Lords of Shadow 2 Studio Boss: "One Must Be Blind or Stupid" to Give It a 4/10

ExtraDebit

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I've played and beaten the game, it's not a bad game but definitely not a good one. The only remotely fun part of the game is the combat but it's been done before and done better in devil may cry games. Everything else is boring and a chore instead of fun.

I only put up with it because I wanted to finish what I started, the voice acting was pretty good though.
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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so basically this can be titled "idiot hack throws a hissy fit because people have called him out on being a hack." Seriously, how fitting that the guy banging on about professionalism is engaging in what can be described as unprofessional behavior. Seriously, if you don't want bad reviews, don't make a bad game. And if you can't take criticism you probably shouldn't be in the gaming industry in the first place.
 

Baresark

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I don't think this game deserves a score so low. I am almost done with it (DAMN YOU RESPONSIBILITIES!) and at this point I would give it a 7/10. I think they made a couple of design decisions that were bad. The weird part is, I can't even really complain about the stealth sections. Why you ask? Because they can mostly be beaten in less than 5 minutes. That is such a tiny part of the game that it bears hardly any mentioning at all. The thing that has made the game worse for me is actually the free camera and the open world design. The first one gets a 9/10 from me. I thought the locked camera would be annoying but I soon learned to really like it. I don't think it's worth having a free camera in a combat heavy game without a lock on. I get attacked by surprise so many times from the back that it's just annoying. Though I do feel the combat is still very very good. But the open world design is bad, IMO, because back tracking to find items is not happening. I don't want to run through those areas again. It's as simple as that. Those two things bring my score down a bit, but it's still a good game.

OT: I think that it is a bad move to say bad things about the games press who often are blind and stupid (I'm not a developer, they can't affect my life at all). I also think it's a bad move to concentrate on the EDGE review. He says he generally feels positive... then concentrate on the positive reviews. He shouldn't even care though. The Edge and IGN reviews are atrociously written crap that literally tell you nothing about the game. They don't justify what they say by expanding on any of the bad stuff, they are just like, "I didn't like this" or, "it feels clunky". Thanks guys for the awesome descriptive review you gave. Idiots. It's a sad day when you can go to the Steam forums in order to get a better written review.

Note: I bolded the part I did because it seems like everyone is far more offended by the stealth sections than they should be. They aren't good, I'm not saying they are. But you spend less than 45 minutes of the whole game on them, and you are probably looking at 17-20 hours of game. More if you want go and get all the collectibles.
 

shrekfan246

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May 26, 2011
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Caiphus said:
Considering that the user score on metacritic for LoS2 is almost identical to the user score for LoS, he may be justified in feeling a bit aggrieved.
Metacritic users aren't really any better standard of measurement than Metacritic itself, depending on how you view an aggregate website at least.

Mostly because the users aren't beholden to any form of "professionalism" in the first place, so they can say or do anything with no regards to the pros or cons of what they're bombing or inflating.

As far as Lords of Shadow 2 is concerned, I haven't played it myself either and I don't really plan to, but from what I've seen of it it's far less interesting than the first one despite being more polished, and that mostly comes down to the fact that they spend far too much effort on the "modern-day" segments of the game, which have little in the way of interesting environments or plot elements. I wouldn't presume to speak for the people posting in the user section of Metacritic, but I imagine most of them were probably fans of Lords of Shadow, and a general consensus I've seen among reviewers and critics is that fans of the first are liable to enjoy the second, but it will hold little for everyone else.
 

Roxas1359

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Aug 8, 2009
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Caiphus said:
Considering that the user score on metacritic for LoS2 is almost identical to the user score for LoS, he may be justified in feeling a bit aggrieved.
I wouldn't fully go on user score alone when it comes to Metacritic. Many times has the User Review section on the site and the User Score been bombed by many people who either didn't like the game or want to troll.

OT: While I've not played LoS2, nor to I really want to after not liking LoS1, I will say that I honestly hate scores in reviews because nowadays it's either you are 85+ or else it is a bad game. Really though I don't use reviews too often to make my decisions for me and tend to at least see some sort of gameplay, a quick episode of a walkthrough, or reviews that tend to not use scores that often (see Somecallmejohnny).
 

suitepee7

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Dec 6, 2010
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4/10 means it is slightly below average, but considering most people consider 7 to be the middle (because reasons) i can see why he's upset. i would consider 1 point below average to be a mediocre experience, but with a few issues that genuinely annoy me, but three points below average would indicate it is shite, with loads of bugs that make it barely playable. the only redeeming features being perhaps functional combat and puzzles that mostly do what they're meant to.

that being said, you cannot tell people how to review games. you may disagree, but they are entitled to have an opinion and make it known. the arrogance of calling people blind or stupid is astounding, and makes him come across as a colossal douche.
 

