All that proves is that more people liked the Witcher 2 than Dragon Age 2. That doesn't prove that one game is better than the other.uanime5 said:
Jimquisition: Joy Begets Anger
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
- Start date
Oh no, I haven't even played Dragon Age 2 and I've only beaten the Kracken in the Witcher. And I wasn't claiming that Dragon Age was better than the Witcher, I was trying to say that if someone was to claim that one was better than the other, it'd be their opinion and nothing more.Bors Mistral said:
I disagreed with a Jimquisition once, and then I watched it and learned how I was wrong. I disagreed with a review by Jim Sterling once, and that's OK; I can decide for myself what games I like and what games I don't. Thank god for Jim.
On a more serious note, how are there no TGFJ armband/wristbands in the Escapist store?
On a more serious note, how are there no TGFJ armband/wristbands in the Escapist store?
Sorry to break up the circle jerk, but it's time for the cold tyranny of economics to step in. Each year/dev cycle there's only so much money that will go into game development. How this limited resource is divvied up, ultimately controls the content available to us, the consumers. How publishers choose where to put their money is based on what sold well previously, and then looking at all the current project pitches and picking the most similar ones. So every time someone buys a crappy game, they are encouraging the publisher to make another crappy game. They are condoning it's flaws. Likewise, every time a reviewer gives a high rating to a terrible game, they are encouraging people to buy it, as well as concealing it's flaws.
Lazy sidequests; there are a very small handful of side missions that aren't eavesdrop, scan, return, repeat, and the ones that aren't are recycled multiplayer maps. of which there are about six or seven. Compared to the reams of side stuff you could do in the other games.xNicolex said:
Auto dialogue; the amount of dialogue spoken by Shepard, compared to the amount of input displayed in the last games, is unacceptable. It makes subsequent play throughs boring.
Linearity; ME3 is linear as shit. There's very little deviation from the critical path, you will complete the levels in the order the developers intended, there is no saving one mission for later, or doing one before the others. Compare this to ME's 1&2, where you could take missions in any order you chose (remember that, choice? What the series was based around?). Not to mention how all your choices mean very little at the end; Spare the rachni queen? Doesn't matter. Keep or sell Legion? Doesn't matter. Tali exiled? Doesn't matter. Collector Base? Take a fuckin' guess. If you track the choice progression over the course of the series, it resembles two forks who've been welded together at the tips of the tines. People are quite justifiable angry that the series ultimately became a Morton's Fork.
The Ending; seeing as how the game's hype was based around "seeing how it all ends", the fact it ended on a travesty of writing is deplorable. It's rushed in the sense that it was hacked together in about a week or so before the end of crunch time, by two people who locked out the rest of the team (at least according to various sources), and ended up being about the same in all permutations, save for color. This ending was in direct contradiction to what Bioware said before hand after the game had gone gold.
So no, I don't think fans being angry over being lied to and spat on is pathetic.
Sweeping generalizations are the bread and butter of games journalism.Deadcyde said:
And I'm frikkin' sick of it. I mean, god forbid games journalists come off their ivory towers and engage the masses without lording over them.
I have the sneaking suspicion that the real problem lies with the journos themselves.
Two elements:
1) There can be a lot of hate with that positivity. I've seen more that my fair share of "If you don't like [game] then you're a [childish insult]" topics in my time, and they're just as hateful, and full of arrogance and pretentiousness. AT worst, it comes from people that can't justify why we should share their like, if they can justify their like at all, but still expect us to share it. ME3 leads the examples as for all the people hating on the haters, I saw very few actauly explain why they liked the ending, and no one explain to me why I should share the viewpoint. Call me childish and walk away because you're a better person just by being more positive and not angry at trivial things.
