The Dink Network

How the hell did Skorn's Stone of Balance review get ever approved, and more so, how is it the first one in the list of all the reviews? This makes me sad.

Because it's a well-written review I guess. Just because he personally didn't like it doesn't mean it's wrong.

And if you think he's just trolling again... well from what we saw I don't think that's his style

Becuse he made some valid points I guess. I didn't read it, it's tl;dr for me, but I guess the staff approved it because of that.

It's listed first because it's the latest featured review.

I kind of agree with you that it's strange for it to be featured even though Skorn hasn't even finished the DMOD.

For the love of grandma's fruitcake, you can't seriously be saying that the review is good. The review was nothing but a thing for Skorn to make Dink look bad, as a revenge for the staff silencing him.

Well I dunno... he got at least halfway through, didn't like any of it and got fed up with bugs. I didn't notice at first that he hadn't finished but it's still a good review presuming it's true, which we'll never know. I just think his idea of trolling is a lot less sophisticated.

How did the score stay in 9.0+ when he gave it such a low score?

Cause it had more before. It had 9.4. before Skorn's review. Skorn didn't find any bugs in the game at all, all he found was a great map that he hated for it being great cause he hates great things especially if they are somehow related to Dink, and graphics he didn't like, one again cause they were awesome.

Y'wot? He says he loves the graphics, and explains the bugs in detail.

"Color is too much to handle" is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in a review. As I said, the ones who approve this review, make me sad.

This is a bad review. It doesn't honestly describe any parts of the game and it's obvious to me that it's written on purpose to cause a controversy. I would say, remove it or kick it down to the bottom of the list. Seriously, this person has been a blight on our community, why even try to view things in a good light that are blatantly obvious meant to be offensive and shocking?

I think it's an OK review but having it featured seams a bit extreme.

Get rid of it, seriously. Stone of Balance is not boring at all and the review looks like it's written on purpose to bring the DMOD down in score.

Just because you dislike the guy doesn't mean he doesn't have a right to write a review on a Dmod. Obviously he put some effort into writing the Dmod.

Don't remove it. That would just make the whole thing look very, very unfair. I think you should grow up a little more still, Skull.

That makes it sound like you've never played Stone of Balance, DaVince. That quite frankly makes you sound like an ultimate n00b.

Besides, half of the staff and TDN wouldn't have approved the review from what I last heard. So don't aim your growing up shìt at me.

That makes it sound like you think reviews are only good if they agree with your view. That quite frankly makes you sound like an ultimate n00b.

Really, just because you disagree doesn't mean that someone else can't have reasonable arguments for their opinion.

I'm not talking about my point of view. I am talking about how things are.

I read the whole review. Twice. And it was painful when you consider I just woke up.

I'm not going to say anything about the details of the bugs Skorn encountered, but none the less, the review was beyond unfair when he never finished the game.
In addition to this, several of his comments DISAPROVE of most of the positives of the game and turn them around without a more valid explanation other than boredom.

If a game has too much in the way of new graphics that you don't like it, then there is clearly a bigger explanation you can make to this than "my eyes hurt". Skorn mentioned particular parts of the graphics, but even so.

You honestly CANNOT accept a review for anything when the person writing a review has never completed what they're reviewing; Be it a game, a book, or a movie they fell asleep in the middle of. So I'm in agreement that this particular one should be deleted; Either that, or taken off the featured list, and its score should be set to not affect the overall Dmod score.

ExDeath, if someone plays a D-Mod and really doesn't enjoy it, finding most aspects either crude, annoying or boring and gives up partway then why shouldn't he be allowed to write a bad review? Ok, so maybe not a featured one.

And tbh if he had finished it then he wouldn't have found things any better later on. Quite the opposite.

.

"why even try to view things in a good light that are blatantly obvious meant to be offensive and shocking?"

Because I like to play devil's advocate
And I'm not sure that this is quite so obvious.

This is as obvious as Tal being perverted. Skorn is such a good actor, he makes everyone believe things aren't "so obvious" when they are. The only thing about Skorn is trying to make this website and Dink look bad. You know it, and everybody else knows it, so I don't see the point of just keeping it because you feel so.

WTF man all i can say to that review is cruel
but
i can fix this
1 2 3...here i go

Get over it, guys. Seriously now - it's a review, an opinion. But does an opinion damage your' ideas and opinions? So why attack Skorn's opinion, even if it is against your' own?

Kyle said why even try to view things in a good light that are blatantly obvious meant to be offensive and shocking?

