Jade Empire invariable bores me in the first two hours which I've never gotten past despite playing through them three or four times. I just never go on from there.
This has probably been mentioned already, but 9.75 out of 10? What the fuck? Do they really need to rate games on a one-thousand-point scale? What would it have taken for Mass Effect to score 9.76? And I thought the hundred-point scale was retarded.
It works on quarters of a point, and is actualyl a good balance between accuracy and differentiating between games.
So a forty-point scale. How insipid.
All anyone should need is a rating out of five stars. Any additional detail should be left in the body of the review, where it belongs.
I know Gamespy gets some shit sometimes, but that's one thing they've nailed. After a ton of criticism, I want to say over there Halo CE review, they changed from a 100 point scale to five star. I wish they'd make it a true five-star instead of doing half-stars.
The art direction, great atmosphere, diverse cast of charicters, fun (albiet simple) fighting. Whats the problem?
All of that stuff. I didn't like any of it, especially the combat.
well clearly that means everyone that likes it is wrong and it is in fact a bad game.
Hey, he asked. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a bad game- mediocre at best, and regardless I'm simply using it as a counterexample to some folks stating that Bioware shits gold.
At the very least I'm sure we can all agree that it's no KotOR or BG2.
well, a lot of people like it very much, so to them it simply doesn't work as a counterexample.
Angry on
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
edited October 2007
Jade Empire was really good with the exception of the combat where it was just simpley, fast attack fast attack fast attack, until they blocked where you then use your power up attack and you switched back to fast attack again.
Do you really want me to explain how it was a flawed system?
Jade Empire invariable bores me in the first two hours which I've never gotten past despite playing through them three or four times. I just never go on from there.
Unfortunately, the first two hours of the game are the worst two hours of the game. I don't know what they were thinking with that. The beginning is incredibly boring and then it just keeps dragging on and on and on.
The gameplay never really changes much aside from the enemies you fight and some of them are difficult or can be depending on how you choose to play the game, but they are a vast minority of the enemies you fight. And once the game starts to pick up its pace and start to actually go somewhere, the number of ghost enemies you fight also goes up exponentially, which gets incredibly old again.
Still, Jade Empire was BioWare's big experiment to see if they could put action in their RPGs and still get a good product in the end. That's why it had one of the shortest development cycles of their games and it was also the shortest and one of the most shoddily put together.
Pancake on
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
If Jade Empire was Biowares biggest failure I'd sure love to be able to fail like them every fucking day.
It was good, not great. But to call Jade Empire either a bad or crap game is plain lunacy. It was not up to Bioware standard and by no means GOTY as some outlets gave it. But it was solid, beautiful, and a clear prelude to what Mass effect seems to be delivering.
Not to mention it had fucking John Cleese. No, not a verb.
like others have said...hope this isn't just another hack and slash.
There aren't any melee weapons in the game so you won't be doing either of those.
It can still be hack 'n slash.
only without the hacking and/or slashing
I mean, the genre is often criticized for a lack of depth and repetitive atmosphere. That can easily be applied to an RPG that has no close combat weapons. I find nothing wrong with calling Mass Effect potentially hack and slash.
Well I do. Despite the fact that you neither hack nor slash the gameplay is not repetitive meatgrind through enemies. So it bears absolutely no resemblance to a hack n slash game.
That is only one aspect of hack and slash. Also, how do you know it's not repetitive? The game isn't even out yet.
Reviews/previews/press events/media: non of this has suggested any semblance of hack n slash gameplay in any way shape or form.
It seems to me like you plucked this notion out of thin air. I have never thought for once Mass effect would ever appear as a hack n slash
My stance is not that Mass effect is hack and slash or will be, I'm defending the term as a valid critical assessment of an RPG that doesn't actually have close combat weapons.
People use hack and slash as loose way to define poor RPGs all the time. Like if I say,
"man I hope Mass Effect isn't too hack and slash" This makes perfect sense.
People use hack and slash as a loose way to define a poor RPG?
Man, that is fucking bullshit.
