Magazine scores does not handle rereleased titles correctly

[Stefan]

Thanks to Graeme Mason's mystery game review tweet yesterday:

https://twitter.com/Wizwords/status/1483561687022198786

It appears that the magazine scores app seems to be averaging (or using) the rerelease review score.

Bomb Jack initially received a 9/10 in Your Sinclair Issue 05, May 1986 followed by another 9/10 in Your Sinclair Issue 34, October 1988 followed by no score in Your Sinclair - Budget Article Issue 38, February 1989.

So while this should be solid 9/10 - Bomb Jack is not shown on https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/scores.php

[Vampyre]

The problem here is identifying what's a re-release review (and to a lesser extent things like Crashbacks, which were lookbacks at old reviews and giving them scores for the current year to see how they fare). I certainly don't flag in ZXSR what is a review of a re-release, ZXDB will undoubtedly have some sort of flag stating that, Bombjack for instance had a re-release, but the there are no separate ZXDB ID's for re-releases (I could be wrong here). I can't see how it could be done other than manually going through each review and flagging it.

You could use only reviews where the date of the magazine is the same as the release year but then you have the problem of something being released in December 1986 but reviewed in all the magazines in 1987. Don't quote me on this but I wonder towards the end of the Speccies life there were re-releases in the same year as it was originally released.

Don't get me wrong - I also feel that only the original release reviews should be using the average scores. But there's not really a simple solution to it that I can think of.

[Stefan]

Don't get me wrong - I also feel that only the original release reviews should be using the average scores. But there's not really a simple solution to it that I can think of.

Since the reviews contain which magazine and which issue, couldn’t just the first per magazine be used? Optionally by bulk initial “repair” populating all reviews with a best guess, with manual tweaking for the edge cases?

[Vampyre]

Don't get me wrong - I also feel that only the original release reviews should be using the average scores. But there's not really a simple solution to it that I can think of.

Since the reviews contain which magazine and which issue, couldn’t just the first per magazine be used? Optionally by bulk initial “repair” populating all reviews with a best guess, with manual tweaking for the edge cases?

It's not an exact science as you've already realised. What about mags that didn't review the game until the re-release - didn't happen often though; what about mags like Games Machine and Ace that came out much later in the Speccy life cycle and would have reviewed re-releases and not the original. Should we disregard anything that didn't receive an actual Overall score (yes IMO). What about compilations that gave scores for individual games rather than the compilation - there never seemed to be a set rule there. There's other things to factor that I can't think of at the moment.

I'm quite happy to have a punt at it given time, and they would be correct for the vast majority, bit it would be a hell of a lot of manual work too. Heck, ZXSR is in ZXDB and I'm more than happy for someone to add a table with the results that I can import into ZXSR and it's there permanently. To put it in perspective, the scale of the job, there are nearly 15,000 reviews in ZXSR currently.

PS. I'm not trying to put anyone off doing this - I think Stefan asking for something that I would certainly find very interesting. Just trying to give an indication of the scope.

[Einar Saukas]

So while this should be solid 9/10 - Bomb Jack is not shown on https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/scores.php

This page only showed scores provided as percentages. The reasoning was that other scores are not precise enough for comparison. When a game was evaluated as 5/5 it doesn't mean it deserved a perfect 100% score.

Anyway I just updated this page to also include scores out of 10, thus Bomb Jack now appears in this list.

[Einar Saukas]

there are no separate ZXDB ID's for re-releases (I could be wrong here).

You are correct.

However I don't think we need to distinguish re-release reviews. The evaluation of a game should only depend on gameplay, not on who's re-publishing it now.

If a specific game was reviewed more than once in a certain magazine, I suggest you simply pick the highest score. If a later review gives a lower score, it almost certainly means this game got outdated so it's the original score that counts. But if a later review gives a higher score, it most probably means the magazine realized they screwed up in the original review and tried to fix it afterwards, so the latter score is more accurate.

[toot_toot]

A good example is Jetpac https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/9 ... rum/Jetpac Which has an amazingly average magazine review score of 60%!

That comes down to a re-release review of the game in 1987 by Sinclair User. https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/page.ph ... 69&page=48

To be honest, that review should be blasted into the sun. But, if someone were to come to the Spectrum afresh and took a look at that magazine review score, they’d be missing out on one of the greatest Spectrum games ever made!

[Morkin]

But, if someone were to come to the Spectrum afresh and took a look at that magazine review score, they’d be missing out on one of the greatest Spectrum games ever made!

...And instead they'd be loading up Transylvanian Tower, which shares the top spot..

TBH I think there will always be a few issues with doing an average top scores chart... I mean, Danny Duster's Dirty Deeds did get 98% and a Crash Smash, but the game doesn't actually exist..!

Having said that, I do really like the way you can now see all magazine scores listed in each game entry.

[StooB]

The evaluation of a game should only depend on gameplay, not on who's re-publishing it now.

But if a later review gives a higher score, it most probably means the magazine realized they screwed up in the original review and tried to fix it afterwards, so the latter score is more accurate.

Reviews at the time didn't just take gameplay into account though. If a later review gives a higher score, it's usually because a budget release is far better value for money than the full price game originally was.

Don't quote me on this but I wonder towards the end of the Speccies life there were re-releases in the same year as it was originally released.

It happened long before then. The games that got the fastest budget re-releases are Alien Highway (1986) and Uchi Mata (1987) which were both re-released less than six months after their original release, and in the same year.