"We were really disappointed with the early US reviews," Brunier said. "We are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the experience we created, but we did not expect so harsh a feedback. However, as more and more journalists and gamers played the game, these opinions proved to be a minority. So, right now, we're rather pleased with the overall reception of the game."
Where precisely did he say, "I liked those reviews because they gave it a good score"? Where precisely did he say that his disappointment stemmed from the initial reviews being bad, rather than possibly from him considering that maybe the weaknesses of the experience--and their WORK--were more substantial than they'd originally thought? And what's wrong with this being followed by a more positive feedback that renewed their faith in what they did?
You're acting like there's only one way to read this statement, when there isn't. Given that you have chosen to draw implications from the statement, I'll try drawing a few from yours: you're saying that he's a butthurt guy who is completely unwilling to accept any negative feedback, and when he says, "we're aware of the weakensses," it's actually tainted with sarcasm! Yeah, THAT'S what he's saying!
Find that implication ridiculous? Good. So do I. And you should consider whether yours is ridiculous as well.
@shadowhunter0 @josetoronja Yep. Gotta have lots of ammo in a survival horror game. Hence the incredibly "scary" Resident Evil 5 and 6.
'Sigh' Maybe you don't like it because it's how a zombie apocalypse would ACTUALLY happen. What exactly do you WANT from a survival horror game? Action sequences? Isn't that what Devil May Cry is for?
@Jumalacca Okay, just in case you didn't see my reply to the other guy, I'll also reply to you. And let me preface this by admitting that I actually haven't played ME3 yet. I've only recently started the first one. So I won't tell you your opinion of the game is wrong. (Read my other comments and you'll know that's not even how I want to talk.)
Let me start by repeating what I told the other guy: this is a franchise that has HUGE games. Altogether, we're probably talking around 100 hours put into all 3 games. The ending lasts 2-3 hours from what I've heard. Therefore, if the ending is the only thing that utterly sucks--as some have claimed--then 97% of the franchise has been high quality. Yet everyone has decided it all amounts to nothing because of those 3%. That's not reasonable IMO.
To continue where I left off with the other guy, though that may have been how they advertised it, to say the game was "built around choice" and therefore decide it sucks if it takes it away has two major issues. The first is that it narrows the focus of what we can say is important in the game. From what I've played, there are LOADS of sidequests and planets to explore in Mass Effect. These have little to do with choice, but are well done. IMO the RPG mechanics provide a rewarding sense of progression as you complete quests. SOME of these have to do with choice, but a lot of them don't because you can just keep leveling up your characters to max. The dialogue--disregarding the choices involved--is fairly well written. Now what about the 2-3 hours at the end of the series negates the quality of the RPG mechanics and the plethora of sidequests? To the best of my knowledge, it DOESN'T. Therefore not only is it illogical to decide the entire STORY is crap because of the ending, but it's EXTREMELY illogical to decide an entire GAME--with numerous components--is crap based solely on one feature. Even if you DID decide the story was crap because of those hours, the story is only PART of the game.
The second problem is something I've been yelling at the top of my lungs since the whole concept of "choice" got introduced into RPGs: it's not true. You know what the rough equivalent of this type of game is in the world of books? The Choose Your Own Adventure story. Name a single book in that series that is considered a "classic." Then tell me you truly have any significant control over where the story goes in those books. The same principle is basically true of these games IMO. It doesn't make them bad--I'm enjoying ME a great deal--but it means that if we were expecting "choice," it's because we were suckers for impossible promises. Speaking of impossible promises, though I honestly find it unethical to advertise a game in a manner that it doesn't deliver, how on earth are consumers dumb enough to buy into that kind of ridiculous hype after all these years? And what makes that different from companies like Nintendo saying Twilight Princess is 100 hours long without any of the sidequests when I was able to finish the ENTIRE game in 60? Over-promising and under-delivering is something that happens all the time in this industry, yet is conveniently ignored when critics enjoy something. So this argument that it didn't deliver is really just a variant of "I didn't enjoy the game they produced," rather than the game not delivering what was TECHNICALLY promised. If people enjoyed the 2-3 hour endings, I'm pretty sure almost nobody would be whining that they didn't get any significant choice.
