Gamers: AAA Titles Generally Aren't Shit.

[itsmeyouidiot]

I'm kind of tired of hearing everyone in online gaming forums complain about how some AAA title that's gotten heavily positive reviews is actually shit. Look, I can understand if you think it's overrated sure, but calling these games bad is just stupid.

You want to know what a bad game is? Go play a licensed game based on a recently released movie. Go play some of the half-assed shovelware made to cash in on the popularity of Wii Sports.

Generally speaking, games that are very high-profile and were made by a respected developer with a large budget generally aren't terrible. If you're going to complain that they're overrated, fine, but unless the game is universally panned by critics and gamers, it's not going to be awful.

Basically, I'm just asking for the gaming community to have a bit of perspective, that's all.

 

[Treeinthewoods]

I understand your perspective but trust me you are screaming into a hurricane. This is how it will always be, that which is popular must be shit.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Most are not, you're right. However, lots, like dragon age 2 for example, have huge resources behind them, and are still massively hyped. Even though the end products are terrible.



Oh yeah, people who are into sports titles arent onthis site.

And i ran a poll, 2% of respondents said they had a wii. Most people who answered are pc and ps3 gamers

 

[ResonanceGames]

No, I'm pretty sure I think the God of War games are awful. I don't care how respected the developer is, if they make a game that I don't find fun, I'm not going to apologize for my opinion just because a bunch of work went into it, or a bunch of critics and players liked it. They're asking 60 bucks for their product, all feedback that isn't either mindlessly fellating or childishly bashing should be considered fair game, no matter how negative it is.

I'm not going to withhold honest feedback just to maintain the consensus.

 

[GirDraconis]

I understand your perspective but trust me you are screaming into a hurricane. This is how it will always be, that which is popular must be shit.

Pretty much this. Even though you're smart enough to not burn your mouth, the hipsters and pretentious jerks will always "drink their coffee before it's cool". Basically, enjoy the game and ignore the haters.

 

[ResonanceSD]

No, I'm pretty sure I think the God of War games are awful. I don't care how respected the developer is, if they make a game that I don't find fun, I'm not going to apologize for my opinion just because a bunch of work went into it, or a bunch of critics and players liked it. They're asking 60 bucks for their product, all feedback that isn't rither mindlessly fellating or childishly bashing should be considered fair game, no matter how negative it is.

I'm not going to withhold honest feedback just to maintain the consensus.

Prepare to have your valid argument branded as hipster hating. I completely agree with you.

 

[Zhukov]

That depends entirely on what standard you are judging them by.

EDIT:
Well, since this topic has been dragged up from the depths, I may as well elaborate.

See, I place a lot of weight in story, dialogue, character and all that. And in that regard most games, triple-A or otherwise, are shit. Complete and utter shit.

Sure, most triple-A games will have reasonably polished gameplay and visuals, but if the writing is so bad that I feel embarrassed playing it, and I frequently do, then I will still consider them to be roughly 50% shit.

This isn't a matter of, "ooh, look at me, I hate popular stuff, I'm so cool". It's simply a case of, "I value particular aspects of games I find most games way below my standards in regard to those aspects."

 

[MammothBlade]

Problem is, "AAA" titles are most often sequels in established franchises which are guaranteed cash cows for developers. There are a lot of great games which aren't AAA titles simply because they're not well-known, because they don't have the benefit of a big publisher's marketing machine or prestige. Whereas, naming no names, there are a lot of "AAA"/premium games which are mediocre, and would not stand on their own merits.

 

[Yureina]

I don't automatically think popular games are shit. I give everything one chance to impress me. If it fails, then that's it. With that said... AAA games, especially from Activision and EA, have a much greater tendency to fail than most other games. Therefore, I prefer to avoid anything made by those studios.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Perspective? I confident in saying that I already have that.
Ignoring the obvious dysphemism for the "hipster argument", I'll say that giving a game a sizeable budget and polish does not make it a good game, or a necessary game for that market.

If someone enjoys a AAA game, good for them; it could very well be a good game.
But this doesn't render it immune to criticism, which includes the context in which the game is released.
Market over-saturation does occur (shooters, anyone?), and people are starting to get tired of reboots, remakes, etc, because they feel like they're being exploited. [sub]And to a degree they are, but don't you're not supposed to say that out loud now![/sub]

And one last comment for both the Publishers and the Fans of mega-popular franchises/games:
Hey, if you hype a game, you're making claims, whether you think you are or not. And when that game doesn't live up to the hype, it's perfectly logical for someone else to call bullshit.

Reap what you sow.

 

[cookyy2k]

Perspective? I confident in saying that I already have that.
Ignoring the obvious dysphemism for the "hipster argument", I'll say that giving a game a sizeable budget and polish does not make it a good game, or a necessary game for that market.

If someone enjoys a AAA game, good for them; it could very well be a good game.
But this doesn't render it immune to criticism, which includes the context in which the game is released.
Market over-saturation does occur (shooters, anyone?), and people are starting to get tired of reboots, remakes, etc, because they feel like they're being exploited. [sub]And to a degree they are, but don't you're not supposed to say that out loud now![/sub]

And one last comment for both the Publishers and the Fans of mega-popular franchises/games:
Hey, if you hype a game, you're making claims, whether you think you are or not. And when that game doesn't live up to the hype, it's perfectly logical for someone else to call bullshit.

