zippy1 said:
Ah yes, Titanic is an objectively shitty movie and here let me show you something that undoubtedly proves i... wait. That's impossible because it's an OPINION.
Yes, because opinions cannot be wrong and cannot have factual bases.
Yes, there is a lot of subjectivity in art appreciation but skillful techniques and execution are quantifiable to a certain extent (hence all the categories at awards shows). Regardless, it was an illustrative example and is beside the point.
zippy1 said:
I think you've done a good job letting your experience of past Fallout games ruin the rest for you. It'll likely ruin New Vegas for you as well, even if the game has better dialogue and a more solid plot than FO3, because it'll almost surely be real time, first person, and use VATS.
That's for telling me what ruins games for me, as you're an expert on me and know me so well, I'm sure you know every game I like and why.
What ruins Fallout 3 for me is the fact that it has mediocre gameplay. Again, I have no problem playing and liking games which are unfaithful to their predecessors if they are good. Some games that come to mind that do this are: Fallout Tactics, Mario 64, Final Fantasy XI (to a degree), Super Mario RPG, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Shining Tears. Whether or not they are a bad game and whether or not they are a bad/unfaithful sequel are seperate issues. Fallout 3 just so happens to be a mediocre game and a bad sequel.
zippy1 said:
And the whole experience will feel wrong because it's been infected by those Bethesda people that you say you're justified in calling names like a child.
I have a sense of humor and have no problem with insulting jokes but I generally avoid insulting them outright like a child. I generally link it with something they have said, how they said it, or something they've done. Some people are an easy target because they simply come off as douchebags whenever they talk, Todd and Pete fall into this camp and it's why I read transcripts instead of listen to them speak whenever possible. Again, it's all balance. As long as it's alright to compliment people, it's alright to criticize them, all for the same reasons and to the same degree.
zippy1 said:
As far as your extensive knowledge of game journalism, yes you're repeating the same line said over and over on NMA but those are the remote exception and not the rule. Believe it or not, almost all game journalists think that giving a game a 90 when it deserves an 80 is WRONG and won't do it. And if some executive tells him to go in and change it to a 90, then that relationship/dynamic doesn't ever last long. It's not some inherently corrupt business that is trying to make $1.00 today at any cost, not when they can make 97 cents today and keep readers coming back so they can make another 97 cents tomorrow. The kind of corruption you talk about in game journalism is highly rare and always fleeting at most.
Heh, it's more common than you know or think, methinks. I'd suggest reading
Shoe's articles on it as a start, though further research is always beneficial.
zippy1 said:
Almost every Fallout 3 review posted was after the release date, and I don't know of Bethesda sending "someone out to help a journalist" play the game. Was it some other game? Where the hell did you read about this?
Every review of the game conducted pre-release, regardless if that's when it was published, was done in an expensive hotel room over the course of 16 hours with a Bethesda employee sitting right next the the journalist helping him/her through the game. Brings up the other issue of reviewers not playing a game to completion before reviewing them, an even more common problem than "favors" and bribes. PCPowerplay admitted to this and
CanardPC described the exact situation and refused to publish a review after it for journalistic reasons. Chances are that if you read a review within a week of release or in the December issue of any magazine then it was done under these conditions.
zippy1 said:
Regardless, your thoughts on these lavish trips publishers send game journalists on are grossly overstated in almost all cases. Although I hear the Capcom event that went on earlier today was pretty goofy.
Again, read Shoe's article and those like it and come back to me on that. Whores, races, training classes, joy rides, trips to exotic locations, press kits, dinners, lodging expenses, travel expenses, other gifts beside press kits, etc. happen, though obviously small gifts, lodging, dinners, travel expenses, and the like are the most common.
zippy1 said:
Civilization games are strategy games, not RPGs. The rules are different. People expect something out of a slow and plodding strategy game like the Civ series
Not really, many people expect RPGs to be time consuming and involve some amount of trudging, thanks to JRPGs these days.
zippy1 said:
Civilization games are strategy games, not RPGs. The rules are different. People expect something out of a slow and plodding strategy game like the Civ series, and it's funny that they increased the pace significantly when they did Civ Rev.
Amusingly Civ Rev received worse reactions (84 on MC vs 94) and sold worse for the PC. It was a Civ game changed to have controls work better for a console and for the perceived console audience, it was simplified and changed to real time, something that it suffered for.
zippy1 said:
Nostalgia fuels a game like Chrono Trigger, plus there's the whole portable platform as well. That game would hit Virtual Console or XBLA if it was on a major console.
Oh it would be released on VC now in large part because it was already made and released many years ago (I expect to see it hit VC in a couple of years at most). It's like saying that if FF was made today that it would be released on VC, it's pretty ridiculous as it has a shit-load of assumptions which are likely wrong ranging from the gameplay to the graphics and sound. I expect the next MMX game, if one is made, to be released on a disc for at least the Wii if not all platforms despite MM9 being released for VC. Why? Because it would most likely look like MMX8 with improved graphics, and probably be about the same length as well. How about the Metal Slug games? They are released as compilation packs and on VC on both the 360 and the Wii and have done just fine. Why is it's distribution method even an issue?
zippy1 said:
I maintain that trying to make a turn-based, isometric RPG would find neither the critical nor retail success of Fallout 3. (Feel free to revert back to the "that doesn't mean it's a good game" argument)
There are people who maintain that the world is flat and you have provided just as much evidence for your argument as they have for theirs. Prove that it won't sell, ideally through pointing out a recent title that did just what you say will fail and did, though if you can come up with different equally satisfying evidence, I'll have no complaints. But you won't. How I know this is because I've seen this comment made dozens of times and have had similar conversations to this every time, and every time there is no evidence that they can find to support it.
zippy1 said:
As for the rest of your post, this notion that the "quality" of a product can be objectively measured by some kind of empirical scale with no disagreement possible is completely ridiculous. Ever disagree with one of these sites' top 100 game lists?
Who said that there wouldn't be any disagreement? Critics disagree all of the time about how good movies are but some sort of generally accepted idea ends up emerging years later. Still, games can be separated into parts and rated appropriately, some reviews do this (or claim to) and do so poorly, others do a pretty decent job of it. Agreement can be reached about how well a game does bits and pieces, for example controls, sound, music, voice acting, graphics, gameplay mechanics, etc., but the thing that will be least agreed upon is how fun a game is. Granted, the gaming press needs a complete overhaul in order to be useful but it can and is done by some folks out there.
