Should X Rebirth's meta-critic score be re-reviewed?

[Theicaruseffect]

Dispite its awful release, should X rebirth be re-reviewed as it has a really low meta-score which may put off some people playing this game? Still, the game has a few issues like that 100 energy cells bug which happened to me last night (had to edit the save xml file to get my ship to move and dock).

Dispite this, the game is alot of fun, with patches being applied frequently. I would state the game as being playable. Maybe I would say that I would class the state of current game (29 / 06 / 2014) as an 'Alpha' state, with a few issues here and there.

What do you think? Started a poll too.

[pirke123]

Since 2.0 it's definitely playable. There are still many bugs, but the major issues (trade not working at all) have mostly been fixed.

I too find it enjoyable!

Now if they could work on some of the fleet mechanics that would really be welcome. I know there are mods that do stuff here, but with the update frequency mods can't keep up, so I play vanilla.

[pref]

No, its the same game essentially. There is no reason to re-rate a game because its less buggy - the game design and concept is the same.

It's also a good memento for human stupidity. Perhaps looking at it ES will remember, and next expansion will rank better in reviews.

[Skism]

I think the time for a re review is soon - once ego fixes the economy IF the economy can be fixed...

Still version 2 is much better Now if only they had Released it in this state

[Patholos]

If it's going to reviewed again, it would be by the respective magazines.

Not sure if a poll on a game that 600 people play would get them to do just that.

X R chance to shine for the audience was at launch.

[Theicaruseffect]

I'm not too sure what issues there are with the economy? I'm in in about 4 hours into this game, where I've just reached an unknown universe (after the jump gate was closed). Are there still issues with the economy?

I wonder how this game will pan out over the coming year? I really with they would fix the performance though. Running an quad core i5 with SLI 670 GTX. I get 40 fps.lol.

[spankahontis]

X-Rebirth 2.0+ is allot better than X-Rebirth 1.0.

I think they operate on First Impressions rather than checking the game out every 6 months or waiting for it to be fully implemented before making a final verdict.

Review system needs to change.

[Jaxartes]

IMO since it seems that they are continuing on the same engine I think that that there should be a new metascore when they release the next expansion and leave the x rebirth score as is.

I assume they are gonna expand XR the same way they did with X3, each new game had the same universe as in X3R but TC added terrans, AP added other stuff etc.

[Archaeosis]

If they released it in its current state it would still be panned as buggy and broken, seriously overpriced, with many unfinished features and a design philosophy lacking direction, without a clear target audience.

Sure, they've fixed a lot of bugs - but plenty remain, enough to make trading, station-building, and the economy (three absolutely vital parts of the game) poorly functional at best and broken at worst. They've added a few important things, and some niceties, but it's still a very shallow, limited game with plenty of severe flaws.

I wouldn't want people re-rating the game until it's worthy of a decent score - perhaps once it hits 3.0 or something like that? I want to hope Egosoft will fix things, but at the glacial rate they're going and with plans for the next game being considered, I've not got much hope.

Egosoft were very quick to market 2.0 as a huge overhaul, when it clearly wasn't. It had a few helpful (but minor) changes and additions, some fixes, and a ridiculous set of "Argon Secret Service" missions - an abhorrent, shallow, rush-job providing a duplicitous patch title helping Egosoft pretend things were fixed and that they'd released an expansion's worth of content. They aren't, and the added content was modest at best. The whole point of that re-branding (with a flashy but deceptive trailer) was to selfishly cash-in further on the hopeful-but-poorly-informed, and it makes Egosoft look terrible.

All in all, Egosoft look awful through all of this, the game remains very poor, and there may never be a time where re-reviewing the game will get it a decent score. If Egosoft're as quick to slap "3.0" on their game as they did 2.0, we could be at something like 4.0 with little significant improvement. It doesn't seem unlikely we'll get a few more relatively shallow patches, and around a year from now they'll drop virtually all support to focus more completely on their next game.

Whoever are controlling the company's direction - presumably mainly Bernd (± his creditors) - are deceptive, repulsive charlatans, and I can't find much reason to support Egosoft if they continue to follow their lead. At this point, and after the disappointment of Bernd's recent RPS interview, it looks like things aren't likely to improve much. I would rather Egosoft shut down and rebuilt a new company with a new leadership and a new direction - I think it'd be better for both the developers and the wider community.

[Rioshaw]

I suggest you stick with X3, because you do not like change. personally I like the direction X-rebirth has taken. cheers.

[Archaeosis]

I suggest you stick with X3, because you do not like change. personally I like the direction X-rebirth has taken. cheers.

If you're directing that at me, I quite like a lot of the ideas behind the new direction, and think this way is the best way for the X series - I simply think it has been rushed, and there are a lot of aspects which need a lot of work and haven't been well thought through. Bernd's comments in the RPS article about the direction he'd like seemed at-odds with much of the community's feeling for where the game should go. After the reception the game got, perhaps he should give more credence to what players think, and a little less to his own ideas. I prefer this direction to X3's, I just think it has been very poorly realised, with a difficult development history marred by confused direction and mismanagement.

