Things That Bother You About Gaming

[Spark Of Spirit]

I bet it was an Eidos employee.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Split-Screen gaming falling by the wayside

Sorry, but local multiplayer is the best multiplayer.

[Rynnec]

That was a tough decision for the team. Given the limited scope of the game we had to make some choices on what goes into game. Split screen was talked about heavily but in the end we had to really look at the way people play nowadays which is more online.

I do not appreciate this new development.

[Spark Of Spirit]

It's probably because it's easier.

But come on, I was always hoping as TVs got bigger, split-screen would easier. After all, now split-screen gaming is like what individual TV sizes would be back in the day.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

There are plenty of modern multiplayer games that can include split-screen in addition to online play. Its something that's been around in gaming for a long time. Them saying that they don't have enough time to work on split-screen just seems like an excuse to me, but maybe I should give them the benefit of the doubt since I've been hearing a lot about how the modern gaming industry puts A LOT of pressure on developers to meet deadlines these days.

[gunswordfist]

Split-Screen gaming falling by the wayside

Sorry, but local multiplayer is the best multiplayer.

Oh God, I've always hated the lack of split screen this gen but to exclude it from a game that originally had it is just fucking stupid. What better feature could they have had time and money for?Stupid decision.

[Commode]

God fuck, I hate the god damned PSN.  All I'm trying to do is buy Tomba, and I've put in the info of two different cards and double checked the info and all it can tell me is "the funds could not be added to your wallet".  What the fuck.

[Spark Of Spirit]

God fuck, I hate the god damned PSN.  All I'm trying to do is buy Tomba, and I've put in the info of two different cards and double checked the info and all it can tell me is "the funds could not be added to your wallet".  What the fuck.

PSN is terrible. Slow, clunky, glitchy, and a pretty thin selection despite the PS3 being like 6 years old now.

Even the Wii's store is better, and it's incredibly outdated.

[Foggle]

Never personally had a problem with any digital download store. That includes PSN (NA, EU, and JPN), Wii, XBLA, pre-Orange Box Steam, and Origin. PSN actually seemed like one of the better ones, in fact.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I think that Western gaming critics are fucking hypocrites when it comes to their opinions on Western games to Japanese games.

Let me explain:

If there's something wrong with a Japanese game or it has some shortcomings compared to contemporary games, critics will be really quick to spot it and point it out, and occasionally over-bloat it to be a bigger problem that it really is. That said, its fair to criticize the game for what it doesn't do so great. I don't mind how Metroid: Other M got criticized for being sexist and linear or how Ninja Gaiden 3 got criticized for being far too scripted and trying to tell a deep story and utterly sucking at it (in fact I agree with both points, and if anything some critics were too light on NG3; they should have torn Hayashi and Team Ninja to shreds with their reviews). But, still, the point is that critics have no problem pointing out the flaws in Japanese games, which is fine in and of itself.

Yet, I see critics downright praise Western games that have the same exact problems. Case in point: Look at how the new Tomb Raider game is shaping up. It is entirely full of scripted sequences, and Lara Croft is being portrayed as a weak individual who has to run and hide from the big bad strong men chasing her around. Its fucking stupid and misses the whole point of the character and the series (I don't even need to have played a single Tomb Raider game to tell you that). Furthermore, the adventure and exploration elements of the series are being scrapped for "grit" and dark subject matter. Its really stupid for the series itself to move in this direction, but I'd at least understand critics praising it if it was done well, but I've seen plenty of footage of this game, and its NOT. Have any of these gaming critics ever seen a movie in their life? Do they know what a well-crafted story or characters are? A big problem with Western games these days is they overemphasize when they are trying to be deep and dark. When they are trying to push a game as being more realistic and down to earth and really analyzing a character, they over-emphasize these 1 or 2 elements that they are trying to portray and do something so stupidly amateur like having characters constantly say or emote this one trait that the developers are trying to push, and in the process become more 1-dimensional than when they were just fun video game characters in the past. I seriously believe that the hacks they have writing these stories have never seen a good film in their life. There's something called subtlety and character development that clearly no gaming critic or writers involved in gaming are aware of.

Also, putting Tomb Raider aside, there are other games that get way too much praise from the critics just because they are AAA Western games. For instance, Gears of War 3, while being a decent TPS, does absolutely nothing new that's actually noteworthy of being a step up since the first game, yet critics are hailing it with 9's and 10's and saying how amazing it is and how much of a step up it is. Its funny because I remember back to Ninja Gaiden 2 when critics said that not much had changed, and I wondered if any of them had ever even played the first game since the first and 2nd game feel and even look COMPLETELY different. Seriously, you guys can even watch videos without having played them and see how different the combat looks in each, and since combat is the main focus of these games, that's a HUGE difference. Yet if you see the Call of Duty games being played back to back (specifically the Modern Warfare games which are all set in the same general time period), I bet you couldn't distinguish between 2 gameplay segments from different games if you were to just see them, but somehow these games never get criticized for doing the same things over and over again.

