Disdain of Military FPS Subgenre in Gaming Journo Subculture?

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Seppli

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#1  Edited By Seppli

Currently playing Medal of Honor SP on PC...

 
...and I'm having a blast. Fun gunplay. Fluid movement. Great pacing. Good presentation overall. It's a really good rollercoaster-type linear campaign. Some review outlets and gamers have judged Medal of Honor quite harshly. Not that they can't justify their scores and opinions with legit complaints, but they certainly weigh them unfairly - all the while playing down the game's strengths. If I'd put CoD:Blops and MoH side by side - campaign and multiplayer, I'd see highs of equal quality and familiar lows, yet many don't judge these games by the same standard. This is true for many games. Most recent example is Dragon Age 2, where I feel that a certain portion of the gaming populus, reviewers and regular gamers alike, want the game to be worse than it actually is - obviously for other reasons than a latent disdain of its particular dark fantasy RPG sub-genre.
 
In the case of Medal of Honor (and other non-CoD shooters set in the military sub-genre), I feel like there's some regret around in the gaming journo subculture. Like they're being morally compelled to stop the momentum of the military FPS sub-genre they helped to create. Listening to lots of podcast - I can hear subconcious disdain and discomfort with the subject matter. Everything gets labeled CoD-rip-off. While it may be true to a certain extent, I still firmly believe a game should be judged on its own merits and on what is there, rather than being judged as rip-off from get-go or against some great expectation set by a game's predecessor or genre conventions. If you've read Totillo's recent BF3 article on Kotaku, you'll know what I'm talking of. Talking about a dude wanting a game to be bad badly...

Biased. Anytime a game is being put into context to another game or to some great expectation, that's gonna result in biased hogwash - an opinion piece. Instead of talking about what was shown of BF3 at GDC '11 (like the most impressive engine ever), Totillo's talking about everything else but it. Take into account some real-world discomfort and disdain with the subject matter of the military FPS sub-genre and you'll have the perfect shit-storm of opinion-colored reviews/previews/articles painting everything with a layer of shit and most annoyingly - quite a few lap up such manure like it was honey wine dripping out of a horses ass and spread the word like it's bible verses.
 
How many of you have picked up Medal of Honor with the very intention of finding bad? From all I've read on the topic of MoH on diverse forums and comment sections, a whole lot had it in for the game. Unsurprisingly, those who wanted it to fail found it to be bad in so many ways, it's unbelievable! How could you end up not enjoying an enjoyable game? Well - maybe you got some Totillo up your buttcrack. Or your hippy ass subconciously believes the military FPS sub-genre is the devil's device to promote real-life war. Since you can no longer stop the behemoth COD, you'll try your darndest to prevent any other military FPS game to ever get as out of hand successful as Call of Duty by coloring it in the color of shit and cheap rip-off.
 
Food for thought. If you pick up a game, pick it up with the intention of liking it and having fun. Even more so if you are going to review it. Medal of Honor for one certainly isn't cripplingly bad. Much unlike some of the reviews and opinions try to color it. For whatever reasons they might have.
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borodin

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#2  Edited By borodin

Two things, I think the idea that all reviews should be as objective as possible is pretty misguided and secondly, sometimes, what isn't in a game is just as important as what is. Certainly from my point of view of using reviews (at least in part) to inform my purchasing decisions - I would absolutely wan't to know if a game is highly derivative or lacked features I had expected from it, based on either marketing or previous entries in a series.  
 
It sounds more like your viewing this from the 'art critics' perspective, looking at the game in a vacuum etc. but that is not what the majority of the industry press is geared towards and I would say rightly so.    

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Seppli

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#3  Edited By Seppli
@borodin: 
 
Certainly. Opinions like 'I'm sick of the military FPS sub-genre' and demands such as 'I expect prone and lean' have a place in reviews, but they certainly shouldn't be weighed more heavily than what's actually there. If what's there is enjoyable, the absence of something or other doesn't make a game worse. Nor does a lack of originality. It might be better if it was there, but that's an entirely other story. Something for designers and producers to ponder. Not for reviewers to judge.
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Seppli

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#4  Edited By Seppli
@borodin: 
 
To boil down what I'm saying and make it more general... 

  • Most games are being approached with these lead-in questions: 'Is the game good? How good is it? What's good about it?'
  • Other games get reviewed with lead-ins like these: 'Is this game bad? How bad is it? Why is it bad?'
 