2) Some of this is a backlash to this attempt to try and have review content limited to "did you like it" rather than "how good is it". These are mutually exclusive concepts. I can like something and still acknowledge that it has flaws. I liked Dragon Age 2, but you'd have to be blind not to see where the corners were cut. When this filters into reviews and awards you get problems as in your fanboyism, you've played favorites and ignored flaws or stagnation due to your more positive buttons being pushed. For example: one commentator I watch said that shouldn't Bioshock Infinite lose at least a half point for not being able to save at will. Others have commented on it being at best a clone of the last two ina new seeting, and at worst, as rather poor shooter. But people love the narative hook, so 10/10, and forget the rest of the package. Gone home has the same problem. Love the story all you want, but it didn't seem to be groundbreaking in terms of gameplay. Zelda ALBW: I love the thing, but aside being way too easy I see some nostalgia blinders on. Hell, the new Pokemon game is winning RPG of the year by people. I know it's been a slow RPG year, but I really want some qualfication behind that.
We're all free to love what we love, but when you're a reviewer, you have to justify your love (or hate) to the audience. Or at least admit that your praise may be coming from it doing one or two things right in a sea of potential flaws or stagnations. People still look to reviews and awards to decide what to buy, and we aren't wlays privy to enough knowledge of a reviewer''s tastes to know if that 10/10 is based on the whole package, you just it hitting that one sweet spot just right.
1) There can be a lot of hate with that positivity. I've seen more that my fair share of "If you don't like [game] then you're a [childish insult]" topics in my time, and they're just as hateful, and full of arrogance and pretentiousness. AT worst, it comes from people that can't justify why we should share their like, if they can justify their like at all, but still expect us to share it. ME3 leads the examples as for all the people hating on the haters, I saw very few actauly explain why they liked the ending, and no one explain to me why I should share the viewpoint. Call me childish and walk away because you're a better person just by being more positive and not angry at trivial things.
2) Some of this is a backlash to this attempt to try and have review content limited to "did you like it" rather than "how good is it". These are mutually exclusive concepts. I can like something and still acknowledge that it has flaws. I liked Dragon Age 2, but you'd have to be blind not to see where the corners were cut. When this filters into reviews and awards you get problems as in your fanboyism, you've played favorites and ignored flaws or stagnation due to your more positive buttons being pushed. For example: one commentator I watch said that shouldn't Bioshock Infinite lose at least a half point for not being able to save at will. Others have commented on it being at best a clone of the last two ina new seeting, and at worst, as rather poor shooter. But people love the narative hook, so 10/10, and forget the rest of the package. Gone home has the same problem. Love the story all you want, but it didn't seem to be groundbreaking in terms of gameplay. Zelda ALBW: I love the thing, but aside being way too easy I see some nostalgia blinders on. Hell, the new Pokemon game is winning RPG of the year by people. I know it's been a slow RPG year, but I really want some qualfication behind that.
We're all free to love what we love, but when you're a reviewer, you have to justify your love (or hate) to the audience. Or at least admit that your praise may be coming from it doing one or two things right in a sea of potential flaws or stagnations. People still look to reviews and awards to decide what to buy, and we aren't wlays privy to enough knowledge of a reviewer''s tastes to know if that 10/10 is based on the whole package, you just it hitting that one sweet spot just right.
I found Mass Effect 3 to be very poorly written, it focused way to much on masculine romantic notions of death and war, they threw in horrible Jesus Christ symbolism, they broke the RP element of Commander Shepard, and it was arguably one of the most sexist games I've ever played. I can't help but notice many of the people who really love Mass Effect 3, tend to be of the white, straight male demographic.
It really gets on my nerves when I follow game critics I generally respect, who will jump on the band wagon to point out feminist issues, then turn around and are completely oblivious to bullshit going on in games they love and praise. Such as in Mass Effect 3.
Sorry. It's a little hard for me to get over people liking Mass Effect 3 when I see all these offensive problems, all these typical video game things stuffed in there to target the straight, white male demographic. The game that ended a series that invited me in by pretending for a while it cared for a wider audience.
