SunAge

[Neeyik]

Slap on your rose tinted glasses, as it's time for a spot of retro RTS gaming with SunAge. Delicately and lovingly built by a tiny number of enthusiasts, but thanks to a way too soon release schedule, the work is all for naught. Join us, as we play "spot the good bits" in a sea of bugs, crashes and glitches.

http://www.yougamers.com/reviews/16451_sunage/

With no further comment, here is what I wrote on another page.

Out of the box, there is no gameplay, with unwinnable scenarios and frequent repeatable crashes

Repeatable crashes? Yes. At least in the version he seems to have tested.
Unwinnable scenarios? No. That one is simply a lie and shows the incomptence of the reviewer. Many people (me included) finished the campaign, even with an unpatched game.

Sprite-based artwork is well-done and animations are capable, though the 2D rendering can be less "retro-love" and more "pain-inducing".

Ok, he doesn't like the ggraphics. Thats his good right, but I can't really follow that.

A lack of camera rotating and zooming hampers gameplay, and the map design often begs for these simple features.

Camera rotation in a 2D game? Ah.. yeah... right...

Not good - not good at all. Audio ranges from amateur (voice acting) to questionable (music and sound effects). "Repetitive" and "glitchy" best describe the audio.

Okay, the voice acting really isn't best. But the music? Its not spectacular, but it fits very well into the rest of the game, as it is not very obtrusive. You could just listen to it and relax...

The graphics engine isn't fundamentally broke, but it's a child of the previous millennium.

Ehrm? It's a 2D game. What did he expect? ^^

Game-breaking bugs, frequent crashes and corrupt save files, even with the latest patches, complete the messy package.

Would all be true, if it wasn't for that "even with the latest patches".
I'm browsing V4s Forum quite often and are very active and I haven't seen any bug reports of corrupted save files in 1.6.1, for example...


Well.. despite all that seriously stupid crap that guy wrote, his 45% rating is justified, taken into account how bugged the game was on its initial release.

[Neeyik]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Unwinnable scenarios? No. That one is simply a lie and shows the incomptence of the reviewer. Many people (me included) finished the campaign, even with an unpatched game.

No - that simply shows that for you the game didn't crash allowing you to finish the campaign; on all of the machines we tested it on, we experienced bugs preventing the campaign for completing.

Camera rotation in a 2D game? Ah.. yeah... right...

That's perfectly possible in this day and age, as is camera scaling.

Well.. despite all that seriously stupid crap that guy wrote, his 45% rating is justified, taken into account how bugged the game was on its initial release.

How is a personal opinion "stupid crap"? You like the music, so does that mean you're saying stupid crap too?

Originally Posted by Neeyik

No - that simply shows that for you the game didn't crash allowing you to finish the campaign; on all of the machines we tested it on, we experienced bugs preventing the campaign for completing.

I didn't say that I did not encounter crashes. I encountered a lot, to be honest. Many of them forcing me to try again and again, until I made it without a game-breaking bug.
That IS frustrating, yeah, and as stated before, it justifies any bad rating. But claiming the campaign to be unfinishable simply is not true.

Btw.. what machines have you been testing on?
And have you posted some help request at the forums? The guys over there are quite busy helping asap. With success, at least in most cases.

Originally Posted by Neeyik

That's perfectly possible in this day and age, as is camera scaling.

With a team at the size of the one V4 has and the limited amount of time? Think again.
Possible in theory, yeah, but I keep on asking myself where you have wanted to rotate the camera.
I agree with the scaling. Would have been nice.

Originally Posted by Neeyik

How is a personal opinion "stupid crap"? You like the music, so does that mean you're saying stupid crap too?

Not everything you said was "stupid crap". I never said that. The rating, after all, is justified for the unfinished release. Some things, though, are.
Such as the claim to be playing with the latest patch or the "unwinnable scenarios" thing.

[Neeyik]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I didn't say that I did not encounter crashes. I encountered a lot, to be honest. Many of them forcing me to try again and again, until I made it without a game-breaking bug.

That IS frustrating, yeah, and as stated before, it justifies any bad rating. But claiming the campaign to be unfinishable simply is not true.

We simply don't have the time to repeatedly play a game, in the hope that a game-breaking bug won't appear.

Btw.. what machines have you been testing on?

Quite a range: Aaron used machines mentioned in his review and used a variety of old/new stuff.

And have you posted some help request at the forums? The guys over there are quite busy helping asap. With success, at least in most cases.

The review is complete now, so there's little point getting the developers to help out now.

With a team at the size of the one V4 has and the limited amount of time? Think again.Possible in theory, yeah, but I keep on asking myself where you have wanted to rotate the camera. I agree with the scaling. Would have been nice.

