I often read reviews in which the reviewer throws around phrases like “Old fashioned gameplay” or “Doesn’t bring anything new to the genre.” as if these are neccesarily required for a great game. Should it be possible for a game to do excellent old fashioned gameplay with lots of style and get an extremely high score ?
I’d say the vast majority of high review scores are for extremely derivative games that have little or no innovation present. So, yes. That being said, doing something slightly new quite well without disrupting the old comfortable flow of old tried and true conventions tends to garner the highest praise.
Depends entirely on the marketing budget.
Way to out-cynical me.
Doing something new (and doing it well) is just one way to a high review score. Refining a proven formula is another. It’s a case-by-case basis, and I don’t think it’s dependent on the marketing budget, although the way a game’s strengths are initially communicated to the press and public can be very important.
I’m exagerating the cynical angle, of course. But in France at least, eventough they won’t tell you in public, most game journos are “team players”. They need to keep a good relationship with the game editors if they want to keep going… A recent exemple would be the way Heavy Rain was treated. Gamekult was the only major site to mark it down, but well, that’s the way they work (sometimes to the point of trolling, but at least they’re consistentely harsh)
And they sort of got blacklisted by Sony…
On the other hand a site like Gameblog tells you that Heavy Rain is the most innovative piece of work since “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” (no they didn’t actually write that, they think Picasso is the name of a car). Yeah well, they had an exclusive review and a David Cage “VIP” blog.
For another exemple, look at the way the Halo 3 foundry was hyped as the most creative thing ever. I mean Halo 3 has a robust multiplayer and is a solid game, but innovative wouldn’t be the way I’d describe it.
Of course, it might be because journos try to be edgy or are lazy, and just hype the latest feature the developer cared to promote… In others words old-fashioned does not mean bad or derivative, neither does new means good, but the industry is driven by the shiny.
Marketing budgets definitely have a role in review scores. High profile games have a head start, while an unknown game is likely to lose 5-10% in comparison.
Setting aside the reviewing aspect for a moment, the reason that doing not something different and new is a potential problem for games is that every game is competing for your playing time with past games. If a new release isn’t an improvement, either in scope or in execution, on what’s come before it, then why not play the older game? What justifies spending $40 to $60? So yeah, I want reviewers* to take into account whether games are innovative.
*To the extent that I want reviews at all, which really I don’t.
While every Danish reviewer seems deeply in love with Heavy Rain it is notable that those gushing the most are those who spent time in Paris interviewing Cage.
Whether they’re for sale (and cheap), starstruck or just (even) more positive after meeting the guy behind is the question. Movie reviewers often go on junkets and meets famous actors and directors but still seem capable of critizing their host - perhaps because they’re rarely kids doing their first gig and have a much more powerful position in regards to the field they’re covering but also in regards to the media who considers their jobs much more important than the lowly game reviewer).
But all this is old news.
Perhaps if you have played it already, to the point that you don’t really want to play it any more.
What justifies spending $40 to $60?
You want more of the same, but not the exact same game.
Sequels / expansions happen all the time. Some are great, even when they’re just more of the same with no improvements.
Look at the Zelda series.
I kid. Sort of.
The mag I’m freelancing for will have a four page Cage interview. The guy is ubiquitous in the french press. Our editor was eager to play the game, but now that he interviewed Cage he’s expecting HR to be shit. So everyone is not impressed by Cage’s charisma.
At least when they’re not flown from Denmark to Paris.
To be frank, marketing budget often goes hand in hand with development budget, and AAA games can have a lot of redeeming qualities even if I don’t like them as games. I don’t care much for GTA 4 or ME 2, but at least their production values are so impressive that the games themselves are valuable.
Were they movie I would rate them as Hollywood drivel (I might be wrong there, but that’s not the point, so please remember this statement is subjective), but as videogames they at least get points for their technical polish and their stunning visual qualities…
Here we get into the shortcomings of reviews and review scores, and the fans-of-the-genre-will-like issue.
I figure it’s not about what a game does, it’s how well it does it. Unless it’s a World War 2 shooter or RTS, I think I’ve seen enough of those to last me into my fifties.
I think execution is often a more worthwhile attribute than innovation. If you can get both, great, but I’ll take a solidly executed game based on existing gameplay over a poorly executed game with a novel gameplay twist any time.
Dang, everything I wanted to say was already said in the first two replies.
I’m pretty sure Bioware has a “Review +2” modifier for anything they release. Must be nice. They are so OP.
What is ‘execution’? Sounds very not good.
Uncharted 2 (to name a recent example) is proof that it’s not necessary at all.
But I do notice a disturbing trend of marking sequels / followup games that aren’t direct sequels down even if they deliver everything the previous game did but with a different story and a bit of tech advancement. And then there are series where reviewers can no longer be bothered to identify the improvements and changes that -are- occurring (Dynasty Warriors)…
The medium is so young, and there’s so much that hasn’t been explored yet, that to retread the same settings/themes/mechanics over and over and over again seems like a waste of time.
Works both ways though. Assassin’s Creed 2 basically polished the original game to a shine and added a few things but it was essentially the same game - and it got rave reviews. As well it should have because it’s a fantastic game.