Shack Reviews!

Well, my ass is too lazy to read what's already been suggested, but how about a section for request review for when you can't find a decent review about a game you're thinking of buying and want someone else's opinion on it.

This game is exceptional
This game is exceptional
This game is exceptional
This game is good

LOL! Why don't you call it Shack Praise, instead?

Shack Reviews are awesome. Nice job!

I'm sure you have this in the works, but it would definitely be cool to sort things by system, etc. Great start! :)

200 Gimps

How about showing the aggregate ranking for all games on a platform? That would give an idea about how fun the platform is overall, based on the selected games.

I picked up MGS2 and GTA3 2 days ago, and this is what I have to say:

MGS2: probably the most visually satisfying video game I have played to-date. If you like Metal Gear Solid, you will like this. A bit short, but it's totally worth it if you have been waiting for it.

GTA3: Admittedly, I was not interested in this game at first. However, the more I play this game, the more I love it. The graphics are as good as they can be, and do not take away from the flow of the game. Roasting prostitutes is now my favorite pasttime, and I've never had so much fun running over old ladies =X

Steve, Maarten,
Is there a chance that some online companies might want to use the reviews to help sell games ?

For example each review we post they might pull onto their site to help sell games ? Or would you include a buy function on review pages ? In case we like the game so much after reading the review we feel the need to buy it right there and then.

Heh, since it'll be god knows when until we get our reviews in our profile (if ever), I've done it myself http://www.shacknews.com/funk.y?person=SatansFist

How long before your review gets posted?

Great fucking shack feature BTW!

Would it be possible to see the average rating broken out with a graph of each of the rating levels and the number of votes each rating got, like the shack poll, in addition to having a cookie set when you vote to show you the graph instead of the poll?

Would probably be a good habit to get into that whenever you do a story for a new game hitting the stores that you add it to the review section. That way people could just post their reviews immediately in the review section and link them back into the comments.

For PC Games it would be cool to have a link to where the demo for the game can be downloaded.

This is an awesome feature! I can see it being very helpful when I have to make the decision between a PS/2 and the XBox when SC2 is released.

I think it would be quite good if you could edit your reviews after you've finally posted them. I can imagine a good review being spoiled by nasty spelling and grammar.

only three PSOne games listed? i'm not going to submit through the official channels, since i don't want to bog down Maarten, but shouldn't we see:
-FF(7-9)
-Silent Hill
-MGS
-THPS(2)
and tons more i can't think of?

of course, i ask because i'm a cheap bastard and only have a PSOne

I love this new Shack Reviews thing. If you guys keep the way Amazon.com did theirs as a guide - to learn from, not imitate - you'll be on the right track.

Definitely need a few things, though not limited to these: How many people felt X review was useful/not useful, a 'More reviews by this author' option, and more games for reviewing.

I think this is a great step towards making Shacknews not only a better news site, but a Community Website where gamers can come and share opinions and hash things out.

Rock on.

http://www.shacknews.com/reviews/new_reviews.x

i dunno if this has been posted
but if you go there and click a 'read review' link under the little preview box for the reader reviews
nothing pops up

An idea that i'm sure has been mentioned before:

perhaps the "Games I Liked" could be searchable? that way, when i finish up Deus Ex and say "wow, that was great" i just do a search on Deus Ex and see what other games pop up.

Could we have a "More reviews by this person" link?

The only problem I see, is that people will only take time to write a review of a game if they actually liked it. So the reviews will, for the most part, be positive. I'm not sure yet if this will be weighed out by the reader ratings, time will tell.

Yo yo yo, where's the description???

http://www.shacknews.com/reviews/game.x?gid=95

For the coloured bar chart,

Make it way larger so you can fit the words "Excellent", "Good" etc inside each coloured part. First few times its confusing.

More review system ideas:

Instead of "most reviewers think this game is: <rating>"
How about a vertical bar graph for the number of ratings of each value (sort of like poll results). Also, assign each a number (5 = excellent) and come up with the average over all the ratings. Looks like this:
#
# # #
# # # # #
5 4 3 2 1
Average: 3.11!
Post this average value beside each game on the frontpage where the "top 25" are listed so people know exactly how those compare.
Of course, this conflicts with an apparent intent to get away from numerical ratings, so maybe make the numbers disappear and just use the word ratings. But it's still not clear whether "most readers think" means you're getting the MEAN or the MODE of the responses. This should be made clearer! (mean = average, mode = most frequent)

Near where you can click to read "more user reviews" of each game, note how many such reviews there are.

