19 people review one game at the same time: 28 May 2010 onward

[tiggerai]

Well done all of you - those reviews are fantastic!

Zakky - you are the master of ebil masterminds. Kudos for you matey!

I'd love to give this a go - but don't really have time. I will happily review any cake recieved though.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If you happen to get Crysis 2 or the new Fallout game I will be interested in reviewing it!

[bledd]

Great idea Zak

[Spud1]

Added in my review now..quite amazing to see the difference of opinion that we all have here Some love it..some hate..some in between, I think you were right Zakk when you said we'd never get a consensus lol. Looking forward to reading more reviews!

[Mithrandir]

I've been getting a 'shippingpc skygame.exe' error at the same point for the several times I've played it. I think I will have to reinstall to see if it fixes the problem.

Hopefully, it'll fix the problem and I can get on with playing and write up my review.

[jim]

I've been getting a 'shippingpc skygame.exe' error at the same point for the several times I've played it. I think I will have to reinstall to see if it fixes the problem.

Hopefully, it'll fix the problem and I can get on with playing and write up my review.

Yeah that's the one I had. Just at the point when two guys appear from a door and shoot out the ledge you're standing on. Found no way of proceeding yet

[Dingo]

Fabulous idea Zak, but I would ask, if this is to be a "fair" review of the game?, I am all for unbiased reviews, but have you submitted any sort of guidelines to the reviewers, in terms of reference material (ie) compare this game to X, Y and Z and make your conclusions based on your experience of those games?

Each reviewer appears to have been subjective, but given we have no prior exposure to their particular "traits" and "loves" of games....are we not exposed, yet again, to the basic failing\magic of the Internet......each to his own??!!.


yeah, yeah, yeah, ......I know, the Draconian Overseer has once again spoiled the fun, but History is both reference and reverence.......are we getting these in equal measure??



T

[danroyle]

Fabulous idea Zak, but I would ask, if this is to be a "fair" review of the game?, I am all for unbiased reviews, but have you submitted any sort of guidelines to the reviewers, in terms of reference material (ie) compare this game to X, Y and Z and make your conclusions based on your experience of those games?

Each reviewer appears to have been subjective, but given we have no prior exposure to their particular "traits" and "loves" of games....are we not exposed, yet again, to the basic failing\magic of the Internet......each to his own??!!.


yeah, yeah, yeah, ......I know, the Draconian Overseer has once again spoiled the fun, but History is both reference and reverence.......are we getting these in equal measure??



T

Surely your idea clouds judgement if you take a fps game and straight away compare it to something like cod MW or half life then you are no longer unbiased, The only true way to review a game is on its own merits not on its similarities to gears of war or gran turismo or so on.Very few games stand up to the level of quality of a cod or half life 2 due to budget restraints but many are still good games in the own rights.

But for the record we were given a guideline of read no reviews of the game before you play it and go in with an open mind.

[kalniel]

Fabulous idea Zak, but I would ask, if this is to be a "fair" review of the game?

Depends what you mean by 'fair'. The reviews are not at all objective, nor are they written by professional reviewers.

I am all for unbiased reviews, but have you submitted any sort of guidelines to the reviewers, in terms of reference material (ie) compare this game to X, Y and Z and make your conclusions based on your experience of those games?

You mean we should not have been free to make our own review, but instead be told exactly what the review should cover? I think that's a bad idea personally, unless the game is exclusively targeted towards buyers with a certain history (for example, an expansion pack to a game). But that's not usually the case - all stand alone games hope to capture some new market to a certain extent.

Each reviewer appears to have been subjective, but given we have no prior exposure to their particular "traits" and "loves" of games....are we not exposed, yet again, to the basic failing\magic of the Internet......each to his own??!!.

Brevity prevented me from explaining more about my traits, as it probably did with most others. But instead of having to explain each trait the (better) alternative is to use a blind sample which will therefore be able to represent a wide range of backgrounds (of Hexus users). And that is ezaktly what happened - none of us knew the game before volunteering so applications will have been from people across a range of 'traits'.

History is both reference and reverence.......are we getting these in equal measure??

Why should you? This isn't a professional review - you can get them from any number of sources. Instead this is a very different slant on the review process which should give readers a different angle.

