kuddles

Bear with me here, but I was thinking of the ID podcast a couple weeks ago where they discussed the strange disconnect between two Eurogamer previews where one seemed to be lapping up what the PR for the game was, and the other seemed overly rude and dismissive of it. It rang true to me because not that long before, almost two reviews went up on Eurogamer almost simultaneously; the one for Killzone 2 and the one for F.E.A.R. 2, and reading them side by side really rubbed me the wrong way. They both are pretty much identical in tone, and spend most of the time talking about how both games fail to do anything new and are merely competent at what they are, which makes it confusing that the conclusion on Killzone 2's review is claiming that in the end it's the fun experience that's important and that's why it's worthy of praise, whereas F.E.A.R. 2 concludes with the reviewer practically telling Monolith that they should be embarrassed with themselves for releasing it, despite the former game having vastly superior time and resources to work with. Now I know this is two different reviews written by two completely different people, and I certainly am not trying to go down the road of “teh game reviewers are bias”. I’m not even accusing them of doing something deliberately. But I feel like this disparity occurs way too often. It seems like, at least on some level, if a game is AAA, then reviews are much less likely to criticize its faults. Conversely, it ends up implying that you either need to be Gears of War 2 or Geometry Wars 2 in sense of scale and budget and if you're a middle tier developer, you shouldn't even bother trying. I’ve seen quite a few games be taken to task quite harshly for imperfections or signs of being generic. Fair enough, I don’t expect them to give average to above-average games a gold star for effort. But it just comes off as crass when they’re falling over themselves to apologize for even mentioning what's wrong with the game when it has the type of budget that should make those issues even more inexcusable. Sometimes even when we’re talking about the exact same problem. For example, GTA IV’s save point system which can lead to you repeating some rather long and tedious tasks due to a lack of checkpoints was commonly mentioned in reviews, if at all, as a “minor niggle” or a “nitpick”, or sometimes even described as if they are sticking to their “hardcore design decision”, while other games with similar systems get described as being “archaic”, “nearly broken” or “needlessly frustrating”. This problem is probably exacerbated by the current environment the enthusiast press is forced to work under, where on a sub-conscious level there’s probably little reason to take the risk. Heap as much praise on the latest mega-blockbuster FPS as possible, and the worst negativity you’ll receive is a couple random posters accusing you of being a fanboy or a moneyhat. But admit that it hasn’t changed your life and is merely a decent game, and nobody wins. The PR people are angry at you for lowering their Metacritic score, and the publisher who provides you with the ad revenue and press that gives you your livelihood might start being less friendly, giving your co-workers the task of supporting your opinion while everyone suffers the consequences. In return, you aren’t appreciated by sticking to your guns, but are instead provided with extraordinary amounts of vitriol by your audience, your reputation dragged through the mud for years to come. (We’ve all seen the numerous online examples, like people proclaiming that they were glad Gerstmann got fired because over a year later they still felt giving an 8.5 to the latest Zelda was a grave injustice.) Criticising a game already marked for greatness seems like a fool's errand that isn't worth the hassle. Does anyone else feel this way? Or am I just imagining things to defend my own skewed perspective?

Oh yeah, I forgot to say thanks for mentioning the Mirror's Edge time trial pack. I ended up buying the PC version too, and just assumed like most other games, the DLC would only be available on consoles.

I got really misty-eyed on a couple occasions in Lost Odyssey, but they were both in those short stories written by that famous Japanese author, so I don't think that really helps gaming's cause. Also, technically this landmark was passed over two decades ago.

I remember getting in an argument with a few friends over this exact issue a couple years ago, mostly because I think people get the word "value" stuck in their head, not because it makes any sense. Them: "Man, I'm sick of all these games coming out being so much shorter and everyone still praising them. COD4 and Portal got all these GOTY awards and it took me no time at all to beat them!" Me: "Name a game that came out last year that you completed, other than COD4 or Portal" Them: "..........." As far as cheating goes, I actually always run a trainer for the Tomb Raider games. My appeal for those titles is figuring out the huge environmental puzzles and quick moves. Once they get really complex, I already have to repeat the same series of movements for what can amount to minutes before I can figure out where to go next, dealing with insta-death or health packs just gets annoying, as does the mostly forgettable combat. (Although this improved with the latest one, where some of the bosses actually served as a type of puzzle all their own.)

Oh, man, I'm like the exact opposite. I am loving this trend of condensed game experiences, to the point where I have to be really, really convinced that a game is worth my time if it's over 8 hours long, if you're an RPG you can go up to 30 but that's still pushing it. I've never played a game that lasted over 10 hours that didn't feel like it could have cut at least an hour and made a better experience. Long games need to die and go to hell.

