Game reviewers: "lack of innovation" is not a valid criticism.

People care about game reviewers? Huh. I thought we all just accepted their job is advertisement.

edited 30th Nov '11 1:55:57 PM by Thorn14

Actually reading the reviews instead of just glancing at the arbitrary number can give good insight for a potential purchase.

edited 30th Nov '11 2:01:30 PM by MrDolomite

One's not necessarily better than the other, and we could drag up examples of semi-remakes or updates that alter the gameplay somewhat, so there's even a gray area.

I don't know a thing about Call of Duty but presumably each new iteration adds enough to make it worthwhile to most fans of the franchise. If they like it then that's fine.

Except [condescending response follows]. Because [sarcasm here]. You do understand [snark], right? POTHOLE TO SARCASM MODE

Yeah yeah. We can talk about how every rerelease of Sonic Adventure is given lower and lower scores because the gameplay doesn't hold up to modern standards, but the discussion isn't whether a remake is automatically better than a sequel with the same gameplay, it's that they aren't comparable.

I definitely agree with this. I can't comment on how samey the Co D games are, but if people are buying them, I doubt they're that samey. I think lack of innovation can be a valid criticism, but it depends on lots of circumstances.

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

Madden still sells, and I'd bet you that Madden 2012 is not that different from Madden 2009.

Sales and Quality to me are 2 completely different roads, and are not interconnected as much as people would like to believe.

Actually I'm pretty sure Madden undergoes some minor tweaks in between releases in terms of controls. Nothing major, but I think you could equate it to Street Fighter IV 's rereleases over the past few years. Picking on easy targets isn't fun, anyway.

edited 30th Nov '11 3:54:07 PM by MrDolomite

Yup, Madden and NHL add nice little changes with each addition. Such as the latter adding more forms of stick-handling and even breaking sticks.

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Basically, if before you want to buy a game, you're going to check out what people are saying about it, one of the main things you want to know is how is it different from the games that came before it in the series. If it isn't all that different, but you loved the series, then that's good. If I didn't like the series, then I know I shouldn't buy it.

Call it information rather than criticism if you want, but any reviewer worth their salt will have to talk about what new things a new entry into a series is bringing to the table.

"You want to see how a human dies? At ramming speed." - Emily Wong.

TV Tropes: Gush about how much they love twenty year old franchises going back to their roots, laugh at reviewers for daring to attack series for lack of innovation, roll their eyes at the perceived lack of innovation in first person shooters.

Note that I'm not talking specifically about this thread.

edited 30th Nov '11 6:18:29 PM by GildedATM

This is why one should never make assumptions and generalizations where there aren't - it tends to look insane.

Or you can assume many people are enormous hypocrites. It's not that illogical of an assumption. They can only think of so much at one time.

edited 30th Nov '11 6:28:49 PM by VutherA

I don't know if Media Recs covers this, but if not we could use a thread for "is this game good?" type questions.

& Keep in mind that there's a lot of different people on TV Tropes. We are not one amorphous blob of singular opinions.

Unless Instrumentality happened while i wasn't looking.

Granted, given that many shooters are tacking on Regenerating Health, an emphasis on taking cover and "realistic" settings these days, it's more that the FPS genre is becoming less like it was in the 90's and early 2000's (when you played Serious Sam and Half Life for action-y single-player, Counter Strike and Unreal Tournament for multiplayer and Deus Ex and System Shock for a different kind of single-player).

Naturally, since more and more FPS games are starting to become very similar-sounding, there will be accusations of a lack of innovation.

edited 30th Nov '11 6:33:55 PM by RocketDude

"Hipsters: the most dangerous gang in the US." - Pacific Mackerel

The fighting game genre is one of the most stagnant around, yet I see no criticism against that.