Hack and slash is a genre.
If you're saying that 'people' think the Diablo series is poor, you're talking to a type of 'people' I've never seen.
It's fine if you don't like typical action/rpg fare, but what you said is still a steaming pile of biased non-truth.
like others have said...hope this isn't just another hack and slash.
There aren't any melee weapons in the game so you won't be doing either of those.
It can still be hack 'n slash.
only without the hacking and/or slashing
I mean, the genre is often criticized for a lack of depth and repetitive atmosphere. That can easily be applied to an RPG that has no close combat weapons. I find nothing wrong with calling Mass Effect potentially hack and slash.
Well I do. Despite the fact that you neither hack nor slash the gameplay is not repetitive meatgrind through enemies. So it bears absolutely no resemblance to a hack n slash game.
That is only one aspect of hack and slash. Also, how do you know it's not repetitive? The game isn't even out yet.
Reviews/previews/press events/media: non of this has suggested any semblance of hack n slash gameplay in any way shape or form.
It seems to me like you plucked this notion out of thin air. I have never thought for once Mass effect would ever appear as a hack n slash
My stance is not that Mass effect is hack and slash or will be, I'm defending the term as a valid critical assessment of an RPG that doesn't actually have close combat weapons.
People use hack and slash as loose way to define poor RPGs all the time. Like if I say,
"man I hope Mass Effect isn't too hack and slash" This makes perfect sense.
People use hack and slash as a loose way to define a poor RPG?
Man, that is fucking bullshit.
Hack and slash is a genre.
If you're saying that 'people' think the Diablo series is poor, you're talking to a type of 'people' I've never seen.
It's fine if you don't like typical action/rpg fare, but what you said is still a steaming pile of biased non-truth.
Where did I say Diablo was a poor game? I don't understand how you guys fail at reading comprehension every page or so.
I've said it's a genre that is known for having shallow and repetitive game play and if some one to use it as a way to define a shallow and repetitive RPG that makes perfect sense in that context. Example,
"man I hope X isn't too hack and slash" That's all that I mean, that the previous statement is valid. If I said that to you, I think you would understand exactly what I meant regardless of the game I was referring to.
I didn't say Diablo is a bad game, I'm not saying Mass Effect will be a bad game I'll I'm saying is it's a fair assesment of an RPG.
I'm over this, you want to disagree with me that's fine, there's really nothing left for me to elaborate on.
Maybe instead of using Hack n Slash you use 'combat orientated' because hack n slash is a derogatory term meaning a simplistic game with a meatgrinder system of levels, whereas a combat orientated game develops this into a more fleshed out game.
If all you mean is "I hope it's not too repetitive with boring combat" then why don't you just SAY "I hope Mass Effect isn't too repetitive and have boring combat."
I don't know who you talk to, but nobody I know would understand "hack-and-slash" to mean any game where the combat is repetitive and boring. While hack-and-slash games ARE repetitive and boring, it is not a term you'd use to describe every game that is.
So. Uhm. How about that Mass Effect? I think I'm going to have the urge to play the Firefly theme every time I turn on my 360 to play some Mass Effect when it comes out.
"People use hack and slash as loose way to define poor RPGs all the time."
I can see that you meant
"It's a genre that is known for having shallow and repetitive game play and if some one to use it as a way to define a shallow and repetitive RPG that makes perfect sense in that context."
If all you mean is "I hope it's not too repetitive with boring combat" then why don't you just SAY "I hope Mass Effect isn't too repetitive and have boring combat."
I don't know who you talk to, but nobody I know would understand "hack-and-slash" to mean any game where the combat is repetitive and boring. While hack-and-slash games ARE repetitive and boring, it is not a term you'd use to describe every game that is.
So. Uhm. How about that Mass Effect? I think I'm going to have the urge to play the Firefly theme every time I turn on my 360 to play some Mass Effect when it comes out.
Haha, the thing is I didn't even say it was. Some one else said,
"like others have said...hope this isn't just another hack and slash."
And all I'm saying is "I understand what he's getting at".