[jim]

Each reviewer appears to have been subjective, but given we have no prior exposure to their particular "traits" and "loves" of games....are we not exposed, yet again, to the basic failing\magic of the Internet......each to his own??!!.

That's the whole point of this. By getting 19 people to review the game at the same time, you should eliminate the bias that comes from those sources.

We're getting some people who exclusively play FPS/TPS games, some people who never play them. Some people who hate futuristic/old settings, some people who love them. It should all balance out by the end.

[Zak33]

I'm not only pleased with the outcome so far... I really proud of it.

Because, to get people to play with no knowledge AND no reference to other games is MORE likey to bring out people who would NOT normally review games.

If I'd asked people to compare with 3 other similar games from the genre, and yet not told them WHAT the genre was, I'd not have had so many willing victims....players.

If I did this again, I'd do it almost exactly the same way tbh. Tider, but the same format.
I'm loving it. It's a bit like finding a new island in the middle of an ocean and finding dodo's and dinosaurs.. and fnding the dodo's were uber clever and donosaurs knitted woolen jumpers and liked cheese fondue.

In essence, I think I have found a load of people who would NEVER EVER have bought this game... either slightly enjoying it, or maybe really enjoying it.

I like that idea. It stengthens each of their own resolves, and I bet a few of them enjoy it enough to suggest it to people in the future.

[oolon]

I am interest in knowing what the other reviewers think of it as we are still missing some. I am very pleased to see from he other reviews I was not the only one to have problems with the jetpack. Just for interest I tried to fly using my track ball, however switched to a mouse as I could not control it. I have now completed the game so it is possible without a gamepad.

[Zak33]

some of the other guys will be completing their reviews next week. Hence they mustn't read this thread.

[Random_guy]

In a way I'm glad I wasn't eligible to take part, as I already own Dark Void (and had read reviews of it prior to buying it). I must say though, I didn't have any of the problems reported here with installing. The only problem I did have was with the game crashing on a cut scene, which was easily fixable with a small amount of googling.

[Behemoth]

Here's mine, sorry its late

Dark Void – Behemoth's review.

This is the first time I've ever reviewed a game, having played many I should think I'd have a good idea on what to write, so here goes.

I didn't know what game I was getting in the post, it was sorta like a blind date. I was half expecting some really weird horse racing simulator but to see on the cover of the case a man wearing a rocket pack my first impressions were just by looking at the cover this game is going to be cool.

Annoyingly when I put the DVD in my drive the game took an age to install, at one point I thought my hardware was faulty but it turns out that the media used in this instance is a dual layer DVD hence why it took along time to install from the DVD to my PC. I shudder to think how long this would take if you had to download it on Steam or games for Windows Live for example.

Once the game was installed it loaded into a series of advertising, then eventually to the main menu. The menu in itself has a pretty simple layout, nothing was hidden and it was very easy to get to the settings I wanted to change.

Finally once I'd sorted my settings I was ready to play !

As soon as you've selected your difficulty your literally thrown in at the deep end flying your rocket pack with little to no explanation of any kind of story. You have a few short moments in order to get used to your controls and you are told briefly how to use your rocket pack (afterburners, air brakes etc.)

Once you've grasped this it literally is time to start fighting. So you don't really get much time to admire the scenery or the graphics. Its become clear straight away that Dark Void was ported over from a console because the controls themselves when in flight are very clunky with the default settings out the box.

I found myself having to set the mouse sensitivity to its highest setting to get the rocket pack anywhere near controllable. That said maybe this would have been better served as a tutorial or maybe the game story should have started so you get some background as to what the plot behind Dark Void.

However once you've defeated the alien space craft that are shooting at you Dark Void abruptly goes to a cut scene which leaves you wandering what the point of all that was.

This is when the story line starts to unfold, and I have to say that I found myself rather intrigued by it. Set in the late 30's your plane and your crew are sucked into the Bermuda Triangle. I've always been fascinated by stories like this so I was happy to play on.

When you do get used to the controls you are rewarded with some very intense battles which held my interest as I was always kept wondering what would happen next.

