mothra on 16/12/2009 at 14:42
wait, you mean the celebrity ? or singer, whatever..... hehe, didn't know she reviews Videogames (maybe in her spare time). Why can't there be video game developer celebrities as opposed to starlets/stars that only play the games.
I wanna see more interviews with the REAL people behind the game, not the celebrities endorsing them for money. Having e.g. Mark Hamil (Joker) on a Videogameshow is nice but I wanna see e.g. the developer responsible for the freeflow combat system and how he and his team worked it out, integrated it with the blended animations and in turn how they worked it into the story. I wanna see the technical art/level design team for STALKER describe the process of creating a map and the quests or talk about design philosophy with somebody that created a diametrically opposed game like GOW2 for example.
faetal on 16/12/2009 at 14:56
Quote Posted by mothra
wait, you mean the celebrity ? or singer, whatever..... hehe, didn't know she reviews Videogames (maybe in her spare time). Why can't there be video game developer celebrities as opposed to starlets/stars that only play the games.
(
http://kanyegate.tumblr.com/) Don't say I didn't warn you.
:erm:
bukary on 16/12/2009 at 16:10
I've just skimmed through some Destructoid reviews. The scores are definitely closer to what I think about particular games (e.g. Machinarium - 9/10, Mirror's Edge - 8/10). But why did they give Bioshock 10/10 and Modern Warfare 2 ("the biggest game of 2009", as thay say) 9.5/10? :nono:
WOW! They gave Assassin's Creed 2... 4.5/10! Is the game as bad as the reviewer claims?
Sulphur on 16/12/2009 at 17:38
No.
To be more accurate, the reviewer has some valid points, like the lack of instazap fast travel, and the pointlessness of having to periodically trek back to your villa to empty its chest because it's full up. There's no real strategy to upgrading the villa, and sometimes the parkour system can frustrate because it isn't very accurate. Combat's a tad on the easy side, and the guards are strangely unresponsive to most of your antics until you make yourself notorious (Ubi's overcompensating for the complaints from AC1, perhaps). This is all valid and understandable.
Apart from that, he's being a chuffing dickbasket. I can understand that he hates the premise and the subject matter, way back from AC1. Fair enough. But let's take up the semi-objective bits.
"Traversing the city is painful because Ezio is 'slow and ponderous'" is a new one. It's fine. Ezio controls as well as you'd expect someone adept in parkour to move; he's not some steadfast lump of kitchen grease extending a tentative proboscis in the direction you point him to, and he doesn't ponderously ooze along either.
Side-mission variety isn't all that, but there's a metric ton of different collectibles and even some puzzling to do. There's also the six tombs that are fantastic to explore, especially because of the Prince of Persia vibe they give off. There's even a Sands of Time-style flyby the moment you enter them. Makes for some nice deja vu. This is all apart from the main story missions, which are quite varied and fun.
The graphics aren't Crysis, but they aren't as bad as he makes them out to be. There's pop-in and weird shadowing and less than stellar character detail at times (just like, oh, most open-world sandbox games), but it can often look astonishingly good.
When you're leaping off cathedral beams and chandeliers with vaulted ceilings above, and sunlight that slants in through arched windows onto the marble floor below, it's hard not to call the game beautiful.
So in summary: depending on your expectations, YMMV. But it's definitely not an atrocious experience. The reviewer's being a biased dingbat.
ercles on 16/12/2009 at 23:47
Well........ not entirely. He might have been a bit harsh, but I have had a fairly similar experience with the game after playing through a fair slog at a friend's house.
I was shocked by the fact that it seemed much stogier than I remember the first game being, but that could be because other games have done flowing gameplay better since the first game (Prince of Persia and Prototype). The graphics looked pretty average this time around, and were really a standout part of the first game. Finally I found that the repetition was back again here, which I find very difficult to understand from a design perspective after the first game got pretty caned for that fact.
Just because these faults didn't really get to you, or you were willing to overlook them doesn't mean they don't exist, and doesn't mean that those who it drives crazy (AC 2 just seemed like a bunch of wasted potential, really) like this reviewer are "chuffing dickbaskets".
CCCToad on 17/12/2009 at 00:29
To be fair, it probably is a bit harsh. Again, I didn't play much, but the production quality alone probably would put it as a slightly above average game.
Everything else, combat mechanics, graphics, and free running were much worse than in the original. The Parkour in particular suffered. In the first game I had a pretty easy time of getting wherever I wanted to go, whereas in the second I struggled trying to get Ezio to climb that church in the beginning. Climbing Florence cathedral wasn't much better.
I will agree that Modern Warfare 2 was an oddball for them. With what my brother has told me about the game, it sounds like the kind of game they'd hit with a 7 or so.
Sulphur on 17/12/2009 at 18:03
Quote Posted by ercles
Just because these faults didn't really get to you, or you were willing to overlook them doesn't mean they don't exist, and doesn't mean that those who it drives crazy (AC 2 just seemed like a bunch of wasted potential, really) like this reviewer are "chuffing dickbaskets".
Why are you under the impression that I'm including everybody who shares his views under the same umbrella? I'm only talking about the one reviewer here, and his reviewing methods.
A review is supposed to paint an accurate picture of a game to inform your decisions on purchasing/not purchasing it. One paragraph of 'this is nice' followed by an elaborate tirade that boils down to 'it fucking sucks' does not equate to an objective review.
His paragraph about the graphics, for instance, starts with 'Speaking of absolute crap...' Take a look at the screenshots on the very same page and tell me if you'd agree with that assessment. The next three paragraphs extol the shittiness of the graphics, including animation glitches and clipping, which of course doesn't happen in, say, GTA IV. A game which he gave an 8 out of 10 to by the way, and apparently had no such issues with
its graphics or animation.
Biased chuffing dickbasket of a dingbat? Yes. With some valid points? Yes. Objectively put across? No.
Koki on 18/12/2009 at 09:03
Quote Posted by Matthew
I tend to stick with Rock Paper Shotgun
I was never hot about RPS, but now with the new "widescreen only" layout... ho
EvaUnit02 on 18/12/2009 at 11:40
Quote Posted by Koki
I was never hot about RPS, but now with the new "widescreen only" layout... ho
Yeah, that's why it's still formatted for 4:3 AR resolutions.
(
http://imgur.com/mJdNd.jpg)
Inline Image:
http://imgur.com/mJdNds.pnggg nextmap
Koki on 18/12/2009 at 11:58
If you're on 1400 x 1050, it will fit in 4:3, sure. Not a terribly popular resolution though.