So. Uhm. How about that Mass Effect? I think I'm going to have the urge to play the Firefly theme every time I turn on my 360 to play some Mass Effect when it comes out.
Whenever a decision comes up in my first playthrough I'm going to ask myself "What Would Malcolm Reynolds Do?".
Saying that Hack and Slash = Poor RPG is still bullshit. Apparently nobody understood me.
Hack and slash is a genre of RPG. It isn't an indicator of quality.
You may not like that genre but that doesn't mean it's bad.
What you're saying sounds like this to me.
"I hope the next Fire Emblem isn't too RTS"
While yes, RTS is a seperate genre of strategy than Fire Emblem is intended or should be, that doesn't make RTS = shitpoor.
I am not 'failing in reading comprehension'.
You are failing at genre classification.
Besides, there's no way that Mass Effect is going to resemble a hack n slash's gameplay. There's far too much emphasis on dialogue and branching storyline paths and not enough emphasis on stat building and level grinding.
I'd like to ask everyone here one question. What is a game?
A lower form of sex.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited October 2007
Not to start it up again...but isn't Hack n' Slash basically the classification for games where you spend most of the game cutting up baddies/monsters...you know like Dynasty Warriors and your basic Dungeon Crawler...DMC could fit in that classification too.
So we're agreed then? Good man. You clearly have taste.
I just really freakin hate sewer levels.
What do you count as the sewer? Do you mean the entire underground section, or just the time you're actually in a sewer with Zalbaar and Mission with the Rancor, etc?
I didn't think the latter section was that long at all.
Not to start it up again...but isn't Hack n' Slash basically the classification for games where you spend most of the game cutting up baddies/monsters...you know like Dynasty Warriors and your basic Dungeon Crawler...DMC could fit in that classification too.
Nah.
I thought it was essentially Diablo and its clones. Champions of Norrath, Sacred, Divine Divinity ect.
I wouldn't put Dynasty Warriors or DMC in there because they aren't RPGs.
Not to start it up again...but isn't Hack n' Slash basically the classification for games where you spend most of the game cutting up baddies/monsters...you know like Dynasty Warriors and your basic Dungeon Crawler...DMC could fit in that classification too.
Nah.
I thought it was essentially Diablo and its clones. Champions of Norrath, Sacred, Divine Divinity ect.
I wouldn't put Dynasty Warriors or DMC in there because they aren't RPGs.
Yeah that's kinda how I defined it. Diablo, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, X-Men Legends, etc. I also generally throw dungeon hacks in there as well because of the focus on fighting and anemic story, even though they are technically different subgenres.
Hack and slash is a genre of RPG. It isn't an indicator of quality.
You may not like that genre but that doesn't mean it's bad.
Why pay money when you can left-click all day long in the Windows desktop?
You've already got the game!
Every week, you can then level up by changing your cursor to a different style, until eventually you use the huge one for partially sighted people.
Joke (not Mass Effect) spoiler:
Oh by the way Championship Manager fans, have you seen Microsoft Excel?
Also: Mass Effect makes me feel like a pervert with all the hot 3D lady models.
Why bother typing up something that stupid and putting it up on the internet when you could just make a recording of your own voice and jerk off all day?
Saying that Hack and Slash = Poor RPG is still bullshit. Apparently nobody understood me.
Hack and slash is a genre of RPG. It isn't an indicator of quality.
You may not like that genre but that doesn't mean it's bad.
What you're saying sounds like this to me.
"I hope the next Fire Emblem isn't too RTS"
While yes, RTS is a seperate genre of strategy than Fire Emblem is intended or should be, that doesn't make RTS = shitpoor.
I am not 'failing in reading comprehension'.
You are failing at genre classification.
Besides, there's no way that Mass Effect is going to resemble a hack n slash's gameplay. There's far too much emphasis on dialogue and branching storyline paths and not enough emphasis on stat building and level grinding.
tl;dr: quit raggin' on my hack/slashes!
I like a few hack and slash games, I never at any point said I didn't.