It really gets on my nerves when I follow game critics I generally respect, who will jump on the band wagon to point out feminist issues, then turn around and are completely oblivious to bullshit going on in games they love and praise. Such as in Mass Effect 3.
Sorry. It's a little hard for me to get over people liking Mass Effect 3 when I see all these offensive problems, all these typical video game things stuffed in there to target the straight, white male demographic. The game that ended a series that invited me in by pretending for a while it cared for a wider audience.
That's 2 videos in 30 days where you've royally fucked up, Jim.
Allow me to enlighten you on this one - People hate you for liking that new DmC "thing" because it is such an unmitigated pleased-with-itself fuck-you to the fans of the Devil May Cry series. It is effectively a prequel or a side-prequel (or some shit like that, it seems the writers couldn't fucking decide) that literally destroyed the foundations of the series. We already GOT a prequel, it's DMC3, where everything was laid out adequately, and no more prequels would be and never will be necessary. The equivalent to this would be making another prequel to Metal Gear Solid 3 (see a pattern?) where Big Boss turns out to be an alcoholic drug abuser and The Boss is a complete wimp who didn't earn her medals during the Normandy Landings.
For its possibly interesting level designs, that "new" Dante literally looks like the executive producer behind the game [http://static3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130714014107/devilmaycry/images/0/08/Dante_Tameem_Comparision_DmC.jpg]. Said wanker also had the nerve - the fucking nerve - to tell us haters the following fabrication [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112373-Ninja-Theory-Devil-May-Cry-Skeptics-Secretly-Want-to-Like-It]. You do NOT tell your detractors "they aren't being honest with themselves" when you're blatantly self-inserting into a series loved by many. That is grade-A dick-waving and selfishness beyond everything else imaginable. There is no way in Hell you can love something that literally exists only to destroy its parent franchise. To re-use your analogy from your old video here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ1qXJD76wg], DmC is the down-syndrome baby amidst what is respectively an aged but still respectable (and for me a very nostalgic) asskicker, a big old piece of shit, a young and hip asskicker that matured later, and then a Metal Gear Solid 2 retread without the mindscrew and retarded fan demand.
Next, I thought you were done with Mass Effect 3's ending, but it seems you still don't get why everyone hates it so much, so I'm forced to spell it out for you - Bioware PROMISED us kickass conclusions based on our playthroughs, as was always the case in 1 and 2, and they FUCKED UP so bad that they ended up committing textbook false advertisement that frankly borders on outright fraud. The major reason being that the ending (singular, that's not a typo) was not peer reviewed. So we gave Bioware shit for it, and guess what we got? ANOTHER fuck-you in the form of the "extended cut" DLC that fixed fuck-all. All it did was DRAG OUT the long turd that was already a shit ending. Bioware and Ninja Theory deserve every last bit of hate they get until they publicly apologize for eviscerating these two series and either go bankrupt (in Ninja Theory's case) or remake the game completely (in Bioware's case).
I don't want to hate on you, Jim, you bring a lot of good points to the table with your furious ranting, but like so many before and after you, you too have your weak points and they just so happen to be on the very topics you like to discuss. I dearly hope you'll stop being a hypocrite now on gender issues and the current anti-love/anti-hate bullshit issues.
Allow me to enlighten you on this one - People hate you for liking that new DmC "thing" because it is such an unmitigated pleased-with-itself fuck-you to the fans of the Devil May Cry series. It is effectively a prequel or a side-prequel (or some shit like that, it seems the writers couldn't fucking decide) that literally destroyed the foundations of the series. We already GOT a prequel, it's DMC3, where everything was laid out adequately, and no more prequels would be and never will be necessary. The equivalent to this would be making another prequel to Metal Gear Solid 3 (see a pattern?) where Big Boss turns out to be an alcoholic drug abuser and The Boss is a complete wimp who didn't earn her medals during the Normandy Landings.
