New Review Posted: ATV Offroad Fury 3

[Daniel Weissenberger]

Mike Bracken reviews ATV Offroad Fury 3 and says:

"I have to be honest: what I know about ATVs (all-terrain vehicles) and racing them could be stored on the head of a pin, with room left over for the inclusion of a complete transcript of War and Peace. What really makes this embarrassing is that my father actually runs a shop that sells ATVs and even sponsors a racer or two. But I know nothing about these machines other than they have a tendency to roll over whenever I spot them on a show like Maximum Exposure. This fact alone is enough to keep me from riding one—a thousand-pound vehicle landing on top of me isn't something I'd like to experience firsthand. This is why it's cool to be a gamer—I can play a videogame version of the ATV experience and get all the thrills and spills without having to spend any downtime in the hospital recovering from broken bones."

You can find out more here.

[Snack Eater]

You know, I wait patiently every week for the next batch of reviews, but I almost always end up getting disappointed...I mean, the last thing a great many intelligent gamers want to read about is a game about ATVs. No offense to the Brackenbeard, since he got me through that review, but sometimes I get the sense that Gamecritics is starting to slack a bit. Look through the archives. There are tons of big name games there with excellent, thought provoking reviews behind them, and some equally reviews of some smaller games that wouldn't have otherwise been brought to my attention, but when did the focus become just on small games? I mean...Torrente? What the hell was that all about? The review itself was a good one...but seriously...Torrente? When did racing games and budget titles become the focus here? Or was there never really any focus at all? The actual reviews are good, but half of the games I couldn't give to rat-shit covered hairs of a really shitty rat's ass about. I have one racing game (Gran Turismo 3), and one budget game (one of those kinda dumbly fun Deer Avenger games), and that's all I want.

Okay. I'm sure I've said something that I didn't totally mean and will probably regret in that last paragraph, and I will acknowledge that this is a slow part of the year for games, on top of the fact that there are many people out there who love racing games, but...TORRENTE?

[Mike Bracken]

I know what you mean, Solid. I really do.

Part of it is that this is that lull period for games and Chi wants to clear out some of the stuff that's been sitting in the "to be reviewed" pile forever--and since it's been sitting there forever, you can bet the house that it isn't anything exciting--exciting stuff gets snapped up almost instantly.

Sometimes we get an antsy publisher who wants to see the review go up ASAP too--which is sort of the case with ATV 3 as I understand it. Sony sent the game, it sort of sat here for awhile (because I truly believe most of us would rather cover something other than a racing game--unless said racing game is something really big like GT4) and then they started wondering when the review would go up--so someone had to bite the bullet and do it. Otherwise, Sony may not be so quick to send us cool stuff (stuff that we'd really want and you'd really want to see reviewed) in the future.

That being said, we've definitely missed a few games in the last half of last year that we should have been talking about. I think most of that's attributable to two things: we tend to pick what reviews we want to do and if the game's not sent to us, not all of us run out to buy it. One other thing is that a lot of times we get a review copy of something, but it's not until the retail version has been out for a few weeks. Factor in the shipping time from Chi to whoever's doing the review, and the time to play the title and write the review, and we're never going to be like IGN in terms of timeliness. We try though.

At any rate, I know where you're coming from--the whole time I was playing and writing the review for ATV3 (which really is a good game--but what can you say about it?) I was thinking "christ, I could really be using this time to be writing about something that really deserves the attention instead".

Mike B.

[Snack Eater]

Originally Posted by Mike_Bracken

I know what you mean, Solid. I really do.

Part of it is that this is that lull period for games and Chi wants to clear out some of the stuff that's been sitting in the "to be reviewed" pile forever--and since it's been sitting there forever, you can bet the house that it isn't anything exciting--exciting stuff gets snapped up almost instantly.

Sometimes we get an antsy publisher who wants to see the review go up ASAP too--which is sort of the case with ATV 3 as I understand it. Sony sent the game, it sort of sat here for awhile (because I truly believe most of us would rather cover something other than a racing game--unless said racing game is something really big like GT4) and then they started wondering when the review would go up--so someone had to bite the bullet and do it. Otherwise, Sony may not be so quick to send us cool stuff (stuff that we'd really want and you'd really want to see reviewed) in the future.

