Reviews

2010-08-27 05:44:02 pm

Kinda like how I noticed one of them say that the game has less replayability since the world is more linear than most Metroid titles. Never stopped us with Fusion, and I doubt it'll change things this time.

UchihaSasuke

Edit history:

UchihaSasuke: 2010-08-27 05:53:21 pm

2010-08-27 05:49:47 pm

my umbrella goes directly to Bankai

i though all games had unskippable cutscenes the first time you play them. the real deal-breaker is if they aren't skippable after you have beaten the game.
the first time you play the game, it is about seeing everything it has to offer so i don't get why people want to skip stuff so badly at that point. that would be like skipping pages in a book you are reading for the first time or fast-forwarding a movie you're watching for the first time.
i don't read reviews anymore since none seem to align to what i want from games anyway.

Poision Envy

2010-08-27 05:59:05 pm

Club 27 Goals

Quote from UchihaSasuke:

that would be like skipping pages in a book you are reading for the first time or fast-forwarding a movie you're watching for the first time.

Books and movies aren't the same as video games, though (Heavy rain doesn't count). If you're playing golf for example, and you're playing just to play, wouldn't you want to fast forward between all the times you have to drive those little carts to get to your ball, and get to the next course? (Lousy example, but I hope you get the point. Some people play games just to play games, not to be involved in the story.)

arkarian

2010-08-27 06:02:08 pm

red chamber dream

i disagree about that. the developers should be able to do whatever they want. if they want the player to fight a boss, they make them fight the boss. if they want a boss to be optional, they let the player skip that boss. if they want the player to view a cutscene, they make them view it. if they want the cutscene to be optional, they let the player skip it. that's fine.

nate

2010-08-27 06:07:00 pm

also fine to hack it to be whatever i want. that's how fork's position works.

Poision Envy

2010-08-27 06:07:12 pm

Club 27 Goals

I'm not trying to say its WRONG that the developers didn't let you skip them, I just like having that option there so if I've already played through the game I don't have to be bothered watching them all over again.

arkarian

2010-08-27 06:24:20 pm

red chamber dream

sure, if you're already played through the game. i was just talking about the first playthrough.

tomatobob

2010-08-27 06:24:37 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

It is wrong though. If you are driving your game forward by long cutscenes you don't properly understand the advantages of an interactive medium. Short scenes to make up for certain limitations is one thing, but if you make an action game you'd better be damn sure that action isn't being interrupted by a five minute cutscene because BabybabYBaBYbaBybabYbAbyBabybabybabybABYbaby. We should be past that by now, halting everything for any extended period of time to cram in a half assed story is painfully archaic nonsense.

Quote from Turtle:

Quote:

[G4 Review]

So basically their biggest problem with it is "ZOMG sexism"

That's actually a very legitimate complaint though. I was getting that vibe from the trailers and it annoyed my too. There are few things worse than the neutering of a bad ass. But it's Japan so what are you gonna do?

Aruki

2010-08-27 06:29:41 pm

that's something I completely agree with too. One of the main problems with portraying Samus like that is it affects her image across the entire franchise. Would be hard to play through this game and then play a different Metroid game and still look at Samus the same way you did before. :/ Not seeing how they could go about fixing that either so Nintendo just royally fucked up her character, unless everyone's completely overexaggerating how bad it is; but judging by what I've seen it's pretty bad.

I mean sure, delve more into her as a character and explain her backstory, whatever... but if you're actually making her unlikeable then it'd be better if you just hadn't done anything.

Quote from GameInformer:

The biggest culprit in the bad storytelling is Samus herself. She has a constant running narration, which makes the whole experience feel unnecessarily expository. I assume it’s meant to lend her emotional gravity, but the soulless voice acting and ham-fisted writing make that impossible. Even worse, Samus often comes off as an idiot. After one supporting character has clearly established that the space station has been doing biological weapons tests, Samus asks, "Do you think they were doing biological weapons tests?" Later, in her internal monologue, she again reiterates this confirmed fact we learned just 20 minutes ago.

If that’s not enough to make her unlikable, her attitude toward the Galactic Federation soldiers is. When she’s not blindly following orders for no discernible reason, she becomes a spoiled brat. One major flashback revolves around how Samus became known as the soldier who would give thumbs down during mission briefings. Who does that?!