For its possibly interesting level designs, that "new" Dante literally looks like the executive producer behind the game [http://static3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130714014107/devilmaycry/images/0/08/Dante_Tameem_Comparision_DmC.jpg]. Said wanker also had the nerve - the fucking nerve - to tell us haters the following fabrication [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112373-Ninja-Theory-Devil-May-Cry-Skeptics-Secretly-Want-to-Like-It]. You do NOT tell your detractors "they aren't being honest with themselves" when you're blatantly self-inserting into a series loved by many. That is grade-A dick-waving and selfishness beyond everything else imaginable. There is no way in Hell you can love something that literally exists only to destroy its parent franchise. To re-use your analogy from your old video here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ1qXJD76wg], DmC is the down-syndrome baby amidst what is respectively an aged but still respectable (and for me a very nostalgic) asskicker, a big old piece of shit, a young and hip asskicker that matured later, and then a Metal Gear Solid 2 retread without the mindscrew and retarded fan demand.
Next, I thought you were done with Mass Effect 3's ending, but it seems you still don't get why everyone hates it so much, so I'm forced to spell it out for you - Bioware PROMISED us kickass conclusions based on our playthroughs, as was always the case in 1 and 2, and they FUCKED UP so bad that they ended up committing textbook false advertisement that frankly borders on outright fraud. The major reason being that the ending (singular, that's not a typo) was not peer reviewed. So we gave Bioware shit for it, and guess what we got? ANOTHER fuck-you in the form of the "extended cut" DLC that fixed fuck-all. All it did was DRAG OUT the long turd that was already a shit ending. Bioware and Ninja Theory deserve every last bit of hate they get until they publicly apologize for eviscerating these two series and either go bankrupt (in Ninja Theory's case) or remake the game completely (in Bioware's case).
I don't want to hate on you, Jim, you bring a lot of good points to the table with your furious ranting, but like so many before and after you, you too have your weak points and they just so happen to be on the very topics you like to discuss. I dearly hope you'll stop being a hypocrite now on gender issues and the current anti-love/anti-hate bullshit issues.
I don't have a problem with someone liking a game I didn't or disliking something I did, but I have a huge problem when professional reviewers give something top marks JUST because they liked it. I'm sorry but Tito had no right to give DA2 5/5. Objectively there were bugs, lazy level design, poor character modeling, and massive amounts of cannon inconsistencies. If he had acknowledged these flaws in the review score and then added that he still really liked the game this would be a non-issue. Also, nothing ever deserves 100% because nothing is perfect.
Closer to the point I only become agitated when the person speaking seems to have not played the game. Please people, if you don't know what the hell you are talking about please stop trying to talk about it. The number of times I've seen, "I haven't played it, but I hear that..." is too damn high.
Closer to the point I only become agitated when the person speaking seems to have not played the game. Please people, if you don't know what the hell you are talking about please stop trying to talk about it. The number of times I've seen, "I haven't played it, but I hear that..." is too damn high.
last moment of the vid reminded me of a CreepyPasta I once read... be careful.... "figures" are usually spiritual in a bad way... good vid by the way!~ (don't know if I'm going to get backlashes for saying that)
Dragon Age 2 really was a top tier game. And mass Effect 3 was perfect until the last 20 minutes. 20 minutes which were later salvaged and fixed in a free update a short time later. Haters hate, nothing more to be said.
The fact that it's also coming from Jim's peers is the worst part of it.Imp Emissary said:
You don't get around the net much, do you? I don't really visit any gaming sites other than the Escapist, but even I can tell you that yes this is indeed a thing.Vaccine said:
EDIT: OOPS Quoted wrong person. Ignore this Vaccine.
I honestly don't think people don't like certain picks for GOTY or reviews giving positive reviews because it feels like a a coop out. For example, they pick the game that is either the most popular (ie claiming AC3 was the best narrative of the year because their were no other choices), or they pick the game that a company paid they to pick. It's not always justified, and probably it's rarely justified, but at times it feels like the reviews and the best games awards are paid ad space for certain games that may or may not over shadow genuinely great titles that had little marketing to begin with.
