Review spotted!

Ashbery76 · Post by **Ashbery76** » May 28 2005

http://pc.gamezone.com/gzreviews/r18526.htm

8.3/10 nice.

Post by **Balthagor** » May 28 2005

Thank you very much for the link!

I've been searching for a review and you just made my day!

OverLrd · Post by **OverLrd** » May 28 2005

I have submitted the score to gamerankings.com to be added.
Hopefully, we will see some good ratings and give the game more publicity.

Post by **George Geczy** » May 28 2005

"This game offers players a lot of depth."

Yeah, that's an understatement

Not too detailed, but an ok review. But where did they get the second screen picture on that review page? That must be one of the OLDEST screenshots we've ever released to the news sites...

http://a248.e.akamai.net/f/248/5462/2h/ ... 6_PC_5.jpg

If you are interested in what SR2010 looked like in 2002, there it is

-- George.

tkobo · Post by **tkobo** » May 28 2005

Wow, they didnt mention a single serious bug ??

They didnt mention a single removed feature ??

They rate the difficulty as medium

?
What did they rate it against ?Surely not another game.
I cant think of a single game with a higher learning curve than this one.
Which is of course a good thing.

I get the feeling he played for like a hour and walked away,but felt compelled to score it high.
I would agree with the score, roughly, but he lists the graphics and the music of all things as the cons

??
I coudl have found more compellign cons after 10 minutes in the demo.

CptBritish · Post by **CptBritish** » May 28 2005

I'm happy for you guys as I love this game and i've only played the demo...

Can't wait to buy it in England...

Difficulty Medium!!!! Bullsh*t

I've been playing the demo for two weeks and i've only just won a scenario...

Baloogan · Post by **Baloogan** » May 28 2005

I think the players of this game can be defined into 2 groups:
Those who can kick ass with the game and the game's economy and those who can't.

There seems to be no gradient between the 2 polars.

Post by **George Geczy** » May 29 2005

>"Wow, they didnt mention a single serious bug ?"

Given the fact that reviewers generally insist on playing the "out of box" unpatched release of games, I'm surprised they didn't mention the impressive stability and lack of serious bugs - most games out of the box are notoriously crash-ridden and buggy. Our "big bug" was the AI land trade issue, which while embarrasing was certainly not a game-stopper.

>"They didnt mention a single removed feature ?"

Well, I certainly would be surprised if any review goes down this road - they are out to review SR2010, not the "SR2010 Design Document Implementation". Supreme Ruler 2010 should be judged by everyone (reviews and players alike) on what it is, which of course we feel is quite a game as it stands.

>"They rate the difficulty as medium ?"

We used to say that SR2010 is a game that is "easy to learn, but hard to master". Given the use of Ministers and Unit Initiative, it is relatively easy to get started and going - it just takes much longer to get good at it

So I think "medium" is not a bad choice, since playing SR2010 certainly does not require mastery of elements such as the Economic or Production models, ec.

And to Baloogan's comment, I think there is a fair bit of 'in between', especially since some players prefer some areas of the game (such as Military or Economics or Diplomacy) over others.

-- George.

[/i]

Robot_Of_War · Post by **Robot_Of_War** » May 29 2005

I don't know about that one. After reading the review I started wondering if game review generators exist. They could honestly just stick the name of any half-decent strategy game in there, keep the rest the same and call it a review.

At least they gave out a decent score, one that's not high or low enough to generate any controversy. Now we just have to wait for a "real" review, i.e. wargamer.com to come out.

>"They didnt mention a single removed feature ?"

Well, I certainly would be surprised if any review goes down this road - they are out to review SR2010, not the "SR2010 Design Document Implementation". Supreme Ruler 2010 should be judged by everyone (reviews and players alike) on what it is, which of course we feel is quite a game as it stands.

This should, and will be brought up, but I can really only see one real sticking point: espionage. Reviewers are especially touchy when a game and the features listed in the manual don't match up, but the rest should probably slide as SR2010 is an ambitious game made by small developers, and is very complete out of the box. Not that I'm trying to be the devil's advocate or anything, but as good as I fell this game is it is definately not without fault.

Post by **Balthagor** » May 29 2005

While there may have been some bugs, the removed features are still not in my opinion "review worthy".

