Quote:
Originally Posted by
ShaolinMK 
Just started up on Fez and it's great.
Oh shit, Fez finally came out?! I need to get on top of that ASAP. I'm still waiting on release dates for my two EAGERLY most anticipated games (They Bleed Pixels and the tragically generically titled but fucking AMAZING looking Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior's Rise) both which which have for way too long now just been given a vague, oblique "sometime in 2012 whenever we get around to it". Grrrrrrrr....
I think some gaming site actually referred to Kung Fu Strike as "arty" at one point. A game which is in ALL respects a skill-and-challenge-based, arcadey, gameplay-centric 3D brawler is in today's gaming world considered "arty" because its axed on being, y'know, a GAME first and foremost rather than being "cinematically immersive" to the player and cutscene/quicktime event/narrative-minded. Fucking Christ. We are SERIOUSLY on the far opposite side of the Looking Glass by this point huh?
By that token, and since its been brought up earlier, I may as well get this off my chest now: the two Batman Arkham games are complete fucking jokes. At their core they're attempting to be THREE (well, three and a half in the case of City) different game genres crammed into one: one of which is executed embarassingly abysmally and brainlessly to the point where you almost have to laugh if it weren't so sad and pathetic (that'd be the "detective" stuff), the other so rote, bland, and without any shred of actual depth or challenge that its positively coma inducing (that'd be the brawler segments: when the goddamned Konami SNES Batman Returns game from 1993 had more actual combat depth to it and required more skill needed to play it as a brawler than a "critically acclaimed" 2012 triple A release on modern consoles, that's just fucking indefensibly pitiful), and the third ACTUALLY kinda halfway decent (that being the "stealth" portions), but kneecapped and rendered almost moot by the fact that it has to share space divided between the other two. City attempts to add a qausi-sandbox element, but with the other three aspects still as unevenly shitty as they were in the first, it really doesn't add a great deal much to the proceedings.
The ONLY reason these are getting the kind of acclaim and attention that they are is because: A) its Batman and we're currently embroiled in a culture that's so fanatically devoted to this particular franchise and set of characters that its kinda terrifying (and this is coming from someone who REALLY LIKES Batman just plenty), and B) it involves people who were involved with the 90's Animated Series which was indeed pretty damn great for what it was (its a perfectly good, very admirably and unpanderingly intelligent and skillfully executed kids cartoon gang, but that's as far as it goes: it ain't fucking Faust the way that so very, frighteningly many people I know try and paint it as) but is held to such ABSURDLY sacrosanct extremes by the current generation and zeitgeist that once again, it kind makes my skin crawl.
These are all obscenely shallow and superficial "qualities" to the games that have all of ZILCH to do with them as games and everything to do with them stroking just the right set of meaningless, substance-free fanboy g-spots in people who put no thought into what makes a good video game on a gameplay level whatsoever. If these didn't have both the Batman license or the Animated Series folks involved, NOBODY would care about them THIS much. You all KNOW damn well I'm right about THAT much at least. Take all those trappings and bits of window dressing away, set aside ALL your love for the franchise and that fucking cartoon you were so obsessed with as a kid... and there's simply NOTHING to these games. At all. Whatsoever.
And if someone mentions "but the story is good" as a defense, you get a punch upside the head. Story ONLY matters intrinsically and mechanically to a VERY select and certain set of game genres... next to none of which the Arkham games fit into. Don't get me wrong, throw a good story into an already great game, and I won't complain at all (so long as said story doesn't get so big and elaborate that it gets in the actual gameplay's way).
But give me a set of games that are this underwhelmingly boring to outright bad on a game-level but with all the effort put instead into their story, voice acting, and narrative and my only response is "Then take all those damned cutscenes and go make a fucking CG film out of them instead: NOTHING about this experience requires that there needs to be a controller in my hands, so why not just cut out the superfluous middleman entirely?".
Oh and an extra special "fuck you" to City's opening "Bruce Wayne led through the prison in chains" bit that eats up what feels like a never-ending eternity of the game's opening "play" (using that word VERY liberally). I played Dragon's Lair already thank you, that game isn't made anymore "deep" or "better" by the fact that Dirk the Daring is now Bruce Wayne in a Gothan prison's chain-gang with more textured and moody looking graphics.
Edited by Jaquio - 4/21/12 at 2:09pm
