scully1888

@BulbasaurusRex I review games based on what the games themselves offer, not whether there's anything better. If this was the only Puyo Puyo game that had ever existed, it would still get a 5. I only mentioned the alternatives because I want the reader to know they exist, in order to help them potentially make a better purchasing decision.

@Nagi @tendonerd @Dayton311 As I explained in the review, the game came out in March in Japan and the online is already dead there: I couldn't find a game no matter when I tried. Given that Puyo Puyo (and puzzle gaming in general) is much bigger in Japan than the west, I don't think it's unrealistic to assume the online will die over here quickly too. Feel free to come back to me in November and prove me wrong.

@Steel76 With respect, if you're old enough to remember it being released in the arcades, you're also old enough to remember that arcade games had fairly long legs back then and stuff like After Burner, Out Run and Space Harrier remained permanent fixtures into the early 90s. So yes, I would've probably been too young to watch the arcade owner unpack the Space Harrier machine from there back of a van, but that doesn't mean it didn't have a notable presence in the arcades I visited as a kid. And while it was a spectacle, it was the sort of game most people would play for the moving seat, not the actual game itself. Just my opinion.

@Kobeskillz Yes, it was 'huge' in that it was a technical powerhouse at the time and was visually stunning. Many arcades had it, and I spent many an arcade trip playing it or watching others play it. Doesn't mean people at the time were praising it for being fun to actually play, other than the tilting and rolling cockpit cabinet (which you obviously don't get here and therefore isn't part of the equation).

@Kobeskillz With respect, I'm not a kid. I'm 37 and old enough to remember that Space Harrier was considered decent in the day but not at the same level as the likes of Out Run and After Burner.

@AlternateButtons With respect, what part of me explicitly mentioning the frame rate, the music and the aspect ratio (see the ninth paragraph) – then mentioning it again at the Joys / Cons section at the end – constitutes "sweeping it under the rug"?

You say: "As a reviewer, it's YOUR job to be objective." No it isn't. That's literally the opposite of what a review is. Objective would be me listing the game's modes and options without giving any opinion and without a score at the end. Reviews are subjective by their very nature.

You also say: "This port shouldn't have ANY issues and the fact that it does, should be fairly graded as such in your score." It was. Given that Doom and Doom II are absolute classics and both remain great fun to this day, both would have been a 9 had they been perfect ports.

I just don't feel that the technical issues here are the absolute disgrace you claim they are (indeed, I get the feeling you may not have even noticed them had the likes of DF or this review not pointed them out).

Ultimately, I've been doing this reviewing lark for 13 years now so please don't try to lecture me on what a review's supposed to contain. You're allowed to disagree with my verdict but not my methodology.

@AlternateButtons I wrote the review you refer to as "lazy crap".

Does the game have technical issues? Yes, it does. Did I still have a great deal of fun playing it? Absolutely, and whether you like it or not that will always be the overriding factor above all else.

The score always relates to how much fun you're going to have playing the game. If technical issues impact on that fun then the score's dropped accordingly, but as I make perfectly clear in the review they weren't major enough here to ruin the experience for me.

@60frames-please Because it's trying to fill in frames that don't exist and sometimes the results are flawed. Example: if you watch a football game on NowTV and turn on frame interpolation, the ball moves extremely juddery because it struggles to figure out where the ball is in each missing frame.

@60frames-please Well, each to their own, but I think frame interpolation is an abomination, especially with live-action content, and can often create movement that is far too quick and juddery. A stable 30fps released as intended will always beat a weird, algorithm-driven Franken60 in my eyes.

@60frames-please It's a shame you feel that way because there are plenty of fantastic 30fps games out there. I also feel sorry that you've presumably never seen a movie you enjoyed, given that they're all shown at 24fps and all.

@60frames-please Does it really matter in every game? I know it's your user name and all but it really makes no major difference here.

@zool Um... I'm the one who reviewed it, so I certainly hope so.