We spent five years working on the game to provide a product that would be stable, complete and enjoyable. During that time we tossed a bunch of designs out and added new ones. We always kept the things that worked and redesinged or removed those that did not. From the manual it can be seen that our prediction on what would work well in the game was off the mark, but with the manual being made in advance it is always a guessing game. Ppl on the forum notice it because, naively, I believed we could do everything and everything would work perfect. We shared every idea up front and asked for feedback. Hey, it's our first title... growing pains

The game should be reviewed on what the game is. I don't think I've ever read a review where the reviewer mentioned development ideas that never made it to the finished product. That is why they are develoment ideas.

altmunster · Post by **altmunster** » May 29 2005

Any reviewer worth his or her salt is definitely going to mention things that are mentioned in the manual but not implemented. I have seen it many times. I mean we're not talking about just one or two things my friends, but entire setions (covert ops anyone?). This is not a design doc issue; the manual was part of the product put out on the street.

After reading the review, I don't think the person played the game for very long at all, because unless he was some sort of savant I would expect to see "this game is f'in hard" somewhere in the text.

as far as score, 7.0
i can see it now: BG should be applauded for trying to add new life to the genre with new elements such as economic model and supply model, however, the game is hobbled somewhat by an interface that is clumsy at times, poor pacing between times of peace and battle, and lack of clear explanation of the underlying mechanics of the games economy.

just my opinion

tkobo · Post by **tkobo** » May 29 2005

Do any of us really disagree with the overall score though ?

I dont. Its about what id rate it.

deanco · Post by **deanco** » May 29 2005

George Geczy wrote: "We used to say that SR2010 is a game that is "easy to learn, but hard to master".

Can I just compliment you guys on this. You know, SR2010 is not really my type of game. My complexity level maxes out around... Civilization (on Atari ST). That for me was the perfect game. And here we have Civilization x10, with a whole giant friggin' wargame with thousands of hexes, and 2000 units to move around (!) tacked on to it. Normally, your demo should have lasted about 30 min. on my hard drive before being deleted with a vengeance.

Yes, there are sub-sub-sub-sub menus. But when you get there, there is just a slider, and a couple checkboxes. And I understand what the slider and checkboxes do! Sales tax... I know what that is.

It *seems* manageable.

And yes, the advisors get the thing rolling for you, and they're just stupid enough to make you think that you could do a better job than them. That is, when you finally get around to looking at the sub-sub menu he's been taking care of up till now.

So, little by little you get sucked in, and it's good design, guys.

BTW (back on topic), I have a friend who writes freelance for the big web gaming sites, and he just got assigned SR2010. Of course, I've been raving like a lunatic at him already, urging him to try it. Heheh... now he HAS to play it, if he wants to get paid.

I know my friend pretty well, and he'll review your game fairly, wargame background, etc.

DeanCo--

Cauldyth · Post by **Cauldyth** » May 29 2005

Yeah, I agree.

Interestingly, MOO3 attempted a game design along similar lines, but fell flat on its face in the process. It wasn't obvious (or documented) what effect your controls had, some of the things you want to access frequently like build queues were buried very deeply, and the ability to lock out things from the AI control was very limited so you'd spend a lot of time just fighting your own viceroy.

Congrats to BG for pulling it off. Anyone want to mod SR2010 into a space empire sim?

-Cauldyth

Post by **George Geczy** » May 30 2005

>"So, little by little you get sucked in, and it's good design, guys."
>"Congrats to BG for pulling it off."

Thanks! I'm still quite proud of the number of 'impossible' things we managed to include in the design. Though to respond to a comment earlier in this thread, it is a pity that the manual had to be wrapped up so many months before the game, the fact that they don't match exactly is unfortunate - though it's not just that some features in the manual did not make it into the game, what's just as bad is that some features in the game did not make it into the manual

We're definitely looking forward to seeing what other reviewers think, the main thing we hope is that they do "review fairly" and have an interest in strategy/wargame/simulation types. I have this fear about reading a review of SR2010 from a Half Life groupie

>"Anyone want to mod SR2010 into a space empire sim?"

Somehow I have the feeling that humans will be walking on Mars before we end up getting 'Galactic Ruler' finished

-- George.