I should clarify that I'm not saying they're intentionally trying to hide the "truth" or anything like that. I have no doubt that some people genuinely enjoyed Halo 3 or Killzone 2 enough to justify their score. But I think it's rather clear that there's a bit of a double standard going on, as if reviewers are saying "Boy, I really enjoyed playing this game but I sure can't give it the same score as Halo 3 so I better pick this one apart." Even the most acclaimed movie or novel has a wide array of dissenting opinions amongst critics, but it's games with higher than normal budgets/marketing behind them that we still do a double-take if any major publication dares to avoid unleashing hyperbole onto it. It creates an inconsistency in the reviews, which was what I was getting at, where the flaws of some games are glossed over but are treated like huge missteps in others. I guess that's why I find it ironic that Edge magazine gets accused of being pretentious with their reviews when to me it seems one of the few magazines that judges a game purely on the basis of whether they found it fun or not.

I think the ending bucks the trend of how most game devs don't seem very good at writing endings, by interweaving the cliffhanger directly in sync with the closure of the primary theme of the game. The ending of Episode 2, though....all I have to say is that when Episode 3 arrives (sometime in the next decade), shooting combine in the face will have a much more personal touch. I like the combat a lot, but I can understand why a lot of people feel underwhelmed with the combat in HL2. Other than the gravity gun the weapons are pretty typical in design, things we take for granted like the iron sights are still absent, and the A.I. is average at best. That said, it does a lot of things right with it's combat that a lot of shooters to this day don't seem to get right. For instance, the immediate, clear feedback as to whether your shots are hitting.

There's an option there but it doesn't do anything. The original Half-Life 2 doesn't have any HDR in it except in the console versions of The Orange Box. I'm surprised nobody has gone back and just modded it in themselves. I mean, other then that fakefactory mod, which even if you delete the horrible character reskinnings it still forces you to take some of his "artistic decisions". As for the main topic at hand - Yes, the reason why I enjoy the Half-Life games so much is because they aren't patronizing. Most FPS titles just make some levels then have you following a glowing arrow or stare at a compass the whole time. Valve just puts care into the level designs, covers the invisible walls with obstructions, leaves environmental clues as to where you should go next, etc. It's an on-rails shooter that tries to hide the rails from you as much as possible. Monolith kind of does the same thing, as does the Max Payne games, but most other devs never even attempt to pull it off. A good example is a place in Episode 2 where the solution to get to a higher area and turn a switch is to do something unintuitive to the logic of the game - throw a grenade at the floor then stand right over it - and all they did was leave environmental clues to show you how to do that. Also, I think some of you people are perfectionist gamers, and have your finger on the quickload button every time you fail to make the perfect shot. The end of Episode 2 was supposed to be really thrilling, and mix things up a bit by giving you an open area instead of a corridor to shoot things at. I'm far from a skilled player, rarely playing above Normal difficulty, and I had no trouble taking out all the enemies in the time allotted. It was probably the least frustrating encounter I've ever had as far as the end of an FPS goes. (Well, except Bioshock, ironically)

I'm just thinking that since it's not really impressing me, I might as well get as much trade-in value as possible for it. I know some people are getting into the multiplayer, but I rarely get into that stuff in games where I'm perfectly fine controlling it. Maybe the game is fine if you're into what it's selling - as my comments suggested I also thought the COD4 campaign was over-rated so it could just be me. I just wish I could see what's making some people/critics going crazy over it. Even the graphics to me look really great but only in terms of draw distance and artistic consistency, nothing mind-blowing. I'm also pretty biased because the only thing that really bothers me is something that I can't really blame the game for since I knew it involved that months ago but forgot how much I despised it. Cover-based shooters really need to die a horrible death. If you want to implement a cover mechanic, that's just fine. But making a whole game around that mechanic leads to long stretches of land completely narrow with a hundred sandbags around them. It leads to combat that focuses almost completely on flanking, which makes the least intuitive and least tactical option - Jumping out of cover and shooting as much as you can until your screen turns blood red, kneel back down and wait until your health regenerates, and repeat - always the most efficient one to take. In other words, maybe other people will love it and I'm just a cranky old whiner.

