IGN Review

I think the reviewers got a point, lose from the fact that they rate the game with such a low number.

My opinion is: that if you make a game that is different then the rest and has not been made before, you should explain how it works, because it all looks cool and awesome but if people don't get told how sh*t works they all say the same after a few tries: F*ck this stupid game!

And there is also a bigger getting used to time, then most RTS games because it's different then it's predecessors, so I can understand there frustration and Uber should really take this seriously and focus in that part.

This makes me sad, all those bad reviews for my favourite game of recent years...

I do like this review though:
http://www.pcgamesn.com/planetary-annihilation/planetary-annihilation-review

This review really shows that they tried and I mostly agree on the rough edges. They only forget about the area commands.

Yeah i really liked this review. It was honest and justified. Also, the author acknowledged that there is a good game here, but maybe the game needs more polish etc.

wow, this ******* sucks. there are some good comments in the comments section, but some are just agreeing with the review. the reviewer clearly does not understand how the game works.

Well it comes down to how you feel about this;

"Who is responsible for the player understanding how the game works?"

Mike

Big game review sites like IGN and gamespot rely on both ad revenue and pre access to AAA games from big publishers to get their page hits. Big game publishers HATE the concept of kickstarter. So this is what you get.

PA was made for TA fans and I love it for that and the improvements it has made to RTS genre of the TA style.

What matters now for PA (and maybe kickstarter) is to see if a kickstarter game can get ongoing patches past what a big publisher would allow. Only time will tell.

As much as it hates me to say it is a fair review of the current game. I'm testing the etherium beta and the difference in polish is huge.

But that's not a kickstarter game right? It has a publisher fronting the cash?

Yeah but what has that got to do with a PA release review? I'm simply comparing the state of the games. Etherium beta has a lot of the features many reviewers are saying PA release doesn't.

How long had it been in development and how much has been spent on it compared to PA? I bet a lot more of both.

okay if he dislikes spherical maps, he shouldnt have the right to review this game. its like: I hate cars, i give Need for speed a "bad"

Am I missing something here? This Rob Zacny fellow is not listed on the IGN staff page and I can't find and IGN social media linking to the review - is this an official IGN review or a guest post?

EDIT: Found him. "Freelance writer" https://twitter.com/RobZacny

Panic over.

Its not as bad of a review as the other one you posted Brian, but I still don't really think hes a true review that reflects what PA is all about. The comparrisons to TA/Supcom are in most cases obvious as I think any modern day rts like this will always be compared somewhat to supcom:FA but when it comes to sphere/flat maps, its another thing thats really just simply down to personal choice. There is no other way that I can possibly think of where you could make sphere maps work any better then what PA has it at, its not like the supcom games didn't have their issues either.

Smashing planets and obliterating planets is what this game is all about, its in the damn tittle lol so when reviewers are mostly blind or don't take into account that very important fact, I find it hard to take the review seriously because its like they've only played half the game? Saving is coming along with many other core features and again, I'll re-state what I posted in other review thread. These reviewers should take what features are coming into consideration when reviewing this game, just like how you would do with a brand new MMO, which always have server issues, balancing, new features to come ect... so an accurate review usually follows later when the game has been fully flushed out. The reviews need to be made as a "In its current state" type thing and then fully review it when we do actually have the full game.

These reviewers do however, have the right to review the game in how it plays now, because this is what you're currently buying. I didn't read the review just watched the video, but it was short, and didn't cover half the stuff of what actually makes PA so damn special. Didn't think it was a good review personally and IGN never really do good or accurate reviews anyway, you want proper reviews, Gamespot/Giantbomb are about as true as you're gonna get.

The cost to make the game or time has nothing to do with it. Both are rts games and similar costs to me the buyer and people reading the reviews. I'm comparing a game that is released to a beta game. The same way people were saying on the forums for he last year that it's not fair to compare PA to TA,FA or any other released game.

The game was released too early so don't be getting your knickers in a twist for a bad review is all I'm trying to say. It is deserved.

now that i read the whole thing i feel like, he has good points overall. maybe "bad" is a bit too bad, but overall all his points are valid. Of course, planets are planets, and noone expected PA to be a game for simple minded players, but well, its his opinion, but it should be marked as such.

missing save feature (why the hell is this missing, it cant be that hard...), local servers needed of course

bad galactic war is really ****. Galactic war is the worst feature in the game.

missing ui features that would increase control

Trying to say the reviewer is retarded and doesnt understand anything is a cheap excuse. PA is no challenging RTS game. Its easy. get metal and energy up n running and build factories. Europa Universalis 3 & 4 are complex strategy games. Wargame red dragon is a complex RTS game. PA? No. The UI makes some things more difficult than they could be, that doesnt mean its a challenging game.

There we go. For what it's worth I just posted this in the comments as a partial attempt at a rebuttal:

Not to nit pick, but Sorian didn't actually write the AI for SupCom2 if I recall correctly, he got onto that project too late to get into the ground level of the AI and instead worked on many different sections of the engine before he was let loose to optimize the AI, in a sense, he did the same type of thing for SupCom2 that he did for FA except that he had a lot more control/power over the engine the second time around.

Mike

Why do they always, always go to such lenghts to criticise the lack of savegames?
Two faction games will rarely reach minute 30-45. With same planet spawn games can be decided as early as 15-20 minutes in.

You have to go out of your way to create a 4-8 faction game or get into a prolonged nuke war against he AI just to breach 1 hour, wich is the point at wich you could use savegames - but by then you are just looking for a issue with not having savegames.

That's not nit-picking, that's factual correction. I'll see if I can find a source somewhere on what he did and didn't work on and correct if necessary.

EDIT: I think there's enough here to go without making any changes? http://soriandev.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/change-is-good.html