Variety Writer Vents on Mirror's Edge, Gears 2
Variety's "Cut Scene" blogger and E3 Awards voter has disagreed with the wins for Gears of War 2 and the "gimmicky" Mirror's Edge.
Ben Fritz, Variety games reporter and Game Critics Awards panelist, participated as one of 36 game journalists voting for the "Best of E3" awards this year. This year, his vote once again disagreed with the majority of his peers, with only two of his picks (Spore for best PC game and Pure for the racing genre) winning their categories. However, he supports the victories of Fallout 3, LittleBigPlanet, Dead Space and Left4Dead, all titles he says have "the potential, based on the limited time I got to see them, to be fantastic."
Although he doesn't dislike Gears of War 2, it's too "Gears 1.5" for his liking, especially compared to Resistance 2, which he feels to be a "more dramatic leap forward" for action games.
Fritz found Mirror's Edge, the winner for "Most Original Game", to be more "gimmicky" than "substantive".
"The first person perspective really didn't work for a game where you're trying to manipulate a character through complex spatial puzzles, and the challenge often felt more about timing (can you jump off this ledge with enough speed at the very last second?) than brains," he explained.
His personal "Game of the Show" was Fable 2, which didn't bring home any awards.
Not a fan of the first game, Fritz thinks, "Fable 2 looks like it really will deliver on developer Peter Molyneux's promises. The combat system is amazingly simple, but can be leveled up in complex ways for those who care. The open-world roleplaying elements look like they're really tightly integrated into the story, rather than being utterly pointless like in Fable 1."
Source: The Cut Scene [http://weblogs.variety.com/the_cut_scene/2008/08/notes-from-an-u.html] via Computer and Videogames [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=195106]
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Variety's "Cut Scene" blogger and E3 Awards voter has disagreed with the wins for Gears of War 2 and the "gimmicky" Mirror's Edge.
Ben Fritz, Variety games reporter and Game Critics Awards panelist, participated as one of 36 game journalists voting for the "Best of E3" awards this year. This year, his vote once again disagreed with the majority of his peers, with only two of his picks (Spore for best PC game and Pure for the racing genre) winning their categories. However, he supports the victories of Fallout 3, LittleBigPlanet, Dead Space and Left4Dead, all titles he says have "the potential, based on the limited time I got to see them, to be fantastic."
Although he doesn't dislike Gears of War 2, it's too "Gears 1.5" for his liking, especially compared to Resistance 2, which he feels to be a "more dramatic leap forward" for action games.
Fritz found Mirror's Edge, the winner for "Most Original Game", to be more "gimmicky" than "substantive".
"The first person perspective really didn't work for a game where you're trying to manipulate a character through complex spatial puzzles, and the challenge often felt more about timing (can you jump off this ledge with enough speed at the very last second?) than brains," he explained.
His personal "Game of the Show" was Fable 2, which didn't bring home any awards.
Not a fan of the first game, Fritz thinks, "Fable 2 looks like it really will deliver on developer Peter Molyneux's promises. The combat system is amazingly simple, but can be leveled up in complex ways for those who care. The open-world roleplaying elements look like they're really tightly integrated into the story, rather than being utterly pointless like in Fable 1."
Source: The Cut Scene [http://weblogs.variety.com/the_cut_scene/2008/08/notes-from-an-u.html] via Computer and Videogames [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=195106]
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