That being said, we've definitely missed a few games in the last half of last year that we should have been talking about. I think most of that's attributable to two things: we tend to pick what reviews we want to do and if the game's not sent to us, not all of us run out to buy it. One other thing is that a lot of times we get a review copy of something, but it's not until the retail version has been out for a few weeks. Factor in the shipping time from Chi to whoever's doing the review, and the time to play the title and write the review, and we're never going to be like IGN in terms of timeliness. We try though.

At any rate, I know where you're coming from--the whole time I was playing and writing the review for ATV3 (which really is a good game--but what can you say about it?) I was thinking "christ, I could really be using this time to be writing about something that really deserves the attention instead".

Mike B.

You know, maybe you game critics should remind publishers that the site is about intelligent game reviewing, which will probably get most of them off your back with their good-but-uninteresting games. Or else you might be reviewing Madden games yearly. "There are some new features in this year's version..." is not something I want to see. Ever. Sports and racing games are very hard to write intellectually about, unless they're shitty. Then you can at least spend the review telling the designers that they should seriously consider gutting themselves with a ceremonial knife.

By the way, Mike, I regularly read your IGN column...but lately I haven't. I'm a horror fan, not quite a geek...(okay, I do have a Shaun of the Dead poster on my bedroom wall, so okay, maybe a geek) but for some reason lately it just hasn't hit the spot for me. I really got into horror because of some of the stuff you recommended, but lately all I've been seeing reviews on are Korean Ghost movies. While I'm not saying that there aren't some really awesome Korean Ghost movies, and I'm certainly not suggesting that I want to see a review of recent Hollywood shit like Cursed or something, but where are the really fucked up movies? Has recent horror cinema been more conservative or something? Those reviews used to make me squirm just thinking about them. Now...hmm...ghosts. Seeing the dearth in good fucked up movies makes me want to make one just so somebody will have something to write about other than creepy little Asian girls with long hair stalking people. As a matter of fact, I think that's what I'll do. So far, I'm thinking about making something that starts off like some kind of action movie, then turns into a slow burning psychological thriller, and then turns into a majorly screwed up hellish mindfuck of epic proportions. That'll be a perfect first film for me, since it combines my three favorite genres. I've thought of one cool scene, where a person finds blood running out of their faucets, and a severed finger in the toilet, and then finds that the pipes are clogged with red mushy gunk, and finally, the police show up, and find that there's a pile of dismembered body parts festering in the septic tank. If it ever gets made, I just might send it to ya so you get something else to write about other than ghosts, like me being potentially the most awesome director in the universe.

If any of the above paragraph seemed rambling and incoherent, it's because my enthusiasm for both horror and my film ideas (or my horrific film ideas) often transcends things like structure and the run-on sentence whenever squeezed into a written form.

[Chi Kong Lui]

In regards to the Torrente review, this had nothing to due with publisher pressure. It was something our own guy wanted to play and write about. First and foremost, my concern is having our critics play games they want to play and write about otherwise this is a tedious job that they don't get paid to do.

As for ATV, come on man. Its not that bad now. The game was popular and well-received enough to warrant two sequels. And as noted by Mike's 7.0 rating, this is a decent game. So while I understand that you have zero interest in this title, I don't believe that there's no redeeming value in this review.

In terms of assignments and scheduling the reviews, I try to balance out popular titles, critic's interest, publisher pressure and reader demand. We don't have a lot of flexibility (as I said, the number one priority is what the critics want to play and write about), but if you want to try to influence critics on the boards, that's probably the best way. If critics here knew in advance that there was a high demand and more probability of readers caring about their review, then I'm sure they would be more inclined to review the title.

I'll start a regular thread on games readers would like to see reviewed here. Feel free to create this thread anytime you like as well.

Chi

[Mike Bracken]

Originally Posted by Solidsnack

By the way, Mike, I regularly read your IGN column...but lately I haven't. I'm a horror fan, not quite a geek...(okay, I do have a Shaun of the Dead poster on my bedroom wall, so okay, maybe a geek) but for some reason lately it just hasn't hit the spot for me. I really got into horror because of some of the stuff you recommended, but lately all I've been seeing reviews on are Korean Ghost movies. While I'm not saying that there aren't some really awesome Korean Ghost movies, and I'm certainly not suggesting that I want to see a review of recent Hollywood shit like Cursed or something, but where are the really fucked up movies? Has recent horror cinema been more conservative or something? Those reviews used to make me squirm just thinking about them. Now...hmm...ghosts.

Yeah, it's a multi-pronged problem.