For the sake of art, at least! We know that Elvis, Socrates and Dante were disdained by leading figures of the times as being deliberately offensive or outrageous. Now, I'm not saying that Skorn is an artist, but everyone deserves freedom of expression to an extent.

That the powers which be have allowed the review is a testimony to tolerance and it is commendable that some admin has risen above our local pop-culture and accepted something that is revisionist, at least.

Finally, I cannot see a sentence in Skorn's that is not justifyable. Let us never be closed-minded to alternative perceptions or new arguments.

The reason that the review has been accepted and used is because it addresses legitimate problems with the game. I've only played the game once and didn't get very far, but this was only because I lost all of my Dink Smallwood files (Something he addressed in this). He have very good reasons not to like the game, like how you would have to wander around to find out where you're going or the divining rod. The part about the colors is well founded; I hate games where the color scheme seems too random, and it often gives me a headache. Flame me if you want, I'll just ignore you.

Great job on the review, Skorn.

krisknox
there is nothing wrong with the review
but
i wouldn't use Great job on the review, Skorn. to describe it

I think the problem is the dislike towards Skorn's pessimism in reviews (which grew worse with time). I'm sure you all would kick me out if I gave 9.9 reviews to crap-files for their "potential". That's just way too optimistic.

I don't agree with Skorn's views at all, and I wished he would stop being a nuisance to us. But he does raise some good points. I havn't encountered any of the bugs/glitches that he mentioned so I'm not sure what to believe there.

When I say some of the points were good, I don't mean they were all good. There were bad points. Especially at the end, when he mentions that this is the reason that he wouldn't be playing Pilgrim's Quest. Okay, fair enough, you don't HAVE to play PQ, but to base your reason on the fact that a previous D-Mod wasn't what you wanted, is a bit stupid. PQ and SOB are two different D-Mods, with different elements and play styles. It's liek a movie, if you didn't like someone's movie that's fine, but then assuming that another movie some years later made by the same person mustn't be much better isn't logical. You have to give them a chance.

Also, Skorn did mention getting flamed, so I'm not sure wther he is trolling us or not, but the troll won.

In my opinion, it shouldn't have been featured as it wasn't the best review, but I'm not saying he isn't entitled to his opinion. Let the review stay there, but don't make it featured. Also, we should stop giving so much attention to him.

P.S. SOB & PQ are awesome!

Haha, I love how everyone tries to sound so adult in this situation. I don't care if I sound like a n00b or a total idiot when I say this, but Skorn's review sucks, end of the story.

Well maybe you should care if you want to be taken seriously.

You seem to hold grudges against certain people and now you're making it worse for yourself by looking like you're just trying to find any bad thing about them.

I don't think you're at all a noob or an idiot but why sound like one if you want to get your message across at the same time?

My review of Final Fantasy VII:

So today I picked up Final Fantasy VII. I heard from a lot of people it's a good game, but I thought it was pretty bad. Square Enix makes many good games (Unlimited Saga), but Final Fantasy VII just plain sucks. But let me explain in detail why it sucks and the general opinion is wrong.

Story:

This is the weakest part. Some guy gets on a train and then he blows up some stuff. I didn't really get it, it was pretty dumb. That's also why I decided to stop after the first boss.

Sound:

The music in this game gets so repetitive. Like, EVERY time you enter the world map (I never get there but I heard this is true), it's the same song all over again. I wish sometimes maybe something would happen, like a UFO flying over with special beeping sounds, like in my favorite game of all time, Space Invaders (had a great story). Also the battle music was too long, I could never finish listening to it before the battle was over. And god almighty I'm so tired of the game over music.

Graphics:

The thing that annoys me, is that on the normal game screen the characters look tiny. Is this a game about midgets? But then in battle they are tall??? How does this work anyway? Good thing the spells are pretty, but I had a big problem with those too. You see, magic is used with materia, but materia has many different colors. This annoyed me greatly. I wish it was just healing magic (white) and damaging magic (black), then it would be much better!

Gameplay:

The battles are really really fun and well done! All the bosses (or well, the one boss I fought and died to) were cool and the battle moves were like ninjas! But the problem was the bugs. Sometimes in battle I would die (LIKE AT THE BOSS!), something that never happens when I play on my Wii. Also, there were 3 spelling errors in the dialogue which totally ruined those scenes for me. But the biggest problem must be that there was no direction, I never knew where to go! Like, especially when you just get off the train. You can go left and right, but the game doesn't really tell you where to go. Was I supposed to run back the way the train came from? I know I could have looked it up on gamefaqs, but that site is only used by losers. I prefer not finishing a game than looking up where I should go next. Luckily, after 3 hours of trial and error, I found my way to the reactor I had to blow up (that's where the boss is!).

