I know system wars is full of hipsters but just because a lot of people like a game doesn't mean it's bad >.>mrmusicman247
No, it doesn't mean that at all. But it could mean that it's good, but good in shallow ways, and possibly too safely designed to be a truly amazing game. [QUOTE="BlackoutGunshot"]Another example - my GOTY, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. At least one person a day thinks it's the greatest game of the generation - and they're met with an equal number who think it's trash. It's also got an 89 on Metacritic and got a 8.5 here. But for those of us who the game was really built for, it makes everything else look like "Once Upon a Monster" in terms of simplicity. Planeforger
I'm sorry, but who exactly was the game built for?
I'm a huge fan of deep games, I love RPGs, stealth games and anything with a well-told story, and I'm also a fan of Deus Ex 1...and yet Deus Ex: Human Revolution was too simplistic, flawed and badly-written for me to think of it as a great game. It was entertaining, sure, but underwhelming - it left no lasting impression, beyond the frustration of knowing that it could have been much better.
If I was the target audience, then no, it certainly doesn't make everything else look simplistic. EYE Divine Cybermancy came out about the same time and completely trounced it in terms of depth, and that was just an example from the last few months alone, let alone the whole generation.
So I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at by saying 'those of us who the game was really built for'.
If you're just saying that the game was designed to be enjoyed by the people who end up enjoying it, then that isn't saying much at all.
And if you're saying that these sorts of games were designed to be played by those who appreciate deeper games than those games made 'for the masses', then you could have picked a better example than Human Revolution...which is almost middleground - more complex than the average summer blockbuster, but more casual than many games of a similar nature, frequently featuring more sty|e than substance.
I mean, I agree that scores are meaningless, and the summer blockbuster games tend to get baffling scores while bringing nothing new to the table, but...sometimes negative criticism can be accurate?
Thanks for the reply. And yes, it's circular logic to imply that games are meant to be enjoyed by the people who enjoy them. But it also makes quite a bit of sense - designers build a game that may not appeal to all people. Is it a failure if not everybody likes it, but some people really do? Nah, it's just a game that wasn't meant for all people. Where I take disagreement to you (besides your DX:HR criticism) is your suggestion that you must be complicated to be deep. I think something that is deep can be very accessible. Calling it "deep" just means that it is meaningful, open-ended, and can be appreciated on many levels. A game that makes itself too complicated can often turn away gamers rather than immerse them, which was a criticism some reviewers had with "EYE", to use your example. And yes, some games are scored badly because of flaws - a game that's rated an average of 50% probably has serious issues, even if somebody can really enjoy it. But every reviewer looks at the same games - yet they give them much different scores. That's got to be subjectivity - meaning, they liked it or they didn't like it. It's not too much of a stretch to think that if they rated it highly, they liked it, and if they didn't, they didn't. 
Log in to comment