Ratings War

I found the story portrayed in this game to be quite interesting. It's sufficiently dark for a cyberpunk setting and I played through it a few times. And while I’d say the first playthrough was the best, I enjoyed each of them. The only drawback is that some of the choices are railroaded which will become more apparent when you play through the game more than once. But on the whole, I felt like I was in control of my own story, and the endings I got felt fulfilling. (7/10)

A well-written choose your own advenure that will especially appeal to anyone who enjoys the Cyberpunk genre. Very Shadowrun feel to the story itself, sans the meta-races. However, I didn't develop the same attachment to my character or the supporting cast that I did in Choice of Robots or Tin Star as examples. It might have been that as a reporter, my character was more of a story observer than a story maker. I also felt like some of the plot itself was contrived and more fed to me as a reader than something that developed through choice-based play. I consider it a decent product for its price.

Well written as some sort of short polar story, but not as a choice novel. Choices are really limited, the branching is obvious and once you made one choice you're quite of forced to stick to all choices similar to that one "skill choice" you made at the beginning. The story is very linear and there is very little differences in the writings or in the story based on your choices. Same can be told about the endings : very little variations. Well written, but not really a choice novel, more like a short kinetic linear novel. Enjoyable, but I would not recommend it because there are'nt really anything specific here and it's not free.

I usually enjoy Choice of Games' products very much, with the Hero-saga and Choice of Robots being among my favorite text-based games.

However, this game seemed a bit... off.

The ending was slightly abrupt, and the game seemed to be pretty bland, with your choices having minimal effect on the actual story. The setting seemed cool, but it was left largely unexplored.

If this game was being sold for a buck, then sure, but three euros is too much for the quality provided. If you want to try out a text-based game, I'd recommend something else, like the aformentioned Choice of Robots.

For the price of a coffee you can have a brilliantly written, gripping, and hilarious short interactive novel.

Filled with interesting characters, difficult choices, and tone so thick you can feel it oozing off of the page.

(How i got here/trivial/skippable) I got to this game via "Choice of Robots" which positively surprised me. I got Choice of Robots via a sale and was simply interested in playing a completely text based C&C game. I really liked Choice of Robots, your coices really mattered and you were able to explore totally different stories. I think i played around 7 playthroughs of Choice of Robots, this game sadly appears to be a little different.

I managed to stop at a playtime of 115 minutes - yes i am a slow reader - before writing this little review, and at the moment I am contemplating whether or not i want to refund the game, not necessarily because of the money, but more in order to weighten my verdict. Keep in mind that i interrupted my first playthrough and that i am thus not capable of garanteeing anything, the far smaller amount of achievements - compared to Choice of Robots - nevertheless reflects my thoughts.

The story seems to be rather out of your hand, while you could make nearly every single decision in Choice of Robots, this game let's the protagonist or other characters take crucial decisions for you, eliminating the possibility of different playthroughs diverging significantly storywise. To elaborate what i mean i'll have to comment on one example for this, which is impossible without a mild spoiler.
The scene where i stoped and looked at my playtime:

You are making your first real investigation (it did not seem to me that the story could have diverged earlier) and interview someone who called for help, you get out and talk to your "editor"/helper who wants to meet and talk about the leads you gathered. The protagonist and her helper quickly talk about where to meet and it is decided that you meet at a coffee. You can't decide differently and you still get an achievement for drinking a coffee. This just feels odd. Espacially since the consequences of meeting in the office rather than in a coffee place are talked about, instead of giving you the possibility to think about the different outcomes and make a reflected decision, changing the path the story would take.

All in all i am fairly dissapointed at this game atm, and will consider whether or not i will refund it within the next days.

Another very good game from Choice of Games. Unique setting, interesting story and a lot of choices. Though, I must admit, I feel like game doesn't have much replayability value - there aren't that many alternatives on how to play the story (I get almost all achievements during one gameplay), how to shape your personality or even how to interact with other characters (only two romance options). Still, the plot is great and if you enjoy text based games and well written interactive stories, Choice of Games is always good way to go.

It's like if Adam Jensen worked for a news network, and couldn't fight for shit, and the whole world was even more dystopian cyberpunk than before. It's a short, sweet, to the point adventure that I heartily recommend for anyone who enjoys the Choice of Games line. I feel like there was some wasted potential in how long it took for me to complete it, there could've been more stories, more politics, but hey, for what it is, it's good. Choice of Robots will always be my personal favorite, and what I compare all their stories too. I didn't enjoy this one as much as Choice of Robots, but I can say it was very solid, despite the inherent weaknesses of the genre.

Plays like a class in Journalism Ethics. Definitely will recommend to everyone interested in Journalism and/or working as a journalist.

As usual, these games comes without graphics or music. Pure walls of text.

10/10, would play again just to try selling my soul instead of fighting for the greater good.

Ratings War is a story about being a reporter in a near-future setting. It's competently executed and I've recommended it to several people already. The cyberpunk theming is nice, but not deep, which I think is actually the fault of the character POV rather than the author. It isn't sci-fi to the character! The author does seem to have given thought to the implications of the technologies presented.

I can't give an unmixed recommendation, but I'm going to limit myself to one big complaint. My biggest complaint with the game is with a certain character who is both 'the cavalry' at a critical point, and then talking about throwing the PC under the bus a few pages later. Come on, that doesn't make sense. An asshole can save the day without ceasing to be an asshole. "I don't like you, but I'm not letting THAT happen to you," is a thing people can be motivated by.

