Stuart Campbell Review

[StarEye]

I wouldn't take what he says so seriously. I mean, he sounds like a bitter old man most of the time, and the only games he likes nowadays are obscure japanese shoot'em ups and the occasional incomplicated racing game (Outrun 2). He completely trashed Gran Turismo 4, fer gads seik. And may I add, trashed with arguments that were completely false.

I put him in the same bin as Dino Dini. And they can fight it out there, as they seemingly hate eachother as much as they hate games nowadays.

[Tufo]

Originally Posted by StarEye

I wouldn't take what he says so seriously. I mean, he sounds like a bitter old man most of the time, and the only games he likes nowadays are obscure japanese shoot'em ups and the occasional incomplicated racing game (Outrun 2). He completely trashed Gran Turismo 4, fer gads seik. And may I add, trashed with arguments that were completely false.

I put him in the same bin as Dino Dini. And they can fight it out there, as they seemingly hate eachother as much as they hate games nowadays.

Hehe well he never was one for mincing his words, Stuart. But I like that - regardless of whether I agree, he does believe in what he says and there isn't any ulterior motive at work either. He says what he thinks, and you can't say fairer than that. Also, he did wait for the game to actually be released before writing this article and slating the game.

Have to say I'm totally with him on GT4 too. Are you referring to the article he wrote for Digitiser? Cos I really liked that. I'd side with him vs Dino Dini too, Amiga Power gave Goal a perfectly decent review, for one example.

[Rubbergenius]

Originally Posted by StarEye

I wouldn't take what he says so seriously. I mean, he sounds like a bitter old man most of the time, and the only games he likes nowadays are obscure japanese shoot'em ups and the occasional incomplicated racing game (Outrun 2). He completely trashed Gran Turismo 4, fer gads seik. And may I add, trashed with arguments that were completely false.

I put him in the same bin as Dino Dini. And they can fight it out there, as they seemingly hate eachother as much as they hate games nowadays.

I know he is, it still annoys me though.

I don't delete posts if they are critical. Never have, never will.



EDITED: Just to clarify which post I responding to!

[StarEye]

Originally Posted by Tufo

Have to say I'm totally with him on GT4 too. Are you referring to the article he wrote for Digitiser? Cos I really liked that. I'd side with him vs Dino Dini too, Amiga Power gave Goal a perfectly decent review, for one example.

Yeah, he did make a good review of Goal. I can't imagine why Dino Dini sees his own game as the best thing ever to grace the earth, it's really weird. If there are one person who are really blind to a creation, it's the creator himself. It's just not possible to be that objective.

On the GT4, I was talking about his review - I think it's on there somewhere. But I remember reading the review and there are numerous places he are just plain wrong, not opinion wrong but factual wrong. He reviews the game without even liking the genre. Not to mention how much he exaggerates, as if to pretend his almost too dumb to know how a controller is supposed to be used.

And there's also one thing that a lot of reviewers don't get with GT4, is that it was designed for use with a 900 degree force feedback wheel. Using a normal controller doesn't do the game justice even remotely. You wouldn't use the Dual Shock 2 to play light-gun games, would you? Or a dancing game? What would Guitar Hero be without its guitar?

Anyway, I didn't want to start a rant about GT4, so I'll end it now.

[FSV]

Originally Posted by StarEye

I wouldn't take what he says so seriously. I mean, he sounds like a bitter old man most of the time, and the only games he likes nowadays are obscure japanese shoot'em ups and the occasional incomplicated racing game (Outrun 2). He completely trashed Gran Turismo 4, fer gads seik. And may I add, trashed with arguments that were completely false.

I put him in the same bin as Dino Dini. And they can fight it out there, as they seemingly hate eachother as much as they hate games nowadays.

Regardless of what Stuart said about other games in the past, many of his comments about SS 2006 are valid and should be addressed or at least explained by Codemasters.

[Rev. Stuart Campbell]

Originally Posted by Rubbergenius

I've talked with Stuart and his disciples over the past few days on his forum, where I've been civil and tried to put my case across, in the face of his shouts of some kind of Stalinist revision of history because I banned two people for abusing other forum members, and then he comes out with this rubbish.

"...some misguided fools bravely defending the game (and, of course, NOT having their posts deleted...) on the forums..."