First off, I have a huge and vocal segment of the audience of the column who loves the Asian ghost girl movies--so I try to keep them happy with reviews. Normally, though, I try to space them out--but I got a stack of these sort of movies over the past few months from the companies, and they hound me regularly about when their review is gonna be up. Since the column is only once a week, this means these movies occasionally push other stuff out of the queue.

Secondly, there hasn't been a lot of new stuff worth talking about--although this week's column should make you happy. It's a pre-release look at Nick Palumbo's ultra-violent and controversial serial killer film Murder-Set-Pieces. I think you'll dig it. It's one of the only movies in the past decade to shock me with its audacity.

The other problem is that I'm hoarding all the really good extreme stuff for my soon to be completed book on the 100 grossest films of all time. I've got reviews of movies that will make you hurl and wonder about your fellow man, but I have to keep them for the book and not the column. It's a bummer, because I've seen some really wild stuff and haven't been able to put up columns about it.

anyway, thanks for the feedback--it's always good to hear if the column is working for someone or not. I'll definitely try to keep working in some of the extreme stuff for you. How's that for personalized service? Know any other columnists who actually take requests?

Mike B.

[Daniel Weissenberger]

And let's not forget that before I played Torrente, I didn't actually know it was going to be bad - I never read anyone else's reviews or previews before I play and review a game, so I'm generally flying blind whenever I start playing a game. The only thing that really could have warned me off was the amazingly bad graphics, but that's no different than judging a book by its cover.

[Mike Bracken]

Originally Posted by GC_Chi

And as noted by Mike's 7.0 rating, this is a decent game.

Yeah, it really is. And sometimes it's just nice to play something that's simple and sort of mindless and fun.

Mike B.

[Hypatia93]

Yo Mike, when your book gets published, will you give us the heads up so we can go out and buy it?

[Mike Bracken]

Originally Posted by Hypatia93

Yo Mike, when your book gets published, will you give us the heads up so we can go out and buy it?

Sure thing. I don't know how much longer it'll be--the first draft is done, but I have a lot of rewriting to do and a few changes to make. Then I'll hope that someone actually wants to publish it...

Mike B.

[Hypatia93]

Originally Posted by Mike_Bracken

Sure thing. I don't know how much longer it'll be--the first draft is done, but I have a lot of rewriting to do and a few changes to make. Then I'll hope that someone actually wants to publish it...

Mike B.

May I suggest Zeising Books? It's a small publisher in NorCal (north of S.F. even). It's done wonderful things for folks before they were big, like Joe R. Lansdale. Mark's a wonderful guy, too. Have you heard of the house? He and his wife also sell books, so perchance you get his catalogue? If you're interested and aren't familiar with them, pm me. I could hook you up.

Oh yeah, and it's known for the more esoteric and "weird" stuff, so your book would most likely be perfect!

[Mike Bracken]

Yeah, I know Ziesing books--I actually have several of their hardcovers around here somewhere. They used to do a lot of cool horror stuff as long as Lansdale and guys like that.

I didn't know you knew them. I also didn't know they were in N. Cali.

Mike B.

[Snack Eater]

Couple questions:

1)What's your book about? I hope it's an autobiographical work about you kicking little kids out windows and yelling at old ladies and slamming busloads of nuns into cliffs with your bare hands, because that's pretty awesome.

and

2)If I were to make a horror movie, would you do a review of it? And if I were to personally send it to you with a piece of candy attached to the DVD, would you give it a good review?

[Hypatia93]

Solid,

Have you been reading the thread? That would answer your first question to Mr. Bracken. As far as the second one (and pardon me for jumping in), if it were me, I'd highly doubt it, considering you didn't take the time to read the beginning part of the thread.

Mike,

Oh yeah. I've known them since the mid-80's. *yikes* God I'm old. Actually, I've asked Mark and Cindy before if they'd look at some friends' work, but then my chicken-shit friends would get cold feet, so.. it never happened.

Like I said, if'n yer interested, pm me or something.

I just love those guys. And I'm so damn proud that they manage to stay alive with all the stuff that goes online. Do you get their catalogue?

[Chi Kong Lui]

In case you missed it, bass was kind enought to start the review request thread here:
http://www.gamecritics.com/forums/sh...d.php?p=102959

I'd really prefer to get lots of input from different folks even if you are repeating the games listed. The more requests, the better we know what's in demand.

Chi