Do you think the developers know they're making a shit game or do you think that they seriously believe in their product?

@Jimbo: Like Self-Defense Training Camp.... Remember kids always go for the genital triangle :)

So it's as good as Deadly Premonition?!? SOLD!

@mandude: You're looking for the words "detailed" and "explanatory." "Objective" means something completely different from what you're trying to express.

@Klei: Wow. Really? Based on that last paragraph, I kow that trying to argue with you will be pointless. But I think you've got Braid and Super Meat Boy wrong, and you are severely downplaying the achievements of those games in a very unfair way.

But, hey, what would I know? 50% and all that.

I cannot wait for this quicklook; hopefully it's a long one.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/amy/critic-reviews

Every review on there gave it a bad score...

@TheKing said:

Colin Moriarty actually writes reviews? I assumed he only wrote pro-Sony "articles".

Unfortunately they let him out of doing guides about a year ago and moved to editorial, honestly can't stomach even listening to their playstation podcast anymore because of him which is a shame because I actually found it entertaining otherwise. It's so weird too because on any podcast he isn't on other members of the staff talk about how he is fucking out of his mind, and yet he somehow manages to keep a job there.

@Zenaxzd said:

@TheKing said:

Colin Moriarty actually writes reviews? I assumed he only wrote pro-Sony "articles".

Unfortunately they let him out of doing guides about a year ago and moved to editorial, honestly can't stomach even listening to their playstation podcast anymore because of him which is a shame because I actually found it entertaining otherwise. It's so weird too because on any podcast he isn't on other members of the staff talk about how he is fucking out of his mind, and yet he somehow manages to keep a job there.

Every time I read a Colin Moriarty article I get sick to my stomach that this biased hack actually has a paid job writing for a major video game website. Almost all of his articles are pro-sony flamebait drivel with absolutely zero intellectual value. I'm not saying I hate Sony, but the fact that a so-called "professional" journalist is so clearly biased is sickening. Hell, he's only half of IGNs Sony Fanboy writing team, with Greg Miller being the second most biased writer in the industry. As someone that is looking to get into the games writing industry (I am currently an unpaid writer for a small gaming website), it makes sick that these two hacks have jobs. Whew, sorry about that rant. On the topic of the Amy review, I've seen enough reviews of it to know it's bad, but that doesn't make me trust this review any more.

From what it sounds like it sounds similar to SIREN: BLOOD CURSE. Which means I may actually enjoy this game more than I expected.

Obviously this reviewer has never played Comic Jumper.

@Subject2Change: I love Siren, scariest game I've played in a long while.

its like they took the most frustrating and horrible parts of RE4 and made an entire game out of it... and did it badly

@TheVideoHustler said:

@Klei said:

@President_Barackbar said:

@Klei: This is the kind of attitude I don't like. Being an indie dev doesn't suddenly give you a pass on quality. If the game sucks, indie or not, it deserves to be called out for it. I had the same feeling about that Garshasp game after the Quick Look when people started defending it due to the production circumstances.

We all have opinions, and it's super fine. What I brought up was how disrespectful some so-called critics can be towards a project, disregarding entirely the team who poured their hearts and mind into it. As for my standards, they are considerably lower for indie games. Take Super Meat Boy or The Binding of Isaac. Are they excellent compared to Batman AC, Skyrim and Uncharted? No, they are bad, if leveled to them. However, on an indie standpoint, they are completely outstanding. It wouldn't be faire to compare multi-million projects to some that costs only a couple of months of living.

I do not agree with this

Neither do I, especially not on the last part.

Just played the demo.

It's actually not surprising that this turned out to be a bad game, since all footage leading up to it made it look like just that. I'm more shocked at how people are so torn "well yah, I mean..yah its a bad game, it controls awful, looks worse, and the puzzles are terribly mundane..but c'mon guys why is everyone so down on this game???" Seems like a very clear cut case here - why is anyone white knighting for it? Plenty of games have come out on lower budgets and were much more enjoyable.

