Games that are critic proof

[migo]

I think the Final Fantasy series is a good example; the most recent one got middling reviews but still sold 6 million so far.

That's 'cause most of the people doing reviews aren't the target audience of RPGs, so they're just reviewing something they don't really like or have no interest in.

I don't really think that's true. Most of the Final Fantasy entries before XIII were showered with praise by critics. Heck, I wouldn't even call the most recent one an RPG. It's more of an action-adventure with slight RPG elements.

Plus, it's kind of hard to make that claim. Most people reviewing XIII were complaining about the linearity and annoying characters. Since this implies that said reviewers appreciate non-linear areas and compelling characters, I think that actually shows that the critics do love RPGs.

Anyone complaining about linearity clearly hasn't played X, proving my point, and the characters have been the same since 7. I mean Cloud>Squall? They didn't even bother changing the name in any significant way. Hardly any difference between Vann and Tidus either, in character design. By this point it would be impossible for a Final Fantasy character not to be cliché.

 

[zHellas]

Psychonaughts obviously.
Katamari Damacy (sp?)

Beyond that, I guess it depends on what you mean by critic proof. If you mean beyond criticism then the list is pretty short, but if you mean games that professional critics won't haven't touched, then theres quite a few obscure ones out there.

Yeah, the whole term 'critic proof' is a bit vague.

Also: Magic Hair Master... thing. I can't remember the whole title but Hair is in it.

 

[icyfresh]

assassins creed 2, in my perspective, it defeated yatzhee himself!!! (srry idk how to spell his name)

 

[Woodsey]

I think you need to go retro. Nobody's about to say that Tetris isn't a great game.

Tetris is boring. Done.

OT: Nothing is critic-proof.

 

[BolognaBaloney]

So the thought crossed mt mind...what games can you think of that are more or less critic proof? Im not trying to turn this into another StarCraft2 thread, it its the most recent game that I can imagine falls into this topic. The point is can you think of any other games that at announcment you knew everybody would wind up buying no matter what reviewers said about it?

Red Dead Redemption. The most boring game ever, just GTA with a texture pack and some wild west accents. Yet everyone and his dog raved about it, saying it was the best game ever and stuff. A lot of critics are just afraid to diss the big games, it seems.

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you there, Red Dead Redemption was fantastic in my opinion. But to each his own, I suppose.

 

[zehydra]

Nothing is critic proof, because nobody can please everybody.

 

[Vhite]

None, people can b*tch about anything.

 

[tetron]

Pong is critic proof. To dislike Pong is to dislike every video game ever made, because c'mon...if you think about it every video game really is just a different version of Pong. And if you dislike every game ever then you're not a critic you're just a biased douche.

 

[D_987]

the storyline (the game's main appeal),

I actually agree witht he guy that claimed Mass Effect 2 was a bad game, but not for the reasons he is giving. I am going to call you out on the point you're making though.

First and foremost - Mass Effect 2 has a horrendous main storyline. It's terrible, has plot holes, has stupid sections that make no sense, appears to miss the opportunity to link to the first games events (making some section idiotic) and actually manages to mess up their own lore...

The side-missions themselves, in which you learn about your crew are great; but that's not the reason I enjoyed the original game. I enjoyed the original due to the main story-line, and the scope of it.

the RPG elements, all those choices you make over the course of the game.

Both were dumbed down. You can use the word "streamlined" all you want, but at the end of the day the player has less choice in combat, and dialogue choices that aren't as significant as the first game.

With making the best game they could? Gasp! My shock knows no bounds. I am literally reeling. What were the two biggest complaints about the first game? Boring combat and lengthly elevators. So for the second game, what did BioWare do? They re-vamped combat and removed the elevators. They'll have to be careful, or people will start suspecting they actually listen to the fans!

The combat is better in the second; but that doesn't mean - compared to similar games (Gears of War being the obvious influence) it holds up well. The combat still isn't fantastic, and the fact the game-play feels more like Gears only makes the flaws within the game more obvious. That and some classes are broken on the higher difficulties...and not in a good way.

If you recall, a hell of a lot of time was spent in combat in the first game too. Except you also had those awkward, unpopular Mako sections which - surprise surprise! - have also been removed.

I'm sure you'd have noticed the DLC that added in a vehicle because the removal of the Mako meant the universe felt like one corridor after the next, and the fans didn't like it. Bioware shouldn't listen to the fans, because fans don't know what they want really; and the removal of the thing that made the universe seem huge (alongside the removal of the large Citadel) just shows it.

 

[Timbydude]

I think the Final Fantasy series is a good example; the most recent one got middling reviews but still sold 6 million so far.

That's 'cause most of the people doing reviews aren't the target audience of RPGs, so they're just reviewing something they don't really like or have no interest in.

I don't really think that's true. Most of the Final Fantasy entries before XIII were showered with praise by critics. Heck, I wouldn't even call the most recent one an RPG. It's more of an action-adventure with slight RPG elements.

Plus, it's kind of hard to make that claim. Most people reviewing XIII were complaining about the linearity and annoying characters. Since this implies that said reviewers appreciate non-linear areas and compelling characters, I think that actually shows that the critics do love RPGs.

