Phaelducan wrote...
"Is this biased? well its taste if anything, and I can't stand a story driven game doing something as awful as what DA2 decided to do with resurrections and personality changes to characters you cared for in DA:O."
That says it all Rand, you are lowering the score of the game because you don't like the story (btw it's a spoiler-free forum, and they already edited this thread once, so might want to change your Merrill section).
That's fine to say you don't like something, but it doesn't make it a bad product. I didn't like Kafka's . I also didn't like Sense and Sensibility. Does that mean they were crappy literature? Of course not, and it would be absurd for me to say so.
I get not liking DA:2 as much as other RPG's in recent memory, and I don't dispute anyone's right to their opinion. What I dispute is using unfair criteria to lambaste something to an extreme degree. If you list gameplay, graphics, music, user interface, etc. and give a game 8/10 or higher, then say you don't like the story and drop it to a 5 or 6, that doesn't generate an aggregate score of 60%.
I'm not a DA:2 loyalist, and it's not even in my top 10 this year for games I'm stoked about... but these scores/reviews are ABSURD. 60% is an absolute joke, and to even rate DA2 close to that suggests that the game is borderline unplayable.
That's flat-out untrue, which is why review sites (which btw have DA2 at 80%) use the aforementioned objective criteria to rate games. Some leeway? Sure, but not a full 20% worth.
You know that the median score is a median score of all the lows and highs, and trying to be the median score when you review a game isn't to goal of a review; rather its to express your view of the game.
& You can't point to one review, based only upon score and say that this is blatantly false; for all you know the game was unplayable for that reviewerr.
& Every review is partial to the reviewers opinions, I for one would never give a game a good score based on graphics; or graphics helps a game play well, but if It doesn't play well good graphics will never ever save it.
So I could never with good coincidence say that game X gets a 9, for while the gameplay only deserves a 5, the graphics and sound are both glorious! Well it would help, but I can’t understand how someone could ever value graphics and visual design over the feeling you get when you play said game.
& Its not that I don’t like the theme of the story, in truth I should love the story, because it contains exactly what I should want; the conflict of religion vs. individualism. No, I dislike the story because I find it inconsistent with DA:O and the DA world they created, I found it inhuman were it felt like it tried to be human, and how remarkable silly it got towards the end. Also for a RPG game it lacked options, or all the options you had lead to the same conclusions. Or I found it a compelling story told badly, with a flawed narrative that used for me low methods like returning characters without considering continuity. [talking about the main story]
That said I find that scores are a rough and badly applied tool; I for one would like to sum up DA2 something like this.
A flawed, but beautiful world, with mostly enjoyable milieus, battles and characters; containing gripping and worthwhile adventures set in a framed narrative that sadly often collapses onto itself. There is also a feeling through out the game of it being half done, with sad reminders around every corner, every cave, and every mansion. At point DA2 suffers heavily from story bugs, that can ruin some of its best writing with in time misplaced scenes, revealing the tragic end before its due. But the most gripping flaw for me is the decision to throw out my decisions from DA:O, leaving me, as the credits roll, with an empty feeling, and regrets that I ever decided to play DA2.
& Based on Gamespot/IGN reviews, maybe I’d give it an 7-8 instead of an 6-7, but maybe using Edge and their reviews, maybe a 5-6 is in order.
& I don't hate DA2, far from it; I really dislike parts of the game, and when I say I regret playing it, its because it partly ruined my DA:O experience. & I've clocked 150-160 hours in DA2 so far. I still give it a 6-7. Now if someone would have warned me about the ending, and told me to stop close to the end maybe I could have given the game a 7-8 even.
Modifié par randName, 19 mars 2011 - 04:32 .