The-Warning said:
At least we know where the fanboys stand. You, on the other hand, have been passive aggressively trolling behind the guise of objectively. Can see right through it.
Anyway, I liked the Eurogamer review. He eloquently and clearly stated his problems with the game, as well as his likes. UC2 is one of my favorite games of all time, but I understand the problems with excessive hand-holding and linearity. It was so masterfully done however, that it didn't detract from my enjoyment.
The Eurogamer review was well written, but it did reopen a personal can of worms that has always annoyed me... are they supposed to be reviewing the game or the developer and the design choices they made? Generally speaking, this particular can of worms seems to open whenever there is a review that argues against or for strict linearity or otherwise, like open world.
Naughty Dog has designed the game to enjoyed in a certain way... one that essentially requires the player to follow the path that Naughty Dog has created. Should the reviewer really be questioning and reviewing the design choice of the game when the review should be to inform (discuss) to the reader of the various aspects that help complete that design like the visuals, sound, A.I, etc? In this case, the reviewer was more annoyed with design of keeping the game tight and focused rather than explaining to the reader the quality of everything else in the game. Half of the review was him complaining about not being able to deviate from the script a little bit, instead leaving one small paragraph to explain the beauty of the art and visuals...
My own personal issue is that if they start to critique the design choices of the game and as a result, start to grade based on that, the reader is being told to believe that the decisions the developer made are
wrong. He is now arguing that any sort of strict linearity is
bad. Look out, developers... you'll get a reduced score for making a tightly focused game. That is a decision that the reader has to discover themselves if they choose to play the game. The reviewer is putting a grade on the developers choice to keep the game tightly scripted to ensure a focused, high-quality game, which unfortunately people will miss out on because the reviewer attached an arbitrary score of 8 to the game because he was little angry about it. That score will ultimately affect a purchase of someone who otherwise would have absolutely loved everything about the game, just because the reviewer in question didn't like idea that your character is guided on a path without much room for deviation. This particular review and score just lead me back to my point of review scores should be abolished. It should be just an article... that you have to read instead of looking at a score and judging by that. People can still debate the review, but they can't cry foul at the arbitrary score that can easily affect the purchase of someone.
Regardless, the game is fantastic reviews. Even the Eurogamer review itself was pretty positive, other than the design stuff. By the way, the same can of worms opened with reviews of Deus Ex: Human Revolution too... so it isn't just Uncharted.
TL;DR - Don't review the design choice of making a game very linear or open world or whatever... Reviews should outright abolish "scores".
