God Of War III?

Well, personally, I've never considered reviewers' ratings to be anything other than a pretty number thrown in for people that want to TL;DR the review -- and I rarely consider actual reviews to be any good as, after all, they're simply one person's opinion.

Why is it getting high marks? Because the reviewers like it, I guess. If I were to review games, I wouldn't be basing my review on whether a game is better than another game or has something another doesn't, I'd base it on whether I enjoy the game, whether the game is fun and such. Going on GoWIII being similar to the previous two (as I've not played it, yet) it's not innovative, no. It's not original, either. But it's fun.

Because, to me, that's the thing. Modern Warfare 2 is basically Modern Warfare 1 in regards to innovation, and yet I thoroughly enjoyed both of these games and would gladly play another one because of that. I judge games on their merits as a game, not on the merits of games around them; sure, I compare games, but what is important to me is simply whether I enjoy the game. To illustrate my point I'll pull out Battlefield BC2: it's a game that I find to be f***ing amazing beyond all logical bounds of amazingness... but is it particularly innovative? Is it original? No and no.

For the record: my sports analogy is, by no means, false. The first person shooter is a simulation, too. Modern Warfare and other such tactical shooters do an amazing job of coming as close to realism as you'd really want to get with warfare... but they aren't allowed to be similar to each other when sports simulators are allowed to be nigh on exactly the same? Marvellous. Really: marvellous.

Wait, did you just call Modern Warfare realistic?

Jason, MW2 is as real as it gets. You spawn/die/spawn/sprint/shoot/die/spawn/sprint/die by ac130/spawn/die. MW2 is a mistake and I shouldn't have bought it. It didn't deserve anywhere near the amount of praise it received from me or the gaming press. Within it's own genre it didn't take the visuals and make them amazing in comparison to MW1. The presentation wasn't that great either. Good marketing campaign though. I got completely excited and caught up in the buzz until a month ago when I realized it was a boring and small game.

GoWIII is probably getting rated so high because it is the best in it's genre. Nothing else looks as good or plays as fluidly as GoWIII. The presentation level has really been amped up to cinema quality. After watching the first few minutes of gameplay all I need to know is that the game keeps up that pace throughout the entire game. From what I hear it just keeps getting better.

Originally Posted by Jason

Wait, did you just call Modern Warfare realistic?

Yes. Did you just use that as your response to my post?

There are more realistic games out there (the more recent Ghost Recon/Rainbow Six titles for example), but MW[2] is quite realistic as far as gameplay mechanics go -- so long as you're not playing on God-mode (anything less than Veteran).

Originally Posted by MyNameDidntFit

but MW[2] is quite realistic as far as gameplay mechanics go

No. Just no sir... MW2 is Arcade Shooter of the year. Being realistic in anything but visuals was pretty much the lowest priority for IW. By that logic, HL2 could also be called realistic if you play it with 10hp.

No. Half-Life 2's gunplay involves naught but a crosshair and shooting while you sprint around jumping. It's as close to realism as Quake.

What is it that you would say is unrealistic about MW2? Other than the premise of a single soldier killing so many of the enemy, as that is essential for the game to be fun.

No. Half-Life 2's gunplay involves naught but a crosshair and shooting while you sprint around jumping.

Played much MW2 online?

(I am going to respond in a more thorough manner later today, just getting round to it).

Right, because it would take me several days to shoot down each one of your points individually, I'll go with your most ludicrous point, which is that Modern Warfare 2 is a realistic game.

Where do I go first, the snowmobile chase, the helicopter 'extraction' from the exploding gulag, the one-man charge through a terrorist-infested Favela? Hardly pinancles of realistic gameplay. Fun? Hell yes, but not realistic.

Or the fact that interaction with your squadmates is impossible. You can't get them to move where you want to - they have set places to move, take cover, and so on - if you're pinned down, you can forget about getting any suppressing fire from your teammates - they might get lucky and hit the guy, but that's more down to pot luck than anything else.
Less health does not = realistic. Goldeneye deathmatches on the N64 were great fun with one-hit kills, but that sure as hell didn't mean they were any more realistic.

Now, I can't comment with 100% accuracy on what does or doesn't make a game 'accurate' with regards to military simulations, because I've never been in combat. Hell, I'm far too much of a wimp for that kind of thing - (I prefer my deaths followed with a bout of cursing and a quick respawn rather than existential uncertainty), but I'm pretty sure that if I ever were to find myself in the middle of a combat situation, it wouldn't be anything like Modern Warfare 2 - I would imagine it being far closer to something like the original Operation Flashpoint - most of the time the first time you know of an enemy attack is when your squadmates fall down riddled with bullets, combat is generally engaged with dots on the horizon, and where you are shot will have a bearing on your ability until a medic is able to reach you - take a bullet in the arm, and your aim is going to suffer. Get one in the legs and you're not going to be sprinting anywhere, no matter how long you spend crouched behind some impenetrable car wreck.

