I've become a bit of a broken record when it comes to Dead Space - a massively underrated game IMHO. Besides the exceptional audio and visual prowess, brilliantly realised atmosphere and seamless game mechanics its just great fun. It holds back the shocks when it needs to and injects the pace at the right moments. Its story, while not wholly original, is perfectly delivered and compares favourably to bigger titles such as Gears 2 and Fallout who made big boasts pre-release in that area. All in all its a great game.
That's because Edge still want to be primarily known as a paper-based magazine. I know that if they just posted up contact straight away I wouldn't bother buying the mag
I completely agree that the faults can be distracting but that's a small price to pay for such a great, immersive world. I think that it is a far better game than Oblivion - the central story is far superior, the VATS combat is more engaging than the previous slash-block-spell and some of the side quests are fascinating and surprisingly multi-dimensional. While some of the assassins and thieves guild missions were excellent in Oblivion, many of the quests felt like unnecessary filler and a good percentage of the 200+ hours felt like a chore. There was nothing in Oblivion as evocative as the Tenpenny Towers mission in Fallout 3 - I actually felt guilty taking the evil route and found the outcome quite harrowing. While some of the voice acting is pretty poor (The Craterside Supplies woman made me want to blow up megaton) a lot of it IS darkly amusing and in the spirit of the original games.
Anyway, I think the review is fair from an objective perspective but, personally, I'd give it a 9. Few games are this imaginative and ambitious.
I don't see the problem either - 6/10 isn't necessarily a bad score. To be fair, it does sound solid if not spectacular and the fact that they have taken the line of "more is better" as opposed to implementing true innovation is a perfectly valid criticism and one that I'd be interested in reading about. I have disagreed with so many reviews in Edge but they have always prompted debate about the same issues that I encounter when playing the game. Compare this to the review of CoD: World at War - both got the same score, both probably solid shooters and well worth a play through when I get the chance. So they haven't turned out to be the revolution of video gaming that you hoped for. So what? Surely that's better than being promised that a game is awesome by a journalist who writes a glowing review after being promised future exclusive access by the game's developers. I think it was in Games TM a few months back (the only other games publication I read) when they did an article about the lack of independence in gaming journalism. It was worse than I had previously thought. The insight from the owner of Metacritic into the bullying tactics of gaming PR execs was also very interesting to read, if very depressing.
To be fair, this isn't the best review that I've ever read in Edge and it does seem a little rushed. However, in an issue that includes reviews for Gears of War 2, Fallout 3 and Little Big Planet, I can understand why Resistance 2 wasn't given as many words as it would usually.
Basically the computer games market is a tough crowd in which to prompt intelligent discussion, especially on the Internetz. I think you do a good job. Looking forward to you putting up the Fallout review so that I can argue why you are wrong, wrong, wrong. Bugs be damned, I love it.
Oh good. Nintendo are still on a quest to banish world-wide obesity. That's nice to see. Jamie Oliver should make a Wii cooking game! That would be so much fun.
I'm surprised by Fable 2 as well. It really didn't appeal compared to other titles released at the same time and didn't seem to have as large a marketing campaign.
Network now...
alpunk's Comments
I've become a bit of a broken record when it comes to Dead Space - a massively underrated game IMHO. Besides the exceptional audio and visual prowess, brilliantly realised atmosphere and seamless game mechanics its just great fun. It holds back the shocks when it needs to and injects the pace at the right moments. Its story, while not wholly original, is perfectly delivered and compares favourably to bigger titles such as Gears 2 and Fallout who made big boasts pre-release in that area. All in all its a great game.
That's because Edge still want to be primarily known as a paper-based magazine. I know that if they just posted up contact straight away I wouldn't bother buying the mag
I completely agree that the faults can be distracting but that's a small price to pay for such a great, immersive world. I think that it is a far better game than Oblivion - the central story is far superior, the VATS combat is more engaging than the previous slash-block-spell and some of the side quests are fascinating and surprisingly multi-dimensional. While some of the assassins and thieves guild missions were excellent in Oblivion, many of the quests felt like unnecessary filler and a good percentage of the 200+ hours felt like a chore. There was nothing in Oblivion as evocative as the Tenpenny Towers mission in Fallout 3 - I actually felt guilty taking the evil route and found the outcome quite harrowing. While some of the voice acting is pretty poor (The Craterside Supplies woman made me want to blow up megaton) a lot of it IS darkly amusing and in the spirit of the original games.
Anyway, I think the review is fair from an objective perspective but, personally, I'd give it a 9. Few games are this imaginative and ambitious.
I don't see the problem either - 6/10 isn't necessarily a bad score. To be fair, it does sound solid if not spectacular and the fact that they have taken the line of "more is better" as opposed to implementing true innovation is a perfectly valid criticism and one that I'd be interested in reading about. I have disagreed with so many reviews in Edge but they have always prompted debate about the same issues that I encounter when playing the game. Compare this to the review of CoD: World at War - both got the same score, both probably solid shooters and well worth a play through when I get the chance. So they haven't turned out to be the revolution of video gaming that you hoped for. So what? Surely that's better than being promised that a game is awesome by a journalist who writes a glowing review after being promised future exclusive access by the game's developers. I think it was in Games TM a few months back (the only other games publication I read) when they did an article about the lack of independence in gaming journalism. It was worse than I had previously thought. The insight from the owner of Metacritic into the bullying tactics of gaming PR execs was also very interesting to read, if very depressing.
To be fair, this isn't the best review that I've ever read in Edge and it does seem a little rushed. However, in an issue that includes reviews for Gears of War 2, Fallout 3 and Little Big Planet, I can understand why Resistance 2 wasn't given as many words as it would usually.
Basically the computer games market is a tough crowd in which to prompt intelligent discussion, especially on the Internetz. I think you do a good job. Looking forward to you putting up the Fallout review so that I can argue why you are wrong, wrong, wrong. Bugs be damned, I love it.
Oh good. Nintendo are still on a quest to banish world-wide obesity. That's nice to see. Jamie Oliver should make a Wii cooking game! That would be so much fun.
I'm surprised by Fable 2 as well. It really didn't appeal compared to other titles released at the same time and didn't seem to have as large a marketing campaign.
All alpunk's Comments