Anyone complaining about linearity clearly hasn't played X, proving my point, and the characters have been the same since 7. I mean Cloud>Squall? They didn't even bother changing the name in any significant way. Hardly any difference between Vann and Tidus either, in character design. By this point it would be impossible for a Final Fantasy character not to be cliché.

I never said I agree with their points; I think FFXIII is awesome (though I didn't at first). And X wasn't entirely the same; because of the random battles, you could run around and train wherever, while in XIII, you don't even get the option to level on your own since enemies generally don't respawn. I'm only talking about the first half of the game though.

But, like I said, your complaints with their criticism have little to do with the fact that it's a relatively critic-proof series. The scores for XIII weren't anything special, but it's already sold a ton of copies.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

Sonic apparently. Sonic 06 was able to sell a few million copies despite reception being bad all around.

 

[Snarky Username]

Portal 2 and Episode 3 come to mind. Actually, just about any Valve or Bioware game is basically critic-proof. Also, did anyone at all read the last sentence of the OP?

 

[Dr. Awesome Face]

snip

but a lot of these people are included in the 98% of the internet that are idiots, just conforming because someone else said Halo was bad.

Did you just say that someone else was an idiot because they don't have the same interests as you? That's pretty idiotic to me.

No its just a joke that I use a lot. A bit too much actually. The Escapist's forums are generally pretty intelligent, and we only occasionally get elitists and idiots here.

Sorry if I offended anyone.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Ok, I like a challenge. Cars are now carriages, bikes are now horses with speed boosts, liberty city citizens are now cowboys, city sections are now cow towns, and weapons are the same, except wild west flavored.

Sorry, aren't I supposed to be the one arguing about how different it is from GTA? You've made a pretty solid case for "lots of things are different"

I'll address it anyway, though; most of your comparisons are flawed. Cars are the main mode of transport in GTA, and central to the game experience. They are everywhere, and it's hard to do anything without one. In RDR, carriages are barely used except in missions, and if they'd been removed I doubt many people would have noticed. Horses are far more like the RDR equivalent to cars, but we could also say they are the RDR equivalent to Mass Effect's Normandy or the car from Crackdown - they are a primary mode of transport in a game that requires transport.

This is the underlying problem with every comparison you made: simply saying "game element X is now game element Y" ignoring the fact that you can do that with practically any games. Mass Effect is just GTA IV in space - cars are now spaceships, friends are now teammates, liberty city citizens are now aliens, city sections are now planets and weapons are the same, just space flavoured. See how easy that was? Simply highlighting various parts of the game and saying that they are broadly similar but slightly different from things found in a lot of other games doesn't prove anything.

GTA/RDR is a game where you are thrown into the role of a character that has some big problem that he has to solve, and to solve that problem he has to do meaningless and endless missions to earn their respect/trust/money/whatever. He starts off with a small area across which he will do missions for a small number of people, then gradually this area expands giving him access to more missions and more people to do missions for. Most of these people nobody gives a flying fuck about, neither the character nor the player. There are many mini-games you can play which are boring and tedious and are played once, if that.

See my previous point. I mean, seriously; main character has problems to solve, does missions for quest givers to earn respect/trust/money, gradually gaining access to more misions givers in different locations. Holy shit, I think I just described a video game! A series of missions with a progressive difficulty curve working towards the resolution of a problem? If you're going to use that as a basis for 'GTA/RDR are the same game' then you're going to have to apply it to a lot more games than that.

As for the minigames, I half agree with you. The minigames in GTA were boring and tedious. However, I spent a good deal of time in RDR playing poker, blackjack and liar's dice. The reason, I think, is because these are proper games that translate well to video games. Pool, horseshoes, darts...these do not. They are physical games, and so making your character play them is dull. Poker is still the same game regardless of whether you play it in a game or with your friends, which makes it more enjoyable.

The thing with GTA4, and the whole GTA series, is that it's FUN to drive cars all over the place. It's not fun to ride a horse in RDR. It's boring as fuck.

Actually, the horse riding was one of my favourite parts. Rockstar clearly spent a lot of time developing a beautiful game world which is a genuine pleasure to ride around in. The atmosphere is simply amazing - the sunsets, the animals rustling around, the occasional random incident. Not to mention all the fun that comes from horse chases, wildly firing guns at one another. On the other hand, driving around in GTA IV gets boring. Instead of being an experience to be savoured like in RDR, it is just a method of getting from A to B. Be honest, in the last half of the game, weren't you getting taxis everywhere and skipping the ride? Liberty City is impressive in it's scale, but dull as fuck to drive around in because it is A) too big and B) too samey.

Ah but it does reflect the industry as a whole. And FF13 deserves negative reviews because it's not a good game.

Not a very convincing argument there - "I'm right because I'm right". I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with you about FF13, for example.

 

[Sacman]

I don't think any game falls into that category, but some get closer than others.

Spoiler: Like the highest grossing video game ever

Everybody winded up buying it after all. Most people hate on it but they bought it.

