Eurogamer finally posts Darkfall re-review, game now 4/10

by Lesley Smith on Jul 17th 2009 4:00PM

Fantasy, Darkfall, MMO industry, Reviews, News items

Hands up who remembers the Darkfall/Eurogamer scuffle about a certain low score? If you didn't and just to recap: reviewer Ed Zitron gave the game 2/10 and dev Tasos let forth his unhappiness with a vengeance. He accused Zitron of only having played the game for a few hours, most of which were spent designing characters or screenshotting. Eurogamer's editor-in-chief, Tom Bramwell, then promised to re-review the game, this time entrusting journalist Kieron Gillen with what had to be a very unenviable task.

I admit to taking a personal interest in this since the story broke; like many other British games journalists I've done a stint writing reviews for Eurogamer and I know both Ed and Kieron both professionally and personally. Indeed within the British games industry, Kieron Gillen is something of a minor celebrity whose opinion is trusted and respected.
So fast forward, Darkfall is out officially and everyone had just about forgotten the whole kerfuffle. Earlier today, they finally posted an epic (and very entertaining) four page review which has to rank as one of the longest the site has ever run.

It's not just a review, but a glimpse into the process and the scandal surrounding the last review (in the form of witty interludes). It's also the time when Gillen explains why editors should back up their journalists which is quite revealing for those of you who do not work as professional games reviewers.

At the end of the day though, not much has changed. The game is awarded 4/10, which is probably not the marked improvement Aventurine were expecting, but I'm quite curious to find out what the company will make of it.

Source

Tags: aventurine, darkfall, darkfall-online, eurogamer, eurogamer-mmo, low-score, tasos, tasos-flambouras

Reader Comments (36)

The best thing Mr Flambouros [sic?] can do is just hold his tongue, let it slide, ignore it, take a deep breath, go to his happy place. What's the betting he doesn't?

this is actually funny. Well done, pat on the head.

Here we go again...

Darkfall isnt for everyone, and there are lots of us that do enjoy the game, myself included.

The review is pre-expansion for one, which has made a good few changes to the game.

It's just a shame that people "label" a game as being utter garbage or similar (see above), rather than taking the more mature & sensible approach of "This game isnt for me, others may like it"

And, for the record. The game WAS fun for me from the beginning. Im a player who didnt exploit, didnt macro and so on - Yet I still had fun.

(Should proberbly be noted that as far as MMO's go, I hate WoW and all WoW clones, therefore may explain why the vast majoritiy wont give Darkfall a chance)

...rather than taking the more mature & sensible approach of "This game isnt for me, others may like it"...

You are asking way too much from people on that one, especially on the Internet :)

I find it funny how often Darkfall fans baw their poor little 13 year old eyes out about people bashing the game just because it doesn't suit their interests while simultaneously bashing WoW and others like it because it's casual, which is apparently code for "games for pussies."

It's not about whether the game is casual or hardcore. If it were, you'd all be playing Battletoads.

Darkfall is a pvp game I not play it but it looks pretty bad and WoW is not Casual!!

This is what a player did say on mmorpg.com:
WoW is pretty damn hardcore. Sure, there may not be naked corpse runs or full loot or strict death penalties and such, but those things are not "hardcore" they are old school. There is a HUGE difference. To me, hardcore is the Arena ladders, Reputation/Faction grinds, daily quests grinds, all of what is involved in raiding... I've been playing MMOs a long time and I've never had to invest so much time and effort into a game as I have had to in World of Warcraft. UO and SWG were a LOT more casual. Log in, do some stuff, log out. Extremely casual. Didn't have to log in and grind mats and dailies for money and potions etc. for raiding for hours, then raid for 5-6 hours straight, and do it every day for years.

WoW may be extremely casual in the level-up process, but at end-game it's just as hardcore if not a LOT more hardcore then any other MMO I have ever played, and I've played them all. It may not be "old school" as in too many pointless time sinks and mechanics designed to frustrate and punish, but it certainly is Hardcore in terms of time investment and involvement.

I'd say that fits the bill perfectly for "easy to get into, hard to master, polished beyond comparison" wouldn't you?

It is absolutely amazing how you manage to turn every comment of yours into WoW comments, even when the article has nothing to do with WoW.

I will agree though. At first glance Darkfall seemed to be a game I was heavily interested in. After watching 12 or so detailed videos, I quickly lost interest.

I just reply on all the other comments that say WoW is Casual!

1 comment used "WoW" and "Casual" in the same sentence, and he was defending it. Not a single person was bashing WoW in that sense. I find it very annoying how you go into every thread you can to find a way to glorify your favorite game. I don't care that it's WoW, I'd find it just as annoying if it was Eve or Second Life.

