Yes. I shivered as I handed out that 4 to FFXIV and that 6 to Dungeon Siege. You know how scary Square is! I feared for my life when I gave a 5.5 to Ace Combat; those Namco dudes are fearsome. And have you seen those French Canadian guys at Ubi? They bared their sharp claws when they saw my Call of Juarez score. EA sent me death threats over my Harry Potter score, and the CEO of 2K stalked my house after the Duke review. Bobby Kotick himself sent me a black rose in the mail after the NASCAR 2011 review.

Or maybe we just say what we think and don't care who the publisher is. OMG!

Skyward Sword is super polished. So is Final Fantasy XIII-2. So was Space Marine. And Lost Planet 2. And Ace Combat: Assault Horizon. Polish is usually associated with a really great product. But not always. We've never been afraid of saying what we think regardless of publisher; I would think that would be really clear by now. Ask Zelda fans, Aliens vs. Predator fans, and Transformers fans :)

[QUOTE="Kevin-V"]BlackAceII

I enjoyed both, albeit in different ways. But I ultimately liked the original more.

Here's the thing: I know that I might have enjoyed FFXIII more than other people, though to be fair, my score of that game is pretty much on par with both Metacritic and our user score. Final Fantasy XIII has become a whipping boy for reasons I absolutely understand, but I liked it for exactly what it was, warts and all. And I think my perspective is just that: warts are easier to overlook when you are seeing something new and different. I respected FFXIII for daring to try, and mostly succeeding it what it wanted to do. Some see that as polishing a turd, of course. In FFXIII's case, I saw it as an attempt at something different that divided FF fans--take that as you will.

FFXIII-2's leveling mechanics are better. Linearity has been replaced with some freedom. But it was an interesting tradeoff. Consider this: the first game got a lot of criticism for spending so much time in what you could call the tutorial phase. The sequel opens up a lot faster. But what you do from moment to moment isn't much different. FFXIII-2 is so easy, you can just set things to an offensive paradigm for hours and just "X" your way to a win every time. Ultimately, there's not a lot of difference between a long tutorial, and gameplay that is so easy it might as well be. And FFXIII played with difficulty a LOT more. I beat the final boss gauntlet in XXX-2 on the second try, and didn't really ever grind.

The openness comes with tedium, too. There is a late game fetch quest that has you going to like five different time periods, looking for hard-to-spot artifacts. Soon after, the pacer slows down again in a stupid platforming sequence. And that sequence is the last thing you do before the final boss gauntlet. At least the first game's linearity allowed the game to build to something. In a game this easy, and with no sense of momentum, the dramatic progression goes kerplooey.

Gosh, that sounds like a lot of negativity towards a game I actually quite like. But I am only pointing out those things to explain why, flaws and all, I liked XIII better. At least it went out on a limb, and as a result, p*ssed some people off. The new game is a little (not a lot) more traditional. But by addressing the flaws, they made a shorter, more stilted game with less interesting lead characters and some noticeable filler. It's also a good game from my perspective. I'm really glad I played it, and would recommend it to anyone naturally interested in it. But I admit, when I finished it, I was sort of taken aback--I figured I'd have a few more days of play to reach the end, and when I went back in and explored more, nothing kept me wanting to stay. And the ending still gets me, just how it seemed to wrap nothing up and set up yet another sequel :/ But in spite of all that--a really good time, and a game with a lot of heart. (I hate that term--a lot of heart--but I think it's fitting this time.)

SAME AS ZELDA?!?!? NO WAY IS THIS GAME EQUAL TO ZELDA. THIS **** GOT WAY OVERRATED!!! FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUlloveLamp

Isn't this where someone also brings up Infamous 2, Perfect Dark Zero, Shenmue, Twilight Princess, and Invisible War?

I dunno. If we lived in a world in which we could just stick a game in a a review-o-meter and have everyone feel the same way, maybe those types of complaints would work. I remember back when I was a GS community member; I b*t*hed endlessly about the Dungeon Siege expansion's score. Now that I am old and wise and my beard has so much gray in it, it all makes a lot more sense.

Oh, but let's not hold out hopes for that review-o-meter. I'd like to keep my job. I don't want to be replaced by a machine! It's like when your girlfriend/boyfriend discovers toys. Once they find out a toy does the job better, what hope do you really have? Just say no to machines!

So that 7.5/10 for me that hated FF13 so much would be like 1/10, real bottom stuff

I would rather replay FF7-9 or Lost Odyssey or play more Dark SOuls than play FF13 abominations

loosingENDS

Seeing as you brought up Xenoblade Chronicles I have to ask you about the mechons speaking in english. When the mechons are starting to do just that when you are running after Juju it really took me out of the game. It was one of the few things that didn't work for me. It would have been much better and more menacing to have them use a mechanical sound or something and yet have the main characters understand them. They stopped being mindless robots and at that time in the game it didn't click for me at all.

What did you think about that?