EDIT: Did nobody but me read the last sentence in the OP? Hu.

of course not, why would anyone do that?
OT: Halo 3... yeah...

 

[SonicWaffle]

I actually agree witht he guy that claimed Mass Effect 2 was a bad game, but not for the reasons he is giving. I am going to call you out on the point you're making though.

Go nuts, I'm all in favour of being called out. We're here to discuss things, after all!

First and foremost - Mass Effect 2 has a horrendous main storyline. It's terrible, has plot holes, has stupid sections that make no sense, appears to miss the opportunity to link to the first games events (making some section idiotic) and actually manages to mess up their own lore...

Can you provide some examples of this? I really enjoyed the story, right from the start. I admit I wasn't wild about a couple of the characters (although if they don't bring back Mordin for the third, I'll probably cry!) but then some characters from the first - I'm looking at you here, Ashley - were just begging for a punch in the face. I also think they did a great job of linking the events from both games; meeting Conrad in the bar, meeting the gangster-turned-social-worker, meeting the representative of the Rachni, and so on. I played a goodie-two-shoes in the first and imported the character, so clearly all the links I got were the result of the paragon options.

For the most part, the new characters were great, and I enjoyed doing their missions. I really enjoyed the main storyline; dicovering more about the Reapers and the Protheans and the history of the galaxy. Finding out how Reapers are constructed. Learning the truth about the Geth. Having to be constantly on edge, wondering what Cerberus and the Illusive Man are really up to. There were a lot of plot elements at play, and it surpassed the scope of the first. What the story of the second game was mostly doing was adding depth to the plot and the universe. To be honest with you, I was actually surprised by how good it was: I was certain that it would fall victim to the problems inherent with being the second installment of a trilogy. In most cases, the plot is just stalling and waiting for resolution, but ME2 (for the most part - see below) avoided those pitfalls neatly.

Both were dumbed down. You can use the word "streamlined" all you want, but at the end of the day the player has less choice in combat, and dialogue choices that aren't as significant as the first game.

Again, I am confused. Less choice in combat? Being able to tactically place your squad members as per their skills or weapons is less choice? There were even two new classes of weaponry, and while I wasn't enamoured of the heavy weapons - I only really used them for bosses, and felt there could have been more sections where heavy weaponry could take out a whole wave of attackers - I was glad they were there if I needed them. Most of the skills/talents from the first game survived, and I found it far easier to combine squad powers in the second. I had great fun making my biotic use lift and then headshotting them with the 'concussive shot' as they floated.

You're correct that dialogue choices aren't quite as significant, but I refer you again to the problems of being the 'middle child' in a trilogy. The first game had a lot of major choices, and those were carried over. The second, while it didn't have as many, still had some big choices to make - remember the Collector station? - which means that the third game will have to take into account the choices from both games. I'm guessing the writers were trying not to end up with an ME3 that had a ridiculous amount of branching storylines to consider, so they limited the 'significant' choices in ME2.

The combat is better in the second; but that doesn't mean - compared to similar games (Gears of War being the obvious influence) it holds up well. The combat still isn't fantastic, and the fact the game-play feels more like Gears only makes the flaws within the game more obvious. That and some classes are broken on the higher difficulties...and not in a good way.

A lot of people are making the comparison to Gears, and it really boils down to one thing; cover-based combat. Did everyone but me forget that this is how you were meant to play ME1?! There was a cover mechanic, without which combat got damned annoying until you got barrier or a fuckton of shields. All they did in the second was improve the cover mechanics.

Personally I found ME2 a far more enjoyable game than Gears. The weapons were more fun (chainsaw guns being the hilarious exception), the biotic and tech powers made for a very different combat experience, the locations were better, and I actually gave a shit about the people I was fighting alongside. In Gears, I was happy to see those macho douchebags die, but in ME2 I wanted to take care of my crew. Unfortunately, most people can't seem to see further than 'cover = gears'.

I'm sure you'd have noticed the DLC that added in a vehicle because the removal of the Mako meant the universe felt like one corridor after the next, and the fans didn't like it.

It was an additional, though, rather than a core gameplay element. The Mako was so frustrating because you had to use it, and it was a piece of shit. The Firewalker was more fun to fly about it, but added nothing to the game - meaning it detracted nothing from the game either. It was an optional extra, ten minutes or so of faffing about and having a laugh before getting back to business.

Bioware shouldn't listen to the fans, because fans don't know what they want really; and the removal of the thing that made the universe seem huge (alongside the removal of the large Citadel) just shows it.

The 'thing that made the universe seem huge' being the Mako? I'd have said the thing that made the universe feel boring and empty. Landing on a planet which contained nothing but two rocks and a crashed space probe was not a fun experience, especially when you spent half an hour driving over dull terrain in a shoddy craft. To me, the universe felt bigger - probably the addition of extra systems and fuel, which gave the sense that the ship was actually moving rather than the feeling you were just zooming a model ship around a map like in the original.

I did miss the bigger Citadel, admittedly, but the addition of...I don't remember the name, the Asari planet where Liara is...made up for it.