Preview VGTribune Slams Dragon Age

[BlitzKitchen]

True but Empire was and is still broken as hell. The AI for example is worse than Rome's.

 

[Turok]

AHHH why my party is attacking alone why why???? i just have to see what they do, what the hell is this shit i have to wait the "refresh time" what the hell is this shit for god sake :D

What kind of game is this?? i cant smash all the buttons for win the game. AHHHH!!!

Golden :D hahahahha.

 

[crakkie]

Except they've also marketd it as a'spirual successor' of BG,

Archeology to this lot.

NWN,

Ancient, and never on any consoles. Irrelevant.

and KOTOR

Decidedly last gen. It even has dialogue trees, an outdated feature curiously present in DA.

Have there been any RTwP games on the PS360s? I don't think Fallout 3 counts, since it had to apologize for the feature by constantly making things' heads explode.

 

[Turok]

I think RPG games that we know are to mean to get exting. everything is maded for console now right? if console people dont like this kind of game then they are going to disapear.

By the way, anyone explain me for what work a 6 core procesor and a DirectX 11 video card with 2 gb ram if there is no PC games, games are maded for consoles, pc games now are just PORTS, if my system can run any game right now full graphics and everything 60+ fps, why anyone want invest lot of money of all that mumbo jumbo (specially when games only support 2 cores and somethimes 4 cores but still only use at max 2 cores).

 

[Rosh]

I remember feeling like this back when I was twelve and I first played Baldur's Gate. It annoyed me for the first hour before I came to the realization that it was actually a turn based system in disguise as real time combat.

Not really correct. In TB, actors move/act in turns, not at the same time. BioWare's RTwP scheme has always been more of a "slowed down" RT system, as RT games have their own settings of attack intervals. BioWare just took that, slowed it down and added in a pause button, and then the ignorant gaming media dropped down to their knees and gargled "Innovative! It's just like playing TB...but in real time!"

Question of the day: Why is the gaming press staffed by tweens?

Because they lack the attention span, intelligence, or educational background to work at anything more demanding than a McDonalds.

Besides, who would you hire if you were a gaming rag that only cared about subscription/pageview numbers?

1. The grizzled gaming vet who has seen 20+ years of the industry and isn't easily amused by shitty, shiny widgets that are mangled into a FPS gameplay clone, when such widgets were used better over a decade ago by people with vision instead of a pack of corporate monkeys who only can understand game design if it pertains to cloning everything else on the market.

2. The chump who hypes out everything because his experience in computer gaming started with the Nintardo, so they would be easily impressed by really anything while at the same time consider their Nintardo memories to have been the peak of gaming. They also consider anything to have become before them to either be a "legend" that needs to be cheaply exploited for some mechanic everyone is cloning into that has little to do with the original game's design, or simply not worth paying attention to. (There's a reason why Ultima VI-VII, SE had to be butchered severely to even fit into the capabilities of the Super Famicom.) Then you have the audience that makes the Nintardos look brilliant, experienced, and knowledgeable by comparison - the X-Box cattle.

Hype = more readers, plus all the developer fanboys. Plus the developers are happy because you're now part of their hype machine they can hide behind, when the magazine's readership plays the game themselves and finds that the game isn't what it was hyped to be and gets irritated at the magazine for "inaccuracies". But that anger subsides when the little goldfish's attention span goes onto the Next Shiny that catches their attention a few issues later, and the whole process repeats itself.

Oh, wait, I almost forgot number 3.

3. Desslock: Former respected genre reporter, now found under Todd Howard's desk experiencing Todd's "Turn-Based" and "Isometric" possibilities.

 

[Barrow_Bug]

Snore, no suprises here.

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

Perhaps marketing an RPG in the same way one might market God of War wasn't such a sharp idea and might give a lot of people the wrong impression?

What would be the right one, then? I'd been kind of expecting it to be "the new shit" for some time before that charming trailer had been relieved upon the world. Perhaps, not to the same extent, but it seems to be the natural progression, judging by their games of late, EA's portfolio and what actual footage/info we have on DA:O...

 

[Dark_Paladin_Anti_Hero]

I remember feeling like this back when I was twelve and I first played Baldur's Gate. It annoyed me for the first hour before I came to the realization that it was actually a turn based system in disguise as real time combat.

Not really correct. In TB, actors move/act in turns, not at the same time. BioWare's RTwP scheme has always been more of a "slowed down" RT system, as RT games have their own settings of attack intervals. BioWare just took that, slowed it down and added in a pause button, and then the ignorant gaming media dropped down to their knees and gargled "Innovative! It's just like playing TB...but in real time!"