The protagonist herself (her by default; player can choose otherwise) is a peaceful but tenacious individual who is sympathetic in every path I've played so far. I like that decisions are typically given sympathetic treatment whether they conform to the preferences of people outside of journalism or not. People aren't villains in their own POV. (I wonder if accepting that bribe is treated sympathetically, too...) In general, the game's writing is empathetic, and save for the character I complained about in the second paragraph every character major or minor is given some footing for the decisions they make. That's pretty awesome.

Although it is not without its quirks, I recommend Ratings War as an experience.

This game is...Surprising again, you did it yet again Choice of Games, you did it yet again and I am proud.
Don't let this title fall by the wayside, be a reporter! TELL THE TRUTH OR EMBELLISH! You won't change the problems in the world but you'll certainly make impacts one way or another, also I recommend having 'The Man Who Sold The World' going at a certain point...you'll know which one.

This was the first title by the 'Choice of Games' that I have played, and I was pleasantly surprised to rediscover the 'choose-your-own-adventure' genre in digital form, having only encountered it previously in childrens' literature. 'Ratings War' is, however, far more comprehensively realised than most examples of it's kind on your bookshelf. Though I wouldn't discourage children from playing the game I would emphasize it's maturer writing style and suggest it's suitability for any age, according to taste.

The story itself is engaging, reasonably original and has a good sense of narritive cohesion, though now on my second run-through I'm unsure whether the choices I made had any real impact on the story itself, rather affecting other more superficial (but equally important) features. It's difficult to give a specific example without spoilers, but romantic implications, for instance, may arise that affect your gameplay.

I picked it up at £1.34 in a sale but at it's normal £2.00 price 'Ratings War' more than reasonable for an evening's entertainment. With a playtime of around 3 hours and some deal of replayability it's definitely worth a look. The free demo contains the first chapter, which I think is enough to decide for sure if this is the game for you!
To conclude, in case you haven't realised this by now, I would thoroughly recommend this game to any fan of crime fiction.

This game only took me 2 hours to complete, so while it's not very long, I still thought it was a well told, concise story. If you can catch this on sale, I'd definitely pick it up. If you're looking for a little more bang for your buck, I'd reccomend the Heroes Rise trilogy or SLAMMED!, as they have longer stories. The heroes trilogy lasted me roughly 15-20 hours, though I think I played it twice, and SLAMMED! took me about 5 hours for one playthrough.

I can't recommend it highly enough, I had to stop myself from playing the whole thing in one go because I wanted to pace it out but it's amazing. It is a very well thought out and written interactive story that lets you build a reputation for yourself as a reporter and you have control over a lot of things such as your style (factual or flamboyent) your morales (integrity or ambitious) and how well you work with others. It lets you develop relationships with other characters as well as creating your own news show. BUY AND PLAY THIS GAME IT IS WORTH IT!

Honestly, I liked this story a lot and thought it was well-written and entertaining.

That said, there just isn't enough content here to justify the upvote in my opinion. There was so much that could have been done with this that wasn't. It had all the makings of a really interesting epic story and in the end it felt like the writer got bored with it and shipped it incomplete.

Also apparently a couple of achievements are bugged. That's annoying as hell. The amount of programing it took to make this game and they didn't get one of the few features it has to work? Come on now.

An RPG that leaves all decisions to you. This allows for a variety o fevents tailored to how YOU want to play the game. Everything is included. Everything impacts. And nothing just doesn't make a difference.

By far the one of the best RPG's I have a ever played.

If you like:
-cyber punk
-corporate politics
-news media
-choose your own adventure stories
-black text on white screens
Then buy this! It's really good!

EDIT: and character customization! You can choose your name and gender, which I didn't realize until my second playthrough. That's nice

The only dark spot on this chrome is the story is a relatively short one, compared to, say, "Choice of Robots".
Otherwise a good look through the mirror darkly at our not so distant tommorow.

Traditionally cyberpunk stories are either on the side of the law, or the lawless.
Here we can see both and walk a fine line.

Good read, good interaction, totally worth the money and time spent.
Wouldnt mind a sequel at all.

This game is a ton of fun, I'll tell you what! You're able to customize your character pretty well and the characters are great, in my opinion, and engaging enough that it keeps you guessing. I had a hunch about one of them, but then I thought I was wrong, with the direction the story was taken. Later, I found out I was right, and it felt like I was in one of those detective shows. It's also well-written, and the universe created for it is pretty solid. All in all, it's a great deal of fun, and it's easily replayable! This is the sort of choose your own adventure game I like to see from Choice of Games. I highly recommend this game.

Great story and awesome setting.

As with all choose-your-own-adventure-style books, characterization is a little lacking. It's hard to make characters interesting when you're not sure how the player will be interacting with them. But while most of the characters are a little tropey (annoying, arrogant rival; upbeat, snarky sidekick; supportive, mysterious boss; etc.), they're still entertaining, and the Dystopian Cyberpunk world is done very well. I'd like to see some sort of internet analogue in a sequel, but that's the result of wanting more, not feeling that the story was missing something.

The one real problem I have with this story is one that I have with most Choice of Games products--no asexual option. Yes, you can turn down romance and such (after identifying as straight, gay, or bisexual), but when you do, it feels a lot like you're missing out on content. Wouldn't normally complain about this, as this game is still far ahead of most of the industry, but the dev makes a big deal about being inclusive, so I feel like making noise might be worth doing.

So, basic information:

Pros:
-Cyberpunk
-Noire
Glory v. goodness morality system (you'll be familiar with it, to an extent, if you've played anything in the Heroes Rise series)
-Cool glowing eyes
-Gender/sexual inclusivity
-Robot bits
-Exiled science vikings, maybe?

Cons:
-No dragons
-No magic
-No weird internet bullshit

So yeah buy it.