Right now I don't care about the rest of the article as I'm away from work so it doesn't concern me - but that quote's personal as I'm the admin here, and I haven't deleted any posts, and I wouldn't.

I'd like to ask Stuart, personally, for an apology on this please.

If he can prove that I've deleted any posts then I'll agree and I'll apologise. If he can't then I'd like him to post up an apology on his forum.

If he's a man then he will do, I'll accept and we'll move along. Otherwise I'll hold that garbage article in the contempt it deserves.

Hello, Codemasters forum viewers!

It's a little harsh to call an entire 4000-word article "garbage" because of one alleged factual error, and your account of what's happened on the WoS forums is somewhat coloured, but I'm a nice guy so I won't take too much offence. Let's see what I'm being asked to apologise for here.

Originally Posted by my feature

Perhaps understandably, both Codemasters' own website and Eurogamer have spent much of the time since the game's release five days ago censoring and deleting a flood of critical opinion from their forums and comments threads

So, there's our context. The feature is discussing the "censoring and deleting" of critical opinion on, collectively, two websites - this one and Eurogamer. Both of them have certainly deleted and censored critical opinion (Eurogamer by deleting posts and locking threads, here by locking threads and banning critical users, for whatever supposed reason). So no error so far.

Originally Posted by my feature

...some misguided fools bravely defending the game (and, of course, NOT having their posts deleted...) on the forums...

There are no specific forums mentioned there. There are several forums on which a few people have defended the game (including, but not limited to, Eurogamer's and this one). Those people have not had their posts deleted, whereas there are known examples of only critical opinions being deleted on the EG forums, justifying the comparison. (Our context, remember, was a number of various acts of censorship on two forums collectively.) The statement is perfectly accurate. You might - wrongly - infer something inaccurate from it, but that's not really my problem.

Therefore I've written nothing that's inaccurate, and have nothing to apologise for. Are you going to say sorry for calling my feature "garbage" now? It's terribly rude of you.

And while we're here:

Originally Posted by StarEye

He completely trashed Gran Turismo 4, fer gads seik. And may I add, trashed with arguments that were completely false.

Pardon? And what might those have been, dear? Nowhere on the packaging, manual or code of Gran Turismo 4 does it say the game ought to be played with a "900 degree force feedback wheel", whatever that is. And even if it did, what difference would that make to the criticisms in my review? None of them had anything to do with the controller.

Using a steering wheel wouldn't make the hours of tedious, repetitive, irrelevant license tests any less boring. It wouldn't make being forced to take important car-purchase decisions without being able to test-drive the cars first any less crap. It wouldn't make the game's handling of time any less bizarre, nor make the fact that the best way to slow down for corners in a "simulation" game is to barrel into other cars at 200mph any less farcical.

Gran Turismo 4 is a gigantic pile of boring grey sludge for dullards who don't really like videogames but don't have the balls to race fast cars either, and it would take a lot more than controlling it with a steering wheel to change that. I stand proudly and firmly behind my review of it.

And by the by, while I own a rather nice metal dance platform, I do sometimes like to play dancing games with a joypad. It's a very different, but equally good, sort of challenge - a demanding old-school co-ordination test for when you don't want to be jumping around on the floor at 2am and annoying the bloke in the flat downstairs. Plenty of popular rhythm-action titles (Amplitude and Frequency, for example) have been joypad-based. If you haven't tried it, you're missing out.

Love you all,
Rev. S.

[Tufo]

Originally Posted by Rev. Stuart Campbell

So, there's our context. The feature is discussing the "censoring and deleting" of critical opinion on, collectively, two websites - this one and Eurogamer. Both of them have certainly deleted and censored critical opinion (Eurogamer by deleting posts and locking threads, here by locking threads and banning critical users, for whatever supposed reason). So no error so far.

I've only witnessed 1 person get banned here - one guy for advocating piracy - that's fair enough isn't it?

I managed to get a thread locked by correctly guessing that Eurogamer was the website that gave it 9/10 before the review was published.

I'm not saying you are wrong, just that thats all I've seen so far. I'd be interested to hear about anymore though.

Totally agree re GT4 but thats a whole other thread....

