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JASON VENTER
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COMMENTS BY THIS AUTHOR (18)
"This was a good post. There's nothing inherently wrong with the FPS, but the genre is broken by developers who refuse to look at what makes the genre work. The FPS genre as a whole feels about like fighters did in the late 90s and shmups did a few years before that. Not a good sign."
Thursday, September 08, 2011
"I figure somewhere between $20 to $25 of a physical $60 game's price tag goes to retailers and distributors, maybe even more. Yet we're not seeing that discount when we buy games on Steam and such. I don't have any reason to anticipate that download-only is going to be good for anyone but developers. Consumers are getting screwed and--for now, at least--we're smiling and saying "Thank you!""
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
"Alas, I already own all of the titles on your list. No spendy money for me!"
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
"He was definitely joking."
Thursday, August 11, 2011
"I will buy Wii U as presented because I know that it will have HD games from Nintendo and that's all the convincing I need. However, my wish list for things that would make it even COOLER is fairly predictable: as much horsepower as possible with as low a price point as possible and with as many killer titles available at launch as possible. Specifically, I'd like to see the system ship with a lot of RAM. That's one thing that really limits the PS3, despite its processing power. High-end games require more RAM than consoles provide and it seems like such a stupid thing to skimp on with the hardware. I already know that Wii U will be a worthwhile investment, but I'm always up for it being more worthwhile. I think that the faulty steps taken with the 3DS have a better chance of causing Nintendo to look outside of any echo chamber than articles like this one do, especially because--obviously--Nintendo can simply look at it and say "Oh, we already have a fix for that." It's more useful to post about things that are more likely to be real issues. We already know, for instance, that the included HD is going to be insufficient for power users."
Thursday, August 11, 2011
"Yeah, these objections are fair objections for a system that is a month from releasing, but we're still a year or so from Wii U with an E3 between now and the system's release. Nintendo has time to address all of the issues raised here. The word of the day is "premature.""
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
"It's ridiculous to ask that a reviewer have extensive experience with all three or four versions of a game that might be available before reviewing one version of said game. Especially since a lot of critics have to cover several unique titles each month. However, I'm not sure that it's wrong to ask that they review only the version(s) that they have actually played. I follow that policy myself. I may reasonably assume that the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions are largely the same and thus warrant the same score, but I don't work from that assumption. The result is that any sites I manage have to do without the traffic that might come if I were to post the review as my judgement of both separate titles. There are ways around that (for instance, posting a review and including a disclaimer at the top that the review was for a separate version of the game), but really I don't think it's good practice to assign a score to a game that a person hasn't actually played. Game critics and smaller sites need to decide together to opt out of that sort of behavior. I just don't see that as likely."
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
"I see people all over the Internet who write nasty things about game critics who aren't critical enough about the games that they review. The consensus of the mean-spirited, vocal majority on a lot of gaming sites is that all of us game critics are on the take, accepting money from game publishers to give a game like Demon's Souls a score over 4 when obviously it's complete trash. Or whatever.
As game critics we have to remember that audience as we write, because the people who are most likely to even read whatever we write are the jaded gamers who don't realize yet just how jaded they've become. Casual gamers don't read reviews nearly as often as they should, after all.
When I review a game, I have to ask myself "What does this game do that makes it better than other recent games of this sort that I and my audience have played?" and then I have to grade it accordingly while justifying that grade. Meanwhile, a potential consumer just has to play and enjoy (or not) a game before forgetting that games even exist for three or four months. You're right in that it's a very different sort of approach to the video games that both groups theoretically love (or at least like to think that they love). I'm not sure that there's much to be done about it, though. As long as I write a thorough review that explains where I stand (and why), then I've done what I needed to do and any intelligent reader will come away with the information that he needs prior to making a purchase decision."
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
"I love 2D games. As you noted, they're still fun and they still have a place in the industry. I'm happy for all of the new stuff and there are some genres that have really moved forward because of technology. The 2D platformer doesn't need to move forward a whole lot, though, because it has been doing so many of the right things all along. I'll still take a good 2D game ahead of just about anything else."
Thursday, November 18, 2010
"Super Mario Bros. 3 is the best in the series and I fear that it always will be. The creativity, the level design and the sense of wonder are unequaled even in Super Mario World, which I would rank in second place. Super Mario Galaxy is great too, though, and I have high hopes for Galaxy 2, which I simply haven't yet found the time to play."
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
"This was a great article. Thanks for sharing it. I related to so very much of it. I have a huge collection of games and I've sacrificed a lot for them, but I did at least go to prom and those games never lost me a girlfriend. Still, the similarities are there and I suspect that any gamer with a huge collection can relate on some level. I don't think that everyone has to solve the problem by selling everything, but that's one viable solution and perhaps what you wrote will be a wake-up call to a few of those people who need it."
Monday, November 01, 2010
The article skirts around the real value of the Wii U gamepad, which is the fact that the functionality is baked into the system. That was never true of the Power Glove or the asynchronous gameplay that the GameCube had the potential to offer when paired with multiple Game Boy Advance handhelds. And of course, that's a key point that renders much of the discussion in this article moot.
The Virtual Boy failed, but Nintendo tried to make it a success and thus it's hardly a sham. The Wii Remote didn't facilitate deep core games, but it also wasn't intended to, so that winds up being beside the point (even though it was clearly very important to the person who wrote the article). And the $25 price quoted to play Skyward Sword as it was meant to be played must be factoring in shipping and sales tax. Most people didn't pay an extra $25. By that point, many people already had a Wii Remote + in hand because they were available in stores with that added functionality built in. The comparison to the VMU in the Dreamcast also isn't followed up on, which is just as well since such comparisons don't hold water. Presumably, the point was to say "And SEGA did it first, so why does anyone think this is a big dealm, anyway?" but that's absurd. The VMU didn't function as a core component in any gameplay. At best, it let you play mini-games that looked awful and mostly consisted of a few squares moving around. You couldn't play the same game on a separate screen, or interact with a touch interface, or any number of things. The Dreamcast did a lot of things well, but the VMU screen wasn't one of them.
The result of all that despearate work in the case of this argument is a disappointing read, to say the least. There's an authoritative tone throughout and obvious conviction behind each point, with careful word choice that has the potential to be engaging if it is ever turned toward a less preposterous argument. It's just a shame that the points being made don't hold up to even cursory scrutiny."