lobotomy42

F*ing browser

Okay, this thread is basically about a pet peeve I have with game reviews. It's not well thought-out, since I'm just going to go stream of consciousness and see who agrees with me. It really bugs me when game reviewers have clearly not done much research about a game before writing a review. What do I mean by research? To my mind, before writing substantively about a game, one should all or most of the following: 1) Played the game, somewhat extensively 2) Played all or most of the game's "influences" enough to be acquanted with them. I don't mean that they have to have beaten them all or even played them all, but one should have a rough idea of how this game to be the way it is. Influences may or may not include: a) Prior games in the series, developed by anyone Non-series games by the same development studio / director / creative leads c) Games in the same genre by competing studios with similar -- or maybe even very different -- features / themes / ideas 3) Viewed / Read relevant non-gaming influences, if these exist a) For franchise (movie/tv/etc) games, know something about the damn franchise. If it was "inspired" (or "stolen") from some other idea, know something about that idea Why is all this shit important? Because they are the game's CONTEXT. The game you are reviewing does not exist in the ether, by its lonesome self. There other important questions to answer about a game than "Was it boring after ten minutes?" and most of those questions can only properly be answered with CONTEXT. For example: Does this game have a great new feature? Well, we can see if a feature is "great" by playing the game and seeing. But new? The only way to know if a feature is "new" is to know, even if only approximately, what similar features have existed in the series/genre/world beforehand. Nothing pisses me off than when a triple-A developer gets credit for introducing a Great New Feature that was clearly inspired from some smaller studio's game years before that no one played. It's not just that this is unfair (though it is,) but also that it means the review of the game is not placing the Great New Game in proper context. Perhaps the real reason the Great New Game is Great has more to do with a brilliant or clever execution of an old concept. Or perhaps its more in presentation. Or perhaps part of why its appealing is that it has callbacks to other media - movies, older games, Ulysses, whatever. The point is that this CONTEXT matters and if you're a games media writer you should get some. (If I read one more review that is "Well, it's like this other game, which we rated well, so we'll rate it the same but dock a few points cause its old" I will punch someone. Seriously, that is not informative. What is similar about the games? What is different? How do the changes affect the experience? PLEASE GIVE ME SOME CONTEXT. Also, I wish there were easier-to-find writing about games that was more descriptive and less qualitative. </rant>

Yeah, thinking about it now, I think more what I was getting at is that I'd like to see fewer consumer-targeted reviews and more critical analysis. The consumer reviews just don't seem as useful to me. But I can see why an audience who wants those would benefit from coming at something from a clean slate.

No, I just posted too soon and there's no delete button on threads. I mean, uh, HELP ME I'M TRAPP###4fac2d3dd1bb35b521adfa23ee9~~~~~~~

My only complaint is that the game seems a bit unbalanced - once you get a third companion, the combat becomes *really* easy, so after the difficulty ramps up briefly in the second act, it drops significantly as you head into the third. The final act was probably the easiest section in the game for me.

Wow. That is a dead-on Michael J. Fox.

I also finished Costume Quest recently! As I said in the main thread about it, I thought it was great. First game I've completely finished in quite some time. Satisfying!

Some of the badges give you extra combat abilities - these map to the third button.

I love this game so far. This is great great great. I love how the relatively simplistic battle system still keeps things paced well and challenging. Small changes in costume / badge configuration can make a huge difference in how battles play out, and I don't get penalized for experimenting (and dying.) Plus the animations and the whole atmosphere are delightful. And the dialogue, obviously, is great, too. I thought I would miss having voice-over, but I don't at all. :tup:

I just played the demo. I know it's been said before, but it felt a little rails-y to me, like if someone took Tomb Raider and removed the ability to go in any direction but the correct one. Kind of "Press A to watch him do the next thing we scripted." Still, the cinematics were spectacular, and the way they reveal that without stopping and saying " " was effective. Made me wish it were a movie or a comic, though.

Well, I'm completely sold.

I'm happy to host, if someone else wants to arrange the player-list and name-swapping. 12 players, standard settings okay with everyone?

Uh, ditto?

QFG4 was narrated by John Rhys-Davies, which is possibly the coolest thing ever.

Bioware claims it is, and the obnoxious major gaming sites all do as well. As far as I can tell, the major reasons for calling it an RPG are: 1) It's heavy on the story component 2) It's made by Bioware, who specializes in RPGs 3) It's the sequel to Mass Effect, which was much more arguably an RPG than Mass Effect 2 4) You can, technically, select different classes and assign some skill points in class-specific abilities But, yeah, I'm kind of with you. ME2 is much more a shooter than anything else, with lots of dialogue and few decision-tree points thrown in.

I remember reading an interview with the designers in which they stated that they wanted to make an adventure game, but they worked at Sierra, who was pushing the use of their adventure game engine, so....they implemented an RPG, as best they could, in the adventure game engine. As reasons go for genre hybridization, I think that's pretty hilarious.

One of the things that the series has done really well - across all seasons - has been to convey a sense of implicit companionship between Sam and Max. When your main characters clearly have little regard for the well-being of the people around them, you start to wonder who they *do* regard as important, and the answer is themselves, and each other. Other little hints, such as and also reinforce the sense of some kind of bond. This sense culminated in this episode, which made the scene you mentioned more poignant than I would have expected from a Sam & Max game.

Double Fine's modus operandi to date has been a unique story-telling twist on old gameplay formulas. Costume Quest seems to fit this mold exactly - a jRPG that exists in line between children's fantasy and children's reality as exemplified by Halloween Costumes. Is there a glut of Halloween RPGs I'm unaware of?

I like that Flemeth is doing the narrating. It makes me optimistic that she (and Morrigan?) will have a big role in DA2.

This. I have nothing against the Shocks, but they always hold so much more promise than they deliver. They build detailed worlds with interesting backstory, aesthetics and themes only to have the player....walk around shooting everything. Granted, there are lots of *different ways* to shoot everything, but fundamentally, you're still shooting everything. So I'm torn about this. The world looks cool, the early 1900s is a great period to draw from, this interview seems promising, but I'm still sense that at the end of the day, I'll be spending the game shooting things. Which seems like a bit of a waste, given the apparent potential of the setting.

I'm more excited about this than I was for Brutal Legend. Not sure why people aren't digging the art style. It looks like they're going for a Calvin & Hobbes -esque thing where the real world looks cartoony and a little goofy, but the imaginary world (the costumes come to life) is more detailed and realistic. Also, is it just me, or do the models for the children look suspiciously similar to Animal Crossing characters? It'll be nice to have some old-school JRPG style combat without the horrible writing that typically accompanies JRPGs. The premise looks neat, too.

You could just make up your own two usernames, I guess. Or solicit from anyone not playing.

Me! Me!

Geeze, I totally missed the opportunity to join yet again. Anyone want to start a side-game? The nice thing about NP is you can have several (potentially dozens, I guess, if you don't have a job) games going at once. (p.s. - Yes, I have paid for points and am willing to host if someone else can do the name scrambling.)

I finished Dragon Age a few days ago. (I know, late to the party, etc.) My few thoughts are posted in that thread.