SpiritogreIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 81
Joined: 30 SEP 2008
Location: DE
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Arkadia (11 OCT 2008 1:54am)
So young people who play GTA and the likes of those games are not "real gamers"? Curious. What about the GameSpot reviewer who has played every other game under the sun but vocally classifies adventure games as inferior as genre? Unfortunately, there is a rather large consensus that is in agreement that adventure games are not worthy of the title of 'game', or worthy of spending time or money on. As such, most people on these boards know not to go throwing around phrases such as "these people aren't real gamers" or "this genre of game is not as valid as the rest". It seems rather silly to me to title someone a gamer or a non-gamer based on what genre of game they play - be they shoot em ups, sandbox games or "casual".
I don't use the term gamer, non-gamer, extreme-gamer or casual gamer in a judgemental way. Everyone has its likes or dislikes and different tastes. It just means that some people care more or less about computer games and have more or less knowledge and experience in that matter.
So again, I have to ask why especially adventure gamers feel so inferior? What do I care what a Gamespot reviewer thinks? I probably have played just as many games or more in the past 25 years. If he disses adventure games I know he is an idiot with not much knowledge about games and the history of computer games in general.
Surely you can see that, to many people, gameplay and story are the basics? I would much prefer to play a game with with extremely fun gameplay and a wonderful story with 256 bit graphics and poor controls (Grim Fandango comes to mind, in terms of controls). That being said, I can see that some people prefer very good graphics and intuitive controls. To go back to your car analogy - I think it's more of a what-do-you-prefer question rather than a what-is-better question: would you take the car that handles extremely well or the shiny, pretty sports car that everyone will ogle as you drive down the street?
The whole package is important. When you have two very similar games with the same gameplay, story and so on, the only difference is, one has poor graphics and one has great graphics and you only have 50 bucks, which game would you spend your 50 bucks on? I doubt that anyone reasonable would take the one with the bad graphics.
Only people who have fallen for the hype since the game with the bad graphics has a famous name on the cover would go for that. And that's why Spore became so popular, not because it is good but because of good marketing.
In regards to Spore itself - it seems there are many, many people who enjoy the game, both "casual" gamers and hardcore gamers alike. Many were disappointed, but still find it a charming and fun-to-play game.
Many people won't admit, after waiting for two years and following the hype, they simply decieve themselves not to feel too disappointed. I agree that the creature editor is quite fun for some minutes but as a whole game Spore simply and objectivlly simply fails.
The graphics overall are really quite a technical feat, if I'm not mistaken - the fact that a player can completely design their own character from any shape and size and have it animate just as intended is quite remarkable. As for "cheap production values" - I hardly think that you could call Spore a cheap endeavour. The developers did not laugh wickedly and say "Let's ride The Sims and SimCity's fame all the way to the bank and give the public a horrible game to show for it!". If anything, I'm sure quite a lot was riding on this game for Will Wright, he was breaking out of the box a little and I'm sure he wanted to prove to everyone he could do more than just his typical simulation games.
It's all about money and Electronic Arts knows how to save that. They could have done so much more with good production values, alas they decided to make a game that might lure the casual gamer who doesn't know whats possible today.
All that being said... if you're so upset about it being a game that was geared toward being friendly toward casual gamers, as it openly announced before the game came out - why did you buy it? :
I'm not upset about a game that is friendly towards casual gamers, I'm upset because it's a bad game geared towards casual gamers because it could have become a really good game technically and gameplay wise but the developers decided that getting money is more important.
Besides I didn't buy it as I didn't buy Mass Effect. I don't buy offline games with online activation no matter how good they might be because I want to collect my games and probably play it in ten, 20, 30 years again. Legally impossible to do with games like Spore (cracks are illegal here).
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InesrocksPrivate Detective
Posts : 682
Joined: 16 OCT 2008
Location: PT
Status : Offline | All I know is that I got excited about the game for quite some months. Then it came out, I got it and I played till the tribal phase.
Then I just lost interest and I havent played since September. :
It's not that the game is bad. It's way too good. The thing is, it's not that innovative. We have played all that before, but just in different games
I might give it another chance one day though
Playing: Skyrim (ongoing)
Last Finished: can't recall, been too long.
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