@zool "My 8 score test is, what score would you have given it out of five, no half scores."

I would have given it 4.

I don't agree that an 8 is a 'safe score': it's a very good score.

@Agramonte Not sure what point you're making by quoting another site? You seem to be implying that I didn't mention the loot box system, when I clearly committed a whole paragraph to it and took that screenshot.

@RevampedSpider No, I gave it an 8 because of all the words I wrote above the number 8.

@AlternateButtons "With better technology, I expect better performance."

That only works when it's exactly the same game. This may be a remake but its been completely rebuilt from scratch with modern assets and as such should be treated as a modern game: and, as you well know, many modern games run at 30fps instead of 60.

Just because the PlayStation original ran at 30fps, that doesn't magically mean this one has to run at 60fps: it's an entirely new game, not just an HD upscale of the original 1999 code.

And with respect, if my review was "the worst take [you've] ever seen on a professional news website" you should read more.

@akennelley1 You're asking me to do the impossible. It should go without saying that reviews are subjective: asking me to tell you why a game is 'objectively' bad doesn't make sense. I can only tell you why I think it's bad.

@akennelley1 With respect, I'm not a kid and I disliked the game back in the NES days, long before James Rolfe appeared on the scene. I agree that he influences a lot of people's attitudes towards retro games, but as a 36-year-old who lived it, I'm definitely not one of them. I've disliked that game for nearly three decades.

@Reynoldszahl I did: 12th paragraph.

@Reynoldszahl Yes, but that's the Japanese version. As I said in the review (which was correct at the time of writing), the Japanese version wasn't included and the only versions available were the much harder US and EU ones.

@akennelley1 I'll live ❤️

Thanks for this review guys, I really appreciate the kind words and I'm delighted you like the book.

@Stocksy - Amazon UK's had it in stock for a while now, do you mean US? Because if not you should chase it up

@X68000 This isn't emulated, it's a port. M2 recreated it from source code: they couldn't find Virtua Racing source code but discovered that someone had the code from the advanced spin-off Virtua Formula, so they took that code and worked backwards to recreate Virtua Racing. It isn't just an arcade ROM running on an emulator.

@Moroboshi876 Don't get me wrong, the Mega Drive port is a great game and a fantastical technical achievement. All I meant was that it's the only version you no longer need to play if you have the Switch version, because the others (32X, Saturn, PS2) all have extra tracks and cars but the Mega Drive one just has the standard stuff you get in the arcade version.

@MajorasLapdog Thanks mate! In case you're unaware, I've got my own site at http://tiredoldhack.com and I've got a lot more reviews on there.

@Zidentia What part of the headline is "sensationalist" and suggests it'll have "life-changing advice"? All the headline does is sum up what the main review text says: that isn't "clickbait". With respect, I think you may be looking for controversy that doesn't exist.

@dew12333 There's this new invention called adoption, you should look it up. Seems pretty cool 😉

@60frames-please Nope. It was stuttery at times on PS4 and it's the same on Switch when there's a lot of action. Not enough to detract from the game though.

@Velocirapstar You actually aren't. Commenting on a company's website is a privilege, not a right. Nintendo Life are well within their rights to ban anyone posting abusive or potentially libelous comments, as you have. ❤️

@Velocirapstar My friend, please be quiet. You're making yourself look silly.

@Velocirapstar My friend, you're about as edgy as a football. Don't try so hard next time x

@Velocirapstar I'm sorry? Review copies are provided for pretty much every game on a major site like this, and their scores have nothing to do with that. There are plenty of games on here with terrible scores, which were also provided by the publisher. That's how it works.

Given how many others in the comments are singing the game's praises too, I don't appreciate the insinuation that we've given the game a high score simply because the code was provided. Please don't make suggestions like that in future.

@Gerald The thing with Sega Rally though is that its roads are nice and wide, which means you have enough space for the slippery handling and can swing it round all over the place. That isn't the case here.

