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Review eToychest thinks Kult sucks

Sol Invictus

Erudite
Joined
Oct 19, 2002
Messages
9,614
Location
Pax Romana
Tags: 3D People; Kult: Heretic Kingdoms

Here's a little something stupid to brighten the rest of your day. A <a href=http://www.etoychest.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1228&Itemid=42>review</a> from eToychest of Kult: Heretic Kingdoms with an absurdly low score of 60%. Warning: the following snippet consists of pure stupidity.
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<blockquote>The original Heretic Kingdoms was born too late and too mediocre. Some games are born mediocre, some games achieve mediocrity, and some games have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Heretic Kingdoms, it had been all three. Even among games lacking all distinction, it inevitably stood out as a game even more lacking than the rest, and people who played it were always impressed by just how unimpressive it was.
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Enter Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition. It has all the features of a ‘from the garage’ game without any of the perks one might find in that particular category. Good garage games are noted for their low budget quality, but also for the ingenuity and quality one would expect from a group of serious developers trying to break into the industry. Of course, it’s being generous simply assuming it’s from the garage, because the cold hard reality is it’s not.</blockquote>
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It sounds like the reviewer wrote the whole paragraph about 'mediocrity' long before he ever wrote this review, and he was looking for the perfect opportunity, also known as '<i>the underappreciated game you can knock around without anyone calling you out for it regardless of the nonsense you write because nobody will ever truly know if you're lying</i>', to use that entire paragraph. The internet is serious business.
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But for what it's worth, eToychest is a slop bucket of game reviews.
 

FireWolf

Liturgist
Joined
Sep 19, 2004
Messages
115
Location
The Corporate Machine
Ah yes, reviews that focus on trying to be funny rather than informing the reader about the game. Kids, reviews arn't about whether the writer likes the game, it is to give the reader an impression about what to expect so that they can make a more informed purchase.

..good selection of avatar appearances, but the game was obviously made with a female heroine in mind, since there’s no gender selection.

Because this makes it a bad game. Now, if there was an obvious overweight of appearances and other niceties with female rather than male then you can assume they had a female heroine in mind. If there is no male option at all research indicates that the story is about a woman. Of course, not having played the game I don't know, but that seems like yet another crappy sentence.

cross between Diablo and a general PC RPG, such as Baulder’s Gate or Neverwinter Nights, but it’s almost insulting to compare Heretic Kingdoms to quality games such as those

The bulk of the game is taking on quests for people, which mainly consist of bringing 'X' to 'Y' and slaying 'N' of Random Monster #3.

I thought it was kinda funny to say Kult is nothing like NwN, then describe every quest in Kult like NwN.

Heretic Kingdoms has a self-deprecating sense of humor that one must wonder at. Is it a joke put in for the fun of it, or perhaps a last ditch attempt by a programmer to spite the people that forced him to work on such a game?

Sounds like the first paragraph of this here review. Is it there for a particular purpose, or merely embelishment by the reviewer to inflate his ego for being such a "wit" when really only being half a one.
 

Greatatlantic

Erudite
Joined
Feb 21, 2005
Messages
1,683
Location
The Heart of It All
Visbhume said:
That paragraph seems to be an allusion to Catch-22.

By the way, www.gamecritics.com has a new review... of Bloodlines.

If anyone has ever complained about Gamespot reviews... they give Bloodlines a 6.5, something I never would have guessed from simply reading the text. The only complaint he seems to make against the game is that its a FPS/RPG. And that it has *gasp* stats! Though, the number crunchings of Bloodlines was very limited in comparison to other RPGs out there.

Oh, and the Kult review does seem pretty bad. Its an unfortunate circumstance that one only needs some bandwidth and a keyboard to put a review of a game out...
 

Shagnak

Shagadelic
Joined
Sep 6, 2003
Messages
4,638
Location
Arse of the world, New Zealand
Greatatlantic said:
The only complaint he seems to make against the game is that its a FPS/RPG.

Yeah, he seems to have prejudged it based on this prejudice, as shown here:

I don't mean to somehow hold Bloodlines responsible for the failings of an entire sub-genre, but those failings were foremost in my mind while playing the game.

If he had laid into it due to the lack-luster later parts, it would have been more understandable. I had no problems with the FPS/RPG aspect myself.
 

jsaving

Educated
Joined
Nov 15, 2003
Messages
20
The review isn't very good, but I do think the reviewer is right to point out that Kult isn't in the same league as the top-selling CRGPs of recent years. The graphics are woefully outdated and the role-playing elements are vastly inferior to either of the Baldur's Gate titles. If Kult didn't have a (very simplistic) stat system for the protagonist, it would be tempting to call it an adventure game rather than a CRPG.

That doesn't make it a bad game, but it does mean the designers have a lot of work to do if they want to make a truly successful CRPG...
 

LlamaGod

Cipher
Joined
Oct 21, 2004
Messages
3,095
Location
Yes
it's an action RPG and it's pretty interesting with the different ways you can do your character.

Trying to hold it up as a CRPG or degrading it for 'omg graphics' is pretty dumb.

The Avernum series is some of the best CRPG'ing there is and take a gander and those graphics.
 

Ryuken

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 28, 2005
Messages
606
Location
Belgium
Greatatlantic said:
Visbhume said:
That paragraph seems to be an allusion to Catch-22.

By the way, www.gamecritics.com has a new review... of Bloodlines.

If anyone has ever complained about Gamespot reviews... they give Bloodlines a 6.5, something I never would have guessed from simply reading the text. The only complaint he seems to make against the game is that its a FPS/RPG. And that it has *gasp* stats! Though, the number crunchings of Bloodlines was very limited in comparison to other RPGs out there.
I thought it was a 7.7 .

Kult definitely had things that set it apart but in its original state as it was released in Europe I would be ashamed if I gave it more than 70%, small budget or not. Dunno if they fixed everything in the US version, the patches here at least didn't solve every problem.
 

PennyAnte

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2004
Messages
769
Location
Here instead of playing an RPG.
jsaving said:
... the role-playing elements are vastly inferior to either of the Baldur's Gate titles.
Just to add to what LlamaGod said, this comment is accurate for most post-BG RPGs, even most of those that try to be good cRPGs. (Spiderweb games excepted).
 

Dhruin

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 15, 2003
Messages
758
As an action-RPG it's pretty much unmatched in story and dialogue. A comparison with BG is pointless because they are simply not the same type of game.
 

tarranon

Novice
Joined
May 6, 2005
Messages
2
Hey, I'm James. I'm sorry about the slip up, that was an accident on our editor's part. Thank you for bringing it to my attention though. Me and Etoy have changed it to reflect the original pre-edit version. If you really want to talk to me about it, without resorting to name calling, I'd be more than happy to carry on a discussion through email. You can reach me at Tarranon@gmail.com

~James Surgi
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,986
"without resorting to name calling"

Um. This is the Codex. debates without insultsa simply don't exist here.

Watch: Guild Wars suck, and Ex is a foolish fnaboy!


As for Kult. Meh. Never was interested; never will be interested.

LONG LIVE NWN!
 

tarranon

Novice
Joined
May 6, 2005
Messages
2
Hah, I see.
 

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