Famitsu reviews five PS3 launch games
by Blake Snow 
{ Nov 1st 2006 at 11:45AM }
Some mates over at the E-mpire Forums have scrounged up what appear to be Japanese reviews of five PS3 launch titles by way of Famitsu magazine. Here are the goods on each:Resistance: Fall of Man = 9, 8, 8, 8
- Standard FPS gameplay
- Excellent netplay
- Very high standard of next-generation
- Totally satisfactory
- The amount of content is totally satisfying
- The high quality of the graphics and sound are very pleasing
Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire = 8, 8, 8, 8
- Excellent models of Mobile Suits
- Opinions on the game are divided because it relies heavily on accurate input
- The systems are problematic
- Great textures
- Tons of optional and unlockable content
- Overall it's satisfying even though opinions are divided on it
- Good tempo
- You can't accurately determine where your shot will fall
- Doesn't really look next-generation
- Camera sucks, but looks great
- Challenging for beginners
- Good amount of content
- Good controls
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Joseph @ Nov 2nd 2006 6:35PM
fuck you sony fucktards
skwisgaar @ Nov 1st 2006 11:51AM
What, no 10's? hahahaha
benjamin @ Nov 1st 2006 11:48AM
So, in other words, the clear winner is Ridge Racer? Riiiiiiidge Racer?
Man, I've wanted to do that for awhile.
Willie @ Nov 1st 2006 11:51AM
I am most pumped for Resistance!!!!
footlong! @ Nov 1st 2006 11:53AM
I love it: "You can't accurately determine where your shot will fall" and "doesn't really look next-gen". Yet it gets a 7
I expect bias from a Japanese magazine reviewing PLAYSTATION 3 games so I'm ranting about nothing.
Anybody remember when Gamespot gave Perfect Dark Zero a 9.0?
That game.. .. .. I'll just say it wasn't 9.0 material.
Has inflation come to game ratings?
JodyAnthony @ Nov 1st 2006 11:52AM
I'm glad to see some good scores for the ps3 launch titles. i still am not paying $600 for a video game console, but I'm glad the people that are willing to will have some good software to play
maximus @ Nov 1st 2006 11:53AM
The Japanese sure love their mech games :)
Ridge Racer and Resistance were always gonna be the best of the launch lineup.
crono141 @ Nov 1st 2006 11:53AM
I wonder if famitsu's rankings aren't top heavy like IGN's.
I mean, the golf game looks last gen (so they say) and controls crappy (so they say) yet it got 7's across the board.
AG @ Nov 1st 2006 11:56AM
Resistance is going to be sweet!
Keep in mind, Japan doesn't usually like FPS so these are great scores!
joe smith @ Nov 1st 2006 5:35PM
Glad to see Resistance is coming along -- though I wouldn't trust a Japanese review of an FPS -- they generally don't really 'get' them over there. Too bad I can't afford a system and couldn't get one if I could.
I wonder if Ridge Racer is the same set of tired courses they have been using for the last 10 years?
Phranctoast @ Nov 1st 2006 11:58AM
"Keep in mind, Japan doesn't usually like FPS so these are great scores!"
ya beat me to it.
Kumar Shah @ Nov 1st 2006 12:01PM
Well, they gave Ridge Racer 6 a 34/40 I beleive, I think they are a bit easy on Ridge Racer series.
The1 @ Nov 1st 2006 12:03PM
Right, Japan does not like FPS but they gave Resistance a great score, how???????
jaysins @ Nov 1st 2006 12:03PM
Well even though I'm more of a 360 guy I really hope the ps3 can do well and launches with some great games. If either microsoft or sony pull out of the console wars then we the gamers loose regardless of which console we support. They have really been pushing each other and having a 360 I've really benefited from their cut throat competition. To those forking over 600 dollars for a ps3, bless your rich little hearts. Hopefully I'll be inspired to buy one once the price comes down a little bit. Here's to gamers reaping all the rewards :)
ry @ Nov 1st 2006 12:27PM
a japanese magazine giving an FPS game 8s and 9s???