[StarEye]

EDIT: was about to start a lengthy rant about what was wrong with your review of GT4. I decided not to, it's just pointless, not to mention horribly off-topic. I'd like to say though, that I was one of the bigger (biggest is just soooo overused now) fans Amiga Power, and I'm still a fanatical Amiga-gamer. I just can't forget games like SWOS, Moonstone, Monkey Island 2, Speedball 2, Lotus 2 etc etc.

BUT

"Gran Turismo 4 is a gigantic pile of boring grey sludge for dullards who don't really like videogames but don't have the balls to race fast cars either"

IS a bit insulting to those who likes the game. I've been a fan of the GT games since the first one came out, and I'd say GT4 is a lot of fun. I don't really consider me a dullard, but if I had the CHANCE to race some of the cars I can in GT or even AFFORD racing on a proper racetrack, I definately would.

I'm quite surprised you couldn't see past the admittedly vast number of bugs in SS06 though. It's a great game, and it reminds me a bit of Speedball 2 on the football field, with a bit of Sensible Soccer thown in. And, I might add, it's definately a great 2-player game, where most of the bugs don't annoy you as much (if it annoys you at all). It's a budget game, and I would say this is probably the BEST budget game out there for the moment. It's even a lot better than most games thar AREN'T budget. A lot of the haters have prejudged the game from the time it was released, and thus went into the game LOOKING for faults. The fact is (opinionated fact though), the game's a lot of fun to play. But if people could try and enjoy the game instead of looking for faults in it, which seems to happen more and more often (OMG, THIS GAME ISN'T PERFECT, THERE'S A BUG THERE, THIS GAME SUCKS, IT'S FAWLTY AND I'M GONNA RETURN IT AND EVERYONE WHO THINKS OTHERWISE ARE STUPID).

[Tufo]

Originally Posted by StarEye

A lot of the haters have prejudged the game from the time it was released, and thus went into the game LOOKING for faults.

That was the point I was trying to make yesterday but you expressed it more eloquently than me.

Anybody involved with Amiga Power can write whatever they like as far as I'm concerned, they don't have to prove anything to me cos it's already been done. But I was surprised to read about posts being deleted - not saying it hasn't been done but at the same time I think I'd have noticed.

[Rubbergenius]

Originally Posted by Rev. Stuart Campbell

So, there's our context. The feature is discussing the "censoring and deleting" of critical opinion on, collectively, two websites - this one and Eurogamer. Both of them have certainly deleted and censored critical opinion (Eurogamer by deleting posts and locking threads, here by locking threads and banning critical users, for whatever supposed reason). So no error so far.

You say "both Codemasters' own website and Eurogamer...[are]...censoring and deleting a flood of critical opinion". Where on our website (I'll assume that includes this forum) have I deleted OR censored any opinion?

Unless you count banning people for abusing other members of the forum (which is obviously an integral part of the rules and regulations of forums) as censorship then you are wrong. Locking threads is also a sad fact of moderating busy forums. Threads go off-topic and have to be shut. Both threads I've locked in the past week (there were three but I re-opened the biased poll the other day because people wanted it re-opening) had gone way off-topic and had descended into sniping and bickering.

You may say that's censorship; but the important point is - the thread starters are both free to start exactly the same post as a new thread with the same text if they wish. In fact one of them has, with Chimera67 posting up his topic "Dont Buy Sensible Soccer 2006" again, and I haven't touched it, as it's not gone wildly off-topic. The other thread was actually started by a fan of the game - so apologies to him if required, for stifling uncritical opinion.

We both know I'm not censoring anyone's opinion. Likewise I have not deleted any posts, as I stated last night - I'm happy to reiterate this now.

Again, I'd like an apology and an amend to the article. It's a small thing but it's annoyed me and I'd like a retraction.

Originally Posted by Rev. Stuart Campbell

Therefore I've written nothing that's inaccurate, and have nothing to apologise for. Are you going to say sorry for calling my feature "garbage" now? It's terribly rude of you.

I'm sorry if you took offence. I'll be happy to amend the post above to get rid of that. If you apologise and put an amendment up on your article explaining the change then I'll amend here. However, in my opinion you are presenting that paragraph (quoted above) as fact. It is incorrect from Codemasters standpoint (I don't know and cannot commment on the situation with Eurogamer). I, on the other hand, am presenting opinion in my post where I say that your article is 'garbage'.

Even so, regardless of semantics, I'll amend if needs be. I'm a honest man and happy to make that change if I receive an apology and amend from you on your article.