1up is more of a console-centric site, so I chose (primarily) console games. In regards to PC games, I probably would've put in Star Control 3. That was just a sad, sad game (some decent writing aside), and I really hope the original guys get ahold of the copyrights to do a proper sequel. I had thought about Master of Orion 3, but honestly I'm only familiar with the first one, so I would've been way out of my league on that.
Speak of the devil, I just bought this like 15 minutes ago. I played the demo, and yeah, it was pretty decent. But ppractically much every prior one was...not so great, so it's hard to pinpoint exactly where it went downhill. Plus it's not like there was anything that was really bad about its sequels, they just never bothered to fix the problems that were there in the first place.
The same issue, I think, applies to Mega Man. They've (mostly) been getting worse, but where exactly is a bit more difficult. A lot of people say X5...I'd say X7. The ones I picked where the ones I felt people were the most vocal about, at least the forums where I tend to browse.
"just looked for games that grew some hatred, but wasn't exactly "bad" games."
That was the point of the article, it was to take games that had good response from critics and were pretty decent games but get a lot of hatred from fans. These, I felt, were the most controversial. (I originally planned to do Devil May Cry 2, but I couldn't find much to defend the game, since it was pretty mediocre overall.)
Final Fantasy X-2 receives a lot of hate, but FFVII more so. I'm of the opinion that all of the Dynasty Warriors are practically the same, so it's hard for me to believe that 4 is any worse than the rest (it's my relative favorite, if one could call it that.) I don't here much complaints about the Tony Hawks, and none of the Tomb Raiders outside of the original have (arguably) been any good.
Believe it or not, I have! Quite a lot of it, too.
And yeah, it was pretty much just a level pack. A handle of new enemies, a minor new weapon and a few new textures don't qualify as it much more. Not compared to other sequels which actually have more than just minor tweaks.
I personally wasn't a big fan of most of the level design compared to the original either. Plus the final "boss" was nonsense.
You've missed a very vital point - although us that have grown up with Sonic games view the current releases to be a joke, they're still VERY popular with kids. I mean, around Christmas I couldn't walk into a game store without someone asking for Shadow the Hedgehog or Sonic Riders. That outdated fad really isn't so outdated, it's just juvenile.
While most of those are innovative for sports/racing games, they're still just sports and racing games. I think he was referring to things outside those genres. Although Nintendo does improve on it's franchises more than most other companies do.
At the conference where they unveiled it, someone asked if it was a launch title, and Sakurai replied, half-laughing, with "chigaimasu!", which basically means "nope". It's definitely not done yet.
PS2 is like 99% compatible. Some anthologies of old games won't work (like some of the Midway/Williams packs) and certain games like Tomba 2 don't work either.
My GBA crashed on at least one GBC game. Oddly enough this never happened on the Gameboy Player so who knows. I am pretty sure there was at least one or two GBC games that don't work with the GBA, or maybe I'm thinking of just the SP.
Regardless, I am picking nits here, but you can't say 100% because that's not quite true.
Why was this marked "Troll"? It's the music to the game!
Can't download it now (at work) but it's done by Hitsohi Sakimoto, who composed music for, among other games, Final Fantasy Tactics. It'll probably be great stuff.
Re:Why does everyone hate this game so much?
on
Review - Full Auto
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· Score: 1
People seem to have rather high expectations of this game, for some reason.
I really liked the demo, but $60 seems a bit steep for an experience that is ultimately kinda shallow. I'll wait to get it used or keep my eyes open for a price drop.
So, uh, you've never messed with the Xbox Live Arcade, have you? There are a few old arcade games on there, and it's hard to argue that Geometry Wars is innovative, but there's at least some interesting stuff on there - that marble game I can't remember the name, and some kind of intergalatic lemonade stand simulator (I think that's what it is.) And that Wik game.
The point is, yes, Microsoft is supporting the indie developers on this one. Just because you don't feel like paying attention to it doesn't mean it's not happening.
They haven't had any really good titles for awhile. Radiata Stories wasn't that great, Musashi wasn't that hot either, and I'm at a loss to remember anything else they did. They haven't had any Final Fantasies for awhile, and Dragon Quest isn't exactly a household name in the US, although apparently it did fairly well for itself.
