MadOdorMachine said:
Touche' I think the overall average on Metacritic is a pretty good indicator of what the score should be though. Ranking the game in the C+ or B- range is about right imo. The problem with Other M is that the parts that work are really great and the parts that don't are horrendous. The individual reviews might have some bias, but Metacritic (as far as a score goes) filters thru that.
I don't give much credence to metacritic scores, but aside from that I'm with you on most of your post. For better or worse I think one of the defining factors of Other M is its often schizophrenic level of quality. There are segments that feel like a solid 9.5/10 to me, and others where I'd be hard pressed to give it a 6/10. And of course there's plenty that falls somewhere in the middle. I'm doing my second play-through (and will probably finally post a more in depth analysis when I finish), and it's hard to shake the feeling that the game wasn't entirely finished because of how wildly it swings between extremes. At any rate, I'd say a C+/B- is right around where I'd place it as well. The high points are almost enough to make me push it a little higher, but there are an awful lot of nagging design flaws that drag it down from start to end.
Boney said:
Well since charging shot just like that takes a hell of a time, and regular shots deal more damage, I don't see why you would do this. You try to get into the enemies range to charge your shots faster. Not to mention there are other options such as overblasts, fatal strikes and missiles.
I'd put it in the B-, B+ area
Yeah, I'm giving you a bit of a hard time. I don't actually think the game boils down to dodging and charging, although I
do think that part of the gameplay weighs a bit too heavily in the overall mix. I would have liked to see the sense move as an actual suit upgrade, and more of an addition to the arsenal than a central mechanic. I think there's ample opportunity to integrate it more seamlessly into the whole in a another Metroid game, although I'm not particularly optimistic about that prospect as the franchise seems set on trying to reinvent the wheel all the time at the expense of balancing, refining, and evolving what's already been proven to work.
spidye said:
a good friend of mine loves the older games too and his reasons are the same as yours. I think a big reason why I prefer this fast paced, more action oriented game and the narrative elements more is because I started playing games in the psx,n64 era and you probably started before where the story and narration in games were just minimalistic.
and you are right. pretty decent soundtrack was a bad choice of words. I meant the soundtrack, although not as epic as the older ones reminded me of sci fi-movies and it just felt right for this game.
The generation gap certainly plays a role in people's tastes and expectations. Still, I've always thought, and continue to think, that a new Metroid game that embraced the
fundamentals of the first three games yet forged new territory would have more impact than the various "new" (and I use the term loosely, because they're mostly things dozens of other games have attempted- often with more successful results) directions that the past several games have groped in. Good design transcends console generations.