That is where I get my turn based in disguise. Games are either real time, or they are turn based, which makes RTwP walk an awkward middle line. To state the obvious, the intervals are slowed down but not completely stopped and gives an illusion of being both types of combat systems at once. The pause button does add in a different element because the game is built around you stopping - like in turn based scenarios - to assess your situation rather than rely on keyboard mashing and compulsive clicking. Just like an actor is an amalgam of himself and the character he is portraying, RTwP is both but neither, and can be satisfying to some. As for walking an awkward middle line, it is like respecting Satan for the good he represents. You have God and Satan, good and evil, with their respective good and evil followers. However, Satan also represents freedom, independent thought, and the capacity to do what is right for humanity rather than what is right for some obscure celestial being. A guilty pleasure?

Question of the day: Why is the gaming press staffed by tweens?

Because they lack the attention span, intelligence, or educational background to work at anything more demanding than a McDonalds.

Besides, who would you hire if you were a gaming rag that only cared about subscription/pageview numbers?

1. The grizzled gaming vet who has seen 20+ years of the industry and isn't easily amused by shitty, shiny widgets that are mangled into a FPS gameplay clone, when such widgets were used better over a decade ago by people with vision instead of a pack of corporate monkeys who only can understand game design if it pertains to cloning everything else on the market.

2. The chump who hypes out everything because his experience in computer gaming started with the Nintardo, so they would be easily impressed by really anything while at the same time consider their Nintardo memories to have been the peak of gaming. They also consider anything to have become before them to either be a "legend" that needs to be cheaply exploited for some mechanic everyone is cloning into that has little to do with the original game's design, or simply not worth paying attention to. (There's a reason why Ultima VI-VII, SE had to be butchered severely to even fit into the capabilities of the Super Famicom.) Then you have the audience that makes the Nintardos look brilliant, experienced, and knowledgeable by comparison - the X-Box cattle.

Hype = more readers, plus all the developer fanboys. Plus the developers are happy because you're now part of their hype machine they can hide behind, when the magazine's readership plays the game themselves and finds that the game isn't what it was hyped to be and gets irritated at the magazine for "inaccuracies". But that anger subsides when the little goldfish's attention span goes onto the Next Shiny that catches their attention a few issues later, and the whole process repeats itself.

Oh, wait, I almost forgot number 3.

3. Desslock: Former respected genre reporter, now found under Todd Howard's desk experiencing Todd's "Turn-Based" and "Isometric" possibilities.

I take offense to the second option. My introduction to the genre was through Quest of the Avatar and Exodus on the NES (I was three at the time), but I cannot remember how they compare to the originals because my NES stopped working years ago. Just because your gaming experience started with a certain system doesn't mean that you're automatically worthless. If that's true then the future is most assuredly doomed because everyone born today will have started on the WiiPS360.

Anyways, if you only cared about subscription and page view numbers, you could certainly see number 1 being very appealing. Look at the numbers that Yahtzee generates for beating up on popular games. It would be a good source of lulz and be certain to churn out a decent, if not insane, number of page hits and comments. Looking at the long term, staffing your establishment with knowledgeable individuals (at the very least, individuals who are familiar with the genre they are supposed to be covering), is a good way to stay on the scene and become a reputable source. The initial question is still up in the air because what reason could there be for this shear unadulterated madness? This isn't hype, and it is not anti-hype. A whole lot of the gaming press - and I use that word loosely - these days simply do not know what is going on. It is like they are sheep lost in a fog, hearing the cries of a wolf, continually bumping into each other as they search for something - anything. They do not take the time to research the problems they are having, nor do they take the time to coherently state their problems, and instead come out sounding like some "WTF is dis shite?" YouTube comment. That is when they actually have problems. I do not see the value in scoring every blockbuster at 9/10. If you make money from companies, then the one that pays you the most gets the best review, and everyone else has to deal with honesty. Again, this requires people that are knowledgeable in their field and can draw convincing, not matter how contrived, parallels between games such as Ultima VII and Oblivion (name dropping is effective, just look around your friendly neighborhood Codex for examples). I am sure it would be much more effective and profitable to hire people who can actually form sentences, and at least make an attempt to appear intelligent, to write your articles.

 

[Ahzaruuk]

Bioware should take a leaf out of Square Enix's Book with the RTwP they did with FF 12.

 

[Rosh]

That is where I get my turn based in disguise. Games are either real time, or they are turn based, which makes RTwP walk an awkward middle line. To state the obvious, the intervals are slowed down but not completely stopped and gives an illusion of being both types of combat systems at once.

To state the even more obvious, turn-based works in TURNS, not by spaced time intervals. I guess you might be hung up on the term "turn", where it means it has the gameplay set up for regular intervals as in a ruleset term of "turn", and this is a fallacy BioWare and others have been cashing in on some time. RTwP is simply phase-based RT, and hitting the spacebar just gives you a command phase, the rest of the combat goes on after you hit the spacebar again, and it's in slowed RT intervals. There is nothing even close to TB about it.