Late in the game, once Samus unlocks all of her abilities and begins meeting more familiar faces from the series, I experienced fleeting moments where it all clicked, and I saw glimpses of how great Other M could have been. But an hour or two of less painful gameplay can’t make up for the bad design choices at this game’s core. It especially can’t make up for what Other M has done to Samus as a character. She’ll forever be trapped in my mind as a whiny, talkative child who is too willing to give up her freedom and too petulant to be likable. Metroid: Other M is the most disappointing Nintendo release in quite some time and a blemish that isn’t likely to be forgotten on an otherwise superb franchise.

http://gameinformer.com/games/metroid_other_m/b/wii/archive/2010/08/27/nintendo-s-team-ninja-team-up-robs-metroid-of-its-atmosphere-and-character.aspx

that's something I completely agree with too. One of the main problems with portraying Samus like that is it affects her image across the entire franchise. Would be hard to play through this game and then play a different Metroid game and still look at Samus the same way you did before. :/ Not seeing how they could go about fixing that either so Nintendo just royally fucked up her character, unless everyone's completely overexaggerating how bad it is; but judging by what I've seen it's pretty bad.

I mean sure, delve more into her as a character and explain her backstory, whatever... but if you're actually making her [i]unlikeable[/i] then it'd be better if you just hadn't done anything.

[quote=GameInformer]The biggest culprit in the bad storytelling is Samus herself. She has a constant running narration, which makes the whole experience feel unnecessarily expository. I assume it’s meant to lend her emotional gravity, but the soulless voice acting and ham-fisted writing make that impossible. Even worse, Samus often comes off as an idiot. After one supporting character has clearly established that the space station has been doing biological weapons tests, Samus asks, "Do you think they were doing biological weapons tests?" Later, in her internal monologue, she again reiterates this confirmed fact we learned just 20 minutes ago.

If that’s not enough to make her unlikable, her attitude toward the Galactic Federation soldiers is. When she’s not blindly following orders for no discernible reason, she becomes a spoiled brat. One major flashback revolves around how Samus became known as the soldier who would give thumbs down during mission briefings. Who does that?!

Late in the game, once Samus unlocks all of her abilities and begins meeting more familiar faces from the series, I experienced fleeting moments where it all clicked, and I saw glimpses of how great Other M could have been. But an hour or two of less painful gameplay can’t make up for the bad design choices at this game’s core. It especially can’t make up for what Other M has done to Samus as a character. She’ll forever be trapped in my mind as a whiny, talkative child who is too willing to give up her freedom and too petulant to be likable. Metroid: Other M is the most disappointing Nintendo release in quite some time and a blemish that isn’t likely to be forgotten on an otherwise superb franchise.[/quote]

http://gameinformer.com/games/metroid_other_m/b/wii/archive/2010/08/27/nintendo-s-team-ninja-team-up-robs-metroid-of-its-atmosphere-and-character.aspx

tomatobob

2010-08-27 06:42:24 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

It's great that they actually showed some character growth for Samus, she went from rebellious little brat to a good, submissive little lady like all good women should be!

UchihaSasuke

2010-08-27 06:46:19 pm

my umbrella goes directly to Bankai

looks like not even the devs at Nintendo are going in the direction everyone wants the series to go. now Retro doesn't look that bad in comparison.

this gives the bad feeling that there won't be a game like Super, ZM or Prime ever again. everything after ZM has tried to have a story and linear gameplay. they're basing practically all games on Fusion's blueprint now.

the only way i see them going back is for this game to sell horribly. that's the only thing that really makes Nintendo backpedal with major franchise changes nowadays.

on a different note, i wonder why people assume Samus is a "badass" in the other games by just being mute. for all we know, she could have been a whiny bitch since day 1 but she didn't feel like telling everyone until she had gone though a lot. her job in the previous games wasn't exactly "bounty hunting" and was more like she still worked with the federation but with no formalities. if she was ripping though everything with one-liners and a mean attitude, then i'd believe she was a badass that was pussified here but she never showed any sign of being that outside of the player tearing through the games.

looks like not even the devs at Nintendo are going in the direction everyone wants the series to go. now Retro doesn't look that bad in comparison.