JLF1MarkII

So basically military shooters get it easy? You expect little creativeness from military shooters so why should developers even try when you guys (critics) eat it up? I've been on GS for a while now, and I simply cannot comprehend how games like BF3 and MW3 score so highly, ok not as high as previous games but still seems like an easy ride from reviewers. When other games get trashed on for being similar to previous games, these games get praised for the "tried and true formula" yet they practically come out on a yearly basis (for COD it is).SaltyMeatballs

Well that's not really what I meant. But remember: this COD "formula" isn't that old. Even if you look to COD4 as its originator, the formula isn't nearly as old as the seminal Pokemon formula. (To use the easy example.) And Pokemon games seem to get universally high scores, AND are beloved by their fans, despite being so crazily similar. Go figure, right?

But games aren't just collections of features. They are experiences. Let's assume two games have what might be considered the same flaw, say, some frame rate issues. How much that issue affects the overall experience depends on any number of factors: the genre, the timing, the level of discomfort, and so on. Every game is its own thing. A formula can be like a pillow. Sometimes, fluffing it can make it feel like a brand new pillow. Other times, it just feels old and yucky and you're sick of it, all yellow and smushed.

Some formulas can effectively fluffed up and reinvigorated with level design, or production values, or new settings, or new characters, or a different structure, and so on. Others just feel like--some old pillow. There's no rule that can be universally applied. All we can do is let the game speak for itself, and tell you what we think. Of course, the joy of it all is that a formula may get a lot more stale for you than for someone else.

I personally think that a nice three or four years between games is enough to let the effect wear off. The fluffing can be a lot more effective when the formula has room to breathe. If CoD spent more time percolating between sequels, I bet we'd be a little more open to it. (Trust me, I totally get where you're coming from. I am tired of it too, but I absolutely see why it's so beloved.) I think Assassin's Creed is dangerously close to doing the same thing, which is why I am so grateful that (supposedly) Ezio's story is done.

So I read the review and the score seems spot on. It's a shame they toned down the difficulty because that was one of my favorite things about XIII, which I loved. The linearity was never an issue for me, and this new time travel mechanic seems a bit forced just to try and appease fans. If it works well, then I'm all for it, however.

The lack of a third party member is also disappointing. What the hell is that nonsense? That's about all I've got to say about that.

Interesting to see Kevin like the story/plot, as I read the Game Informer review and they said that was their biggest issue. All in all XIII-2 sounds like a pretty solid game, but not quite what I would expect from a sequel to XIII. I'll have to pick it up when I get more cash.

MLBknights58

[QUOTE="Aljosa23"]

[QUOTE="texasgoldrush"] for a series used to getting 9's, its not good. wow, has this series fallen. also for refrence, one of the best villians in franchise history was pure evil (Kefka)...both tragic villians and sadist psychopaths can be great.babycakin

He's like the Joker, only nowhere near as good and memorable.

I completely disagree and agree at the same time. He wanted power and did whatever it took to get it, while doing it for sh1t and giggles. He pretty much murdered Cyan's home and family, killed bad ass General Leo and ruined the world all while doing for power, sh1ts and giggles. Pretty damn memorable to me.

Sorry if I spoiled anything for you guys

First off, there are no "under the table gifts." We get sent shwag, and then give it all away on our show. I don't know a single critic who gives two s**ts about a fake Final Fantasy potion Square sends them. And a CoD review will get traffic no matter what. We don't score games that way; no one does. Here is the big gaming industry secret: a reviewer plays a game and then writes what he/she thinks. SHOCKING! SCANDAL!

Well, I can't speak for every publication. But I know a lot of critics in games and elsewhere, and that kind of conspiracy stuff just--it just isn't out there, not at major publications, where our companies impress upon us that we can be *fired* and *go to jail* for improper behavior.

I am not the world's biggest Call of Duty fan, but even I recognize quality. I played Modern Warfare, MW2, and Black Ops; at least, the single-player portions They are cut from the same cloth, but they are not clones of each other, no more so than any other sequel in my mind. Corridor shooters use level design, pacing, set-piece sequences, visual variety, and other factors to differentiate themselves. CoD does what it does extremely well: delivering an action-movie experience in the form of a video game. It's an episode of 24 in which you take aim and shoot. It isn't my thing, but I appreciate the level of entertainment. And whan I play a cheap knock-off (say, Medal of Honor, homefront, or BF3's campaign), I appreciate what CoD does all the more. That doesn't mean you have to, but critics like Call of Duty for a reason: because they succeed rather well at what they set out to do.

RPGs--and FF games in particular--have a lot more room to display creative freedom. They aren't military shooters; Square could have done almost anything it wanted. In fact, they always do! But ultimately, I am not concerned with the issue of recycling in FF XIII-2. I will be interested to see how fans at large feel about it. It addresses a lot of things people felt what was wrong with XIII, which was (as you know) a game I liked more than a lot of other people do. But it feels like less than the sum of its parts. The mechanics are better, but it is ultimately too easy, too short, and often too tedious for me to see it as a step forward. It is sort of like, say, Bioshock 2 in that regard for me. The mechanics are ultimately better, but the overall impact is duller than the game that spawned it.

At least, that's my two cents.

[QUOTE="Zen_Light"]

[QUOTE="The_Game21x"] *Looks at Zen_Light's posts* Seems it's already started. :PRavensmash

[spoiler] and yes my last two posts have been piling on the sarcasm [/spoiler]