I have to say the thing I liked most about dark Void was the fact it used the UT3 engine. This mean Dark Void will run with high settings on the most modest of PC's whilst leaving it open for mods later on.

To me the best part of Dark Void is its story, a different take on the Bermuda Triangle and on what happens once its entered.

Overall I really enjoyed Dark Void even though I did have a few niggles with installation and how to control it. Behemoth's rating 6.5/10

[Iron Sights]

I would like to take this moment to dedicate my review to rollo, who sadly won’t be here with us today. (we salute you )

Before I start my review I should mention that I have completed the game.
Here are just some of my thoughts about Dark Void.

To start off with just like some of the others who reviewed this game I ran into a few snags during the installation, it was slow at first but after I restarted the installation it was running fine.

Anyway……

Dark Void is a story about discovery, betrayal and mystery, well maybe not but at least the last one still stands true.
I say mystery, as there seems to be a dark void in my head as to what the hell this story is all about.
Don’t get me wrong the story wasn’t exactly the kind of complicated twisty-turny plot you would expect to find in the bowels of Hideo Kojima but, I just never got into it. Put it this way, if you find that you learn more about the story from the load screen messages than the actual cut scenes then you know you’re running into a sack of….....poo.

This is partly due to the characters being bland and uninteresting. Take one of the early cut scenes for example… Nathan Drake …er… Will and Ava escape from a plane crash, unscathed, no scratches, while showing little care about his “good” friend who is probably dead. It’s only later that Will expresses his sadness about his loss.
PLEASE…. come on, (sigh), don’t try and have a moment now you’re about an hour in the game now.

As for the game play, it seems to have borrowed a lot of things from other games, the run and gun sequences as well as the cover system are very similar what we have already seen which isn’t a bad thing but brings nothing new to the table.

However later on things get interesting with the jet pack. Flying at first was annoying and difficult, but I seemed to adapt to the rubbish aiming system.
Another thing I noticed was how stupidly easy the game was, I honestly stopped using my guns after I discovered the melee attack and cleared room after room of bad guys in no time. As for the bosses, a mere well placed fart in their face would have probably done the trick.

What I Liked:
-Melee Attack- I found this mildly amusing
-Booting the lizards in the head- very satisfying
-Flying through the air with the jet pack
-Graphics were pretty decent

What I Didn’t Like:
-Difficult to play on keyboard and mouse
-Game was too easy- The bosses were a joke ("yoo hoo, hey dumb ass, I have giant glowing target that you musn't shoot") – the only challenge was trying to defeat 3 archon “scorpion” bosses whilst protecting your ship
-Dodgy AI- the flying saucers occasionally crashed into rocks and the ground enemies would sometimes stand still
-Activating the jet pack indoors = instant death
-Journals- never bothered reading them
-Melee attack and pick up weapon button is the same- this one really annoyed me. (When trying to bash people over the head I would pick up dropped weapons instead.)
-Guns and upgrade selection was poor
-Ending- see below for details
-No replay value, no multiplayer
-The levels felt samey and boring
-Very little variety of enemies

As I have mentioned before I have completed the game and saw the ending and that’s exactly what happened I only SAW the ending.

Let me explain… midway through the final boss battle the sound started cutting out and then it was stuck on a continuous loop, which meant that the final cut scenes had no sound, all except some annoying loop. I tried everything but the only thing that would have probably fixed it was if I turned it off and restarted the game, but I didn’t want to do the entire level all over again. Which, oh dear, brings me onto the saving system. Sure you will reach check points dotted throughout the level but the game forces you to play till the end of the chapter. If you were to quit after passing the check point you would still have to continue from the start.

Conclusion
I know I might come across as being very critical but it’s just my honest thoughts on this game. I don’t know but I have a feeling that the game didn’t know what it wanted to be and so it tried to do everything and in doing so shot itself in the foot.
Somewhere in this game is something half decent but it’s shrouded in a weak story and hampered with dodgy controls, not to mention a few bugs too.
Would I recommend this to anyone? Well Harold Bishop’s chin would shudder in disbelief if anyone paid hard earned cash to play this game.

Finally, many thanks to Zak for his time and effort in setting this up

P.S: is it just me or does Nikola sound like Colonel Cambell, “make sure you retrieve the sonar box”.