HumphreyLee

@owl_of_minerva: Maybe, maybe not. You're getting into a fundamental argument on what YOU believe a game should be, and that really should not be the basis of a review. I review comics. I prefer my comics to be of the traditional epic, with a beginning, middle and end and that put emphasis of flowing plots and character building, ala 100 BULLETS, Y: THE LAST MAN, etc. That does not mean that if/when I review a superhero comic that is being a superhero comic I should be downgrading it because it's not what I feel the medium of comics should be striving for. If this reviewer truly does believe that fail states ruin the flow of the game and that the essence of that game is the flow, then I can sort of see the two point deduction, as I said before, but then that raises all sorts of questions about what emphasis should go where when it comes to critiquing a game because, really, I can boil down that point to "He died and thought dying ruined his experience, obviously dying should not be in this game." That's generalized and obviously a manipulated statement given his critiques, but it is also a leap in logic that could be made. And I obviously disagree with the assessment that cinematic has no place in gaming.

Gaming is about experiences. If you need to be THAT hands on with a game that you need to be in a Fallout world with tons of control and the ability to interact with everything, then by all means find, play, and love those games. I do too. But I like cinematic. I like craft. Naughty Dog is great at craft. They craft great environments, they create great characters, I think they have crafted great interactivity within the confines of what they want to do with the combat between the cover and hand to hand systems. If I want to be able to scale each and every last thing that the developer puts in the environment, well, I have Assassin's Creed and I'm playing Arkham City right now and I love those games. I play Uncharted because the characters are great, the combat is tight, the environments, even with limited interactivity, are gorgeous, and I love the plotting. Those should not be reduced for what they are because someone would rather not be playing that style of game, they should be reduced if you genuinely feel that Naughty Dog failed to develop those things properly this time, or if they played it too safe in pushing those mechanics when they could have done some great stuff, then there is legitimate criticism there that should be put to paper.

Okay, here's the thing about this, and I say this as a guy who has had the "fanboy hate backlash" on a review against him before as I write reviews on another site; and I do comic books where fanboy hate is always at its worst. The man issue I take with this thing is that, as concise and well explained as I think this guy made his point against - and pretty much his only point against - is that at the end of the day it's the mother of all nitpicks. And y'know what, that's fine. I constantly knock games, especially sequels, for stuff like too linear, more of the same, etc. Where the line drawn is just how much emphasis on these things and do you really think the person writing that is assigning a score - and god I hate assigning scores and am glad we don't do that where I write - knocking that score too far down because they really believe that, or because it draws attention for their willingness to go that far. In an industry where people get shit-canned for knocking down sacred cows (sorry if that hits close to home Jeff) I would think that's not the case, but any time I've scanned Eurogamer I've always counted on them to take those big profile games and, whether or not they "deserve" that knocked down score, get it because I think they think it makes them look like the "edgy, going against the crowd" type.

I get the criticism here about Uncharted, the linear play and how it's not much of a leap from the second as the second was to the first, and I also get that could/should be reflected in the score, but I'm not sure I see that much of a deduction. If you really, truly feel that because you can't fool around in such a tightly scripted game, or that the game "breaks" if you keep struggling in an area and can't get forward in that script, then I can see it. But unless it is truly ruining the experience for you, and from what I know about Uncharted and know how awesome that scripting can be, even with repetition and do-overs I think this is more of a nitpick, then I don't really see that much of a score digression. I know that prompts the "they use a real scale review system" but. really, who honestly follows a system where on a ten point scale the middle is average? I know that is a shitty caveat to make, and I really, truly, honestly hate using number ratings on these things, but more than anything else the game reviewing side of things is a creature of numbers. But, at the end of the day, I think it's all moot as lots of those around here have pointed out. One, even in a "traditional" view of score - i.e. reading the scale like test scores - an 8/10 is still good, two, no one's opinion on whether to buy this or not is going to be changed by that, and three, it's all so fucking ridiculous that we, including myself, even have to have this discussion whenever something like this happens. They're games. Buy them, play them, be honest with yourself and others as you critique them so you don't lead others astray. That's really the golden rule of reviewing. Did I mention I hate number assignments?

Dammit. If Stacking had not gone out as the PS+ download I'd be subscribing right now between that and this. I had my reservations when the PS+ service was announced, but it really does seem like it's worth it, even if you do lose the downloads when you unsubscribe, viewing it as twelve $5 rentals plus other features really does not seem unreasonable. 

I just listened to this part yesterday, and count me in with those (though it was probably just me) screaming at my iPod about God of War 3 for best looking. I'm not saying it should have won, obviously the guys were trying to lead more toward artistic design than just graphics, but come on, that thing is a technical monster with the cacophony and destruction and set pieces and backdrops and on and on and on. Plus, those Titan designs were pretty well gorgeous, and the frame rate never faltered. If anything, that should have taken up NFS:HP's spot since that got there on technical merit.

I wasn't sure how the Bayonetta stuff would get received here after finally listening to this Day One podcast and I'm kind of glad to see that everyone is as either conflicted or confused about the love in some places I didn't get it either. Like, it was a cool game and one of the better new titles I played this year, and yeah, it was some crazy shit, but despite the "Devil May Cry but better" claims, it was DMC with a female lead where crazier shit happened. Oh, and it wished it could be as good as DMC3 was, just taking it down to gameplay. The combat in Bayonetta was extremely more button-mash style than DMC ever was. I essentially got through that game using the same five-hit combo that did max damage and just kept myself on the trigger to block and Witch Time as needed or backflip away. Between the weapon switching, the four techniques, the juggling (seriously, I forgot Bayonetta had guns two levels into that game they were so irrelevant while in DMC you need to find the perfect balance of keeping distance with your guns and then getting in to do some close and dirty work) and on and on in DMC, the combat play in Bayonetta was nowhere near as in depth and intense as it was compared to a game that came out five years ago and it essentially was a successor to. Yeah, crazier shit went down and I loved it for it, but eh, I guess I just wasn't as impressed. 

Sucks that this game has gone through delay after delay to most likely end up being DOA because of the subscription fee. I could maybe see something like $50 a year, but $15 a month? Come on. This might have been my first MMO but for that...

Woot! Good things to those that wait! (or, in my case, just hoped and prayed it came over to the console they own because they didn't want to get another one for just one franchise =)

Yeah, no. I'm sorry he wants to think that because everyone is vying to get Halo and CoD numbers, but the vast majority of the best games out there are still typically Single-player experiences, or games with multi that barely gets touched, or is put in as an afterthought. I'll take more inFamous, Heavy Rain, Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fallout, etc before I'll take more CoD and Gears. 

Been playing it for a good 14 hours on my PS3 and the only issues I've had are three occasions of it freezing up. Weirdly enough, they have been either while just walking or post-Fast Travel, not during intense combat like you would think.