Game Reviewers = Idiots?

[Tydeus]

It's been a while since I've seriously gamed -- probably a good 6 months, and before that all I really played was Halo 2, thanks to a lack of cash for other games and a powerful prediliction for sniping 7-foot-tall cyborg super soldiers.

Anyway, I just got a 360 about a month ago, and a few games have trickled into my life recently (Oblivion, Dead Rising, Call of Duty 2, and I recently rented 99 Nights). Also, reading recent rants (triple alliteration!) on Penny Arcade, I've come to agree with those folks that game reviewers these days have lost all conception of what makes a game good. Namely, fun.

It seems like all they talk about is "innovation," which, although well and good, does not equal fun. Now, I understand it -- game reviewers have played a ridiculous number of games, so, all they want is something new. Essentially, they're just tired of playing the same thing again and again, but, that's not true of most gamers, who don't play 100 games in a year.

Ninety Nine Nights is my big example here. It has a rating of 5.2 on 1up.com, with Dan Hsu from EGM giving it a mere 4.5. Wait, 4.5?!? You would think, in the age of any-game-with-a-lot-of-hype-getting-at-least-8.5, that a 4.5 must be a real piece of crap -- pure, unfiltered misery.

Spurred on by Penny Arcade's glowing review of Enchanted Arms (which I plan to buy shortly), I rented N3. To my surprise (and delight) it's really a lot of fun. The combat is varied enough to remain interesting, but simple enough so that you know all (or most) of your moves. Moves are unveiled level-by-level, so the combat adds more depth as you go along, instead of just giving you everything right from the start. The items are interesting, and there is definitely room for strategy in choosing appropriate combinations for any situation. Graphically, the game is insane -- the characters look as good as, if not better, than Dead Rising (the animations especially seem much more fluid and realistic), and yet they manage to cram even more characters on the screen, with more effects, a much larger draw distance, and incredibly short (to the point of not noticing them) loading times. Their solution is to make things in the distance seem fuzzy, which is both realistic and not as jarring as baddies/geometry simply appearing, or adding more polygons as you come closer.

However, there is nothing new about this game. Absolutely nothing. Totally been-there-done-that. So, yeah, it's a pretty standard title for the genre. However, it is a Dynasty-style action game, executed quite well. That is to say, the designers tried to make a certain kind of game, and succeeded almost without qualification. In essence, it is a very well-crafted, uninnovative, and totally enjoyable game.

Brian Intihar of EGM complains that "the action rarely chugs." Well, considering that I've been stringing together 1500+hit combos, flying through the air, and slaughtering dozens of enemies with a single swing of my blade, all so quickly it's almost hard to follow at times, that comment seems purely contrived, just as one more way to sh*t on a game that he seems to have an almost personal beef against. It does slow down at times, when there are literally 500+ enemies on screen at once, but it's still plenty playable, this rarely happens, and it's almost useful, sort of like an automatic "bullet-time" for really hairy situations.

He also says that the missions are all the same, saying they simply consist of "go from point A to point B while slaughtering as many foes as possible. Innovative? No." Well, the same could be said of Call of Duty 2, which EGM gave an 8.5, 9.0, and 9.0. In fact, at least in N3, you get to choose how to get from A to B, whereas in CoD2, your every move is painfully scripted, the game actually directing which piece of cover you should choose, and then forcing you to sit there, sometimes up to 20 minutes (on Veteran [CoD's Legendary] mode), picking off baddies who stand still and shoot at you from windows, doorways, and behind walls, popping up and down like 19th century shooting-gallery targets. Now if that's not innovative, what is?

Oh, and basically every FPS from Doom to Halo 2 has had missions that consist of "Go from A to B while killing as many foes as you can." So, shut the hell up.

But, CoD2 got 9.0. Hmmmm... perhaps EA's massive hype-machine and CoD1's huge success had something to do with that....

Anyway, I've found N3 to actually be more enjoyable than CoD2 thus far. Sure, CoD is unprecedentedly (at least at the time of its release) immersive, and really gives you the feel that you're in a battle, and in terms of art, sound, and general feeling, is a huge achievement. However, after about 2 hours I was getting pretty bored, and the only reason I've dumped 25+ hours into it is because I must get all the achievements, becuase I'm Obsessive Compulsive like that. Talk about action that rarely chugs though...holy crap. Veteran mode is just painful.

But, back to N3 -- a solid game with fun combat, an interesting (if a little lean) story (CoD 2 doesn't really even have any story at all), and enough freedom, control, and depth to entertain you for hours (hopefully for the full length of the game -- I'm not yet finished), and also a game that's been wronged by innovation-obsessed reviewers.

What do you guys think? Has the review-world gone mad with desire for innovation, and thrown fun to the wind?