Mass Effect 2 Cleans Up at Canadian Videogame Awards

[The.Bard]

In my eyes, the plot was weak, filled with holes, and buffed out by character missions that had no relevance to the plot. Shepherd never developed at all as a character, there was no opportunity for Role-Play, and the antagonistic force was contrived. I'd also take issue with the themes and allies being both shallow and disregarding the depth and ideas of the first game.

Curse us and crush us! Not this argument again. Pleeaaaaase, not this argument again. People love it, people hate it. People love it, people hate it. I'm meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelllllllllting!!!

Avatar. Terrible film. Absolutely horrendous... made a bajillion and a half dollars. But you'll notice it wasn't voted for Best Writing by anybody. There's a reason for that.

Scores aside, ME wouldn't be nominated for the awards it has with nothing but payoffs. With few exceptions, awards don't work like that. Mostly because it would be abundantly clear they were being paid off when Superman 64 or Kane & Lynch won GotY.

So what does this mean in the big picture either way? Absolutely friggin nothing. You hate it, someone else loves it. I shake my fist in rage and ask WHOooooo CARES?

At the end of the day, the writing in ME2 - as far as we can tell by reviews/#'s - is considered to be exceptional more than terrible. You can disagree with the assessment, it's certainly your right, but it's also fair for anyone else to use those numbers and point out that it's a mostly beloved game.

The alternative is all critiques of poorly reviewed games go out the window. Sales and scores are the #1 thing most haters mention when a bad game comes up. DA2 can no longer be called terrible because of a lower metacritic rating. Final Fantasy XIII can now be called a brilliant game, even if everyone who reviewed it tossed its corpse into a shallow grave! If we can use low scores and metacritic ratings as a means of saying one game sucks, it has to go the other way to show the love.

You were NOT given cake for the purpose of eating it, you foooooooooooooooooooooooooool!

 

[Eri]

You do realize how many reviewers are on the payrolls of major publishers like EA? And how little a chance most of them had to make a completely objective, in-depth assessment of it?

Someone's a bit paranoid. Really dude? Really?

 

[CosmicCommander]

You do realize how many reviewers are on the payrolls of major publishers like EA? And how little a chance most of them had to make a completely objective, in-depth assessment of it?

Someone's a bit paranoid. Really dude? Really?

I wouldn't say so. The industry itself is very tightly-knit and well connected- a lot of people know certain people. I'm not saying all of them, but many of the larger reviewing publications have plenty of incentives to do what a publisher wants.

-Snip-

Alright. That whole post was a disjointed mess of non sequitur, unrelated points, irrelevant to what you quoted or what I said. Just saying.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

You do realize how many reviewers are on the payrolls of major publishers like EA? And how little a chance most of them had to make a completely objective, in-depth assessment of it?

Someone's a bit paranoid. Really dude? Really?

My brother worked in the industry for a few years and he said that there's more of this sort of stuff going on than anyone would like to admit. It's not rampant, but it's certainly there.

 

[Knight Templar]

Well deserved if you ask me.

 

[The.Bard]

Alright. That whole post was a disjointed mess of non sequitur, unrelated points, irrelevant to what you quoted or what I said. Just saying.

Sorry, I forgot to go back & quote every last line from your original comment. But go ahead and be a jerk about it. No, really.

I love it when people condense entertainment and art into numbers, and use said numbers to disregard other opinions.

Once more we fall into the trap of considering Game Reviewers to be a majority, and taking numerical scores for objective fact. You do realise how many reviewers are on the payrolls of major publishers like EA? And how little a chance most of them had to make a completely objective, in-depth assessment of it?

And in the end, remember those immortal words- "What is popular is not always good."

Being illiterate and all, I may be way off here, but I think you're saying popular things are not necessarily good. You then implied that Mass Effect was winning praise because reviewers are on EA's payroll.

All of which my post addressed, although I am remiss in that I only quoted you complaining about the writing. For which I dutifully bend over and apologize.

 

[CosmicCommander]

Sorry, I forgot to go back & quote every last line from your original comment. But go ahead and be a jerk about it. No, really.

I'm sorry, but that is your folly. It's not my job to rectify and forgive your errors- when in a discussion, it is one's priority to do otherwise- in my eyes, the whole thing seemed confusing and disjointed. Thank you for rectifying it, albeit angrily.

but I think you're saying popular things are not necessarily good.

Bingo.

You then implied that Mass Effect was winning praise because reviewers are on EA's payroll.

I believe that many reviewers do change their "opinions" with certain incentives from publishers. Actually, it's pretty much an established thing in the industry.

 

[The.Bard]

I'm sorry, but that is your folly. It's not my job to rectify and forgive your errors- when in a discussion, it is one's priority to do otherwise- in my eyes, the whole thing seemed confusing and disjointed. Thank you for rectifying it, albeit angrily.

Sorry, that's just my comedy noir poking through. Wasn't angry, just felt if you took a few seconds you'd realize what I was replying to. No worries, mate.

I believe that many reviewers do change their "opinions" with certain incentives from publishers. Actually, it's pretty much an established thing in the industry.

I'm not so foolish to think that a few of them here and there can't be incentivized. But I still don't think it's something you could fudge with awards. Once it becomes obvious you're pandering to a certain game company, the award loses all credibility.

Cheers!

 

[Lonan]

Bah, This entire list looks boring to me. Only two big name games, one big name newcomer, and a bunch of indies. Needs more variety.

Still congrats to all the winners.

As stated above you, this is only a pool of Canadian made games... and Kinect for some reason. It stands to reason that there will be only 2 big name games with only 2 big name publishers in the country. EA and Ubisoft have a huge advantage by having big budgets behind them.

Considering the small number of awards and the competition from those 2 big games, I'd say the variety is pleasantly wide. And these are just the winners, not the nominations.

Of course there's tonnes of other great stuff coming out of Canada, but only so much comes out in any given year.

EDIT: Bah! Retconned. Well, you get the idea anyway

Kinect is Canadian.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/06/04/the-game-guru/comment-page-1/