Gamespot review and #1 game

[onomastikon]

As previously mentioned, Dominions is a game of staggering depth and complexity--qualities that most fans of strategy games highly appreciate. However...

That was actually a fairly fair review (in general, even if I dont agree with his "tilt"). It seems that the "howevers" outweighted it for him (although certainly not for us!). If he found a different interface / AI, I bet he would have given it a 9.

[ceremony]

Originally posted by onomastikon:

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As previously mentioned, Dominions is a game of staggering depth and complexity--qualities that most fans of strategy games highly appreciate. However...

That was actually a fairly fair review (in general, even if I dont agree with his "tilt").

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"Tilt" is a reflection of how much the reviewer enjoyed the game, so it's the one rating aspect that really can't be disagreed with - the low score reflects the fact that the reviewer didn't enjoy the game all that much. Others (like me) enjoy the game a whole heck of a lot, but that doesn't invalidate the reviewer's experience.

[ceremony]

Originally posted by PvK:

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Originally posted by HJ:

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Rankings based on information requests on GameSpot

In other words, it's the number of clicks it recevied in the past day.

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More deep and useful information from the pop media...

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I don't think it's supposed to be profound - it is an interesting statistic, though, as far as I'm concerned. For one thing, it shows that the number of Dominions fans reading the review is large enough to make it the most-visited strategy game article on the site for a day or two. That's good news for the game!

[ January 24, 2004, 17:29: Message edited by: ceremony ]

[Targa]

Wisdom originally spoken by Saber Cherry:

You know the big problem? He listed the learning curve as "About 1 hour". That, if nothing else, should discredit his entire article - he's off by a factor of 100, at least... not to imply that you could learn Dominions in 100 hours, but at least you'd get a feel for what's a good idea, and what not to do in that timeframe.

LOL! LMAO! So, so true.... I hope to excel at this game before I grow old and die...

[ceremony]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
You know the big problem? He listed the learning curve as "About 1 hour". That, if nothing else, should discredit his entire article - he's off by a factor of 100, at least... not to imply that you could learn Dominions in 100 hours, but at least you'd get a feel for what's a good idea, and what not to do in that timeframe.

The "learning curve" refers solely to the interface, and learning how to use it, as well as basic mechanics such as how fortresses use resources, etc. It does not refer in any way to learning advanced strategies.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by ceremony:
The "learning curve" refers solely to the interface, and learning how to use it, as well as basic mechanics such as how fortresses use resources, etc. It does not refer in any way to learning advanced strategies.

Well, maybe so, but... 1 hour? Teaching my friend to play Dominions II took me a couple weeks... after which, he asked, "How do you keep troops from starving if you need to take a low-resource province?" hmmm. I mean, it was hard not to laugh, but regardless, Dominions II play mechanics are not learnable in an hour. Chess is, Dominions II is not. And I'm not talking about strategy, just play mechanics, like "What is this 'search for magic sites' command, why would I want to use it, and when is it effective? Should I do it in my capitol? And raise taxes to 200% also? What do blood slaves do - should I gather some?" And so forth.

[bruinb77]

I generally will discount Gamespot on reviews about turn based games. Depending on the reviewer, the reviews are not consistent on what makes a good turn based game. Too much emphasis on "dated graphics" or "micromanagement". For turn based games, that's relatively common, even among the greatest ones.