It's actually not surprising that this turned out to be a bad game, since all footage leading up to it made it look like just that  

@Grumbel: The videos I saw, which were mostly seen here on GiantBomb, looked like the graphics were quite horrible and the gameplay looked pretty weak. There was no discerning hook so to speak. I was actually under the impression you couldn't fight back at all and you were supposed to hide all the time or something.

I haven't PLAYED the game myself but I watched a good chunk of the game via YouTube playthrough with commentary. What you mention are in fact very major shortcomings in the game that are valid arguments against it. Since it's only $10 lets put all graphical issues aside. Stylistically from what I saw everything is dark and unimaginative. The puzzles the guy played through often relied on forced coop with the Amy character. Completely immersion breaking forced coop at that. Amy presses a button on one side of the room that makes an elevator go up on the other side - you run around, go down a ladder on the other side, push a waist high cart out of the way so Amy can rejoin you and go on. I'm not even going to get into the absurdity of some vile engineer running around this place rewiring all the elevator buttons. You send out Amy to crawl through "tight" places that are obviously large enough for your player character to crawl through in order to retrieve items. Color coded keycards. Lackluster combat. Awful voice acting. Very frustrating checkpoint system that makes you lose hours of gameplay at a time. I mean those are all VERY real and defined issues with the game.

After watching that playthrough up to Chapter 4 (out of 5) I have a hard time thinking of anything positive to say about it. It's only $10 I suppose? I want to say it's an interesting idea but theres almost no follow-through in the execution. Sure there were good games 6 years ago. Age is very much a measurement of quality. I loved Test Drive when I first played it in 1995 on my 66mhz pc - I sure as hell don't want to play anything like that NOW.

 The videos I saw, which were mostly seen here on GiantBomb, looked like the graphics were quite horrible and the gameplay looked pretty weak.   

Stylistically from what I saw everything is dark and unimaginative. 

So are most other games.

You send out Amy to crawl through "tight" places that are obviously large enough for your player character to crawl through in order to retrieve items. 

So what? Modern Warfare has endless respawning enemies, Uncharted is a mass-murder simulator where the story never addresses the fact how evil Nathan Drake is. I am not saying that those flaws don't matter, but simply that reviews are very forgiving in every other game about similar flaws, i.e. such minor flaws are simply not what makes a game bad, they are just the useless talking points on which reviews like to ride around when they don't have any better ideas of what actually makes the game bad.

Very frustrating checkpoint system that makes you lose hours of gameplay at a time.

That is so far really the only point I could find that would explain the really bad review scores, but that's still not anything that would put it into "worst game ever" territory, but simply "ok game ruined by checkpoint system".

Age is very much a measurement of quality. I loved Test Drive when I first played it in 1995 on my 66mhz pc - I sure as hell don't want to play anything like that NOW.

@Grumbel If you think that comparing Amy to a game that was released in 2005 and saying that they have similar graphical quality is somehow a point in Amy's favor, you're just a tiny bit wrong about that.

Besides, the biggest offender with Amy's graphics (that I have seen) are the horrible faces and dead eyes everyone has that your backside screen shots omit entirely. The RE4 characters had significantly more lively and less creepy faces.

If you think that comparing Amy to a game that was released in 2005 and saying that they have similar graphical quality is somehow a point in Amy's favor, you're just a tiny bit wrong about that.

Besides, the biggest offender with Amy's graphics (that I have seen) are the horrible faces and dead eyes everyone has that your backside screen shots omit entirely.

I can usually wrap my head around how people can have different reactions to games...but damn. The people who bought this must be masochists.

@Grumbel: Listen I can see you are passionate about defending this game. You haven't played it, have you at least watched a gameplay walkthrough? You seem very adamant about this title not being as awful as everyone is saying it is without having much interaction with it, which is kinda odd.

I am guessing that you are put off by Amy getting called worst game of the year while other high profile titles get smaller, similar flaws overlooked. I agree that certain series being above any reproach is definitely an issue, but Amy is definitely not a game where you make your stand.

