Zardon

Read the info here
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The primary goal of Heaven Media reviews are to inform you, our readers about which products should be making it into your home as a possible purchase. In June of 2009 we decided to expand, enhance and revise our awards system to better accommodate the plethora of products that we review.

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BlueMak

I like it. Make it a little more difficult for some to get high awards.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Mac Daddy

Nice graduation of the scale looks good and should work well

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"My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

nicnik

i like the wtf award !

WTF !

nice update to the awards, the more details the better.

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Neshi

Indeed nicnik, makes it alot easier to see what exactly is good about a product and what not. I usually had trouble seeing it directly with hardware..

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comp_ali

Very nice , I was thinking of something like that.
Waiting to see some products/games with wtf award. lol

lepel

Agreed. It's always fun to read something being completely obliterated in a review. Plus it's also good to know.

I thought Driverheaven selected the product that were offered them to review, as not to lose time reviewing a rubbish product.

I like the Wtf award logo: an angry customer yelling at support. There should be equal scenes for the gold award, like a customer with hearts floating around him and the product.

OmegaRED

Always did wonder what the difference was between some of the awards...also I felt they were usually a bit too generous (nothing sticks out in particular but it seemed like everything was a gold or silver). This system sounds like it should vary more often.

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procupine14

Yeah this award system makes a little more sense to me. The last awards system could be a little confusing to some people. Considering that some of the articles written about certain products were pretty bad and they still got a "Reccomended" rating. It sometimes left me thinking. "Well, if i just had that much bad to say about a product I would probably not reccomend it to anyone"

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Laptop: HP dv6000 - Vista Ultimate (32-bit) - AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60(2.0GHz) - NVIDIA GeForce Go 7200 256MB - 4GB Kingston DDR2 667 - 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

HTPC: Vista Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Athlon 5200+ x2 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 800 - 250GB Seagate Barracuda - Samsung EcoGreen 1TB - Hauppauge single tuner HD - ASUS Radeon HD4550 512MB - ECS RS485M-M mobo - Creative X-fi soundcard - Seasonic 300W SFX PSU

Other PC: Vista Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Athlon 4200+ X2 - 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 - 250GB Seagate Barracuda - HIS 4850 512MB - DFI Infinity NF570 SLI-M2/G - CoolerMaster 400W PSU

Zardon

yes, its why everything has been changed - we will still review some killer products as we like the good hardware but if something gets a gold award you will know its as close to perfect as possible. There will not be many £500 video cards getting gold awards either (this is why the performance award was introduced because not many people can afford them and their value rating is normally low - whereas before we gave them gold award due to amazing performance).

SeraphicSorcerer

I think the WTF Award needs a WTF award.

LOL It's hilarious, I hope we review products just to give them WTFs!

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SeraphicSorcerer

There's a reason Nvidia's color is green.... cough... :P

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Mourgolikos

Nice! I like the more award options!
Keep up this great job guys

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BlueMak

It's jealous of 3DFx?

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

kris23

ya i like it

now when we see something good.... we know its good and when we see something thats pretty much perfect, we know its perfect

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procupine14

Very good idea. I remember a few of those reviews here and there. I agree with you all on that. While its a great product i'm not about to blow the equilivant of one month's rent on a video card.

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Laptop: HP dv6000 - Vista Ultimate (32-bit) - AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60(2.0GHz) - NVIDIA GeForce Go 7200 256MB - 4GB Kingston DDR2 667 - 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

HTPC: Vista Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Athlon 5200+ x2 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 800 - 250GB Seagate Barracuda - Samsung EcoGreen 1TB - Hauppauge single tuner HD - ASUS Radeon HD4550 512MB - ECS RS485M-M mobo - Creative X-fi soundcard - Seasonic 300W SFX PSU

Other PC: Vista Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Athlon 4200+ X2 - 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 - 250GB Seagate Barracuda - HIS 4850 512MB - DFI Infinity NF570 SLI-M2/G - CoolerMaster 400W PSU

RoyBatty

Is it necessary for the games rating to have a 0-100 scale? I think it is more abstract or subjective to measure things like gameplay or voice acting. For example, what would be the "ammount" of gameplay required to change score from let's say 90 to 91? I think 0-10 is enough, just like the hardware rating...
But overall I like the new system.