Now kids, we're going to explain the difference between subjective and objective.
tl;dr: Reviews of every media are subjective, because the objectively measurable parts are the boring as shit parts no one cares about in a game/book/movie/TV show.
See kids, phrases such as "most impressive", "still holds excellent", and "looks like" are subjective in nature. That's because things that are objective in nature are verifiable and measurable. For instance, "TW2 had among the highest polygon count when it was released" is a measurable statement and therefore is objective. Can you measure impressiveness? I think not.Bors Mistral said:
Uh oh. There's those phrases again. Just how do we measure "beautiful" and "interesting"? And how are we determining "well designed environments"? Is Pac Man a "well designed environment"? We talked about Mr. "Look like" before too. But hope's not lost kids. "Recycled dungeons" IS something that can be measured. Are all of the dungeons the exact same layout and style? Do the characters exhibit duplicate behavior? Two objective sentences out of four is on the right track, kids!
Only some? Haha, nice try, poster. And you were doing so well in the last one, but it looks like we've regressed again back to subjective territory. What gives the musical score and effects the edge? What measurable system are we using?
Well the poster is certainly becoming more self aware now, kids. He's recognized objective differences that can be observed (can you just "mim-max" your character, whatever that means, and win consistently without planning?), and he's recognized that ranking these differences is a matter of opinion. Good job poster!
Looks like the poster let us down again kids. Why is it a disgrace by measurable means? How does the UI work better through measurable means? And for that matter, what work of art are we talking about here? Some people have created works of art using human feces. I sure hope that's not what the Witcher 2 UI looks like.
Hooray! We've recognized a subjective sentence again. After all, there's not many avenues that TW2 could depict a "dark, mature setting" in an objectively better manner than Dragon Age 2.
Well, kids, looks like the lessons are finally starting to take. That's 3 correctly labeled subjective statements in a row! Just remember, objective needs a unified way of measuring, not just side by side comparison. Turns out this reviewing stuff isn't as objective as people think it should be! So long, boys and girls!
tl;dr: Reviews of every media are subjective, because the objectively measurable parts are the boring as shit parts no one cares about in a game/book/movie/TV show.
Eerrrr no the more people mindlessly enjoy crap the more crap we get. So I am with the haters on this. And it?s not just games all media is made less by the unwashed masses enjoying poor quality crap. If the average of media was not BS and chips I would have little to complain about.
DMC Dante is stupid BUT half of the theme and the gameplay shine threw, tho it feels like the shortest one yet. Dragon Age 2 is unplayable on the PC(they never should have gotten rid of party control and dumbing everything down to a button masher did not help?shit they could have at least left the full Gdamn mod tools in it so it could be fixed?..) and it?s not that well written but then neither was the first one. Mass Effect was a fun ride but it?s a huge let down to boot. The Witcher 2 was not all that hell the Witcher itself has issues.
Opinions aside no not everything sucks even though I complain that everything sucks, in my tiny world I view things based on what could be done rather than whatever sperm and poo ridden BS we get.
I hope things come out good I try hard to hope most things come out good but most of the time they come out average or worse. It?s getting to the point if it cannot be altered with a mod, code breaker/action replay or trainer it?s not worth my time to fool with the unbalanced train wreck before me. Games these days are so easy or annoyingly stupid in mechanic design I?ve had it with throwing my money away. The real crime is not allowing people to use a code breaker or action replay to customize games anymore. I don?t care about trophies or online stats, I want to have fun not be forced to sit through someone?s bad theatrical play or annoyingly dumb mechanics.
