Damn....

[Xeon]

i just bought an original copy of Tomb Raider: Chronicles (i dont care what you think of it, so dont bother reviewing it to me). its odd that it didnt have a decent cover but still has a manual. then when i got home, popped CD 1 and browsed its contents, i notice that one small file in the root folder has a copy of itself in the same place (named "Copy of ENGLISH.DAT"), a somewhat incomplete readme.txt file and, a version.txt file which contains:

 

Tomb Raider: Chronicles and Lara Croft © & TM Core Design Limited 2000.

                   © & Published by Eidos Interactive Limited 2000. All Rights Reserved.

                

 

 

                                              Version 1.0 - 16th October 2000.

 

 

 

                                       Registered to Eidos Interactive Germany.10014

 

 

 

       To be returned to Core Design Limited, 2 Roundhouse Road, Pride Park, Derby, DE24 8JE

 

 

 

          This version is early development code and is currently 85% complete.

 

now, you may be wondering what this has to do with the Topic Description, and here it is, an excerpt from Gamespot's Tomb Raider: Chronicles PC version review

 

Difficulty:

Medium

Learning Curve:

About a half hour

Stability:

Minor Problems

Version:

1.0

 

The game also has some noticeable technical problems. Debugging errors crashed the game occasionally, graphics clipping abounds, and there were some slight problems with movie sequences that didn't play properly.

 

now im not saying that you cant trust game reviewers but remember, reviewers tend to b!tch and whine about the glaring bugs they can find in a game but forgets that theyre reviewing a pre-release version and as always, is subject to be changed. you may be better off with actual user comments but thats your choice. this may be old but at least you got one more proof of it now.

 

as for the CD i bought, im just gonna have to replace it with another game

Edited October 24, 2004 by Xeon

[Gryph]

Game reviewers are overbloated pieces of crap. I don't read reviews to determine if I am going to buy a game, I just go to GameRankings.com and use the general consensus to know if it sucks or not.

[Agozer]

I trust the finnish game magazine reviews. When I'm looking up game ratings in the internet, I go to Adrenaline Vault or then make up my mind based on GameFAQs reviews (although there are times when I don't want to read those).

[ugenn]

For ppl who leech/pirate/freeload, I doubt reviews matter too much.

[Xeon]

it does for me

 

not really, i just want motivation from those reviews (on what to download). for buying games, they arent my basis at all as well.

 

i just tend to like Gamespot's and Avault's pages

[ugenn]

it does for me

 

not really, i just want motivation from those reviews (on what to download). for buying games, they arent my basis at all as well.

 

i just tend to like Gamespot's and Avault's pages

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

What's "buying games"?

[emsley]

Silence suckAs!

Reviews are good, gamespot always gets it write, then just to make sure look at the users opinion ratings, i go with that more than the main review.

Edited October 24, 2004 by emsley

[Thraxen]

I think you may be reading something into nothing. The developers should have never assigned an incomplete game a version 1.0 build number. It's also possible that the "Version 1.0" was just in the text and was never changed in the complete final retail build. Meaning it was just stuck in the txt file early. Does anyone here have a copy of the actual initial retail version? That is the only way to tell. Also, you said the text file appeared to be incomplete. It could simply be that they didn't keep up with the text file(s) very well and stuff was left in there that no longer applies. You really have no way of knowing from this what Gamespot actually received.

Edited October 24, 2004 by Thraxen

[Xeon]

I think you may be reading something into nothing.  The developers should have never assigned an incomplete game a version 1.0 build number.  It's also possible that the "Version 1.0" was just in the text and was never changed in the complete final retail build.  Meaning it was just stuck in the txt file early.  Does anyone here have a copy of the actual initial retail version?  That is the only way to tell.  Also, you said the text file appeared to be incomplete.  It could simply be that they didn't keep up with the text file(s) very well and stuff was left in there that no longer applies.  You really have no way of knowing from this what Gamespot actually received.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

damn, you may be right, the review was posted eight days after the release date. the Debugging errors they mentioned got on me though

 

about the text files, well im half-sure it just wasnt completed, well at least previous readmes tell me that. all previous readmes (that i saw) gets finished by a company contact information, this one ended up in a software rendering note plus shiatload of carriage returns :\

[KyokugenKiss]

i only trust my own opinion or that of hard core Kyokugeners!

[Chaotica]

I just look at reviews to read about details about a game, not taking into account the score. I only decide if I like the game or not when I have played it. Reviews are all subjective, no matter what.

 

Gamespot are okay, but they are far too nitpicky. They also write off almost every game that "lacks innovation" and I think that sucks. They also seem to go easier on console games then PC games, for some reason.