White Rose Duelist @ Nov 1st 2006 12:09PM
footlong! - My sarcasm meter is broken, so you'll have to excuse me for asking where you've been for the last 20 years or so. Video game reviews have always been inflated. Looks like Gundam has an 80% and is hovering around average.
DkVik1ng @ Nov 1st 2006 12:09PM
AG: halo2 got a 10-9-9-9, japans is all about the graphic and how long time you can play it before you beat it, look at all the comment,
Resistance: Fall of Man = 9, 8, 8, 8
* Standard FPS gameplay - standard is 5-6 not 8-9.
* Excellent netplay
* Very high standard of next-generation - they just said it was "standard fps game"
Genji: Days of the Blade = 7, 7, 7, 8
* Camera sucks, but looks great - again.. graphic
* Challenging for beginners - alright.. then tell me.. why is beginners hired at famitsu (7-7-7-8
* Good amount of content
* Good controls
oh an:
* Alot of crabs
Miyazato (Sega) Golf Club = 7, 7, 7, 7
* Good tempo - is that the only plus?
* You can't accurately determine where your shot will fall - i gues thats a minus
* Doesn't really look next-generation - gues thats a big minus
tell me why it got 7-7-7-7? its golf! and belov average.
32_Footsteps @ Nov 1st 2006 12:14PM
"Has inflation come to game ratings?"
Nope - it's always been there.
DkVik1ng @ Nov 1st 2006 12:15PM
its like every game they rate, they start whit a 10, and each time they find something wrong whit it, they drag it 1 point down. if they cant find anything wrong with it, its just an "average game" and it scores a 9, 8, 8, 8.
maximus @ Nov 1st 2006 12:27PM
9,8,8,8 is 33/40 which is a very good game.
sirpilf @ Nov 1st 2006 12:26PM
@DkVik1ng
For one... 7 is average. Its like an A, B, C scale. 7 is ok, but needs improvement, 6 is bad but passing. 5 and less just sucks. that is how most people look at a 1-10 scale because thats how they are graded ALL THIER LIVES till they are 22 and graduate college.
and their comment about "very high standard of next-generation" mainly means production values and graphics. they did not contradict themselves one bit by saying the gameplay was pretty standard.
and whats wrong with golf getting all 7's when it doesnt have super photo realistic graphics? Well i guess Wii better get 3/10's across the board since graphsic is all that matters according to DkVik1ng.
keep your comments on xboxfanboy.com.
White Rose Duelist @ Nov 1st 2006 12:31PM
sirpilf - What about movies, TV and books, which have used the entirety of the scale. People understand those just fine, despite not being graded on that scale for 16 years. Heck, part of the reason I passed so many math classes was knowing that 0.5 was halfway between 0 and 1.
I have no expectation of the average ever moving away from 70%, but that doesn't change the fact that it should.
Mitochondria @ Nov 1st 2006 12:32PM
I can't wait till the ps3 does come out, then it'll be like old times. Xbox is still better, lol but at least people will have the system and wont be making up all these assumptions about a system that isn't even out yet.
Although, forgetting the online services of both parties. Are people gonna still through good ol' LAN parties and what not, also. I wonder if somebodies gonna come out with something Xbox Connect except for the PS3, lol PS3 Connect.
anonymous coward @ Nov 1st 2006 12:34PM
Game ratings work like grades in many schools.
Anything below a 60% is an F. To get an A, you need a 90%. A 75% is a C, and a C isn't really average anymore since there are more B students than D students and more As than Fs. We all went to school, we all understand that.
Sure, it's kind of a waste of so much of the scale, but so is the school's rating system. They could make a 50% a C by making the work more difficult. It's a little arbitrary. They have to fix the mean somewhere, but it doesn't really matter where.
DkVik1ng @ Nov 1st 2006 12:36PM
#17 if i say the icecream tastet good, do you then think im talking about the vanila and strawberry, or all of it?
Tomas @ Nov 1st 2006 5:19PM
Famicom biased towards PS3 and giving a generic lookin' FPS 9's and 8's???? REALLY? IMPOSSIBLE!!!
