Would anyone be interested in a Gaming review site geared toward people like us? (1 Viewer)

[Romier S]

Andre,

I sent you an email a little bit ago concerning the costs and some other subjects I wanted to ask you about. I also contact Jake about this and am waiting for an answer back from him.

I know I have not contacted some of you yet but I will be doing so soon. (You don't know how busy I have been since I started the idea for this thing!!). All in all I am also very excited about this.

 

[JasonK]

Romier,

I just sent you an email. I'm not sure how I missed this thread, but I'd love to help writing for the site.

I work for an indie rental store, so I can offer any 'insight' that may have.

What I'd like to see on the site would be a section for current topical 'issues' in the gaming world that are not necessarily appropriate for the HTF. Stuff like what Sen. Joe Lieberman and Herb Kohl (my own Senator here in WI) have to say about the games we play. Or just talk about the industry trends in general. (IE compare the current generation with that of older generations.)

Something else I think would be neat would be an area to focus on the classic games. Maybe once a week pick a game like 'River City Ransom' or the 'Castlevania' series and write a review for it, or just call for an upgrade for it. I'd love to see a new version of that, or 'Bionic Commando' and many others.

For the record, I own a PS2, a GameCube, a Gameboy Advance, and a Dreamcast. I still have my SNES hooked up, along with my NES.

Great idea Romier, I just hope I'll be able to contribute!

Jason

 

[Romier S]

Jason,
Just sent you an email Ax is glad to have you.
Also what do you guys think we should review first? Should we start with the newest games available or should I also post reviews for games like Halo, DMC, MGS 2.....I'm not sure where to start on that end. I'd like to have those games reviewed but I also dont want to be buried in MGS2 and Halo reviews and all the other games that are available get avoided. What do you think?

 

[JasonK]

Romier,

Perhaps we could start with a "year in review." That way we could focus a little on all the great games over the year, but not have to do full-length reviews.

 

[Dan Brecher]

Perhaps each review would have an "official" review followed by "member comments" and ratings. ???

I like the idea of multiple reviews of the one product. There's an independant PS2 magazine over here that rates the game at the end of the review, but in the corner is a little boxed off area where contributors to the magazine rate and comment (briefly) about the game. I liked that.

I'd be keen on trying to help offer a European perspective on some of the titles and hardware. It is often increidbly hard to find out if a UK game uses a 60hz option for instance, it's always something I'd like to have seen more of. Often PAL conversions of games can differ a fair deal (Metal Gear solid 2 as a recent example), thought of course without making a side by side comparison it's hard to tell exactly if needing to compare issues over NTSC to PAL conversions. Still, I'd like to contribute in whatever way I can. Depends if the site intends to mainly have a domestic US appeal or is open to more global gaming related stuff.

Dan (UK)

PS: Logo 5 is realy nice.

 

[Scott Simonian]

#1 and #5 are nice.

 

[Andre F]

Depends if the site intends to mainly have a domestic US appeal or is open to more global gaming related stuff.

I'd vote for at least a global section. It's important to know what's going on in the rest of the world. Additionally there are issues specific to certain areas of the world, like 60hz issue that you spoke of Dan.

-Andre

 

[Romier S]

Global coverage sounds good. I can definitely add that to the list. We can at least have a space devoted to it.

Dan,

I will be in contact with you about doing some international reviews and editorials if you would like.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Actually, some games would benefit from worldwide reviews. FFX, for example, had voice acting that matched the voices in the Japanese version, but not in the American version. Translation issues, conversion issues, localization issues, and even differences in cover art are things I would definitely be interested in seeing all in one site.

 

[Greg Black]

Concerning the logos, in my opinion #5 is the clear winner. It's very classy looking, and uses my two favorite colors, blue and green
I would love to help out htgaming.com in any way that I can. If you need some Game Cube reviews, I would be glad to write some with as much technical flair as I can muster
Romier, I really like the idea of having a gaming site that is techno-centric. In fact, this is what I have been wishing for for years!

 

[Ike]

Also, on X-Box, how about a template that makes sure that they tell if the title uses the "Rip Music" feature? People get this wrong, and I never know which title has it or not.

And I'd love to write reviews for the PS2 or X-Box.

What about PC? Would you include PC games?

 

[Romier S]

Greg, I'll be sending you an email soon. I am in desperate need of another Gamecube reviewer. I got allot of PS2 and X-box but the poor cube is feeling shunned:frowning:.
Music-Ripping....added!
Placed on the to-do list Ike
PC games I'mnot sure of at this point. I would love to have them be part of the site but I would really like to to stay focused on the games quality and how they run (stability, resolution etc....). One thing I dont see allot fo sites doing now if commenting on how games run in different resolutions. "Will Ghost Recon run at 128x1024 on my geforce 2?" for example. These are common type questions that PC gamers have that I dont think review sites cover enough. Maybe we can go further into detail about that? Also for those with excellent audio setups on there PC we could go into the quality of 3d positional sound? Just throwing out more ideas..The PC section may not be part of the site at launch but I think it will be a definite addition in the future.
I'm hoping if all goes right the site should be up and running in a month or two. If I can devote the appropriate time to it (which I'm trying to do now) I should have the review template done by next week.
I'll keep updating as things come up. I'm hoping to have a mock-up of the site to show you guys in about 2-3 weeks.

 

[Dan Brecher]

I will be in contact with you about doing some international reviews and editorials if you would like

Sure thing!

Dan (UK)

 

[Andre F]

I'll be sending you an email soon. I am in desperate need of another Gamecube reviewer. I got allot of PS2 and X-box but the poor cube is feeling shunned.

I've got a 'Cube and I'd be happy to write some reviews!

-Andre F

 

[Romier S]

Ok, Time for an update
Erin Nees again was kind of enough to send me some intial web designs for the site and I am taking those into consideration. I have received reviews from several people also. Thaank you all for those.
The official review template will be completed this coming Monday and I will be sending it to you guys who are interested in doing reviews on that day or the day after.
HTgaming is very much still in full effect and should be coming your way soon. If you have any input please reply to the thread.

 

[Ike]

I'm still up for writing reviews.

I think I'd enjoy especially writing reviews for older games that have already come out last year-that way it'll have a little bit of an archive-Halo, Tony Hawk 3, Devil May Cry, DOA III, Grand Theft Auto III, Project Gotham Racing, Metal Gear Solid II, NFL 2K2, etc. I think we will need reviews of these games to get any traffic at all, and since I've had time to really play through most of them, it will be a more accurate review.

Let me know what you think about this.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

How about we get a group of members and have them all submit their opinions on a game then someone puts all those ideas together and makes them as pros and cons and then we give a numerical score for all the aspects of the game and then a final score that is an average of the members' scores? This way, we wouldn't get fanboy reviews, but would still get multiple reviews.

 

[Ike]

I think multiple reviews will weed out "fanboy" reviews. I think a more personal stall of gamers is a better idea-people could see who their opinons generally line up with.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

My idea was that we would hand select people who aren't fanboys (probably from HTF) and then we would compile their reviews together to show different opinions on the game, as well as show average scores for different aspects of the games. This way, we are getting multiple opinions from good sources without fanboy interference.

 

[Ike]

Whose fanboys, and who aren't, Morgan? I know some would say you were. I think if someone likes one system better than another, that's fine, but to falsely say one game stinks because it's on a different system is fanboy-ism.

Since this is just us with our home equipment, it's unlikely that one of us would have a system we don't like. Therefor, it's very unlikely for the site to get negative "fanboy" reviews.