Software Ratings

[nickspoon]

One could always just start a review site and see what kind of response one gets... Hmmm... *ponders*
Shit, I'm doing too much already. If I try to do a review site as well, people will DEFINITELY think I'm big-headed.

You mean like this one?

 

[Magnulus]

Heh. I hadn't really been through the review part of that site much.
For some reason, the site struck me as not very useful when I was there about a month ago. Can't remember why now, though.

Hmmm... Oh wait, maybe it was this http://gp2xgamer.com/top10/

I mean, there are obviously more than ten games at the site.

EDIT: I must have just forgotten about the site after I was there the first time. After all, I'd just ordered the Gippex and it was a week and a half before I actually had it in my hands. The review parts are actually pretty good. Thanks for reminding me, Nick!

 

[Dzz]

Heh. I hadn't really been through the review part of that site much.
For some reason, the site struck me as not very useful when I was there about a month ago. Can't remember why now, though.

Hmmm... Oh wait, maybe it was this http://gp2xgamer.com/top10/

I mean, there are obviously more than ten games at the site.

EDIT: I must have just forgotten about the site after I was there the first time. After all, I'd just ordered the Gippex and it was a week and a half before I actually had it in my hands. The review parts are actually pretty good. Thanks for reminding me, Nick!

We need more than just me doing reviews, so other sites would be of immense use to the community. I have been meaning to get the "top 10" finished but to do so there is still a bunch I need to look at and review first. My development projects usually take priority so I don't give as much time to reviews as I should.

 

[nickspoon]

Which is why a Reviews section on here is a good idea - I can't be bothered to set up a site to do reviews of homebrew games.

 

[Dzz]

Which is why a Reviews section on here is a good idea - I can't be bothered to set up a site to do reviews of homebrew games.

I agree, a review section on this site would be great.

 

[Magnulus]

We need more than just me doing reviews, so other sites would be of immense use to the community. I have been meaning to get the "top 10" finished but to do so there is still a bunch I need to look at and review first. My development projects usually take priority so I don't give as much time to reviews as I should.

I'm not sure if other sites is the way to go. A better option would be to either give a few people a "reviewer" status in the archive, or to add another reviewer or two to gp2xgamer. It'd be easy also to make a wiki which functioned as a review site. Wikis have search functions and are easy to set up for more users to add their reviews.

Like someone pointed out in another forum, a lot of people get the GP2X and they have NO clue what to do with it. Where are the emulators? Where are the games? What do I need? If they do find the file archive, the questions change to; There are so many, which do I choose? What is good? What are these ratings all about? Etc, etc etc.

So, if we're talking the archive site, I'd like there to be a Featured section where good games are picked out, reviewed and given some info about. These features could include a short interview to make it interesting and maybe any kind of hints and tips on how to make these games run smoothly, etc (including script examples that you can use to overclock etc.). In addition to this, each game could be reviewed arbitrarily by the "official" reviewers, and these reviews would show up on the game's download page, which the name and "gamer title" of the reviewer clearly stated.

Like thus:

PRBOOM reviewed by:
Fragster
- hardcore FPS-gamer
Doom runs near full-speed and it's just wonderful to be able to bring it with me wherever I go. I wish it had two-player so I could frag my friends using the TV-out. DIE, VILE DEMONS FROM HELL!!!
9/10

Caesar
- Strategist
It runs well, which is nice, but gunning down hell-monsters isn't exactly my kind of thing. It should be turn based, feature micro and macro management and at LEAST a five-branched tech-tree.
3/10

Of course, this is just a silly example that I pulled out of my fecal orifice (bum), but I think you get the idea. The point is that you'd get a feeling for what kind of gamers the different reviewers were (they could specify their "title" themselves, even, to make it more accurate.) and then you'd get an idea of where they stand compared to you. If a die-hard CounterStrike fan reviews Kuru Kuru badly, you know that if you are ALSO a die-hard Counterstrike fan, you might not like it. It's not an absolutely failsafe system, but it works.

Finally, you could keep the user comments and user ratings just so that people get that side of the coin as well, and serves as a temporary placeholder when none of the "officials" have done a review yet.

 

[Orkie]

I don't see why you need an 'official' reviewer. Amazon lets you submit reviews and then people can rate each review so the best ones appear first. I don't see why that wouldn't work - after all it's not like the review being rated up or down is going to affect the visibility of the program and all the reviews will still be available on the page, no matter how they have been ranked.

 

[Magnulus]

That sounds reasonable.

 

[Dzz]

I'm not sure if other sites is the way to go.

Yeah, it would be more convenient if all the reviews could be centralized.

It might be enough to just create a section here called "Reviews" with the following rules: One program per thread, no crap. The moderators would have to enforce the rules.

My only fear with this approach is that the threads would get cluttered with stuff like feature requests, bug reports, and "reviews" that say basically "Cool, this is fun." How much of a problem that is, I'm not sure, but I'd prefer that reviews be at least a paragraph demonstrating some thought and helpful info.

 

[Magnulus]

On the subject of forum reviews: I'm not sure everyone would want to browse the forums just to read reviews. I think a lot of people find forums intimidating. Well... I do, at least. I only joined up to get a programmer for Bork... and then I stayed. Uh-oh.

Maybe if the games added to the file archive immediately got a review thread that was linked to from the file archive page. I dunno.