Quarters

@Aete: I'd say go with a controller. Even if you play it on PC(which seems like it'll be a good version), try to grab a wired 360 controller you can use and play it with that.

The Peacekeepers on SNES. That game was one of my favorite beat-em-ups, which says a lot considering how big of a fan I am of the genre.

@Brendan said:

@Tidel said:

@Quarters said:

To all the talk about who's being the bigger bully...I have no issue with people not liking the game, just be objective about it. Gametrailers had a thing the other day, some podcast called The Depths that was devoted to DmC and the reaction around it. One of the dudes on there was a big fan of the old games, played DmC all the way through, and decided that it just wasn't something he preferred personally. Now, he admitted that the game was objectively well made, but it just didn't jibe with him. That's totally cool. He gave the game a shot, calmly and clearly made his points why he didn't like it, and accepted that it wasn't the only way to look at it. If more people were like that, I wouldn't have an issue with it. It's just that a certain segment of the reaction has been extremely immature. And yes, I agree a fraction of both sides have been guilty of it, I probably have been too. Mainly, in my case, I just hate the thought of Ninja Theory getting brought down because of this.

Regardless, the main problem is that people have a hard time separating taste and actual quality of the product. For example: The Walking Dead. I loved that game. It had a very well written story. However, it was also an extremely poor game from a technical standpoint, complete with a plethora of visual/audio hiccups, crippling bugs that prevented some from even finishing it, and the gameplay was basic and stiff as a board. Does that mean I have to hate it? No. I still really enjoyed my time with it.

On that same token, you can completely dislike a game that's competently made. I don't like Bioshock in any way, shape, or form. Does that mean it's a steaming pile? No, it just means I don't like it because it doesn't appeal to me.

The issue is that once a person doesn't like the game on the Internet, it's because it's a horrible game, and if you think different, then you're wrong. And it works the other way around too. People just need to take the hyperbole down a notch.

Nicely said.

Here's the problem: The Giant Bomb staff is the reason that the above mentioned behaviour is acceptable. Listen to how many times the staff becomes immaturely hyperbolic when describing games as "ass" "steaming piles" "complete garbage" when they give them 3 or 4 star reviews. I'm not ignoring the times when a review is written by one staff member and another feels differently, and this mostly refers to them talking about games off-hand and not discussing them at length. The staff is not that different from the amazeballs/cuntshit internet mentality when it comes to describing their feelings for games a lot of the time.

You could, of course, extrapolate this beyond even the Giant Bomb staff. At this point in western society words have mostly lost their power, as we use hyperbole constantly on a daily basis. Remember when the word "awesome" had power behind it, and didn't refer to anything that tasted half-good for lunch? Neither do I, because it's been like this for so long that it's easy for discussing about anything to become ineffective due to overuse of strong language.

This rant, although short, got a little off-topic, but I hope you can see where I'm coming from.

No, I see what you mean. The simple fact of the matter is that however unfortunate it is, the likelihood of this mentality fading is low at best.

To all the talk about who's being the bigger bully...I have no issue with people not liking the game, just be objective about it. Gametrailers had a thing the other day, some podcast called The Depths that was devoted to DmC and the reaction around it. One of the dudes on there was a big fan of the old games, played DmC all the way through, and decided that it just wasn't something he preferred personally. Now, he admitted that the game was objectively well made, but it just didn't jibe with him. That's totally cool. He gave the game a shot, calmly and clearly made his points why he didn't like it, and accepted that it wasn't the only way to look at it. If more people were like that, I wouldn't have an issue with it. It's just that a certain segment of the reaction has been extremely immature. And yes, I agree a fraction of both sides have been guilty of it, I probably have been too. Mainly, in my case, I just hate the thought of Ninja Theory getting brought down because of this.

Regardless, the main problem is that people have a hard time separating taste and actual quality of the product. For example: The Walking Dead. I loved that game. It had a very well written story. However, it was also an extremely poor game from a technical standpoint, complete with a plethora of visual/audio hiccups, crippling bugs that prevented some from even finishing it, and the gameplay was basic and stiff as a board. Does that mean I have to hate it? No. I still really enjoyed my time with it.

On that same token, you can completely dislike a game that's competently made. I don't like Bioshock in any way, shape, or form. Does that mean it's a steaming pile? No, it just means I don't like it because it doesn't appeal to me.

The issue is that once a person doesn't like the game on the Internet, it's because it's a horrible game, and if you think different, then you're wrong. And it works the other way around too. People just need to take the hyperbole down a notch.

Sad. However, I do think it's worth noting that games have been selling worse in general, especially since back then. Inflation(or deflation, terrible at my terms) should be considered. That being said, I hope it does well enough to justify a sequel. The bad thing is, for those that want the game to fail because it isn't what they wanted out of the series, this won't bring the old DMC back. If anything, it'll just kill the series, as well as quite possibly kill Ninja Theory. Three poor commercial performances in a row is hard to spring back from. So yeah, the end result could be that no one gets the games they want, and then a bunch of talented people are out of jobs. Yaaay. But hey, at least the game that was an affront to the series did poorly, right?

I greatly enjoyed the story/gameplay/presentation, and that's speaking as a big fan of the originals. Give it a shot, and see if you like it. Also, take user reviews with a barrel of salt.

Standard is white hair mode. Original is black hair. Threw me off when I first saw it too.

Oof. Let me see...

Metal Gear Solid 4

Mass Effect 3

...Crap, can't think of a third. A lot of games it could be, but I can't single it out. Just from a recent stand point, because I can't think back that far, I might go with Resident Evil 6. From a more retro view, I'd probably go for something like Chrono Trigger.

As a related side note, I still don't understand why something being similar to God of War is grounds for immediate dismissal. I don't mean that just in relation to the Bomb Crew, I mean the Internet in general. It's not like there's anywhere near the amount of those that there are first person shooters, or third person shooters, or indie platformers, or normal platformers, or fighting games(well, maybe not so much nowadays) and so on. There's plenty of genres that have a tone of similar games, and people have no problem with a good chunk of them. Yet the second something comes out that's close to God of War(such as Dante's Inferno, which I thought was totally fine), it's treated as the biggest garbage. It's a weird double standard.

@SuperWristBands said:

@GrantHeaslip said:

I haven’t played LoS, but the way they’ll all arrive at a dead-set conclusion about the quality of a game that none of them have really played (or one of them played a long time ago) really bugs me. Patrick isn’t the root cause, but his tendency to label totally quality games he personally didn’t like (and often didn’t play) as indefensible horseshit has led to this happening way more often than it used to.

Obviously everyone does this kind of stuff once in a while, but when it’s your job to be a game critic, I think it’s irresponsible.

God yes. I have started to notice it more lately and it has really started to get on my nerves. I'm not saying it's Patrick either but I notice it more when he does it, probably because he is very obnoxious about it.

I've noticed too. Not saying it's always Patrick, it's a GB thing in general, but they just seem far more set in their ways now. If they find one thing they don't like about a game, suddenly, everyone's on top of it humping the flaw into the ground until the entire game is the biggest piece of crap released that year. Love the guys, but jeez, it's getting a little tiring.