(not.)
friedriches @ Nov 1st 2006 12:38PM
The translation of those reviews were amusingly confusing enough to prevent me from getting a rant on about anything PS3. Sorry, just know that I'm not looking forward to it.
Rob Zepeda @ Nov 1st 2006 12:46PM
the only problem I have with giving launch titles a 9 is that down the road there might be an even better game, so what do you give it...a 10? a 9? Those 9s are not going to be equivalent. its slightly misleading.
lebowsky @ Nov 1st 2006 12:45PM
The Resistance multiplayer comment is interesting. In an interview on the 1Up Yours Podcast, Ted Price, of Insomniac, said that Resistance multiplayer is running on Sony-owned servers. If Sony is going to be providing dedicated servers for online games, that is ONE clear advantage over XBL.
P2P for all XBL-enabled games sucks.
Jake Barnett @ Nov 1st 2006 12:52PM
Anybody else getting tired of the same old crap with a new coat of paint every year? When will the world tire of games about the invasion of mankind by a superior alien race that we must destroy at all costs.
Because, you know, that's never been done before.
At this point, I pretty much convinced I'll keep the $600 we'll be required to spend to play any of these games that we've played before other places but less shiny.
maximus @ Nov 1st 2006 12:52PM
Games are scored based on the present, you can't be afraid to score a game a 9 just because something better will come along later on. These scores bode well as immediately the PS3 has a better launch lineup than the PS2 which launched with rubbish apart from Timesplitters.
32_Footsteps @ Nov 1st 2006 12:53PM
Here's the thing - school scores and video game ratings serve entirely two different purposes.
School scores actually rate about what percent of the knowledge offered in that class the student has actually absorbed. The argument is, if you can't even absorb 60% or 70% (varies from school to school), how are you going to make it later on in school/life?
Video game ratings serve to compare games against other games. When you are just comparing values against each other, instead of some outside metric like school grades and knowledge retained, the middle should be the middle of the scale. Other than that, and you make your comparisons too mashed together and difficult to differentiate.
In the case of video game scores, too little space is given to allow you to differentiate between the games landing on the upper end of the scale. That's why it's a problem for video game scores (but not, say, for school grades, since they don't exist to compare kids against each other).
m3mnoch @ Nov 1st 2006 12:55PM
"If Sony is going to be providing dedicated servers for online games, that is ONE clear advantage over XBL."
you obviously haven't been queued up on a wow server. or been beaten down because of lag. magically matched p2p is faster.
you'll see that while playing resistance the first week.
m3mnoch.
Aaron @ Nov 1st 2006 1:14PM
The thing that is great is that by April/May of next year when you can actually buy a PS3 --- all of these games will be 19.99!
I waited 7 months to purchase a 360 and have been living in cheap game bliss since. The only game I have paid close to retail for was Dead Rights for ~$35.
Patrick @ Nov 1st 2006 1:15PM
It's Ridge Racer! Riiiiiiidge Racer!
Owen @ Nov 1st 2006 1:22PM
Bring UK school grades to games - >80% = A*, 70 to 80=A, 60 to 70=B,etc until you get down to 30 to 40% which is a N (no grade/not even a game) and finally below that is U (unclassified ie. fucking shit). Somewhere along those lines anyway...
Sleaze @ Nov 1st 2006 1:26PM
Totally satisfactory!
Austin @ Nov 1st 2006 1:28PM
I second that #12. Its good to see an industry pushing itself.
Jake @ Nov 1st 2006 2:29PM
It looks like RFoM and Ridge Racer are both pretty solid. Is Ridge Racer the best PS3 launch game? Those jokes aren't going away too soon.
NATO_Duke @ Nov 1st 2006 1:29PM
@27
Yeah we all get bored with the same kind of games. Problem is that there arent too many new and exciting ideas out there. You have any?
I have one involving housecats with bad attitudes - I can't say more right now though. Still hoping the old ladies who buy a wii will go for it in the end. C'mon Nintendo - buy my cats idea!
Pete C @ Nov 1st 2006 1:33PM
8/10 is not a very good score...sorry. Spin it any way you want, I wouldn't be that pumped about those scores for Resistance. This game is clearly not the next Halo as some were speculating. That said, it will still probably be a very solid launch title.
