SriK wrote:I understand where you're coming from, and that the question I was asking earlier in this thread ("could Steel Assault realistically be a 4/5 game, if judged by the standards of 1989 NES platformers?") is completely irrelevant to you. From your perspective there's absolutely no rational reason to play my game and leniently judge it by the standards of decades-old 8-bit platformers, when games like Metal Slug, Alien Soldier, Castlevania: Bloodlines, Megaman X, and so many others exist which are 8 times prettier and more advanced mechanically than any NES platformer ever was, and which you could be putting time into instead of an 8-bit game. So for your purposes the entire premise of my question is flawed, and whether the answer is "yes" or "no" doesn't matter, because the end result is the same: it's not worth playing in 2015.
The issue is a little more complicated than that. Because if we suppose that your game IS worth 4/5 or 5/5 by the standards of decades-old 8-bit platformers, but is not worth playing today for those who still haven't played all the 16-bit games, then Shatterhand isn't worth playing either, and the 5/5 Insomnia review clashes with this theory. And that's why the review was written by Josh and not me. What would I have given the game if I were reviewing it?
Honestly, I've no idea. But I wouldn't attempt to review it before immersing myself completely in the era, meaning several months (ideally a couple of years) of playing NOTHING BUT 8-BIT GAMES. Then, and only then, would I be able to offer a fair evaluation of the game in its proper context, as opposed to comparing it with games released years later for more powerful systems by designers who were merely improving upon it. Otherwise, it would be as unfair as trashing a 1970 Ferrari for being worse than a 2015 Ferrari. It just wouldn't make sense.
This long acclimatization period that I describe is not needed for me when I review 16-bit games, because I've experienced that era thoroughly while it was unfolding, and it is very easy for me to judge anything produced by it accurately because I already have all the reference points indelibly inscribed in my memory. So the moment I boot up Contra Spirits, I am immediately back in that era, and there is no danger of me not enjoying it due to comparing it, for example, with Hard Corps: Uprising. The same cannot be said of younger players and reviewers, and that's why their analyses and judgements are basically worthless. And then you have young guys like Josh, zinger and Macaw who spend their whole time playing games of that era, so even though they didn't experience it first-hand, they are immersed in it 24/7 anyway, and their judgements are not stupid and absurd.
Now getting back to your game, it would be a very delicate business to review it. Because, on the one hand we CANNOT extend to you the same courtesy we do to old games of judging it entirely by older standards, but on the other hand, we SHOULD judge it by older standards, TO SOME DEGREE.
It's hard to explain why, though. I guess the best way I can do it is to take it to the higher level, and talk about genres. Because if Metal Slug completely trounced Contra, 3D FPSes completely trounced 2D run & guns, so it doesn't make sense to give 5/5 to Hard Corps: Uprising and 5/5 again to Far Cry. If the newer genre is indeed better than the old one, it stands to reason that the best games of the newer genre will be better than the best games of the older genre, and thus giving the same rating to both doesn't make sense.
At which point we arrive at the realization that the rating system is RELATIVE, and that 5/5 for a 2D sidescroller doesn't mean the same as 5/5 for a three-dimensional free-roaming first-person role-playing game that cost 50 million dollars to make.
So the ideal way to judge your game would be:
1. By a person who either lived through the 8-bit era and played all of its key games in your chosen genre, or at the very least a person passionate for that genre and that era who has immersed himself completely in it, and therefore properly understands it,
and
2. A person who at the same time, due to his love for the GENRE above the ERA, has also played all the key games of the genre from the LATER eras, and also the CONTEMPORARY, CUTTING-EDGE era, and can therefore evaluate whether you are bringing anything new and better to the table, if not mechanically then at least aesthetically, as I explained earlier regarding retro efforts
... and then coming to a conclusion via a baseline pleasure gut feeling on whether what you are offering has anything valuable to add to the existing library of the genre throughout the ages.
So your game should be judged partly via old standards, and partly via contemporary ones.
That's the best way I can explain it to you. I am usually very good at explaining things, but I admit that this issue -- though in my head makes perfect sense -- is very tricky to explain to others.
The main point to take away is that even I wouldn't be able to offer a decent review of the game without immersing myself in the era (i.e without playing Batman, Shatterhand et al). At the same time, my final judgment would NOT depend entirely on the comparison with those games. Your game comes 25 years AFTER these games, therefore to get anywhere close to a 5/5 you'd have to INVOKE the FEELINGS of those games PERFECTLY in your game, and THEN offer something MORE on TOP of that. Otherwise, even if your imitation (because that is what this is, obviously: an imitation) was so freaking PERFECT that you could have put a "copyright 1991" at the start screen and no one would have noticed the lie, it would STILL not be worth the same rating as the games it is imitating. Maybe it would be worth, in 2015, one star less, so if Shatterhand is 5/5, your game would be 4/5 if it were a PERFECT imitation of Shatterhand (and by this I don't mean a game with identical mechanics and identical theme, I mean a game with EQUIVALENT mechanics and an EQUIVALENT and EQUALLY INSPIRED theme).
But for the 5/5 you'd have to offer something more.
So, 4/5 for perfect imitation, a game that takes lovers of that era back to it and reminds them so much of it and so perfectly that it leaves them feeling as if they had relived it through your work; and 5/5 for a game imitating that era perfectly and then also TROUNCING in some way, or overall, even the BEST game of that era.
Really, 3/5 is the best you can hope for, and it's by no means a bad rating. I've given 3/5s to plenty of games I really enjoyed.