Anyways, sorry for the rant, but this is something that has been bothering me for a while. I just thing that gaming journalism in the West is complete garbage (I don't know anything about journalism in Japan or anywhere else to comment on it, so I won't say anything in that regard). Gaming critics are completely biased and as far as I'm concerned, they've lost all credibility to me and I'm starting to feel like they are becoming less relevant to the general gaming public as well, or at least I hope so because most of them don't deserve to be taken seriously by anyone.

[Spark Of Spirit]

The sequel argument is the worst one.

I still remember IGN's criticism that Fire Emblem for Wii didn't add enough new nor have online (Online for what?) or Mii support (Gwah?), not to mention how New Super Mario Bros. Wii shouldn't have been charged full price because 2D platformers were sold on the market 20 years ago. Yet every CoD game that does nothing new whatsoever gets a pass.

There is a very clear and obvious bias going on, and I don't know where it came from. When I was a kid, no one cared where games came from, and reviewers never cared either. Yet nowadays if it's made by a non-American studio it is instantly torn into and given some really ridiculous complaints in order to knock it down a peg.

[Rosalinas Spare Wand]

That reminds me, I clicked on this news link a friend sent me about Valkyria Duel. It was unfortunately from Kotaku and they didn't even bother hiding their bias at all. The article ends with a short paragraph that says "Remember when japanese developers made real games? Remember when they made good games?".

It felt like such a dick move especially since it was written by Brian Asscroft, the resident weeaboo that reports inane moments while living in Japan.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I just don't understand where this came from. Is it because they don't make movie games? Isn't that a good thing? Isn't variety a good thing?

Heck, remember when American studios like LucasArts were good? Now they can't even make simple things like Wii lightsaber games despite being what their audience has wanted most for like 6 years..

[Rynnec]

I don't think LucasArts had made a single noteworthy Star Wars game since Battlefront 2, and that was over 5 years ago! Yeah, I guess there's Force Unleashed and The Old Republic, but neither of those seem to be anything special like the Battlefronts and Rouge Squadron were.

I just don't understand where this came from. Is it because they don't make movie games? Isn't that a good thing? Isn't variety a good thing?

It's probably because their like of "realism". Notice how the most well-recepted Japanese games this gen are the rather dark and more realistic (aesthetically at least) Demon Souls and Dark Souls.

Also, putting Tomb Raider aside, there are other games that get way too much praise from the critics just because they are AAA Western games. For instance, Gears of War 3, while being a decent TPS, does absolutely nothing new that's actually noteworthy of being a step up since the first game, yet critics are hailing it with 9's and 10's and saying how amazing it is and how much of a step up it is. Its funny because I remember back to Ninja Gaiden 2 when critics said that not much had changed, and I wondered if any of them had ever even played the first game since the first and 2nd game feel and even look COMPLETELY different. Seriously, you guys can even watch videos without having played them and see how different the combat looks in each, and since combat is the main focus of these games, that's a HUGE difference. Yet if you see the Call of Duty games being played back to back (specifically the Modern Warfare games which are all set in the same general time period), I bet you couldn't distinguish between 2 gameplay segments from different games if you were to just see them, but somehow these games never get criticized for doing the same things over and over again.

Speaking of Gears of War, if you want to see just how badly people overrate it, look no further than here. Specifically the part where they start talking about a characters death.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

That was so stupid, too. Dom is such a dumb-ass. Anyone who actually saw that part knew how ridiculous that moment was. For one thing, why did Dom crash their fuel truck into the swarm of enemies to seal off the tunnel when he could have just brought it around for everyone to board on and then they could have just escaped AND they would have had the fuel they needed? Its so utterly stupid because that moment was literally created JUST for the sake of killing a character off and trying to play it off for some cheap drama. It was actually hilariously bad in how it was played out, too. After he crashes the truck in the middle of the explosion, Marcus actually says "No! I have to save him, he's still alive in there!" (you know, because someone who has been blown into millions of pieces might still be breathing) which is such utterly terrible writing and makes absolutely no sense that its pretty fucking hilarious in an unintentional way.

I seriously think that anyone who says that was good writing was either paid to say it or has honestly never picked up a book or watched anything other than a Michael Bay film in their life.