Question is, why dont you guys post about games you dont like? As in review games but if you dont like it, well review it and explain why. If you like the game, write the review on why you like the game.
Because there is an overabundance of good games to post about on top of the daily news like sales, updates, etc that we also post about. I have four games in queue and two interviews right now to write about, and by the time I'm finished with half of that I'll have more stuff in queue. Why would I waste time writing about a game I don't like when there is no shortage of good games I do like?
If I play a game for 5 mins I can assume what the rest will be like. If the dev requested you review it and you said you would. Doesnt that mean you should review it even though you dont like it?
Arn and Hodapp can confirm this.. TA does not tell developers their game will be reviewed before they have played it.
I don't understand your logic at all either.... Why would anyone at Touch Arcade play a game for only 5 minutes and write a review for it? That's not fair to the developer and defeats the purpose of front page article. There's a forum for user reviews where people are free to do that sort of thing if they wish, as long as they follow the basic ground rules. There is no way in hell that Touch Arcade could review every game that they are requested to review....there's simply too many of them out there. If they don't like a game....not reviewing it is actually the nicer thing to do...imagine the impact on sales if they warned people not to buy a game because they thought it was horrible?
Example: If I play Doom Resurrection for 5-10 mins you can assume it is about etc..If I play Rolando for 10 mins I can assume what you do in Rolando. Yea it's not good for the devs sales but if it's a bad game and needs some work provide some helpful feedback for the dev.
...not really. I don't post what I consider a "full review" until I've played through all of (or a large majority) of the game.
I don't post too much. Usually when I do is just to ask a few questions about a game that I may be interested in. I read the reviews, Big Albie's are hard to miss (he really likes puzzle games). But to me, the main purpose of the site is to 1) Inform about new games and updates 2) Discuss new games and updates. Plenty of good and bad games are discussed every day, just not all of them are covered on the front page. The ones on the front page are the ones that arn and and a few others are interested in. I have also seen them cover games that were hyped on the forums (e.g. spider: the secret of bryce manor). I don't agree with the moderators' tastes all the time, but you get enough feedback from the forums to figure out if you will like a game or not. 1 out of 5 you'll probably make a mistake (e.g.: liked gomi and spider; disliked skabooki and lifeboat, these are not bad, just not my thing). In conclusion, keep the site the way it is right now, which is a community driven site. While every now and then I check IGN, slidetoplay and 148apps, I believe that the amount of content and depth offered here is unparalleled. Keep up the good work.
I hate to resurrect a dead thread, but I wanted to add my thoughts since my last post. I have been continuing to read touch arcade over the last several weeks and have found that I have really enjoyed reading it lately, and it has not had the problems I was complaining about before. Not sure if this is because of a direct response to feedback or not, but just wanted to note my appreciation of a flow of high-quality and enjoyable articles recently.
Just to dig up the issue of no bad reviews, my gripe with this is that it means there's no scale. And I don't mean a 1 - 10 point system or anything: I mean things need to be put in perspective. For me, TA lacks benchmarking, like when people say "this has really raised the bar for what we expect from this kind of game". Obviously this is hard for a lot of idevice games, as they're innovative and what not, but not impossible. A weekly chart would kind of sort this, one that sorts the games TA has reviewed by which ones the staff enjoyed the most. Anyway, I still enjoy reading TA, keep up the good work.
I agree. We need some sort of rating system, yet not some of 'out of ten' score. Slide To Play's bucket system really does work very well, maybe a variant on that?
You're meant to draw your own conclusions based on your likes and dislikes. We rarely post about games we don't like, so everything that appears on the front page is generally good. If it appeals to you, it's likely worth checking out.
Okay. My prior accusation was a bit harsh and I retract that. I do enjoy reading TA's reviews, especially yours Hodapp, since you prove that a reviewer can actually have a personality! I guess the point I'm trying to get across is that most sites have a definitive score which manages express their feelings about the game and users don't have to read the entire review. Most people -to my limited knowledge- only skim the review and check the final score. If it scored well, they'll go back and check it out. With TA it's different. In order to draw whatever the reviewer felt, people have to read the whole article. Occasionally they'll say something in the title, like; "Real Racing: We've Got It And It's Unbelievable". That by the way, is probably the boldest claim this site has ever made, but that's not by any stretch of the imagination a bad thing. I hate sites which claim everything is 'Amazing'. Anyway, you need to tie the loose ends, and have a benchmarking system. Be brave!
That was part of the reasoning why we avoided a score in the first place. That said, I do see the value in a score. It just introduces a lot of issues and a lot of discussion about "oh this got a 6 when it's clearly not better than this other game that gotta 5" etc... But like I said, we are considering some sort of system. Note, we do try to sum up in the last paragraph our thoughts. arn
When I got my ipod Touch in July, one of the first things I did was go looking for a review site that I thought I could trust. For me, app store reviews are as helpful as Amazon reviews, that is to say-no help at all. Many times they're simply filled with reviews from friends and family, etc. Most of the regular gaming sites I go to either don't review iDevice games, or just a handful. so, the OP has a point in bringing up those questions. It's not a matter of character assassination, it's a matter of "Why should we trust your opinion?" I mean no disrespect to the guys at TA when I say that either, but I think it's important to know the answers to questions like that. When Mike Arrington got into his argument with Leo LaPorte, he had every right to get his butt handed to him. Leo's been a fixture in the tech world for 30 years. I was reading leo's articles back in the late 80's (yes I AM that old), and knew Arrington was just being a troll that day. I had no knowledge of anyone from TA when I first started coming here. And truth be told, aside from the articles, reviews and comments I still don't. However I do think they're probably as unbiased as a site can be. I say that based on what I've read since July, and the vast amount of threads and posts on the forums. I don't expect reviews for every game that came out-that would require a staff far larger than what TA has, and appreciate the ones they do review and hi-light.
