Post by ECM on Jun 11, 2011 14:03:07 GMT -5
I'm cribbing this from Zig because I think it's a pretty awesome conversation topic and it's only a tiny portion of his Sylphia review (fun game, btw) when it should be its own, full-blown, entry:
My friend Nick Evil once spoke of the “magnificent eight” — referring to neither samurai nor gunmen, but to a strong 8-out-of-10 game that touches us personally, invoking love beyond any reasonable expectation. His “magnificent eight” was the Dreamcast’s Record of Lodoss War. It’s a well-regarded game, but Nick made that thing sound like the second coming of Castlevania. His adoration was extreme, and he knew it. So he put a name to it. That’s what smart people do; they create labels for concepts so that we can efficiently communicate with one another.
He calls it "magnificent" but I think "irrational" is probably more fitting because, in a lot of cases, at least personally, there is an array of games that, though I know they fall down in some key areas, they still manage to push all the right buttons (kinda like that slutty-hot chick you took home one night who you knew would be dynamite in the sack but, come morning, your first stop was going to be the free clinic for some penicillin).
(I'd also lump anyone that likes Shen Mue in this group, though I think that's more like an Irrational 3.)
So, to get this rolling, here's one of mine:
*Enclave (XBOX): This might be my most irrational, at least if you go by its general reception (hell, the guy that produced it even said it was, at best, a seven1), but I love me some Enclave.
The light/dark campaign modes; the linear but w/ just enough freedom level design; the dark fantasy setting; the stunning (at the time) graphics on XBOX (though I only play the PC version these days); the myriad character classes; and the ARPG leveling system that lets you upgrade your weapons and armor as you go--it even has a small, scavenger hunt, aspect in that you need to hunt down gold on each map to enable the upgrading.2
On the downside, the controls are kinda clunky (jumping looks and feels terrible) and combat often boils down to rubberbanding: you rush an opponent, stab him, then bounce back, he swings and misses, you rush in and stab him, then bounce back, etc. and it always feels kinda...cheap. The balance isn't too hot, either, since characters that can wield poison can basically tag a foe a few times, run away, and wait for the (bad) AI to take its toll (kinda like what would happen if you didn't run down to the free clinic the next morning).
But even w/ its myriad (small-to-medium) flaws, it's probably my favorite game on the XBOX, and it's probably more like an Irrational, Spittle-Flecked, 10.
Just think: a few years ago, these were state of the art graphics on consoles--now you'd call it a Wii game...asshole.
1 Of course, for whatever reason, Enclave was supposed to be a fantasy Counter Strike and not the game it eventually became, which not only doesn't resemble CS in any way, it didn't even have a MP mode. But I guess if you were expecting CS w/ swords and boards, I could see where this might not hit the gaming g-spot. (For the life of me, I can't recall if he told me why it turned out to be, essentially, the opposite of the original design.)
2 Just enough to keep things intersting, exploration-wise, but not something like Donkey Kong 64 which, by my back of the envelope calculation, the first person should be hitting 100% completion sometime in 2037.
My friend Nick Evil once spoke of the “magnificent eight” — referring to neither samurai nor gunmen, but to a strong 8-out-of-10 game that touches us personally, invoking love beyond any reasonable expectation. His “magnificent eight” was the Dreamcast’s Record of Lodoss War. It’s a well-regarded game, but Nick made that thing sound like the second coming of Castlevania. His adoration was extreme, and he knew it. So he put a name to it. That’s what smart people do; they create labels for concepts so that we can efficiently communicate with one another.
He calls it "magnificent" but I think "irrational" is probably more fitting because, in a lot of cases, at least personally, there is an array of games that, though I know they fall down in some key areas, they still manage to push all the right buttons (kinda like that slutty-hot chick you took home one night who you knew would be dynamite in the sack but, come morning, your first stop was going to be the free clinic for some penicillin).
(I'd also lump anyone that likes Shen Mue in this group, though I think that's more like an Irrational 3.)
So, to get this rolling, here's one of mine:
*Enclave (XBOX): This might be my most irrational, at least if you go by its general reception (hell, the guy that produced it even said it was, at best, a seven1), but I love me some Enclave.
The light/dark campaign modes; the linear but w/ just enough freedom level design; the dark fantasy setting; the stunning (at the time) graphics on XBOX (though I only play the PC version these days); the myriad character classes; and the ARPG leveling system that lets you upgrade your weapons and armor as you go--it even has a small, scavenger hunt, aspect in that you need to hunt down gold on each map to enable the upgrading.2
On the downside, the controls are kinda clunky (jumping looks and feels terrible) and combat often boils down to rubberbanding: you rush an opponent, stab him, then bounce back, he swings and misses, you rush in and stab him, then bounce back, etc. and it always feels kinda...cheap. The balance isn't too hot, either, since characters that can wield poison can basically tag a foe a few times, run away, and wait for the (bad) AI to take its toll (kinda like what would happen if you didn't run down to the free clinic the next morning).
But even w/ its myriad (small-to-medium) flaws, it's probably my favorite game on the XBOX, and it's probably more like an Irrational, Spittle-Flecked, 10.
Just think: a few years ago, these were state of the art graphics on consoles--now you'd call it a Wii game...asshole.
1 Of course, for whatever reason, Enclave was supposed to be a fantasy Counter Strike and not the game it eventually became, which not only doesn't resemble CS in any way, it didn't even have a MP mode. But I guess if you were expecting CS w/ swords and boards, I could see where this might not hit the gaming g-spot. (For the life of me, I can't recall if he told me why it turned out to be, essentially, the opposite of the original design.)
2 Just enough to keep things intersting, exploration-wise, but not something like Donkey Kong 64 which, by my back of the envelope calculation, the first person should be hitting 100% completion sometime in 2037.
