"So a 5 is mediocre, that does not mean average. The reason that you get so many game review scores that are around the 7 range is because, frankly, most of the games that these major sites are reviewing (or major magazines or whatever) are really fucking good. If you only play AAA games, which let's be honest, most most gamers do, then you only see the games that are getting 8s, 9s, and 10s because they are usually extremely high quality."
AAA games from a design standpoint aren't really very good. Look at IGN's reviews of the AssCreed series, the lowest score of the mainline series is 6.8 for Rogue (not counting the portable games or remasters or 2D games). AssCreed is the ultimate AAA version of throw shit at the wall and see what sicks. Oh, people hated the tower defense crap, let's get rid of it. Oh, people actually liked that ship stuff in AC3, let's make a pirate game then. IGN gave Unity a 7.8 and that was a buggy mess of game that wasn't even a polished turd. Even the very 1st AssCreed didn't really know what it was. The main assassinations were super lite versions of a Hitman game basically. The idea of the rest of the game was that you'd gather your own intel (unlike Hitman), which isn't a bad idea, it was just horribly executed with the same 3 or 4 things done over and over again. The whole climbing/parkour system was fresh and new then, but the game design supporting it was nothing but. Then, they just ditched the whole structure of the 1st game for a very GTA-like mission structure because actually making the 1st game but designed well is far harder. Lastly, the AssCreed games don't even have the more interesting systemic gameplay elements of other Ubisoft games like FarCry or Watch Dogs, which are both also better stealth games than the game that's about ASSASSINS.
Yeah, but you hate AAA games by default, so I don't think a discussion on the matter will go vey far.
Thanks for the informative read, I can understand why this is so off-putting to the gamer audience. And what kind of audience would enjoy this kind of soul crushing media? Because quite frankly I didn't mind it because I don't really find the joy of escapism during hard times
This sound all pretty good stuff. I just find it funny that the people who are likely to have been vocally against "fridging" are calling this innovative or progressive in any way.
Yeah with story it mostly boils down the eye of the beholder. I don’t frequent a lot of YouTuber’s or even enough mainstream sites to know whether my gaming ideals align with anyone else’s enough to base my opinion on something enough before ever playing it for myself. Like you said, you can get a decent idea through an aggregate of a few favorites’ opinions, but at the same time you or I both don’t know them personally. There’s always a chance they have personal feelings about certain things that they can’t talk freely about in a broad hyper-exposed social sphere like the internet that would deep down affect how they view something. Or maybe they woke up on a different side of the bed that day.
I really like the demo of Desperados 3. Generally shy away from RTS stuff due to the steep learning curve with the amount of hotkey commands and busywork type of gameplay, but this feels different. Almost like if Shadowrun was more robust in its systems and not turn based.
Even before 5 years ago, that message had already gotten old for me. Been there, done that in video games, anime, film, and books.
At least Druckmann is honest in his intentions of making the game an engaging experience.Well if nothing else, the trophy list seems incredibly simple. No difficulty settings, and seems to simply "beat the game and find all the collectibles along the way". So if you are a Platinum hunter and can stomach your way through the game, this is a fairly easy one to get.
True....I mean I don't think Druckmann deliberately is trying to make a bad game or story. I just think his personal ideologies are blinding him to the fact that he isn't making a product that people will generally enjoy.
Was he the one who said Last of us 2 wasn't a game to be enjoyed? That you wouldn't have fun with the experience, or was that someone else?
I think it was him, but I believe that quote was him being defensive of the criticism from the leaks.
Rather than in love with, would he have said it if everyone enjoyed it and thought it was a hysterical romp of bloody joy and delightful pain? Like X and Y happen, he meant it to be grim and dark, and basically everyone is a Cenobite and laughs and laughs and laughs.
I don't have anything against AAA games. A good game is a good game regardless who made it. I literally have said numerous times that MOH Warfighter was the best online FPS of last-gen, which is both a AAA game and a rather unpopular stance. I don't care that "evil" EA made it nor did I let poor review scores cloud my perception of the game. Speaking of EA and last-gen, Mirror's Edge (which I just bought on Steam for $2) is the best 3D platformer of last-gen too. Mirror's Edge Catalyst is a good example of how most AAA game design goes wrong (open world design with copy-pasted content filled with collectibles). How many AAA looter shooters have there been and are any of them even considered better than Warframe? Or look at how Temtem is considered a better Pokemon game than Pokemon. Back to AssCreed, the shear amount of creative directors the series has had (and it was a new IP last-gen) just means the design is going to be all over the place whereas the Metal Gear series had one guy directing them for 25+ years.