As for the "half-assed" aspects of the game, I will acknowledge that as a very real complaint, but I will take issue with whether it's the result of apathy and laziness or the result of outside forces that have little or nothing to do with development: loans needing to get paid, alleged publisher pressure, the possible realization part way through after the advertising was already produced that the story wouldn't ALLOW them to provide those choices...nothing short of really working for Bioware is going to give us a clear understanding of why ME3 ended up the way it did, and I FIRMLY believe that it's possible for good developers to produce garbage despite working their butts off. Sometimes things just don't work out the way they should.
Lastly, to your example of a hypothetical ending to Harry Potter my answer is this: I'd be very disappointed, but I would have NO RIGHT to act like a crime had been committed, as many gamers did. Until the copyright on the back of a game says, "The Fans," a franchise, a property, a fictional universe is NOT OURS. It is the property of JK Rowling, and if she wants to end the story that way, she has every right to do it. Considering that the majority of the time, entertainers do NOT want to disappoint people, if they choose to do something like that, it is to THEIR detriment in the future. We will be disappointed, but in remembering that disappointment, THEY will lose future sales.
Now having said all of this, I DO honestly wish that Bioware would give EA the finger and go back to Microsoft, or just find another publisher. Because more than likely, EA has caused some of the problems they've had in the last couple years. Nevertheless, I think that at least SOME of the disappointment gamers have felt about Bioware's last couple games have been about people "waking up" to what a crock "choice" in games is, as it has to do with the games being "low quality." And as a side note, I just want to add that for years now, I've been referring to western RPGs as "sandboxes with RPG elements," as I find story significantly less important than gameplay in those games and miss terribly the "linear" nature of JRPGs, which I think of as TRUE RPGs.
This is all my opinion, and I hope I didn't sound overly rude as I wrote it. And as always, I apologize that it's so darn long, but IMO 10 word responses are the worst form of black and white thinking. :)
@shadowhunter0 'Sigh' Did you read the story? He's NOT disappointed. He's happy. And the fact that he was disappointed in the beginning means he DID think it had problems. He's not disappointed in what the reviewers said; he WAS disappointed in the PRODUCT THEY MADE. Until he realized they were in the minority, whereupon they became proud of what they'd accomplished.
To me, this is CLEAR EVIDENCE of the phenomenon I've been describing: if any developer so much as says, "Well, maybe-" in response to criticism, they are automatically "butthurt" and can't handle criticism and are the worst form of wrong imaginable.
I just know I'm gonna get crap for this--and I apologize to those it doesn't apply to--but gamers A) need to learn to read, B) need to learn to think, and C) need to grow the **** up.
@BruceWayneJr @Seshohama I don't work for Ubisoft, or EA, who I have also defended strenuously on these forums. I have an opinion that is different from most people's and gets slapped with simple-minded labels like "fanboy" or "employee of said company" or "idiot." I WILL admit that I technically work for Nintendo, as I work at a call center they pay for taking Wi-Fi calls, but I don't own a Wii U or a copy of ZombiU.
And before you decide to pull out the predictable, "You can't commentate cause you haven't played it argument," let me respond that I have been defending the developer's comments, not the game. In addition, I will point out that this argument is effectively a "lose-lose" in the realm of gaming, and here's why: if I haven't played it and defend it strenuously, you can claim I'm ignorant of how bad it is. But if I HAVE played it and defend it strenuously, you can claim I'm a blind fanboy who isn't capable of intelligent thinking, or claim I'm biased because I work for the company that makes the Wii U. In other words, no matter what I do, if I think the game is good I'm automatically wrong, and the only "right" answer is to think it's garbage.
If you don't like it, fine. I respect that. What I DON'T respect is people being judgmental pricks because someone does something that almost all people would do under the same circumstances: defend him/herself.
@Seshohama First of all, I didn't say that critics conspired to topple ZombiU. What I said was that I think many of the gamers dismissing any claims to "conspiracy" on the part of ZombiU would happily get behind one that suggests payoffs for the reviews of ME3. To me, it's contradictory. You don't get to claim there IS a conspiracy one day and then ridicule others for doing it the next day. Nor did I say the reviews by these "respected" sites were "wrong." To say so would be to decide factually what IS "good" and "bad," which is a sign of arrogance.
That isn't even what I'm arguing here. The reason I showed up and commented is because anytime a developer has the "nerve" to defend itself from criticism, the gaming community--in some cases incapable of seeing colors other than black and white--condemns them for doing so. In a court of law--yes I'm making this comparison--the suspects are guilty until proven innocent. Except when a gamer is on trial, then they're automatically innocent no matter what.
