One of our writers posted a critique of the latest wildly-popular BioWare RPG, Mass Effect 2, on our sister site, InfoAddict, and it’s seriously stirred up the emotions of quite a few fanboys so we thought we’d reprint it here for you to enjoy (or hate) too. (If you’d like to read some of the encouraging comments and fiery criticisms left on the original post, you can find it here.)
With an average score of 96 on Metacritic, one would be justified in believing Mass Effect 2 has little room for improvement. An overwhelming majority of so-called game critics have weighed-in, predictably showering Bioware’s latest RPG with roses and garlands.
Bioware is one of a select number of game companies that receives a +3 modifier in review scores. So take an average game that would normally receive a 7, add Bioware’s name to the box, and oila! Instant 10. While this may be great for Bioware’s bottom-line, it’s actually a grave disservice to the company and gamers, not to mention a glowing example of everything that is wrong in game journalism; criticism specifically.
Having played and finished Mass Effect 2, I can safely say, without reservation or hesitation, that Bioware’s latest RPG is a complete mess, from top-to-bottom and not a product worthy of Bioware’s heritage.
Uncharted 2 is enjoying stellar reviews, riding high with a 96 average on Metacritic and standing tall as the critical darling of 2009. In fact, the lowest score a critic could muster was an impressive 9, meaning Uncharted 2 must be damn-near perfect in every way. Unfortunately, my experience with Uncharted 2, which I played to completion, was not that of a 9-10 rated game. Quite the contrary.
Before I launch an attack on Uncharted 2, allow me to proclaim some praise where it is due.
Lush, Detailed Graphics
Uncharted 2 is one of the most beautiful-looking games you’ve ever seen. The attention to detail, set design, and tons of little touches all conspire to push the PS3 to its maximum capability. The artists and level designers truly delivered something fantastic.
Great Voice-Acting
99% of videogames have horrendous voice-acting by 5th-rate talent that would be better served by abandoning the acting and relying solely on subtitles. Not so with Uncharted 2. Here the acting is solid and lines are delivered with something akin to emotion, which is nice to hear.
That’s pretty much it for my positives. Now on with the show.
Great Graphics Do Not Make a Great Game read more…
Batman: Arkham Asylum is a game of amazing depth. For fans of the Caped Crusader it is a dark treasure trove of trivia, action, and intensity. The voice acting is superb and there is tons of it. Interview tapes you discover along your move through the game unlock hours and hours of dialogue from all of the villains as they interact with an Arkham shrink. The dialogue is well written and performed fantastically so it is a joy for fans and would do a great job of acquainting those with only a passing familiarity with some of the more obscure characters. They also do a great job, along with a load of other unlockable content, abilities, challenges, etc., of pulling you through the game.
And it is important to give the game sometime to fully reveal all of its potential. It actually wasn’t till a couple hours into the game that I wasn’t convinced everyone was crazy and that Arkham Asylum didn’t deserve more than score in the mid-8’s. After all, you were seeing nothing more than cell block corridors, and the visuals were great, but not perfect. read more…
Back two console generations ago, Nintendo sat squarely on top of the console first-person shooter market. Staples like Goldeneye, Perfect Dark and the Turok series appeased itchy trigger fingers while ports of PC shooters such as Doom, Quake and Forsaken filled in the gaps. If you wanted a good RPG, you went to the PlayStation. But if you wanted a good first-person shooter, you went to the Nintendo 64.
With the launch of the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox, things changed a bit. Nintendo’s new disc-based console seemed to be nearly bereft of the FPS genre while Microsoft’s first entry in the console market, the Xbox, debuted the new industry standard: Halo.
Nintendo never really seemed to recover its once renowned FPS status, even with the release of the Wii in 2006, which promised unprecedented aiming controls on a console as evidenced by Retro Studio’s Metroid Prime 3. The sad truth was that despite the fact that a nunchuck could be attached to the Wii remote for total aiming and movement control, most publishers seemed to focus on the Wii remote alone, releasing one rail shooter after another.
So along came High Voltage Software last year – a developer known (or perhaps unknown) for kid-friendly titles such as Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law and The Grim Adventure of Billy and Mandy – announcing that it was developing a hardcore FPS exclusively for the Wii. Interest in screenshots and videos of The Conduit quickly picked up momentum among the Wii audience, creating one of the most anticipated third-party titles on the system.
So with the game finally in our hands, the question arises: does the Conduit live up to the hype? The answer is, yes. But that “yes” comes with a qualifier, which is, “Yes, for a Wii title.”
Every generation of gaming hardware seems to develop a core number of titles that are looked back at with collective fondness by those that played on them. For the original Xbox, one of those titles emerged surprisingly from a movie license – Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay.
It was an impressive combination of strange bedfellows brought together with careful balance. Excitement and moodiness, surgical stealth and brutal violence, first-person shooting and hand-to-hand combat, aging hardware and cutting-edge graphics, Vin Diesel and a great story…
It’s one of the few 1st generation Xbox titles that is good enough that I’d recommend hunting it down on eBay or in a used game bin if you missed it the first time around – that is, until its developer decided to bundle it with its sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena.
In 2005, Capcom was taking quite a risk when they made the decision to publish Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, in the States. The game had received a lot of attention and praise from those rare enthusiasts who go to the trouble of buying imported Japanese titles, but they aren’t known for being representative of what a more mainstream audience will find interesting. The games’ protagonist, a lawyer, had to collect a series of clues with the help of a little girl and the ghost of another attorney in order to win his cases. Besides yelling “Objection!” into the DS’ mic (which was optional), actual gameplay never moved much beyond dialogue trees and Myst-style investigations of static environments.
So it’s not hard to imagine there was a sigh of relief at Capcom when their counter-intuitive gamble paid off. Ace Attorney got high marks from critics while store owners quickly burned through their first shipments of the game that has since generated two sequels and a spin off, Apollo Justice.
After that encouraging response, it can make sense for publishers who are willing to take some risks to begin considering games like Lux Pain. Like Phoenix Wright, Lux Pain is an anime-style, character and story-driven mystery that puts more emphasis on gathering clues than action-oriented gameplay.
The difference arrives in the matter of degrees. It’s as if Pain’s developer, Killaware, looked at Wright’s success and said to themselves, “Let’s turn everything up to 11. read more…
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