I'm guessing their portable offerings made them money though. (like Final Fantasy IV).
With Kingdom Hearts II out in America this year, the upcoming Final Fantasy XII (hopefully out here before the end of 2006), and a bigger portable lineup (Children of Mana, FF3 DS, FF5 and 6 GBA remakes), they should probably see a better year.
I thought it was incredibly boring (boring battle system, boring plot, etc), but if you liked the NES Dragon Warrior games and are ready for a similar experience (but with nicer graphics) then you'll probably like DQ8.
In an ideal world, your ideas would work. But there are things called "deadlines". Readers don't want to wait until reviewers have had time to sit and dwell on a game, they want to know an opinion ASAP so they know whether to bother with it. Similarly, most people are not going to go back and follow up on updates. It's way too much effort when all people want to know is whether a game is good or not.
Hindsight is 20/20 and some games feel better or worse after time, but that's just not an option.
No one knows what a Microvision is, much less cares. There's no bias, it's just irrelevant. Might as well complain that there's no Tiger Handheld games on the list.
I bought this game at Play Asia awhile back since it was dirt cheap. I only spent an hour with it, but it was pretty unimpressive. Mostly because the controls were awful. You need to control your mech with both analog stucks (a la Katamari), and trying to maneuever and shoot is awfully clunky. The first boss battle was terrible too. Maybe it gets better though, and I'm glad it got picked up for American release, just to see more obscure stuff here. The atmosphere is interesting, at least - reminds me of a Miyazaki movie.
Gameplay-wise, it hasn't really changed from Covenant, if that's what you're worried about. It's more the setting - 1920s America, filled with gangsters, flappers and interdimensional demons.
Yup, I think it's due in March or April for the PS2. It doesn't feature Yuri, unfortunately, but it's easily the most imaginative JRPG this generation.
I agree with this 100%. DQ8 is really just a case of outdated gameplay mixed with pretty graphics. Which is the only reason it's getting the attention and reviews that it has been.
Grandia 3 and Shadow Hearts From the New World are both due out early next year. Both are far, far better. As are any of the Shin Megami Tensei games, of which three have been localized currently for the PS2. These are the games that should be getting the attention, not boring drivel like DQ8.
Yeah, that Tri-Bit article is pretty bad too. His arguments are "I have more knowledge about obscure, twenty five year old games than you do!" and "I'm a grammar nazi, so I win!" *sigh*
Then he brings up examples without knowing what he's talking about, or backing them up. It's great you can bring up the names of tons of old titles, now tell us why they're relevant.
The author seems bitter than he's not in the game journalism industry, and for good reason. If every video game reviewer wrote like that arrogant jerk, nobody would want to read anything by them, ever.
Everyone keeps saying "Nintendo makes the best games!!!", completely forgetting that that's all kinds of their opinion.
The only real AAA title that came out of Nintendo this year, to me, was Metroid Prime 2. They did some other decent stuff this year, like Pikmin 2 and Paper Mario 2, but otherwise? I don't like sports games, so the formula of "mascot + wacky + sport" doesn't appeal to me. I never liked Mario Kart (still don't) and could not possibly care less about the Mario Party games. Given my taste in games, that crosses out a huge number of the first party games. I dig Zelda and F-Zero (the most recent being a Sega game technically) but Nintendo as a whole just doesn't seem to make games that I like.
And then there's the overeliance on mascots. See, I'm of the opinion that the Ratchet and Clank games are pretty much the best 3D platformers ever made. It's not innovative, but it certainly is polished to all hell, and it's a lot of fun. But you'd never see Mario running around with an assortment of laser guns. Why? Because that's not what Mario does. Similarly, what if they tried to put Fable-esque elements into the Zelda games, like havi you make moral choices? Well, again, Link wouldn't possibly be evil or shack up with chicks, because it doesn't fit into the tone of the franchise. These shackles, most of it coming from being family friendly, ultimately do more harm than good.
GMR was kinda redundant in the face of EGM, but I really liked their reviews. They were the only ones to actually give GTA: San Andreas a somewhat sensible one.
The loss of XBN makes me very sad, they had some excellent writers, but I guess there's only so much Xbox stuff one can cover per month. The official XBox mag is well known to be a total rag except for the demo disc.
