Publicity Is Not Always Good.
GobyWan
Join Date: 2002-02-22 Member: 234Members
<div class="IPBDescription">NS on SA.</div> Edit: Here's the deal. I believed this, without thinking, for one reason: All of this crap has been posted here on the forums a hundred times already. Having heard it all before, I figured "here's another moron", because no matter how stupid these things are, someone's already said them. It disturbs me when Something Awful can come up with something out of their own heads, actually making an effort to be as ridiculous as possible, and have it match all the stupid things everyone's ever said about NS.
<a href='http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=490' target='_blank'>http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=490</a>
Before you read it, here are some things that are wrong.
* Valve did not make NS. Thanks for reading the manual, punk.
* NS is not a financial ripoff because you have to own HL to play it. (See the definition of "mod".)
* NS is not a "Poorly-disguised ripoff of StarCraft". The aliens in NS are based mostly on real-world animals and their functions and roles precede both games by the lifetime of the RTS. There's the small, annoying little fast thing that comes in great numbers, the slow, offensively weak builder thing, the flying thing that shoots something, the main warrior unit with medium speed and decent attack, and the big rampaging thing that costs a lot and does huge damage. (See "EVERY RTS EVER.") Starcraft did not do anything incredibly innovative, it used mostly generics and balanced them well. NS is admittedly (by the team, not by me) based on the same theme and uses the tried-and-true unit classes, but expands on them to do new and interesting things (blink, the lerk flying system, the location-based gameplay, etc.).
* NS is NOT balanced in favour of the marines at this point, not since 1.0. This review appears to be based on version 1.0 of NS, while including everyone's favourite "Pudgy makes a web with his tentacles" pre-RC1 shot. That's quite the accomplishment considering that this review is 5 days old.
* "A Fade alien lays down strands of web to slow the progress of the Terran Starways Authority marines." ...RTFM. Again.
* Again, the plot is not descended from Starcraft, it's descended from years of science fiction involving aliens. A hivemind of aliens that wants to destroy everything in its path is NOT a Blizzard creation. It's OLD. It's good. It's a staple.
* "Khalat"? R-T-F'n-M!
* Ok, here's the RTFM section:
"The Khalat need to build new hives and structures with the aid of a Gorger Khalat to gain new abilities (such as cloaking, regeneration, and "hive sight") and assume new, more powerful forums such as the acid-shooting Skulker, the spike-throwing Fade, and the living juggernaut that is the Lurk."
"In a classic example of overcompensation, the game balance has been tilted far in favor of the Marines. "Siege guns," a heavily damaging form of turret, can be built anywhere there is a turret factory, and blast out of existence any Khalat foolish enough to be in its path." Not following the changes, but only the community is right now because there's no client release patch as of yet, so that's excusable. Siege cannons, however, don't shoot aliens.
"A Marine frantically works to repair a movement tower." Ugh.
* "This leads to biggest flaw for the Terrans, however. A single person, the commander, can make or break the game. The Terran commander is in charge of building, deploying and upgrading weapons, and moving the lesser Terrans around as he sees fit. To him, it plays like... you guessed it... StarCraft!" What is Starcraft? AN RTS. What's the game played as from the command chair? An RTS.
Don't just stand there, opine! I mean opinionate! I don't know what the verb is, but do it!
<a href='http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=490' target='_blank'>http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=490</a>
Before you read it, here are some things that are wrong.
* Valve did not make NS. Thanks for reading the manual, punk.
* NS is not a financial ripoff because you have to own HL to play it. (See the definition of "mod".)
* NS is not a "Poorly-disguised ripoff of StarCraft". The aliens in NS are based mostly on real-world animals and their functions and roles precede both games by the lifetime of the RTS. There's the small, annoying little fast thing that comes in great numbers, the slow, offensively weak builder thing, the flying thing that shoots something, the main warrior unit with medium speed and decent attack, and the big rampaging thing that costs a lot and does huge damage. (See "EVERY RTS EVER.") Starcraft did not do anything incredibly innovative, it used mostly generics and balanced them well. NS is admittedly (by the team, not by me) based on the same theme and uses the tried-and-true unit classes, but expands on them to do new and interesting things (blink, the lerk flying system, the location-based gameplay, etc.).
* NS is NOT balanced in favour of the marines at this point, not since 1.0. This review appears to be based on version 1.0 of NS, while including everyone's favourite "Pudgy makes a web with his tentacles" pre-RC1 shot. That's quite the accomplishment considering that this review is 5 days old.
* "A Fade alien lays down strands of web to slow the progress of the Terran Starways Authority marines." ...RTFM. Again.
* Again, the plot is not descended from Starcraft, it's descended from years of science fiction involving aliens. A hivemind of aliens that wants to destroy everything in its path is NOT a Blizzard creation. It's OLD. It's good. It's a staple.
* "Khalat"? R-T-F'n-M!
* Ok, here's the RTFM section:
"The Khalat need to build new hives and structures with the aid of a Gorger Khalat to gain new abilities (such as cloaking, regeneration, and "hive sight") and assume new, more powerful forums such as the acid-shooting Skulker, the spike-throwing Fade, and the living juggernaut that is the Lurk."
"In a classic example of overcompensation, the game balance has been tilted far in favor of the Marines. "Siege guns," a heavily damaging form of turret, can be built anywhere there is a turret factory, and blast out of existence any Khalat foolish enough to be in its path." Not following the changes, but only the community is right now because there's no client release patch as of yet, so that's excusable. Siege cannons, however, don't shoot aliens.
"A Marine frantically works to repair a movement tower." Ugh.
* "This leads to biggest flaw for the Terrans, however. A single person, the commander, can make or break the game. The Terran commander is in charge of building, deploying and upgrading weapons, and moving the lesser Terrans around as he sees fit. To him, it plays like... you guessed it... StarCraft!" What is Starcraft? AN RTS. What's the game played as from the command chair? An RTS.
Don't just stand there, opine! I mean opinionate! I don't know what the verb is, but do it!
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
this has been posted like ... 500 times ...
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=Search&f=1' target='_blank'>Search Function</a>
Use it. Love it.
It's called TRUTH media. It just doesn't make sense for them to be wrong.
Something Awful is a sarcastic humor site. I hope you sent all that stuff you wrote up above to them so they can post your flame.
You didn't read about the part where SA is out to get people like you to flame them? The facts are made wrong intentionally.
If I'd read the manual but never read the forums, I'd have instantly figured out he was joking. But now, even if I'd read the TruthMedia intro, I'd still think he'd taken it all from these forums and mashed it together. I just wouldn't have thought it was his idea.
Also in my defense, I'm tired, and the only thing on my mind is grade 13 algebra. Thank god I didn't bother emailing them, but I have a strict "no emails ever" policy.
Consider me suckered and disturbed.
*wanders off mumbling about rotation matrices that eliminate xy terms and 4cis(2pi/3)...*
<b><span style='color:orange'>***WELDED SHUT***</span></b>