Maps:

Final Fantasy VII has pretty locations, but how can there be so many different places in such a small area? It annoyed me that one moment I was in reactor and then suddenly in a city. I mean, who builds reactors in populated cities? I didn't really understand that part, maybe it was explained but that line probably had a spelling error so I skipped it. And I couldn't go back into the train after it stopped, I really wanted to drive around and play Choo Choo! And when I loaded my savegame, the screen was black for 3 seconds first, like it was the middle of the night. I wish they would have been more consistent here.

Characters:

The game didn't really have that many characters I could play with, only 2. Cloud and Barret, but I was kind of annoyed that Cloud didn't say much when Barret was being so kind to him. I would have started a bromance straight away. Such disappointment here too. The girl was hot, but thank god no sexual references were made or I would have been annoyed. (although her blouse was pretty colorful which I did struggle with)

Overall:

I will probably be flamed for my honest to god opinions, but that's okay, I welcome it. Because, this game was so overhyped and now everyone can finally see the light.

Score: -1/10

wow skull i never thought i would say this but
brilliant,^infinity and beyond

This is the weakest part. Some guy gets on a train and then he blows up some stuff. I didn't really get it, it was pretty dumb. That's also why I decided to stop after the first boss.

While the story isn't the strongest in RPGs out there, it sure is a hell of a lot more complicated than that "blowing up a train". Of course, if you expect the entire plot to reveal before your eyes just after you only fought the first boss... Well, you don't really have any right to judge the storyline at all.

^Exactly what he meant Skorn's review was like.

Heh, I can see Kyle's point here. If you sound reasonable you can use totally unreasonable and irrelevant arguments to come to the conclusion you like. Unfortunately defining 'reasonable' is a bit hard as that is directly related to your opinion. Since writing a review is always highlighting only a part of the total it's almost impossible to objectively judge if the writer of the review used a reasonable argumentation without using your own opinion about the file as the measure for reasonableness.

I'll have to agree with Kyle that this review was likely written just to cause a shock. Skorn has always tried to shock people to get attention and he's written quite a few reviews that were rejected for lack of reasonableness...

Oh, and I liked your review Kyle.

DaVince, I was making a spoof review based on Skorn's review And if I would write a real review on FFVII, it would get a 9.5/10 and I would say it has a wonderful story

Some people are just pessimsts. Yesterday, an ogre of woman came into my store and I tried to help her by pointing out my personal favourite items, and explaining why I preferred it to that really cheap, gluggy white bread. Most of her conversation was complaint - "Oh, the milk in Coles supermarket is cheaper then here, but I can't afford the taxi into the CBD" In fact, our' milk is only $1.30 cheaper then Coles, but some people don't see anything but "enemy" in the world.

Did I mind that she was the size of a road-train, smelt like a week-dead polecat and looked like a 60-year-old Drop-Bear that had spent it's life in drugs and booze? No - we get a number of customers like that; the difference is the attitude. At the end of the day I'm happy to lose one complaining, grumpy customer!

So what I'm saying is - yes, pessimism is a demon some people embrace, and that's bloody hard to tolerate. For our part, I say: try to see the light side of the worst and, if we can, turn their' half-empty cup down-side up.

On a personal note, I was disappointed by the 2D FFs - haven't played the 3D ones. Except for B&W Final Fantasy Adventure on the GB

DISAPPOINTED..?
I'm not going to argue with that. -.- Although that includes the only two good 2D Final Fantasies (V and VI).

Anyway, this discussion about reviews is making me hungry.
*quickly runs to the shop and eats all the cookies*

EDIT: Oh, *munch munch* Nice review, Kyle *chomp*

Ahh, Skull's reply made me realize that too. I guess skimming over threads isn't always the best thing to do (heck, I was wondering about the relevance in the first place). If it's a Skorn-like review... yeah, the quality definitely leaves something to be desired.

I'm not over with this. Remove the review. Also, necro.

We could all just post a review and it would out way his it probally won't be the one you see on the files page and if some one was looking through the reviews they would be hard pressed to find it how do you like that solution skull because if they havn't deleted this review already I don't think they are going to. Scorn isn't on the dink network anymore is he.

Skull, you = funny troll.

Well it looks like it's staying as it is for now, unless whoever approved it decides otherwise I guess.

Closing this thread 'cos I can see where it's heading pretty soon
There isn't much more to add to what's already been said.