Seriously, it's not that hard and let's face it - this is 2007, not 1997. However, we're well aware that the game's fixed isometric view was a design choice, as was the whole "retro gameplay" feel to it. I'm asking myself why you wouldn't want a rotating camera in a RTS.

Not everything you said was "stupid crap". I never said that. The rating, after all, is justified for the unfinished release. Some things, though, are.
Such as the claim to be playing with the latest patch or the "unwinnable scenarios" thing.

You did say "all that seriously stupid crap", so don't try to avoid the fact that you weren't being specific in your accusations. The game was tested with the patch available at the time of reviewing and may I also point out that this is an exception to our review methodology: a game analysis and rating is typically performed on an "as is" basis. I'll also repeat again that the avoidance of the campaign non-completion issue was something that you experienced, but we never did - so what do you expect us to say? Guess that it's not a problem for others?

Originally Posted by Neeyik

We simply don't have the time to repeatedly play a game, in the hope that a game-breaking bug won't appear.

I understand that, but that still doesn't allow you to say "The campaign is not finishable."... it allows you to say "WE could not finish the campaing (as bugs prevented us from doing so...)".
There is a difference.

ANd for the "guessing" if others were able to finish....
You could have simply taken a quick look into the forums to see that others were able to finish it. Isn't that time-consuming, is it?

Originally Posted by Neeyik

Seriously, it's not that hard and let's face it - this is 2007, not 1997. However, we're well aware that the game's fixed isometric view was a design choice, as was the whole "retro gameplay" feel to it. I'm asking myself why you wouldn't want a rotating camera in a RTS.

Hard or not (can't judge it as I'm more into game Design and not so much into 3D Programming), it consumes additional time. Time the team obviously didn't have. I don't know whose fault that was, though (publisher or devs).

I wouldn't want a rotating camera as in "I don't need it". It would be an addition, but one I would probably never use. Especially not in a 2D RTS, where you can see everything you need with only one possible camera view.

Originally Posted by Neeyik

You did say "all that seriously stupid crap", so don't try to avoid the fact that you weren't being specific in your accusations.

I took it as natural that I only meant the seriously stupid crap with "seriously stupid crap" and not the whole review. Will be more specific next time... :roll:

Originally Posted by Neeyik

The game was tested with the patch available at the time of reviewing and may I also point out that this is an exception to our review methodology: a game analysis and rating is typically performed on an "as is" basis.

So that is 1.5, I guess.
There is nothing wrong with your review methodology. It's justified.
Would I be a reviewer, I'd use the same (reviewing on "as is" basis).

But you also wrote "even with the latest patches"... which would be 1.6.1 by the time of 9th January ... "Game-breaking bugs, frequent crashes and corrupt save files" still occur. Thats simply a false statement, as "even with the latest patches" would imply that you tested with 1.6.1. Which you haven't (which is your good right).

Of course, there are still some bugs, but no comparison to unpatched or 1.5.


Don't get me wrong, in general, I agree with the review (except "all that seriously stupid crap" in the summary (specific enough?)), especially pointing out that things promised on the box are not in-game, which was known at release.

[ajbarnes]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Repeatable crashes? Yes. At least in the version he seems to have tested.
Unwinnable scenarios? No. That one is simply a lie and shows the incomptence of the reviewer. Many people (me included) finished the campaign, even with an unpatched game.

Hey, did you have to make it personal? Nonetheless, I do appreciate the feedback. To answer a few of your questions - yes, I really did experience the problems that I mentioned in the review, and yes - I did browse the SunAge forums. However, I'm evaluating what the publisher considers a finished product, and by no stretch is the release version of SunAge a finished product. Even after patching, there are a number of fundamental issues which hamper gameplay to a great degree.

SunAge is a game that I really wanted to like. I love the gameplay found in classic RTS games, but SunAge doesn't reach the bar set by circa-1997 titles. Even the old (and classic) Dune RTS is more fun than this game.

I understand that you're a fan of the game, but please appreciate that my review of the game is generous considering the state of the code. A customer who shells out money for SunAge has every right to be a bit upset, and I think the review conveys that.

[Neeyik]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I understand that, but that still doesn't allow you to say "The campaign is not finishable."... it allows you to say "WE could not finish the campaing (as bugs prevented us from doing so...)".
There is a difference.

Yes, there is a difference but if one experiences bugs sufficient times in testing, one should have enough justification to make it a formal statement. For example, you initially stated that you completed the campaign with no patch applied (and thus assumed it gave you the right to label us incompetent); had it been you writing the review, what would have you done? Not mentioned it at all, because you and others didn't experience the problem? Had you stated, as a reviewer, that you'd didn't have the problems that others did, you can guarantee that the comments box on the review would rapidly fill up! As an interesting aside, what's better - to gloss over as serious an issue as the state of the unpatched release version or to simply state that out of the box, the game is actual broken?