@harrystein The game wasn't "obviously too difficult for the reviewer" and as a fan of the G&G/Gargoyle series I have indeed played Demon's Crest.

The difference there is that while Demon's Crest has Metroidvania elements, in that you earn new skills that can used to reach different areas earlier in the game, its stages are still linear and so it's still easy enough to figure out where you're going.

This is a Metroidvania with an open world rather than left-to-stages, but doesn't provide a map, meaning the likelihood of confusion was always going to be high unless the level design was masterfully laid out to make sure the player always had their bearings.

Hope that helps.

@eripmav We've investigated the changes and tweaked the review text accordingly. It won't affect the score, however, because the major issue that prevents it from being an 8 is the lack of a map and that doesn't appear to have changed. Hope that helps!

@pbb76 Fair enough, no worries.

One point I'll make is that while it's clear that the Switch isn't as powerful as other systems, that doesn't give it a free pass when games simply don't get the job done on it. That reminds me of my days at Official Nintendo Magazine when we kept a tally of how many times developers told us their games looked "great for the Wii" (which more often than not ended up in a rubbish game).

The Switch is capable of handling a great racing game. Think of how many were released on the Xbox 360 and PS3, for example. Had this been a solid port of something like Dirt 3, we'd be looking at an 8 instead. V-Rally 4 is just not a good game, in my opinion, and it would be a 5 whether it was on the Switch, Xbox One X or N64.

@pbb76 Just like I find it odd when people question my opinion when I HAVE played it 😉

@pbb76 On the contrary: my three favourite genres are platforming, racing and sports. I wouldn't accept an offer to review a game based on a genre I didn't enjoy (like RTS or turn-based tactics) because I wouldn't be able to do it justice.

@bojackson That's because of two reasons:

1) Video games and movies are two completely different mediums. Movies are narrative-driven and linear and so a compelling plot and brilliant cinematography will always be appreciated no matter how old the film is. A video game's main property is the fact it's interactive: if the mechanics used to play it aren't as compelling as those of games released today then it just doesn't hold up by comparison.

2) Even if they were comparable, you're comparing two completely different eras of each medium. The first movies were screened in 1895 while Citizen Kane was released 46 years later: that means it benefited from nearly half a century of progress while the medium matured. Many of these Atari games – especially Pong – appeared at literally the beginning of video gaming.

Movies took 46 years to reach Citizen Kane. Video games took 45 years to reach Breath Of The Wild. A more appropriate comparison would be comparing the games in this collection with the Lumiere's films from the late 19th century, like the one with the train pulling into the station. Mind-blowing at the time, but primitive today.

And once again, when you make insinuations about games journalism as a whole then you absolutely are directing them at me.

@bojackson With the greatest of respect, I completely disagree and also object to your insinuation that we score games high because we "have relationships" with companies and want to make sure they keep giving us code. How do you think we got this game, which I just gave a 5?

And of course these old games are being graded by today's standards. I haven't polled all of Nintendo Life's readers but I'd imagine the percentage with a time machine is fairly low, so when I'm reviewing a game I'm basing on how fun it is to play in 2018, not 1985.

At the end of the day, anyone old enough to remember these games in the first place already knows them and therefore already knows whether they're going to buy them. Nostalgia is a powerful thing and the game you loved when you were eight years old will still keep you entertained today because it conjures up all those memories of your childhood.

These reviews aren't for those people: as the Atari fans in the comments make clear, they're going to buy this compilation no matter what score we give it and they're going to presumably love the games in there because they remind them of the first time they played them many decades ago. And that's perfectly fine.

But this review is aimed at everyone, including people who are discovering these games for the first time. And with the greatest respect to these games – which helped shape the industry as we know it today – two white lines hitting a square at each other just doesn't cut it for today's gamers.