KoudelkaMorgan

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I've been watching tetra Ninja LP it and so far I'm hating roughly half of the game I've seen.

Pro: I like how there seems to be one interconnected world instead of MANY little levels lasting a few minutes in the previous game. Though...

Con: I Absolutely hate the plot of the series, the bits in the future especially, because I have already played Blood Omen 2.

- Powerful vampire lord takes a nap for a couple centuries and wakes up near powerless in a futuristic setting with demonic plots. Check. At least with Kain we know he was beaten by the Hylden lord. I think it was implied that Alucard kicked his ass after he nuked his castle with the holy H-bomb of Antioch.

Pro: Opening is pretty damn awesome. You aren't even 5 minutes into the game and you are fighting the Paladin and climbing the Christ Colossus.

Con: Immediately afterward you are treated to essentially the ending of the first game (which I hated/not entirely sure WHY Gabriel became a vampire though I skipped the DLC. If I needed to fork out more $ to see why the ending makes sense, then fuck them.) AND AN ENTIRE RECAP of the plot of Mirror of Fate which I also saw a LP of and am glad I didn't waste my money on it either. The demo was more than enough to tell me it wasn't for me/the plot was EXACTLY how I guessed it would be. The plot summary takes like 5 minutes and happens right after...well we don't really know what happened after the bomb went off. And in the future, after it was revealed that Dracula is basically hiding out in downtown...somewhere, we see him wake up looking like Kain (I thought it was Alucard due to the blue pants and white hair) wtf happened there?

He apparently got visited by Zobek, fell out a window came inside and slept till he was almost dead. Where is THAT 5 min explanation of the plot?

Pro: The Gorgon boss

Con: The demon chick.

Pro: The castle, and the creepy blood.

Con: Everything else in the future. The stealth gameplay, when you end up just tossing bats at the guards and possessing them. The awesome...rat transformation... -_-

Pro: The sword and gauntlets....

Con: they pretty much replace the magic system I hated in the first game instead of offering you an actual choice of preferred weapons. Basically you use one for limited life steal, to freeze things and the other to break shields and blow things up. Use of either relies entirely on NOT using them, and NOT getting hit practically ever. That is fine in DMC where your progress is not directly tied to racking up high combos and being untouched at all times. In LoS I found that even doing well I never got to use magic as much as they seemed to plan around me being able to.

Pro: The music and voice work

Con: The dialog and plot

Pro: The character models

Con: The level design. 90% of it consists of Prince of Persia climbing connected by open areas where you gets to fight a few enemies. Seriously its like Darksiders and Blood Omen 2 had a baby with regards to level design.

Now I've only seen probably (I hope) less than half the game. I know that some of the levels in LoS 1 got really crazy like the one where you shrink and go into a death trap box, or put Satan in a choke hold so it might take a turn I'm not expecting.

I doubt it will be able to overcome my most glaring problem with the game however. That its a Castlevania game, where you are DRACULA. You are forced to murder a family of 3, in first person no less, just because of the previously seeminly pulled out of their ass plot point of you waking up slightly later into the future than the last game's ending all emaciated.

Who was the genius that thought the best way to appeal to Castlevania fans would be to not let them play as some badass vampire hunter for good and god or whatever? No instead lets have them play as the guy they have spent like 20+ years trying to stop, and make them kill a little girl because hey why not? Maybe people like their Castlevania games to be Castlevania games and their Legacy of Kain games to be...Soul Reaver.

Or maybe its just me ._.
 

Exterminas

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He has got a point. With the current scoring systems, nobody has any idea what that score is supposed to mean.
Simple math would suggest that a score of 5/10 would be an average game, but that be equally stupid as assuming that you get a C in school if you manage to score 50% correct answers.

Scoring without any frame of reference that is uniform to everyone is a horrible idea, since it provides people with the illusion of objectivity. ~ "Uuuh, they have numbers! They have GOT to be objective, because of numbers!"
 