Basically my feelings so far on the campaign are as follows: I won't bother mentioning the controls a lot of people have been complaining about. Yes, I'm finding them difficult, but since I don't handle console FPS controls in general well and double that for the PS3, it's hard to say how much of my dislike comes from my own handicaps and preferences. Regardless, I do find it a bit irritating that something with such a loosy-goosy reticule can be so demanding on how exact you are with your aim, sometimes in a very limited time span. Probably the weirdest part of this is that the auto-aim is pretty forgiving, but disappears completely when you use the iron sights, so ironically it's easier to make good shots when you shoot from the hip, which feels completely unintuitive for this style of game. With all the brown same-looking buildings, the open-ended areas with tons of dead ends, the conversations that get drowned out by gunfire, and the lackluster story, I find myself constantly hitting the checkpoint button because I have no clue where I should be going or what I'm doing. It's clear the levels were built first and figuring out how to guide the player through them came after. Sometimes you can't take cover behind certain objects, or you can take cover but you can't shoot from behind it, and there is no way to tell the difference. Someone who made the checkpoint system is a dick, because on three separate occasions I died and restarted from a position that had me completely compromised unless I retreated back immediately after restarting. As I mentioned above, the game is scripted to the point where pretty much anything dynamic has no chance of happening. I keep missing conversations for what I'm doing, or sometimes the voiceovers start overlapping with each other, because I'm either too behind from where I should be or too ahead. If I die, when I replay the section, every action takes place the same, with the same enemies running in the same direction, taking cover in the exact same place. If I die twice in a row from a guy running past cover to attack me while I'm being suppressed, the third time I can literally just keep doing the melee move knowing he'll run right into it. It's the continuation of this trend I hate immensely in current FPS titles, where the designers are so intent on making the game "cinematic" that I feel like giving control of the character to me feels like a huge hassle to them. In relation to above, when you make a game that focuses completely on going slow, and taking cover, and heavily punishing the player if they take any alternate approach to this routine for the whole damn campaign, why the fuck would you then make sequences where the enemies infinitely respawn until an invisible barrier is passed? How the fuck does that make sense at all? It may sound like I'm being harsh on my assessment, and I am, because I'm not really into it. All those lows are just overwhelming the experience, because I'm now at the last level and I still feel like I'm going through the motions, with nothing sticking out as especially memorable out of any of the encounters I've been through so far. Because of this, I don't even know if I am going to finish it. I'm currently at a spot where I've died in the same place over a dozen times in a row, with no clue what I was doing wrong. Looking it up on two game guides reveals my worst fear: It's one of those COD-ish final levels where luck plays just as much into my success as any skill on my part, so that it can create one of those "realistic chaos of the battlefield moments". Either way, this is getting traded in next week.

So what's with this dichotomy with opinions on this thing? While I wasn't crazy about DoW, I love both action-RPGs and RTS titles without dirt farming, and adored both World in Conflict and Company of Heroes. I'm just nervous about taking the jump because I'm not much of a multiplayer fan, and it seems that every person is talking about how amazing the single player campaign is, even though almost every review talks about how weak it is. Anyone want to push me over the edge?

If you're playing the PC version, then I believe it. I hate to ring the "traditional PC gaming is dying" bell, but the fact that most PC versions of shooters don't even bother to have dedicated servers running for them is quite distressing.

Did it actually work fine on your computer? I was under the impression that the PC port was a rush job since the studio was shutting down, which left it practically broken. Something about the game speed being directly related to your processor, so if yours is relatively modern some of the chase sequences are downright impossible. I was going to find an old XBOX copy since it's backwards compatible, but if the PC version works fine, I'll go with that one.

That's pretty much what I did. Bought the game through Direct2Drive and they sent me the serial. I already downloaded the demo somewhere else so I was good to go. I'm not even overly concerned with making a backup copy since so many places host the demo online.

I'll probably consider picking this game up in the future, I'm a big fan of the "strategy games without dirt farming" genre that seems to be getting a bit of a resurgence, although the extreme difficulty of Faces of War is giving me pause.

