Game Review Comments
by Robert A. Jung, January 30, 1997

The following essay originally appeared in the Lynx Hyperstack, an Apple Macintosh Hypercard stack of Lynx reviews and information. It has been slightly modified, both to bring it up to date and to be more relevant to the Electric Escape's collection of reviews. While it focuses specifically on Lynx games, the same principles apply for my other game reviews, too.

Introduction
How the heck do I start this?

I guess an introduction will do. I'm Robert Jung, the guy who wrote all of the game reviews at the Electric Escape. I wanted an opportunity to comment on these reviews, to share some of the thinking I used in writing them, and this seemed as good a place as any. So here is a rambling discourse on writing, gaming, and whatever random topics I can squeeze in and joke about. I'll try to be entertaining without being egotistical, but if you find this all too much to take, just click the "Back" button on your browser and shut me up.

(And if you want to send e-mail, go for it.)

Getting Started
Where did these reviews come from? Well, they sure didn't come all at once. Instead, these form the collection of the reviews I've written on the Internet newsgroups since 1990. If you've regularly read rec.games.video, rec.games.video.misc, alt.games.lynx, alt.atari-jaguar.discussion, and/or rec.games.video.atari, you might have seen these before. Or not.

In any case, aside from some minor touch-ups and reformatting, each review is the same as what was originally presented for public consumption when the games were first released(*). This means that the reviews were written over a period of over six years. That means that the style of the writing has changed over time. If you thought that the tone hasn't been consistent, now you know why.

(* = Well, not exactly. I never wrote reviews for the earliest Lynx games when they were released, since the idea of writing reviews didn't come until Fall 1990. But I later wrote "retroactive reviews" for those earliest titles, and the ones collected here are the ones first publically posted. Close enough.)

Author Peter David once said that he couldn't stand to read his earlier writings because he could see with hindsight all the errors and flaws in his work. I know how that feels. The earliest Lynx reviews in this collection are for ROBO-SQUASH and PAPERBOY. The most recent ones (at the time of this writing) are MALIBU BIKINI VOLLEYBALL and DESERT STRIKE. A quick glance and you can see noticable differences: a more formal style, less rambling, and (I hope) more precision. I have to admit, reading some of those earliest reviews makes me wince a little. I've been tempted several times to rewrite them and bring them "up to date", but in the end I decided not to. They are, in a way, archives, and it's better overall to keep them as they were, warts and all.

Why Bother?
Why do reviews at all? I don't really know. For the fun of it, I guess. At the time I first started getting into the Lynx (I bought it just to play BLUE LIGHTNING, it was that much fun), I was buying games left and right. Something somewhere clicked that, as long as I was doing this, I might as well write reviews about them. I can't remember if it was selfless altruism (helping others avoid bad purchases) or some ego-stroking (seeing your name in print is always a kick), or what. Probably a combination of both. At any case, it's great practice for my writing skills, so it's not a total waste.

The next question that usually comes is, "Why are you buying all those Lynx games?" Call it a collector's frenzy -- maybe a working Lynx and a full library of games can be worth something someday (as an example, there's a pretty brisk demand for old Vectrex units). And if not, at least I have something to play with on trips and long lines at the bank. I imagined that if the Lynx game library ever grows really big really fast, I'll slow down this "hobby", but it never did. Which is a shame for me as a Lynx enthusiast and an Atari supporter, but relief for my pocketbook.

And yes, I do buy all the games myself. If that's not proof that I'm nuts, I don't know what is...

Philosophy
(Rob imitates Andy Rooney) Don'cha hate it when you pick up a video-game magazine, read a review for some new game or whatever, and have the reviewer write, "Well, this is a great <genre> game, but since I don't like <genre> games, I'm going to say it sucks"?

It ticks me off to no end -- if you don't like the type in the first place, why do you bother reviewing it? I mean, I don't like horror movies, so when Friday the 13th XLIV comes out, getting me to review it would be stupid and pointless. At least a fan of the genre can look at it and say if it's better or worse, and for what reasons.

