What was all the fuss about?

[The Z]

I was recently playing through a game when I realized that I was only playing it because I had been told it was good and that I wasn't having as much fun as I was supposed to be having with it. Following that, I began to think of a lot of games that I played simply because I was told that they were supposed to be good.

Some of the ones were: Unreal (the original, I love UT though), Icewind Dale (Again, I feel that the sequel's much better), to a certain extent Starcraft/Brood War (It was still fun, but it wasn't something that made me leap out of my seat in ecstasy), Thief, The Sims, Dark Forces, and Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight.

It's not so much that I didn't think the games were good, it's just that they weren't as good as everyone else (reviewers, friends) thought they were. I mean, Jedi Knight was pretty cool, but it didn't actually make me feel like a Jedi or anything. Unreal never really got me interested, even though I thought that the engine/graphics were fantastic and the weapons rocked.

Any games that you thought weren't as good as they were hyped to be?

[Xandax]

Originally Posted by The Z

<snip>
Any games that you thought weren't as good as they were hyped to be?

Yes there is - the newest was SW:KotOR
Oh, and FarCry.

But anyways, different people have different taste of what they like and dislike. And that is why one should always (I repeat - always) takes others recommendations with a grain of salt. Only use game reviews and friends suggestions as recommendations, instead of a sure-fire truth, unless you know that they usually suggest games that you like.
It is the same with movies - I have some friends that like the same movies as I do, and thus I listen to their recommendations a bit more, then friends I know have a taste in movies that I don't share.

But futhermore - I seem to feel that there is a state in the reviewing industry (if you can call it that), where a concensus state seems to have been reached. It seems very much to me that many reviewers have started giving out circa the same grades, good points and bad points. I doubt this is accidently. I couldn't say the reason for why this is so - maybe there is a "fear" amongst the reviewers that if they don't review the hyped games well - the public (read: rapid crowd of fans) will punish them by not buying their magazines and reading their reviews in the future, because they didn't grade the publics (again: rapid crowd of fans) game proberly.
But that is just a possibility to explain the state as I percive it.
Of couse it could just be that so many games belongs in the 85-95% percentile these days and all the hyped games belong in the 90%+ percentile.

I for one, have gotten "burned" by hype one time to many, and now I'll not buy a game withouth researching it intensive, and weiging in the oppionins of people I trust not to fall for the hype of the market. For instance, I'll not buy Doom 3 and Half-life 2 (if they ever get released) before somebody I know have tried them out (he saved me from Unreal 2).
Likewise, I'll not purchase SW:KotOR II before I've heard if it actually is a good improvement of the first one - or just more of the same.
And so on....

[dragon wench]

NWN....

[Xandax]

Originally Posted by dragon wench

NWN....

Yeah - NwN was *so* not what was expected by anybody. But thanks to a vast and extreemly good community, the multiplayer experience of NwN can actually be very very good. Some people are making it much closer to PnP.

But the single player in NwN ... yeek. (nevertheless - NwN has given me many hours of entertainment, once I adjusted my expectations).

[Stilgar]

Black & White, never understood what was so great about it.

[fable]

Originally Posted by dragon wench

NWN....

Agreed. I offered to review that when it first came out, but my editor at a certain site which-shall-remain-anonymous refused, knowing that I felt the original game made extremely unimaginative use of the gaming engine's possibilities. The editor-in-chief reviewed it instead, and drooled over the title so much that I suspect his keyboard short-circuited.

In another words, even when individual reviewers want to be honest, the people in charge prefer throwing reviews of "A Titles" to those who will give 'em sensational scores.

[dragon wench]

I have heard that the expansions for NWN have made huge improvements to the original, but even if that is true it is quite sad. I mean the reason that people bought the expansions to both BG1 and BG2 is because they in themselves were so good. It sounds like the NWN expansions are more about trying to make up for the inadequacies in the first of the series...

I know the game was supposed to cater primarily to being an online experience but I still think they *could* have put just a little bit more into the single player campaign. However.. I'll stop here, there have already been plenty of rants about NWN on these forums

[Luis Antonio]

Unreal (the original, I love UT though)

Man, I feel really sad... I loved Unreal... And it is, sided by Q2 the best First person shooter ever... at least from its generation. UT is nice, but needs internet play, for if you play it against the AI, it just goes doooown. Unreal: The Awakening, however, is nice, very pretty game, but without so much action as Unreal. Unreal is dark, huge, hard, has a different story...

Well, NWN. Completely agreed.

Now: ToB. Throne of Bhaal is a nice game. But just nice. I mean, after making excelent games like BG1 and BG2, only the dismantling of Black Isle could result in the making of such a short, unimaginative and hollow expansion like Throne of Bhaal. IMO, the end for the saga should have been at least at the same level of the saga history, with another great plot - like the 'mans around the table', who IMO were disciples of Cyric.