Why can't crappy mags like GamePro and PSM be killed?
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1up is more of a console-centric site, so I chose (primarily) console games. In regards to PC games, I probably would've put in Star Control 3. That was just a sad, sad game (some decent writing aside), and I really hope the original guys get ahold of the copyrights to do a proper sequel. I had thought about Master of Orion 3, but honestly I'm only familiar with the first one, so I would've been way out of my league on that.
Speak of the devil, I just bought this like 15 minutes ago. I played the demo, and yeah, it was pretty decent. But ppractically much every prior one was...not so great, so it's hard to pinpoint exactly where it went downhill. Plus it's not like there was anything that was really bad about its sequels, they just never bothered to fix the problems that were there in the first place. The same issue, I think, applies to Mega Man. They've (mostly) been getting worse, but where exactly is a bit more difficult. A lot of people say X5...I'd say X7. The ones I picked where the ones I felt people were the most vocal about, at least the forums where I tend to browse.
"just looked for games that grew some hatred, but wasn't exactly "bad" games." That was the point of the article, it was to take games that had good response from critics and were pretty decent games but get a lot of hatred from fans. These, I felt, were the most controversial. (I originally planned to do Devil May Cry 2, but I couldn't find much to defend the game, since it was pretty mediocre overall.) Final Fantasy X-2 receives a lot of hate, but FFVII more so. I'm of the opinion that all of the Dynasty Warriors are practically the same, so it's hard for me to believe that 4 is any worse than the rest (it's my relative favorite, if one could call it that.) I don't here much complaints about the Tony Hawks, and none of the Tomb Raiders outside of the original have (arguably) been any good.
Believe it or not, I have! Quite a lot of it, too.
And yeah, it was pretty much just a level pack. A handle of new enemies, a minor new weapon and a few new textures don't qualify as it much more. Not compared to other sequels which actually have more than just minor tweaks.
I personally wasn't a big fan of most of the level design compared to the original either. Plus the final "boss" was nonsense.
You've missed a very vital point - although us that have grown up with Sonic games view the current releases to be a joke, they're still VERY popular with kids. I mean, around Christmas I couldn't walk into a game store without someone asking for Shadow the Hedgehog or Sonic Riders. That outdated fad really isn't so outdated, it's just juvenile.
While most of those are innovative for sports/racing games, they're still just sports and racing games. I think he was referring to things outside those genres. Although Nintendo does improve on it's franchises more than most other companies do.
At the conference where they unveiled it, someone asked if it was a launch title, and Sakurai replied, half-laughing, with "chigaimasu!", which basically means "nope". It's definitely not done yet.
PS2 is like 99% compatible. Some anthologies of old games won't work (like some of the Midway/Williams packs) and certain games like Tomba 2 don't work either. My GBA crashed on at least one GBC game. Oddly enough this never happened on the Gameboy Player so who knows. I am pretty sure there was at least one or two GBC games that don't work with the GBA, or maybe I'm thinking of just the SP. Regardless, I am picking nits here, but you can't say 100% because that's not quite true.
Why was this marked "Troll"? It's the music to the game! Can't download it now (at work) but it's done by Hitsohi Sakimoto, who composed music for, among other games, Final Fantasy Tactics. It'll probably be great stuff.
I really liked the demo, but $60 seems a bit steep for an experience that is ultimately kinda shallow. I'll wait to get it used or keep my eyes open for a price drop.
So, uh, you've never messed with the Xbox Live Arcade, have you? There are a few old arcade games on there, and it's hard to argue that Geometry Wars is innovative, but there's at least some interesting stuff on there - that marble game I can't remember the name, and some kind of intergalatic lemonade stand simulator (I think that's what it is.) And that Wik game. The point is, yes, Microsoft is supporting the indie developers on this one. Just because you don't feel like paying attention to it doesn't mean it's not happening.
They haven't had any really good titles for awhile. Radiata Stories wasn't that great, Musashi wasn't that hot either, and I'm at a loss to remember anything else they did. They haven't had any Final Fantasies for awhile, and Dragon Quest isn't exactly a household name in the US, although apparently it did fairly well for itself. I'm guessing their portable offerings made them money though. (like Final Fantasy IV). With Kingdom Hearts II out in America this year, the upcoming Final Fantasy XII (hopefully out here before the end of 2006), and a bigger portable lineup (Children of Mana, FF3 DS, FF5 and 6 GBA remakes), they should probably see a better year.
