Ryse of the off-topic conspiracy rant (spawn)

[London Geezer]

Speak for yourself. Soon enough it will be $5 on Steam and I will still not likely bother.

DOH! I'll just play it on my Mac. The end.

 

[Arwin]

It can be frustrating. I loved Super Rub a Dub, and it got a 3/10 on Eurogamer iirc. And The Fight: Lights Out was also a big favorite for me. Also universally panned.

Checking on metacritic, the games have 41/100 and 45/100 critic ratings, and user ratings average 30 higher. So there's a clear difference there at least.

 

[dobwal]

I get my ass kicked in Arkham, cause the enemies are faster, smarter and actually work together. It requires very quick reactions and perfectly timed combos. Ryse is like the kindergarten version of that, very little challenge or skill required.

We must have different play styles. I readily use one of the best "get of jail free" cards in gaming called the bat cable. Only the times where its unusable and there are alot of enemies does the game seem hard to me and thats mostly limited to boss battles.

 

[Sigfried1977]

It can be frustrating. I loved Super Rub a Dub, and it got a 3/10 on Eurogamer iirc. And The Fight: Lights Out was also a big favorite for me. Also universally panned.

Checking on metacritic, the games have 41/100 and 45/100 critic ratings, and user ratings average 30 higher. So there's a clear difference there at least.

That's because people like to convince themselves and others that they're smart spenders with impeccable taste. Rather than admitting to the fact that they might have wasted their money on a subpar product, they'd rather presuade others to make the same mistake. They seek validation through others. It's why every ever-so-slightly negative review is usually followed by a shitstorm in the comments section. As soon as your own money is involved, you're way more likely to ignore the negative aspects and try to focus solely on the positive ones. I mean why wouldn't you.

Most also still use the good ol' 7-10 scale.

 

[Arwin]

Yes, that must be the only reason. It can't possibly be because reviewers are more hardcore than most and have their thumbs physically merged with analog sticks for instance

 

[Sigfried1977]

^That's another reason. I also don't think that's a bad thing at all. Just like I don't care for an 8 year old's opinion on a Transformers movie, I don't really care about someone's critical analysis of a game when he hasn't had the means or the time to expand his horizon yet. Critics aren't supposed to be in touch with what the average joe likes and dislikes. Criticism is meant to fuel dicussions. It was never meant to be a buyer's guide.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Well if you get bored of the over the top execution modes, then combat is just this wrote task of hitting people until an icon shows up over their head, then hitting a button. Rinse and repeat. *yawn*

The problem is is that this absolutely is not whatsoever what the game is like once you get past the first couple of levels and on the harder difficulties. There are some very specific combo's required to defeat some enemy types as you progress through the game and the real challenge comes when you end up fighting a group of different enemy types simultaneously, thus having to switch between the various combo's on the fly. That's what I think many people have missed about this game.

There's no skill involved like a good fighting game should have, such as the Arkham series.

The irony of that (and I know I'm in a minority here) is that I found Arkham City pretty boring (especially combat) while I think Ryse is awesome. The funny thing is I played them back to back too, well kind of, I finished Wolfenstein and while waiting for Ryse to be delivered I decided to go back and try to finish AC which I'd abandoned about 6 months earlier. I literally couldn't play it and just ended up taking a break from gaming for a week. That was about 3 weeks ago and I'm currently on my second play through of Ryse.

What about that gameplay is actually fun to you?

The thing I find amazing is that people had exactly the same views on Cyrsis which was another groundbreaking graphical showpiece that was accused of being devoid of gameplay and nothing more than a tech demo and which IMO is one of the best FPS's ever to grace any platform.

 

[function]

There are many games where the more I've played, the better I realise the game is.

Sometimes were talking 40,60, or more hours of play time before everything in the game clicked.

Reviewers rarely go in-depth, they are mainly there to tell if a game will quickly match existing taste categories. Often, through PR from major publishers, they are primed to see just how well a game will be compatible with their readers tastes.

Most reviews have no more than superficial value. User reviews on metacritic hold more value than 'professional' reviews once you get a few weeks past launch and a few thousand reviews banked up. At least there'll be some people there that have thoroughly explored the game.

 

[London Geezer]

Sorry but you waited 40-60 until the game 'clicked' for you??? That's perseverance...

 

[function]

A series of clicks, and the game gets better with each. Some times you might not thing a game is even very good at first. For everything to come together can take a long time.

Halo 3, 4 player co-op on Legendary on about your tenth playthrough. Ace Combat 6 on "Ace" difficulty using only the Typhoon all the way through. Revenge of Shinobi on Megadrive, playing with no Shurikens and one life. Virtua Fighter 3 just ... in general.

Games are honed over thousands and thousands of hours of testing, often the best a game has to offer is buried very deep and many, many playthroughs later on the harder difficulties.

Developers often have to take supremely crafted games and wreck them so they can provide an easymode (often called 'normal') then a reviewer can limp through in 5 hours and then claim to have 'reviewed'.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Games are honed over thousands and thousands of hours of testing, often the best a game has to offer is buried very deep and many, many playthroughs later on the harder difficulties.

Developers often have to take supremely crafted games and wreck them so they can provide an easymode (often called 'normal') then a reviewer can limp through in 5 hours and then claim to have 'reviewed'.

I can agree to that. In writing my little games, I've clearly become finely tuned to the mechanics. Put them in the hands of someone else and they can't make any progress. "But it's so easy!" thinks me, and, "how rubbish at games are people anyhow?!" thinks me, and then I create super simplified games that people say, "gosh, it's really difficult, isn't it?"

Devs testing have hours and hours of developing the ultimate gameplay skills on said game. Tuning it for someone who hasn't got that experience is clearly going to be an art, unless, I dunno, maybe they can get noobs in to tweak the game parameters and make it just right? But I can well believe that the dumbed-down version lacks all the qualities that make the game shine.

That said, often in my experience games dry up after the beginning, and become repetitive and less involved rather than more challenging.