hanselthecaretaker said:
Curious, if you had an example of what exactly would be a 10/10 game to you? IIRC you said GoW was a 6/10, but here Spider-Man is the antithesis and only a 7/10? I know there are other parts to each game but you seem to put more weight to the combat portion.
I would give 10s to Bayonetta, ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, Super Mario Bros. 3, Portal 2, Metal Gear Online 2, MGS1 off the top of my head. GOW of is one of those things that every time I think about it, it kinda keeps getting worse in my mind. I did say it was 6/10 but it's at best a 5 now but it's too good to go any lower than a 4. When I think of GOW, just about everything outside of presentation and graphics just feels really average for the most. I really hated the RPG mechanics, the puzzles were below par, the characters were good overall, the story was fine but overstayed its welcome, the combat is pretty much perfectly average (when the stupid RPG mechanics don't cause it being overly hard or joke easy), the exploration would be a plus (if it wasn't for the RPG mechanics). The forced-in RPG mechanics really bring so much of the game down honestly.
Back to Spiderman, combat, antithesis, whatnot. I put the most weight of the score on whatever I'm doing the most in the game. GOW obviously has combat as the main element of the game thus combat is the most important aspect of the game. The reason why combat is usually rather important is because so many games are primarily combat games (even RPGs) as combat is the easy and simple way the create conflict. And, most devs don't know how to create gameplay that isn't centered around combat. Then, of course, most AAA games are trying to provide a full-on cinematic experience when the industry has barely any good writers thus they fail pretty hard in that degree making 8+ scores rare and 9s and 10s nearly impossible. I love Arkane's games like the Dishonoreds and Prey but how can I give the games 9s and 10s when I can easily imagine them being quite a bit better with top-notch writing? Like I said, Spiderman is sorta the antithesis of GOW combat because the unlockable moves don't just provide new moves (breadth) but also provide depth because they all have a singular purpose different from every other move while also interplaying with all the other moves. Whereas just about all the unlockable moves in GOW don't allow you to do anything functionally different that you couldn't already do nor do they really interplay with the other moves either. I would also say from a design standpoint, Monster Hunter, Dragon's Dogma, and Horizon's combat are the antithesis of Witcher 3's combat because MH, DD, and Horizon's combat were designed for monster fights first and foremost thus excelling at those fights while Witcher 3's combat was designed for humanoid fights thus dropping the ball on the big monster fights.
Arkham City is probably my highest rated superhero game (9/10) and here's basically my logic behind it. The combat is solid while only really being like a 3rd of the game so combat doesn't have to carry the game. Plus, the combat even goes above and beyond marking the last time (until Spiderman) that Arkham combat actually evolved with adding in stuff like the beatdown mechanic and quick-use gadgets. The boss fights are even solid, easily the best in the series and a marked improvement over Asylum. Same goes with stealth, AC doesn't need to have the greatest stealth of all-time because it's not a dedicated stealth game. The open world is well designed staying rather small and allowing for more density, detail, and atmosphere than you can get from bigger worlds. You even get to know the world like the back of your hand. Plus, there's a few very well-designed linear levels. The story is a really top-notch Batman story and can even been seen as the true ending to The Animated Series as the Arkham series is heavily inspired by it plus Paul Dini was the head writer. I give AC a 9 instead of a 10 because there are some loose story threads like the infected citizens and some of the open world elements were lackluster like having hundreds of Riddler trophies is just bad content, just have the 50 or so Riddler trophies that were actually puzzles and leave out all the ones that you just simply pick up (nobody finds that fun or engaging)