I take offense to the second option. My introduction to the genre was through Quest of the Avatar and Exodus on the NES (I was three at the time), but I cannot remember how they compare to the originals because my NES stopped working years ago. Just because your gaming experience started with a certain system doesn't mean that you're automatically worthless.

Unfortunately, with a lot of today's kids who tend to believe the world started with their own memories, this holds true. If they aren't willing to educate themselves, then they too can be regarded on the same level as the dumb shits who said "Though I've never played a FPS before, I have to say that Daikatana RULES!!"

Real quote.

If that's true then the future is most assuredly doomed because everyone born today will have started on the WiiPS360.

You haven't really checked the state of the industry lately, hmm?

Anyways, if you only cared about subscription and page view numbers, you could certainly see number 1 being very appealing.

Nope, because most industry vets tend to cut through the PR bullshit and go for the real facts about the matter, and that doesn't work for many hype machines like Bethesda's. They can't operate in any other way than hype, spin, and lies after the fact.

Look at the numbers that Yahtzee generates for beating up on popular games. It would be a good source of lulz and be certain to churn out a decent, if not insane, number of page hits and comments.

Old games have nostalgia, and Yahtzee extends past the gaming industry, as it's been published for about 50 years. The same argument could apply to Monopoly.

Looking at the long term, staffing your establishment with knowledgeable individuals (at the very least, individuals who are familiar with the genre they are supposed to be covering), is a good way to stay on the scene and become a reputable source.

Unfortunately, most rags go for the kids who are easily impressed and help spew hype versus those who could remember a bit more about the industry. I'd agree that veterans should give them credibility with knowledge and experience, but then you run into where their experience says: "This Fallout 3 bullshit isn't really that innovative and new, and where's the expressive Talking Heads and speech system from Fallout? Congrats, they made and overhyped an Oblivion mod."

The initial question is still up in the air because what reason could there be for this shear unadulterated madness? This isn't hype, and it is not anti-hype. A whole lot of the gaming press - and I use that word loosely - these days simply do not know what is going on.

Because they are ignorant cattle. An apropos term, and one I'll expand upon a bit.

It is like they are sheep lost in a fog, hearing the cries of a wolf, continually bumping into each other as they search for something - anything. They do not take the time to research the problems they are having, nor do they take the time to coherently state their problems, and instead come out sounding like some "WTF is dis shite?" YouTube comment. That is when they actually have problems. I do not see the value in scoring every blockbuster at 9/10.

Welcome to the uneducated, ignorant filler that comprises most of the gaming industry and the audience as well. The gaming industry, specifically the marketing/PR departments, love sheep. Otherwise, how else would they be able to make a slight modification on an existing mechanic (as in the combat system above) and then pat themselves on the back for being "innovative"? How else could they tweak something so it could have another mechanic name-dropped, ignoring the difference between turn-based and RT/phase-based. The fact that they are easily able to sucker in these sheep speaks volumes for the general stupidity of the audience, as well as a general ignorance of what came before, else the PR would be caught in a lie.

Do you think they could do that with the wolves? Hardly. We first chew apart the PR guy and then eat the rest of the flock. That isn't a good thing when your gaming rag publisher wants to kiss ass and not alienate anyone.

So you get the gaming press of cheerful, happy retards, who are eternally optimistic and not really calling out a dev on their mistakes - unless they grow a set of surrogate balls from the rest of the gaming media cattle all doing the same, making it permissible to say something bad.

If you make money from companies, then the one that pays you the most gets the best review, and everyone else has to deal with honesty.

Yup, that's it in a nutshell.

Again, this requires people that are knowledgeable in their field and can draw convincing, not matter how contrived, parallels between games such as Ultima VII and Oblivion (name dropping is effective, just look around your friendly neighborhood Codex for examples).

And if you approach that subject with most of the gaming cattle today:

"WTF is Ultima? Is that some kind of Final Fantasy spin-off?"

I am sure it would be much more effective and profitable to hire people who can actually form sentences, and at least make an attempt to appear intelligent, to write your articles.

Well, as long as they can sound literate, no media publisher really cares what kind of uneducated chimp churns out content - just as long as it draws in pageviews/subscriptions as well as kissing the game dev's ass.

 

[Black]

Bioware- making real-time combat slower than mocked turn-based combat.

 

[heiamll]

Look at the numbers that Yahtzee generates for beating up on popular games. It would be a good source of lulz and be certain to churn out a decent, if not insane, number of page hits and comments.

