New Review - Another 60 for "complexity"
Phade
Join Date: 2012-10-03 Member: 161376Members
Join Date: 2012-10-03 Member: 161376Members
LATEst NS2 review from Thunderbolt Games: thunderboltgames.com/reviews/article/natural-selection-2-review-for-pc.html
Like the original GameSpot review it scores a 60 mainly for it's "complexity" and having an "incredibly high" bar to entry.
Surely if you can play any FPS you can jump into NS2 as a marine and begin shooting anything that moves, the rest should become apparent from there (where to get more ammo, new guns etc.). The aliens are a bit different of course, but basically you just need to get close and melee things without being shot too much.
I think it's bad that a game gets marked down essentially because it's unique and deeper than average. That must encourage developers to stick to generic formulas and avoid challenging their players.
What are your thoughts?
Like the original GameSpot review it scores a 60 mainly for it's "complexity" and having an "incredibly high" bar to entry.
Surely if you can play any FPS you can jump into NS2 as a marine and begin shooting anything that moves, the rest should become apparent from there (where to get more ammo, new guns etc.). The aliens are a bit different of course, but basically you just need to get close and melee things without being shot too much.
I think it's bad that a game gets marked down essentially because it's unique and deeper than average. That must encourage developers to stick to generic formulas and avoid challenging their players.
What are your thoughts?
Comments
I'm not sure I'd agree that NS2 is any more complex than any FPS out there from the FPS point of view. In fact, I'd say it's simpler than a lot of games with tens of different weapons and multiple classes. You've just got to spend a little time figuring out what works and what doesn't, which goes for every game out there. Trying to shoot a sniper as a heavy with a minigun from halfway across the map in TF2 will not end well for you.
The reviewer makes a point, to be fair, but I agree that breaking the mold is something to strive for in game development.
So it looks like he thinks FPS gamers have gotten considerably more stupid in the last decade I guess. At least he did actually try to explain the game with half of the article.
But to basically say the game will suck unless you are already an expert at it is like saying: "Don't bother trying to learn TF2 or Dota2. You should have started playing it right at the start but now there's too much complexity when you consider all the different weapons/hats/heroes."
I think when the gaming community took a complete turn for the worse was after 2006. Now it's just people like you who don't want bunny hopping.
With extremely limited success.
'Any FPS' nowadays means COD, BF3, or Halo. All of which allow you to spray bullets in the general direction of slow moving enemies and kill them.
NS2 doesn't allow that, so if you shoot at anything that moves, you'll just run out of ammo and die.
NS2 is pretty hard to adjust to if you've played almost anything else before.
After reading the review I have to say one thing: the writer is a casual orientated gamer. Complex mechanics? What? I'm not a pro gamer or anything but when the first time I played this game I felt a bit disorientated BUT I quickly found out what I was supposed to do. The feeling of adventuring into unknown game for the first time is one of the things I very much like in games. If it was another average shooter, I wouldn't be here posting this.
The question is what makes a game an interesting one and a funny one? The complexity? Maybe, but I've played a lot of complex games like Project Reality and I can safely say it's not for everyone. So is it the theme of the game? TF2 is a prime example of a comedy packed with fast action. Maybe it's the diverse gameplay and rich story? What is the thing that hooks people like fish to play a game?
My answer: all of them at once. If you remove one of them, you get half backed experience. If there was no complexity, or theme or interesting and dynamic gameplay, what would NS2 turn in? In another Pew-Pew shooter, I guess.
Are the mechanics in NS2 complex? For me they are not. But they leave you with a lot of room to experiment and try different things. That adds to the diversity and longevity of the game, which is never a bad thing.
Are there a lot of mechanics to learn that many may slip by newbie view unnoticed? Yes, but if you are an explorer like-gamer, you find it fun to discover new things in each game like I do.
TL;DR
The review is crappy. My opinion!
The aliens are harder to hit than typical human targets but that's about it, the actual shooting mechanics are just as basic if not more (BF3 has recoil, bullet drop etc.).
Your average COD/BF gun is like the NS2 rifle (when sighted) taped to the NS1 HMG (when unsighted) with the NS2 beta GL attachment stuck to it (as an extra) and a sniper scope if you need it.