I thought it was incredibly boring (boring battle system, boring plot, etc), but if you liked the NES Dragon Warrior games and are ready for a similar experience (but with nicer graphics) then you'll probably like DQ8.
In an ideal world, your ideas would work. But there are things called "deadlines". Readers don't want to wait until reviewers have had time to sit and dwell on a game, they want to know an opinion ASAP so they know whether to bother with it. Similarly, most people are not going to go back and follow up on updates. It's way too much effort when all people want to know is whether a game is good or not. Hindsight is 20/20 and some games feel better or worse after time, but that's just not an option.
No one knows what a Microvision is, much less cares. There's no bias, it's just irrelevant. Might as well complain that there's no Tiger Handheld games on the list.
I bought this game at Play Asia awhile back since it was dirt cheap. I only spent an hour with it, but it was pretty unimpressive. Mostly because the controls were awful. You need to control your mech with both analog stucks (a la Katamari), and trying to maneuever and shoot is awfully clunky. The first boss battle was terrible too. Maybe it gets better though, and I'm glad it got picked up for American release, just to see more obscure stuff here. The atmosphere is interesting, at least - reminds me of a Miyazaki movie.
Gameplay-wise, it hasn't really changed from Covenant, if that's what you're worried about. It's more the setting - 1920s America, filled with gangsters, flappers and interdimensional demons.
Yup, I think it's due in March or April for the PS2. It doesn't feature Yuri, unfortunately, but it's easily the most imaginative JRPG this generation.
I agree with this 100%. DQ8 is really just a case of outdated gameplay mixed with pretty graphics. Which is the only reason it's getting the attention and reviews that it has been.
Grandia 3 and Shadow Hearts From the New World are both due out early next year. Both are far, far better. As are any of the Shin Megami Tensei games, of which three have been localized currently for the PS2. These are the games that should be getting the attention, not boring drivel like DQ8.
What's so questionable about the Freedom Fighters review? The game is excellent, and fully worth the praise lavished upon it.
Then he brings up examples without knowing what he's talking about, or backing them up. It's great you can bring up the names of tons of old titles, now tell us why they're relevant. The author seems bitter than he's not in the game journalism industry, and for good reason. If every video game reviewer wrote like that arrogant jerk, nobody would want to read anything by them, ever.
The Dreamcast was the first to have analog shoulder buttons. Otherwise, you're pretty much on the dot.
Even when I was young, I preferred the likes of Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden over Mario. It's more part of my tastes rather than my age.
Everyone keeps saying "Nintendo makes the best games!!!", completely forgetting that that's all kinds of their opinion. The only real AAA title that came out of Nintendo this year, to me, was Metroid Prime 2. They did some other decent stuff this year, like Pikmin 2 and Paper Mario 2, but otherwise? I don't like sports games, so the formula of "mascot + wacky + sport" doesn't appeal to me. I never liked Mario Kart (still don't) and could not possibly care less about the Mario Party games. Given my taste in games, that crosses out a huge number of the first party games. I dig Zelda and F-Zero (the most recent being a Sega game technically) but Nintendo as a whole just doesn't seem to make games that I like. And then there's the overeliance on mascots. See, I'm of the opinion that the Ratchet and Clank games are pretty much the best 3D platformers ever made. It's not innovative, but it certainly is polished to all hell, and it's a lot of fun. But you'd never see Mario running around with an assortment of laser guns. Why? Because that's not what Mario does. Similarly, what if they tried to put Fable-esque elements into the Zelda games, like havi you make moral choices? Well, again, Link wouldn't possibly be evil or shack up with chicks, because it doesn't fit into the tone of the franchise. These shackles, most of it coming from being family friendly, ultimately do more harm than good.
GMR was kinda redundant in the face of EGM, but I really liked their reviews. They were the only ones to actually give GTA: San Andreas a somewhat sensible one. The loss of XBN makes me very sad, they had some excellent writers, but I guess there's only so much Xbox stuff one can cover per month. The official XBox mag is well known to be a total rag except for the demo disc. Why can't crappy mags like GamePro and PSM be killed?