Negativecool @ Nov 1st 2006 1:42PM
Too many conflicting opinions about how to grade a game means there is no single right way.
When scoring out of a 10 or 100 a 7 and 70 respectively are generally referred to as average.
OR
Adopting the FULL scale of 0-10 or 0-100 is an option, and then by definition 5 and 50 respectively would be considered average.
But in all honesty, if you see that a game was rated as "average" and you see its box score as 5/10 or 50/100, you WOULD think that either the game is total crap or the reviewers have little grasp of the definition of average.
OR
One could adopt a 1-5 scale such as the system on X-play, but that could leave too much disparity between grades. For example, as Adam and Morgan have stated upon occasion, some games don’t really deserve a 4 out of 5, but it just wasn't quite as perfect as a 5, commence the hate mail.
IMO it only makes sense to grade on the “school” grading system we are all used to. It is curved in such a way that the upper percentile is actually closer to average. Which makes total sense because most of what is put out is not going to be crap; most of what is put out is going to be at around the same level as everything else. That which developed and is total crap, will be graded accordingly. But for the most part, if it is decent game (like most are) it should just be average.
If everything were amazing, nothing would be.
Beyond that I don’t think Ridge Racer 7 deserves such a high score. No I haven’t played it, but we all know Japanese tendencies vs. Euro/American tendencies, and I don’t think it has all that lasting appeal. But I am surprised at the “high” score they gave Resistance. Again basing my surprise on the likings of typical Japanese gamer I would have figured a FPS would bore them to tears. I’m curious to see how it will be rated in the states and in Europe.
refinedsugar @ Nov 1st 2006 2:47PM
On this issue of inflated reviews and scores .... you can't please everyone. Go ahead and jump over to Gamespot's forums if you wanna see the opposite end of the spectrum. People complaining left and right about GS reviewers and how they give out unjustified low scores.
Whatever you click to, for whatever reason - I still think Gamespot is the most balanced of all the established "trusted" media. I didn't agree with their review and treatment of Scarface: The World Is Yours, but that doesn't stop the site from being the one that everyone else in the industry should try to measure up to in review quality/slant and editorial policy/style in my eye.
Everyone else is hit 'n miss. Either they aren't big enough for me to notice, just more of the same or pose some see-through slant you can see a mile away. IGN ... is the only other "big dog" I bother to check out ... and what can I say ... the past few reviews I've read from them come off feeling like they were caught in a splash of happy-go-lucky hype. As for actual print mags ... forget it. OXM? Gave up on that sinking ship a long time ago. Anything "official" is bound to have a slant.
Rich @ Nov 1st 2006 2:02PM
14. "AG: halo2 got a 10-9-9-9, japans is all about the graphic and how long time you can play it before you beat it"
No.. halo2 did not get a 10-9-9-9... It was Famitsu Xbox that gave it that score... So it was a little biased
Halo 2 Really got a 9-8-8-9 from Famitsu
http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t+305362
Scutpuppy @ Nov 1st 2006 2:06PM
32_Footsteps (#15),
"Nope - it's always been there."
If inflation has always been there, then it really hasn't ever been there.
White Rose Duelist @ Nov 1st 2006 2:10PM
Negativecool - I think that video game reviewers are lacking in that grasp of the definition of "average" as is. If video games were rated the same way as everything else, there would be no confusion about what 50% meant. It really doesn't take much beyond second grade math to figure out the whole system with centering around 50%, and I for one didn't get percentage grades until long past that point.
Grades in school describe something objective. You got 9 out of 10 questions right, so you get a 90%. An average student will actually get ~70% of the answers correct. Game rating is subjective
Your argument in favor of the school grading system makes no sense. First, if you believe most of what gets put out is total crap, then you are not paying attention. Second, the "average" game isn't based on everything that could possibly be published - it's based on everything that actually is. Some game, somewhere, is better than half of all others and worse than the other half. You propose putting it with hundreds of games that are of nontrivial difference in quality simply because every company in history could have released a game as bad as Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. Explain how that makes sense.
