Far and away Metal Gear Solid 4, a story-focused game with a shit story isn't much to write home about.

I don't think people are getting upset over something different, only the tidal waves of hype coming first and facts coming second. Consumers were not the ones who came out and labeled the game as one that didn't need single-player depth because it had no long-term value to Respawn, Respawn did. Yet now they've contradicted themselves by putting a large amount of offline, AI elements into the game to give the impression of large-scale battles which they've already gone on record as saying the game doesn't need. I mean, there are contradictory statements about this game coming left and right.

Wow, that sounds like really shitty logic. So it's an online only shooter, with only a few online players?I still think it's funny that the press was so busy fellating Respawn that they never stopped to get any details on the game before hyping the shit out of it and now they all look stupid because the game is completely different from how they'd been hyping it to be.

Well, me personally, the single most important thing in a gaming console is whether or not I can I can watch TV with it. But that's just me.

Probably pretty small consolation for those who bought the game already using the Polygon review in teh decision making process. That's why I don't trust pro reviews -- they aren't any more thorough than forum feedback. Take all the Titanfall hype for example. The press has been hyping the shit out of that game as this big, giant, COD-evolving experience, and they didn't even know the fucking game was 6 on 6 with AI. The incompetence present in the reviews community is fucking embarrassing and one of the reasons game journalism will never be taken seriously. Anyone know any reviewers over age 40? Why is that? It's because it's a joke to write video game reviews for a living. It's a short-term career, a rung on a ladder, not the destination.

Because it isn't just slightly superior, it's around 50% superior. And the Xbone is a collection of bad ideas, only some of which have been corrected. I mean, they almost didn't include a disc drive on the Xbone. A fucking disc drive. That's the word anyway. Anyone who doubts the company had its collective head up its ass when coming up with this machine has their head up their own.

I'm not interested in the game anyway, but I think having arbitrary numbers of players for online games (be it 64 or 6v6) is pretty shitty. The technology is there and the hardware powerful enough to scale match size... I mean, Jesus, Perfect Dark Zero scaled map sizes based on player counts and it was a launch title on the 360. Saying "Blarg blarg blargity blarg its a dezine choyce!" is a bunch of bullshit as far as I'm concerned. I could see such a small number of players being a big problem for this game, because it's going to limit the map sizes considerably, especially given how mobile the players are. You can't have a tiny number of players that can jump around the map like fleas and also have big maps -- it would fucking suck.

Like I said, I don't care either way as I don't play online only games generally, but I think Respawn is making a huge mistake by saying "our game supports X players." Make it scale or don't make it.

@S0lidSnake said:

@CarnageHeart said:

@Shame-usBlackley

LOL, yeah I'd say that's channel stuffing in action...

@CarnageHeart:

Man, I'd totally forgotten about Microsoft stuffing the channels with the 360. They didn't just stuff it, but stretched it out. Amazing.

And while I don't hold a grudge against motion controlled stuff that is ancillary to the core experience, the Wii held people hostage... either you took motion controls, or you smoked a dick, and that really riled me up seeing as most of the experiences suffered because of that extremist philosophy. Motion controls would be fine in games that justified their use, it's just that so many of them were released under absolutist pretenses, stuffing the square peg in the round hole and all that.

Yeah, I mean, we're already a third through January and the thing is still having preorder sales on Amazon for future shipments. It's insane...

And yeah, you can find an Xbone pretty much anywhere now. The demand has been sated. I was looking at some of the back room pics posted on GAF by Gamestop employees showing their stockrooms jammed with them... there would be a half dozen Wii U's, no PS4's, and a metric ton of Xbones. So it looks like a lot of channel stuffing was involved here. If the NPD number for December comes in anywhere less than a million for the Xbone, something is going to smell really fishy.

And Nintendo is just... man. I don't know what to think about them anymore. I'd LIKE to see them put their gloves back on and get in the ring, but they seem to have no understanding of traditional console gaming anymore. They want to rely on parlor tricks and snake oil like motion controls to lure in people who are not reliable purchasers of software... what good does that do anyone? And where did all those people who bought the Wii go? What good was the Wii if it didn't create new consumers of video game products? They've marketed this machine horribly, they are still overpriced (not as much when compared to the overpriced 360 and PS3, but still overpriced) and there's ONLY NIntendo games coming for it. I don't see it as a market problem, but a Nintendo problem, and I would have no problem with Nintendo being in the console space if they weren't dangerous when some of their reckless, horseshit ideas start polluting up the other consoles. Nintendo wrought the motion control destruction on the market. For that alone, I think it's best they leave the hardware space and go third party. I would like it not to be the case, but I just can't see them releasing a conventional, high-performance machine with a traditional controller, which means more pain for the industry from gimmicks, carny-barkers, and side-show freaks and I just don't want to see the trainwreck again.