And for the "guessing" if others were able to finish....
You could have simply taken a quick look into the forums to see that others were able to finish it. Isn't that time-consuming, is it?

No but such forum are not always an accurate assessment of the actual. Take our recent NFS: ProStreet review - if one reads various forum comments about the game, one would get the impression that it's unplayable; however, our testing showed that the driving is inherently linked to the game performance, and without powerful enough hardware, the skips in frame rate causes handling issues. In the case of SunAge, we noticed comments saying that the game was and wasn't possible to complete: we performed multiple attempts, but all of them failed. It's not so hard to see that we couldn't trust the opinions that voiced the opposite.

Hard or not (can't judge it as I'm more into game Design and not so much into 3D Programming), it consumes additional time. Time the team obviously didn't have. I don't know whose fault that was, though (publisher or devs).

Oh, it certainly would have taken more time but how long ago did the project start? It's perhaps best to look at the limited camera options as being... well... a limitation, rather than a fault, per se. The publishers are clearly at fault, though, for releasing the game far too early.

I took it as natural that I only meant the seriously stupid crap with "seriously stupid crap" and not the whole review. Will be more specific next time... :roll:

But you didn't say what was the stupid crap - now if you meant the parts you highlighted, then my first reply was justified as some sections were on personal preference (e.g. the music). Now if you didn't mean parts like that, then that's understandable but just not very clear.

So that is 1.5, I guess. There is nothing wrong with your review methodology. It's justified. Would I be a reviewer, I'd use the same (reviewing on "as is" basis).

But you also wrote "even with the latest patches"... which would be 1.6.1 by the time of 9th January ... "Game-breaking bugs, frequent crashes and corrupt save files" still occur. Thats simply a false statement, as "even with the latest patches" would imply that you tested with 1.6.1. Which you haven't (which is your good right).

Err, no - we tested it with 1.0.6.1 as stated in the review and even with that patch, we still experienced those problems. You can't tell us that it's "a false statement" or that we didn't have the patch applied, when that's exactly what was the case! Now if you don't want to believe us, then that's fair enough, but there's obviously not much point in discussing it further.

Of course, there are still some bugs, but no comparison to unpatched or 1.5.

Agreed - had we chosen to review the game without the patches, the score would be precisely zero! I was hoping an early preview version I examined late last year was an alpha code drop, but sadly it turned out to be a near-release version. Both myself and Aaron really feel for the developers, as the project was obviously a labour of love, but at the end of the day, PC game development at this level is very much a business, and not a hobby.

Originally Posted by Neeyik

Err, no - we tested it with 1.0.6.1 as stated in the review and even with that patch, we still experienced those problems. You can't tell us that it's "a false statement" or that we didn't have the patch applied, when that's exactly what was the case! Now if you don't want to believe us, then that's fair enough, but there's obviously not much point in discussing it further.

I read that, and it confused me.
So, you tell me that you were not able to finish the campaign with 1.6.1 on different machines, with many tries.
Well.. okay... I have to believe that but it seems strange, as this is the only case I have heard from. As I said, others experienced bugs, too, but not to an extend that the campaign was not finishable after some attempts (except the Assimilation mission, which is a pain even without the bugs ;) ).
Hmm.. sorry for the inconvenience then... I stand corrected.


@ajbarnes:

I think you did too much weight on what the publisher praised the title to be. When it comes to "what the game wants to be"s, the developers are a better source than the publisher. Unfortunately, the publisher AFAIK is responsible for what is written on the box. A dilemma... companies like Valve that are capable of publishing themselves do have an obvious advantage here...

Oldschool it wants to be, yes.
But when you were expecting a copy of Starcraft, you were wrong. Almost completely.
Many design decisions clearly show that SunAge wants to present something new, too.
The attack radius is a good example. Or limiting squads to only one creature type. Or the heavy reliance on expansion to different ressources via Nodes.. etc.

I forgot something... probably I should register, but nvm ....

As I said often enough. I don't disagree with 45%.
Its just that in the whole review, there seems to be no statement (especially not in the summary) indicating that most annoyances you experienced can be easily (in most cases) fixed via patches.
This IS worth mentioning, as many other games have bugs, design glitches and "incompletnesses" that are so deep that it makes it unlikely to be fixed via patches (Gothic 3 comes to mind).

Of course, if you don't like general design decisions made by the developer, there is nothing that can be done against it ;)