I believe that there are a lot of people out there that look at magazines for their reviews of games before they buy. This makes magazines quite powerful. Unfortunately, it really means that "some guy" is quite powerful, as it usually rests upon a single reviewer. This can lead to very subjective criticism. Proof:
PC Gamer gave Redjack (Bleeker) an awful rating. This month's Next Generation gives it 3 stars. PCG thought highly of Jazz Jackrabbit 2. NG gave it one star. PCG thought Addiction pinball was worth 60%. NG gave it 4 stars. Both magazines are published by Imagine, yet reviews vary dramatically since it all comes down to the reviewer. 4 or 5 magazines carry a lot of weight out there. Which means that a lot of our games, and hence our company's, success relies upon 4 or 5 people. Often just kids. No real point here, just something to think about.
In more significant news, this same issue of NextGen talks about Dreamcast. Page 14 mentions TR for Dreamcast. "Adrian Smith at Core Design intimates there is a team working on a next generation game beyond TR3 that might be starring Lara Croft. As the TR franchise is sown up by Sony until Christmas '99, any game starring Lara before then on any other platform will legally have to be called something else." So it looks like there are other items in the TR pipeline that go outside of the TR name, using Lara, and for other systems. So my next question is can they make a game with Lara, and call it something else and publish it on another system prior to the end of the Sony deal? I would think that Sony would have the rights to everything from the game, including characters. But the blurb suggests otherwise. In any event, I hope they push the point of working on other systems, if for no other reason than to hold a bigger chip in any (fictional?) talks with Sony...
Lastly, page 94 talks about Dreamcast and third party development. I found the following interesting: "The biggest question in many publishers minds must be 'Why bother? given the success of PSX, is there any need, financially, for publishers to support Dreamcast?'" I find a lot of credibility in this argument. The PSX dominates right now, and will likely carry this lead to the next generation (especially if it is backwards compatible). Specializing in one console allows you to learn it inside and out and maximize its power. Also, porting to multiple platforms means making choices early on to make the game more portable. This generally reduces certain aspects of the game (graphically, in the control setup, etc), and can reduce the quality. If we are "paid" sufficiently by Sony, I am not sure making a deal with them is such a bad thing. |
