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About Gen-N
[ History ]
[ Review System/Philosophy ]
[ Contacts ]
History
Generation-N, which including this iteration has had a total of four official launches, originally went live in the summer of 1999. What started out as a tiny fansite soon became a more professional source of information for Nintendo gamers, what with the complete content and design overhaul on March 6, 2000.
The site had gotten an extreme makeover, and the staff then consisted of 5 people; Walker, who practically did all of the work when it came to live news updates and then some, Chris, a talented graphics designer, Jonathan, an editor, Jeremy, code specialist and writer, and Farid, owner/founder. Richard, an extremely talented writer, soon joined the team and our staff was complete.
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| July 26, 1999 - December 1999 |
March 6, 2000 - June 13, 2001 |
That second design was online until June 13, 2001. The site then got redesigned into what you are looking at right now. Unfortunately, this version didn't have such a long lifetime.
Its demise began when the first-ever GameCube commercial, that of the Japanese version of Wave Race: Blue Storm, was uploaded to our server. Soon enough, a dozen of websites linked to the file, and people on forums began to link directly to the video file just as well. Although this immediately shot Gen-N's popularity to new heights, it also caused a lot of damage to our server capacity. We got billed for bandwidth overflow, and soon had to shut down without notice. After a feeble attempt at another relaunch, it was clear that after the shut down, our motivation was no longer present.
Gen-N seemed to have gone for good...until now.
Today, we welcome back old readers and greet new ones with an overhaul that affects the content rather than the design.
Review System/Philosophy
Our review system aims to aid what readers may confuse when reading reviews. Sometimes a review is objective, and sometimes it is rather subjective. The two are very distinguishable. For example, while the graphics in a game may not be technical achievements, the art direction can quite possibly be some of the best that the reviewer has ever seen. In that case, on the objective, technical side (ie. framerate, texture clarity, polygonal jaggies, etc.), the game's visuals would not receive as much praise as they would on subjective side (ie. how a writer liked the overall look of the game).
Our system aims to seperate the two, rather than forming one score that attempts to merge them together. With this system, readers are able to choose what they want to read when they look at a review; the objective part, where no opinion is expressed, or the subjective one, where one would read one of our writers' opinion and choose to agree or disagree.
Here are some things you should take into consideration, regarding our reviews...
Comparisons
Games are reviewed for what they are, not for what they are compared to other games (whether released or upcoming). Major comparisons are not present throughout the reviews, except for in specially designated areas, namely the 'In Comparison' section of every review.
Bias
Obviously the bias that a writer may or may not have is condensed and placed inside only one of the sections, the Subjective one, this while factual information resides in the Objective one. No writer can possibly review games without a certain amount of bias within his or her thinking, whether it be a big or small amount, and we're not denying that. That said, we aren't keen on obvious bias so there shouldn't be many problems. As an example, a writer who dislikes the RPG genre as a whole will likely not review an RPG.
Spoilers
Gen-N loathes spoilers. They are kept to an extreme minimum. Should there be any, they would be located in the Subjective portion of a review. Spoilers are  hidden until one * highlights* the piece of text between those two icons. The storyline section of every review does spoil some the story, of course, so readers who mind any and all spoilers will want to skip that part. A very general, brief and spoiler-free story description is available to read on the main page of every review, however. Screenshots do not contain major spoilers. For example, characters that you may meet by surprise during your adventure (perhaps a cameo appearance) will not be present in any screenshot. This is designed to keep the ever-important surprise factor to a high for any and all readers.
Scoring System
The scores are based out of 10 and are not limited to integers. This leaves the possibility of one hundred (100) different scores, from a horrible 0.0 to a perfect 10. Seperate scores are given to each section, meaning that it's unlikely that an Objective score matches a Subjective one.
10 Perfect game; extremely rare score
9.0 - 9.9 Must-own game
8.0 - 8.9 Great game; rent first if skeptical
7.0 - 7.9 Good game; definitely rent first, but a must-buy for hardcore fans
6.0 - 6.9 Above-average game; rent only, hardcore fans rent first if skeptical
5.0 - 5.9 Average game; rent only, hardcore fans rent as well
4.0 - 4.9 Below average game; rent if desperate to play something new
3.0 - 3.9 Bad game; rent if extremely desperate to play something new
2.0 - 2.9 Very bad game; not recommended to anybody, not even a rental
1.0 - 1.9 Must-avoid game; don't even think about it
0.0 - 0.9 The developer/publisher should go bankrupt for this mess
Contacts
Editor-in-Chief: Farid El-Nemr [griptor@gen-n.net]
Miscellaneous: Mailbag Inqueries [mailbag@gen-n.net]
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// A mysterious character within the Banjo-Kazooie series was meant to star in his own N64 spin-off...
Click for more . . .
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// Delve into the philosophical world of gaming in this Pikmin 2 special, Buried Treasures
Check it out . . .
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