I'm not saying hack and slash is an indicator of quality, I'm saying it can be used to refer to a type of gameplay.
Also hack and slash is a type of RPG, RTS isn't a type of RTS. If there was a sub catagory of RTS called let's say, fly and swarm, and you said "man I hope the new Fire Emblem won't be too fly and swarm" that would make sense.
I don't follow your example.
Just, again, I don't think Mass Effect is going to be hack and slash. I have gone off topic enough, so here's an attempt to veer back onto topic.
If Mass Effect becomes wildly successful do you think we'd see an influx in this particular style of RPG? Third person party based or whatever you want to call it.
RPG's always have this problem of "whether it's a game or not"... I remember Zelda's genre being argued about. That got ugly.
Why buildup my stats for this virtual character when it's really just a bunchof numbers? Why suffer through hours of cutscenes to get to the good part/actual gameplay? It's up to you to decide.
Real Time Strategy is a type of strategy game.
Other types of strategy games include Turn Based and Role Playing.
It's just semantics now.
I have never played Fire Emblem, but if the new one was coming out and it had hints of RTS in it, like unit building and resources, and you said to me "man I hope it isn't too RTS" I would understand the elements of gameplay you were trying to convey to me by saying RTS.
Posts
I know Gamespy gets some shit sometimes, but that's one thing they've nailed. After a ton of criticism, I want to say over there Halo CE review, they changed from a 100 point scale to five star. I wish they'd make it a true five-star instead of doing half-stars.
Of course, that's assuming you have well written reviews. I got more out of GI's second opinion than the main review.
well, a lot of people like it very much, so to them it simply doesn't work as a counterexample.
Do you really want me to explain how it was a flawed system?
Satans..... hints.....
skate, halo 3
20 SOJ 4 new spaceship kthx?
Unfortunately, the first two hours of the game are the worst two hours of the game. I don't know what they were thinking with that. The beginning is incredibly boring and then it just keeps dragging on and on and on.
The gameplay never really changes much aside from the enemies you fight and some of them are difficult or can be depending on how you choose to play the game, but they are a vast minority of the enemies you fight. And once the game starts to pick up its pace and start to actually go somewhere, the number of ghost enemies you fight also goes up exponentially, which gets incredibly old again.
Still, Jade Empire was BioWare's big experiment to see if they could put action in their RPGs and still get a good product in the end. That's why it had one of the shortest development cycles of their games and it was also the shortest and one of the most shoddily put together.
This I agree with.
The problem with KotOR is that the majority of the attacks were still just flurry.
I would prefer it if sometimes critical strike would be a better attack but flurry was always the only attack to really use.
Satans..... hints.....
It was good, not great. But to call Jade Empire either a bad or crap game is plain lunacy. It was not up to Bioware standard and by no means GOTY as some outlets gave it. But it was solid, beautiful, and a clear prelude to what Mass effect seems to be delivering.
Not to mention it had fucking John Cleese. No, not a verb.
Good thing I already loved that game and dare I say, thought it was better than kotor.
People use hack and slash as a loose way to define a poor RPG?
Man, that is fucking bullshit.
Hack and slash is a genre.
If you're saying that 'people' think the Diablo series is poor, you're talking to a type of 'people' I've never seen.
It's fine if you don't like typical action/rpg fare, but what you said is still a steaming pile of biased non-truth.
Where did I say Diablo was a poor game? I don't understand how you guys fail at reading comprehension every page or so.
I've said it's a genre that is known for having shallow and repetitive game play and if some one to use it as a way to define a shallow and repetitive RPG that makes perfect sense in that context. Example,
"man I hope X isn't too hack and slash" That's all that I mean, that the previous statement is valid. If I said that to you, I think you would understand exactly what I meant regardless of the game I was referring to.
I didn't say Diablo is a bad game, I'm not saying Mass Effect will be a bad game I'll I'm saying is it's a fair assesment of an RPG.
I'm over this, you want to disagree with me that's fine, there's really nothing left for me to elaborate on.