BlueMak

I am not answering for DH/GH. (of course)

It goes down to what one feels down inside him/her about the particular subject and game. How do you put in numbers what food you prefer or what flower you find more beautiful? You can't, but you can give a number that makes more sense at the time you give it and the feelings you have at that point in time for the game, than if say you want to compare it to another game. You might give a game a score of 92 and 6 months later another game a score of 91. And while you play this second game, enjoy it more than the first. I think it is more important that it passes the 90 mark than if it is 91, 92 or 93.
Or look at it this way, you have the game Flight Simulator III just released. What a marvelous game, with very realistic graphics and amazing control. Or at least for 1986 (IIRC) and you give the game graphics score of 92. A couple years later you have the game Epic. Vastly superior graphics than FS3 yet you give the game graphics score of 90. Does it mean Epic is 2% worse in graphics than FS3? Nonsense.
I could go on, but I think you get what I mean.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Zardon

Our game reviews have always operated on a percentage system and this works well, it allows for more detailed scores, especially when two games score around say the 91% or 93% marks. On a scale of 1-10 we would either give both of them "9" which isn't as accurate. Doing half marks from 1-10 is basically a messier way of doing percentages.

Now you could say we could have applied a percentage system to the hardware reviews as well but in this specific category I feel it isn't as important as you will never be rating for example a software 3d engine which demands a little more detail than say "build quality".

mike2h

thx for the info. & setting up a meaningfull system.

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buburuza76

I like it too. Good work

lepel

It's nice to see them applied in the new reviews already, but I find the awards a tad too big. I prefered the size they used to be.

Zardon

size is important. so they say.

lepel

I think their size obstructs readibility a bit. I don't know what others think? If I'm the only one never mind... It's not such a big deal.

Zardon

Well I can appreciate you might not like them being a little larger than before but they certainly won't obstruct legibility as they aren't in front of any text.

Most sites have large award logos, ours were really small in the past. you gotta roll with the changes man.....

lepel

Well, by readaility I meant the overall layout of the 'conclusion'-page. They take up quite a some space compared to the old logos, and more scrolling is involved which I find unneccesary for a page that sums up the whole review. Oh well, I'll get used to them in the end and probably growl again whenever new changes happen to the rating system.

Zardon

do remember the review up today does have 5 products. I don't agree its unnecessary either because the conclusion page is normally the one that many people shortshift to to read a summary of everything. The awards are meant to be colourful, informative and eye catching as our last award system was in the background and no one knew what was going on, its a total 180 for the new system.

However, when all changes are made some people don't like it, I guess its the fact people see DH as their home and find change unpleasant at times. Same thing happened when we moved to a completely new look and system last year. People adapt....... (I hope !)

lepel

Yeah people adapt for sure, me included. I was just giving some feedback about the way I experience the new change. That's what a community if for, right?

Zardon

of course - I wasn't aware I was giving you a hard time about it, just trying to explain the reasoning. That is what these threads are for. People giving feedback or asking questions and the people who make the systems (us) either answering the questions or explaining the reasoning behind it.

A lot of thought and research goes into our changes so I feel its important we explain the reasoning, especially when points are brought up.

swimtech

Thanks for the new rating system.

As a reader, I appreciate the increased granularity the new rating system conveys, especially when items based upon the same exact technology are rated or compared together - which often happens - such as with memory or video cards with the same GPU. I can't tell you how many times I've had to justify a $10.00 price difference for this or that feature, or the reliability/longevity/overall quality of one item over another - where those differences are subtle, yet important over time.

I can imagine too that it allows the reviewers more freedom, yet requiring more effort, to differentiate the products and more clearly quantify those differences.

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