9/6/06 12:28 PM
"The Decline of Objectivity"
I have spent the last month battling my way through games. These are games,
that for all intents and purposes, should have been launched at the beginning
of summer. Once again ever developer in the world is dropping their collective
load at once.
What irks me is that the games I have been playing are good, yet every single one of them has been getting bad reviews. Disgaea 2 has a 6.5, Dead Rising gets rated anywhere from a 5.0 to a 7.5, and almost no one wants to even touch Enchanted Arms. And somehow they have become such a time constant, for me, that I just cancelled my WoW account.
Why are all these games getting such a low rating? At one point in my life I would just call all of the reviewers dicks and move on. But as you grow older you start looking into things, so when you address your hatemail to someone you can tear their soul asunder.
Dead Rising gets really poor reviews because of the save system which makes it "hard". I don't really remember the last action game that I played that you could save anywhere, I guess that most reviewers do. You really can't save everyone in the mall and complete the main story. It is possible, but it isn't good for one's sanity. I beat the without having to start over on my first try. Why? Cause I let all of the idiots in the mall die and went after the main story.
There are valid complaints about Dead Rising. The text used when clueing you in on where survivors are is unreadably small and blurry. The people in the mall that you can rescue all are programmed with unique "personality quarks" half of which seem to amount to them running full speed into a zombie's arms. And the big one, no co-op play. This would have easily have been a system seller if they had just included that one feature.
Disgaea 2 seems to fall under fire because it is exactly like the first one. I don't really know where in the dictionary "exactly" means "vastly improved on" but I guess there is a version out there that all "accredited" video game reviewers get. If by exactly like the first one they meant "long, complicated, confusing, and difficult" then yes, for most people it is exactly like the first one. Go play solitaire or something.
There are no valid complaints about this game.
Enchanted Arms seems to fall under fire for being overly japanese, as well as being an RPG. I guess reviewers really, really hate RPGs now seeing as how when a game gets the "Role Playing Game" classification it gets a 5. Woops, sorry that a culture is different then America and they decide to make a long video game with a plot.
This game has flaws, and it is in no way perfect. It is slow paced. The game doesn't ever really feel like it is going to start. So what? I would rather have a solid back story that drives the rest of the game then have them not even make an attempt at the plot.
I guess that when you are paid to play video games, and are expected to produce results you just start to hate having to work. Take a look at this month's EGM if you don't believe me. No game with more then 10 hours of gameplay scored anything above a 8. And people say I am an ass.