It's a shit game, though. It tries to be a film, and it's a really crap film, and the bits that aren't a crap film are mostly a crap game, and what good there is nowhere near enough to call a game. I've been considering it not by literary standards, but as entertainment, and I stand by that. The game bits are inconsistent and too few, the film bits are tedious, poorly written and paced, and the story is insultingly flawed. You can't bang on about how it's just like a film and artistically amazing and then turn round and say "but you can't judge it by film or artistic standards", and either way, it fails as a game too, so the point is moot.
It's people calling a game great and saying how you have to get it it's amazing buy a PS3 and wow best game ever when it's just a pile of overhyped, jumped up shit that bothers me*. A lot of people are saying how cinematic it is and how great th story and dialogue and shit is - so I'll judge those things as I would judge them anywere else. And it falls desperately short in every regard except the graphics, which are useless in a crap game.
Seriously, have you read some of the comments in that thread on rllmuk? I've not even an opinion about the place as I've read maybe two threads there ever, but christ. It's a game in which you spent most of your time doing absolutely nothing at all, and when you do get to do something, it's frequently not worth doing. That people are so willingly blinded and happy to lap this shit up and call it ambrosia gets on my nerves. There are thousands of games and films that are better in every regard ('cept graphics, but so what?), yet people are saying this is the best game ever, and worth buying a console for. It's not even the best game on the PS3, and if I'd spent £300+ on the strength of what some of these people have been saying, I would be out for fucking
blood after playing this.
*I get pissed off about FIFA games for the same reason, although I would say that every FIFA game I've played was more fun than this.
Edit:Quote:
Joe Public hasn't fallen into the habit of judging his entertainment solely by how little it offends rather than how much it delights, which is what inevitably happens when you set out to critique as opposed to consume a form
But I didn't set out to critique. I started playing and thought I'd pass on what it was like, and as the days went by I got angrier and angrier and merely expressed what effect trying to play the game for fun was having on me, because if I didn't get it out of my system I fear I'd have torn apart, deep fried and eaten the tv. I don't sit down and watch a film or cut scene looking for flaws. Note how much I tried to convince myself it would get better and the gameplay would shine through and make it worthwhile. That wasn't an attempt at balanced critique; that was rationalising for the sake of my sanity, because I couldn't find any other reason to keep playing.
I sit down with a game to play it, and when it forces me to sit through a stupid cut scene, I'll roll my eyes and move on. When it forces me to sit through ten hours of stupid cut scenes, though, there's nothing else to do but sit there crying out "What the FUCK? Oh for... SHOOT HIM, YOU BUMBLING TWAT. Robo... oh for fuck's sake. What? How did that.... but he's DEAD. He's just magically alive again? And what the hell did she do that for? ghaaah." When the game clearly thinks i'm supposed to be enjoying this, and that this is in fact what they're charging £40 for, I get a little... testy.