Reap what you sow.

Pretty much this, when EA were hyping TOR as god's gift to gaming I doubt they were thinking. Sure it sells a few units day one but the problem is after the "gods gift" claim is made anything less than perfect is a disappointment to those that believed the hype, this will generate hate. Now I've not played TOR so I can't comment if it is or not but I have seen generally polarised opinions, the negative pole is due in no small part to the pre-launch hype. If the hype hadn't been so high then a lot of those negative reviews would become neutral or even positive reviews. The hype/marketing has a direct effect on the player because that is the standard you've told them to judge it by. Sure they can't say "this game is shit" and then when it's not have everyone positive review it but when EA is saying their game is a million times better than any current MMO they have to expect a good portion of people to say "no it isn't" and instead of reviewing it as enjoyable or mostly good they are tainted by the "it isn't as good as promised" thought. It makes it hard to be objective.

As for the OP's other comments, money does not make a good game. DA2 has been brought up here already, the budget for that (not including marketing) ran to around $25m yet it was not anything special. There have been many, many high budget flops and low budget successes.

Generally no, AAA titles arn't terrible, but some are. Since everyone has different tastes there will be people who consider different ones terrible. The people at the "it was terrible" end of the spectrum tend to be more vocal on review sites. As already mentioned in this thread you also get genre saturation, people get sick of the same thing. I loved halo, I'm getting sick of shooters now though. My opinion and resulting review if I were to give one of any shooter would be lower now than a couple of years ago. Does that mean they got worse (well yeah, cover based and iron sight aiming saw to that) not necessarily, it just means I'm sick of them. I'd probably look a hell of a lot more favourably on an RTS now than in the days they were every other game.

As a final note, I don't care if every critic in the world gives it 100 million out of 10, if it's crap I'm going to say so. I'm not just going to fall into line with the consensus and say "well it must just be me that's the problem" because if I don't enjoy the game it's not a good game from my stand point.

 

[Verzin]

That depends entirely on what standard you are judging them by.

This. The opinion of what makes a game good or bad is very much a subjective matter, though I tend to side with those who demand more depth in their games and think many of the AAA titles are just dying cash cows getting their last few milkings.

 

[Zoop]

Have you seen the Metacritic Critic scores for Skyrim? Only three of them are below 90. Skyrim isn't a bad game, but the measuring stick reviewers use nowadays needs to be exchanged.

I wouldn't have given Skyrim an average score of over 75%, to be honest.

That's my issue with AAA games. If the critics don't give a AAA game over 80%, it's considered rubbish. When was the last time you saw an average to good AAA game receive an average to good score? The standard score for an 'average' game nowadays is about 80%.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I understand your perspective but trust me you are screaming into a hurricane. This is how it will always be, that which is popular must be shit.

To add on to that bit of truth, one of the most popular past-times of the chronically unpopular is to shout from the rooftops about how much they loath popular items A through Z.

Besides OP, you have to take into account that everyone has their own opinion. As difficult as it may be to believe there is (statistically speaking anyway) at least one or two people who genuinely hated everything about Arkham Asylum. Personally, I thought Heavy Rain was shit but that was after having beaten it and read/watched all of the reviews that kissed it's metaphoric feet.

 

[Malyc]

In my opinion, hype has killed more games for me than bad gameplay or development could have. This is why I don't listen to the hype anymore, and buy games that I am interested in. This is why I havn't bought MW3 yet, and why I regret buying black ops. Call of duty seems to have taken a downturn starting at about Modern Warfare 1.

 

[him over there]

No these games are legitimately bad relative to what they are. They are the aaa industry! While it's true that any cash in licensed or shovel ware game probably sucks so much it qualifies as a black hole these are low budget b maybe c class games that have little to no advertising or bearing on the industry.

A aaa game is great in comparison but that's mostly because of the huge budget's and advertising that goes into them. Shouldn't we demand more from a roster or respray with a few new maps from a multi million dollar company? Is it unfair that we demand depth and innovation from billion dollar corporations, especially since independent developers with maybe a few thousand are providing it as well yet huge companies can't seem to?

AAA games are far from shit. But based on all the resources and importance behind them isn't it okay to call out their mediocrity, their lack of innovation and their lack of competition letting them lower their standards, exploiting consumers with pathetic average-ness since there isn't really an alternative?

 

[JediMB]

I just have to say that the term "AAA game" is terribly misused on a regular basis.

AAA refers to high quality. Excellence. It is by definition something very, very good.

People seem to think it simply means "expensive".

 

[krazykidd]

That depends entirely on what standard you are judging them by.

This one sentence says so much. Seriously , i was going to write a wall of text , but it all comes down to this .

 

[Vivace-Vivian]

In my opinion, you're right. Most AAA games are not 'terrible'. They might not be good, but they aren't terrible. I find many people fail to see a middle ground. It would seem that 3 out of 5 stars no longer exists in many cases. Simply because you didn't find a game fun doesn't mean it is by definition 'terrible'. I mean I'm sure there are some out there who don't find the games we hold as classics here fun.