Do you think the reviews given by others is good enough?

There is a influx in reviews as the release of NTW is approaching. I want to ask what is people's opinion on the reviews. Do you think that the reviews are good enough for you to reconsider your decision as to buy or not to buy NTW?

Do you think that there is enough talk about the negative and the positive aspect of NTW, and is critical enough? Do you think that it is bias, or do you think it is a fair judgement?

So, let's conduct a quick poll.

To be honest, they have been detailed in what they have said, but no mention of BAI is just not acceptable when that has been the primary complaint of the community.

well ive pre-ordered and live in one of the first countries to hit release date and the first thing ill be testing is the BAI

To be honest, I also preordered.

Originally Posted by ray243

There is a influx in reviews as the release of NTW is approaching. I want to ask what is people's opinion on the reviews. Do you think that the reviews are good enough for you to reconsider your decision as to buy or not to buy NTW?

There will never be enough pre-release coverage.

I need to see BAI and how the online will do. As of right now the multiplayer is terrible, cant join a match, cant stay in a match, its so damn laggy......just problems galore.

When BAI and sieges are discussed in depth, i'll start listening. Until then, the Multiplayer stuff and eye candy ogling fails to keep my interest.

Well, I have been distinctly unimpressed with many of the people with previews. This is because rather than just TELLING us what`s in the game, many of them acted much like children with a new toy... "I`ll say this, but not that! I might tell you that if I`m in a good mood. I don`t know because I don`t want to tell you, but guess what? I have the NTW preview!" I mean for it to take 3 days to just to find out if marching bands are in the game and still not know what BAI is, is ridiculous. Many of them seem to be using it for attention more than anything else.

Only one person has given a decent(mostly unbiased) review so far in my eyes. I have learnt the most from him. And I thank him for that. (already repped).

We KNOW, it`s a PREVIEW. We KNOW it may change by release, so just give us the FACTS of the PREVIEW! Thankyou very much.

Still, I will give them a little leeway. they are NOT professional reviewers, so they probabaly do not understand how to review diligently, maturely and without undue bias.

you can't trust proffesionals if they are talking about ai (some even called the empire ai very good) but considering technical issues you can trust some but the average twcuser you can trust

First of all, I want to thank all the people that have posted reviews after attending the CA/SEGA events or whatever they are called. However, some of the most important questions are yet to be answered to any degree whatsoever.

I also just watched the video that CrueKnight (from Total War Heaven site, I believe) posted on youtube when he attended the San Francisco event. Perhaps I am mistaken, and please do correct me if I am, but I didn't hear or see anyone ask at least once about the BAI, and of course Kieran never hinted on that subject either. How come? It seems to be one of the biggest criticisms of ETW and talked about subjects here or on any other site/forum for TW. I realize that Kieran may be very vague with any sort of answer, but at least try to insist on getting something about this aspect of the game.

Originally Posted by ray243

Do you think that there is enough talk about the negative and the positive aspect of NTW, and is critical enough? Do you think that it is bias, or do you think it is a fair judgement?

Even if the Napoleon reviews aren't biased -- and many of them will be -- the fact remains it will take dozens of hours of play to sort through the game to determine it's quality. First impressions are often dominated by eye candy and other peripherals, not whether the core game is rewarding. If I were going to buy Napoleon TW, I would wait at least a month after release before ordering it. In the meantime, I would read the reaction on these boards as first impressions dissolve away into a harsher familiarity. However folks should wait until CA commits to supporting their games before buying NTW. Caveat emptor and all that.

Originally Posted by Huberto

Even if the Napoleon reviews aren't biased -- and many of them will be -- the fact remains it will take dozens of hours of play to sort through the game to determine it's quality. First impressions are often dominated by eye candy and other peripherals, not whether the core game is rewarding. If I were going to buy Napoleon TW, I would wait at least a month after release before ordering it. In the meantime, I would read the reaction on these boards as first impressions dissolve away into a harsher familiarity. However folks should wait until CA commits to supporting their games before buying NTW. Caveat emptor and all that.

Which is my view as well. Most of the real critical reviews by the fans only came along after a month has pass since the release of the game.

Even if we thinks that the fans who bought it will be critical, most people who bought it are too enthuastic about the game to be critical.

Originally Posted by ray243

Even if we thinks that the fans who bought it will be critical, most people who bought it are too enthuastic about the game to be critical.

Agree with you and Huberto.

There`s that `excitement` thing with too many people and few are able to hold back that excitement and make a review dispassionately.

All I've heard were compliments to the graphics and effects... nothing about actual gameplay mechanics or how the AI is doing.

So no.

I don't really know any of the reviewers, so it's hard to make an assessment. And aside from that, they played multiplayer. There's a bunch of people screaming and crying about the BAI in ETW and what does CA do when they demo NTW for people? They steer them towards multiplayer. What a surprise.

No offense to those who've offered p/reviews, but I'd like to hear from them first about their thoughts on ETW before I can assess their angle on NTW. One reviewer didn't really know about any melee bug and never realized the BAI was much of a problem in ETW, so as far he knew the AI must be fine. Call me biased, but if a previewer ISN'T critical/aware of ETW's current state, then I can't take very seriously any love they may be displaying for NTW. But then, I guess I'm one of those 'hardcore' gamers that CA isn't too concerned about.

Ill be awaiting Darths review on the NTW BAI !

If I was so concerned about the BAI and CAI, then a review of a preview wouldn't be of much use to me, I'd wait a while after release for the correct and balanced details to come out.
The problem with these reviews of previews we have, is that there are some who seem to want to pounce on anything negative or positive, and take it as a full blown post release review.

I think we need to take all reviews and take a bit from each, and try to piece together a comprehensive summary. Each individual is naturally going to elaborate on some points, but not others. It was my understanding that BAI was going to be something that could be tested in NYC yesterday, so hopefully GrnEyedDvl can provide some insight into this.

Originally Posted by Ezekielen

I think we need to take all reviews and take a bit from each, and try to piece together a comprehensive summary. .

This is what I do. Don`t take any ONE person`s view as gospel.

As for previews, it is true they are not the actual article, but they are usually very close. For instance, MTW2`s preview and demo were almost identical to the end product. Changes were actually cosmetic with a couple of numbers and textures changed here and there. Same with ETW.

Now it seems, suspiciously strangely that there`s no demo, but only a preview for NTW so we must use that. Again, I suspect that the differences to the article will be minor. I suspect they will change the Intro screens so they don`t look identical to ETW`s, and little cosmetic stuff like that.

But changes where they really matter like BAI, sieges, marching band music. anything that`s a REAL CHANGE is very, very unlikely to change at all from the preview.

Mark my words.

No. I appriciate the people taking time to dissect the game, but i'll reserve judgement until a week or two after release, when a lot of "normal" people have gotten their hands on the game. Then we'll easily see

And any criticism of the game at this point would probably just be met with a "oh, its a placeholder/beta/its being improved before release" statement by CA.

I have the "advantage" in that i am patient, i have plenty of other games to play, as well as other things to do. I dont feel the slightest compulsion to pick it up on release day after the ETW debacle