this gives the bad feeling that there won't be a game like Super, ZM or Prime ever again. everything after ZM has tried to have a story and linear gameplay. they're basing practically all games on Fusion's blueprint now.

the only way i see them going back is for this game to sell horribly. that's the only thing that really makes Nintendo backpedal with major franchise changes nowadays.

on a different note, i wonder why people assume Samus is a "badass" in the other games by just being mute. for all we know, she could have been a whiny bitch since day 1 but she didn't feel like telling everyone until she had gone though a lot. her job in the previous games wasn't exactly "bounty hunting" and was more like she still worked with the federation but with no formalities. if she was ripping though everything with one-liners and a mean attitude, then i'd believe she was a badass that was pussified here but she never showed any sign of being that outside of the player tearing through the games.

tomatobob

2010-08-27 07:05:59 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Quote from UchihaSasuke:

on a different note, i wonder why people assume Samus is a "badass" in the other games by just being mute. for all we know, she could have been a whiny bitch since day 1 but she didn't feel like telling everyone until she had gone though a lot.

Answered your own question. To be a whiny submissive baby you have to act like one. Now she finally gets to! Truly a shining moment for fans of videogames around the globe!

HUDD

2010-08-27 07:10:28 pm

I am getting a slight bad feeling about this game.

UchihaSasuke

2010-08-27 07:29:09 pm

my umbrella goes directly to Bankai

fortunately, we're still at a point where the character's feelings don't impact the actual gameplay. imagine if your character stopped because you were jumping onto some hazardous area or refused to kill the enemies because "they also have lives".

tomatobob

2010-08-27 07:32:19 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

That's for Other M 2.

arkarian

2010-08-27 07:35:18 pm

red chamber dream

my prediction: this game will not sell very well for a major nintendo release. i mean less than half a million.

HUDD

2010-08-27 07:42:14 pm

I just want Metroid to get NSMB (2.5D) treatment with an EPIC world (Planet not ship) with varied environments and no direction. I just want to be dropped and figure everything out myself.

Opium

2010-08-27 07:43:48 pm

Can we all just go with what we already know: reviews are stupid and mean nothing. Let's just chill and wait for the game. Let's play it with an open mind and then judge for ourselves whether it's awesome or not.

arkarian

2010-08-27 07:45:08 pm

red chamber dream

reviews don't mean nothing though. people say that all the time, but it's just not true. there's plenty of facts in reviews that might be able to tell you if you might like the game or not.

tomatobob

2010-08-27 07:56:28 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Also keep in mind that the reviews have been mostly positive, they just also happened to confirm what most of us expected in that the story stuff is utter garbage. I've heard mostly good things about the parts where you are actually allowed to play the game, just some minor issues with the controls, which we also expected.

The only real surprise to me was that one review, the G4 one, was so well in line with what I was expecting from the game from basically day 1. That was pretty wild. Of course I'll have to try it for myself to see if I completely agree there, but it does make me feel better about the fact that I'll likely not be buying it for several months.

arkarian

2010-08-27 07:57:43 pm

red chamber dream

g4's reviews are usually pretty good. from what i've seen of them i like most of the people that work there.

UchihaSasuke

2010-08-27 08:00:37 pm

my umbrella goes directly to Bankai

Quote from arkarian:

my prediction: this game will not sell very well for a major nintendo release. i mean less than half a million.

my bets are in the 300k range.

arkarian

Edit history:

arkarian: 2010-08-27 08:01:36 pm

2010-08-27 08:00:47 pm

red chamber dream

sounds reasonable.

and i don't think this is because of the reviews or because it might be a lame game but just because i don't think it was marketed very well at all and it's not really something a lot of westerners would be interested in from seeing what they have advertised. we'll see.

Opium

2010-08-27 08:08:25 pm

I think it's quite possible that sales could really surprise us. This is going to be the first time that they've release a 'real' non-mario video game since the whole wii phenomenon invaded the US. There's a good chance that alot of nooby people might be interested in this. When MP3 came out, alot of those people either didn't have wiis yet or were too intimidated by it's apparent complexity. I think luring those people is what ninty had in mind when they were adamant about not including the nunchuk.

penguinseatsocks

2010-08-27 09:14:24 pm

That G4 bullshit was probably one of the most obnoxious and stupid reviews I've ever heard.