If you actually posted some legitimate arguments, or just said anything other than "WoW is great, your game sucks.", I could be a lot happier to see you post.

I really hold nothing personal against you. Your posts are just redundant, and therefor annoying. You have every right to want to defend your game, but no one was really bashing it. They were just using it as a parallel to their argument.

On a final note. Use the reply button. Please, just use the freaking reply button. If you see a post that you want to respond to. Use the reply button to respond to that specific post. It keeps everything nice and tidy. Because when you don't use the reply button, things turn into a bit of a mess and it becomes very difficult to follow the conversation.

I could care less about fanboism, etc. I play games that are good.

Darkfall is one of those games. I just bought it the other day and have been having a blast. After playing WoW since day one I quit (finally, lol) near December 2008. Have been hopping from game to game since, trying to find a home. I beleive I've found it in this game.

The skill based system (even though It's technically an older system) is so refreshing when most of the games now-a-days seem to take the level-based route. Even running in Darkfall nets you gains in your "running" skill. This gives the game a sense that every thing you do has meaning, purpose and, I've found that to be very addicting.

It's such an open world, and albeit sometimes scary one, that it gives you this rush. Plus the whole semi-RTS aspect is just amazingly cool.

Our clan has a city in which we must build in order to progress. And, when the time comes we must defend it to keep said progress. That's all very exciting to me. Maybe it isn't to a lot of other people, and that's fine.

But, to anyone that was thinking about picking up this game; don't let this review scare you. Give it a try, you might actually like it.

Darkfall had an expansion recently . Kieron didnt say anything about it. i wonder why?

Reviews are the reviewers' PERSONAL opinion. I've done my fair share of reviewing a few years back and the company I worked for would try and allocate reviews to people who liked that genre, not to try and get favourable reviews, but as someone who loves FPS and hates driving games why on earth would you want me to review Gran Turismo, but give Halo to someone else?? The odds are both of the reviewers in this case play MMOs and enjoy them, so they got the review.

Just because you like a game doesn't mean that a reviewer does, if the reviewer hates the game (Both Eurogamer reviewers clearly didn't like Darkfall at all) you can hardly expect a good review, it's why you should read several reviews, and after that take it with a pinch of salt.

Like a lot of stuff on this site you are reading personal opinion, reviewers try to remain objective, because if they don't there is a risk of not getting work in the future. Having read both reviews I don't see a problem with either, the only issue I have with the first is it feels like he was playing, got frustrated with a game he hated, logged out and immediately wrote the review, rather than waiting 24/48 hours to let the pain of his latest play session to become a dull ache. The second review is impeccable. Neither liked the game, if you do great, but don't bother trying to say that because you like the game and X person doesn't that somehow your opinion is worth more than theirs.

The review hit a lot of nails on the head. This was kind of a hard one. because on one hand DF is not that great of game, on the other Zitron is a horrible reviewer. I am still pulling for DF though and pretty sure it will turn into a good game once it gets it chips in order.

I actually decided to try this out over the weekend, what a waste of $50. I understand the whole PvP thing, but when I die to a mob on my way back from a quest or grind session, and someone else is able to loot my corpse and take all my quest items, weapons, armor, loot, and money, that makes the game completely unplayable.

Thanks for being honest about why you quit.

Most others pretend it's a different reason that they quit Darkfall.

I personally love this game, thanks for collecting all that goblin loot for me so that I didn't have to ;)

This game will go into history as "Darkfail". Seriously, people expected so much of it, and it delivered practically nothing. On paper it sounded so great but in the end it seems that was all marketing talk to pull in some investors.

Previous 20 Comments

Eurogamer finally posts Darkfall re-review, game now 4/10

Reader Comments (36)

Posted: Jul 17th 2009 7:59PM Russell Clarke said

Posted: Jul 17th 2009 8:18PM dudes said

Posted: Jul 17th 2009 8:22PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 18th 2009 1:45PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 17th 2009 9:28PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 17th 2009 11:57PM TheJackman said

Posted: Jul 18th 2009 1:08AM ultimateq said

Posted: Jul 18th 2009 1:30AM TheJackman said

Posted: Jul 18th 2009 3:41AM ultimateq said

Posted: Jul 18th 2009 4:17AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 18th 2009 4:46AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 18th 2009 7:43AM WitchDrAsh said

Posted: Jul 19th 2009 6:24AM wufiavelli said

Posted: Jul 20th 2009 12:28PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 20th 2009 6:32PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 24th 2009 6:20AM (Unverified) said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

The Secret World launch delayed to July 3rd

Featured Stories

WRUP: Kingdoms of Amalur was pretty cool edition

The Daily Grind: Do you stay loyal to your MMO guild?

Betawatch: May 19 - 25, 2012

Engadget

Joystiq

WoW

TUAW