from Dwarden, it literally sounds like he's saying " Take it or leave it, we don't care about you". That's kind of a slap in the face for someone who has been loyal to this company through all of their releases. I understand his frustration with critical feedback being somewhat negative, but he's a developer in a business and it comes with the territory. There's going to be negative critical feedback, and you can't just keep ignoring it or being rude at people trying to provide feedback and relying on the fact that you have a loyal fan base that will carry you over the years, when it's that loyal fan base giving you the critical feedback. Adopting a "We didn't deliver? Tough shit, go somewhere else" attitude with your customers is pretty poor form if you want to keep those customers coming back.

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and with responses like that from Dwarden, it literally sounds to me like he's saying " Take it or leave it, we don't care about you".
The thing is there's been personal attacks on company and staff that go far beyond the game itself, even from so called loyal fans, the simple fact is if your not happy, there's the door.. It really doesn't get any simpler.

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especially with ArmA 3 because it was toted to be the most quality polished release yet and it's even farther from it than past releases overall, not just in key area's but overall
Well I would disagree but that is another discussion entirely.
I understand his frustration with critical feedback being somewhat negative, but he's a developer in a business and it comes with the territory. There's going to be negative critical feedback, and you can't just keep ignoring it or being rude at people trying to provide feedback and relying on the fact that you have a loyal fan base that will carry you over the years, when it's that loyal fan base giving you the critical feedback. Adopting a "We didn't deliver? Tough shit, go somewhere else" attitude with your customers is pretty poor form if you want to keep those customers coming back.

I think what people must understand is that Dwarden is not saying "We didn't deliver? Tough shit, go somewhere else" but rather "We didn't deliver? We tried and are continuing to try. If that's not good enough maybe somewhere else will be". He is actually being honesty rather than trying to reel you in and sell you on something that the devs are unable to deliver at this point in time. I don't think the devs are ignoring feed back. I think its rather that they simply do not have the resources to act upon all of it just yet or in some cases it is just not high on their priority list. This is not an excuse for the quality of the game. But it is the truth of the situation. Dwarden is being realistic.

I realize that it must be frustrating and I know that more than once I have gone on an "arma drought" where I just give up on the game and don't play for a couple months straight because I get fed up with all the flaws. But what else can we as customers and BIS as developers really do to fix the past? BIS has limitations, and that's not going to change any time soon. If you can't handle it then don't handle it. Its as simple as that.

Edited by -Coulum-

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The massive wave of complaints will blow over after the initial release stage phases out of ArmA 3. I am saddened that at least a part of the campaign wasn't released yet, but I can wait.

I do support the developers and the modders who I'm sure will carry the game onward through the years. Thanks for what you've done Bohemia. There are some problems with the game now but I have faith that you can fix them in due time.

Thanks,

Artemis

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The weird error, or "splenunky" is a very common error. I also get it all the time if im looking for a specific server on MP. Sometimes refreshing and clicking the server too many times can sometimes cause it to stuff up. However, even though it will say that, you can still join the server with no problems (also just click enter anyway if it shows up passworded).

The error is also in Arma 2 anyway, so we'll just have to live with it.

Hope it helps,

Ranwer

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