Developers you both love and hate

[Hiphophippo]

This is an easy one.

Bethesda, for sure. I think they've made mostly shit since Morrowind but I'd be hard pressed not to admit that their world building skills are pretty impressive. Most other companies could take a page from their book in that regard.

 

[Harlemura]

Capcom.
They make some really, really good games, but they always manage to make one mistake that screws everything up.

Street Fighter IV- Seth
Marvel Vs. Capcom 3- Sentinel
Bionic Commando- Those Biomech things.

Just to name a few. I know all of these can be overcome by not sucking at the game, but they ruin this unskilled customer's fun, so I hate them for it.

Oh, and the whole DLC thing. If their games weren't so good to start with, I'd stop being suckered into buying overpriced expansions for them.
Seriously, 800 Microsoft points for two MvC3 characters? Jill and Shuma-Gorath aren't even that fun to play as!

 

[Vibhor]

This is an easy one.

Bethesda, for sure. I think they've made mostly shit since Morrowind but I'd be hard pressed not to admit that their world building skills are pretty impressive. Most other companies could take a page from their book in that regard.

Its more like their writing skills have taken a shit.
Morrowind had excellent story and characterization but the gameplay just wasn't enough. Then came Oblivion which partially destroyed the writing aspect of the company but they made the game fun and all the quests worth every dime. That's when they drifted to providing more fun than good dialogue and started using cliches even more. Thats the reason I hate fallout 3, its not because its different but because almost everything that defined fallout universe was dumped. I cried when I saw that much potential being dumped in the garbage.

 

[Funk Engine]

Has nobody said Valve yet?

Don't get me wrong, I love Valve. I love pretty much every game they've ever made. However, there's one thing about them I hate: WHERE. IS. EPISODE. 3?

 

[LadyMint]

EA Games. They make games that I really love to play, but far too often I wonder if they're even listening to their customer base. And some of those games are released with ridiculous bugs that are never dealt with by a future patch.

Blizzard. They do have a habit of treating story and game lore like it can all be shaken in a bag and dumped out.

 

[Akihiko]

Bioware for me. I used to love them, infact I've been replaying Jade Empire yesterday/today and I love it, it's great. But ever since Mass Effect came out, and the insane popularity that brought, they've just been spiraling down a path I don't like. I'm glad that Dragon Age 2 got the backlash it did, they needed kicking off that high horse of theirs. I mean last year they were bitching about *Blah blah FF isn't an rpg* and then later moaning that *Blah blah mmorpgs have no story, tor will be the only one to have a story*. Seriously? I don't care if you think that, but keep it to yourself. You just come off as a pretentious ass. Instead of bitching about other games, why not prove your games are better by, I dunno, using that time to make the said games amazing? Ofcourse I still like their games, but they really do need to get rid of that attitude.

 

[Pearwood]

Actually I was thinking mostly of World of Warcraft and related materials. Can't comment much on their other franchises as I don't know them just as well as I know Warcraft as I don't read much of their secondary materials.

Ah then yeah but from what I've seen of Cataclysm it's improving that. The background novels are quite well written too with some exceptions.

 

[Rotting Corpse]

Valve, for putting out some truly great games, but having virtually no customer support and never communicating with their customers.

 

[Pearwood]

Valve, for putting out some truly great games, but having virtually no customer support and never communicating with their customers.

Huh this is another one where I agree with the company but not the reason why... they have pretty good customer support and TF2 is probably the most regularly updated MMOFPS I can think of. They just take the console war too seriously.

 

[Pearwood]

Cataclysm brought more than it's fair share of wallbangers sadly and insofar as the novels go, if you avoid Knaak, you'll usually have a good time.

Yeah but they're moving it in the right direction at least. I don't have much experience with the novels but I remember reading one about Thrall's backstory and a comic (might have been a manga, can't remember) about the Sunwell and had fun with them.

 

[Wieke]

Valve, thank you for L4D, L4D2, Portal, Portal2 but where the hell is my EP3?!?!

 

[Funk Engine]

Has nobody said Valve yet?

Don't get me wrong, I love Valve. I love pretty much every game they've ever made. However, there's one thing about them I hate: WHERE. IS. EPISODE. 3?

Patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet. If you hadn't noticed yet, the time Valve takes to develop a game is directly proportional to the resulting quality of the game.
I'd let Valve take their time as long as Episode 3 comes out as a masterpiece.

I completely agree, and I'm completely fine with waiting as long as it takes, but you must admit the wait is getting trying. I begrudge Valve nothing and I'm sure Episode 3, or Half-Life 3 if that's what it ends up being, will be worth ever second of waiting, but it would be nice to see it sooner rather than later if possible.

 

[Mr. GameBrain]

Like many here it has to be Square Enix for me.

Its like they've lost all their passion and common sense.

In my eyes Lost Odyssey was more of a Final Fantasy XIII then the actual XIII was!!

Its all gone downhill since Final Fantasy 10 was released, (the last good main Final Fantasy game in my opinion!).

Its such a shame, because there have been quite a few diamonds with all the extra rough they have been releasing lately.

The World Ends With You was a fantastic game!

But for every good game they make, there's about 3 or 4 bad ones!

For their own sakes they need to throw out all the stuff they have been doing lately, and go back to those old classics, analyse them, and actually PLAY them.
They have no excuses on that front considering all the ports they have done!

If they can pick apart what mades those games good, and EXPAND on them, (rather than just copy it!), then the quality should improve!

 

[SoranMBane]

Visceral. One one hand there's Dead Space 2, but on the other there's Dante's Inferno, Dante's Inferno's ad campaign, and Dead Space 2's ad campaign...

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Love
Obsidian. As anyone can tell from my avatar, I enjoyed Neverwinter Nights 2 a great deal. Sure, their games are buggy, but there is a great satisfaction of ?breaking? their games. Making a Paladin that can breathe fire is dang awesome.

Spoiler

Getting to kill a God, and then becoming the thing that most games would have you fight against is very fun. Needs work on their endings though. Rocks fall, everyone dies.

Game Freak. I put a LOT of time into pokemon, about 475 hours or so from Gen I to V. Fun games.
Bioware: Good stories, fun gameplay. Not much to be said that already wasn?t.
Lionhead: I really like Fable II and Fable III. They were solid games, if a bit tedious at times.



Dislike
Square: I feel cheated on FFXIII. I am not a fan of the series, I will admit, but the game was just so boring. I couldn?t play through it any more.

 

[cgentero]

Ubisoft and Capcom make some of my favorite series and then they both manage find a way to fuck them up.

 

[binvjoh]

Obsidian.

Alpha Protocol and New Vegas are great games, if only they could understand the importance of quality control.

 

[BRex21]

Valve, love the half life serise, hate the time they are taking with episode 3.
Like the acessability of Steam, hate its rediculous internet connection demands, and mandatory-ness.
All in all they force me to chose between playing their excellent library with the hassles of the DRM or ignoring it in favor of something less troublesome.

 

[Saelune]

Bioware. I love their games, but I dont like how they are making tensions worse between console and PC gamers (its just stupid).

 

[Lord Beautiful]

I used to love Capcom. They gave me Devil May Cry and Street Fighter, among others. Then they started to drop the ball on their product quality, and place greater emphasis on westernizing their franchises, even the ones that were western enough to start with. Argh.