The point of this is that when I review a game, I try to look at it from the point-of-view of someone who likes that kind of stuff. Some may read my reviews and think that I seem to like everything. Not really -- I just (try to) write as if I do like that particular type of game, for the moment.

I don't claim to know everything, and often have to do research. If I'm reviewing an adaptation, I try to play the original first. Or I show the game to friends who are fans of the genre and get their opinions. You people know who you are. If nothing else, I've tried to put enough information in the text to describe things so that the reader can make his (or her) own decisions.

The reviews are certainly not indicators of my own tastes. Some of the games I play the most did not get wild raves (PINBALL JAM and MS. PAC-MAN being two examples), and some of the ones with the highest ratings I don't play as much. That's because, in my free time, I don't have to be impartial at all...

Rating the Ratings
If I ever live to be a hundred, I don't think I'll ever be satisfied with the ratings system.

What's wrong? In the first place, the ratings for the earliest games were assigned semi- arbitrariy, without any solid guidelines as to what constituted a 10 or a 1. I've revamped up the system several times, but that just means the numbers aren't always consistent across all games. I was really tempted to update the ratings in this collection to make them consistent, but (as mentioned earlier) I decided to leave things untouched for archival reasons.

Second, the ratings for "Graphics" and "Sound" are not meant to be absolute, but based on game type. A puzzle game, in my opinion, doesn't need fancy sounds and graphics. But SHANGHAI offers them anyway, so it gets 9s and 10s for that. An action game like SHADOW OF THE BEAST, on the other hand, "should" have great graphics and sound (to set mood and atmosphere, after all). I give the graphics and sounds on BEAST 8s and 9s. Does that mean SHANGHAI looks and sounds better than BEAST? No! It means that, relative to puzzle games, SHANGHAI delivers everything I could reasonably ask for, and that, relative to action games, BEAST could have gone a bit farther. Comparing the numbers is like comparing apples and oranges, and shouldn't be done (though I know some people have, or will, try to). And then, to make things even more complicated, the ratings are further modified by the demands of the individual game itself. I mean, background music on ZARLOR MERCENARY is welcome, but on BATTLEWHEELS it would be a distraction. It makes my head spin -- and I'm the one who assigns these silly things.

There are other complications, but the bottom line is that the ratings are not that important -- nor are they meant to be. They're for getting a feel for the quality of a game, but stink as emperical data, especially to compare games with (though I know some people have tried to do so). When in doubt, ignore the numbers and read the text instead.

Yes, I know the ratings tend to average out to 7s or 8s. I think this is because your "typical" game designer is going to try to make his project look/sound/play well. You'd have to deliberately try to screw up to get a 1 or a 2. And who'd want to intentionally make their game look like Pong?

About the only thing uncomplicated about the ratings is how the "Overall" score is computed. The formula is:

    1) Take the Gameplay rating and double it.
    2) Add the ratings for Graphics and Sound
    3) Divide by 4.
    4) If necessary, round to the nearest 0.5 towards the Gameplay rating.

For example, BATMAN RETURNS got an 8 for Gameplay, 9 for Graphics, and 6.5 for Sound. The sum is then 8 + 8 + 9 + 6.5 = 31.5. Division by 4 yields 7.875, which is rounded towards the Gameplay score of "8", to yield an Overall rating of 8. Now you know. If there's a discrepency in an "Overall" score, blame it on bad math.

(The Gameplay rating is worth twice as much because I feel that the way a game plays is more important than how it looks and sounds)

Winding Down
Gee, I'm running out of things to say already. Might as well end it here, then. I hope you find the reviews useful, however you choose to use them. At the very minimum, I hope they give you enough information about how a title is like, so you can decide for yourself if it's worth buying. It's all opinions, after all; no one's view is any better or worse than another's.

And besides, these are just games! Don't take them (or much of anything else) too seriously, and have fun.