Comments on: The Sunday Papers

By: Dante

Dante — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:52:26 +0000

@ Kieron

Surely the point to Edge being called on it’s plot rather than Mario has never pretended to be about the plot as much as Braid, which declares itself so devoted to it.

I’ve only played the demo of Braid, so I can’t pretend to give a truly valid opinion of it, but I have to say I honestly didn’t get in the slightest how it’s supposed to be melding game and plot in the way Blow talks so earnestly about. In fact they seem even more forced apart than usual, with the narrative consisting of big blocks of text that tell a seemingly irrelevant and yes, pretentious, story which relates to the actual level you’re playing only in the tangential sense that it vaguely describes what power you’re about to get.

That’s not combining narrative and gameplay, that’s mild trickery with words.

By: Nahual

Nahual — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:17:07 +0000

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/06/16/

Says it all.

By: George

George — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:30:43 +0000

That Saint’s Row 2 piece was disappointingly vacuous. It was light on any real detail, and heavy on “our game is great, buy it!” fluff.

By: Songbearer

Songbearer — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:22:43 +0000

I really hope the PC version of Saint’s Row 2 is a good’n. I was going to get it for the PC but opted to get it for the 360 instead so I could play it before Fallout 3 came out, and man am I glad I did.

SR2 is an absolute blast, and if they keep co-op in for the PC version I’m willing to guess it’s going to be a very pleasant surprise for people picking it up.

By: Ergates

Ergates — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:38:39 +0000

You’re supposed to read it, not eat it!

By: Meat Circus

Meat Circus — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:57:40 +0000

There remains, as there always has been, something unpleasantly sixth form common room about Edge.

I read it occasionally, but it always leaves a rather bitter taste in my mouth.

By: Turin Turambar

Turin Turambar — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:36:23 +0000

Edge is usually old school. They like their games to be gamey. So a plot with higher-than-average aspirations could be considerated for them prentitous.

By: Meat Circus

Meat Circus — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 07:48:10 +0000

The plot of Braid was pretentious? Wow.

Either I’ve watched too many David Lynch films, or Edge doesn’t know what the word means.

s/or/and/

By: Noc

Noc — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 02:34:54 +0000

Jalf, you just described the three-point spread.

Just replace numbers 1-4 with the numbers 6-9. And . . . huh, the results will look really familiar. Funny, how that works.

By: jalf

jalf — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 01:59:57 +0000

Well, we only really need a couple different grades:
- “Awesome insta-classic that everyone should play”
- “Good game that you’ll probably like, unless you actively despise this genre and everything in it”
- “Mediocre, but not actually painful. You’ll probably forget all about it 5 minutes after you put it down, but at least it’s not *bad*”
- “Sucks. Avoid it”

There, rate games on this 1-4 scale, and I think the grade inflation problem just goes away. :)

By: scout

scout — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:40:38 +0000

Angel Dust – Gamerankings lists 38 PC games with a rating above 90%, and IMO all but a handful of them deserve to be up there. Reviewers really don’t throw out 95%s very often.

By: Erlam

Erlam — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:20:49 +0000

I’m with Angel Dust on the criticism comment, although I’d posit that movie reviews are almost as bad.

I still shake my head when I think of a certain magazines 96%, and 98% for Doom 3, and Half-Life 2 respectively.