Finally, why is it better to be able to differentiate between terrible games more easily than between good ones? The way we grade games now, the difference between a 30% and a 60% is the same as the difference between an 80% and a 90%, and 15-30% as 90-95%. If I was going to start a standard from scratch, and oculdn't do something sensible like have the middle at the middle, I'd rather make the average game a 25%. That way, we would have a lot more room to separate the classic from the great from the very good, without chewing up most of our scale with games no one should buy.
Also, is there any reason to believe that the "school system" actually has anything to do with video game scores, other than a passing resemblance? I suspect the inflation has more to do (or had more to do, in the beginning) with desire for free copies of games than with using any sort of sensible rating scale.
Remember, 70% of people consider themselves above-average drivers.
anonymous coward @ Nov 1st 2006 2:19PM
"Here's the thing - school scores and video game ratings serve entirely two different purposes."
"School scores actually rate about what percent of the knowledge offered in that class the student has actually absorbed."
That would be correct if they actually reported grades in numerical format, but they don't. They're letter grades, and it's understood that A means good student and D means bad.
They report relative grades because if they reported absolute grades, the system would be meaningless, as the report card doesn't list the entire curriculum.
"Video game ratings serve to compare games against other games."
This is the same as report cards from schools. As a practical matter, you can't sensibly quantify how much a student knows any more than you can quantify how good a game is. All you can say is that one student/game is better than another.
Employers look for the best candidate out of the ones that apply. Gamers look for the best game out of the ones on the retailer's shelves.
Jake Barnett @ Nov 1st 2006 2:52PM
@36
Actually, I wish they'd make a console game in the lines of HP Lovecraft's early work having to do with dreams. I think a game where your character is a paranormal expert and you have to play in both reality and your characters dreams to solve gameplay puzzles. Or maybe your dreams would invade your reality and it would become harder to determine which is which. Games like that would really make the consequences of your in game actions have real weight. Make the character feel like they are in control when in fact they really aren't. That games that keep me guessing are always my favorite.
Instead of making games prettier and more violent. I think getting a more psychological reaction of out gamers is best. Make gamers think. And with that type of game you could make episodic content downloadable.
Aden Nak @ Nov 1st 2006 2:33PM
Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire
"Opinions on the game are divided because it relies heavily on accurate input."
"Overall it's satisfying even though opinions are divided on it."
Scores: 8, 8, 8, 8
My brain hurts.
32_Footsteps @ Nov 1st 2006 2:40PM
It's not often I'm surprised, but the amount of sheer wrong in some of the responses to me have managed it.
"But in all honesty, if you see that a game was rated as "average" and you see its box score as 5/10 or 50/100, you WOULD think that either the game is total crap or the reviewers have little grasp of the definition of average."
If you somehow think that the absolute middle score isn't average, then YOU are the one that has little grasp of the definition of average. I'd like to think that we aren't marketing to the "complete moron" demographic, myself.
Though if your game is that average, you probably are.
"That would be correct if they actually reported grades in numerical format, but they don't."
Gee, that's funny, because *every single report card* I ever received, from my first in kindergarten to my last semester of college, gave a numerical range for what each letter meant. The letters themselves were for the purpose of weighing to figure out academic honors. And the grades were reported numerically to both the school boards and my parents should they have asked.
"They report relative grades because if they reported absolute grades, the system would be meaningless, as the report card doesn't list the entire curriculum."
They report average grades, for over the entire course. And that is absolute, and perfectly meaningful.
"This is the same as report cards from schools. As a practical matter, you can't sensibly quantify how much a student knows any more than you can quantify how good a game is. All you can say is that one student/game is better than another."
Maybe you aren't familiar with the concept, but there are these things called "tests" which in fact can adequately quantify how much a student knows. In fact, these often are a huge part of what determines the grade a student receives. And in general, educators and the general public agree that this does quantify how much a student knows of the subject at hand.
"Employers look for the best candidate out of the ones that apply. Gamers look for the best game out of the ones on the retailer's shelves. "
And it would be much easier to judge the best games if the scores were centered around the midpoint of the range.