One of the worst problems with the game, though, has been the sheer amount of dishonesty. If whoever runs the marketing direction for Egosoft had accepted its serious issues and declared them, I think the game would have been more warmly received, even with lower early sales. If there was a proper dialogue with the community, I think things would have still been difficult, but nowhere near the nightmare Rebirth has been.

Something akin to an early-access release would have been nice, (I would go so far as to say the game would have gained a lot more interest, and have been a slowly-burning but far greater success), but of course we know that wasn't on the cards (Bernd's creditors). Yes, I know hindsight is 20-20, and we can all easily criticise others' decisions. Still, I find it horrifying that whoever manages the company - largely Bernd? - could find no better way to manage the release than what approaches defrauding customers with significant misrepresentation of the product. The release was a train-wreck in no small part due to that, and I think it was one of the most galling issues for many.

I am perfectly fine with change - a broken, buggy, unfinished game without a decent direction, however, I'm not terribly keen on. Particularly one marketed as a finished AAA game and sold at a premium price accordingly - what a cynical ploy on Egosoft's part. Leadership who lie and cheat their customers as much as (presumably) Bernd has, I abhor.

[diabolos099]

I suggest you stick with X3, because you do not like change. personally I like the direction X-rebirth has taken. cheers.

for me i like X:R when it comes to the aspect of

-stationmanagement/-building,
-the space feels more alive with the masstraffic and the drone animations,
-more dynamic movement in space with highways and booster (SETA was just meh) and
-the visual parts of the universe (superstations/unique stations...the normal stations look pretty cool as well).

but:
the really cool things about X3 that i miss most in X:R were the multiple races/shiptypes/weapons and command possibilities and that the universe was just incredibly big and your options seems to be endless. an ultimate futuristic sandbox game with a potential to keep you busy for months. in X:R there are sometimes just two stations of a kind and just a few really good places to build some stations...building some stations like the Cell Fab is just useless because there are so incredibly many of them (why? the whole economy for antimatter/ion/plasma cells is just useless atm) so its just not worth it.
overall X:R is just too small (the space between the zones would be huge but except some rocks and some random crates there is just nothing to explore or interact with).

edit: typos and some additions

[Rioshaw]

I really really liked x2, x3, xt3c etc. but I didn't wan't the TNBT to be the same but with better Graphics. I like x-rebirth because of this, and am enjoying it more because of the change.

Yes the release was poor, put so much work has been but in since then imho.
Cheers

[Rioshaw]

SETA is vey much overated in IMHO. the only time I required this was in terran sectors. (Atfter X2).

Sorry this does not seem to be related to the topic discussed.
Am drinking

[Sibilantae]

I think the game is worth re-reviewing, because I think the bugs stand less in the way of its features, which are pretty good imo though there's still some way to go.

However I don't think game is worth *re-rating* on metacritic, since a bad release should be reflected in the score. No matter how loyal Egosoft is post-release, they have to learn to release polished games.

[Slashman]

Are we still doing these re-review posts?

Games don't get re-reviewed for a very good reason: Reviews reflect games at launch.

If a developer wants better reviews, they need to design their games properly and launch them in a state that people can properly play and test them for review.

Bugs are also not even half the problems with Rebirth and many reviews stated the same thing. The game is just not all that great. Badly implemented features. Bad AI and a generally uninteresting universe are just some of the problems in addition to glaring flaws like fleet management hell and a boring, ugly player ship with no options to own or fly something else.

[jasonbarron]

Voted "No"

I think the game has come a long long way since release, kudos to the developers for sticking with it, but there are simply too many things that don't work, many others that don't work well, and a ton of missing content to warrant a re-review. XR will merit a shot at a new review, IMO, when they include an expansion that expands on the universe, adds some more races, includes more flyable ships, etc. Version 2.0, while an improvement, barely approaches the point the game should have been at in November.

[Kolreth]

I think the message being sent is If you want a good review score release a game that works. They didn't so deserve all the bad press they got, and the internet forgets nothing.

[Tolmos]

My vote is "no" for now because "not yet" isn't an option.

Rebirth has come so far since the game released, and it still has a little farther it can go. It's been 7 or so months since release... we should give it a full year before metacritic should be reviewed.

If we're lucky, by the time that year has passed we'll have a few things that will greatly help with the presentation of the game, such as

-Reduction of current bugs
-A better auto-pilot system (it's great so far, but less bumper cars would help)
-Ability to look around the cockpit
-Capital ship bridges

I think that once those have been addressed, a metacritic re-review would be ideal, as I think the game would do amazingly well at that point. =D

[ALien8ed]

If a game is deemed good enough to be released then it's good enough to be reviewed.

It was reviewed upon release and scored accordingly.

The answer IMO is definately "NO" regardless of what improvements are made afterwards.