Pretty much what you said. I've had the same situation you describe with your roommate happen to me, actually. And if somebody asked me how Street Fighter III and King of Fighters XIII are different, I would spend an hour describing the ways.

edited 30th Nov '11 6:49:16 PM by GildedATM

I for one absolutely loathe the "Modern Shooter" boom of games, but i can't hate on it for lack of innovation simply because if the boom was in a genre i actually liked, like say Beat 'em Up, I'd be pointing out all the tiny nuances that make them different.

People that immerse themselves in a genre will notice small innovations a lot more than casual players. I can't tell the difference between Call Of Duty and Battlefield3 but my roommate tried to crucify me when i said they where basically the same game.

edited 30th Nov '11 6:45:50 PM by ShirowShirow

That's mostly because there's hardly any new I Ps that come out in the fighting game genre. Changing things too much would force people to relearn their "main" character over and over again (ask any Ivy player what he thinks of Project Soul). The most they can do is add new characters.

Fighting games thrive on tweaks more than any other genre, but they where dead in the water for awhile. I think the biggest problem fighting games faced was indeed their hesitance to embrace change, more specifically the fact that they never had online play as standard until SSFIV brought the whole genre into a big renaissance. Why Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter spurned this development despite absolutely thriving on face-to-face competition I will never know.

But that wasn't lack of innovation so much as it was idiotically not making full use of emergent technology.

That's always a problem with criticizing too - few people are really qualified too. (I totally find those shooters totally different, BTW. I'm the inverse of you - I've mostly just played Soul Calibur IV. Criticizing any other fighting games would be beyond my scope, though I'd found its 3D field preferable to 2D-style)[and the vast proliferation of Character Tiers in fighting games makes me wonder if many of them are doing something wrong].

edited 30th Nov '11 7:11:31 PM by VutherA

You're not alone with those opinions, don't worry. Though I probably dislike Fighting Games because of the long combos, and Fighters like Super Smash Bros and Soul Calibur avoid those.

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I just steer clear of fighting games because I'm bad at them.

That is also something which probably stops me from playing Street Fighter - the use of crazy combos that tends to leave one side pissing blood while the other's unscratched...generally not what I find fun. Close matches are good matches to me, and systems which allow it are my kind of thing. Big strings of combos tend to not allow for that.

I'm pretty bad at them too. I cannot do Soul Calibur IV's just impacts for the life of me. When they happen, they are purely luck.

I still kinda like it, though.

edited 30th Nov '11 7:20:24 PM by VutherA

The skill gap in shooters can be just as bad (HAX!) but since they're team games it's harder to notice. If you played, say, Quake 1 v 1 one side would certainly be completely dominated by the other if there was stark difference in experience level.

But if fighting games aren't your thing, then they're not your thing. SCIV's one of my all time faves though. Mostly because it's the only fighting game i own where sidestepping is a legitimate tactics, unless i'm playing as Steve in Tekken.

That's also what I like about Battlefield and don't like about Modern Warfare - the latter's killstreaks encourage snowballing and are strong enough to quite possibly make teamwork be unnecessary (and many options that don't help you get killstreaks are probably not worth it if you can just get killstreaks with the other options easier). That is not the case in the former.

Though in team games, if your team wins, it's because they were the better team. If badly, much better. Sounds like it's working as intended to me. It's probably because the nuances of teamwork tend to come together strongly. It happens in real life all the time, games that execute teamwork well are probably no different.

edited 30th Nov '11 7:33:51 PM by VutherA

Well, what bugs me about most deathmatches is that a team member that dies repeatedly is actually a liability to the team. In the shooting games i favor, like Team Fortress 2, an unskilled player is at the very worst just a wasted slot. But in a deathmatch, where the other team earns just as many points for killing the weakest link as the strongest, it's somewhat embarrassing to have a negative score. And on, say, xbox live your "Friends" will certainly make sure you know.

That's why i prefer "Killmatches" where each player has a set stock of lives and are eliminated when they run out. This takes away the "a team only as fast as its slowest member" dynamic since a skilled player can compensate for someone that got eliminated early. Unfortunately it's rather popular to have said stock of lives to consist of one a-la Gears Of War.