Review: N3II Ninety-Nine Nights

[Ghengis John]

Assuming people are incapable of forming their own opinions once they've read someone else's seems a bit insulting though, don't you think, Genghis? I like to have at least a little faith in folks' ability to read a review of a game/book/movie without being consumed by it.

It's not my intent to flame or insult anybody. I don't think it's an insult to their intelligence either. It's just human nature to do so. When you encourage some one to go so out of their way as to treat a free copy of a game like refuse you don't leave a lot of room for debate and people are inclined to take the simplest path possible. Not to single anyone out but when I see posts like this one:

Pity though, I quite enjoyed the first one. The combat was good, the maps were good and the characters were varied and interesting. Story was a bit meh though. Dont think Ill buy this one.

I think it does happen sometimes.

Based on your post it seem like you just dislikes all reviews in general, and if that is the case there is no need to single out Mr. Butts.

Actually I realized on my own it wasn't fair to single out Mr. Butts. That's what I came here to talk about. I guess I don't enjoy the current trend in editorial to be as snarky as possible. Everyone from Oberman and Beck to the angry videogame nerd seems to have taken it upon themselves to be as insulting as possible to anything they disfavor. Suddenly everyone is an old-school fashionista. But I guess that's what people want these days. Some people can make a whole career on it. But that isn't Butt's fault. If he wrote a more constrained review he'd probably generate less traffic. And maybe he just legitimately thought it was funny. Whatever. I made a comment about his name? So who's perfect.

Where does it say in any of our reviews that these must be your opinions too? The whole spirit of the review process is to share our subjective experience playing a game and to allow you to use that as a reference point for your own judgments. Playing a game represents a significant investment, not only in terms of the cost of buying or renting it, but the time it takes to explore its content, so the opinions of others who have played (and a knowledge of their tastes and biases) is a useful resource for most gamers, myself included.

I don't expect your opinions to be mine. I don't even have an opinion on the game. The "do not buy this game, do not rent this game" remark just struck me as an insult to reason. But you shouldn't have to watch over everything you say like a politician. And it's not fair of me to place such a burden on you. I don't have your job and I don't know what you have to go through in a day. I'm sure it's very hard and no easier then to be fired on by a random person. And by any metric it's fun to hate things. That said, encouraging people to ignore a review and form their own opinion seems like a direct affront to your livelihood, on a site dedicated to editorial no less. So you have my sincerest apologies for that. I feel like a heel for that.

I agree with you that gamers should be secure enough to enjoy liking games that other people hate, and to hate games that other people like.

As far as your comments about my name, that's just your opinion.

Thankyou. As for my comments on your name it wasn't meant to be a serious insult. I don't know how you actually take such things though. So my apologies once again. I hope we can put it behind us. Take care and I'll hopefully take your next review in with a more open mind.

 

[Jimalcoatl]

Of all the Xbox 360 games I've bought Ninety Nine Nights was the one where I most felt like I'd been ripped off. Even if the sequel was good I wouldn't give it a chance on the grounds that the first one was so god damned awful.

 

[Seamus8]

So it's a true sequel to the original in almost all facets? Why is lightning striking twice so much more common in bad games?

Raging through Inphy's campaign in the original only to lose to the ogre king 40x just because he was a bit more vulnerable than the other 2 characters I breezed through with was annoying, yet didn't make victory any sweeter when I finally dropped the baddie... Plus the story was buggy, whonky, and not all the event triggers worked after multiple deaths.

 

[Miumaru]

His droning voice kinda makes me want to ignore his opinion. I did not really like the first...but after trudging through it, it kinda grew on me. I probably will get 2 anyways, if only to finish the story (and Ive not seen hide nor tail of any characters from the first)

 

[Miumaru]

somewhere I read compared this to the kingdom under fire games (on the x-box, not the horrible 360 one) and I was quite eager. Seeing this, I know now I was lied to.

I'll pass

Well, the first N3 used character models from KuF. (And you only think CoD was bad cause it played different, admit it)

 

[UtopiaV1]

Next time, try writing a review without using the words 'I' or 'me'. This is supposed to be a professional examination of the game, with maybe a few personal experiences thrown in for framing, not a highly subjective opinion-based piece.

You're a good reviewer, just remember that not everyone is like you.

 

[instantbenz]

busty elf maidens-the only reason this game got any stars

OT: I never liked dynasty warriors that much so I'll pass

DW are super repetitive, have the same characters, and always have you killing around the same amount of mindless Chinese people from 100 CE. I surprisingly still buy every one of them. Maybe I just love the story or something. I dunno.

I remember my first New Years in college playing N^3 and drinking ... a lot. That made it fun.

 

[chaos order]

it'd be hilarious if yahtzee got his hands on this game! seeing as the actual reviewn as really nothing good to say about it, yahtzee would tear this game a new cloaca

 

[BehattedWanderer]

So how did a "Do Not[/] buy this game, do Not[/i] rent this game" and the option of "if someone tosses you this game, swat it to the ground" come out to be a two star review? Regardless, I suppose.