Options to sort user reviews by date or by score, in ascending or descending order. (which is done now? date ascending?)

Instead of just seeing the top 25 overall, let people select which systems they want to see (in prefernces or something), and show the top 25 overall across those systems (default all systems). Also let people see the top 25 games within each system. Obviously this will be more useful as games get added to the list.

Link the games listed under "games reviewer liked/disliked" to those games' review pages.

Line up the radio buttons for game rankings horizontally instead of vertically, and rework the text (make it into a graphic or something?) for each rating level so that this is possible.

Give more weight in the overall ranking of a game to the scores of those people who wrote a review?

Clean up the text formatting in the "INFO" box for each game so it's not all the same style. At least put "Platform: PC" on the same line or something.

Note where the game blurbs came from. Publisher? Reader? Maarten? Who knows?

On the summery page (maybe in info box?) List (and link to) similar games/other games in the genre.

In the info section, when a game is available for multiple platforms, note that, and link to the other platforms' pages (as in, for THPS3 GameCube, say "Platform: GameCube, PlayStation 2" and make PS2 a link to the THPS3 PS2 page).

Post the date the game was released!!

See if you can get kickbacks from some site (like Amazon) for putting a link on each game to "buy this on Amazon" or something :). OK so it's crass and commercial, but as a reader, I wouldn't be offended, and if it makes the shack money...

Zero|DPX

Woah that's a nifty graph at the bottom now!

Suggestions from last night...

http://www.shacknews.com/funk.y?id=2431936

The shack has so many fucking cool features now. Cant weight to see what else is in store.

I think a weekly competition would roxor maximum ass. The price wouldnt be anything special, maybe your name in gold in the comments for a week or something and an image of your choice on the frontpage. Competition could be stuff like you did before with the doom III shots.

That would be cool if it was a regular thing.

are the games in the PC section eventually going to be sorted by genre? cause i could see that getting pretty messy real quick :x

Once you've suggested a game how long does it take until it is approved?

Im dying to write an outcast review :D

Is this supposed to be some NEW system that nobody has EVER created before? pat yourself on the back but dont go nutz...geez

on the page that lists what games are available, (like http://www.shacknews.com/reviews/overview.x?p=ps2 ), you should include how many reviews are for each game somewhere on there too

AVP Review in RTCW section:
http://www.shacknews.com/reviews/game.x?gid=1

I'd like it if people could post short comments on your review. Saying "thanks that was helpful" or correcting a mistake or whatever.

Would be a nice feature :)

Can we rate games on a 10 point scale instead of a 4 or 5?

This is really cool, guys. Very nice work!

So is this just a temporary design of the reviews system, or are we gonna see it change colors and stuff when the new design is implemented? The layout right now is pretty good, how badly will it be affected?

Derringer made a damn good point in his Halo review: Where are the creatures shown in the pre-release screenshots? There were some dino-looking creature herds that marines were running through ... I just realized I'm pised! <:(

Good idea! I really like the reviews.

Steve/Maarten, I WIN! I think you guys were wrong about it not counting votes. I wrote a review for DMC and gave it an exellent rating, then I just went back now and tried to vote and it let me. I made sure the vote count changed as well...

or are there two separate votes? ie the one with the review doesn't count towards the total count listed at the bottom?

Sweet reviews system, just one thing strikes me as funny:

Of 30 Shack readers, most think this game is: Excellent
Of 16 Shack readers, most think this game is: Excellent
Of 37 Shack readers, most think this game is: Excellent
Of 50 Shack readers, most think this game is: Excellent
Of 95 Shack readers, most think this game is: Excellent
Of 20 Shack readers, most think this game is: Excellent

etc...

A couple of the games are only good though! :)

How about a graph where you can see how many % voted good, how many voted bad etc. so you can see the overall feelings on the game in a glance.

Since when is Metal Gear Solid 2 one word?

If you click on "more reviews" at the bottom of the "Latest Reader Reviews" section of the front page, the links to read the reviews do not work:
http://www.shacknews.com/reviews/new_reviews.x

It seems to be a simple error as the review is missing from the link:
http://www.shacknews.com/reviews/review.x?id=

This system is F*CKING great by the way... minus a much needed graphical redesign, you guys have THE most kickass gaming page out there by a long shot. Can I ask what language you write your scripts in?