Atary77

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Feb 27, 2008
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I played it from start to finish and I have to say as a fan of the first game, I was moderately disappointed by this game. After I completed the story I was dumb founded by how abrupt and ambiguous the ending was. It just felt as if the writers didn't know where they wanted to go with this or how to conclude the story with all it's build up. Not to mention some of the gaping plot holes that are clearly seen.

The stealth sections are boring, uninspired, and have no place here. Sneaking around a heavily armored behemoth made sense the first time, but having to do so after I've conquered a boss creature 10 times their size? It's insulting. I may be playing as the Prince of Darkness, but I sure don't feel like it. Also, certain mechanics in the level design, like having to constantly pull the same lever to activate power to something (like a door or elevator) multiple times, because of a monster encounter that you couldn't avoid. This is something I have no tolerance for as it simply makes each area tedious and hampers the flow of the game as it happens constantly.

Ultimately the game fails to live up to it's predecessor, simply because the whole time I was playing it, I kept wishing it was more like the first game. That right there is the biggest reason I feel the game fails and why a score of 4 out of 10 feels fitting. I agree with Jim Sterling's assessment on the game.
 

Nachtmahr

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Feb 17, 2011
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It's nice to see a head of a studio actually defend his game, instead of grovel and apologize to the masses and agreeing that their own game sucks.

Having actually played the game myself, I have to agree that critics are idiots. The 'stealth' sections (feel more like puzzles really) are minutes long and took me no more than a single try each time. Combat feels tight, the story is no worse than in the first game and the boss fights are awesome. I have no idea why this game was judged so harshly. I've seen games with bigger issues get a higher score in the end.

I would give this a solid 8/10. It entertained me and I played it to the end, which I haven't done with a game in quite a while.
 

Atmos Duality

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What's wrong Mr. Alvarez?
Did the critics and public realize you made a completely bland, formulaic God of War clone and aren't blindly buying into it because it doesn't have the expected high scores?

If you should be angry at anyone, it's the marketing focus group you contracted to design your game, or yourself for thinking that you deserve better reception just because it was standard practice to artificially inflate scores for AAA productions (on ANY scale).

In fact, I see this mediocrity getting a middling score a good sign. LoS2 hasn't been hate-bombed by legions of angry metacritic users and the critical reception isn't nearly as inflated as normal. So for once, the critical feedback seems quite appropriate.

So stop your damn whining and either do better next time, or get the fuck out.
 

Karadalis

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Apr 26, 2011
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From what i have seen its a solid game with no bugs or game destroying glitches. 4/10 means to me that the game is barely playable, has huge issues and crashes every 10 minutes but still shows some potential.

Look 1-5 to me means how stable the game is.. everything above 5 is polish and gameplay/story and just plain ol fun.

LOS 2 is neither garbage nor unplayable so i can understand him being pissed at the low scores.

Maybe next time keep enough of the game budget back to dish out some bribes like the big publishers eh?
 

Something Amyss

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Dec 3, 2008
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I just love how it's becoming so common for game studios to insult critics.

Caiphus said:
Considering that the user score on metacritic for LoS2 is almost identical to the user score for LoS, he may be justified in feeling a bit aggrieved.
They're all haters. Or bribed. Or jelly. Mad jelly yo.
 

Sateru

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Jul 11, 2010
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Alex Co said:
Studio Boss: "One Must Be Blind or Stupid" to Give It a 4/10
I must disagree with that sort of logic that the LoS2 boss believes in. Just because something is pretty doesn't equal that it is worthy of a good score. A pretty piece of shit is still a piece of shit regardless of how nice it appears. Aesthetics is a point worth critiquing, but it's one of many points that should be evaluated and recognized. When a game cannot fulfill the needs of the gamer, it isn't really worth much. It's even more annoying that these companies feel they're entitled to a great score. A game is judged by it's own worth, so if it's given a shitty score by multiple critics then something is not working out. Although, gamers and critics don't always agree on the same thing. There are some games that are panned by critics, but loved completely by some gamers. The reverse can be true as well.
 

CelestDaer

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When you say in a review that textures or the engine are not the best, or that the gameplay is not up to it, you have to know it right
Gee, it's almost as if he's aware his game has problems, but won't admit to it.
 

Alpha Maeko

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Apr 14, 2010
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I disagree with a numbered scoring system in the first place.