Also I'm not sure where you're coming from about old games. We played them back in the day because there was nothing better at the time. We didn't even know there could be anything better. Doom was a great FPS. Until Duke Nukem 3D and Quake came along I didn't even KNOW that mouse look would make things so much better. If someone released a game like Doom 1 now it wouldn't be fun to play. Color coded key cards, almost zero plot, maze like levels with a single texture repeated throughout.. while we still hold older titles in high regard from a historic perspective standards have changed. You can't really compare it to movies because you're actually playing a game.

All I can tell you is, go buy the game, play it, and be honest with yourself about it's quality.

Listen I can see you are passionate about defending this game.  

Also I'm not sure where you're coming from about old games. We played them back in the day because there was nothing better at the time.

If someone released a game like Doom 1 now it wouldn't be fun to play. 

Color coded key cards, almost zero plot, maze like levels with a single texture repeated throughout..

standards have changed. 

All I can tell you is, go buy the game, play it, and be honest with yourself about it's quality.

Not sure if this was posted already, a little statement from the developers from their Facebook page:

AMY Hi all - we do appologize for our silence those last days. We're currently reading every comment, review and post in depth, and that takes time. We had horrible reviews along with quite good ones but what seems to be the biggest issue so far is the Checkpoint system. We're going to comment that quite soon. In the meantime, we suggest that you try the "easy" mode (in the settings); This should solve many issues for many of you. Once again, we wait to check out a few things before communicating. We've always been transparent with you and this won't change. Thanks a lot for your understanding.

@konig_kei said:

Do you think the developers know they're making a shit game or do you think that they seriously believe in their product?

I believe that to a certain point they do. They may not agree with players on how good or bad the game is, but they I'm sure they have a feeling for wether it's good or bad. Game designers are not idiots. As far as I know, it's usually a problem of publishers pushing or demanding, or maybe simply that the developing team is working bad, ie. a bad boss, bad communication. I kow a few guys who are working in the industry of AAA games, and one of them said that usually it's bad communication. Also, the dev team have a dream of some kind, and they need someone to finance it. The people who finance it now suddenly own the dream, and make demands on this and that, and the people who finance the game are most likely not game designers.

>Bad game

>Picks random number under five

Eurogamer also gave it 2/10 if anyone wants to know. I had not even heard of it before this week so whatever, didn't bother reading the review with a score like that.

Yeah this game seems pretty busted (played the demo), and I fucking love survival horror. The DNA stuff is tedious as all hell, and the combat/camera are terrible. I don't know. I don't mind the escort stuff in theory but Amy gets lost, left behind, and mauled while you're trying to make out exactly what it is you're supposed to be scanning. Reminded me of Haunting Ground if Hewie was a psychic (?) little kid with a befuddled expression and savant-level hacking skills. Also, if he couldn't fight for shit. I feel bad about saying this, but give it a wide, generous miss. It's definitely more old-school than RE5 or Homecoming, but it's not content with the old survival horror niggles; it adds plenty of its own annoyances.

Ugh - I really don't want to come off as too harsh on it because it had a GLIMMER, at least, of potential and I think the core ideas are sound. It's more an issue of iffy execution, but I figure it'd be a niche title no matter how it played so if it interests you, at least try it!

Cursedly awful clunky boring game. Easy points though.... so...?

lol IGN.

Hey guys, IGN gave Sonic Freeriders for Kinect a 7.5/10, so I wouldn't base my rents or purchases on their opinion alone. Especially considering how corrupt and biased a lot of reviewers are.

@Grumbel said:

Not sure if this was posted already, a little statement from the developers from their Facebook page:

AMY Hi all - we do appologize for our silence those last days. We're currently reading every comment, review and post in depth, and that takes time. We had horrible reviews along with quite good ones but what seems to be the biggest issue so far is the Checkpoint system. We're going to comment that quite soon. In the meantime, we suggest that you try the "easy" mode (in the settings); This should solve many issues for many of you. Once again, we wait to check out a few things before communicating. We've always been transparent with you and this won't change. Thanks a lot for your understanding.