NS2 gives you much more precise tools than other FPS games. You have to be damn good with the rifle to hit anything, in others you can just spray and pray, or fire grenades randomly or something.
99% of them are. I usually only consider reviews without a score system. (RPS)
Perfectly said and very accurate.
If they are going to give it 60, then at least they had valid reasons, unlike gamespot.
There are not even any reasons given for why the author thinks so.
yesterday I had a newbie on kharaa say he couldnt play any lifeform. So I said, start by practising skulks. get of the ground, and start jumping. preferably between walls and ceilings.
3 respawns later the same newbie said he was having a much easier time now as a skulk.
took me a mere 5 seconds to inform him, and him a mere 5 to ask.
I do not find that qualifies as hard. hehe
Let's be honest here, most new players will want to play marines in the beginning since it is what they are familiar with as an FPS. That in turn puts them in a position where not only are they new, they are on a team that is harder to play than the other team in the game.
Now let's imagine that imbalance was reversed. Instead of marines winning 40%, marines are winning 60%. In that case I think it would have had a MUCH bigger impact on the game, and many more new users would have been in a better position to learn and play the game as marines. While the imbalance would still be there, I think it would have been much better with respect to building the player base.
Frankly I think this is why NS1 was able to bring people in, since that was how it started out. Marines were the ones who won more often, and so new players entered a game that was easier to play as marines - which is where the vast majority learned to play.
If I had to choose which way the game had to be imbalanced, I would certainly prefer that marines get the advantage strictly because of how new players look at the game. (FPS with guns first)
The game is playable, there are PCs that can easily run it well on maximum settings. You don't compare "game X achieves this graphical fidelity on my settings while game Y requires a better PC to achieve that fidelity" and I don't know any serious reviewing site that does so.
Performance is an aspect that differs for every player based on his hardware, hence why you don't judge it in a review unless it's so bad that the game is unplayable even on minimum settings on an average gamer's PC.
Performance is bad. Even UWE know and can admit that. Why can't you?
'There are PCs that can run it well' is not really a selling point.
A game should be runnable on the majority of PCs, consistently, with understandable and reasonable performance requirements for each level of fidelity settings.
NS2 doesn't have that, it runs well for some, poorly for others, sometimes well on good settings, sometimes poorly on low settings. It's performance is inconsistent, which means anybody buying it can't be sure of whether it will be playable.
That's the sort of thing I would want to know, reading a review, because I probably wouldn't buy a game if it was that sort of unstable.
I recently started playing Battlefield 3. I hadn't played any multiplayer Battlefield, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, whatever, games before. The closest (!) I ever came was Counter-Strike and it is nothing like Battlefield (as I soon realized). In my opinion, Battlefield 3 is incredibly complex, way more than NS2. But, of course, I am biased because I have been with NS since launch almost.
Anyway, I think as long as the user can figure stuff out (training modes, manuals, and a helpful community) there is no reason to mark a game down for complexity.
Devs, don't dumb NS2 down. It's a great game.
Cheers,
Cody
Mentioning it in the review's text is one thing. Demanding to subtract points from the overall score that is supposed to judge ingenuity of gameplay, atmosphere, storytelling, visual appeal, sound design and content is another thing.
Sure, the entire Metascore thing can go to hell anyway, but at least reviewers are fair and don't doom the game in the only review it will get for an issue that has not much to do with how good the gameplay experience (yeah, come nitpicking at me about how bad performance has an impact on the gameplay experience) is and will either get fixed at some point or becomes less relevant in the future as players upgrade their systems at some point. Hardware is a contemporary problem; the rest of the game that is reviewed is rather timeless.
Wow. Someone actually used the forbidden numbers. The ones we dare not mention.
Well to be fair, giving A:CM 2/10 is generous :P
I don't really think it's nitpicking to say that poor performance impacts the gameplay. Ultimately, you buy a game to play it, if you can't play it properly, it will have poor gameplay.
Sword of the Stars 2 was completely unplayabale on release because of the performance and bugs, despite the fact that it's actually a very interesting and different game. That doesn't make it a good game on launch, it makes it a dreadful game on launch, only now that they've patched it up heavily can I call it a good game.
Reviewers can only work with the version of the game they have.