An arbitrary number means nothing to the guy who loved the game and replayed it several times.

If numbers would work anywhere, I'd say they should be applied to specific game functions, like musical score and how smooth the gameplay mehanics are or perhaps how many glitches you run into.

Example:

Glitches? 2 out of 5, ran into too many bugs and problems.
Musical score? 4 out of 5, the music really seems to compliment the feel of the game and doesn't get in the way.
Gameplay Mechanics? 5 out of 5. For what they are, the mechanics work fluidly and are very responsive.

You get the idea, I think. But having an overall score? I dunno, it just doesn't seem to do most games justice.
 

Incomer

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Sep 15, 2009
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I mean come on the reviewers are pretty much shredding this game to pieces even though it's more then decent. Certain set pieces easily beat last installment (though the overall feeling is much better in the first one). If you can hammer through the first hour or 2 (which indeed is rather hefty commitement) then you are in for a treat.

You all have heard the complaints - "stealth"sections are bad (they are not very stealthy as they resemble odd puzzle with one solution more then anything else)

Modern setting is odd - count Stylish Cape doesn't really fit in the surroundings that are bland for most parts (sewer levels all around guys!) and all the parts in the castle just make you wish you could spend all your time there.

Combat - Im yet to discover the problem everyone seems to have with combat. There are some generally annoying foes who are just not fun to play against (unsurprisingly most of them are in the present... its really odd to beat rocket firing mechs into submission with a sword) but you have so many options (maybe too many, you will forget about some pieces of your arsenal and then wonder for ages how specifically are you supposed to deal with certain situations} that it never has to feel repetitive but then again if you leave something up to the player chances are they will make the worst of it and keep spamming the basic attacks or something.

ah well rant is over. Its fine game. Not better then the first one but 4/10 is really harsh.
 

Slegiar Dryke

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Baresark said:
I don't think this game deserves a score so low. I am almost done with it (DAMN YOU RESPONSIBILITIES!) and at this point I would give it a 7/10. I think they made a couple of design decisions that were bad. The weird part is, I can't even really complain about the stealth sections. Why you ask? Because they can mostly be beaten in less than 5 minutes. That is such a tiny part of the game that it bears hardly any mentioning at all. The thing that has made the game worse for me is actually the free camera and the open world design. The first one gets a 9/10 from me. I thought the locked camera would be annoying but I soon learned to really like it. I don't think it's worth having a free camera in a combat heavy game without a lock on. I get attacked by surprise so many times from the back that it's just annoying. Though I do feel the combat is still very very good. But the open world design is bad, IMO, because back tracking to find items is not happening. I don't want to run through those areas again. It's as simple as that. Those two things bring my score down a bit, but it's still a good game.
I agree with you on the part about the stealth sections. At first they seemed a bit jaring, but then I looked at it from the perspective of "You've been asleep for who knows how many years", and they really don't take that long too. Its odd though you should be frustrated by the open world and finding items later, because they included a mechanic specifically for that with the dodo bird eggs. In fact this is exactly like Curse of darkness on the PS2, in which later in the game you could return to areas with new abilities in a largely interconnected open world, and obtain them. so that was a feature I was quite happy to see return. only difference i believe is curse of darkness let you draw a note on your map for later, which would have been useful with a full map screen in this game. but ah well.

OT: I may be a bit biased, but I've beaten the game, and personally think its brilliant. I will admit there are some flaws, a few clipped corners with the mist form, some of the enemies get pretty op later on....but that being said, you play as a fracking VAMPIRE. compared to the first lords of shadow, i think that made the combat 100x better because you can dash around so easily, striking and meleeing, before switching very smoothly into one of your magics with awesome movesets and special attacks. the games not perfect. no game is perfect. but a 4/10 is rather harsh, and I berated mr Sterling on his review a bit too. I don't know about squandered polish, but its a 3d castlevania that's Beautifully dark, in my opinion has an interesting retelling of the story of the Belmonts (yes it barely touches on all the stuff in between, but still), and has some really interestingly designed bosses too, no shadow of the colossus style battles this time. 8/10, loses points for no full map screen, only letting you see the area you're in, and minor glitches here and there but nothing super game breaking.
 

CaptainMarvelous

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May 9, 2012
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I think its a more sign we have to fix how we rate games.
Currently reviewers are ranking Lords of Shadow 2 under Sonic 06.
Does that sound right?