Old games have nostalgia, and Yahtzee extends past the gaming industry, as it's been published for about 50 years. The same argument could apply to Monopoly.

im pretty sure the Yahtzee mentioned is not the board game Yahtzee but Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw the writer.

 

[Seboss]

Who takes Yahtzee's reviews seriously anyway?
People who enjoy the bashing hate the game in the first place and the other ones just watch them for the lulz before going back to drooling to MGS 4 FMVs.

The guy sure got an audience, but he's just an internet meme without any kind of real influence.

 

[Black]

Who takes Yahtzee's reviews seriously anyway?
People who enjoy the bashing hate the game in the first place and the other ones just watch them for the lulz before going back to drooling to MGS 4 FMVs.

The guy sure got an audience, but he's just an internet meme without any kind of real influence.

Despite that, sometimes his "reviews" or rather rants are spot on. Watch his Oblivion review.

 

[Spectacle]

The guy sure got an audience, but he's just an internet meme without any kind of real influence.

Despite that, sometimes his "reviews" or rather rants are spot on. Watch his Oblivion review.

It's a sad state of affairs when the truth is regarded as a joke..

 

[Gerrard]

I don't think Bioware or Bethesda win in buying out reviewers:

Empire Total War

You can't beat EA.

 

[Rosh]

im pretty sure the Yahtzee mentioned is not the board game Yahtzee but Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw the writer.

:D

Just about as relevant, when it's really just one or two people with a clue and the balls to call developers on their bullshit. Perhaps that is why they can stand out a bit, because they aren't flocking along with the rest of the sheep. Unfortunately, it gets a certain novel appeal particularly with the animation, but as proven before - unless there's sufficient impact felt across the industry/media, the studios aren't to give a shit what he says either.

EA certainly has more than a few gaming rags firmly in their pockets. Some rags have even offered sexual favors for previews. I'd like to think that's a good joke, too, but it's sadly true.

 

[MetalCraze]

I like Rosh. He is a True Patriot. Not like your average codexer who runs and buys everything with a "RPG" label on it.

 

[Brother None]

Rosh; I think Desslock quit, actually, or that's to say is currently focusing on his law-related job and not his game-related hobby.

Did BioWare forget to buy-off the reviewers or something?

It's Bethesda who are the masters of that, not Bioware.

Oh please.

I wish people would drop the "bought journalism!" bullshit. Not just because it's not true, but because it actually hides the reality, which is significantly worse: you don't need to buy game journalists, they effectively self-censor themselves into a tepid circle jerk.

 

[obediah]

Who takes Yahtzee's reviews seriously anyway?
People who enjoy the bashing hate the game in the first place and the other ones just watch them for the lulz before going back to drooling to MGS 4 FMVs.

The guy sure got an audience, but he's just an internet meme without any kind of real influence.

Despite that, sometimes his "reviews" or rather rants are spot on. Watch his Oblivion review.

If you hate everything, reviewing video games in 2009 is bound to endear you towards some old timer crpg nerds.

 

[Gragt]

Despite that, sometimes his "reviews" or rather rants are spot on. Watch his Oblivion review.

While I give him credit for often explaining a game mechanics and using them to bash a game, as well as having some game history behind him and not being completely blinded by the "oooooh shiny!" effect that afflicts the rest, he can't go past his biases. There is also a problem with the form he uses for his rants, which was fun at first but is now completely stale. As it is now, he is just a web curiosity that stands out because, as Rosh said, he doesn't completely go with the flow.

 

[Kingston]

I don't recall gaming mags being such obvious cocksuckers back in the 90s. I guess the change in player demographics is to blame. The new generation of kids grow up with gaming so it becomes popular and casual, creating a new market. Gaming used to be a nerdy thing :eagletear:

Exponentially growing budgets don't help, either. When a game costs a few hundred thousand $$$ to make, your PR budget isn't gonna be that big. When you're sinking tens of millions into a game, you're gonna spend a few million on marketing - that's a lot of adspace to fill. Gaming mags concentrate on attracting a wider audience instead of catering to the small bunch of old gamers to get some of that beautiful money.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

Even some old reviewers who used to complain about X-Com not having crouch/prone poses for the soldiers and wrote long battle reports of their Steel Panthers matches, now like Oblivion and shit like that. The only thing I can explain this with is that they don't like games anymore, because games have become work. (EDIT : I mean that they don't want to spend time with games, so instantly accessible, easy and short games are what they want.)

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

What's with the 3 attacks thing, is the idiot talking about cooldown WoW-style moves? In BG fighters had a simple default attack you could buff up with potions.

I don't wanna see my characters do weird japanese swirling attack moves.

Did i read that thing wrong?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I think it just means the combat has rounds, therefore characters have to wait a little before using their default attack again. Reviewer mashed buttons expecting to see God of War level of sword spam