DKCountry: Tropical Freeze reivew is up, 6/10, FLOPPAGE

It's interesting that its level design is supposedly bad. This is one thing Nintendo normally excels at.

Well, regardless of GS's relatively lower score, Tropical freeze is stil overall very positively reviewed on Metacritic. So I am still getting the game.

So what's left for WiiU this year? 2-5 Mario and that beat'em up aimed at 14y dudes? 2014 is looking to be one of the best years in the passed decade for everyone but last gen and looks like WiiU is truly a last gen system.

From his perspective the game was too similar by design, but with break-ups to the rhythm of the game, and too difficult. Once again GS seems to be an outlier, but his opinion is as legit as anyone else.

This game flopped harder than waterworld. :D

Nintendo shouldn't be resting on their laurels because not everyone is too scared of their fanboys to bash their sacred cows.

Can't wait to get my hands on this. I think this week I'll play through DKCR, It's still my favorite Nintendo Platformer from last gen. And hey apparently it won't much different LOL

I'm not arguing anything, i'm saying that as i've seen on Metacritic, the majority is the higher end of the review spectrum. Destructoid, Game Informer, Gametrailers, IGN, Nintendo Life and a number of other review sites have given the game a 10 - 9 score, plus the flood of 8.5s and 8s by other sites. The minority is @ around a 7, which = good, and the oddball is Gamespot with questionable criticism.

Out of 31 review sites on Metacritic, 11 are at 9/10 or above, 13 are at 8/8.5, 6 sites are at a 7/10 and Gamespot is at a 6. So you've got 24 positive reviewers saying the game is generally great, 6 that say it's good, and one that says it's fair.

Neither you or I know if the game is worthwhile because we haven't played it. But, what we can do is look at the feedback, and there's no doubt in my mind that given the critic response and gamer response via people that got it early (as seen on NeoGAF), it's most definitely worthwhile and not recommended to be avoided.

Yes, it was hyped on this forum and it flopped hard. But that is irrelevant on such a worthless, insignificant and unserious forum filled with about a dozen good posters and a ocean of bored children trolling for attention. Also a dying forum to boot.

@silversix_: Anyone with an iota of sense has been saying the same but some fanboys have been acting like the only thing to a gen is time frame. Which may or may not be true, but up until recently no one had to ask that question as none of the big manufacturers cheaped out and released last gen tech for very modern money. Now they're pinning their hopes of a big year on literally a handful of games, one of which is a 2D platformer the likes of which wouldn't be out of place as a download only title no matter how playable it is and that's supposed to go up against the big boys. Well, good luck with that.

In my opinion, if the game didn't flop on MC, then it's not a flop. 82 on MC and GS 6/10 is the lowest score so far. So this game must be a 7 or an 8. Just use your own criteria.

Gamespot's review is the absolute lowest of all the official review sites on Metacritic. I'd suspect the higher-ups have mandated the larger use of the review scale in order to stand out in these desperate times of low traffic here. I'd also suspect the true score lies somewhere in the middle of the review pack.

Just too many 4-6s handed out of late--a behavior that is unmatched from the site's past history, to be credible.

The review text offers some good insight on the game, though, and I probably will wait for a price drop after reading about the frustrating checkpoint system.

@Bigboi500: I've bashed GSs reviews to high heaven recently as they are either politically motivated or driven for clicks over credibility but I've often said Nintendo needs to stop relying on it's conventions and I have to say this really does look like the same old same old.

Dumb Score, this game is a 9/10 easy. GS looking for hits as usual. I'm more of a PlayStation guy but I'm buying a Wii U just for this game. DKC has always been an amazing series I've grew up with.

@Sagemode87: Your first post betrays you as someone who sees this as a franchise too big to fail, which no franchise is.

Is Metacritic relevant again?

Yes i know better, i don't agree with such a notion at all either because no game will ever have universal appeal, not now, not ever. And i absolutely stand by the painfully obvious that these numbers, these scores are basically numbers pulled out of the ass by a person like you, or me, to try and gauge the quality of a game. Which is fucking ridiculous wen people treat these numbers as some sort of absolute numerical value, or something as definitive as a test score or something like that.

It's completely impossible to attribute a correct score to such a personal experience, because how you weigh the pros and the cons of a game is completely subjective, plus other influences like leniency, maybe bias, i don't know. I'm not saying that giving a score to a game is wrong.These scores each of us give are fact to us, but not a different person. Using one score, or an amalgam of scores as absolute numerical data is bullshit.

I guess i just can't post coherently enough what's fully on my mind anymore wen writing because i just lack the patience and motivation, my new job is shit and saps my energy.

That's Retro's doing mostly. I'd have preferred they work on something else instead of playing it so safe, honestly.

Lol understand that feel. Half the time I feel like that when trying to play a game. Too tired from work.

But yeah review scales have always been weird. Just putting a simple label on a game, and then rolling with it feels too simplified. It's more complex than that. Staying power, and how you're going to feel about that game months later should have some effect as well. The entire legacy of a game can change a year away from the day you played it. Would love to see more sites do a no scale thing, but can't get review copies without being on metacritic. Can't do consistent game coverage without review copies. Readers don't respond to non-scores as they do to actual scores. Tis the nature of the beast.

