Cranky Kong responds to GS

#shotsfired

I remember those days too.

Having not played the game I can not voice my opinion on the review by GS. But, watching the video review(no sound) I glimpsed none of the negatives highlighted in said review.

Is MW basing the derivative and dull levels off of past titles in the series? I thought Tropical Freeze was an 'all new' experience and, therefore, should be judged accordingly. With 'fresh' eyes.

What cheap platforming tricks? Again, in the vid, looked like a decent platformer.

Harsh checkpoints?! I don't know how to respond. Boss battles are supposed to be challenging. Isn't that the point? Work your way to the boss, beat them if you can. I guess we live in a world where all you have to do is make it to an auto save location/time and you never lose.

I do wonder about that. Because when Kevin has a love fest for Dark Souls 2 (and he will, dude has been completely in love since Demon's Souls) with no check points at all in boss battles, he'll not only NOT mark it down, he'll praise it for it's old school design philosophies. It sends a mixed message, even if it isn't intended.

Carolyn scored Dark Souls a 9 and then scored Luigi's Mansion a 6 for being too hard and not having enough checkpoints. The reviews on this site really have no consistency whatsoever, even among the individual reviewers.

That was pretty good. I actually chuckled IRL.

lol

hahaahahaha.

Seriously **** Gamespot.

even Cranky Kong knows Gamespot's staff is a joke and considered the bottom of game journalism

Because you can't be that consistent. Different games have different goals, so you have to critique it with those in mind. There's no objective standard for good checkpoints. It's all down to how well each individual games handles it. Some do it well, others horribly.

And besides, the two aren't very comparable, anyway. But for the sake of argument: Dark Souls is a game built on being challenging, so of course it's going to be praised for that when it handles it so well. But even it had a surplus of checkpoints to help ease the frustration of death, never more than a minute or two away from each other. You're always making forward progress even in its toughest moments.

Luigi's Mansion, however, wasn't billed as a difficult game, instead a more methodical, puzzle/exploration game. But it's hard to enjoy it as such when you're frequently forced to replay entire stages just because you screwed up in one of the game's awful combat encounters. A game with glacial pacing like Luigi's Mansion doesn't benefit from that. It only makes the entire game into a huge, boring slog, far more so than Dark Souls ever was.

If anything, Luigi's Mansion was too easy. It was much easier than just about any other Mario game, anyway. I probably would have scored the game a 7/10 and listed that as a negative. How were the combat encounters awful?

I didn't play Dark Souls, but in Demon's Souls, anyway, there were no checkpoints. You could unlock ways to bypass segments of a level on a later playthrough, but you would have to successfully complete a much longer segment of the game than just a "minute or two" to do so, and you are not making forward progress at all if you aren't doing that. The entire game is built on making no progress when you die and repeating the same portion of a level with the same enemies in the same locations over and over again until you can advance, actually. It was mindnumbingly boring, imo.

GS reviews are extremely spotty and unreliable. I grown not to trust them for the past 10 years.

It's not that I don't trust GS reviews, it's just that reviews are a purchasing guideline for undecided consumers, and I'm old enough now that I pretty much always know what I want and what I will and will not enjoy. I mean, Dark Souls 2 could get a 10 here and I know I still won't enjoy it, so it's just not relevant to me anymore. I use the site for the other content, the news videos with Jess, and Feedbackula with Johnny. I like pretty much anything with Danny in it too.

Having said that though, the first thing I do when a big game gets a lower than expected score is go to System Wars forum and laugh at the meltdowns. People take this stuff way too seriously.

Never argue about the Soul's series with devoted followers. The game is flawless in their eyes.

All valid points. My main issue was that of the boss battle check points. All the action leading up to said battle I'm fine with whatever method used to ensure you don't need to repeat the past 10-60 minutes of game time. But I have never expected nor relied on reaching a predetermined checkpoint mid battle. It seems cheap. I think that's part of the thrill of victory and devastation of defeat. Going in, if you're relying on that checkpoint, you're really doing yourself a disservice. Merely staying alive long enough to get to a point seems defeatist. There's no real fear of death anymore, not when you get boosted health et al when you reload from last auto save.

oh yeah, shots fired. I also remember Ducktales getting the same treatment

you think they take it seriously here you should see the ign forums, goodness gracious! you can almost feel the tension in some threads, i've seen arguments on there result in people's families being called names, living addresses being posted for actual fights, downloadable viruses being linked, ect, all over a difference in gaming opinions, no bs! lol

Damn, Cranky. You fired those shots, homie.

Cranky is pissed.

Wow, really? Are people this stupid?

Yep. I used to get death threats back in the day. Tub Girl in private messages, all that good stuff.

What the hell?

Oh man. How can someone be so childish that sending horrifying porn vids in a PM is their response.

its called trying to frame somebody for having kiddy porn, i had it done to me once on a gaming chatroom site.. some trolls are so devious that their cruelty truly knows no bounds, its some scary sh!t.

Haha this is pretty awesome. :D And I totally agree with Cranky.

Yep, exactomundo.

Meanwhile, it's safe to say that this is the best 6/10 game that I've ever played.

Having to track down ghosts, then stun them so you can start capturing them only to have them break away multiple times to repeat the process some indeterminate amount of times just isn't fun. Especially as the ghosts' hiding places and patterns become more complex, forcing you to run about trying to figure out where the hell they're springing from while taking cheap shots from them. The cramped camera view only makes things worse.

Demon's Souls was punishing, I agree. The whole losing half of your health upon death thing alone was incredibly harsh. That's partially why I prefer Dark Souls. It's a lot more balanced and fair, presenting a ton more options on how to approach any given situation while never putting checkpoints far from each other. Makes it easier to retry boss battles or other choke-points quickly.

Wait.. He said the level designs were dull and derivative?! What game did he play because it sure as hell wasn't Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze. The level design is super engaging and incredibly creative (at the very least at the level of Mario Galaxy 2 and Rayman Legends). I can understand him getting frustrated with the challenge as fair as it is, but that just seems like a very hard claim to support.

@Pikminmaniac: Agreed. Just about every level feels different from the last - it's crazy to think that this game has poor level design.

Just playing more at the moment, and I think 4-3 "Amiss Abyss" is now one of my all-time favourite DK levels. That music!