Each To Their Own...

[Kit]

One of my colleagues from school hates Metal Gear Solid 4. He says the plot is confusing, he doesn't know where to go and he doesn't understand what he should be doing. Is it because the game isn't telling him this? Of course it isn't, it's because he skips past all the cutscenes. He says, and I quote, "I want to PLAY a game, not WATCH it!" God help him if he ever picks up Lost Odyssey and finds that the best and most memorable parts of the game lie in the text-based dreams you "collect" as you go through; he won't be happy. (This assuming he ever learns how to read.)

Games that are intended to win a gamer over through story over gameplay, like MGS4, may never get the chance to speak to the masses who are expecting to go through a game blasting off enemies' limbs and drop-kicking zombie babies into oblivion, and for the drooling masses that's just what Dead Space provided. Look into Dead Space and people who aren't my colleague from school will also find an intriguing story that carries you along, albeit with the contents of your pants sloshing all the way. But, let's be honest, we all know Dead Space is all about shooting the yellow bits on a big dead mo-fo who looks pretty angry.

In this way, you can't criticise these games for not delivering on their promises. MGS4 has an engaging story with the stealthy gameplay to boot, and Dead Space is all the sadistic, twisted fun you'll ever have while also having a pretty decent story. But yet, games that have a weak story, like The Club, are often knocked yet their core purpose - in the Club's case, an arcadey shoot-em-up with a British version of Unreal Tournament's Announcer - is structurally sound, and when I'm stressed I love to careen around the Prison Cells as a mad Russian criminal pulling off head shots and racking up insane combos. And that kind of insane, senseless gameplay is just what Bizarre Creations, its developer, do best, as well. When I'm shooting the grid up in Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, I do not stop to think "Hang on a second. Why am I here? Why am I shooting these blue ships? Why is everything so pretty?" because of two reasons: one, I'll die and that isn't good, but also because that's not what it was built for.

Also, in no way can you knock a game back a few pegs for something which, to be bluntly honest, you're never going to use anyway. Tom Clancy's HAWX was criticised for its lack of a really addictive online multiplayer mode, yet I extremely doubt that people are going to play that particular game online because dogfighting is not what the drooling masses find entertaining. They want to rack up XP, unlock the Dragunov and make their UAV recon come online. (See where I'm going with this?)

Games such as the timeless COD4, Halo 3 and LittleBigPlanet have got their multiplayers sorted and they are the go-to games for that sort of fun. The fact that Geometry Wars has no online multiplayer mode doesn't bother me in the slightest because I'm too busy keeping ahead of my mates' scores. That's the way it's been made, that's the way it works and that's the way I like it really.

Game review scores should never be used to compare to other games. They are a measure of how much the magazine/website THINKS you will want to play the game, but they're not always right to the individual gamer. Burnout Paradise scored slightly less than GTA4, but when I want to just have some fun I'll pop in Burnout and do some freeburning. Every game is different - that's what makes them good games! And if you don't like watching a ton of cutscenes, then either the reviewers got it wrong for you, or you've become dependent on review scores and you're a slave to trends that you may not actually like. Sorry about that.

[joetraff]

Great post.
Quite informative too.
Keep up the good work of sharing.