BBL Hurricane

It's been raining here all day, though somehow I still have power. I just did a speed test on Speedtest.net and managed to chart a download speed of 0.62 Mbps. Pretty fantastic.

Needless to say I won't be posting much for the next day or so.

Site News and Weekend Reading: October 27th

My previous approach to posting interesting stuff to read each weekend was pretty inefficient. I'd chuck links that I deemed worthy of posting into a folder in Firefox and at the end of the week I'd sift through them. After organizing them by category I'd manually type up a formatted list - with or without descriptions depending on my mood. Posting lists of bare links didn't feel like quality content, and bullshitting a description of two lines for each saying "I really enjoyed this article" didn't exactly feel any better.

Time to try something a little different.

Last week I created a Delicious account and grabbed a Firefox addon to facilitate link grabbing. Links can be found here:

http://delicious.com/maddogpcgb

I originally got the idea to pass on links from the Penny Arcade Report's "The Cut" section, so I'll probably integrate the link feed into the sidebar at some point. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that stuff.

This change helps to eliminate some filler content from the stream of posts I'll be making. My original intent was to post something daily, but I've been slowly drifting towards a 2-3 update per week schedule. Things should settle into a M/F/W-ish schedule with random posts about deals and other newsworthy happenings thrown in.

Thanks for reading!

Game Reviews: A Scoring Retrospective

Last night I got to thinking about the way I've been scoring games during reviews. I set up a page the other day with a listing of reviews and in doing so I noticed that a lot of games were receiving scores of 4.0 out of 5.0.

This thing popped up way too often.

My original intention was to keep things simple and not use some sort of arbitrary scoring system. Someone's overall impressions and enjoyment of a game are ultimately subjective; it's a little like your English teacher in high school assigning a number to a 10-page paper after making a random number of comments in red pen. What's the difference between an 80 and an 84, or a 92 and a 93?

In going with a simple scoring system of zero to five in half-point increments I attempted to solve this problem by throwing games into bins. A game that scored a 3.0 or 3.5 might be fun but flawed or buggy, while a game that scores a 4.0 could be enjoyable but not something I'd rush out and buy for $60. A game that scores 4.5 out of 5.0 might receive something in the 87-93 range in a more traditional system, so this eliminates the need to differentiate between an 87 and an 88.

Site News

A few quick site notes:

• I threw together a review page today that includes an alphabetical listing of reviews I've published. It's a little sparse now, but I should be adding to it every week or so.
• I played Saints Row The Third for free via Steam's free weekend and I should be posting a review tomorrow.
• I've been getting the itch to tinker with the site design and I might change a few things around in the coming days. My HTML skills are still a little rusty - it's been a long time since the Angelfire days - so we'll see how it goes.

I Feel Like Sh*t

Just a quick note regarding site updates - I have a cold and I feel like crap, so updates might be a little spotty over the next few days. I'll make an effort to post stuff between popping pills and sleeping but there are no guarantees.

My Game Review Philosophy

User game reviews carry a lot of weight in my mind. With professional review sites it sometimes feels like publishers have an influence on scores, whether through site advertising dollars or threatening to withhold advance review copies of games in the future. Don't get me wrong, there are some quality sites out there, but if you're trying to avoid stepping on the toes of a major player in the industry it's hard to remain completely objective. Let's not forget the whole Gamespot Kane and Lynch thing from a few years ago.

With that in mind, I want to be as objective as possible when approaching a game on the site. Every review I post will be of a game that I own and have played extensively, whether that involves completing a campaign mode or playing plenty of multiplayer. I plan to discuss the usual stuff about each game - gameplay, graphics, value, etc - and give my overall impression along with a score at the end.

A score of 4/5. Behold my amazing GIMP editing skills.

Programming Note

I'll be out of town this weekend visiting family - I'll have internet but probably won't be on much at all. Blogger lets me auto-post stuff at a set time and date, which is cool, so everything should continue normally. I may or may not post something on Friday, but that's about it. Have a fragnificent weekend.

Site News and Schedule

I wanted to post a quick note in regards to my posting schedule.

For now, I'll be trying to post the meatier, original content feature posts on Mondays and Thursdays. Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday will most likely have shorter updates depending on what's going on in the gaming universe. Throughout the week I'll be collecting links that I find interesting, and I'll post a list of "weekend reading" on Saturdays.

We'll see how it goes, but this is my plan for the next couple of weeks. I've got a pretty decent list of stuff lined up and I'm looking forward to posting all of it.