At this point the only option is getting critics that are

A: Actually critics
B: Can write well

Now this is some funny shit to drink my coffee to: So the first of the supposed Wii U game changers strikes out, and it looks like Donkey Kong's mediocrity has rubbed off on Retro.

You guys care way too much about scores both on here and metacritic, and it's kind of sad to see how dependent you're on them to justify whether a game is worth playing or not.

Only GS says that the level design is dull. I don't believe this. Everyone else say it's amazing. I can even tell from the vids that it is.

That review won't change my mind. Still can't wait to play it.

@yokofox33: I do not see why you were looking for something great, when they have just been rehashing the same formula for Donkey Kong and refusing to go back to an open world game like Donkey Kong 64 was; I feel they could have at least tried to do something different, even though Rare is no longer with them. If they had a Donkey Kong game that had the graphics of Super Mario 3D World and had game play that was highly improved compared to Donkey Kong 64, then yes, that be something to consider great and to look forward to.

This game had hype? ...okay, lol

It's so funny how GS's review contradicts many other reviews.

@bbkkristian: It certainly did and to deny it would be blind. It had a lot of hype.

As relevant as GS.

I love Pupperteer..... but not as a platformer but more as an adventure game.

Each level was fun to explore and pass trough but level design and controls have nothing, on say, Returns.

It certainly had hype, but not GOTY hype like some morons have claimed.

He's just saying that the bosses are well designed and fun but if you die after trying to beat them for like 10 min, you restart all over. It's not really a contradiction. The boss battles aren't short.

That said, I'm ok with it. It was the same in Returns.

@DocSanchez: showme the hype thread.

Whole bunch of revisionalist history going on in this thread. This game was never hyped to be AAA goty. Hell it wasn't even hyped AAA period.

That's my problem with the review. Dull level design and worse than Returns. Really? :/ Also, he said that the game lacks variety. That's hard to believe. It's pretty much the only review saying all that.

I hate to say it, but Doc's right that the game did have hype here, although I don't think it was AAAE hype.

If I recall correctly, it was hyped AA, which is about it's average right now.

Because, you know, cows never did that with Last of Us. What's with your fixation on sheep?

@bbkkristian: Okay I will.

You will note that most were tipping it for the 8-9 range with a few 10s too. Not many for anything lower than that. Honestly, I knew this would happen. We've had nothing but people talking up this game for ages with it being in avatars, signatures, and people pointing to it as a must have before they've even played it and even a hype thread and now people are saying it never happened just because it's flopped.

Dude, people do that for every noteworthy game. It's not exclusive to just this game.

I definitely hyped it as a personal 10/10 GOTY level game and thought it would get 9/10 here :P

@jhonMalcovich: Gamespot reviews haven't mattered for a long time.

Why can't good level design be considered innovation? I've certainly have never seen levels like in the ones I have seen in DCK Tropical Freeze.

Oh well. I can't truly comment on the things he has said until I play the game.

@Shottayouth13-: I never said it was. People were saying this game had no hype. Well it did. It's not me you are arguing with.

Nintendowned

Joel must have been in the game somewhere.

@Heil68: See. When people start making decisions like that based on one review there's a problem. It works for the Gamespot "flop" game but not to confirm a purchase. It's been getting positive reviews all around.

Very rarely does anything coming out in the first quarter of the year -- regardless of the console -- qualify as game of the year material. It's just not a big time for releasing the most high profile games, the occasional Bioshock Infinite aside.

@DocSanchez: it sure as hell isn't some titan fall levels of hype you seem to be making it out to be. AA is pretty tame

I wasn't going to buy it anyways, even if it scored AAA.

DK 64 was completely and utterly inferior to every Donkey Kong Country game ever developed especially Retro's Donkey Kong Country Returns. It was decent, but doesn't hold a candle to the creative and precise level designs Retro created in their Wii masterpiece of 2010. At least that's my opinion of the matter. Very few games if any hold a candle to what Retro created over 3 years ago and that's why I'm so unbelievably excited for this sequel. I hope it can live up to my monumental hype.

It's the biggest GOTY candidate for me because its the sequel to a game that has no equals in its genre.

It's not like watching the video review or reading the written review takes hours of your time. They are both very short.

You do ?

I play games and then decide for myself whether I like them or not.

Damn a lot of damage control in here. Then several people who said mc irrelevant are now saying it's relevant. Hypocrisy is a funny thing to watch

I mean I use them to help me decide how much money I want to spend money on it. I have played games that got mediocre reviews and liked them (Shadow the Hedgehog; no, I am not joking), and have played games that have gotten awesome reviews and didn't like it all (Dark Souls). If it's a game that I'm quite sure I am going to like, then I only care about the reviews if they're unexpectedly low. If they are low, then I start looking into the game and may decide it's not worth forking over $60 or $40 for it, and then wait for it to get cheaper. If it's a game that I'm really on the fence about, I wait and see how much everyone else liked it before I decide to spend money on it, and even then I prefer to play a demo first.

Unfortunately, demos aren't used as much as they used to be.