Interesting...maybe a post-mortem is in order as to what happened?

Interestingly, the Amy QuickLook has disappeared from the "Coming Up on Giant Bomb" list. It was scheduled to be uploaded a couple of hours ago.

@BeachThunder said:

@Jimbo said:

They must be saving 1.0 for something truly special.

Bioshock Infinite. Just you wait, it will actually turn out to be awful...like Duke Nukem Forever - City in the sky edition.

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

Actually, I really hope not :(

I remember watching Levine at PAX East 2011 watch someone play DNF. The whole time he had a very straight face, either he was silently laughing inside or taking notes.

@mandude: You can't be serious...Sonic Free Riders was a fucking 1/10, everything was broken in that game, I was saying they rated it too high.

From the quick look, it doesn't look good, but I have seen and played far worse for sure.

@Nux said:

@handlas said:

@mandude said:

He just points out the mechanics one-by-one and says they're badly executed...

Sounds like a valid way to review a game...?

It didn't really seem like he really gave too much examples. He just kinda bashed on it.

Too what? Too much examples? You mean too many examples?

And in the comment section of that review, somebody mentions how the E3 2011 preview coverage landed on, "Amy is Ico with zombies and totally brilliant." Not sure if they were serious or not. That's what happens when you have too many damn people in your editorial department, regardless.

@Grumbel said:

Not sure if this was posted already, a little statement from the developers from their Facebook page:

AMY Hi all - we do appologize for our silence those last days. We're currently reading every comment, review and post in depth, and that takes time. We had horrible reviews along with quite good ones but what seems to be the biggest issue so far is the Checkpoint system. We're going to comment that quite soon. In the meantime, we suggest that you try the "easy" mode (in the settings); This should solve many issues for many of you. Once again, we wait to check out a few things before communicating. We've always been transparent with you and this won't change. Thanks a lot for your understanding.

Is this going to be Hydrophobia all over again?

Goddamn. Those Facebook posts are fucking brutal.

One of the worst games ever made but still a 2. We can do worse, guys, get the lead out!

because reviews sites can shit on indie games without fear of any sort of reprisal.

I mean, this game isn't good, but it's nowhere near as bad as people are trying to make out.

it looked more fun than Final fantasy xiii at least. now that game is truly dogshit. 1/10

I mean, ign gave motherfucking duke nukem forever 5.5. that is some bullshit right there.

Did anyone see the comment from the deva on Facebook? They claim the game is just hard and that is why it is getting such a cold reception. I haven't played it and can't comment on that, but I don't know exactly how to feel about them even commenting. I like having a voice that devs hear, but not if they are gonna try silencing critics with arguments about why the reviews aren't accurate. Professional reviewers know how to switch difficulty levels and many prolly use easy for review purposes anyway.

It's definitely nowhere near as bad as is implied, but it is still a pretty shitty game. You can look at it as an unfair or a stern review but regardless maybe next time these devs can try to really make something special.

@mandude said:

Disregarding what anyone thinks of the game...that was by far the worst review ever. At no point is the reviewer objective. He just points out the mechanics one-by-one and says they're badly executed...

So he wrote a review?

@damnable_fiend:

I agree, Duke Nukem Forever deserved a 7/10 in my opinion, the lowest being 6/10, but a 5/10? When they gave Sniper: Ghost Warrior a 6/10? You gotta be kidding me. Sniper: Ghost Warrior was a horrible excuse for a game, it was like a shitty mod. I'm not going to, or I don't even think I need to, say anything more than the end of the game is just a black screen that reads "The End", pretty sure that spells it all out right there. Oh, and you gotta love how they gave Sonic Free Riders Kinect a 7/10, a game in which it was a struggle just to get past the fucking menus, let alone actually steer you're hoverboard in game without slamming full speed into a wall. Until I play "Amy" for myself, I'm not going to trust IGN, in fact I don't actually trust any review site that much anyway.