@demoskinos: man that looks like a blast, lot of slapstick schadenfreude.
yeah that pretty unique gameplay is what is personally appealing to me. Not everyday you see something that radically mechanically different
fwiw The way I've tried to explain this series to my friends is that is the videogame version of Mouse Trap (the board game) where the mouse is Anime Teens. Basically you build a Rube Goldberg death contraption on the fly in which you try to catch fleeing Anime teens?
his list just reminds how damn good this year has been. I've only even played 2 games on this list (although I hope to get to 2 more before the end of the year)
I feel like I'm going to be playing 2015 releases for years to come as there are at least 30 games I want to play. maybe more
Did you like the older Deception games @demoskinos ? Always kinda wondered about that series.
seriously though this looks pretty fun. I'm glad kids today get some good games. I don't feel like that as good of stuff as we got, since a most AAA attention is focused on T+ plus games anymore
@amyggen: But my point is that when you're splitting the scores, you're going beyond just having a review and score that's outdated eventually, you're having two different review scores for the same content. It becomes incongruous, instead of just outdated.
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I still fail to see the issue if you agree that the review is a snapshot of how the game was at release. It was worse on consoles in the reviewer's opinion because of technical reasons outlined in the review. That can eventually change (though I doubt it in this case), but I don't see how that's any different from when you just have one score for a game.
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Personally in an Ideal world I do think you should change the score if there is a substantial change to the shipped product. But leave both on there and a date by both, so that people can make their own decisions. It's not really a fair expectation to expect someone to seek out the reviewer in another medium to find out the current impression (like "hey Simcity works now but still isn't fun!" etc). Not everybody has 3 hours to listen to the podcast or 45 minutes to watch a QuickLook etc, let alone the metacritic implications of the score itself. Nor do they even want to be that kind of superfan.
In practicality though, I know most reviewers have time to follow a game once they are done with their assignment. As it is GiantBomb doesn't review or score quite a few prominent games at all, and they almost never even touch DLC. And most games still have the bulk of their sales close to launch, so that is the window that has the most benefit to consumers.
I think the scores and reasoning as posted are very fair to Fallout IV as it is today. My only wish is that they they did this platform specific split more often. It would have been really useful on Batman: Arkham Knight.
Great review Grant! For the first time in quite awhile you blogged about something I've already played.
I'm a bit less enthusiastic about than GC than you are.
I haven't played 2, but I thought 1 was just ok.
I really liked the animation and style, boy that kind of fluidity was neat. I'd much rather 2d platformers of today aspire to use the tools of today like GunmanClive did instead of thoughtlessly ape some perceived era of pixel art. Don't get me wrong I like pixel art, I just don't like the way some Steam indie devs seemingly slap pixels into their games as some sort of crass marketing ploy or status badge (often the same types who hype their game as a "retro hard as nails platformers")I prefer people to use the medium that suits their artistic vision whatever that is. If you got something you want to express pixels, so be it.
But that was about it for me. I didn't feel the level design was that compelling especially the enemy design, although I do agree they were good at trickling out new mechanics in a Miyamoto type way (I guess I've gotten spoiled since my baseline expectation these days is that platformers will do that anyway). A lot of stuff just felt like it was there just to be there and didn't seem to have any thematic cohesion. It seemed to get more surreal as the game went along, which is fine but it didn't seem to do so for any real gameplay or narrative reason.
To me where the game really didn't hold up as a good Mega Man style platformer were the Boss Fights, I thought those were too few in number and were pretty not compelling. Granted you can't have a whole lot in an hour long game. Maybe I've played too many platformers to appreciate the design as you saw it, but I smoked all of them without any trouble on the first try. Which is very unusual for me. Looking at Steam profile, it say my gametime is 68 minutes. Part of that includes a second playthrough to see if that duck mode was fun (it didn't do it for me but by then I had my fill already) and to see if I wanted to play as Mrs Johnson or Clive.
Like you I think these games are priced right, and I feel kinda torn about how that affects my opinion. It's like the opposite of the complaints many people had about Gone Home as a value proposition.
Does the 2 dollar price tag somehow make what I consider to be a pretty mediocre (but incredibly stylish) platformer better? I kinda don't feel like it should. My time has value too and I hate rewarding something for being better merely because it's affordable. Otoh I really did appreciate the brevity of the game length. If GC had been a 6 hour games, it would have gotten very old quickly. But maybe it could have used another 45 minutes or so and maybe a couple more bosses.
Definitely pretty impressive creation for such a small team.
@marino: yeah I remember all that from the game. It just didn't make sense as to why he needed to be alive, didn't know if they explained more of the mechanics of his necromancy in the comics.
Thanks for these btw, they are fun! MK universe is crazy.
I think Raiden is the presumed antagonist of the next game; what with Shinnok's disembodied head and so on.
Well, there's a few possibilities. Raiden is almost definitely "Dark" Raiden now after absorbing the corruption in the Jinsei (from Shinnok), and he seems quite pissed off now. But, there's also Liu Kang and Kitana as the new rulers of the Netherrealm; their souls lost forever after Quan Chi's death. Then, at the very end of the comics, there's mentions of Onaga.
Gotta admit, I assumed Raiden is going to be the bIg Bad in MK XI too.
Do you know why the Revenants are assumed lost forever since Quan Chi is dead? Is it "just because", a plot device?
I never understood that part since some (Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Jax) got free...
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