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I saw a bit of a stir today over some semantics in the following story:

Quake II -- Worst of the Year?
PCME has an article up called the Worst of 1997, which focuses a lot of its attention on Quake II, in spite of repeated comments that it's a great game.

Now I have not been posting many of the reviews of Quake II on the main news page, but I thought this one was interesting. I wasn't trying to knock the position PCME took (they are entitled to their own opinion), but clearly from the two letters I received, and the fact that PCME has chosen to publicly lash out at me about this, not everyone sees it that way. I guess it's the use of the phrase "in spite of", but I merely wanted to note that the story was not entirely down on Quake II. To completely get into painful detail, the phrase "a lot of attention" that was objected to, was merely an attempt at accurately portraying the article, as it did not come out and say Quake II was one of the worst games of the year.

In re-reading my article, I have to say that while it could have been phrased differently to avoid misinterpretation, maybe like this: "PCME has an article up called the Worst of 1997, which focuses some of its attention on Quake II, though it also contains many comments that it's a great game." But that is hindsight. The bottom line is that I was not putting any spin on anything, and I stand by the article as written. Here are the two pieces of feedback I received that disagreed, clearly thinking I was rushing to Quake II's defense. As always feedback on issues like this are welcome, and are always considered food for thought:

Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 123653 -0500
From: "Marcules"
Subject: PCME/ 'the Worst...'

Perhaps you should actually read the article first. Then perhaps you wouldn't (as it appears) be so confused as to how both claims can be satisfied. There seems to be an ever increasing tendancy among Quake related news pages (in general, not to single any one page out) to leap to Ids defense at any cost. Perhaps I was mistaken, but my impression was when a page claimed to be a 'news' page one could expect a certain amount of journalistic integrity. Otherwise, 'rumor page' might be nearer the mark.

I agree with the article not only as it pertains to Id, but for any company rushing an unfinished product to market. Bugs are a fact of life when dealing with computers but there is a difference between having players find the occasional ones you missed and knowingly shipping the product with them (and admit it or not, there were and still are many). Not to mention the features and levels that were left out.

Is it too late for the gaming community as a whole to stand up and say "We will buy your game 'WHEN IT IS DONE" ?

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Date Tue, 6 Jan 1998 100445 -0800
From: Jeff Crowley
Subject Quake II -- Worst of the Year?

3 out of almost 40 paragraphs is "a lot of its attention"?  You might try reading the article again.  It wasn't saying that the game was the worst, just the state in which it was released and I must say that I agree.  With a minimal amount of testing the game could have been much better, but it wouldn't have been out by Christmas.

FYI, I liked Q2 single player.  I thought that it was a huge improvement over Quake and probably as good if not better than Jedi Knight single player.  BUT, the overpowered weapons, lack of DM levels, server problems and not-yet-implemented multiplayer features show that this game was released before "when it's done".

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