I don't know who you talk to, but nobody I know would understand "hack-and-slash" to mean any game where the combat is repetitive and boring. While hack-and-slash games ARE repetitive and boring, it is not a term you'd use to describe every game that is.
So. Uhm. How about that Mass Effect? I think I'm going to have the urge to play the Firefly theme every time I turn on my 360 to play some Mass Effect when it comes out.
I can see that you meant
"It's a genre that is known for having shallow and repetitive game play and if some one to use it as a way to define a shallow and repetitive RPG that makes perfect sense in that context."
but that is not what you said.
skate, halo 3
Haha, the thing is I didn't even say it was. Some one else said,
"like others have said...hope this isn't just another hack and slash."
And all I'm saying is "I understand what he's getting at".
Whenever a decision comes up in my first playthrough I'm going to ask myself "What Would Malcolm Reynolds Do?".
If I remember correctly, Jade Empire's first few levels did not segue right into one big giant sewer crawl.
Thus, Jade Empire > KotOR. But only slightly.
Hack and slash is a genre of RPG. It isn't an indicator of quality.
You may not like that genre but that doesn't mean it's bad.
What you're saying sounds like this to me.
"I hope the next Fire Emblem isn't too RTS"
While yes, RTS is a seperate genre of strategy than Fire Emblem is intended or should be, that doesn't make RTS = shitpoor.
I am not 'failing in reading comprehension'.
You are failing at genre classification.
Besides, there's no way that Mass Effect is going to resemble a hack n slash's gameplay. There's far too much emphasis on dialogue and branching storyline paths and not enough emphasis on stat building and level grinding.
tl;dr: quit raggin' on my hack/slashes!
You mean Game Informer, one of the most widely distributed and sold gaming magazines in north america?
yeah, means nothing.
I just really freakin hate sewer levels.
What do you count as the sewer? Do you mean the entire underground section, or just the time you're actually in a sewer with Zalbaar and Mission with the Rancor, etc?
I didn't think the latter section was that long at all.
Nah.
I thought it was essentially Diablo and its clones. Champions of Norrath, Sacred, Divine Divinity ect.
I wouldn't put Dynasty Warriors or DMC in there because they aren't RPGs.
Why pay money when you can left-click all day long in the Windows desktop?
You've already got the game!
Every week, you can then level up by changing your cursor to a different style, until eventually you use the huge one for partially sighted people.
Joke (not Mass Effect) spoiler:
Also: Mass Effect makes me feel like a pervert with all the hot 3D lady models.
Yeah that's kinda how I defined it. Diablo, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, X-Men Legends, etc. I also generally throw dungeon hacks in there as well because of the focus on fighting and anemic story, even though they are technically different subgenres.
I really like genre talk way more than I should considering it's ultimately useless.
Why bother typing up something that stupid and putting it up on the internet when you could just make a recording of your own voice and jerk off all day?
I like a few hack and slash games, I never at any point said I didn't.
I'm not saying hack and slash is an indicator of quality, I'm saying it can be used to refer to a type of gameplay.
Also hack and slash is a type of RPG, RTS isn't a type of RTS. If there was a sub catagory of RTS called let's say, fly and swarm, and you said "man I hope the new Fire Emblem won't be too fly and swarm" that would make sense.
I don't follow your example.
Just, again, I don't think Mass Effect is going to be hack and slash. I have gone off topic enough, so here's an attempt to veer back onto topic.
If Mass Effect becomes wildly successful do you think we'd see an influx in this particular style of RPG? Third person party based or whatever you want to call it.
Other types of strategy games include Turn Based and Role Playing.
Why buildup my stats for this virtual character when it's really just a bunchof numbers? Why suffer through hours of cutscenes to get to the good part/actual gameplay? It's up to you to decide.
It's just semantics now.
I have never played Fire Emblem, but if the new one was coming out and it had hints of RTS in it, like unit building and resources, and you said to me "man I hope it isn't too RTS" I would understand the elements of gameplay you were trying to convey to me by saying RTS.