I already posted some of my thoughts in the thread for the last podcast, but I might as well do it here. I understand why the reviews are kind of lacklustre. It just feels like more FEAR, and more refined at it, but nothing dramatically different or new about it. I will say I appreciate Monolith’s approach to level design, though, as other then Valve, I can’t think of another developer who keeps the rails part of a linear shooter well-hidden (i.e. environmental clues as to where to go next instead of glowing arrows or something, like a trail of blood or other doors being blocked). Combat is still as fun as ever, and this one is “scarier” in that it maintains a creepy atmosphere better, similar to Condemned. I think part of the reason is the spooky stuff is better integrated, as in you get split-second surprises out of the blue instead of obvious sequences. It hasn’t made me jump the way Dead Space did at times, though. I agree that's it's on the easy side It's surprisingly easy, which is fun for the ridiculous shooty-shooty stuff, but also a bit of a cakewalk. I know "the game was totally meant to be played on hard" tends to be a typical thing for dorks to insist on pretty much every FPS under the sun, but I rarely play games above the Normal setting and even I found it pretty well. I agree that it does feel a little consoley in it’s design, although I guess I should count my blessings. I’ve been putting off playing Condemned 2 on my 360, but the chance of a PC version is looking incredibly slim now that over a year has passed and no news has come forth. All in all, a good solid game, and I enjoyed it as a nice traditional shooter with good pacing. Despite the over-scripted parts as Chris Remo mentioned, it still is significantly less scripted then the majority of games, letting me enjoy the majority of it on my own instead of constantly having glowing highlights telling me where to go next and what to do. And as much as I wish Monolith FPS games that weren't dark and gritty also sold well, it still manages to be a breath of fresh air since I'm not walking around brown and grey battlefields with inspired steroid-infused assholes as my comrades. And yet I'm still kind of disappointed so far as to how little has changed. As I said above, more satisfying then a lot of it's peers, but I expected something that took it to the next level, not something that was more of the same but slightly improved. If it was anyone other than Monolith making this game, I probably would be much happier with it.

They do that for their movies and music as well, and the confusing thing is you as a reader have no clue which sources they deem more "worthy" than others. The Metacritic scores turn out to be more of the editor's opinion then an exact science. This is even more true with other iffy decisions made on the site (For instance, I'll commonly see a review of a game that was specifically stated to be a review of one version, and yet the score is taken into account for all platforms. Even worse is how sometimes media companies re-use content (like 1UP/EGM or PC Gamer UK/US) which results in Metacritic sometimes counting the exact same review twice. In addition to the above problems, I don't like the idea of providing bonuses based on Metacritic scores because sometimes the quality of a game is out of a developer's hands. The publisher usually determines the budget, resources, and development time, and sometimes even major gameplay or creative decisions. If for instance, the publisher insists that a developer make their game more generic and mainstream, and then forces them to release it early for their Q4 results, I think it's even more unfair to then dock their income because reviews were less then favourable. Not to mention the fact that maybe reviews don't hit a certain mark due to reviewer preferences and not any particular quality aspect.

As the podcasts go on, I really find Remo and I are extremely similar when it comes to personal preferences in video games. (I think it came to a head when I feel like we're the only two people in the world who loved Far Cry 2). I bought FEAR 2, being a Monolith fan, and while I haven't completed it yet, I feel like I have the same feelings as Chris described. The gameplay is mostly solid and fun, although the Mech and Turret sections felt a little forced. Overall, it just feels like more FEAR, but more refined, which is fine except I expected more from it. If it was anyone other then Monolith, I probably would have enjoyed it just fine. It's significantly easier this time around, and I'm usually never playing a game above Normal so this is surprising. I mean, you're already at a huge advantage with bullet time, why do all the enemies need to glow at the same time? Mind you the first game was pretty much bullet porn anyways, so maybe they just thought you might as well have fun with exploding heads this time around. The only thing I don't understand is why everyone talks about how incomprehensible the plot is, and how confusing it would be for someone who hasn't played the first game. I find this baffling as it feels to me like the series has bashed it into your head, making it way too obvious, and removing the potential mystery of connecting the dots yourself. I'm not even done the second game and it feels like it's already spelled out for me what Project Origin was three separate times. I also agreed with the discussion on how some games take the care into "disguising" the rails, like Valve or Monolith. I think that's why I overly enjoyed FEAR 2 despite it's flaws, because so few developers give the player the benefit of the doubt nowadays. Despite the increase in scripted events, where you are supposed to go next is always provided with environmental clues rather then a glowing arrow or something. It's just a natural feel that doesn't feel like you're being pushed along, and it suggests real care was put into the level design. It also puts me in an exploratory mood when I play a Valve or Monolith game. For instance, I know if there's a gaping hole in the ground, then either it is supposed to be where I go, or if not, then there will be something provided to let me get back out of it. In most other games, I'm concerned that I'll end up trapped because the devs didn't intend for me to go there. Contrary to this, it seems the majority of titles are too scripted for their own good, as Chris described. As fun as COD4 was, I have to say there were quite a few instances where the immersion was ruined for me because at some point in time I did not perform an action the exact specific way the developers wanted to. I then felt punished for not staying on the rails even though I didn't know where they were, as if the devs were so focused on creating a cinematic experience that it caused them great pain to give me any type of control. It kind of distresses me that the Half-Life way of scripting seems to be falling out of favour for these overly-scripted events. I hate to use the horrible phrase "dumbing down", but I feel like too many gamers are unwilling to be given a less structured feel. I keep hearing people talk about how they hate the level design in Half-Life 2 or Condemned because they kept getting completely lost, as if they would prefer to be staring at a compass to guide them instead of looking around and figuring it out themselves. Likewise, a common complaint from people who claimed Crysis was too boring, when pushed, seem to have preferred that their mission objectives told them what gun to use in each situation, or what powers, and instead of having environmental borders like shark infested waters to contain the same nonsensical invisible walls most other games provide. It breaks my heart a bit.