To me, that's what I would consider a realistic combat simulator.
Not that Modern Warfare 2 isn't a well-made game - I think it's a very well-made game that caters to the 'arcade shooter' market brilliantly. It was always going to struggle to match the hype that would inevitably accompany it. It's a fun game, no doubt about it, but I can't by any stretch of the imagination call it a realistic game.

Originally Posted by MyNameDidntFit

as close to realism as you'd really want to get with warfare...

Ahem. See, now, personally, I'd rather not finish a mission and then have to go to my platoon psychiatrist to treat me for shock. Or to have to engage 'dots on the horizon' because, well, it's not fun.

Less health doesn't equal realistic, no, but less health adds to realism along with realistic weapons and environments that react well to what you're doing. Squad mates? As I recall in MW2 you're never the leader -- what reason do they have to do what you say? Closest you come to being the leader of your squad is being Soap, and even then Price is there to one-up you.

The one man charge through the favela is what I told you not to cite: one man doing more than he realistically would to make it so the game is actually fun. Besides, if you play through it on Veteran you'll be doing it rather more realistically than the word "charge" implies as, well, charging = death.

Gulag extraction? Not gameplay. I couldn't care less what the cut-scenes do.



Certainly, stating MW as my example wasn't exactly my greatest moment, something like Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six (that I mentioned anyway) are far more realistic without going to the point of "oh, I've been shot and now can't move well until a dumb-ass AI medic comes and saves me -- but oh wait, he died in the opening of the combat because that's 'realistic'".

Ooh, and, for the record, MW being realistic has nothing to do with the actual point of the debate. So, if you'd be so kind as to reply to the actual topic that'd be nice

Wouldn't a less extreme exaggeration be that MW2 has realistic gun models that look like their real life counterparts? I'm sure that's what he meant... right guys... right? America's Army is pretty close to the real deal from what I hear. ehh back on topic like you said

Has anyone here even bought GoWIII yet? I'm still waiting for Gamefly to ship it.

Eh, you're right, we're way off topic. However, there was no way I was letting you get away with saying MW2 was a realistic portrayal of Modern Infantry Combat.

I'll tackle the God of War thing later on when I have time.

Right, regards God of War, I guess that therein lies the problem of reviews - they're entirely subjective and usually are inevitably reviewed by people who are fans of the genre - you wouldn't get someone who hated cricket to review a cricket game, just as you wouldn't get me to review the latest Sims game - I don't like the genre enough to be able to fairly reflect on the nuances of it and what makes it superior to others in the genre.
However, that's not so much the case with Hack 'n' Slashes - whilst they're not my first choice of genre, I enjoyed the Devil May Cry series, and Bayonetta and Dante's Inferno are on my LoveFilm list to rent - my issue is that I feel that the hype surrounding God Of War has artificially inflated the scores, as other than shinier graphics, I don't see what's changed since the previous incarnations.

My quick thoughts on the game after having beat it just a couple days ago:

I loved it from beginning to end. I'm not a fanboy of the series as I only ever played the original GoW before playing GoW III but I enjoy well-made action games and this one is well-made indeed.

I'm not a massive fan of quick-time events but when I go into a game expecting there to be many of them it's not as detrimental to the flow of the game as throwing one QTE in at the very end of the game (Ahem, Uncharted). Besides, the way GoW:III did the QTE was nice. They put the button icon on the edge of the screen in the same orientation as it is on the controller. If you need to press Triangle, the icon shows up along the top of the screen along with a noticeable, yet not distracting, white bar along the edge. It allows you to do the QTE while being able to see the actions you are doing. All in all, GoW:III's QTE were handled well enough to not be frustrating.

As far as new things they brought to the game I can't be totally sure of since I didn't play GoW2. There are 4 weapons that you can switch to on-the-fly without breaking the flow of your attacks, along with several other items usable in and out of combat. Other than the items/weapons the combat itself seemed more fluid. Other than doing the longer animated special moves, going from one attack to another is easy and you can stop to block at any time other than when doing a special move. One of the weapons even adds a neat summoning ability which I won't spoil the details but it's pretty awesome.

The story was intense and never boring. There was rarely a moment where something wasn't happening that was exciting. Most of the dialogues were interesting and/or exciting and there were many neat cinematic events to help illustrate the story.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the game from start to finish and highly recommend it to any action-game fan. I wouldn't be surprised if it is in the top 3 or even wins Game of the Year for 2010 easy.

Interesting to hear. I'll be looking forward to having a close look at the game.