Looking at Medal of Honor, I feel like many reviewers and gamers went into the experience looking for it to be bad. For reasons like the latent disdain of the military FPS sub-genre in the gaming jouno subculture.
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borodin

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#6  Edited By borodin
@Seppli: O.k. I can see that a little more clearly. I think it's important to remember that in a lot of cases, and with MoH in particular, the reviewers first exposure to the game will have been a long time before he sits down with the review copy. There's the usual marketing stuff for people like us and then playable builds at various press events etc. and I think it's reasonable, if maybe not entirely fair, that reviews go into a lot of these big releases knowing the jist of what a game is about.   

I personally can't honestly say for sure that the reviews for MoH were looking for bad because of genre-expectations and shooter fatigue (or what have you) instead of just because they had reason to think it would be there. You'd like to think that if it really were a great game that they still would have said that. I've definitely read reviews over the years where the reviewer has been nicely surprised about a game they had low expectations of... I'm not sure, I guess I end up thinking that the gaming media is large enough to be kind of self regulating in this regard? Maybe? *shrug*
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Seppli

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#7  Edited By Seppli

Just seen a freshly uploaded SW:TOR trailer on Gametrailers. They've got that 'thumbs up/down' functionality for their comment section. From the looks of it (there's like only haters thumbing everything down), SW:TOR is gonna be another game, which won't get a fair shake. There's some latent hate for that project. Anytime it comes up - it's like 50% of the gaming populus and gaming journos want it to fail. Always looking first for what's wrong.
 
Just read Totillo's BF3 article again. It's really just a thinly veiled smear campaign. How can BF3 singleplayer not be enough like real BF, if there never was any SP to begin with? Can't stand Kotaku and their brand of 'journalism'. Worst bunch of biased monkeys with typrewriters in the business. Fucking douche comes off disrespectful and borderline hateful. We literally have seen nothing yet. Enough to drum up some fake concern and stirring the nets with unfounded speculations to get pageviews. Sons of bitches.
 
Luckily I got banned for life for commenting 'This in Non-News!' a while back or I'd be banned for talking smack right now.

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Seppli

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#8  Edited By Seppli

I really wonder what makes some games more likely to be 'scrutinized', rather than 'assessed'. I'm definitely seeing SW:TOR being scrutinized over arbitrary lows rather than being assessed fairly on what's there and what's good about it.
 
It will read 'Yeah - the storytelling is neat and fresh, but everything else is old and stale, so it's a shit game'. All the while the 'original' World of Warcraft gets away with the same old shit time and time again. Suddenly good stuff ain't good no more for mister fancy pants.
 
That's how 50% of the reviews will read and how many will think, even some of those currently still enjoying the same 'old and stale' gameplay in another game. Hippocrites.

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Michael_B_Back

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#9  Edited By Michael_B_Back

I feel that you're a sub-douche.

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Enigma777

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#10  Edited By Enigma777

I got MOH at launch expecting it to be good. It wasn't.

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Seppli

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#11  Edited By Seppli
@Michael_B_Back said:
" I feel that you're a sub-douche. "
Douchebaggery may ensue. I like to insert the nosil in the in the asshole and get all the dirt out in the open.
 
So that I can say - 'You smell clean!'.
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#12  Edited By litrock

I think you're seeing shooter fatigue. And thank god for that, I say. There's been a whole generation of military shooters leading the front lines of AAA development, to almost the exclusion of many other genres, and for someone who has to play all those for review, I imagine they are ready to start asking "What makes this better than the other 20 AAA shooters we already paid for?"   When you enter the competitive market, you're held to the competitive standard.  
 
I don't know. Probably not the right person to be commenting, as I kind of hate FPSs all around. >_>;

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DragonBloodthirsty

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Reviewers to have some tendencies to be biased.  Sometimes, they get paid good money to say good things about a game or series (I vaguely remember Kane and Lynch being hyped, even though it was a sub-par game, just as one example).

I generally read reviews to get a general sense of what I'm buying before I buy it, but I usually disregard whether a game is listed as "good" or "bad" and focus on the quantity and quality of features instead.  Vague senses of how much somebody liked a game or not do matter, but like you pointed out they can be biased and can't be the only meter you use for your decision making.

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Seppli

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#14  Edited By Seppli
@Enigma777: 
 
I cried a tear for Rabbit today. Mission accomplished. Then went on to play some multiplayer. It's a lot more fun, than the general populus gives it credit for. Love me some combat mission. It's like 'Call of Duty meets BF:BC 2 Rush mode' and I love it.
 
I've played quite a lot of MoH on PS3 at launch and coming back to it now on PC, it's even more evident how many journos and regular gamers didn't give it its dues. There is literally nothing cripplingly wrong or broken about it and it's full of the same old good stuff we enjoy in other games.
 
