CVGS Watch: How to Evaluate a Game

Brought to you by Copyright 1999 by Bill Fox and Chris Adamson

Want to evaluate a game for the Macs Only! CVGS Watch? Great! Here's what you do:

1. Play the game with CVGS, and if possible with a real PlayStation. Use real games, not demos. Be sure you have virtual memory turned off. Try to use all the game's functions (saving/loading, sub-games and config menus, etc.) before deciding on your rating.
2. Don't rate games for which we already have five reviews posted, unless you're using a newer version of CVGS. While we want to include dissenting views and different configurations, we really don't have room for 40 separate evaluations of "Final Fantasy VII".
3. Send e-mail to the "CVGS Watch" Editor, Chris Adamson, at plucky@mindspring.com. Put the phrase CVGS Watch in your subject line or your submission may be lost
4. In your message, list each of the following on a separate line:
   • NAME: the name of the game you're evaluating
   • PLAYABILITY: on a scale of 0-10, with 0 meaning "can't run at all" and 10 meaning "runs with no problems", rate how well the game runs on CVGS. This is not a rating of the game itself (if a lousy game runs perfectly on CVGS, you should still give it a 10).
   • NOTES: any brief comments on why you gave the game that score. It's really important you list serious flaws like graphics that don't appear on-screen, save/load games not working, controls problems, etc. Try to keep this under 15 words.
   • YOUR INITIALS, CONFIGURATION, and CVGS VERSION: for the configuration, list the type of Mac (G3 speed or iMac "rev" number), MacOS version and your total RAM and VRAM.
5. Got a screenshot? We'll be rotating the selection of graphics, hopefully on a weekly basis. To take a screenshot, press Apple-shift-3 while playing -- the picture is saved to your main hard drive as "Picture 1", "Picture 2", etc. You could attach this file to your mail... but if you want full consideration, you'll convert it to a 160x120 256-color GIF file (optimized, interlaced and in 89a format). Rename the file to include the game name and your name (abbreviate if you have to). And please don't bombard us with lots of screenshots! We've only got room for one per letter!

When posted to the CVGS watch, your entry will look something like this:

Bongo Fury

7

Quad-bongo-combo doesn't work.

FZ, 1/15/99, 1.0.0

Copyright © 1999 by Bill Fox and Chris Adamson All rights reserved--no commercial use permitted without attribution.

Of course . . .