I just got the Roku LT for my bedroom since my Boxee Box took a shit (well it's been a long and slow constipated shit for the 2 years I had it). I actually just gave up on it and put it back in its box. Hoping the Roku is a lot better at streaming Netflix.
Earlier today, Polygon posted their review of SimCity and gave it a score of 9.5. The game was reviewed using the pre-release servers that EA had set up for advance copies. A lot of outlets chose to wait for the live servers to launch to publish their reviews but Polygon and some notable others didn't. Penny Arcade's Ben Kuchera wrote an article saying that readers shouldn't trust any SimCity review that goes up before knowing what the live servers would be.
Lo and behold, the live servers went up and the result has been mostly a disaster. Some people have been unable to get into the game at, while others can only get in sporadically. So, just a few hours after, its original review was published, Polygon revised the review and dropped SimCity's score from 9.5 to 8.
There's a lot of ways to view this. On one hand, Polygon should probably be commended by revising the review and trying to provide the most accurate view possible. On the other hand, one could argue that this could have been avoided by simply waiting an extra day to publish the review. What does Polygon say to those people to bought the game thinking it was a 9.5, only to find out a few hours later that it's actually an 8? It's a interesting precedent being set here and one that I'm not all that sure I'm behind. What say you, Giant Bomb?
We're so spoiled in that we get to watch extra videos like Jar Time with Jeff that help us get to know the thought process behind how they review their games and the person doing the review. Which in a way can help us understand how they come to a score and what that person looks for in a game.
With sites like Polygon you don't get any of that so the guy doing the review might as well be a mystical robot man who plays both sides of the table. So to me, none of what they're doing is really going to help their image in any way. The only thing I can see to help gain trust is to start showing videos of them like Giant Bomb.
That's just weird. Also, it's a good thing for Maxis/EA that the review score won't be reflected on Metacritic.
I gotta say, I don't go to Polygon...ever, but I finally decided to read this review, and it feels like someone who entered a "Back of the Box" quote contest. I don't know the guy from Adam, but...wow. That site makes me appreciate this one even more.
If the 9.5 stays on Metacritic then it totally feels like they've kind of planned this out in a way they think they could please everyone. They might get away with it too.
Yeah, fuck this guy for having a legitimate problem that should've been solved by now. How dare he report a bug in the correct way to the correct people.
I just turned off tressfx, tesselation and exclusive fullscreen to fix all the problems I was having (plus I lowered AF to 8x and shadow resolution to medium). The game looks a lot worse, but the framerates are super solid and I'm not getting any graphical glitches or crashing to desktop every 15mins.
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