[Gauda]

hmm let's see...

Black And White (Quite possible the most hyped computer game through out all history)
Never Winter Nights, +Shadow of undrentide (HoTU Fixed most of the shortcomings, but it is still not a very good game, I play it from time to time though)
The temple of elemental evil (The guys at Troika games did a SUPERB job at making the game as close as 3.5 edition PNP as possible, and the graphics was good too, but the story was as good as nonexcisting(I guess the module it was based on is to blame for that, despite it being famous), and there was some bugs, and I really do think that they should have placed flags on the maps, and make the village of hommlet smaller, I think it took my 3 hours just to explore the whole map, and keeping track of where everything was, was extremely difficult.)

[The Z]

Originally Posted by Xandax

But futhermore - I seem to feel that there is a state in the reviewing industry (if you can call it that), where a concensus state seems to have been reached. It seems very much to me that many reviewers have started giving out circa the same grades, good points and bad points. I doubt this is accidently. I couldn't say the reason for why this is so - maybe there is a "fear" amongst the reviewers that if they don't review the hyped games well - the public (read: rapid crowd of fans) will punish them by not buying their magazines and reading their reviews in the future, because they didn't grade the publics (again: rapid crowd of fans) game proberly.
But that is just a possibility to explain the state as I percive it.
Of couse it could just be that so many games belongs in the 85-95% percentile these days and all the hyped games belong in the 90%+ percentile.

I agree, I mean, AFAIK, nearly all reviewing media gave Dungeon Siege a really high grade when after awhile, it became the same old boring thing over and over and over. When I beat it, the first question I asked was, "that's all?", because all the game had was an impressive graphical engine. The story, I never really got too much into, and combat was just rehashed Diablo without the challenge. I was left wondering how such a "merely ok" game was give Editor's Choice awards across the board and the occasional RPG of the year award, when it was hardly a "Great" RPG.

@fable...it's kind of odd how the media is supposed to be the voice of truth and it ends up being manipulative instead. It's almost as if they want you to buy a game so much that they'll exaggerate the pros of that game in their review.

[Aegis]

Originally Posted by Gauda

hmm let's see...

Black And White (Quite possible the most hyped computer game through out all history)

Daikatana

As for NWN, well, my initial review got me so horribly flamed (Xan probably remembers my first take on the game, before I looked at it after a couple months, and gave it a generous boost in score... If the scoring system didn't change, and my original review made it in, GB would be sporting a nice round 6 for it...). I have never enjoyed the gameplay of NWN, the only reasons I even gave it a second chance was for a particular server, which was as big a dissapointment as the game itself, and the fact I found it for $10 CDN.

[fable]

It's easy to get flamed for doing an honest, well conceived review, @Aegis, by people who have been hyped for months on advance publicity. I remember that first review, and it seemed dead on target to me.

My own TOEE review here was attacked by a small (about 10) people who populated one private forum and deliberated targeted sites that didn't drool over the game. I liked about half of it (especially the rules engine, combat and graphics) but thought the quests, plot, and bugs were awful, so we received their ire. They just need to weather it, and keep in mind that they're shouts are loud but hysterical. In time, they die away, and the review remains.

At least TOEE got severely knocked about by other sites and magazines. I don't think the editors who play for 5 hours and rave about depth could even overlook the bugs in that one.

[Robnark]

Originally Posted by Aegis

Daikatana

uh, the only 'fuss' I remember about that was derisive laughter from all quaters and unflattering comparisons to quake

[Aegis]

Originally Posted by Robnark

uh, the only 'fuss' I remember about that was derisive laughter from all quaters and unflattering comparisons to quake

It was hyped as one of the most revolutionary games of its time by John Romero (and partially because of it was a John Romero game ). It flopped massively, and that's what everyone remembers.

[The Z]

Originally Posted by Luis Antonio

Man, I feel really sad... I loved Unreal... Unreal is dark, huge, hard, has a different story...

Well...the thing with Unreal is that the single player campaign just didn't click with me. Maybe there wasn't enough stuff to kill (at least on the levels I played), or I just didn't like the levels. Either way, I didn't get far enough into the game to really appreciate the story either (7-8 levels). IMO System Shock 2, Deus Ex, and Half-Life have the best FPS stories. Anyways, for some reason I just couldn't get into Unreal. Botmatch and multiplayer were always fun though.

Same thing with Heroes of Might and Magic III. Doing all the Single-player campaigns was really tedious (they're so long and some missions felt either impossible or just boring and uninspired), but playing on the Hotseat with my brother or playing single scenarios was much more fun, for some reason.

@Aegis...And now everyone makes fun of Romero and/or Daikatana