What we really need is more fine tuning options that lets us rebalance a game to our tastes(set XP/Gold drop rate, set location damage amount or make it so it?s easier to kill the player but harder to kill enemies only location damage is amped and headshots kill a target instantly, least if they are human, or turn off certain annoying mechanic stuff and such ). Give us more options to tweak a game with, who cares if tis unbalanced or ?cheating? if you are such a stickler for playing the real thing then don?t use the menu options. LOL
On a side note I had some fun playing with the scripts to Wolfenstine I up?d the hit points to the weak points on the big armored guys to 100 and you have to destroy 2 or 3 of them, those were epic fights! I?ve not done much to Fallout 3 and NV other than making comical weapons I don?t really use(tho I made a slew of ammo types for all the base ammo) I up?d the potency on the drugs and tripled their addiction rates and attribute reductions. Other than that there?s no easy way to redo Damage threshold in NV as so melee is not so over powered I got tired of single hits from death claws killing me so I up?d the DT on the armor I am wearing(old world blues stealth suit with power armor stats for the heck of it) still had to raise the DT as so now it takes 3 hits from a death claw to kill me LOL.
More rambling, your still here? Dear god! Aherm?? Anyway they could implement an action reply system for today?s consoles only it works based off codes that are gathered from the server, new codes go through the server all online stat taking and trophies and such is disabled. So all the codes have to be cleared first hell they can even sell code packs to games. I would not mind spending 50$ for the disc and 10$ a month for such a service as long as I get access to all the codes they have but alas there I go thinking on what can be done rather than being satisfied with what we have??..
DMC Dante is stupid BUT half of the theme and the gameplay shine threw, tho it feels like the shortest one yet. Dragon Age 2 is unplayable on the PC(they never should have gotten rid of party control and dumbing everything down to a button masher did not help?shit they could have at least left the full Gdamn mod tools in it so it could be fixed?..) and it?s not that well written but then neither was the first one. Mass Effect was a fun ride but it?s a huge let down to boot. The Witcher 2 was not all that hell the Witcher itself has issues.
Opinions aside no not everything sucks even though I complain that everything sucks, in my tiny world I view things based on what could be done rather than whatever sperm and poo ridden BS we get.
I hope things come out good I try hard to hope most things come out good but most of the time they come out average or worse. It?s getting to the point if it cannot be altered with a mod, code breaker/action replay or trainer it?s not worth my time to fool with the unbalanced train wreck before me. Games these days are so easy or annoyingly stupid in mechanic design I?ve had it with throwing my money away. The real crime is not allowing people to use a code breaker or action replay to customize games anymore. I don?t care about trophies or online stats, I want to have fun not be forced to sit through someone?s bad theatrical play or annoyingly dumb mechanics.
What we really need is more fine tuning options that lets us rebalance a game to our tastes(set XP/Gold drop rate, set location damage amount or make it so it?s easier to kill the player but harder to kill enemies only location damage is amped and headshots kill a target instantly, least if they are human, or turn off certain annoying mechanic stuff and such ). Give us more options to tweak a game with, who cares if tis unbalanced or ?cheating? if you are such a stickler for playing the real thing then don?t use the menu options. LOL
On a side note I had some fun playing with the scripts to Wolfenstine I up?d the hit points to the weak points on the big armored guys to 100 and you have to destroy 2 or 3 of them, those were epic fights! I?ve not done much to Fallout 3 and NV other than making comical weapons I don?t really use(tho I made a slew of ammo types for all the base ammo) I up?d the potency on the drugs and tripled their addiction rates and attribute reductions. Other than that there?s no easy way to redo Damage threshold in NV as so melee is not so over powered I got tired of single hits from death claws killing me so I up?d the DT on the armor I am wearing(old world blues stealth suit with power armor stats for the heck of it) still had to raise the DT as so now it takes 3 hits from a death claw to kill me LOL.
More rambling, your still here? Dear god! Aherm?? Anyway they could implement an action reply system for today?s consoles only it works based off codes that are gathered from the server, new codes go through the server all online stat taking and trophies and such is disabled. So all the codes have to be cleared first hell they can even sell code packs to games. I would not mind spending 50$ for the disc and 10$ a month for such a service as long as I get access to all the codes they have but alas there I go thinking on what can be done rather than being satisfied with what we have??..