Nice review, by the way. I find myself wanting to hear you review a game you like, just to make certain that you have a voice that is great for reviewing. It's almost a passion seeping out of the coldness of the internet...

 

[XAEnimaX]

I love dynasty warriors too. It's a guilty pleasure. But yea, this game doesn't look very good to me just from this video. It looks like a bad DW ripoff. Nice review.

 

[Kilmoran]

I only played the Demo and i absolutely 100% agree as that is exactly what i felt as a player of games similair to it. Dynasty Warriors gets alot of flak (not entirely undeserving) but it's Koei (or Tecmo-Koei) still does it better than just about anyone else.

 

[Master_Fubar23]

unfortunately i cant heed steve's warning of the game. it sounds like he's trying debase the game like yahtzee without the wit or humor. i watched the blur review which got me down since i had just got blur in the mail from gamefly but i decided to play it anyways. lucky i did cuz it was great! of course there are some games that some people wont like but with two dismal reviews in a row i really cant expect any good reviews coming from this reviewer.

 

[Rathenau]

I?d agree with Fubar over here, a review should be as objective as possible. Recommending not to buy or ever rent it reeks of the inability to correctly evaluate a game. Other then that, I?d say the message was pretty clear.

Don?t mean to bash ya Steven.

 

[Steve Butts]

I?d agree with Fubar over here, a review should be as objective as possible. Recommending not to buy or ever rent it reeks of the inability to correctly evaluate a game. Other then that, I?d say the message was pretty clear.

Don?t mean to bash ya Steven.

Thanks. I don't feel bashed.

You raise an interesting question. At what point and to what extent do you think a reviewer should transition from a mere accounting of a game's features to a subjective view of whether or not the overall experience is fun? I respectfully disagree that an outright recommendation to buy (or not buy) suggests that reviewers aren't doing their job correctly. Whether or not a game is worth your time or money is an important part of any review.

Your own subjective interpretation of the reviewer's opinion is just as important. If you feel I was too extreme in my suggestion that you not even rent the game, I can live with that. I once wrote of a certain game that playing it was less fun than "walking around with a can of paint hanging from your testicles." Was it objectively true? No, but it expresses an honesty that transcends factual accuracy. Like you said, "the message was pretty clear."

I'm genuinely not trying to be snarky here and I don't want to dismiss your disagreement. I just want to understand your point of view better.

 

[HK_01]

That must be the harshest review I've seen on the Escapist so far.

 

[Jake Martinez]

Snip

Why are you giving a "Do not buy this game ever" two stars?

Better yet why are they using a 5 star system? That always skews the data for sites like Metacritic, and when publishers are looking at how well a game did so they decide what kind of budget they'll give to a dev team for their next game.

I just want to point out that as someone in the software industry, no one operates this way. Technically a game designer might take heat for bad game design, or a product manager might take heat for a bug ridden piece of software, but when it comes to allocating budget for projects - that's all driven by marketing and investors. Sometimes a high metacritic score for a previous game can help you attract funding (if you actually need it), but most things are handled on a case per case basis.

Basically having a really good previous title under your belt will probably help you get a bigger budget for a project (especially if you have to borrow or get investors), but having a poor one doesn't really detract that much.

This is a gross simplification here, but I just wanted to point out that the effect of game reviews and sites like metacritic on the business side of game making are pretty moot (except, of course, as in how they influence consumers to purchase units).

 

[StarStruckStrumpets]

My brother got the first game as a gift. He never touched it again after he found actual good hack and slash games. I tried playing it only to find out just how awful it was. Looks like this is going to be the same (minus us actually getting it).

My big question here is this: Why did they not rename this? Most people have forgotten about N3 as well as who developed it, so this was an opportunity to actually sell more before the reviews came in. People looking for a new IP would buy it, as would people who liked the cover, or other strange reasons some people buy games. You didn't have to name it as a sequel. Look, the people who buy sequels are more often than not the people who played the original. If the original was bad, most of those people won't buy the sequel, even if you improve it a lot (who here is going to give Two Worlds 2 a chance?). Even though a lot of games these days are sequels, that doesn't mean all of them have to be.

Ugh...thanks for reminding me about Two Worlds (shudders) lol

I will, because I fucking loved the first game, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Also, I'll be getting this, because I LOVED N3. Aspharr just hauled ass.

 

[80Maxwell08]

Well this was your opinion and I can understand that. But I bought the game as soon as I could and I like it. Many things that are repetitive to many people don't really bother me and I like the massively long range melee attacks. While I do like this game it does get hard at certain areas. But difficulty was something the first game had a massive problem with. Enemies were far too weak and only some of the bosses were a challenge but those that were had way too much power. But I liked the first game and I like this one as well.

 

[Mosstromo]

Uf! What a great timing! Thank you for the review. I just saw this game today and considered it. I'm happy I did not yield to my capitalist impulse to just get it since I had money.

 

[JordanXlord]

my favorite Xbox 360 game was the first Ninety-nine-Nights

i loved to kill armys in secs and i love the characters

so this Review is false in my book...i played the demo and i fell inlove with it

so now im gonna get it to prove you guys wrong

and yes im a fantasy nerd...you got a problem with that?