Maclintok

RT @InfinityWarsTCG: @MrCallumKing I look forward to it!

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#1 Posted by Maclintok (177 posts) - 1 year, 6 months ago

A great article that will sadly fall on deaf ears... or blind eyes in this case.

People are affected by marketing far more than they give it credit for. Marketing people are well versed in human psychology insofar as it helps them push product. Long before a review for a high profile game hits the web, most gamers already "know" if they want to buy it or not.

Fanboy-ism and confirmation bias are just extensions of this. Consumers as a whole are becoming incredibly difficult to please, in large part to the shrinking value of their money. People demand perfection and no one wants to feel a fool for spending $60 of their hard-earned money on a perceived "dud".

It's a shame really. People don't want to have deep design discussions or to read an interesting viewpoint. They just want to see a score and to know if they made the right choice in life.

#2 Posted by Maclintok (177 posts) - 1 year, 8 months ago

I have been curious about Shadows of the Damned and actually surprised it hasn't dropped down to the $40 range or lower at places like Best Buy.  This game is part of a trio of games (the other two being Catherine and El-Shaddai) that I would like to support as a 'dutiful gamer' but I think I only have the bandwidth (time & money) for one at the moment. 
 
All 3 games have great visual style.  El-Shaddai's demo gameplay really didn't grab me (I think I'm done with platforming in general). Also getting my fill of games with any kind of shooting in them.  So definitely leaning towards Catherine.

#3 Posted by Maclintok (177 posts) - 1 year, 8 months ago

I should be reassured but statements like this make me even more concerned.  They are approaching this in a very mechanical "please the customers" manner.  Design as focus groups, surveys and cold empirical evidence. 
  
Hey guys, we're going to try to please ALL of our customers! 

Where's the vision?  Where's the game design?  I worry the final product is going to come out all beige and washed out.

#4 Posted by Maclintok (177 posts) - 1 year, 8 months ago

The demo was just OK. 
 
They tried to do two things differently:  the leaning controls and the look of ADS (aiming down sights).  Neither of these things feels well executed at all.

#5 Posted by Maclintok (177 posts) - 1 year, 10 months ago
@creamypies said:

Am I the only one who thought that FEAR 2 was better than the original?

I wouldn't go so far as to say better but I did enjoy FEAR 2 quite a bit more than the original. 
 
FEAR 1 was a product of its time, a time when no one had bothered to combine long-haired J-horror girls with your typical gritty FPS.  Kind of cool during a point in gaming when people were still reeling from Half Life 2. 
 
FEAR 2 had to deal with the maturation of the audience and maybe a quadrupling of the number of A-list shooters on the market.  They pretty much followed a lot of the same beats as in FEAR 1 but they didn't really do enough to make a "big bad sequel".  Slightly better graphics, dumber enemy AI and COD-style ADS shooting... ah, I still had a lot of fun with it, enough to finish twice and play quite a bit of the underrated MP.
#6 Posted by Maclintok (177 posts) - 1 year, 10 months ago
@Moonling said:

Just wanna chime in and say this game is pretty awesome so far. Shame that so many people seem to have made their minds up about it without giving it a chance, though.

 
Unfortunately game development is about 75% marketing these days and 25% substance.  Now that isn't to say that FEAR 3 is some ground-breaking work of digital art.  It's... a shooter, right?  But it just seems like it's being held to some very high standards that other games are not likewise held up to.
#7 Posted by Maclintok (177 posts) - 1 year, 10 months ago

Good to see people enjoying the game.  Despite Ryan's 2-star review, the QL he did with Vinnie lead me to believe the game is a really fun, solid-in-fundamentals FPS. 
 
It seems like the consensus around the multiplayer modes is they are the best thing about FEAR 3.  Are there are lot of players online this first week?  I may wait a week or two before grabbing this. I just don't want to be greeted with a ghost town a month down the road.  Although who I am kidding, this is normally the fate of any online game that is not in the top 10 of most played on Xbox Live...

#8 Posted by Maclintok (177 posts) - 1 year, 11 months ago

I've typically bought a lot of games on release or soon after if I'm suitably hyped up.  This year has been especialy bad with all the exciting - albeit largely disappointing - games.  At the same time I'm also buying discounted games a lot more... picking up the 6mo-to-1 year old games for $30 or less. It's about being patient, which is a helluva lot harder in practice.

#9 Posted by Maclintok (177 posts) - 1 year, 11 months ago

A strategic delay? Oh well.  I have this on pre-order to be delivered.  On the upside, I didn't know Future Soldier was coming out Sept. 20 and that game looks fantastic.  I'll just pick that up first. Plenty of gaming goodness to go around this Q4.

#10 Posted by Maclintok (177 posts) - 2 years, 25 days ago

This was really quite awesome.  What does it say when I'm willing to watch a bunch of guys who run a website play MK together for over an hour?

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