Don't see how scores as low as 6.5 hold up against reality, because to me it's a solid 8.0 in all regards - a rocksolid production. MoH is the typical case of a game being 'scrutenized' instead of 'assessed'.
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#15  Edited By Enigma777
@Seppli said:
" @Enigma777:   I cried a tear for Rabbit today. Mission accomplished. Then went on to play some multiplayer. It's a lot more fun, than the general populus gives it credit for. Love me some combat mission. It's like 'Call of Duty meets BF:BC 2 Rush mode' and I love it.  I've played quite a lot of MoH on PS3 at launch and coming back to it now on PC, it's even more evident how many journos and regular gamers didn't give it its dues. There is literally nothing cripplingly wrong or broken about it and it's full of the same old good stuff we enjoy in other games.  Don't see how scores as low as 6.5 hold up against reality, because to me it's a solid 8.0 in all regards - a rocksolid production. MoH is the typical case of a game being 'scrutenized' instead of 'assessed'. "
I enjoyed some parts of the SP like the stealth mission with Dusty, but on the other hand the ATV and helicopter parts sucked. There was also a lot of scripting parts that just didn't work right. I ran into the same problem 3 times where I had to restart a checkpoint because I couldn't proceed forward due to a scripting error.  Also the enemy AI wasn't exactly stellar. On the whole the game felt very meh.
 
And the MP is a joke. It's like they took BC2 and changed the menu colors from orange to blue and put you in smaller maps with no destructibility. I already own BC2 and trying to sell me the same thing with a different wrapper is just pure bullshit. 
 
And just in case you think I may be biased like all the "game journos" I thought that Black Ops was also garbage. It has the worst level design I've played in any modern FPS (Vietnam trenches) and it's own share of scripting problems and multiplayer crap. 
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Seppli

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#16  Edited By Seppli
@Enigma777 said:

" @Seppli said:

" @Enigma777:   I cried a tear for Rabbit today. Mission accomplished. Then went on to play some multiplayer. It's a lot more fun, than the general populus gives it credit for. Love me some combat mission. It's like 'Call of Duty meets BF:BC 2 Rush mode' and I love it.  I've played quite a lot of MoH on PS3 at launch and coming back to it now on PC, it's even more evident how many journos and regular gamers didn't give it its dues. There is literally nothing cripplingly wrong or broken about it and it's full of the same old good stuff we enjoy in other games.  Don't see how scores as low as 6.5 hold up against reality, because to me it's a solid 8.0 in all regards - a rocksolid production. MoH is the typical case of a game being 'scrutenized' instead of 'assessed'. "

I enjoyed some parts of the SP like the stealth mission with Dusty, but on the other hand the ATV and helicopter parts sucked. There was also a lot of scripting parts that just didn't work right. I ran into the same problem 3 times where I had to restart a checkpoint because I couldn't proceed forward due to a scripting error.  Also the enemy AI wasn't exactly stellar. On the whole the game felt very meh. And the MP is a joke. It's like they took BC2 and changed the menu colors from orange to blue and put you in smaller maps with no destructibility. I already own BC2 and trying to sell me the same thing with a different wrapper is just pure bullshit.  And just in case you think I may be biased like all the "game journos" I thought that Black Ops was also garbage. It has the worst level design I've played in any modern FPS (Vietnam trenches) and it's own share of scripting problems and multiplayer crap.  "
I did the full progression for every class and played mostly Sector Control and Combat Mission. Roughly 30-40 hours total. It takes me at least 20 hours to really 'know' any MP game.
 
Medal of Honor has a very distinct pacing and balancing and is nothing like BF:BC 2. Certainly not a simple reskin. MoH's Combat Mission mode is one of the best designed infantry-centric team shooters ever - emphasis on team shooter. The maps are so dense and narrow, literally one giant chokepoint, that the only way to win is swift and ballsy tactical teamplay action. Kinda like pulling off a football play. Today's prevalent K/D whoring crowd didn't grasp the concept though. The mode is still very alive online and there are lots of players who did see past familiarities and discovered a unique and fun experience. Sadly it didn't catch on more broadly. I myself am guilty of 'not playing MoH MP more regularly' - which is a shame, because I had a blast tonight.
 
Sector control is a lot more classic. Akin to CoD's Domination mode. Personally, I prefer MoH's map design, which are built around the concept of providing structure through limited tactical options. CoD maps are generally built in a way, that there's always some way through the maps' maze to fall into the other team's back. Loads of sneaky paths and even more obstructions of line of sight - putting an emphasis on always moving through the maze, instead of trying to control the map with superior tactics. Either way, it plays just as well as CoD and I feel like it's better geared towards teamplay. I'll play MoH rather than being good a running and gunning my way through a labyrinth like in CoD.
 
Every now and then, MoH MP is a very welcome change of pace to my usual BF experience.