Long story short, if you played these games back in the day and loved them back then, then of course feel free to add a few points onto this score. But even though I too loved playing the 2600 back in the day, I have to review these games based on how much I enjoy them in 2018, and the answer is "not very much".

I hope that helps, and please don't allege again that I'm somehow out to please publishers without any evidence of that.

@YANDMAN That's what a review is. Like I say, I love Atari but if I didn't have fun playing most of the games on here then I'm not going to pretend I did just to please Atari fans.

@YANDMAN On the contrary, I do love Atari, as proven by this tweet https://twitter.com/scully1888/status/1073923254274924544?s=19

I own an Atari 2600 and a bunch of games, and some of them indeed remain fun to this day. But a lot of the games in this compilation aren't those games, in my opinion.

@joey302 While you're of course entitled to have a different opinion to mine, the very fact that you can't figure out how start some of the games sort of proves the point I was making in the review. I can't give a compilation a glowing review if some of its games are borderline unplayable.

@carlos82 I think you've misread. I wrote that "the majority of [NES] games can still provide plenty of entertainment if you take their age into account.

I love the NES and have just finished writing a 180,000-word book about its entire library, so I can assure you we aren't anti-NES

@ToneDeath Cheers pal! Nothing wrong with cartridge porn, mind 😛

@Atariboy With respect – and I appreciate that given your username I'm not going to change your opinion – I own an Atari 2600 and am well versed in its library. The review points out that there are indeed some games in there that remain playable to this day, but in my opinion (and that's all reviews are) the majority of these 150 games just don't hold up four decades later.

@SuperCharlie78 Absolutely. The performance is still good (if not a perfect 60fps), the TV input lag issue is removed and playing it with headphones sounds fantastic.

Cut the price in half and then I'll chuck my money at them. £49.99 is crazy money.

@BulbasaurusRex You've played it then, aye?

@andywitmyer If you don't mind, I'd like to respond to your long comment with a lengthy one of my own.

Nintendo Life isn't a hivemind, it's a collection of individual writers. As the person who wrote this particular review, I received no briefing on Nintendo Life's 'tone' or suggestion that my score should be any higher than it would be were I to write it for any other site.

While I don't wish to compare my work with that of others, the fact that on Metacritic (at the time of me writing this) the game has 24 positive reviews and only two mixed ones – one of which is IGN's – suggests not that I've over-scored it, but that IGN's score is lower than the general consensus.

I'm not saying their review is wrong, mind you: I would never say that, because everyone has their own opinion. But I don't feel it's an entirely scientific process to take a score that's an exception to the consensus – in this case IGN's lower than average one – and arbitrarily decide that's the correct one, meaning anything higher than that is over-inflated for whatever reason (be that hyperbole or what have you).

I've been reviewing games for nearly 13 years now, and I'd like to think I've got it down to a level where my reviews are free of hype or hyperbole: if I give a game a 9 it's not because I'm adding any sort of 'Nintendo Life tax' that demands I add a couple of points to each game. It's because of the thousands of games I've reviewed in my 13 years doing this, this particular one feels like a 9 to me.

Long story short, with the greatest of respect to Nintendo Life's other writers, I have no interest in how they score games and I only give the scores I feel games deserve (and I'm sure they would all say the same). There is no writer called 'Nintendo Life', we're all individuals and we don't all subconsciously score games higher than usual because of the site we're writing for.

If you buy the game and you feel it's been scored too highly then your issue is with my judgement, not Nintendo Life's.

@Rayquaza2510 "Aside from that again something is wrong with his switch or he himself doesn't like playing such games at 30fps (some people just prefer 60 for obvious reasons)"

Just for the avoidance of doubt, there are no issues with my Switch (I've reviewed over 200 games on the same unit with no noticeable lag issues) and I have no issue whatsoever with 30fps in games as long as it runs smoothly (which this doesn't). There's nothing I hate more than people who say a 30fps game is literally "unplayable", but if a game is sluggish it's sluggish regardless of the frame rate.