Now because you apparently have an issue with people latching onto one thing you say, I'll try to address everything. First is that you've pointed out that places like Gamespot and IGN are the most "respected" websites because they are the sites people usually go to for gaming news. An extension of this is that they get the most traffic. This makes sense...except that the GAME that gets the most traffic in the industry is Call of Duty, bar almost nothing. Therefore, your logic suggests that Call of Duty is the only franchise worth paying attention to. Saying that because the most people visit the site it is "respected" or "trustworthy" is not necessarily true.
Plus, if you took a bunch of people who play nothing but FPS games and then gave them all Dragon Age saying it was an amazing shooter, you'd see them all giving it crappy reviews. Should we conclude based on this that Dragon Age is a terrible game? It's unlikely that this would happen, but it doesn't make those who might criticize it for "bad shooting mechanics" any less wrong. Expectations color things too much.
As for your claim as to whether 76 is something to be proud of, the answer is IT DEPENDS. If DDI--the creators of such "gems" as Anubis II and Billy the Wizard Broomstick Racing--suddenly produced a game worthy of a 76 when all their other games have been abysmal, is it right to say it's nothing to be proud of? How about if it's the first game you've ever made? Or if it's the first time you've tried to program with a new console, like this situation with ZombiU? Furthermore, you're stating a policy of providing bonuses for high Metacritic scores like it's a positive. Well how about other corporate policies like EA's that states every game they release must have $20 of DLC. (It's something like that.) Shall we support that as well? Shall we support policies that say the Metacritic score is more important than pleasing the fans or--dare I say it--making a quality game? I honestly cannot think of a single "killer app" that I feel actually deserved the ridiculously high praise it got. Gears of War started out boring, Halo started out boring, Zelda games have often started out boring, and numerous other "killer apps" haven't been the utterly cohesive, perfect experiences that many critics have framed them to be. They aren't BAD by any means, but a "killer app" is supposed to be "flawless," and I can't think of any killer apps that fit that description. Like almost all games, I had to adjust my expectations before I could truly understand what they were, something most gamers seem distinctly uninterested in doing. And believe it or not, if your launch window consists of nothing but "crap," as some people have suggested the Wii U launch is, then a score that ISN'T crap--such as 76--DOES make it stand out, doesn't it?
You have suggested it is a waste of time to try defining what "mediocre" means because it will mean something different for everyone. That is PRECISELY why it needs to be defined if it's going to be used in a factual, scientific way, as it has here. If you don't want to bother with that and just speak with apathy and a lack of clarity, fine. In China, if you smile in public, people think you wanna fight, but I guess that's not as important as your INTENTION, right? Too bad you'll still get kicked in the nuts for it.
Finally, the Great Depression happened for "clearly documented" reasons as well. It's because the government didn't do enough, and because it did too much...wait WHAT?! That's right: some claim it was because of the former and have evidence to back it up; others claim it was the latter and have evidence to back THAT up. The Great Depression is quite factual, but the cause is not. So even IF you wanted to argue it was factual that ZombiU was terrible, the causes would still be questionable. If we can't even get something historically factual straight in our heads, there is no reason to think we WILL get something SUBJECTIVE like entertainment right in our heads. The day we stop being "confused" is the day we close our minds to other possibilities.
I apologize for this lengthy response, and I honestly hope I didn't sound like a jerk. I'm passionate about this and to me, language is a big deal.
@Ayato_Kamina_1 Also, just read another of your comments where you actually admitted to a bit of player fault on the part of playing horror games in a lighted room. While it can be argued that a good horror game should be able to scare you without having to turn the sound up or turn off the lights, it is unbelievably refreshing to hear someone acknowledging what I've been trying to tell people for years: WE HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY TOO. When you don't enjoy something, it's just as likely that you haven't put in the effort as it is that the developers didn't. That's my feeling about it anyway.
@FearMe801 And if gamers keep crying whenever a developer has the nerve to defend himself, they should grow up and learn to accept criticism too, which means if a developer tries to say maybe you didn't understand something, you don't take it as an affront to your character as a substantial portion of the community did when Bioware dared to call a few gamers assholes when they displayed homophobic, racist remarks.
I'm not saying you meant gamers shouldn't grow up a little too. I'm just suggesting that this goes both ways, and in my experience, gamers want it to go ONE way: in their favor.
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