I think, as mentioned previously, the whole idea of the game kind of hit a dull spot in the market. Instead of bridging the gap between casual "The Sims"-type of gamers and more hardcore strategy gamers, it ended up alienating both. It was also released right in the middle of when traditional PC gaming seemed to recieve the biggest downward slope, where developers focused more on MMOs and WOW became huge, re-directed efforts to making consoles their priority, casual games selling much better, increased concern over piracy in single-player games, etc. I remember there being a lot of talk around late 2005/early 2006 about developers having a lot of confusion as to why almost all traditional games were having sales that were drastically lower than expectations, including The Movies, Rise of Legends, Act of War, Dungeon Siege II, Freedom Force 2 and so on. After the success of Spore and Little Big Planet, I think you could argue that it might have been just a little ahead of it's time.

I was too impatient to see if Steam would eventually get it, so I bought it off Direct2Drive. I must say I’m highly impressed, they’ve done a hell of a job optimizing this thing for the PC. I can run it with everything on high and 8xAA. Also, the game seems to have it’s own vsync/triple buffering built in, since it ran smooth as butter with no screen tearing even when I got into a particularly intense crash. As for the gameplay, I’m liking it a lot. It’s probably the first racer I’ve actually gotten into in a long time. I assumed it would be off-putting. I had no idea what compelled me to buy it in the first place, since "open world arcade racer" sounds exactly the opposite of what I would like. But I love just driving around and goofing off and then trying out an event whenever I feel like it. Maybe I'll hate it more once the inevitable increase in difficulty through rubber banding kicks in. Seriously, I just started it up last night with the idea that I would goof around for half an hour, and I ended up playing for nearly three hours straight without realizing it. I know I'm late to the party, but this game is fantastic so far. I hope Criterion/EA gets rewarded for this effort. I have a friend who works in marketing for a game publisher who told me that the reason there’s so many bad ports of console-to-PC games is because the cost of doing a good port is much higher and yet the increase in sales is negligible, so making a decent PC port is actually seen as a bad business decision. It’ll make me sad if he’s right.

I took the thread title a different way by selecting Neverwinter Nights. I kind of tired with it when it first came out. But the game slowly became probably the most valuable gaming purchase I ever made as time passed. A neverending amount of patches, some really good expansions and premium content modules, as well as tons of well-made mods by a strong community. Then the creation of persistent worlds led to some unique online experiences as well. I think if I went by strategy games I disliked until I managed to get over the steep learning curve, it would be a long list. Europa Universalis is definetely one of them. It's hard to tell if this is a good or bad thing for the games. On one hand, it might have something to say about our attention spans and desire to be spoonfed resulting in enriching experiences being lost due to our impatience. On the other, one could argue that these games could find themselves a whole new audience if their tutorials and interfaces weren't so obtuse and they chose satisfying their core fans at the expense of alienating more casual players.

I thought it was a very well written article. I agree with a lot of points he made. In particular, how people prefer to take only part of Brad Wardell's arguments that they see fit, pointing to Stardock as part of their argument as to why a game like Mass Effect or Far Cry 2 shouldn't contain DRM, and ignoring the part where Wardell argues that making games like that for the PC is part of the problem as well. Not to mention that Wardell also isn't fully anti-DRM himself. The only thing I somewhat disagree with was I think his discussion of Steam was a bit too harsh. It's true that some people seem to give it a free ride, some not even making the connection that Steam itself is a form of DRM. But I think that has much more to do with how people are less against restrictive DRM if they feel they are getting some kind of benefit in return and/or it's a much smaller hassle to deal with. Of course, I also think what people consider as a "good" company also plays into it. For instance, most casual game companies such as PopCap have DRM in their games that force an online activation and provide a limited number of activations, without any ability to revoke them. Purchasing either of the Penny Arcade Adventures games from their Greenhouse distribution site has the exact same restriction. Granted, these titles are lower profile, but you would think if any group of hardcore gamers would be most likely to complain about something, it would be Penny Arcade fans. I'm sure the Spore outrage had as much to do with the names "EA" and "Securom" attached to them as anything else.