Overall, the "originality" meme that keeps popping up in game journalism is a bit of a red herring. There will never be another 100% original game made, just as there will never be a completely original song written. It's not that originality is dead; it's just that the limitaions of the art form and the human senses prevent further innovation, unless someone discovers another note in the octave or a 6th sense that everyone has access to. Someone looking for originality needs to look closer at the minutia and details.

I agree that people need to pay attention to the details when deciding whether or not a game is original. That said, some games are so blatantly unoriginal that it can be difficult to read between the lines. The Call of Duty games, for example. Or military shooters in general. When it comes to gameplay, there are definitely differences between Call of Duty and Battlefield, for example. However, it doesn't change the fact that the games have similar (or in many cases, exactly the same) weapons, enemies, settings, storylines, factions, themes, vehicles, etc. Part of the issue is that these games are inspired by reality and as such, draw from the same pool of reference. The other issue is that military shooters (CoD in particular) sell so well that most of them just stick to the same exact formula. There's a lot of unique gameplay that can be done in the military shooter genre, whether it be the open-world, simulation-based gameplay of the ArmA series or the potentially interesting moral choices of the upcoming SpecOps game. However, most publishers will just continue to copy CoD because it's a proven seller.

The market is dominated by first-person shooters and the first-person shooter market is dominated by CoD-alikes. If I see another completely linear, completely scripted, pseudo-realistic military shooter with regenerating health and completely linear and scripted sniping, rail and stealth segments, it'll be too soon. Unfortunately, we're guaranteed to see at least one more in 2012 and most likely again each year after that.

(see what I did there?)

Skyrim is too mainstream for me to get a free copy to review

Sweet Lord no.

Jerykk wrote on Dec 13, 2011, 03:44:
I believe D-Day got awful reviews.

Not all were awful.

You don't have to worry about giving 10s when you score games out of eight!

Verno wrote on Nov 22, 2011, 12:08:
A fool and his money...

A teenager and his parents' money.

I agree!

I think that Focus Home has no way of actually programming the game, just the ability to mod in maps and buildings. Which means all you're getting is maps and buildings, which could have been sold as $5 DLC instead of masquerading as a new game.

This game is quite fun, even this early on.

xXBatmanXx wrote on Nov 5, 2011, 21:59:
But a perfect score - I guess I have always been of the mind there are only about 2-4 games in history (per platform) that would get a perfect score.

I like to think of it as a maximum score rather than a perfect score. Nothing is perfect.

xXBatmanXx wrote on Nov 6, 2011, 15:37:
either do it on the front end or the back end.

That's what she said.

Despite the problems I mention in the review, BF3 is my favorite shooter of the moment. I felt the smaller maps and unlocks and other (imho) minor issues weren't enough to outweigh the sheer fun of the multiplayer game.

Keep in mind that it is a score for MP only. If I had reviewed the SP, the overall score would have not been an 8.

Plus, I gave 7/8 score to both Brink and Breach, and BF3 is better than both those games.

Prez wrote on Oct 30, 2011, 13:57:
That Stronghold 3 review is very disappointing. (Because of how bad the game turned out - the review is fine)

GameSpy review = disappointing
Out of Eight review = fine

Right?

Here is an exclusive video of the product launch

It is not good.

Quboid wrote on Oct 21, 2011, 11:05:
Jaguar, do you ever sleep? You seem incredibly prolific for what (I assume) is a part time, one man job.

Yeah. I'm efficient when I review, which helps when you have something new to do every 5 days (got Stronghold 3 today!).

I hate PR videos. Is it too much to ask for one minute of continuous gameplay instead of 20 spurts of 3-second chaos?

Beamer wrote on Oct 18, 2011, 22:54:
These are the ones they are large enough to get advanced copies (no offense to something like Out of Eight, but it's not really on the advance copy list for most publishers.)

I get early stuff from one publisher consistently, Paradox, but that's because everyone does when the review copies appear on the press Gamer's Gate accounts
I will say that there are clearly sites that get games early, usually based on readership but sometimes based on favorability, and the PR companies control who gets what when. I can't review a game early that I won't get until the release date like everyone else. I ask, of course, but 99% of the time I get Steam codes the same time everyone else does. There are some games that have embargoes for two reasons: (a) one site has exclusiveness, or (b) they don't want any site to have exclusiveness. What's the penalty? Potentially not getting free games from them anymore. Personally, I'm less worried about giving a bad review score, because as long as your reasons are justified, the publisher doesn't care too much (and especially if the game copy came from an outside PR firm that has less vested interest). I've only had one instance of a publisher not liking a review of mine, and that's because they released a crap expansion that added nothing but charged $30 for it.

kyleb wrote on Oct 18, 2011, 02:48:
It was the roughest "beta" I've ever played

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. How many betas have you played, two? I've played many preview betas while reviewing games and BF3 lies somewhere in the middle to upper end of stability based on the frequency of bugs.

Verno wrote on Oct 17, 2011, 10:59:
I'm pretty weary about the rest

Like what?

entr0py wrote on Oct 15, 2011, 00:27:
it all depends on the quality of the maps, not the quantity.

True. The could have released BF2 with just Karkand, Dalian Plant, and Wake and most people would have been happy.