Gamers: AAA Titles Generally Aren't Shit.

[Soviet Steve]

I'm kind of tired of hearing everyone. Go play some of the half-assed shovelware made to cash in on the popularity of Wii Sports.

The quality of games is generally a subjective matter (technical issues is not a matter of opinion however)

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.

Unless you disagree with that, in which case they are awful. This is because the quality of games is a subjective thing, it varies from person to person. What you are saying is that I'm not to voice my opinion on a game I dislike if EA pays people to say it's good. Horseshit.

Spoiler: A historical example, jump to 17:15

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

Nope, you're saying you want opinions silenced because you disagree with them.

 

[DJjaffacake]

I have to agree with itsmeyouidiot. MW3 was by no means a bad game (excluding the multiplayer) but people said it was rubbish because it's call of duty. It wasn't as good as COD4 or Mass Effect but it was still better than most games.

 

[gigastar]

I dont ever remember expressing a sentiment towards AAA games, unless it happens to be a realistic FPS in which case ill shit all over it regardless of its quality.

I know Resident Evil 6 has a huge budget behind it as well as having most of Capcom's dev teams working at it, but im not calling it shit until i play it and decide if its shit.

 

[DionysusSnoopy]

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.

This, its the expectation game that in my opinion causes people to call foul. If its not what was advertised or expected to be then people will mouth it off.

But I agree with the OP most AAA games aren't shit or bad. They just don't live up to the hype. I also agree with the fact though that AAA games should be better though.

There was a video i watched a while a go on this site about how games should spend more time in pre-production and the big companies could adopt the Pixar business model (i can't remember where it is) and it made sense as to improving games.

 

[Zoop]

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.

The RPGCodex forums are testimony to that.

 

[Xanadu84]

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.

There's a HUGE gap between being shit and being contrary to your taste. You can not like GOW, and that's fine. I don't like Zelda games. But that doesn't mean I can argue that Zelda is shit. Or rather, I shouldn't. Because if I'm reasonable, I can see the strengths that simply don't click with me. In reality, if you call a game shit, your insisting that everyone else conform to you. Maybe, rather then your opinion being an objective aesthetic truth, you just have an opinion outside of the high points of the bell curve. Staatistically, we are all pretty likely to be outliers at some point.

 

[Xanadu84]

Modern Warfare 3. I DARE you to come up with logical, factual reasons why that game isn't a shit sandwich served with turd cola on a poo-poo platter.


Go on. I'm waiting. one of the biggest AAA releases, sold millions, is absolute shit. Campaign is shit, multiplayer is imbalanced as fuck, full of hackers, laggy, can't level on dedicated servers, it looks like arse. Prove to me the game is good despite all of that.

I, and millions of others, enjoyed the shit out of that game. Hypothesis rejected.

 

[Zoop]

Modern Warfare 3. I DARE you to come up with logical, factual reasons why that game isn't a shit sandwich served with turd cola on a poo-poo platter.


Go on. I'm waiting. one of the biggest AAA releases, sold millions, is absolute shit. Campaign is shit, multiplayer is imbalanced as fuck, full of hackers, laggy, can't level on dedicated servers, it looks like arse. Prove to me the game is good despite all of that.

Easy. Taste is subjective.

Point proven.

 

[Burst6]

The problem is the sequels. They put out a lot of sequels but they don't really change a great deal. Take Gears of War for example, I loved the first one. The fighting felt nice and weighty, the weapons were good, and the cover-based combat was entertaining, but by the end i got really bored of everything. The weapon choice didn't really change a great deal throughout the game and none of them impressed me. Most of the time i just used the plain old lancer.

I wondered what they were going to do in the sequel. I was disappointed when not much changed. The weapons where very similar, there wasn't much of a change in combat, and all the cool items (like the shield. i loved the shield) were all just temporary and didn't appear that often. It was so boring i was glad that the campaign wasn't too long.


The point is, if you make solid gameplay, people will like it. It you never ever change up the solid gameplay, people will get bored of it. It makes people feel like you're just trying to bleed money out of them and do minimal work for it.

This is why so many people like valve. They always give off the feeling that they're in it to make games, not to make money. A lot of publishers lost this feeling.

 

[Vegosiux]

I'll stop complaining about "AAA titles" being shit the moment they stop being "AAA rated" before they're even freakin' released!.

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".

Heck, ninja'd by a Jedi. But yes, this basically.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Hm.. nearly everything Valve and Blizzard produces proves your statement. The companies which are able to produce AAA titles aren't as big for no reason.
Their games have or had an appeal to the gamers.

Skyrim was hyped to the point where you could believe that playin' Skyrim will cure cancer. We know that's not true, but it's still a really awesome game.
Diablo 2 has already proven it and D3 will prove it too.
Even if BF3 was a buggy piece of shit when i bought it - and i expected it, since it had an EA lable on it - is a splendid shooter with the best atmosphere i ever had in a multiplayer shooter. (I don't count the singleplayer of both CoD / BF3, because they're clearly gimmick and not the selling point of the game).
Other examples outside Valve/Blizz? Deus Ex, Bioshock 1, Fallout, Civ 5, both SaintsRow + GTA series, Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect / Dragon Age Series..

Of course not every gamer likes every genre as i do, but to say AAA games are shit pre se is ignorant - as ignorant as to say you need a million dollar budget to make a great game.
The Bastion, Limbo or Minecraft have proven otherwise.

Teh monehz can make stuff easier to create games, but also mostly bring you more pressure and complications with publishers/shareholders etc. But money is definitly not the main component to make a great game.

 

[Nimzabaat]

Duke Nukem Forever, your argument is invalid.

 

[ResonanceGames]

There's a HUGE gap between being shit and being contrary to your taste. You can not like GOW, and that's fine. I don't like Zelda games.

I'm NOT going to let this devolve into "The Difference Between Subjective and Objective 101" for the 10,000th time, but I do want to go on record totally disagreeing with this statement.

Easy. Taste is subjective.

Point proven.

You're right, but this tree has been barked up too many times. Some people just don't get it.

 

[Callate]

I get where you're coming from, but the problem (at least from where I stand) is this: no one bases next year's product line on the Wii Sports knock-offs or movie tie-in games. If all a AAA game gets is lauds and big piles of money, you're very likely to get games that strongly resemble it next year, regardless of whether that game had real and substantial flaws despite a significant amount of polish.

It's true that there are always going to be an annoying minority who sneer at whatever is popular just to distinguish themselves from the plebeians. But in an era where critics sometimes get their heads torn off for having the audacity to give a popular game a score of 8, it's increasingly important that we not dismiss criticism out of hand, especially with regard to AAA titles. There's plenty enough momentum going the other way, and whole PR departments manning the oars.